One of the nice things about simulations is you don't have to start them at the beginning.

This simple MATLAB simulation has non-zero initial conditions.

So, if you were only interested in the part of history that involved human civilization, you could theoretically start your simulation of a 14 billion year old universe at some convenient point like, say, 6000 years ago.

If that's what happened, how would Science know the difference?

One of the nice things about simulations is you don't have to start them at the beginning.

So, if you were only interested in the part of history that involved human civilization, you could theoretically start your simulation of a 14 billion year old universe at some convenient point like, say, 6000 years ago.

Interesting that you used the word start twice and are somehow positing that there was a beginning, hence the cosmological argument.  The simulation had to start somewhere: whether it began first with an advanced civilization in the future or 6000 years ago during.    What makes today 2015 as the observation, as opposed to 1942, doesn't remove the fact that there was still a first point.

The question comes from this is what makes today 2015, as the observation, as opposed to 1942 as where the arrow of time begins?   
 

I hope you guys are finally coming around to what I've been probing you guys on.  Of course I think inevitability this Fee Backed Asset will have to be used.  Augur is one of the first to do this in the Bitcoin 2.0 iterations.  Can Bitshares follow the same act succesfully?

Flashback:

This is very long, but I think a very good discussion question to see how BM, Stan, and Dev Core are approaching the referral system.  I think it has great potential.  But I see the referral system having more longwithstanding success if smart contract developers can earn referral fees for the contracts they make.  My concern is in the long-run, initial referrers don't provide innovative developments as much as developers do.  Referrers can just squat on the capital effort that brought them all the users in the first place and still earn fees without providing any new value-add as compared to a developer.  They in some ways get the public to squat as many accounts as they can for them.  At least that's one way this would work. 

Last week BM spoke about specialized contracts being made for BTS.  This will allow curation and through testing and takes a "soft update" each time.  And afterwards, Cryptosile brought up a good idea that I've been pondering myself.  In one of the posts he asks:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,17801.0.html
"I'm curious if we could provide these two things:
1.  Allow a specific smart contract to pay 10% of fees to the creator of said smart contract.
  - This would incentivize a lot of developers to submit smart contracts and compete for inclusion into the blockchain."

To me this would spur use of smart contracts, experimentation and new products for the general public.  Sure it would be in the interest of the first referrers to create new types of contracts.  But I see this as further incentivizing development on the Bitshares blockchain and bring tools and smartcoin programs that mesh in the bitshares network.  A pie in the sky hypothetical example: someone wants to build a decentralized Uber on Bitshares can do so and profit.   But in short, incentives and rewards are further brought together.

Not to mention it would allow the little guy to profit for bringing something new to do table.  He will be able to build a  better business model to compete with the veterans and not be squatted out like the current method has it. 

Is this something that is currently being discussed or considered?  Do you think this is feasible or even possible for Bitshares under the current structure of the referral system?

Why would anyone get a annual membership?  I don't understand this portion.  Lifetime membership seems like a better deal to me?

Quote from: jakub on August 11, 2015, 08:44:27 am

I don't see any flaw.

As far as I know the referral program will not give the referrer any income unless the owner of the newly created account:
(1) starts paying transaction fees in pay-as-you-go mode
(2) or pays a subscription fee

Therefore creating hundreds of new accounts without anyone actually using them generates costs but no income - clearly there is no incentive to do so.
Unless I am missing something.

I agree with jakub.

Also, costumers should chose whether they are willing to have yet another account even though the network allows account sharing among different services ..
The marketing concept of business should be to bring in NEW costumers and not to fuck with existing ones

You earn nothing for a sign-up only on activity. I don't see a flaw either in this process

Power Law says that 80% of productivity and growth can be attributed to only 20% of the contributors.  We see this in the economy-- 80% of innovation is fueled by one sector, which is silicon valley.  This statistical phenomenon occurs everywhere. 

Think about it this way. The referral system can be abused like centralization of mining.  It will probably happen when it is advantageous.  A late blooming service, say a Streamium for Bitshares, may see that half of their transaction activity is not coming to them, although they comprise of 90% of the transaction volume.  That is because they came in late and half of their users are older users who were referred by some other company.  What would be the logical thing for Streamium to do if they are providing a highly sought out service?  They would of course require all accounts to be referred by them and block out those that are not.  Why would they have any reason not to mess with existing versions when its beneficial for them to do so?   Ultimately, this would highly undermine the universal usage of account names.

You might even argue if there is going to be a slate feature, then this would be more akin to centralization of mining cause these hosted wallets would pre-destinate/ default votes for the users without them even knowing it.  This would put the power not in the hands of the stakeholders, but in the companies.  With this last point, I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something about hosted wallets, so please provide insight if I am. 

Quote from: Bitcoinfan on August 10, 2015, 11:14:09 pm

new users who don't want to shell out money for a wallet.

a referrer may subsidize accounts.   

