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Clearly people are playing along with Bitcoin, so I don't see your point? I also don't fully understand what you are saying. You mean if dollar would gain in va

Clearly people are playing along with Bitcoin, so I don't see your point? I also don't fully understand what you are saying. You mean if dollar would gain in value as fast as Bitcoin, people would stop using dollars?

BoorishBears 5y ago
> You mean if dollar would gain in value as fast as Bitcoin, people would stop using dollars? Yes, did you not realize that?! Are you really rallying this hard against people discarding its economic value without understanding something as basic as deflation? - Deflation is more deadly to a currency than inflation. By far. You reduce interest rates to 0% and then what? You can try negative interest rates, but with the kind of deflation BTC has seen you would need negative triple digit interest rates which is a complete absurdity. You'd probably see the government outlaw physical cash to boot, forcing you to use a bank and forcing the bank to constantly siphon your money if you don't spend it quickly enough. It would be a literal hellscape.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  I know about the usual "deflation scares" by economists and governments. I think they are a bit overblown, though. They seem to assume people spend money just for fun. But people also spend money because they need things. If you are hungry, you have to go out and buy food. It doesn't matter that your 1$ may be worth 10$ tomorrow, if you need an Apple now or you will starve. So I think people would still be spending, and things would even out after a while. I don't believe we need those centralized banks manipulating prices to keep some inflation rate so that people keep spending. I also don't think Bitcoin will just keep doubling every year forever. But all that is besides the point. As for "people discarding the economic value of Bitcoin", clearly right now it has value, so those people are wrong. Whether it will still have value next year is another question. But right now, you can sell 1 Bitcoin for 56000$, so it provably has value.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    You are completely out of your depth, you have no idea what you're talking about, and it is not worth any effort to explain to you how a currency increasing in value by 10,000% in 5 years would cripple the economy. Understanding why that would be disastrous to the point of irrevocably destroying a nation and leaving millions in abject poverty should be table stakes when you have the bravado to shrug off the fear mongering economists who study this stuff for a living.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      Bitcoin exists and hasn't left millions in abject poverty yet. Maybe you are the one who is clueless? Are there even any examples of deflation ruining things, apart from Krugman's babysitting exchange? I don't think we should hinge the faith of nations on that one story, which may as well have many other explanations besides the deflation theory. You don't even know if BTC would increase by 10000% in 5 years, if the nation would run on it. Also new currencies have been created a lot of times in the past, technically their value would also have been increasing by 10000% over night. Economists have lots of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "economists say x". There are economists advocating socialism and economists advocating capitalism, for example. There are even economists advocating Bitcoin.
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        > Are there even any examples of deflation ruining things, apart from Krugman's babysitting exchange? I don't think we should hinge the faith of nations on that one story, which may as well have many other explanations besides the deflation theory. Ever heard of The Great Depression???? Go read up on it and tell me if deflation made things better or worse. > Bitcoin exists and hasn't left millions in abject poverty yet. Bitcoin is not the official currency of a country! The closest cases we have to that are failing economies where BTC is used as a life raft and its taken * 10 million percent * inflation to finally make BTC an attractive alternative! >You don't even know if BTC would increase by 10000% in 5 years, if the nation would run on it. The only way it wouldn't have is if it was highly regulated... sounds like a great match for BTC right? Like you realize we ran this experiment before right? Do you know what the gold standard was? And why we moved away from it? Hint: Go look up deflation and it's role in the Great Depression again. Leaving the gold standard gave the government tools like interest rates that didn't have to compete with a commodity. Let alone a commodity increasing in value 10,000% in 5 years > Economists have lots of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "economists say x". This is like stabbing your thigh with an icepick then saying "Doctors have a lot of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "doctors say x" when someone points out that doctors would not like people to stab their thighs with icepicks. - Your comment as a whole just tells me this is not even worth the effort I've put in to get to this point. I'm not even trying to be rude, you don't have the basics to even make conversing about this productive for either of us, so let's end it here.

BoorishBears 5y ago

> You mean if dollar would gain in value as fast as Bitcoin, people would stop using dollars? Yes, did you not realize that?! Are you really rallying this hard against people discarding its economic value without understanding something as basic as deflation? - Deflation is more deadly to a currency than inflation. By far. You reduce interest rates to 0% and then what? You can try negative interest rates, but with the kind of deflation BTC has seen you would need negative triple digit interest rates which is a complete absurdity. You'd probably see the government outlaw physical cash to boot, forcing you to use a bank and forcing the bank to constantly siphon your money if you don't spend it quickly enough. It would be a literal hellscape.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
I know about the usual "deflation scares" by economists and governments. I think they are a bit overblown, though. They seem to assume people spend money just for fun. But people also spend money because they need things. If you are hungry, you have to go out and buy food. It doesn't matter that your 1$ may be worth 10$ tomorrow, if you need an Apple now or you will starve. So I think people would still be spending, and things would even out after a while. I don't believe we need those centralized banks manipulating prices to keep some inflation rate so that people keep spending. I also don't think Bitcoin will just keep doubling every year forever. But all that is besides the point. As for "people discarding the economic value of Bitcoin", clearly right now it has value, so those people are wrong. Whether it will still have value next year is another question. But right now, you can sell 1 Bitcoin for 56000$, so it provably has value.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  You are completely out of your depth, you have no idea what you're talking about, and it is not worth any effort to explain to you how a currency increasing in value by 10,000% in 5 years would cripple the economy. Understanding why that would be disastrous to the point of irrevocably destroying a nation and leaving millions in abject poverty should be table stakes when you have the bravado to shrug off the fear mongering economists who study this stuff for a living.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Bitcoin exists and hasn't left millions in abject poverty yet. Maybe you are the one who is clueless? Are there even any examples of deflation ruining things, apart from Krugman's babysitting exchange? I don't think we should hinge the faith of nations on that one story, which may as well have many other explanations besides the deflation theory. You don't even know if BTC would increase by 10000% in 5 years, if the nation would run on it. Also new currencies have been created a lot of times in the past, technically their value would also have been increasing by 10000% over night. Economists have lots of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "economists say x". There are economists advocating socialism and economists advocating capitalism, for example. There are even economists advocating Bitcoin.
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      > Are there even any examples of deflation ruining things, apart from Krugman's babysitting exchange? I don't think we should hinge the faith of nations on that one story, which may as well have many other explanations besides the deflation theory. Ever heard of The Great Depression???? Go read up on it and tell me if deflation made things better or worse. > Bitcoin exists and hasn't left millions in abject poverty yet. Bitcoin is not the official currency of a country! The closest cases we have to that are failing economies where BTC is used as a life raft and its taken * 10 million percent * inflation to finally make BTC an attractive alternative! >You don't even know if BTC would increase by 10000% in 5 years, if the nation would run on it. The only way it wouldn't have is if it was highly regulated... sounds like a great match for BTC right? Like you realize we ran this experiment before right? Do you know what the gold standard was? And why we moved away from it? Hint: Go look up deflation and it's role in the Great Depression again. Leaving the gold standard gave the government tools like interest rates that didn't have to compete with a commodity. Let alone a commodity increasing in value 10,000% in 5 years > Economists have lots of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "economists say x". This is like stabbing your thigh with an icepick then saying "Doctors have a lot of different opinions, you can not simply appeal to "doctors say x" when someone points out that doctors would not like people to stab their thighs with icepicks. - Your comment as a whole just tells me this is not even worth the effort I've put in to get to this point. I'm not even trying to be rude, you don't have the basics to even make conversing about this productive for either of us, so let's end it here.