When the bodies rot in the streets, dogs eat them. Dogs are asymptomatic carriers. Think about that.

Do you have a source for this? Honest question, as my Google-fu is coming up blank apart from a FreeRepublic source.

You can easily see that some *is* using Tor, you just can't see where they are going or what they are doing. Well, unless you are a well-funded organization with the time, equipment, and money to set up lots of exit nodes.

It would certainly help if Dropbox didn't hire Condoleezza Rice. I ceased recommending Dropbox as a solution to anyone when they pulled that stunt, and have helped many people migrate away. Yes, I know every (most?) cloud services have an open-door policy for the NSA. Nevertheless, that was a slap in the face.

Seriously? You're going to hire Ms. Torture USA? Please. I'll vote with my wallet...elsewhere.

Certainly. But the moment it leads to war -- as the Capitalism vs. Communism rhetoric is intended -- then it must be abandoned if we are ever to escape this madness.

There is an "us" and there is a "them." But when you label "them" with an ideology and attack the ideology, that is bad.

Woah. Dude.

Centralized authority is an anathema to socialism. Also communism.

I'll grant you that every modern political effort has been by tyrants and their fools. That is not socialism, that is tyranny. Big difference.

Socialism + central government has the exact same result as capitalism + central government. Blood, inequality, corruption, violence, and eventually utter upheaval. The key thing to note is that the problem is central government, not socialism.

There are many examples of near-pure socialism in pastoral America. These communities are often characterized by conservatism and religion and would bristle at the thought of socialism. Yet when you look at how they live, it is socialism.

Key point: these instances of actual, functional socialism are characterized by a distinct lack of centralized authority.

Socialism, like liberalism, free-market capitalism, and libertarianism, is merely a another path to anarchy.

Am I a radical? Nuts? Sure. But that doesn't make it any less true.

Fair enough. Still need to escape the false Us-v-Them duality. :)

And that is exactly what is wrong with the world. Instead of actually learning the philosophy of idealism, we allow other people to dictate our world in "Us vs. Them" terms. The cure is to learn what the real philosophies are and abandon the illusion of duality that traps you.

People miss the fact that true communism is simply another path to anarchy.

As is socialism.

As is liberalism. (The American Democratic Party does *not* qualify as liberal.)

As is libertarianism.

They all have the same destination. There are many paths to enlightenment.

The Russian experiment was an exercise in anarchy vs. totalitarianism. Totalitarianism won. The goal of communism is anarchy, and the Russians lost that.

Socialism most definitely does NOT require a strong central authority. There are many varieties of socialism -- including many practiced in various areas on a small scale today -- which utterly eschew the idea of central authority. Some of them are very practical, and often involve people of a very conservative and religious culture.

> The problem has been that once a relatively few people got all that authority, under a socialist or fascist regime, they then never wanted to give it up. So societies never "evolved" beyond that to true communism. Nor is it likely to ever happen. Marx was a loon.

I am completely stunned at this juxtaposition. *MARX UNDERSTOOD THIS AND HAD THE SOLUTION.* My mind is boggled that anyone could miss this. Marx had many problems, but he understood this problem very well. He understood that there would be a great tendency for the burgeoning Communist state begin to fight the Workers and never give up its authority.

Marx had a solution. A good solution. Did you miss it?

In an 1850 letter to Engels, Marx wrote, "The arming of the whole proletariat with rifles, guns, and ammunition should be carried out at once [and] the workers must ... organize themselves into an independent guard, with their own chiefs and general staff. ... "

Marx is restating the American 2nd Amendment. Marx was not impressed with either the French or the American revolutions, as he viewed them as bourgeoisie revolutions that accomplished very little in Marxist terms. Nevertheless, this radical idea of arming the population seemed to persist quite clearly in Marx's philosophy. This is the answer to the problem of authority, the answer to the problem that has turned every attempt at communism into a totalitarian nightmare. This principle is well-understood in much of Communist philosophy through the present day.

I save upwards of 15 % on weekly groceries. That's fairly significant just by itself.

Also, when buying from reputable vendors, it is very nice not to have to worry about credit card information being stolen.

It is also super easy to send money to my brother, just through a Skype call, directly to his phone.

Plus when I hold bitcoin I can be certain that my bank isn't going to suddenly start charging a maintenance fee on it.

If Bitcoin isn't for you, that is completely OK. There is plenty of room in the world for Luddites. For the rest of us, it is the beginning of a fairer, more equitable and just financial system, one in which we participate as equals.

Thanks. It is wierd watching it happen, though. One would think that people would start giving it the benefit of the doubt, though. I am surprised at how strenuous the naysayers are and how much they seem to lack even basic technical curiousity about this new technology.

You are correct, though. Perhaps it is just wierd because this particular technology moves much faster than many, and its very nature is an affront to certain well-cherished white elephants.

It'll be at least three years. I'm not worried, anybody that thought big retailers would ever even acknowledge its existence were nuts and now look.

Whenever there is any serious bitcoin news, I come here to read the bitter comments. Just a few months ago, I was seeing comments such as, "wake me up when a REAL retailer like Amazon or Dell takes bitcoin."

Well, now Dell takes bitcoin. Don't you think maybe you should read up a little about how this newfangled Public Key Cryptography works? These damn kids and their goddamn bubbles. Shoulda bought when it was $50 last year, you'd be paying off your house...

But now it's over $600!!!!!! NO WAY are you going to pay $630 for magical mystery internet money!! No way in hell. That's OK, you know. It's deflationary, after all. It doesn't really matter when you get in, whether now or next year after it adds another right-hand zero. It'll always seem too high, because that's what a deflationary currency does from an inflationary perspective.

It's amazing how a site supposedly for nerds has such a significant audience of people who sound like willfully ignorant, prejudiced luddites. "Currency of drug addicts" is a long-dead trope. Isn't the software appealing even if only for its technical merits and solution to the Two Generals' Problem?

You actually have no idea whether they own bitcoins. Payment processors do other things than just convert bitcoins to dollars. They provide a whole integrated solution, including QR codes, invoicing, tracking, accounting, all that good stuff. If you are a merchant, you may accept your payments in dollars, bitcoin, or a mix.

Dell may be keeping 5% of their bitcoin payments as bitcoin. Or all of it. (Or none of it.) We don't know, and you shouldn't assume.