Maybe another reason your PC has slowed down

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 15:36:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Money is weird stuff, isn't it? Bitcoin is hard to
make and limited in supply. In those respects it's a lot
like gold. Why was gold worth money? Mostly because
it's both limited and immutable. So a few people got
rich mining it, but mostly it served as a stable, neutral
medium of transaction. Jewels are similar.

Yes, but gold and jewels have intrinsic uses as well:


Some, but very few.


gold doesn't
corrode, is useful for making jewellery (which lasts, and it is easier
to work than stainless steel),


Yes, but to me, jewelry has no intrinsic value.

Nor does much art. However, they are pleasing to some, and therefore
some are willing to pay for them. However, the amount paid for bitcoins
outweighs the artistic value, if any - plus, if that was the reason, why
would anyone buy more than one?

and in the last century or so its low
resistance and various other properties have become useful in the
electricity and electronics industries. Jewels are useful (some of them)


Mostly just diamonds, because they are so hard.

Neither my wife nor I own any jewelry (except for wedding rings and am
inexpensive necklace or two for my wife) and almost nothing made of
gold to speak of (both our watches have a very small amount of golden
decoration, but that's it). No precious gems at all.

Your choice. To some people, jewellery is sufficiently pleasing they are
willing to pay for it - like any other artwork. To others, it has the
value they think they can sell it for in the future to those who _do_
like it.

What has value to some people doesn't have the same value to everyone.

No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_, _other_
than that it can be exchanged for other things - which doesn't to me
explain how it gained value in the first place.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

To keep leaf vegetables clean and crisp, cook lightly, then plunge into iced
water (the vegetables, that is). - manual for a Russell Hobbs electric steamer

"Mayayana" on Thu, 7 Feb 2019 11:28:43 -0500
typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
"Wolf K" wrote
| I think you're asking the wrong question. Nothing "has value." More
| precisely: "value" is not a property of some object. It's entirely
| subjective.

That makes sense, but the idea of currency is precisely
that value is objectified. A dollar is worth a dollar. People
can disagree about whether something is worth a dollar,
but we all agree that a dollar has a specific value.

Which is????? I'm recalling that eggs in Klondike were $10 (and
those were 1895 dollars too). Each. Because gold they had, but not so
many eggs.
Too many "dollars" chasing too few goods leads to inflation. It
happened in Spain with the Aztec treasures, it happened in Cairo when
the Sultan of Timbuktu, on haj, spent gold with such a lavish hand
that it depressed the price of gold for years. (Funny part of the
story: he spent so much that when he came back through to Cairo, he
had to borrow money for the rest of the trip home. "I'm good for it.")
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 22:45:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 15:36:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Money is weird stuff, isn't it? Bitcoin is hard to
make and limited in supply. In those respects it's a lot
like gold. Why was gold worth money? Mostly because
it's both limited and immutable. So a few people got
rich mining it, but mostly it served as a stable, neutral
medium of transaction. Jewels are similar.

Yes, but gold and jewels have intrinsic uses as well:


Some, but very few.


gold doesn't
corrode, is useful for making jewellery (which lasts, and it is easier
to work than stainless steel),


Yes, but to me, jewelry has no intrinsic value.

Nor does much art.


*All* art has intrinsic value (to me). However a lot of the stuff that
is called "art" has no value at all; it's junk, not art.


However, they are pleasing to some, and therefore
some are willing to pay for them.


Yes.


However, the amount paid for bitcoins
outweighs the artistic value, if any - plus, if that was the reason, why
would anyone buy more than one?

and in the last century or so its low
resistance and various other properties have become useful in the
electricity and electronics industries. Jewels are useful (some of them)


Mostly just diamonds, because they are so hard.

Neither my wife nor I own any jewelry (except for wedding rings and am
inexpensive necklace or two for my wife) and almost nothing made of
gold to speak of (both our watches have a very small amount of golden
decoration, but that's it). No precious gems at all.

Your choice. To some people, jewellery is sufficiently pleasing they are
willing to pay for it - like any other artwork.


Certainly. I wasn't talking about everyone--just me.


To others, it has the
value they think they can sell it for in the future to those who _do_
like it.


Yes. Some people consider it an investment. Not me.


