Actually, diamonds are valuable because a corrupt, immoral industry has been running propaganda campaigns to convince us of their value for generations.

In civilized countries, security agencies watch you sleep.

Wake me up when they implement namespaces correctly. With a syntax that doesn't look like Satan's diverticulitis.

It is nice to see that PHP is starting to grow up a little bit. They have long way to go.

As opposed to the current system where it is impossible to save for retirement unless you ate at least upper middle class? ...hmm I'll take a system where the poor might be able to save for a few years of retirement.

The other thing -- and I am surprised you did not touch on this -- is that a deflationary currency is anti-consumerism. Why buy something when saving that money makes it worth more in a year or ten? And with bitcoin, you keep your own coins, you don't deposit them in a fractional reserve bank that uses it to stimulate business.

This is, of course, the so-called Paradox of Saving which is utter horseshit for regular money but might be applicable to bitcoin.

Switch disciplines to ecology.

This is what the Earth needs. We cannot go on consuming our childrens' futures. We must end our senseless consumption in the name of "progress" or the Earth will lose enough of its ecological web that we can no longer survive. Some say it is already too late. I maintain there is hope but we must adopt a more sustainable civilization or we will perish.

Perhaps a civilization built on an actively deflationary currency that encourages us to avoid spending apart from absolute necessities...

At the end of the day, the biology of deflation means our money more closely matched natural systems governed by scarcity. This is vastly more important to me than any economic discussion, even if you were 100 percent correct.

What do you think?

That doesn't have to do with the currency. People do not revolt because of currency problems; they revolt because food gets too expensive.

Which, I might add, is what happens in an inflationary economy.

The price of food in bitcoin goes down, not up.

You have fallen prey to a classic causation/correlation fallacy.

The idea that deflationary / fixed quantity currency contributes to wealth disparity or poverty is complete bullshit. Why? Because inflating the currency doesn't solve the problem. The wealth disparity is greater than it EVER BEEN and we simultaneously have a hugely inflationary currency.

A deflationary currency helps the poor because the prices of goods go down over time. Whatever you can save, no matter how little, becomes more valuable over time.

Currency 101 here.

It's been around 5 years and still growing fast.

You may feel it is ridiculous, but the regulatory pressure has been increasing all over the world. It is effectively banned from normal transactions in both China and Russia, and very tightly controlled here in the US. This isn't recent, but Congress is clearly not laughing at this point.

Of course, I think you are also right. Lots of people still laugh, and Congress really doesn't yet have a clue as to what mayhem this magical mystery internet money could end up causing. To me, bitcoin is to banking what guns are to feudal castles.

Ignore/Laugh/Fight/Win

Bitcoin isn't anonymous, though, and it is quite regulated. Bitcoin is arguably the least anonymous form of value transaction we have (every transaction is publicly and permanently recorded), and if you think it is unregulated try running an exchange anywhere in the Western world.

Personally, I think the first significant threat to bitcoin will be a cryptocurrency that really is anonymous.

Something to keep in mind: they can make Bitcoin flatly illegal, but development and usage will simply go underground and continue to grow outside the U.S./Russia/China. U.S. regulations delay adoption but do not prevent it.

Frankly, considering that banks rarely keep more than a few thousand dollars on hand, you are kindof a fool if you don't keep a reserve of emergency cash somewhere in case of a bank holiday. These things happen, and you still need to eat even if you can't get money out of the bank.

Wow you are completely ignorant about the topic. "Jewish" is a race, a culture, AND a religion. And Islam does have racial connotations in that battles involving Islam are often divided along racial divisions as well. The same applies to Christianity. There are exceptions of course, but the pattern remains.

Your critique is flawed.

It may well work in both directions, but the researchers did not investigate the transmission of positive behaviors. I wouldn't be so quick to discount the results. We are still learning about epigenetics, and there is tremendous knowledge still to be gained. Part of the problem is that the mechanisms of epigenetics are largely invisible to sequencing technology. Our knowledge of epigenetics is hobbled by this.

We already know that dietary factors can be transmitted epigenetically. We know that social factors can alter epigenetic self-expression (methylation of genes). Why can't social factor epigenetics be transmitted to new generations? This research, while interesting, is not particularly groundbreaking or even surprising.

Both are side effects of a greater evil. Solve the greater evil and neither Al Capone nor SR2 would exist. Portugal has shown it can be done for more than a decade. Why haven't we?

They could be in it for both profit and altruism. Lots of organizations in the regular economy work this way. People who love their work often are able to combine service and profit. "Make money doing what you love."

I think the bulk of your argument is perfectly sound, but I think you are drawing a false dichotomy.

If they were in it purely for the money, they would walk away and never look back, like some of the other darknet markets have done. Instead they appear to be rebuilding. That doesn't really fit with a pure profit motive. There is nothing stopping them from walking away and setting up a new site with a new brand and a clean reputation. It would be a lot less work than repaying 4,000 bitcoin...

Why would they? Because there are sometimes reasons other than money to work towards.

Many of the people who work in airlines do it for the money principally, just as in nearly every other industry. So you are correct, in this case. However, that is not necessarily the case for every company or group of people. SR2 is not an airline company, and its participants already undergo an extremely high level of risk. So their priorities are not going to be same as your average airline worker.