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People used to say the "world is SUPPOSED to be flat." It is natural that Bitcoin works differently than our existing notion of currency because it IS new. So

People used to say the "world is SUPPOSED to be flat." It is natural that Bitcoin works differently than our existing notion of currency because it IS new. So when you say "Currency isn't SUPPOSED to be this volatile", that's nothing more than saying the currency you know works that way. I also think it's inconvenient, but I don't think that's how it's "SUPPOSED" to work.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> So when you say "Currency isn't SUPPOSED to be this volatile", that's nothing more than saying the currency you know works that way. No, the point of currency, as a medium of exchange and more particularly a unit of account, is that it should be stable (it can have a long term change trend, but it should not be volatile.) Volatile but appreciating may be an acceptable thing in a store of value, but not a currency.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  My point was that when a disruptive new idea comes along, it is natural that everything people thought they knew about something can completely change overnight. Of course I know the qualities of a currency. But that's what we've learned in classes. But is this some absolute law of nature that's been around since the beginning of universe? No, it's just a man-made concept. And man-made concepts change along with human evolution. You can choose to believe whatever you want, but your belief doesn't change the fact that people are actually spending bitcoins to make transactions online.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > My point was that when a disruptive new idea comes along, it is natural that everything people thought they knew about something can completely change overnight. Volatile currency isn't a disruptive new thing; many past currencies have been volatile. One might, perhaps, reasonably argue that Bitcoin has other features which warrant using it as a currency despite its volatility, but that volatility is bad for the purposes which define currency isn't mere conventional wisdom born from ignorance of anything different than the modern dominant forms of currency.
    - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
      > Volatile currency isn't a disruptive new thing; many past currencies have been volatile. Who said being volatile is disruptive? > One might, perhaps, reasonably argue that Bitcoin has other features which warrant using it as a currency despite its volatility, but that volatility is bad for the purposes which define currency isn't mere conventional wisdom born from ignorance of anything different than the modern dominant forms of currency. Like you said, "volatility is bad for the ..." doesn't make it NOT a currency. It just makes a "bad currency". Just like how being slow is bad for file downloads but people download files through Bittorrent all the time. It's "bad" in terms of "conventional wisdom", but obviously people are using it for file transfers, so you can't say it's NOT a file transfer protocol. It's just a shitty one. Except that with the shittiness it brings some novel benefits. I was specifically criticizing your point about how it's NOT a currency. There's a difference between "it's a bad form of currency" and "it's NOT a currency". No one is godly enough to say the latter. If people buy and sell stuff using seashells then it IS a currency, you can argue it's a bad form, but you are no in place to decide whether it is or not, since it already is.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> So when you say "Currency isn't SUPPOSED to be this volatile", that's nothing more than saying the currency you know works that way. No, the point of currency, as a medium of exchange and more particularly a unit of account, is that it should be stable (it can have a long term change trend, but it should not be volatile.) Volatile but appreciating may be an acceptable thing in a store of value, but not a currency.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
My point was that when a disruptive new idea comes along, it is natural that everything people thought they knew about something can completely change overnight. Of course I know the qualities of a currency. But that's what we've learned in classes. But is this some absolute law of nature that's been around since the beginning of universe? No, it's just a man-made concept. And man-made concepts change along with human evolution. You can choose to believe whatever you want, but your belief doesn't change the fact that people are actually spending bitcoins to make transactions online.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > My point was that when a disruptive new idea comes along, it is natural that everything people thought they knew about something can completely change overnight. Volatile currency isn't a disruptive new thing; many past currencies have been volatile. One might, perhaps, reasonably argue that Bitcoin has other features which warrant using it as a currency despite its volatility, but that volatility is bad for the purposes which define currency isn't mere conventional wisdom born from ignorance of anything different than the modern dominant forms of currency.
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    > Volatile currency isn't a disruptive new thing; many past currencies have been volatile. Who said being volatile is disruptive? > One might, perhaps, reasonably argue that Bitcoin has other features which warrant using it as a currency despite its volatility, but that volatility is bad for the purposes which define currency isn't mere conventional wisdom born from ignorance of anything different than the modern dominant forms of currency. Like you said, "volatility is bad for the ..." doesn't make it NOT a currency. It just makes a "bad currency". Just like how being slow is bad for file downloads but people download files through Bittorrent all the time. It's "bad" in terms of "conventional wisdom", but obviously people are using it for file transfers, so you can't say it's NOT a file transfer protocol. It's just a shitty one. Except that with the shittiness it brings some novel benefits. I was specifically criticizing your point about how it's NOT a currency. There's a difference between "it's a bad form of currency" and "it's NOT a currency". No one is godly enough to say the latter. If people buy and sell stuff using seashells then it IS a currency, you can argue it's a bad form, but you are no in place to decide whether it is or not, since it already is.