It's important to know what you like

"They practically only sell books about Christianity." Sounds like New Mexico. I am agnostic and I am sooooo tired of the never ending Christianity here. It's either that or neohippys. There is a GIANT billboard near my work that says "Jesus is alive beyond a reasonable doubt" and another one that shows a picture of a wooden cross with nails and says "He loves you this much". I want to take paint and write "KINKY" on that one. I get it. Some people love Jesus. But religion is like a dick. It's great if you have one and like it, but don't go shoving it down other people's throats.

@LittleD same here back when I lived in new mexio deming

@LittleD Same with me in Russia, now we have some religious boom and every person think it is normal to try to make me join one of the religions, they don't actually care that I have my own opinion about everything

@little_donut did you mean: one of the religions instead of one of religions?

@Zentalon Sorry, my native language is Russian and I'm not as fluent in English as I want to be, so it's just a mistake. Have I offended you?

@little_donut of course you have not offended me.

@LittleD

"Religion is like a dick. It's great if you have one and like it, but don't go shoving it down other people's throats."

I created an account just now so that could tell you thank you for that quote, and I'm stealing it.

@Eliseus
Go forth and use it as you wish...just don't shove it down anyone's throat ;)

Ah religion, the only thing more polarizing than politics

@Motlias ...and sex. All them mare topics on which people haves strong opinions and thus should never be discussed among friends.

@BillBones actually, the only people I talk about religion politics and sex with is my friends. We have some really intense and... really, really weird convosations

@Motlias Lol, I admire all religions, so for me it's politics that are the most polarizing

"They (The Faroe) practically only sell books about Christianity. All they care about when buying a book is Jesus"
The reason why because people up there is closer to nature and thereby God, in the warm comforts of civilisation we have a tendency to forget just how blessed we are. This counts double for the people that live in the big metropolitan cities, they are the most clueless about the true horrors of the world, which is why they are almost universally leftist.
The smart people are always to be found in the rural areas.

@rphb funny, I'd say a lot of people would argue the other way around. I could argue that smarter people gravitate towards more diverse areas with more to see than the same things all the time, in the same small bubble. Or I could be reasonable and suggest that people of all intelligence levels live in all sorts of places, because that's how life works. That being said, one can be both smart and ignorant, and that often happens in places where you aren't exposed to a variety of cultures, views, people, situations, etc. Source: I'm (objectively) smart, have travelled extensively and lived in both rural and urban areas and met people from many different background and viewpoints and societies. I've seen brilliant rednecks and stupid scientists. Great people and awful people on both the 'left' and 'right'. Stereotyping doesn't get you anywhere, and neither does a superiority complex.

@ammali well said

@ammali and here is my upvote for you!

'@ammali' " I could argue that smarter people gravitate towards more diverse areas with more to see than the same things all the time, in the same small bubble"
Not smarter if it means intelligence. Scoring higher on "big five" trait Openness, which is not directly linked to intelligence and likely inversely correlated to religious fundamentalism. Rural and urban lifestyles are vastly different and, given sufficiently low cost of moving, that may facilitate self-segregation based on personality. On top of that, societal and environmental pressures like exposure to greater risk of infectious diseases are able to affect personality and preferences as well.
Sources: http://www.umass.edu/preferen/You%20Must%20Read%20This/Schaller%20Murray%20Pathogens.pdf
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1640/1279
http://www.umass.edu/preferen/You%20Must%20Read%20This/Schaller%20Murray%20Pathogens.pdf

Smart as in "knows how to survive without water main, gas and electricity" is almost exclusive to rural communities. Definitions matter.

Quite often stereotype based on experience and tested by repeated observation is a useful shortcut.

@comrade_Comrade You can both be right. You're saying that smart people move toward more diverse areas (by which I assume you mean cities) while @rphb is saying that cities make you ignorant of certain facts of life. You can be intelligent but ignorant. For example Newton was smarter than me, but I know more about quantum physics and relativity than he did. He was smart but ignorant (lacking knowledge).

Similarly, a very intelligent person can be ignorant of the difficulties of life if that person is too sheltered and protected.

'@LoveIsGood' I've made an edit to clarify my point. If "smart" means intelligence alone, then diversity (whatever it means) would not affect the distribution much. If "smart" means practical knowledge, then I'd say that rural population is more likely to have an upper hand. Living in modern city favors specialization and accumulation of useless knowledge. I suspect that places exist in which most of younger generation doesn't know how to work with power (not to mention hand) tools unless it's their job.