What has value to some people doesn't have the same value to everyone.

No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_, _other_
than that it can be exchanged for other things - which doesn't to me
explain how it gained value in the first place.



No comment from me about cryptocurrency. I know nothing about it.

On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 22:37:24 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 10:45:36 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:


But what bugs me is: why do they even have that value? Just because
something has cost someone $X to produce, why should it even be worth $X
to anyone else? If it's a manufactured object, or piece of software in
the widest sense (i. e. including literature, music, video, art, etc.),


To change from one off-topic subject to another g, I've never seen
any of those things referred to as "software" before, not even as
"software in the widest sense."

To me, none of those are software. Software, to me, is something that
can't be touched; an arrangement of electronic bits that has some
particular function.

Others have explained why I used that term,


Yes, and I understand their (and your) usage of the term. I'm not
disagreeing with you (plural), just explaining the way *I* look at it.

On 07/02/2019 22:45, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 15:36:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Â* Money is weird stuff, isn't it? Bitcoin is hard to
make and limited in supply. In those respects it's a lot
like gold. Why was gold worth money? Mostly because
it's both limited and immutable. So a few people got
rich mining it, but mostly it served as a stable, neutral
medium of transaction. Jewels are similar.

Yes, but gold and jewels have intrinsic uses as well:


Some, but very few.


gold doesn't
corrode, is useful for making jewellery (which lasts, and it is easier
to work than stainless steel),


Yes, but to me, jewelry has no intrinsic value.

Nor does much art. However, they are pleasing to some, and therefore
some are willing to pay for them. However, the amount paid for bitcoins
outweighs the artistic value, if any - plus, if that was the reason, why
would anyone buy more than one?

and in the last century or so its low
resistance and various other properties have become useful in the
electricity and electronics industries. Jewels are useful (some of them)


Mostly just diamonds, because they are so hard.

Neither my wife nor I own any jewelry (except for wedding rings and am
inexpensiveÂ* necklace or two for my wife) and almost nothing made of
gold to speak of (both our watches have a very small amount of golden
decoration, but that's it). No precious gems at all.

Your choice. To some people, jewellery is sufficiently pleasing they are
willing to pay for it - like any other artwork. To others, it has the
value they think they can sell it for in the future to those who _do_
like it.

What has value to some people doesn't have the same value to everyone.

No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_, _other_
than that it can be exchanged for other things - which doesn't to me
explain how it gained value in the first place.

You are asking *exactly* the same questions which I've often considered
asking - but never have!

Have a grand day, John. :-)

--
David B.

In message , David B. "David
writes:
On 07/02/2019 22:45, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
What has value to some people doesn't have the same value to everyone.
No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_,
_other_ than that it can be exchanged for other things - which
doesn't to me explain how it gained value in the first place.

You are asking *exactly* the same questions which I've often considered
asking - but never have!

And nobody is answering my fundamental question!

Have a grand day, John. :-)

Thanks - you too.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

There I was, sitting in a glum mood - 'Cheer up, things could be worse',
he said, so I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_,
| _other_ than that it can be exchanged for other things - which
| doesn't to me explain how it gained value in the first place.

| And nobody is answering my fundamental question!

I thought lots of people were providing lots of answers
and that your question was meant to be somewhat
rhetorical.

A check has no intrinsic value. I'ts just a
small piece of paper. But a social and legal agreement
makes it valuable. The same with dollar bills or pound
notes. Why should cc be different? It gained value by
1) being severely limited in supply and 2) being associated
with a social and legal agreement. Like paper currency
and checks, it's a functional symbol of exchange. As is
an ATM card, which is perhaps a better analogy, since
the ATM card depends on software operations to express
value, while paper currency holds its value as a concrete
object.

The success of cc will depend on increasing the social
agreement of its being a medium of exchange, maintaining
the limited supply, and establishing better security. On the
other hand, as we blandly dive into excessive techo-
dependence, it seems the day will come when all stored
records of exchangeable value will be at risk, because
there may no longer be material representations
of exchange, like bills and coin.

And probably exchange is a better word than value. You
can only trade currency for goods or services if someone
else will exchange with you. There's no objectively discernible
value.

