Lotteries.

Lotteries in a free society would not be run by a state monopoly.  Anyone could start up a lottery.  Right now, the state takes a massive chunk of lottery proceeds for itself.  That money could be going into private hands to fund public works and start-up companies.  Given the massive wealth thrown around, the creation of lotteries by private citizens could have an enormous effect on resource allocation in a free society.

Hospitals could run lotteries to fund free indigent care clinics.  Homeless shelters could run lotteries to fund their operations, and so on and so forth.  Imagine if there were thousands of lotteries run by all sorts of people.  Assuming you occasionally play the lotto, which lotteries would you play in this environment?  Wouldn’t you chose to play only those lotteries that were run by the organizations you wanted to donate your money to?  Wouldn’t you only play those lotteries that were run by organizations that were publicly audited and held in high regard?

From now on, if people ask you how the poor will be taken care of in a free society, tell them to go play the lotto.

The seizure affidavit reads:

As part of the account opening process, Wells Fargo required Karpeles and Mutum Sigillum LLC to complete a “Money Services Business (MSB) Accounts, Identification of an MSB Customer” form. That document was completed on May 20, 2011 and identified Mutum Sigillum LLC as a business not engaged in money services. The application asks several questions; to include, “Do you deal in or exchange currency for your customer?” and “Does your business accept funds from customers and send the funds based on customers’ instructions (Money Transmitter)?” Karpeles answered these questions “no,” indicating that Mutum Sigillum LLC does not deal in or exchange money, and that it does not send funds based on customer instructions.

Money transmitting businesses are required by 31 USC section 5330 to register as such with FinCEN. According to FinCEN records on May 6, 2013, neither Mt. Gox nor the subsidiary, Mutum Sigillum LLC, is registered as a Money Service Business.

The affidavit continues:

Mt. Gox acts as a digital currency exchange where customers open accounts and fund the respective accounts with fiat currency, which is then exchanged into crypto-currency by Mt. Gox; the crypto-currency is known as bitcoin. Fiat currency simply refers to any money that a government has declared to be legal tender. The exchange is bidirectional and allows customers to also exchange bitcoins back into fiat currency, and then withdraw those funds. The exchange of fiat currency and bitcoins incurs a floating rate fee charged by Mt. Gox and is determined by the customer’s aggregate amount of funds exchanged on a monthly basis.

At first glance, it might appear that Mt. Gox is in clear violation of the law, but I personally think that is an extremely bad interpretation of what “the law” actually says.

You see, Mt. Gox can only be in violation of the law if they actually ”transfer funds on behalf of the public.”  I would argue that Mt. Gox never transfers any funds on behalf of the public. Dwolla takes care of the fund transfers between Mt. Gox and the customer.  All Mt. Gox does is hold the funds until the customer either uses them to buy bitcoins or cashes them out for dollars.  Any movement of actual dollars on Mt. Gox can only take place through services like Dwolla, which are registered as money transmitter services.

In order to argue that Mt. Gox acts as a money transmitter, it would have to be proven that the transfer of bitcoins between Mt. Gox accounts constitutes a “transfer of funds.”  This is something that seems rather absurd to me by our own legal standards.  Bitcoins are not “funds” or money as defined by US law, they are a commodity.  For example, if Mt. Gox setup its exchange to swap holdings of dollars for apples, and then transferred ownership of the apples between Mt. Gox members, they would not be in the business of transmitting money, they would be in the business of trading apples. And if the act of trading apples is considered a violation of the law, then ALL businesses that sell and buy goods would need to register as money transmitters, which equates to practically every business in existence.

Money is legally defined as “a medium of exchange authorized or adopted by a domestic or foreign government as a part of its currency.” Cushman v. GC Servs., LP, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92863 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 13, 2009)  Obviously this is a legal standard that Bitcoin fails to meet. Clearly this assault on Mt. Gox is nothing more than a desperate attempt by a failing empire to retain its control over the flow of resources around the world. As the Bitcoin network grows, we can expect similar measures to be taken by desperate gangs of elected criminals around the globe.