@comrade_Comrade Oops, I think I got your post and the one by @ammali jumbled up in my head. Sorry about that. But I think the point on what a Faroe Islander is likely to know is not about power tools or how to live off the land. It is about the forces of nature and how tiny we are. It is about the uncertainty of life. It is about the amount of work required to survive. A middle class person in a wealthy developed country is less likely to have first-hand experience with this.

'@LoveIsGood' great point. I'm always more focused on material side of things, so I consider the most important difference is that in city your environment is controlled for you by someone else, outside of the city you have to control the environment or see your living conditions deteriorate fast. That difference alone should cause a big shift in mindset.
In remote enough places that comes with a bonus of understanding that nature is actually constantly trying to kill you :)

'@LoveIsGood'

That Newton example dumb, he was with all likelihood a lot smarter then everyone on this page.
Because of giants after him that build on his shoulders we as a society today have greater knowledge then they had at his time, but that is completely irrelevant.
I was talking about how smart one is about life.

A city don’t have to be diverse, that is a weakness of modern decadent western civilization, that we have allowed our cities more then any other parts of our countries to become diverse. Look at an eastern city like Tokyo that is one of the biggest in the world, that place is really not diverse, it is all Japanese, it is no different in Soul, Bangkok or any of the large cities in China, they are almost all pure mono ethnical.

Remember: diversity is a weakness. I don’t know if thou have gotten to that recognition yet, because the lie of “diversity is a strength” have been regurgitated so much politicians that wants us nothing but harm.
Unity is a strength, societies are built around their social cohesion that are directly correlated to how much its people have in common. The less people have in common with one another, the less trusting they are towards one another and the more fearful they become of strangers, because a stranger that one have a lot in common with, is much less risky to engage with then one that are completely different.

Societal unity, that which makes a group of people a nation, and how strong it is can be measured by comparing how many of these following characteristics they have in common:
Ethnicity, religion, language, history, culture, public institutions, we want people to share as many as possible, to be as united as possible. Diversity kills, and I am not being figurative here, just look at the Balkan.
Diversity + proximity = war.

@rphb Ignorance is not being stupid, ignorance is lacking knowledge of something.
Everyone on this thread knows that during WW2 the allies won and the axis lost, Newton had know idea of any of this as it had not happened yet, therefore he was ignorant of 20th century history. He was certainly a genius

'@Carolus'_Rex
yes, that is why it was dumb to even mention him, he was a great genius.
But when it comes to politics, the most correct word is properly more along something like "naive"

Leftist are incredibly naive about how the world really works (otherwise they wouldn't be leftist) but they can still be very intelligent. The problem as I said, is that cities shelter people about how the world really works. They have no connection with nature as they are at the end of a very long supply chain, (that are much more fragile than any of them think).
They are doing a job that have very little to do with actual reality. These in the cities that even do anything remotely useful, such as garbage men, still work in the tertiary service sector.
Cities simply don’t produce stuff. Ye can claim that they produce knowledge, but that is debatable.
They are a sponge that sucks up the energy of the productive countryside, without really giving anything of real substance back, and that is what allows them to float on a leftist cloud of sunshine and rainbows, not to mention more debt then makes sense in any metrics.

@rphb I made this account solely for replying to that post. Your reasoning is completely historically incorrect. I don't know what you are basing this of, except perhaps logic that feels good to you.

One of the main reasons why WW1 was possible (and happened) was because of the isolationist politics the European countries used. If we look at the cold war, most of the issues between USA and Soviet were boiled down to lack of trust and understanding of each other. This means that "unifying" your country by alienating the people that don't fit into the norm is bad. In fact, it has almost always resulted in war. Using Balkan as an example for saying that "diversity is bad" is a disgusting abuse of history and shows a lack of understanding on Balkan history, Serbia's POV versus, say, Croatia's POV.

If we look at real historical events, we can conclude that diversity causes peace. One of the old Arabian empires were diverse in such a way that people could have other religion and still live there without issues (the only thing was that non-muslims had to pay a tax). This resulted in a rich empire. We also have the peaceful trade that occured for, iirc, 400 years, in the Indian Ocean with Muslims, Indians, Africans (non-muslim ones) and Chinese until the Europeans fucked it up with guns and monopol.