Nothing has intrinsic value. That would imply the value
is of the nature of the thing. But value is only in your
personal assessment. Jeff Bezos saw no value in privacy
a few months ago. Now he thinks it's quite valuable. He
plans to spend millions in an effort to take down the people
who invaded his privacy.
We might all agree that a Rolls Royce has value. But it's
not intrinsic. It's only valuable if you can drive it. Even then,
it's only of value as transportation and as a symbol of
swank.* It's of no value to an infant, and in the event of
nuclear war or a solar flare that burns out all electronics,
it would only be of value as a symbol of someone's misplaced
priorities.

Many people like to collect things -- art, wine, money,
antiques, etc -- because they succeed in pretending to
themselves that the collecting allows them to own "valuables".
Within a limited context those thing do have value. You
can sell your bottle of wine for a known sum. Yet there
is no such thing as value in any objctive sense. People die
and can't take their things with them. And while they live,
their possessions are arguably only a source of anxiety and
fear, because nothing in our experience can ever be confirmed
in any objective sense. Including our own selves. Do we exist?
That might seem like a silly question. Yet if you examine your
habitual thinking you'll see that you spend every waking minute
trying to establish and confirm your existence, by telling
yourself who you are, replaying interactions with others,
getting your bearings existentially, etc. If we actually existed
would we be plagued by such doubts? And how could we ever
possibly confirm such an objective truth? Of course you could
try the juvenile logic of "I think therefore I am". But what thinks?
All we can truly confirm is that cognition seems to be happening
on its own. There seems to be some kind of knowing going on.
Everything else is conceptual invention. If we were to be
rigorously scientific it seems the best guess is that God exists
and we're a manifestation of His Knowing. And his Knowing is
what is. That's all we can truly observe. And what is this God?
The very Knowing itself. (Which goes a long way in explaining
the Big Bang.) But that's not scientifically provable,
so we look through microscopes and try to find the first DNA,
in hopes of knowing something for sure.

Our feeling of success in owning stuff is pulling the wool
over our own eyes and requires contant reassurance from
others to keep the scam believable.

* I like that word, though it's not really used in the US. There's
an archaic usage of "swanky", but that's not heard much. (I
use it a little because my parents used it. But it's no longer
typical.)
I once heard a story that Alan Watts, the Zen-ish philosopher,
was coming through US customs with a very fancy cane and
a customs official was suspicious, asking, "Hey, what's with
the cane?" Watts was said to respond, defiantly, "It's for swank."

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| No. But I don't see how cryptocurrency has value to _anyone_,
| _other_ than that it can be exchanged for other things - which
| doesn't to me explain how it gained value in the first place.

| And nobody is answering my fundamental question!

I thought lots of people were providing lots of answers
and that your question was meant to be somewhat
rhetorical.

No; genuine puzzlement about how CCs _get_ initial value/worth/whatever
term you wish to use.

A check has no intrinsic value. I'ts just a
small piece of paper. But a social and legal agreement

But cheques have different values (I'll use that word) depending on the
figure written on them. A bitcoin is - apparently - worth the same as
another bitcoin. Yes, a cheque is only a promise (or request to a bank),
but as you say the social and legal agreement makes it valid.

makes it valuable. The same with dollar bills or pound
notes. Why should cc be different? It gained value by
1) being severely limited in supply and 2) being associated
with a social and legal agreement. Like paper currency
and checks, it's a functional symbol of exchange. As is

I don't see it as equivalent. Anyone can make more bitcoins, so that is
a difference from currency like dollars. And I don't see why the limited
supply is it: I could pick up a pebble on the beach, and know there is
no other quite like it - but it wouldn't be valuable. Scarcity _in
itself_ is not a guarantee of value: there are lots of things that are
scarce (or unique) that aren't; likewise difficulty in making. Something
has to be scarce, and/or difficult to make, _and people want it_, for it
to gain value.

an ATM card, which is perhaps a better analogy, since
the ATM card depends on software operations to express
value, while paper currency holds its value as a concrete
object.

No, an ATM card has varying value depending on the balance of the
account. It's (roughly) the modern equivalent of a key.