People should question why businesses should be forced to register as money transmitter services at all.  The only reason for such measures is to ensure that the state can monitor every single financial transaction that takes place within its borders. Last time I checked, freedom did not entail the state having access to everyone’s financial records without probable cause.  Not that I think the US Constitution is worth a damn, but I seem to recall something about, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

By creating a law that says all “papers and effects” must be turned over to the state, and then issuing a warrant based on the failure to comply with this law, it turns the notion of probable cause on its head.

Faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

On the website Debate.org, the question of whether government is necessary or not was put up for debate.  One of the responses that was given in favor government being a necessity says:

Without an enforcing government to have justice and keep the peace, I do believe that the human race would turn on itself and descend into chaos. Our personalities and even our families lend themselves towards governance.  Without it, we would have no organization, no services, and no police. Education would be spotty, we would be thrown back into a stone-age like existence.

As a promoter of anarcho-capitalism, I encounter these arguments a lot.  They are purely religious arguments.  There is no proof behind any of the claims, only a lot of assumptions that are based on blind faith.  Belief in the state really is nothing more than a religion; and I believe it is one of the most destructive religions around.

There is no state that a person can point to.  A person cannot point to a building or a street and say, “Here is the state!”  The state doesn’t even exist except within the confines of our own minds.  The great monuments states erect in their own honor are a means of providing a physical structure for beliefs to cling to, much like the great religious monuments of ancient times. The entire apparatus of the state is born out of fear, rather than out of necessity; something which all religions have in common.

The state has a vast array of ceremonies to solemnify and justify its existence.  Judges’ chambers and garb come right out of the protestant church.  Flags are treated with the same reverence as a religious icon.  The pomp and circumstance of a presidential inauguration is only surpassed by a Papal coronation.  The singing of hymns mirrors the singing of anthems, and on and on it goes.

The state is predicated on the initiation of force.  If the collection of people who call themselves the state could not tax or inflate, those people could not exist as we know them today.  If the use of force to gain compliance was impossible, the state would collapse within days.  It is only through threats of violence that the collection of people who call themselves the state are able to exist at all.  What a disgraceful religion.  Certainly it is miles apart from peaceful tenants of Buddhism or the teachings of Christ.

It’s easy to prove that the initiation of force results in physical pain.  It’s easy to prove that voluntary cooperation in any endeavor will result in better outcomes than forced conscription.  It’s easy to prove that threats of force result in psychological harm. These are real testable outcomes.  It doesn’t take faith to know that hitting someone first results in a net harm being done, but believing the opposite certainly does.

Religions are like training wheels for the evolution of consciousness.  As consciousness matures, technology and philosophy will progress to the point where truth triumphs over false beliefs.  As such, I don’t expect nation states to be around indefinitely into the future.  Technology will eventually force the public to deal with the reality of what the state actually is.  A currency that cannot be taxed or inflated, or perhaps a technology that makes the initiation of force impossible, would throw the religion of the state into the dustbin of history.  I have faith that one day such technologies will be created.  In fact, some may already exist.

As an example, consider the Star Trek teleporter.  If such a technology were to be created, and everyone had access to one, it would be impossible to imprison anyone.  And if it was fast enough, it would be impossible to hit someone as well.  They could simply teleport away before the bullet or the blow landed on them.  Without the ability to imprison or kill, nation states would crumble overnight.

The author of the Debate.org comment believes that without the state, “the human race would turn on itself and descend into chaos.”  So I have to ask, doesn’t a belief in the state represent turning on your fellow man?  When the state threatens a peaceful business owner for his profits, doesn’t that constitute stealing?  When the state engages in war, doesn’t that constitute a decent into chaos?  When the state imprisons someone for growing their own drugs, doesn’t that constitute breaking the peace, rather than keeping the peace?  Where is the justice in that?