Absolutely, the spammer can subsidize the creation of the new accounts if they believe that they can make money in  the future on their transaction fees. 

If a new lifetime membership is 10 cents (cost of creating a new account), then I don't see how this is going to put anybody in the poor house.  Especially considering the immense scope of the financial choices that 10 cents gives new members access to.

And at 10-20 cents per (non premium) account, I fail to see the harm in letting people spam the network nonstop.

its not clear to me how bitshares plans to deal with name squating.  If its ten cents, there is also the issue where an referrer will buy up lucrative / many names and either hold for themselves or sell at a higher premium.  This is going to drive up the prices of names beyond 10 cents, since it will be treated like a real estate address.  for example, there might be a godaddy version for names and they will offer services like an exchange on top.  these are major concerns.  You have a very unequitable system that can potentially price out those who benefit the most from using the system. 

Referers gain fees from accounts that they bring to their links.  I've asked the question before in monetizing smart contracts to integrate into the referrer fee system (this has yet to be addressed) but I stumbled on a possible flaw, that I'd like to get some heads on.  I'd consider this as inconvient as the bitusd interest harvesting.

Given one name for each account, I speculate that referrers if they are value add enough, will use their website or whatever clout they have to force even existing users to generate a new account.  Why?  Because they can.  And because they want to profit from every user that uses their platform, website, exchange, bitassets, whatever.  They will try to drive as many platforms as they can to themselves and prohibit any account that is not referred under their name.  Overtime this will add spam due to the increase in accounts and it will increase the costs of getting an account, since so many unique names will be taken.  Additionally this will hinder and damage the interoperability within bitshares simply because users will have to keep track of their accounts, making it extremely cumbersome to sent and receive money.  Which account is my bitusd in, or my bitbtc, or bitappl in?  Who wants to remember all these wallets.  It may not be in the same example as this, but ultimately there is potential vulnerability to the "unified" system toted around.

I think this issue stems from primary  incentives come from new account sign ups and not just activity alone.   I think this needs more thought.  If this is to be the game changing feature of bitshares and it doesn't work out, then what else is bitshares for.  Bitshares has gone into so many things without fully grasping the downside outcomes.  Could this be any case study again?  A system where referrers can reserve sub accounts that is associated but not the master username account may be a more feasible approach.  In this way the user can keep his username and will use this unique subaccount when interacting with the referrers platform.  In some way or another transactions go to the subaccount and then to the master account. 


https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,16133.msg206555.html#msg206555
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,16318.msg227155.html#msg227155

There is no such thing as "society", just individuals.   There is no absolute value, only relative value placed on it by individuals.    Price is nothing more than the least value placed on item by everyone who holds the item compared to the least value placed on another item by everyone who holds that item.   In other words, price is an emergent property from the "LACK OF TRADE". 

Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility can cause people to perceive value,  but they are clearly part of the perception and not the item.

I think we're talking about the same thing, if its Mises definition of value, although I would probe your use of it.  I may not be well versed in Austrian economics as I'd like. But I'm here to learn.  Just to refine what I said before: Value is subjective to each individual and is determined by that individuals belief that it will help them achieve a certain desire/goal/satisfaction.  The purpose of that person and the function and usefulness of that object are needed in this definition. 

To say purpose and utility are solely perceptions and not inherent in any item is a definition is that falls upon itself.  Let's look at your quote again.  "Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility .... they are clearly part of the perception and not the item." 

That's like saying properties of a object is solely a mind experience.  The raw material (your brain) in which you use to make these analytical judgements and evaluations, is in of it itself not useful?  If the brain that's forming these perception, has no inherent function, purpose, or usefulness whatsoever; then where does this experience come?  Where does the judging (the function/purpose) come from if its not a property of brain?  Then what's the purpose of the brain existing in the first place, if its purpose and utility is not to judge? 
 
Uniform objects can have inherent properties that describe its function and usefulness.  The difference is within the definition of value.  Value differs from individual to individual.  Value of utility differs from person to person.  Utility and function itself does not differ from people to people because they are distinct elements of the item.  However, individuals discover for themselves and by observation of others, what they think the known usefulness and function of an item/material is to them.  This is what they call value. 

If also we're saying all value and metrics is relative, and nomenclature does not matter, and rather its random what you and other individuals make out of it, like Bitrose, Bitappl, Bitgorilla, then should we not correct a child when they call a Airplane a duck, or a sofa a truck?  Most parents would correct their child saying that its a plane and a sofa that they are pointing at because of its appearance, design, and function.  Its simply not that thing.  Its something else.  I respectfully bring this up, as a reminder for what we can learn from the original pegless BTS. 

Economic value is relative, but it does give rise to objective value.  If it hadn't how would we know that a company is performing profitability or not?  Or how a country ranks against another country if GDP, an absolute metric can't be used?