The success of cc will depend on increasing the social
agreement of its being a medium of exchange, maintaining
the limited supply, and establishing better security. On the

I would say that applies to, say, payment by credit card or bank
transfer: those have (despite your concerns, which I share but not to
the same extent) become accepted. But in that case, the transfer is of a
number of pounds/dollars/whatever - units which have a value,
established over history, and in most cases based on something tangible
initially. My puzzlement is on how CCs gained value _in the first
place_: the only answer I keep getting is that they're difficult to
make. I don't see why that _of itself_ makes value: to me, something
difficult to make only has value if someone, other than the maker,
_wants_ it made, for some reason (such as an intricate machine part, or
a piece of artwork).
[]
in any objective sense. Including our own selves. Do we exist?
That might seem like a silly question. Yet if you examine your
habitual thinking you'll see that you spend every waking minute
trying to establish and confirm your existence, by telling

I don't (-:

yourself who you are, replaying interactions with others,
getting your bearings existentially, etc. If we actually existed
would we be plagued by such doubts? And how could we ever

I'm not (-:

possibly confirm such an objective truth? Of course you could
try the juvenile logic of "I think therefore I am". But what thinks?
All we can truly confirm is that cognition seems to be happening
on its own. There seems to be some kind of knowing going on.

Very existential!
[]
* I like that word, though it's not really used in the US. There's
an archaic usage of "swanky", but that's not heard much. (I
use it a little because my parents used it. But it's no longer
typical.)

Not much used here either, though the words (swank and swanky) are
_understood_. Probably more used now is "bling" (which often carries the
slightly negative connotation - critical of ostentatiousness - that
swank did, though sometimes is just descriptive, like swanky was).

I once heard a story that Alan Watts, the Zen-ish philosopher,
was coming through US customs with a very fancy cane and
a customs official was suspicious, asking, "Hey, what's with
the cane?" Watts was said to respond, defiantly, "It's for swank."


Sounds good.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

User Error: Replace user, hit any key to continue.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| makes it valuable. The same with dollar bills or pound
| notes. Why should cc be different? It gained value by
| 1) being severely limited in supply and 2) being associated
| with a social and legal agreement. Like paper currency
| and checks, it's a functional symbol of exchange. As is
|
| I don't see it as equivalent. Anyone can make more bitcoins, so that is
| a difference from currency like dollars. And I don't see why the limited
| supply...

As I understand it, a given cc has a limit in terms of how
many can be produced overall. That's combined with the
difficulty of producing them.

| an ATM card, which is perhaps a better analogy, since
| the ATM card depends on software operations to express
| value, while paper currency holds its value as a concrete
| object.
|
| No, an ATM card has varying value depending on the balance of the
| account. It's (roughly) the modern equivalent of a key.

It's an analogy in the sense of representing value
abstractly. Money, ATM cards, checks and cc all
represent exchangeable resources in an abstract way,
with no value as objects.

| My puzzlement is on how CCs gained value _in the first
| place_: the only answer I keep getting is that they're difficult to
| make. I don't see why that _of itself_ makes value:

They're difficult to make AND there's an agreement, social
and legal, about their representation of value. People have
started cc systems. Others buy into it. I have a customer
who bought 2 bitcoins early on. He holds onto them and
dosn't care about the money. He just wants to support the
idea. People like him give the cc credibility. There's no magic
there. Like a pyramid scheme, all you need is to keep
getting people who agree to play along. And like a pyramid
scheme the main attraction, at this point, is hope of
profit.

There is a notable difference between that and
national currency. The gov't backs dollars and pounds. A cc
is more speculative. But other factors could give it stability.
For example, as people use more credit cards our lives are
becoming fully documented in terms of payments and purchases.
That's creepy. Cc might become more relevant down the
road as a new kind of cash that can be exchanged without
personal info.
Or, maybe it will all just collapse and people will be saying,
"I can't believe I wasted all that money on algorythm cash.
What was I thinking?" I expect the people who bought into
the system of the man who just died are already thinking
that.

| Yet if you examine your
| habitual thinking you'll see that you spend every waking minute
| trying to establish and confirm your existence, by telling
|
| I don't (-:
|

You've just never noticed. Try sitting down for
20 minutes and just observe your outbreath. When you
notice you're distracted by thinking, label it "thinking"
in your mind and go back to watching. How long can
you simply rest your awareness on the outbreath at
will before you space out? What are the thoughts about?

