Author Topic: Zero To One, by Peter Thiel  (Read 4693 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Thom

The article linked was very interesting and got me thinking about "natural monopolies" being beneficial for capital accumulation.

I think it is all a mater of perspective and in the end it all comes down to a single moral principle: don't initiate force against others.    Thus free competition will result in natural monopolies which allow capital accumulation and that is just the nature of good competition.   Unnatural monopolies are the ones that are dangerous (such as those granted to patent / copyright holders) or via regulation.  Anti-trust laws are also a major problem.
+5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5%

Larken Rose would be proud of you Daniel and so am I. This may not be a popular opinion and it may trigger many contrary comments, but I totally agree with you. What you're taking about here is the NAP (Non Agression Principle).

The next battleground for mankind is the field of univerasal morality. Blockchain technology is an excellent tool for removing the teeth from a coercive government that's out of control. But until we as individuals are willing to face the aggressiveness that lives within us and overcome it, violence and force will be the tool of choice for those who wish to seek advantage over others for personal gain at the expense of collective humanity. Those of this community are the counter-force to the immoral violence being done to mankind and our posterity. Wake up and see the big picture before mankind self destructs.

Bravo Daniel for the principles you supported in this thread. They serve to further my confidence in your character and the underlying reasons you're involved in this project. I'm here for the same reasons.



« Last Edit: September 24, 2014, 04:32:44 am by Thom »
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere - MLK |  Verbaltech2 Witness Reports: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23902.0.html

Offline bitsapphire

@Bitsapphire can you define what qualifies as work? Work seems like it could be anything which people value a lot. In that case Facebook must be doing a lot of work as a social network because look at all the money it generates from the data people contribute to it.

How do automated corporations play into it? Sooner or later the value of human labor at least for the vast majority of humans will not be very much compared to machine. Maybe this would indicate that deflation makes sense?

Anything which has value to anyone. Or in other words, anything which can be acquired in exchange at a lower total effort or cost than producing or providing it yourself (e.g. though specialization, etc).

Facebook is monopolistic in as far as its real value lies in the ease of use and access to a complete and standardized network of people. You are peying for the access to the network of people in this case, rather than anything else. This isa very feudal business model in very respects. The irony of course is that fiat currency has value for pretty much the same reason, because you as an individual have access to markets and can exchange goods and services. Creating a whole market for yourself or even engaging in barter would be considerably more costly than just paying the monopolistic extraction cost and using the old system.

Automated corporations are a whole other story and the answer heavily depends on the nature of future money. I sincerely believe that DACs will change the nature of money and trade sooner rather than later. More automation does not necessarily lead to deflation in prices.

As a side note, I don't see a value in Appcoins. BTSX might be an exception as I think it might qualify as a functionally important share. Ether in Ethereum as it currently stands,XRP in Ripple, safecoins in maidsafe (if its real) are not shares, they are appcoins, and as such don;t track the value of the commodity (the limited tokens), rather the perceived current network value of its underlying function. In fact, the price of an Appcoin should not correlate its usefulness or even current usage. In this sense Bitcoin might be turning into an appcoin (it was commodity money), the app being easy intercontinental transfer. As an example, for me and my team Bitcoin is by far the most superior instant payment platform out there.
Register and get your personal Moonstone Wallet Beta here: https://moonstone.io/login-register.html

Offline luckybit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2921
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Luckybit
This is the main reason we need governments. If we don't accept democratic governments we typically end up with other forms of government which are worse and laws which are kept entirely secret or perhaps just based on the whims of those in charge of the force.

Your premise is that we must choose one government. 

The ideal government is decentralized with checks and balances on each competing component that keep them from acting except to restore a condition of zero force on the governed.


Hmmm.  I think there were even some guys wearing short pants and wigs that tried that a couple centuries ago...
+5%
Actually I agree with you. I do believe in decentralization and that we should make governments compete with each other and the private sector to win the support of citizens.

So I would say we need more competing governments rather than a very centralized single world government. I think that is really the best we can hope for because governments will always exist and just like with corporations it is only when they compete that they have incentive to treat us nice.

@Bitsapphire can you define what qualifies as work? Work seems like it could be anything which people value a lot. In that case Facebook must be doing a lot of work as a social network because look at all the money it generates from the data people contribute to it.

How do automated corporations play into it? Sooner or later the value of human labor at least for the vast majority of humans will not be very much compared to machine. Maybe this would indicate that deflation makes sense?
« Last Edit: September 23, 2014, 11:12:09 pm by luckybit »
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline bitsapphire

Totally agree with luckybit. Great writeup!

There is one more thing which most people don't take into account. Money as a representation of value, is pure information, while the underlying assets and processes it represents are subject to the laws of physics. As such money as pure information (i.e. a ledger entry) is not subject to entropy, while its generator - our work -  is.