When the state has to resort to threats of force to keep children in its schools through truancy laws, isn’t that indicative of a problem with the schools, rather than the kids?  If a school was actually good, wouldn’t kids want to be there? If the state actually provided good schooling, why are 47% of Detroit citizens illiterate?  Talk about spotty education…

When the state has to resort to threats in order to provide water and roads, doesn’t that tell us something about the quality of the services being rendered?  Why is bottled water the number one selling drink in America?  Is it because state run water services are of such a low quality that people would rather pay twice to get good drinking water?  If the roads are so good, why are people willing to pay toll road fees to avoid traffic and poor quality roads?  One of the first and most beneficial highways in America was a private venture.  Ask anyone if they would rather drive on the private roads in Disney World or the public roads in Chicago, and I’ll wager not a single person chooses Chicago.

The state is a mental construct born of fear, forged in chaos, and tempered in the fire of violence.  This destructive religion will one day topple under the weight of its own fictitious beliefs, to be replaced by truth and reason.  A hundred years ago, the primary mode of transportation was horseback.  We are toddlers in the cosmic universe, still threatening each other for the control of each other’s toys.  This will come to an end, and that’s a belief worth having faith in.

Listen to Economist David Friedman explain what a rational secular society might look like:

The problem facing two people in a direct exchange is that no one wants to send their money first.  Let’s go through a simple scenario.  Let’s suppose there is a forum where people post Bitcoins for sale like bitcoin-otc, and I am interested in buying Bitcoins from one of the users.  I message a person who is selling 10 Bitcoins asking him to do a swap of my dollars for his Bitcoins.  If I send him money through PayPal, how do I know he will send me the coins?  If he sends me the coins, how does he know I will wire him the fiat money on PayPal?  Clearly this ends in a stalemate with neither person willing to risk sending the money first.

The site NashX attempts to address this problem by having people risk Bitcoins for destruction before initiating a trade.  Here’s an example of how it works.  Both the buyer and the seller create accounts on NashX.  Both the buyer and the seller load Bitcoins into their NashX accounts.  When a seller wishes to sell his Bitcoins for cash, he will put up an offer that looks something like this:

“I will risk 20 Bitcoins in order to sell 10 Bitcoins for $1000 USD”

The buyer will then respond by accepting this deal, and putting up 20 Bitcoins of his own.  So both the buyer and the seller now have 20 Bitcoins at stake in this deal.  The buyer then messages the seller to get his PayPal information and sends him the money on PayPal.  If the buyer fails to send the seller his cash, the seller can destroy the deal, sending all 40 of the “at risk” coins into a “blackhole” address where no one will ever have access to those coins.  Presently the site is setup to send the destroyed coins to the miners who processed the transaction, but Yoo is considering changing this to a blackhole address.

By doubling the amount being offered for sale and putting that amount up as “at risk funds” the exchange stays within the Nash equilibrium.  By pairing this concept with mutually assured destruction, trades can be made with a high level of confidence that each player will hold up his end of the bargain. This system eliminates the need to have a web of trust, such as the one presently in place at bitcoin-otc.

If one party only has a small amount of Bitcoins to work with, but wants to buy or sell a lot more, the solution is to simply do several smaller transactions.  So my 10  Bitcoin example might take place with ten 1 Bitcoin transactions using a 2 Bitcoin risk fund for each trade.  Since each party already has each other’s details, these exchanges can take place in a fairly rapid succession.

While the site is still in beta, I can already tell that the concept has a tremendous amount of promise.  I expect to see similar sites like this one popping up all over the internet.  Sites like this will allow for virtually unlimited currency trading that occurs outside the scope of the heavily regulated and monitored banking industry.  NashX’s trading structure allows for anonymous trades if users wish to go that route, as people could send cash by snail mail if they wanted to, although the seller would still have to provide a mailing address.