That's basic mindfulness/awareness meditation. It's
a kind of open secret, hiding in plain sight. But the secret
is not just that we can become more mindful, like they
teach in yoga studios or corporate offices. That's only
a very low-level secret, with very little value. You really
begin to discover the levels of secrets when you see,
experientially, that your reality is actually no more than
a constant storytelling happening in your own mind. Then
you discover what bliss is. The spacious, transparent lack
of anxiety that comes from creating gaps in the storytelling.
The unberable lightness of being. Yet that has no value,
either. You can't win.

On Fri, 8 Feb 2019 16:57:56 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Mayayana
writes:

I once heard a story that Alan Watts, the Zen-ish philosopher,
was coming through US customs with a very fancy cane and
a customs official was suspicious, asking, "Hey, what's with
the cane?" Watts was said to respond, defiantly, "It's for swank."


Sounds good.



In 2001 I returned to the US from a vacation in China, and came
through customs with a fancy cane that I had bought there. The only
reason I had bought it was that an itinerant vendor kept showing it to
me and lowering his price. When he got down to about a dollar, I
finally bought it just to get rid of him.

I went through customs without a problem. About six months later, I
showed it to my son, who immediately took it in his hands and withdrew
the sword from it!

How he knew there was a sword in it I don't know; I certainly didn't.
But the good thing was that whatever he knew, the customs official
didn't.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
As I understand it, a given cc has a limit in terms of how
many can be produced overall. That's combined with the
difficulty of producing them.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. (Though I still don't see why that gives
them any initial value - though it may well increase the tendency.)
[]
It's an analogy in the sense of representing value
abstractly. Money, ATM cards, checks and cc all
represent exchangeable resources in an abstract way,
with no value as objects.

Yes, but money, ATM cards, and cheques all represent access to a known
amount of some currency. CCs only represent access to CCs.

| My puzzlement is on how CCs gained value _in the first
| place_: the only answer I keep getting is that they're difficult to
| make. I don't see why that _of itself_ makes value:

They're difficult to make AND there's an agreement, social
and legal, about their representation of value. People have
started cc systems. Others buy into it.

That can't be the whole story though. If their initial creation is of a
certain number, and as you suggest above there's a maximum number, then
those should produce upper and lower limits of their value - if the
initial creation was based on a figure in some other currency, that is.
There would be some fluctuation because of people's perception of the
cost of transactions, but that's all.

Let's say I invent JPGcoins, initially 100,000 of them, with an upper
possible limit of 200,000 including extra ones that can be "mined",
based on my putting up $1m in the first place. Therefore, one JPGcoin
ought to be worth between $10 and $5 - or slightly less, because it
costs something to do transactions with them. How do they go up in
value? If I _don't_ put up any money to start with, just the electricity
needed to generate them, why would anyone ever buy them in the first
place?

I have a customer
who bought 2 bitcoins early on. He holds onto them and
dosn't care about the money. He just wants to support the
idea. People like him give the cc credibility. There's no magic

That's like people who buy limited-edition "coins", plates, or whatever.
Most of those _don't_ prove to be an investment, a few do. But it seems
very sad to buy something like a bitcoin in that way: at least with a
coin/medal, plate, stamp, limited run artwork, or something, you've got
a physical object you can enjoy in the meantime.

there. Like a pyramid scheme, all you need is to keep
getting people who agree to play along. And like a pyramid
scheme the main attraction, at this point, is hope of
profit.

Pyramid schemes are illegal, though, aren't they? I think they are in
most jurisdictions, including US and UK.

There is a notable difference between that and
national currency. The gov't backs dollars and pounds. A cc
is more speculative. But other factors could give it stability.
For example, as people use more credit cards our lives are
becoming fully documented in terms of payments and purchases.
That's creepy. Cc might become more relevant down the
road as a new kind of cash that can be exchanged without
personal info.

I can see the attraction. Just not the initial (or mining) basis.

Or, maybe it will all just collapse and people will be saying,
"I can't believe I wasted all that money on algorythm cash.
What was I thinking?" I expect the people who bought into
the system of the man who just died are already thinking
that.

