agorabinary

So...now that mt.gox is dead, does this mean mt gox employees are free from any non-disclosure agreements and can talk freely about what the hell happened?

Insider info would be greatly appreciated.

Except when the rules result in say, Weimar.

(Assuming this is real)

How do you lose HUNDREDS of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins over the course of years and not notice it?? There is no evidence that this "accidental loss" is not merely obfuscated theft.

Why repost? This was submitted and discussed several days ago.

The thing is though, the only society that allows individuals to "agree to disagree" and still live peacefully is a purely libertarian model. Perhaps you do believe in a different version of freedom --- no one in such a model is stopping you from organizing an opt-in commune, or a public, collectively financed school, or an employee-owned coffee shop. You can have those things, but they have to be purely voluntary. Once any degree of force is introduced into the equation, then we are not peacefully disagreeing but instead actively oppressing.

And using words like "plunder" and "horde" suggest to me you are conflating free markets with capitalist imperialism, which is a very common myth. Imperialism is force, of course, and is intolerable.

"... a new startup, Meteor, an open-source Web app development platform more interesting than Coin, Bitcoin, and Uber put together."

Oh yes, another colorful dev framework is more interesting than programmable money. Who is this pleb author and why are we giving this article any consideration whatsoever? It's such a poor attempt to dress up what is only a libertarian-hate article as a genuine analysis (see: purely anecdotal) of some urban culture shift.

I'm noticing more and more articles like this coming from the left, to which the only appropriate response is: "Okay, we disagree. Let's have a discussion. Just don't lock me up for disagreeing." Freedom. It isn't something to scoff at.

The Great Depression was caused by a 40% reduction in the money supply following a decade of easy money fed policies (the "roaring 20s"). It is no coincidence that shortly after the federal reserve was created we had the biggest bubble/crash in American financial history.

In any case, regulation is force. What if some people want to take on greater risk (as you see it) and engage in unstable speculative investment? They should have that right.

I can't help but observe, with a sort of grim humor, that this fellow's resume now consists of international unwarranted espionage that threatens to upend the very foundations of our constitutional republic...and organic mayo entrepreneurship.

Not everyone can think of the next genius app on their first try. Unlike you, apparently.

>more Elizabeth Warren-esque rubbish suggesting that Google wouldn't have been created if not for the public road system

And so, according to you, we need to wait for Africa's "benevolent" dictators to stop warring with their own people and just create a public infrastructure before private industry can create civilization? Keep it up with your liberal bunk, you'll be a second-class citizen in our new Society soon enough. :)

Effectively argues, to use an analogy, that China with its explosive market-based growth needs Western debtor nations to buy its stuff, and that acknowledging its superior economic sustainability is "arrogant". And the "paper belt" isn't the arrogant one?

I view this author's attitude a lot like I view that of Fareek Zakaria, whose tripe we're all force-fed in high school: "We may be entering a post-paper-belt world, sure, but we can't be certain how this will all turn out so it's best to speak moderately and carry around a copy of the New York Times."

There's nothing more wishful than hoping the watchers do their jobs, without watchers themselves. Ad infinitum.

Mediating disputes =/= Government

You need to understand that libertarians are not against mediation or even courts. If someone commits fraud, or pillages the environment, there are plenty of ways of punishing them without government. Appreciate the value of reputation.

> free rider problems, collective action problems, problems involving positive and negative externalities, problems involving information asymmetries, etc.

The usual statist objections to pure market action are total myths, not to mention weak and tangential objections. I'd love to argue the market with a hardline Marxist because at least they take a true thrust at market action rather than just nibbling.

>free rider, externalities

How is it a problem to anyone that a persons actions benefit others without deriving some monetary value for the benefit? No one is coerced, no rights violated. This is the only standard for judging these matters. No person should be forced to pay for a benefit for a transaction they did not agree to. Collective defense, for example, does not suffer because some people don't pay to play --- forcing equal patronage only serves to undermine the entire relationship between buyer and seller. More: http://mises.org/daily/2769

>collective action

Kickstarter.

>Information assymetries

Information is a value that is open on the market, as all values are. Not sure if the product your buying is safe? Buy insurance for it. Or, take the time to do your research and make comparisons. That time spent has a value. Decide which you are willing to give up: that time, or the cost of the insurance. Value is a dynamic and multifaceted concept. http://mises.org/daily/1135

He doesn't need to prove the libertarian alternative. You need to first show how our present road system isn't a complete nightmare.

Touting the road system as a government success. Please.

On a systemic level, what advantages does government provide to solving these various problems that private individuals couldn't? Beyond blindly asserting that "there simply was no practical alternative to government regulation", or citing historical examples of government projects (when private alternatives were not legally allowed!) like roads, please explain what fundamentally allows government to perform these tasks better.

VC money more often comes from highly successful past ventures, not grandma's retirement savings plan (which are terrible investments anyway). How many ex-Facebook equity holders are building their own companies? How many ex-Paypal before them? It's simply dishonest to attribute Silicon Valley's wealth to DC and the Fed's easy money. Most of that money heads to Wall Street, the most government regulated industry in existence, fueling rampant corruption with examples too numerous to list. The inflation the easy money inevitably brings causes the average middle-class investor to invest greater and greater portions of their income into the markets and their retirement accounts, feeding Wall Street account managers, the federal government, and ultimately, the bubble-prone stock market these investors need just to break even on their savings.

Silicon Valley does not need DC, it is hindered by DC. The democratic, lobby-based, "law-for-sale" system is systemically disadvantaged to the classic survival of the adaptable. While the Valley develops our next innovations, DC puts bandages on debt limits while the other powers of the world seek reserve alternatives to our hemorrhaging currency. Please, do not talk about government success. It does not exist.

