As you are mocking gov. power, by extent you mean they are powerless and weak.
Against bittorrent, bitcoin, and other open source, decentralized apps? Yes. That's exactly what I think.
If so, why not then trying to get into a government and make a real difference, as obviously your footprint would be more than writing on wickedfire, i assume.
Ah, the old 'change the system from the inside' ploy.
Sorry, I'm not retarded. I'll stick to disruptive technologies, thanks... The only method that has ever shown any results.
Can you please explain your logic as this weak power government thing and your action doesn't add up for me.
Ever hear of bittorrent? Govs around the world have been trying to kill that since we called it napster. Turns out none of them can do anything anymore put have ISPs rat you out for downloading, if you're stupid enough to not use a VPN or TOR.
Bitcoin is orders of magnitude stronger than bittorrent at what makes bittorrent so censorship resistant.
And more useful, too.
That's my point. China and India together have basically restricted 37.6% of the world's population from easily using bitcoin.
The hell they have. They've restricted those people's local banks from touching it... As if banks wanted to in the first place! This is a far smaller threat to bitcoin than these govs think it is...
The entire point of bitcoin is to remove banks in the first place... It's 100% self-sufficent without being converted to any other currencies, so squeezing the conversion points, the only tool govs have against it, simply slows down adoption for the people who were already using banks. (Which is a far, far, far smaller number in those countries than 100% of their populations. More like 5%, in fact.)
Yet, you will mock their power as if it's a joke or something. That makes zero sense at all.
I don't mock guns pointed at me. I mock them pointed at mathematics.
Luckily, there are literally MILLIONS of people, some in every country of the world, who hold bitcoin. You can't point guns at us all, and the numbers are growing rapidly.
Then there's the whole deniability thing. Most bitcoin holders won't reveal themselves to the govs, so the govs won't know who to point a gun at in the first place. Multiple people on Wickedfire already have brainwallets... Their offspring will never know monetary controls again from now forwards, despite all of mankind being under strict monetary control since before the time of Christ.
Wherever they go, forever, they can take as much value with them as they wish, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop this short of killing them or closing all borders... Neither of which is very conducive to a nonviolent citizenry.
The problem with Luke is that he thinks people will use BTC although it's banned / declared illegal or blocked in any kind of way by a government. That might be right for us sneaky affiliate marketers or the underground selling shit you can't sell in public. But if that's what BTC is going to be at in future, it's far from mainstream.
First of all, if they declare it illegal in a country like the US, that would be a kind of victory too, because they'd be admitting it's so powerful that they can't compete with it. No country has done this; they've only discouraged exchanges and banned Banks from touching it.
Secondly, take what I said to Matt above out to its' logical conclusion here. If govs don't get aggressive against bitcoin, then as more useful apps come out, there is nothing to stop it's adoption. But if govs DO get aggressive against it, then the shy will slink away while the people who feel it's unfair for governments to take this wealth away from them will double down.
Remember, it's not really bitcoin itself they'd be supressing. There are tons of young industries now that you can only access with bitcoin. The entire Porn industry is now all using bitcoin, so it's only a matter of time before those millions of people all realize that they like the privacy of using btc for that purpose and raise their standards to only use bitcoin.
If the big, bumbling gov (in your country) comes along and says "bitcoinz iz illegul" then people suddenly cannot access the things they enjoy as easily and have immediately lost a portion of their savings in bitcoin.
Do you think people will like that or dislike that? Wouldn't they ask why the gov, who is supposed to be protecting them, just wants to take away their ability to do things that they enjoy and reduce their savings?
See: 21st Amendment for more details.
Average joe does not trust an underground currency. Same as he does not trust a 'currency' where 100s of millions been stolen, that's completely unregulated and based on a couple of numbers.
Average joe, if he exists, will learn after then next 1,000 useful apps and new industries that all only accept bitcoin come out, that bitcoin is necessary for the things he wants.
The 'one' killer app may still be a year or three off, but there are THOUSANDS of 'good enough apps' to get people from all walks of life and varied interests familliar with using bitcoin.
Even still, I'm starting to hear some really awesome rumors of an area of development that is likely to become the "killer app" that bitcoin needs to break out into the mainstream. It won't be too soon before it's ready, maybe not even this year, but I see all the pieces exist and lots of smart people are working in that direction now.
Before that happens though, the gap will be bridged by the man institutional investment banks throwing 50+ Million into bitcoin each. The first two, SecondMarket's BIT fund and the Winklevii's bitcoin fund already have 100k bitcoins in them now each and are on track to become official institutional, fully-tradable funds this year.
Behind that are 10+ wall street fund managers wanting to throw a minimum of $50M each at bitcoin-based funds, and these low prices lately are making them stir crazy... Their tweets are quite entertaining already... So that's about $600 Million in bitcoin on wall street. I think that might have a nice effect on the price for those of you who are so obsessed over it... But more importantly, it's going to make Mr. Joe Average far more familliar with bitcoin and adopting it properly sooner or later.