(-:

| Yet if you examine your
| habitual thinking you'll see that you spend every waking minute
| trying to establish and confirm your existence, by telling
|
| I don't (-:
|

You've just never noticed. Try sitting down for
20 minutes and just observe your outbreath. When you

Om?

notice you're distracted by thinking, label it "thinking"
in your mind and go back to watching. How long can
you simply rest your awareness on the outbreath at
will before you space out? What are the thoughts about?

Mine certainly aren't "trying to establish and confirm my existence".
I'd almost certainly get _bored_ doing the sort of meditation you
describe - but, I don't think my thoughts would be the above. (Unless
you're going to use a religion-type argument that _all_ thoughts are of
that nature, in which case I'm stopping this branch now.)

That's basic mindfulness/awareness meditation. It's
a kind of open secret, hiding in plain sight. But the secret
is not just that we can become more mindful, like they
teach in yoga studios or corporate offices. That's only
a very low-level secret, with very little value. You really
begin to discover the levels of secrets when you see,
experientially, that your reality is actually no more than
a constant storytelling happening in your own mind. Then
you discover what bliss is. The spacious, transparent lack
of anxiety that comes from creating gaps in the storytelling.
The unberable lightness of being. Yet that has no value,
either. You can't win.

Certainly that sort of warbling has no value to me. (I've never tried
mind-enhancing chemicals, and probably am unlikely to do so now.)


--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"The wish of the lazy to allow unsupervised access [to the internet] to their
children should not reduce all adults browsing to the level of suitability for
a
five-year-old." Yaman Akdeniz, quoted in Inter//face (The Times, 1999-2-10):
p12

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Yes, but money, ATM cards, and cheques all represent access to a known
| amount of some currency. CCs only represent access to CCs.

?? Look up bitcoin value. You can buy, sell, or find
the current price. I could only find one site that wasn't
completely broken without javascript:

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

Current value: About $3,670. They also have a little
blurb that describes bitcoin as "peer to peer". They
make it sound almost like a closed bartering system.
But it seems that buying and selling is not quite so
easy as cashing a check.

| That can't be the whole story though. If their initial creation is of a
| certain number, and as you suggest above there's a maximum number, then
| those should produce upper and lower limits of their value - if the
| initial creation was based on a figure in some other currency, that is.
| There would be some fluctuation because of people's perception of the
| cost of transactions, but that's all.
|
| Let's say I invent JPGcoins, initially 100,000 of them, with an upper
| possible limit of 200,000 including extra ones that can be "mined",
| based on my putting up $1m in the first place. Therefore, one JPGcoin
| ought to be worth between $10 and $5 - or slightly less, because it
| costs something to do transactions with them. How do they go up in
| value? If I _don't_ put up any money to start with, just the electricity
| needed to generate them, why would anyone ever buy them in the first
| place?

Once there's stability in the status as currency they can
be worth anything, just like stocks. Or cash in Venezuela.
You keep wanting to tie it to some absolute value. There
is no absolute value. It's a medium of exchange. It works
because people agree to use it.

I've seen bartering systems that work like that. A community
decides to institutionalize bartering and creates a kind of
currency that works by maintaining records. X does
housecleaning for Y and gains 1 hour creidt to use toward,
say, getting their taxes done. That's a very real currency,
even though it's entirely unofficial. Though it's pretty dumb.
They have to pay taxes on it because they don't trust
each other enough to do it on a casual basis.

That's an interesting side topic: How do we decide how
much tax people should pay? People make and need different
amounts of money. And income tax, oddly, depends on
alienation. If I'm friends with you and we trade housecleaning
for accounting, it costs us both nothing. If you invite me
to dinner and I fix your sink drain, that's certainly not a
business transaction. So where do we draw the line? We draw
it at an entirely arbitrary point of alienation: If we don't
trust and know each other then we use an official
form of exchange and that's taxed.

|
| I have a customer
| who bought 2 bitcoins early on. He holds onto them and
| dosn't care about the money. He just wants to support the
| idea. People like him give the cc credibility. There's no magic
|
| That's like people who buy limited-edition "coins", plates, or whatever.
| Most of those _don't_ prove to be an investment, a few do. But it seems
| very sad to buy something like a bitcoin in that way: at least with a
| coin/medal, plate, stamp, limited run artwork, or something, you've got
| a physical object you can enjoy in the meantime.
|

He's a technophile. One of these odd people who think
tech is going to usher in a golden age of love, light
and equality.

| Pyramid schemes are illegal, though, aren't they? I think they are in
| most jurisdictions, including US and UK.