Walter Block disagrees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg . His hypothetical situations at the end may seems unrealistic to you, but consider them as illustrative of the dangers of blanket prosecution over much more favorable voluntary solutions.

Collecting and understanding the evidence of a situation may be up to a a judge/jury, but natural law is not. A judge cannot lawfully reject the First Amendment, which universally defends whistleblowers. "That's the way our system works" is not an argument.

The issue at the heart of A Few Good Men was the notion that an enlightened minority can lie to a majority for the good of that majority. Jessup beats soldiers, our government drone-bombs children. And they both think they can withhold these acts from public view, because it's in the "public's interest not to know". Whistleblowers rightfully reject this view, as did the jury in A Few Good Men.

Okay, I'll use Stalin and his genocides. Does it make a difference?

Reductio ad absurdum, a perfectly legitimate form of proof, begs to differ with Mr. Godwin.

Anyone can leak anything, as anyone can say anything. This is the law as per the First Amendment. You could lose your job contract for leaking information, but you could also lose your job for no reason at all. Those that would argue that only criminality should be leaked --- who is to determine that criminality if no one knows about it in the first place? Evidence of the act before judgment of the act. And to those who say leaking information can lead to soldier casualties --- so can lying to a public about the motivations for countless aggressive wars, and then assuming the public "can't handle the truth". Jessup went to prison for that, thanks to a few good men. Unfortunately, Americans don't listen to their movies, only watch them.

And who is to decide whether the leaked documents demonstrate government wrongdoing or not? If not for whistleblowers, we wouldn't even know that these wrongdoings exist, which would preclude our ability to judge them as such. This is the fallacy behind government secrecy.

Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. Imagine if the Nazis were somehow able to cover up the Holocaust, would a non-disclosure contract prevent a German citizen from leaking the existence of the genocide? But you say, genocide is clearly wrong. But without the leaked information, how would we even know a genocide happened?

Atlas? :)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is just the beginning.

You'll feel like that even more once it hits $1B capitalization.

I feel like this article would have a greater thrust if it focused more on the perils of college and the job market nowadays and less on software programming as the overarching solution for young people. It really hits a more accessible tone that way, because frankly, only a small fraction of young people are interested in a coding lifestyle. A young person with little or no debt and a good head on their shoulders is in pretty good shape, regardless of the waters they dip their toes into.

There is no shame in pursuing a career in literature, but whether it is wise or not to spend $200k to get there instead of 75 cents in late fees at the public library..that's another thing altogether.

Bitcoin is anonymous if you aren't an idiot about it. I mean seriously, all you have to do is generate a new address everytime you send or receive coins. Which is a click of a button.

If anything, this "Bitcoin isn't actually anonymous" is the real misinformation.

I could not agree more. I wonder how much of the SV environment is created from the trickle down investments of legitimately good ideas --- that is, a Facebook spawning thousands of millionaires, some of which happen to invest in their brother's friend's silly idea not out of any rational analysis, but from just being young and stupid and lucky enough to grab up a few early FB shares.

Furthermore, consider the difference in building a startup and building a typical brick and mortar business. Think of how simple the thought was to create a social network where users choose friends to create a distinct social circle. Or Drew Houston allegedly conceiving of Dropbox by repeatedly forgetting his USB drive in college. Very many SV startups build themselves off of some eureka moment that, being based on the internet, requires minimal investment, effort, connections, and reputation to establish early stage. Then, as long as it is a good idea, investment and employees flood in. Compare this to the enormous barriers of entry extant in a traditional brick and mortar with the bank loans and industry connections and disparate business resources, and combined with a barely-out-of-college aged potential CEO with or without good ideas. You get two entirely different standards of discrimination. It almost seems sometimes like SV considers bad ideas as a normal state of affairs, as a "learning experience" to future brilliance. Fail to succeed? Most successful startup founders hit it right on their debut--- why? Because they have a mentality of, "Should I do this?", and not merely, "Can I do this?".

I'm not saying low barriers to entry are necessarily a bad thing. It just seems like either there are one, a lot of fools with grand visions or two, ulterior-minded entrepreneurs looking to pad their resume or impress their friends with some social networking rip-off that only cost them $10k to build. Bustling, metropolitan environments often offer that billion dollar jackpot or Hollywood walk of fame, but require in turn a more demanding degree of discrimination to tell that shiny metal from mere fool's gold.

Sure - the oft cited strength of bitcoin is the ability to send value instantly (if you trust the party, 10 minutes otherwise) and with near zero fees. As a currency, bitcoin is limited in using this advantage because so few businesses accept them, but as strictly a protocol it can enhance dollars (for example) by being the currency of currencies, so to speak. So instead of using Moneygram to send dollars half a world away, I just exchange for bitcoins, send, and exchange out into dollars (or pesos, euros, etc). Further, since it is has such low fees, microtransactions are possible (web content monetization?), since storage requires no 3rd parties, people (worldwide) can avoid bank runs, and since it is mathematically scarce, they can also avoid (hyper)inflation. All with trivial and possibly automated currency conversions. For bitcoin to become a worldwide currency, it must first become a currency of currencies.

In all the universes in which bitcoin succeeds, it first succeeds as a protocol for which traditional currencies circumvent their own limitations, as this value is immediate, palpable, and unaffected by bitcoin's scarce use. Only then, once this niche is established, will bitcoin succeed as a widespread end-user currency on its own right.

This paradigm is present in so many innovations. It's simply tapping more readily accessible value as a way to construct a launching pad for further growth.