Aren't radio-wave-emitting devices pretty tightly regulated and controlled, considering the chaos you could cause by being able to broadcast at arbitrary frequencies despite not being recognized as having rights to that part of the spectrum?

So the new pope is like Sarah Palin would have been if she became president?

Wait, so you're saying that if I slack off when working from home, it's not "abusing the system", so long as managers aren't checking up on me? That "it's their fault for not catching me"?

Probably so, but sometimes you don't have the option to turn around management fast enough to solve the problems caused by abuse of the system.

If the government gave me a ton of free money, I could *totally* create jobs too, by going on a spending binge. Why doesn't anyone ever consider that solution?

Why doesn't anyone consider how fortunate the economy would be to give me free stuff?

Really? Tell me all about semiconductor manufacturing in Bangladesh.

So you agree money provides a useful service -- indirect exchange -- and thus produces real value by enabling people to be better off than if they could not conduct indirect exchanges via money. (Though you don't quite appreciate the implications thereof.)

And Bitcoin is (trying to be a generally-accepted kind of) money with advantages over other moneys.

So you already agree this is different from on Ponzi scheme in that Bitcoin provides value (or at least the honest potential to). All you have to add in response, to attempt to substantiate your position, is that you're personally dismissive of the benefits. And that certainly is your right, just as others are every day finding genuine use cases for it where it really does better than other currencies. (And many think Macs are crap and everyone using them is just deluded.)

But it does not at all substantiate your claim that Bitcoin is some "Ponzi scheme", wholly dependent on more people putting more money in while producing no valuable product.

Indeed, Bitcoin adoption could stop right now without a single person "holding the bag" as in a Ponzi scheme -- for example, if it stabilizes as the medium of exchange for a niche market (*cough* online illegal drugs) in which people prefer to swap in/out of Bitcoin (from/to another currency at a varying exchange rate) than try to trade using a "standard" medium like USD.

One word: retroviral engineering.

Hey, just because you got the New York Times editorial in advance doesn't mean you can violate the embargo.

What you've described applied to every business venture of earth, no matter what the legitimacy of the product or business model. Yes, early adopters of innovative ventures get the biggest shares in that ventures, which become the most valuable when the general public appreciates it.

The founders and early investors at Facebook, Google, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, etc etc etc all own the most of those respective and thus most of their capitalized values. Were they scams too? No, because at bottom, they all produced something useful.

You don't see the use in Bitcoin? Great, but that's a different argument than saying it's structured as a Ponzi scheme.

If they actually cared about what you can *do*, that clause would be more like

- or equivalent [demonstrable] capability

or even

- "equivalent work or personal experience".

Seriously, I don't qualify for the job that I actually have per the posting for it! It requires 2 years with Django ... I had none when I started (as a contractor before going full time a few weeks later).

The only reason anyone gets a job at all is because employers don't even take their own postings seriously.

I think what you mean is they *go through the motions* of questioning and critical examination, but ultimately rig the outcome, ultimately avoiding their belief systems' real weak points.

Who immediately failed to apply it to their own dogma, and in fact, propagated memes against doing so.

Thanks.

The problem is that, by supposition, the machines will eventually also have literacy, the ability to use [arbitrary] tools, the ability to communicate, the ability to learn and think abstractly.

So the comparison to the fate of horses is still relevant -- machines will replicate the supposed human-unique abilities.

I'm not defending Auernheimer's treatment, obviously, but I don't think you're giving it a fair framing either. A spammer could likewise claim that they "merely" asked your server to store an email from them, and it "merrily complied".

Or someone who stole your private key to break into your account could claim that it "merely" provided the appropriate credentials and "merrily complied" with future requests.