Yes, in the US.

| | Yet if you examine your
| | habitual thinking you'll see that you spend every waking minute
| | trying to establish and confirm your existence, by telling
| |
| | I don't (-:
| |
|
| You've just never noticed. Try sitting down for
| 20 minutes and just observe your outbreath. When you
|
| Om?

There ya go.

|
| notice you're distracted by thinking, label it "thinking"
| in your mind and go back to watching. How long can
| you simply rest your awareness on the outbreath at
| will before you space out? What are the thoughts about?
|
| Mine certainly aren't "trying to establish and confirm my existence".
| I'd almost certainly get _bored_ doing the sort of meditation you
| describe

Yes. Because you'd be starved for 20 minutes of self-
confirming thoughts. We never, for even a minute, stop.
And we go batty if we try.

| - but, I don't think my thoughts would be the above. (Unless
| you're going to use a religion-type argument that _all_ thoughts are of
| that nature, in which case I'm stopping this branch now.)

What other nature can there be? I'm hungry. I'm
full. I'm horny. I'm bored. I itch. Scratch. Good.
That guy was a jerk. I hope he suffers. That woman
was gorgeous. I hope I see her again. I need to buy
cat food. I'm hungry.... Bye bye.

|
| That's basic mindfulness/awareness meditation. It's
| a kind of open secret, hiding in plain sight. But the secret
| is not just that we can become more mindful, like they
| teach in yoga studios or corporate offices. That's only
| a very low-level secret, with very little value. You really
| begin to discover the levels of secrets when you see,
| experientially, that your reality is actually no more than
| a constant storytelling happening in your own mind. Then
| you discover what bliss is. The spacious, transparent lack
| of anxiety that comes from creating gaps in the storytelling.
| The unberable lightness of being. Yet that has no value,
| either. You can't win.
|
| Certainly that sort of warbling has no value to me.

OK. It's just that once we start talking about things like
value and why someone might collect objects, it quickly
moves from one meta-context to the next. With questions
like that you have to define the context of the answer.
But I'm happy to leave it at that. I don't intend to buy
either antiques or bitcoins, and I don't generally dally with
such frippery as "value".

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Yes, but money, ATM cards, and cheques all represent access to a known
| amount of some currency. CCs only represent access to CCs.

?? Look up bitcoin value. You can buy, sell, or find
the current price. I could only find one site that wasn't

I'm not denying that they have value (or price, or whatever word). I
just don't understand how they got it in the first place.
[]
Once there's stability in the status as currency they can

Yes; once again, I accept that they have (some) stability. Once again, I
don't see how that came about.
[]
I've seen bartering systems that work like that. A community
decides to institutionalize bartering and creates a kind of
currency that works by maintaining records. X does
housecleaning for Y and gains 1 hour creidt to use toward,

Yes: X _did something Y wanted_, and got paid for it - or given
something that was/is a promise of future pay.

Bartering systems might be proposed - the Anytown pound, or the
Smallville dollar - but they don't really get off the ground until
somebody does a real job for someone else.

say, getting their taxes done. That's a very real currency,
even though it's entirely unofficial. Though it's pretty dumb.
They have to pay taxes on it because they don't trust
each other enough to do it on a casual basis.

Yes, all of those are credit for things people _want_ done. What I don't
_get_ is why anyone should _want_ someone else to spend electricity to
make a cryptocurrency in the first place. In the barter scheme you
describe, barter units are not conjured up out of thin air: they're
created in return for labour expended on tasks people want done.

[religion/metaphysics snipped]
But I'm happy to leave it at that. I don't intend to buy
either antiques or bitcoins, and I don't generally dally with
such frippery as "value".

On the whole, me neither. I might buy antiques, but if I did so, it
would mainly be because I find them pleasant objects to have or use,
rather than as an investment. I certainly have no intention of buying
any cryptocurrency, since I don't - often, anyway - put money into
things I don't understand at least the basics of, and I don't in this
case.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Lebanon is smaller than Wales but they have taken on one million refugees and
they don't talk about it as much as we seem to here in this country.
- Hassan Akkad, RT 2017/10/28-2017/11/3

In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2019-02-08 19:19, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Yes, but money, ATM cards, and cheques all represent access to a known
| amount of some currency. CCs only represent access to CCs.

