Reddit Declares Itself A ‘Government’

[JaiWebb]

Edit: Fresh water*

 

[CreepyUncleGoogle]

Define 'expensive'.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/28/u-s-hikes-fee-to-renounce-citizenship-by-422/

I heard they were increasing the price, but that's a lot cheaper than I thought it would be to have all that stuff done.

 

[Retronym]

I just bought groceries yesterday with my worthless fiat money. I don't think I'd get much if I showed up at Walmart or wherever and tried to pay with gold bars or bitcoins.

Back when Ron Paul was a thing I bought into the gold bug arguments, but over time I've come to the conclusion that it's effectively a marketing buzzword for that crowd. It gets passed around libertarian circles, but nobody really has anything more than a vague understanding of the economics behind it all. The fact is that tying your money to an arbitrary mineral resource does not create stability. Gold only has value because people say it has value, just like fiat money. How is backing a currency with a resource any safer than backing it with a government? The total value of the United States is over 100 trillion dollars. The total value of all the gold ever mined is something like 8 or 9 trillion in current USD. Neither is likely to tank any time soon, but if the US did your gold wouldn't be worth much anyway. With my 'worthless' fiat government-backed dollars I don't have to worry about significant fluctuations in the day-to-day value of my money. There's a slow, steady rate of inflation that prevents hoarding and reduces the cost of credit (no more deflation panics like we had every decade or two in the good old days of the gold standard).

Bitcoin is even worse than gold. Rampant deflation driven by speculation killed whatever bitcoin economy there was, then when prices got too high and mining became unprofitable people just started making their own alternative crypto currencies to mine. Where's the stability there? Crypto-coins are a hobby, not a currency.

i've never used bitcoin as a currency. i speculate with it.
in the event it goes sky high, i will swap it for other items i do not really use as currency.
i like that i dont have to convert back to cash each time too.

there is money to be made swapping over and over again. make money when gold goes up, make money when gold goes down.

 

[PersonalJ]

Too many of these tech companies have an inflated sense of self worth.

 

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

For the vast majority to actually obey a common code of conduct and meet societal expectations, they must live in constant fear of consequences.

No, I don't buy into that ubermensch/untermench idea which is inherent that those in government would be the ubermench to the citizens' untermensch.