What is IPv6 in your analogy then? EFT/Traditional currencies have the problems of government interference, heavy tracking and are expensive to move. The expense is really the big issue because we're used to the other problems, but they're not insignificant. If you want to call EFT with traditional currencies IPv4, that's fine, particularly since IPv6 is a working standard that fixes most of the problems with IPv4. Bitcoin is analogous to IPv6 quite accurately. Name any other peer-to-peer currency with a tenth the value of Bitcoin, or even any other method of electronically exchanging value that overcomes those issues and you can compare bitcoin to IPv9.

Calling current currencies IPv4 is a potentially agreeable analogy to me as well. There are a variety of limitations and problems people have with it. It's expensive to move, heavily tracked and tied to specific governments. IPv6 is an attempt to overcome those limitations and problems, and there have been some flaws found and resolved with IPv6. Bitcoin mirrors that pretty well too. Calling it IPv9 is a little bit of a jump since people are actually using bitcoin and the protocol is widely established. Name another peer-to-peer currency with more support if you want to make the argument that IPv9 is a better analogy.

Well maybe not. On the other hand I believe it was possible to buy a variety of things that aren't illegal on the Silk Road. I listen to a podcast where the commentators were talking about the twinkies they bought that way. There might be journalists who were using Silk Road to buy legal things and had their bitcoins seized. The argument could be made that it is like buying strawberries at a flea market where some sellers are engaging in illegal activity and the buyers of strawberries have a legitimate right to have their seized assets returned.

I'm really not sure how the legalities would play out, but I would like to see the legal system set some precedents on what constitutes legal property since Congress has suggested that bitcoin is at least sort of property.

The country Georgia uses the Georgian Lari as it's currency and there is about $4 billion worth in total. (Around 2/3 the total value of bitcoin.) I wouldn't consider Georgia as a major economic power, but I wouldn't dismiss the legitimacy of its currency based on the total number transactions done in Lari. The Lari is a big fish in its own pond. I find that comparison interesting even if it doesn't directly prove anything about the strength of bitcoin as a currency. I'd certainly say the Lari has critical mass.

I would agree that "Bitcoin isn't just a protocol, it's the block chain." You have to accept the Nakamoto block chain as the single legitimate chain in order to work with bitcoin in any of the common systems, otherwise you're working with a system which excludes the most common use opportunities. So what? The same can be said for IPv4 because ICANN is accepted as the authoritative system. Plenty of people start networks that don't use it as the authority and even large groups have toyed with creating their own authorities, and IPv4 doesn't mean ICANN. If you want the most common use opportunities then you accept the Nakamoto block chain and ICANN authority. Seeing a major change in either one is possible and extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon.

That's also the answer to "why would people like me who weren't early adopters of the original block chain want to grant early adopters huge fractions of the world's wealth for doing nothing of economic value?" If you want to use bitcoin or IPv4 (or IPv6 for that matter) then you have the widest range of opportunities by following the largest crowd.

That's not to say either system couldn't be changed if there was enough momentum behind a change. IPv6 is poised to replace IPv4 but if countries decided that they were going to each implement their own ICANN like authorities and provide a method for conversion/communication between countries, then IPv4 could be saved and some might argue that it should be. If a couple countries were to start their own new bitcoin chains with methods of conversion between national bitcoin chains, then they could make it work. In fact, I think that's probably the largest threat to the Nakamoto based system; nations setting up competing chains. Take Gerogia, they could start the Lari chain and set up to own the majority of their own chain then set up an exchange rate with the value of the traditional Lari decreasing in value each year for official transactions and in as little as a decade, we could see Georgia having a solid bitcoin based on the Lari change with the additional benefit of having better control of their own currency than they have now.

I'm not actually betting on the Nakamoto bitcoin system being the long term successor to traditional currency. I'm actually only investing in the idea that the dollar has at least 50 years of being a reliable currency. As a thought experiment, consider this scenario: You get one of two vouchers. Each is worth the equivalent $1 million in today's money in either "Lari" or "some future bitcoin like currency." The catch is that you only get paid if the ability to spend the one you choose is easier to spend in South Africa in January 2064. If I had that choice, I'd choose "some future bitcoin like currency" but if it was specifically "bitcoin based on the Nakamoto chain" then I don't know which I'd choose.

The difference with bitcoin is simply that it has already been widely adopted and protocols that are widely adopted are very, very, very hard to replace. IPv4, POP, FTP, Telnet and SMTP all have better replacements and yet they're still used practically everywhere. Being the first protocol to be widely adopted isn't just important, it is by far the single most important factor.

IPv5, IPv6, IPv7, IPv8 and IPv9 are making IPv4 pointless just like all the possible other digital currencies are making bitcoin pointless. I guess that's technically unfair since IPv4 does have to be replaced and look how quickly people are doing that.

The first widely adopted protocol is very, very, very hard to replace. Take IPv4, SMTP, FTP and Telnet as examples. All of them need replaced but they are still used and relied on all over the world.

The problem is that there are an infinite possible number of cryptographically signed digital currencies.

The problem is that there are an infinite possible number of ways to print something and call it a "dollar bill."

Is there any other cryptographically signed digital currency with a cumulative value near $6 billion dollars? If there isn't, then the infinite possible number of cryptographically signed digital currencies don't matter. Just like there are an infinite number of potential ways to print a new kind of dollar bill, they don't count unless a lot of other people are willing to accept it. If anything, bitcoins are much more difficult to fake.