As such there is always a huge discrepancy, especially in the long term, between money and the real economy. Money without entropy becomes a tool and vector of violence in and of itself against the real economy. Something which does not lose relative value (money) but is always put against that which loses value constantly (real work) necessarily demands more of the latter in order to retain its constant relative value.

Put in another way, money is constant, though its underpinnings, work, is subject to demurrage. As such if both are exchanged in a free market with one another money will always be valued higher, creating the need for more work for the same value amount in terms of money. All this even though the money's relative value is only the representation of the relative exchange value of its underpinning work.

All that said, I think bitAssets are a great step into the right direction to create a better system. I believe the polymorphic digital asset idea you came up with Bytemaster will revolutionize value-exchange path-finding in a new global market.
Register and get your personal Moonstone Wallet Beta here: https://moonstone.io/login-register.html

Offline donkeypong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2329
    • View Profile
Just try starting BitShares, gentlemen, in a country that has a repressive totalitarian government. You may appreciate that not all governments are created equal. And perhaps those fools with wigs got a few things right. Imperfect, yes, and we can make it better, but as Winston Churchill once said:


Offline Stan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2908
  • You need to think BIGGER, Pinky...
    • View Profile
    • Cryptonomex
  • BitShares: Stan
This is the main reason we need governments. If we don't accept democratic governments we typically end up with other forms of government which are worse and laws which are kept entirely secret or perhaps just based on the whims of those in charge of the force.

Your premise is that we must choose one government. 

The ideal government is decentralized with checks and balances on each competing component that keep them from acting except to restore a condition of zero force on the governed.


Hmmm.  I think there were even some guys wearing short pants and wigs that tried that a couple centuries ago...
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline luckybit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2921
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Luckybit

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

You are right... governments are the realization of an economy ruled by crime syndicates and we are living in a "free market" that hasn't found a product or service that is able to protect us from these crime syndicates. 

You speak as if governments do not violate the very laws they impose on everyone else...
1) they steal
2) they kill
3) they lie, cheat, and defraud
4) they unilaterally break contracts
5) they threaten at gun point
6) they form monopolies on justice, law, etc..
7) there is no "government" to keep the government in check....

Bottom line... free markets will have to defend us against governments not the other way around.

This is all true but we accept it because at least they let us vote. If we have crime syndicates in charge do you think they'll let civilians vote? Civilians will just pay the tax or get beat up. So the actual choice for the civilian is to pay the extortion to the crime syndicate which is whoever has the power to extort them so they'll have to pay the "tax", or they pay the government to protect them from being extorted/"taxed" by the crime syndicate.  So the only choice seems to be who to pay taxes to.

It's not really possible for free markets to protect us from governments. Governments are created by the free market. An emergent property of the free market which rises as a result of a power vacuum which society prefers to fill. Crime syndicates rise to power in the most free of the free markets to bring a sense of order, continuity, regularity, predictability, stability, and to reduce "market volatility". The more free the market is the more likely it is for a crime syndicate to take power.

To put it another way, if you remove all laws and regulations from the market then whoever has the most effective mercenary enforcers will dominate the market. This means whoever has the best military controls the free market and that does not change no matter what philosophy/ism you adopt. Absent of a constitutional government we would either have to form gangs and defend ourselves or pay the gangs to act as our security, and security costs can be quite expensive, which could lead to a society similar to Japan under the the Kamakura Shogunate.

Quote
The Taira and the Minamoto clashed again in 1180, beginning the Gempei War, which ended in 1185. Samurai fought at the naval battle of Dan-no-ura, at the Shimonoseki Strait which separates Honshu and Kyushu in 1185. The victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo established the superiority of the samurai over the aristocracy. In 1190 he visited Kyoto and in 1192 became Sei'i-taishōgun, establishing the Kamakura Shogunate, or Kamakura Bakufu. Instead of ruling from Kyoto, he set up the Shogunate in Kamakura, near his base of power. "Bakufu" means "tent government", taken from the encampments the soldiers would live in, in accordance with the Bakufu's status as a military government.[5]

Over time, powerful samurai clans became warrior nobility, or "buke", who were only nominally under the court aristocracy. When the samurai began to adopt aristocratic pastimes like calligraphy, poetry and music, some court aristocrats in turn began to adopt samurai customs. Despite machinations and brief periods of rule by emperors, real power was then in the hands of the Shogun and the samurai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#Ashikaga_Shogunate



Military might makes right. Morals are shaped by the consequences and consequences are determined by whoever has military might. This could be the mafia, it could be the military, it could be street gangs, or it could be the matriarch or patriarch of a family.  He/she who has the capability to enforce rules is who makes the rules and the ability to enforce rules comes from military might in the form of some kind of force.

