9 ms·

But it's still not a currency, kind of like how "alternative medicine" isn't really medicine.

by dubfan 13y ago

WoodenChair 13y ago
It's medicine if it makes you better. It's a currency if you can exchange it for goods and services.
- dubfan 13y ago
  What kind of currency fluctuates in value by +/- 20% in one day? What kind of currency is inherently deflationary?
  - politician 13y ago
    I don't have a particular answer to your rhetorical questions, but I do have some thoughts on inflation and deflation, specifically with regard to their relationship to hoarding and the money supply. First, deflation encourages hoarding when the holder can afford to spend at some infinite later date, but some spending happens earlier than the heat death of the universe by necessity (e.g. food and shelter, grandma needs assistance, execution of wills). Second, when a currency is printed (inflated) by its host country, the effects of the increased money supply aren't experienced proportionally or immediately everywhere. Instead, the first pallet of new money retains most, if not all, of the buying power represented at the previous level of supply. This represents an asymmetrical information advantage for the producer of the currency, and represents a disadvantage for the currency consumer who probably isn't in a position to know whether they are selling goods for "cheaper" currency. For example, if you were playing poker, and had the ability to print Aces on demand and legally inject them into the game, the other players might not like that (esp. if the new cards are injected after they've already calculated their odds and placed a bet). Various economic philosophies consider it best to have some level of inflation to lubricate the flow of goods and services between buyers and sellers, and in these cases it would be useful for everyone if the size of the money supply was widely known. Unfortunately, there are many different definitions for money supply such that it's actually pretty much impossible to know how much the value of one unit of the currency has changed between two points in time without comparing them to a third, also variable, commodity or currency (e.g. gold, foreign currencies) Bitcoin, on the other hand, has a deterministic money supply where any individual can determine the upper bound of the amount of supply at any time. In our poker analogy, the deck might be short a few cards, but no one has an extra stack of Aces in their shirt sleeve, and everyone can calculate their odds independently. Advanced investors can even enumerate the public ledger and determine the level of lost or otherwise illiquid coins to determine a tighter bound. The ability to have a good understanding of the supply of the currency is one reason that Bitcoin is so exciting for long-distance transfers.
  - WoodenChair 13y ago
    Ummm tons of currency have dealt with ridiculous inflation. Go to Africa, go to 1920s Germany - their are examples where currency fluctuated 100s% a day. It doesn't mean it's nota currency. Again the problem with a lot of the discussion here is that many people simply don't understand the definition of a currency. A currency is not defined by how stable it is.
laumars 13y ago
> But it's still not a currency, kind of like how "alternative medicine" isn't really medicine. All you're proving there is how educated people like ourselves don't take alternative medicines seriously (and for good reason too). However technically that example is actually countering your point since the "alternative" prefix just signifies another style of; such as "alternative music" is still music.
- smtddr 13y ago
  >>All you're proving there is how educated people like ourselves don't take alternative medicines seriously (and for good reason too). So I'm not going to argue one way or the other, I just want to be clear. You think the stuff listed in this link[1] is nonsense? Or what is your definition of alternative medicine? Anything that doesn't come from a first-world scientific study? 1. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/complementary_and_alternative_medicine/types_of_complementary_and_alternative_medicine_85,P00189/ http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/comp...
  - willthames 13y ago
    "By definition Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine." From Tim Minchin's excellent Storm.
  - laumars 13y ago
    Herbalism is one of the few exceptions. But most of the good stuff from that has been synthesized into modern medicine anyway. But to answer your question, yes I do think Homoeopathy is complete nonsense.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Nah, a better analogy would be it's still not a currency, kind of like how a drug in drug trials isn't a prescription drug yet.

But it's still not a currency, kind of like how "alternative medicine" isn't really medicine.

by dubfan 13y ago

But it's still not a currency, kind of like how "alternative medicine" isn't really medicine.

WoodenChair 13y ago

It's medicine if it makes you better. It's a currency if you can exchange it for goods and services.

dubfan 13y ago
What kind of currency fluctuates in value by +/- 20% in one day? What kind of currency is inherently deflationary?
- politician 13y ago
  I don't have a particular answer to your rhetorical questions, but I do have some thoughts on inflation and deflation, specifically with regard to their relationship to hoarding and the money supply. First, deflation encourages hoarding when the holder can afford to spend at some infinite later date, but some spending happens earlier than the heat death of the universe by necessity (e.g. food and shelter, grandma needs assistance, execution of wills). Second, when a currency is printed (inflated) by its host country, the effects of the increased money supply aren't experienced proportionally or immediately everywhere. Instead, the first pallet of new money retains most, if not all, of the buying power represented at the previous level of supply. This represents an asymmetrical information advantage for the producer of the currency, and represents a disadvantage for the currency consumer who probably isn't in a position to know whether they are selling goods for "cheaper" currency. For example, if you were playing poker, and had the ability to print Aces on demand and legally inject them into the game, the other players might not like that (esp. if the new cards are injected after they've already calculated their odds and placed a bet). Various economic philosophies consider it best to have some level of inflation to lubricate the flow of goods and services between buyers and sellers, and in these cases it would be useful for everyone if the size of the money supply was widely known. Unfortunately, there are many different definitions for money supply such that it's actually pretty much impossible to know how much the value of one unit of the currency has changed between two points in time without comparing them to a third, also variable, commodity or currency (e.g. gold, foreign currencies) Bitcoin, on the other hand, has a deterministic money supply where any individual can determine the upper bound of the amount of supply at any time. In our poker analogy, the deck might be short a few cards, but no one has an extra stack of Aces in their shirt sleeve, and everyone can calculate their odds independently. Advanced investors can even enumerate the public ledger and determine the level of lost or otherwise illiquid coins to determine a tighter bound. The ability to have a good understanding of the supply of the currency is one reason that Bitcoin is so exciting for long-distance transfers.
- WoodenChair 13y ago
  Ummm tons of currency have dealt with ridiculous inflation. Go to Africa, go to 1920s Germany - their are examples where currency fluctuated 100s% a day. It doesn't mean it's nota currency. Again the problem with a lot of the discussion here is that many people simply don't understand the definition of a currency. A currency is not defined by how stable it is.

laumars 13y ago

> But it's still not a currency, kind of like how "alternative medicine" isn't really medicine. All you're proving there is how educated people like ourselves don't take alternative medicines seriously (and for good reason too). However technically that example is actually countering your point since the "alternative" prefix just signifies another style of; such as "alternative music" is still music.

smtddr 13y ago
>>All you're proving there is how educated people like ourselves don't take alternative medicines seriously (and for good reason too). So I'm not going to argue one way or the other, I just want to be clear. You think the stuff listed in this link[1] is nonsense? Or what is your definition of alternative medicine? Anything that doesn't come from a first-world scientific study? 1. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/complementary_and_alternative_medicine/types_of_complementary_and_alternative_medicine_85,P00189/ http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/comp...
- willthames 13y ago
  "By definition Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine." From Tim Minchin's excellent Storm.
- laumars 13y ago
  Herbalism is one of the few exceptions. But most of the good stuff from that has been synthesized into modern medicine anyway. But to answer your question, yes I do think Homoeopathy is complete nonsense.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Nah, a better analogy would be it's still not a currency, kind of like how a drug in drug trials isn't a prescription drug yet.