?? Look up bitcoin value. You can buy, sell, or find
the current price. I could only find one site that wasn't
I'm not denying that they have value (or price, or whatever word). I
just don't understand how they got it in the first place.
[...]

The same way a silver sixpence (remember those?) does: by being
accepted as a "medium of exchange."

You're begging the question: HOW did they come to be accepted as a
"medium of exchange"? (All coins and notes is a bit of a red herring.
Those became such because the government of the day said they were legal
tender, which means they had to be accepted in payment of a debt - as
representing part of the state currency, which was originally tied to
something else. CCs are not.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Play dirty. If a fellow contestant asks the audience if they've got any
requests for what he or she should play, reply, "Yeah... Monopoly."

I have the feeling that you _might_ just be continuing this discussion
as a wind-up, and that we're both in agreement really, but I'll continue
for one or two more exchanges!

I _do_ understand the differences between value, worth, price, and so
on; and I also understand the concept of tokens.

In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2019-02-08 20:41, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2019-02-08 19:19, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
*I'm not denying that they have value (or price, or whatever word).
I just don't understand how they got it in the first place.
[]
The same way a silver sixpence (remember those?) does: by being
accepted as a "medium of exchange."

You're begging the question: HOW did they come to be accepted as a
"medium of exchange"? (All coins and notes is a bit of a red herring.
[]
Ah, now you're asking about history and psychology. Anyhow, state-

I'm not asking about history.

backed/regulated money is not a given. It's come and gone several times
in the 6,000-odd years of civilisation.

History first: It's murky and gappy. AFAIK, the earliest evidence of
using some kind of token in trading is found in the Fertile Crescent.
Apparently, trade contracts were recorded on clay seals, which were
broken in half to mark the start of the trade, and were recombined days
or weeks later to complete the trade. Having the matching half of the

Yes, but those tablets represented a contract for something tangible (or
possibly were a very early version of "futures trading", which is a bit
of a gamble, but still can _eventually_ be traced to something real).

seal meant you had a right to the commodity specified. Trading the
seal-fragments themselves was a conceptual leap, but once made, it
could not be unmade. How this developed into money as we know it today
is not fully understood, but several stages are clearly marked, eg,
letters of credit became negotiable in the late Middle Ages, and this
eventually led to paper money in the West.

Indeed. I get how money started (more or less as you say - bit like the
passes that were killed for in the film Casablanca).
[]
cars and dollies and such. Magic! But the coins were real material
objects, so you came to believe that money is stuff, that it's just

Yes, perhaps, for a short time as a child, but I soon learnt the concept
of the token.
[]
Since people tend to believe that money is stuff, it's easy for some of

It _represents_ "stuff". At rates that vary, granted.

them to believe that cryptocurrency is stuff, too. Hence the market in

Yes, many CCs now _are_ accepted as tokens (though more often used to be
exchanged for other currencies than actual goods or services, but that's
just a matter of degree). It's how that _started_ - and continues to
start if new ones are invented - that's a bit obscure. (That and
"mining" new individual ones of existing CCs.)

Bitcoin. AIUI, Bitcoin began as a proof-of-concept for creating a
currency that would be cheat-proof. But please note: Bitcoin did not
become negotiable until some vendors decided to accept it like any
other currency. Why did they do this? Mostly, I think, because the
transaction trail for Bitcoin is anonymous. The transaction trail for
gold is not (generally speaking). It was drug traders and money
launderers that first took up cryptocurrency. Money laundering is a

I suppose it was a gamble on the part of launderers/traffickers. I guess
they have so much money that they could afford such a gamble, if it gave
them anonymity/secrecy.

difficult trick to pull off, since it requires secrecy all along the
line. Tthe breakthrough into "real money" came when restaurants etc
began to accept Bitcoin.

I think that came some way down the line, though; it had to be seen to
have worth/value. And, again, it was a bit of a gamble, by restaurants
(etc.) who wanted to appear "trendy".

Best,

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in
silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in
silencing mankind. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)