Markets are governed by information. Information can be controlled by force, coercion, or by military means. They can keep secrets through threats, or leak secrets through threats, which controls the flow of information in the market. It doesn't require a constitutional government but any group of people with an ability to hurt other people, which means even a terrorist group can act as a government.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2014, 07:19:55 pm by luckybit »
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline luckybit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2921
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Luckybit

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

This is the main reason we need governments. If we don't accept democratic governments we typically end up with other forms of government which are worse and laws which are kept entirely secret or perhaps just based on the whims of those in charge of the force.
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline donkeypong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2329
    • View Profile

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

You are right... governments are the realization of an economy ruled by crime syndicates and we are living in a "free market" that hasn't found a product or service that is able to protect us from these crime syndicates. 

You speak as if governments do not violate the very laws they impose on everyone else...
1) they steal
2) they kill
3) they lie, cheat, and defraud
4) they unilaterally break contracts
5) they threaten at gun point
6) they form monopolies on justice, law, etc..
7) there is no "government" to keep the government in check....

Bottom line... free markets will have to defend us against governments not the other way around.

That's all true. I don't disagree with you that governments are very, very imperfect, guilty of all those sins and more. And elections are rigged and politicians are crooked. Yet I'd rather have our flawed system than something resembling Mad Max.

Does it deserve a kick in the pants? Yes. Can we totally reform our system of regulation and make it work a lot better? Yes. But I came to BitShares more because of how it can shake up the private sector (banks, etc.) than the public sector. Yes, I'm proof positive that BitShares is not just for libertarians; it's for everyone.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2014, 11:28:45 pm by donkeypong »

Offline vegolino

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 450
  • Reality is Information
    • View Profile

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

You are right... governments are the realization of an economy ruled by crime syndicates and we are living in a "free market" that hasn't found a product or service that is able to protect us from these crime syndicates. 

You speak as if governments do not violate the very laws they impose on everyone else...
1) they steal
2) they kill
3) they lie, cheat, and defraud
4) they unilaterally break contracts
5) they threaten at gun point
6) they form monopolies on justice, law, etc..
7) there is no "government" to keep the government in check....

Bottom line... free markets will have to defend us against governments not the other way around.

 +5% +5% +5%
Thank you bytemaster and thank you G1ng3rBr34dM4n
 

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n


Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

You are right... governments are the realization of an economy ruled by crime syndicates and we are living in a "free market" that hasn't found a product or service that is able to protect us from these crime syndicates. 

You speak as if governments do not violate the very laws they impose on everyone else...
1) they steal
2) they kill
3) they lie, cheat, and defraud
4) they unilaterally break contracts
5) they threaten at gun point
6) they form monopolies on justice, law, etc..
7) there is no "government" to keep the government in check....

Bottom line... free markets will have to defend us against governments not the other way around.

 +5% +5% +5%

Offline bytemaster


Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.

You are right... governments are the realization of an economy ruled by crime syndicates and we are living in a "free market" that hasn't found a product or service that is able to protect us from these crime syndicates. 

You speak as if governments do not violate the very laws they impose on everyone else...
1) they steal
2) they kill
3) they lie, cheat, and defraud
4) they unilaterally break contracts
5) they threaten at gun point
6) they form monopolies on justice, law, etc..
7) there is no "government" to keep the government in check....

Bottom line... free markets will have to defend us against governments not the other way around.
 
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline donkeypong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2329
    • View Profile

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.

Maybe in some universe (the gates of heaven?), morality is the bottom line. Without antitrust laws, I don't think the majority of market actors will make decisions based on morality. What we'll get, instead, is an economy ruled by crime syndicates. In the absence of government power, we simply get private actors who (ab)use their strength to control others. Russian mafia? Mexican drug lords? They use 10x the force, since there's no government to keep them in check (or they own that government). I'd rather have a flawed democratic government with half-assed regulations that are enforced to protect the free market and the consumer.

I wish that using force were not part of human nature, but for many people it seems to be par for the course.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2014, 07:24:42 pm by donkeypong »

Offline bytemaster

Quote
that would be an illegal use of market power.

Illegal, but not immoral.  Using force to prevent them from selling at a loss would be immoral but apparently totally legal.
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline donkeypong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2329
    • View Profile

In what way would "natural" monopolies differ from "unnatural" one's in the real world?

Think of it as organic growth vs. bullying. If Starbucks sold the best coffee and had the best business model, then imagine that it could organically grow itself into a dominant (say 80%?) market share position amongst coffee shops. But by the same token, if Starbucks were selling coffee below cost so it could drive some local competitors out of business (knowing that it could afford the hit, but they couldn't), that would be an illegal use of market power. Another example was when Microsoft bundled its music player with Windows, squeezing RealAudio's chances of selling very many of its players. That sort of behavior undermines the free market.

Antitrust laws largely exist to protect the free market and prevent someone from abusing it. Bullying actions ultimately hurt the consumer, who has to pay higher prices and gets fewer choices.