Bitcoin has value because people use it to hold and exchange value, exactly like any other currency. Of course there are differences and I expect you are right about the future of speculation dying off, but precisely because I expect bitcoin to stabilize in ten years or so.

Oh, and read up on the tulip bulb thing. I thought the same thing you apparently think now until I got an education by somebody who actually knew the history.

All laws should have sunset provisions. No really, I mean it.

Those with strong support should have longer terms, maybe 100 years, but even the "obvious" ones should have sunset provisions. The Constitution? The only reason it has survived so long is because it has been modified, which is the whole point of sunset provisions. Do you think the Constitution would still work today if the three-fifths clause were still in effect or if women couldn't vote? The point of sunset provisions isn't to get rid of laws, but to give people an opportunity to correct problems with them. Yes, we correct problems with laws, but it takes an act of congress (literally) to get a law modified that desperately needs it, and you can forget about improving the hundreds of laws that have lots of problems but aren't on anybody's campaign points.

Or would you argue that there should be sunset provisions on the laws against murder?

Yes, of course there should be! Yes, murder should be illegal, but no, of course the laws we had for murder in the 1800's should not be in effect and they absolutely should be re-evaluated after a reasonable period of time has passed.

1800: Senator Bob: So it looks like the murder law is in sunset, do we vote to renew it?
1800: Senator Kim: No, my constituents think hanging is barbaric and want to switch to the electric chair, so we need to rewrite the law.
1900: Senator Ralph: So it looks like the murder law is in sunset, do we vote to renew it?
1900: Senator Kelly: No, my constituents think murder shouldn't have an automatic death penalty, and some people should just be imprisoned, so we need to rewrite the law.

And the budget? While I'm making imaginary changes to how US law works, I have a fix for the budget problem too. It should be required to be set three years in advance, with Congress and the Senate sequestered, with no other legislative action allowed until they have passed it. Emergency funding for unexpected issues should be what gets debated, not what we could have seen coming three years ago (or 50 for that matter.)

Every new law should have a sunset provision of 1 year to give it a chance at debate every year until (at least) every representative who was present when it was introduced is out of office. After that set a cap of 10 years, then 20, then 40, then 80 and max it at 120 since that's long enough that you can depend on the generation that got it passed to have also passed.

And not just "know where they are going," you can limit them to target=yourAccessTarget from the perimeter so they are limited at least in the first hop.

Good point. There are predictable physiological differences between genders and races and age groups. Understanding the differences is important in medicine and science and should be studied. Unfortunately the differences are also often misused as an excuse for people to mistreat each other.

But if there is a difference that is relevant to your business, is it reasonable to expect people to ignore it?

Actually made me laugh out loud. Then I wondered if your humor was intentional or not.

I've seen this type of comment several times. I wholeheartedly believe that producing valuable services or products is more important than aesthetics, but.... why do people assume they aren't? If you've got a company that is doing what it needs to be doing on the production side, why wouldn't you want to make the environment as comfortable and inviting as you can? Staff that feels comfortable is probably going to be easier to retain and if you have clients who see your workspace, then aesthetics are actually important to the bottom line.

I have a theory. Sometimes when you say "they can't be that stupid" the next thing you should think is "what if they actually aren't that stupid?" What if somebody with a lot of money and a lot if influence is knowingly getting the *AAs to do self destructive things?

You caught me being my own worst editor. I meant "I can say that I don't believe it was totally eliminated in either" but had previously typed "It wasn't totally eliminated in either." When I changed my mind about how to best phrase it, I missed that.

While I agree in general, for the sake of dissoi logoi, allow me to present the counter-argument. (I had to look up dissoi logoi by the way, it's not a phrase I've used before.)

I've worked in environments where drug tests were required and very similar environments where they were not. After working in both for several years and getting to know co-workers well, I feel I have a pretty good idea how common drug use was in both. I can say that I don't believe it wasn't totally eliminated in either, but was less common in the workplaces that at least used it for initial screening. Both had excellent longetivity and reasonable productiveness from their employees. I'd be hard pressed to make the case that the places that screen get better employees, but if your goal is to hire employees that won't use drugs, I think that testing as part of the employee screening process has some success in discouraging applicants that are likely to use drugs.

Further, I can say that in some jobs I've had, drug use was rather common and in those, testing wasn't even considered. In those jobs where drug use was common, I can say that it cost the employer higher turnover as a result. If I were made manager in that type of situation, I can certainly say that I would institute a drug test screen for hiring. If I knew that my company would be more profitable as a result of that type of screening, even if it was only because the less suitable candidates would be less likely to apply if they expected to fail, then certainly I'd seek to do the screening. I suspect that is why minimum wage jobs are more likely to have a screening policy.

If I worked for a government agency where I knew the stable and productive employees were those most likely to be willing to take a voodoo test, why wouldn't I want to screen for those type of employees? I'll agree that the polograph is essentially voodoo so lets take it literally for the sake of discussion. Lets say that I'm in charge of setting hiring policy for the TSA (voodoo is a reasonable connection in my mind for this.) Lets say that my bosses will agree to a voodoo test where I shake a rubber chicken and maracas in a dark room to "test of theiving spirits" and experience has shown employees willing to take the "test" are less likely to abuse their position, then I'd do the test. Even knowing the voodoo test in itself had no real effect, if I also know that the result is better employees, assuming that's my priority, why not?