Further, given that the prices for coins are entered in a separate data field, it is entirely possible to build up a display of price metrics.  This means that if state actors were to ever shutdown the major Bitcoin exchanges, pricing information could still be obtained from sites like NashX.  Sites like NashX make it virtually impossible for state actors to completely shutdown the Bitcoin network by attacking the weakest link.  As long as pricing information is maintained, trades can continue over the counter.

I encourage Mr. Yoo to open source his code, which would allow people to rapidly build upon the concept, along with making it easier for people to setup similar sites on the Tor network without having to code their own from scratch.

Given that NashX is not tied to any financial institution, a similar site could easily be setup on the Tor network.  If such a site existed on the Tor network, not only could users be assured of their anonymity, it would also completely prevent any state actors from attempting to shutdown the site by legislation.  The Tor network is an encrypted anonymous web network that hosts sites like the Silk Road.

The only downside to this process is that each player must already have Bitcoins before either can initiate a trade.  However, Mr. Yoo stated he is addressing this problem by “NashX taking Cash-At-Bank and sending BTC/LTC directly to their risk fund at BTC-E exchange rates.”  So basically you can wire him money and he will load your account.  While this requires trusting Mr. Yoo, at least you know who he is and where his business is located, which would allow you to file a lawsuit against him if he fails to deliver.

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The Daily Mail reports:

…The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, said : ‘Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without, regardless of their religious affiliation.

Belief was associated with not only improved psychological wellbeing, but a decrease in depression and intention to self-harm, explained David Rosmarin, McLean Hospital clinician and instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical…

…Research at San Francisco General Hospital monitored the effects of prayer on 393 cardiac patients.

Patients were asked if they wanted to take part in the trial but were not told whether they would be the subject of prayers.

Half were prayed for by a group of strangers who only had the patients’ names.

Those who were prayed for had fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia and needed less drug treatment.

They also improved more quickly and were able to leave hospital earlier.

A separate study, at Columbia University in New York, asked people in Australia, the U.S. and Canada to pray for named people undergoing IVF treatment in Korea.

Of the group in Korea, half had prayers said about them by the foreign strangers.

Among this half, the success rate for implantation of the embryo in the womb went up from 8 per cent to 16 per cent.

Cases of successful conception – where the fetus started developing – went up from 25 to 50 per cent.

Looks like atheism may be bad for your health.

The mind-body connection is far more important than our determinist materialist science has led us to believe.  I also think this is why marijuana is able to create such a miraculous improvement over such a wide range of conditions.  The drug changes people’s mindsets, and that change in mindset helps amplify the physical healing properties of the drug itself.  Belief can manifest reality, as these studies prove.  Consciousness is primary.  It is necessary for matter to exist.  It makes sense that consciousness should also be able to alter the physical systems of matter that it creates.

Slightly related to this topic, I just watched a fascinating video on the mind-brain connection.  The hard problem of consciousness is intractable in a materialist determinist model.  It is simply impossible to account for experiential awareness by studying the physical properties of matter.  This logical problem of producing consciousness from inanimate matter is called the problem of strong emergence.  Quantum physics also has a problem of explaining how matter can exist in a measurable state without conscious observation.  This problem is called the Quantum Mind-Body problem.

In an attempt to solve these issues, some researchers have begun developing theories of consciousness that are non-local to the brain.  Where the brain acts as a receiver and processor of consciousness, much like your radio receives and processes radio signals.  This video presentation by Robert and Suzanne Mays is one of the best models I’ve seen put forth so far.

Presented at the IANDS 2011 Conference, Sept. 2-4, in Durham, NC

Read more here.

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The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix

By Rolling Stone journalist, Matt Taibbi

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world’s largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

Continue reading.

I decided to post this because he opens with the “conspiracy theorists were right” bit.  Damn right we are, but you’re still not getting it Taibbi.  The STATE is the problem, not the banks.  The banks were only able to do what they did because of the millions of pages of financial regulations that structure and shape the industry.  A real free market would never have allowed such a banking system to form in the first place!