Then we have the fact that the 21st century is the most peaceful and safe time for humanity. No, that doesn't mean that there are no bad stuff. It means that it is way more peaceful and safe than any other century (I'd like you to point at a time where it was better for humanity if you disagree).

Like I said in the start of my post, you base your logic on some... I don't know what, assumption? It is historically incorrect though. And logically incorrect too. I suggest that you start reading methodical history books. I recommend The Use and Abuse of History by Margaret Macmillan.

'@Sigh'

First let me say that I am honored that thou created a post just for me, I understand what it is like to want to reply to someone that I think is incorrect.
It can be hard to reach another using only logic, but if we both remember to stay civil, and not assume that the other is less intelligent and then we can at least hope that it will be possible.


Let us start with the beginning and take thine points one at a time.
1) World war one
What caused this greatest of tragedies? Because if it is not in any way simple.
However, before we go down to the details most all wars are fought because of power, to gain it, or in order to not lose it.
The old German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, but much of his main vice was not his imperialist ambitions, but his inability to diplomatically contain France, as Bismarck had done.
It was intricate and entangled alliances that caused the war. Without these alliances the murder in Sarajevo would not have resulted in anything other than an Austrian invasion of Serbia.
I said it was not simple, because the problem was complexity, once the first domino was knocked over, the whole board was knocked over and Europe exploded.
It wasn’t nationalism that caused the war, Europe was very open before 1914, people could go practically everywhere, it was just a continent of many great powers in sharp competition.
And the old great powers of the United Kingdom and France did not like that Germany in a few short decades had transformed itself from a soft sponge to an iron wall.
The old Holy Roman Empire that Napoleon had dissolved was a joke, but the German Empire was a serious challenge, and he wanted his place in the sun.

But the one factor that truly changed the outcome of the whole war was America. It was the first major international conflict that America joined and its entry destroyed the power balance of Europe and set the stage for all future conflicts.
I made this map, where I have calculated how the war would have ended without American interference: http://rphb.deviantart.com/art/No-Wilson-676008833

Woodrow Wilson, the grandfather of globalism wanted to make the world safe for democracy. That was not his duty, he had not been elected president of the world. He had one job, to keep the American democracy safe, and America was never threatened by the Kaiser, not in any way.
World war two was a direct consequence of the harsh and humiliating conditions that the Germans had to suffer under after world war one.
And the cold war was a direct consequence of world war two, in fact if not for Wilson’s bribery of the short lived Russian Republic the October revolution would have with all likelihood failed and Russia would never have fallen to communism, and it is likely that China wouldn’t either (but for another but similar reason).

The key problem here was not isolationism, but the exact opposite, that the countries were not isolationistic enough. Had every country just minded its own business, and taken care of its own and only its own, world war one would never have happened.
And had just America done that, the war would have ended in a stalemate that would have prevented any future conflict from occyring.

2) Islam
I don’t think thou know, thy profile picture says thou art Swedish, so thou properly don’t know, but Islam is Evil.
I don’t use that word lightly, it was literally made by the devil, if we are to believe what Muhammad himself said. Surah 3:54 among others identify Allah as ”the greatest of deceivers”.
But beyond the theology, we just have to look at what he did. Killed men, raped women and children. He was a ruthless conquer, not a holy man like Jesus, Buddha or Zaratustra.

And look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
showing the unprecedented and proportionally violent jihads.

The word “Islam” itself is Arabic and means “submission” the “peace” that some apologist claims it means, is conditional to ones surrender to it.

Finally the jizya tax was not small and insignificant but crippling, and then we havn’t even got into the Arabic slave trade, and the other horrors that they caused.

3) Multiculturalism
Is cultural suicide.
I mentioned a list of things that together makes a group of people into a nation.
It all have to do with how much they have in common.
In general, we need the same language simply to talk to one another,
Culture is about everything that is unsaid, all of our entranced ideas and way of life
Ethnicity is about blood, of our physical ancestry that binds us together.
Religion have often served as a powerful ingroup-outgroup distinction and so on.

I linked to this video, I don’t know if thou hast seen it, it is also very insightful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTROCGb5qj8

But that is what nationhood is all about, shared ideas, of being united with others over many things.

I weep for Sweden. The country have already changed so much, from the safe and peaceful nation it was just a few short decades ago.
Now it is the rape capital of Europe, and there are many places, in and around the big cities where even the police dare not go. Rinkeby comes to mind up the top of my list.
If ye don’t make a sharp u-turn, and start reclaiming your nation, there is not going to be a Sweden by 2050

'@Sigh' " If we look at the cold war, most of the issues between USA and Soviet were boiled down to lack of trust and understanding of each other."
Of course, comrade, Those mean westerners simply did not trust comrade Stalin enough and didn't understand that living under communist regime is just great. Soviet delegation to Prague, for example, helped to clear up such misunderstanding nicely. It's not like conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba or Angola had a distinct ideological component, really.

Talk about abuse of history.

@rphb I like how you state that people of different cultures or whatever would have trouble trusting one another, because that's not my experience at all. When I meet someone of a wholly different cultural background, say an Indian, Korean, Somalian or whathaveyou, I don't trust them less than a native Dutch person by default as long as they seem friendly. The cultural differences actually give us things to learn from each other, opportunities to look at things from each other's perspectives, and reconsider (and possibly reject or reinforce) beliefs we've been rooted in for all our lives... Doesn't sound like a weakness to me.

Of course it's not all positive, mainly because some cultures promote distrust and the seeking of conflict. I believe the Moroccan culture is notorious for this in our country, and many people feel threatened by Moroccans, because they constantly raise their voice to sound angry or something. I also heard once that people of different races have trouble reading each other's faces, which only contributes to the threatening sensation, because otherwise we might be able to tell by their faces that they really don't mean it that aggressively. Guess there's something in your distrust theory after all. On the other hand, the threatening sensation vanishes instantly if you greet them and they greet you back.

Language is also something that should genuinely be the same, because when people in my country are speaking a language I don't understand I will often feel locked out and wonder if they're talking about me behind my back.

Not everyone may experience things the same way I do, but I think I'm at least reasonably representative. Except maybe for people who have been taught to fear or despise everything that's different from them.

'@Zeust'
Nice to hear that even a leftist can agree that there should be less Moroccans in the Netherlands. (Moroccans have a place they can call their home, it is called Morocco).
I am not saying that it can’t be nice to go out travelling and see new and existing places and see new and exciting people, but as always there is no place like home.
Thou addresses many of the reasons for why strangeness decreases trust. But it is not just trust in others, it is also trust in ourselves, that we know what is appropriate, for instance by saying “Marry Christmas” in December under the clear conviction that everyone we meet is also celebrating Christmas.
That is one big thing, but there are a thousand miner things. Thou mentioned one of the biggest one, language. If thou don’t understand what they say that naturally leads to distrust.
But the most important one of why strangers in our society is a bad idea is because of the biological process of kin-selection.
A nation is more than just a collection of people and much more than just a state. A nation is a family, it is the tribe or the clan, taken to its logical extreme.
The nation is the justification for a state, it is what gives it legitimacy. It serves a people, not just any people, but a specific people, that call a specific piece of land, their home, in thy case, the Dutch.
Moroccans are not Dutch, Koreans are not Dutch, Somalis are most certainly not Dutch, and they will never be Dutch, not in a hundred generations.
The nation-state and its ideological foundation, nationalism, states very simply that every people have a right to a home, and to rule themselves as a sovereign people.

The ideological enemy to nationalism is called imperialism. It calls itself globalism today, but that is just the logical consequence of imperialism to become all encompassing global.
Imperialism calls for the subjugation of people, whether they want to or not. Globalism just takes it one step further, insisting that all have to be subjugated to the same empire, it don’t even recognize competing empires, and that is a sure recipe for war.

@comrade_Comrade Did you read her entire comment? She said that she could argue that point, but concluded by saying that being smart isn't determined by location.

'@Edelstein9' you should read my entire comment too.

@comrade_Comrade You're arguing with someone over something they could have said and actually agreeing with their real argument.

'@Edelstein9' let's see. First I addressed a point that is mentioned, but not argued. Since it's not a private conversation, it means that both points will be read by someone else. "I could say X, but I won't" is still saying X, so argument against it is useful.

Then I mentioned that depending on definition of smart, statement "smart people are evenly distributed between rural and urban populations" may be incorrect and that defining vague terms is important. Especially since it is now obvious that original commenter didn't limit definition of "smart" to intelligence alone.

Then I disagreed on usefulness of stereotypes.

Still can see where I've agreed with something. Especially now that I can say that average estimated IQ of California, one of the most populous and urbanized states in US, is lower than that of Vermont or Maine, leaders by percentage of rural population.

@comrade_Comrade Saying "I could say x, but I won't, and here's a more informed argument" isn't really the same. But using an argument that a person never used to discredit them is very much like trying to argue with someone over something they don't even believe. Wait, that's exactly it.

'@Edelstein9' thinking that addressing a talking point as an attempt to discredit someone is really something special.

@comrade_Comrade Yes, using something a person didn't even believe in an attempt to attack their argument is truly special.

'@Edelstein9' try reading past first paragraph.

@Edelstein9 Thank you for understanding my point you are indeed right that I was saying "I could say X, but that would be ignorant and short-sighted" alluding to the fact that the original post was that way. Sorry I'm a bit late, but thanks for standing up for me!

@ammali I agree with just about everything you've stated, but while it's true stereotypes are never accurate 100% of the time, they are largely derived from real-life circumstances.

Yes, there are brilliant rednecks and stupid scientists, but 95% of scientists are not stupid and 95% of rednecks are. I've travelled to 18 countries and 25 states. I've lived almost all my life in the San Francisco area, but I've also lived in a small town in rural Illinois. They are worlds apart, and the vast majority of the people in that town in Illinois are beyond idiotic. And in truth, they're just as dimwitted as the people I've met in small towns across Indiana, Georgia, Oregon, and even California. They think global warming is a hoax, border walls stop illegal immigrants, and that Super Space Daddy is watching us all from the pearly gates.

Call me bigoted, call me biased, or tell me I have a "superiority complex," but 99% of people on the "right" are just plain awful. They're conservative because they're small-minded and self-centered, and they're religious because they believe everything they're told. History has proven they're virtually always wrong as well. Sorry, not sorry.

'@niels0827' "I've lived almost all my life in the San Francisco area"
It shows. Also, congratulations, you've just took a massive dump on second man to walk on the Moon :)
First one too, if you include vaguely religious small government types in "right".

Hm, first crew to complete circumlunar flight as well.

@comrade_Comrade Fallacy of false equivocation, русский. The religious hold the burden of proof since proving a negative is impossible. And they still attest to the truthfulness of their sincerely-held beliefs despite this very lack of sufficient proof. Nevertheless, I hold a much higher respect for those who designed and programmed our rockets and formulated the trajectory than someone who just sat inside a shuttle following a couple years of training and walked on a foreign celestial body.

Also, since I'm assuming you may never have left Russia since your country likes to keep you all corralled like farm animals, I'll assume for the sake of this conversation that you were somehow under the impression that the entirety of the Bay Area is overwhelmingly left-leaning.

'@niels0827' "The religious hold the burden of proof since proving a negative is impossible"
Proof of what? That 99% of republican voters are inbred morons? Yeah, I didn't see that from you.

"I hold a much higher respect for those who designed and programmed our rockets and formulated the trajectory"
Ok, von Braun was Lutheran, eventually became evangelical Christian. Also at some point he was a Literally Nazi, though most likely due to necessity. Programming and trajectory design? Do you mean principal designers or those who did boring number crunching?

"who just sat inside a shuttle "
Shuttle. Facepalm.

"following a couple years of training"
Facepalm intensifies. Guess you won't see "The Right Stuff" until it gets a Hollywood reboot, I'm sure there will be an appropriately heavy dose of political correctness added to original material.
However that would be true if you were talking about Tereshkova. First token woman in space, huge win for diversity.

In the mean time, Buzz Aldrin oppresses women and minorities everywhere by showing that one of the few most competent people of his time is an evil Republican, is not hysterical about AGW and actually met with Pence after the election. First and only PhD that went to the Moon is guilty of such heresies as well, except for meeting with VP.

"since I'm assuming you may never have left Russia"
And I was assuming that you have a functioning brain. We all make mistakes.

"your country likes to keep you all corralled like farm animals"
"well traveled" commifornian is going to inform me on living conditions in Russia. That's hilarious.

" under the impression that the entirety of the Bay Area is overwhelmingly left-leaning"
Entirety? Not yet.

@niels0827 :OK, You're bigoted, biased, & have a superiority complex, & believe 99% of people on the right are idiotic & "just plain awful" since they have opinions that differ from the divinely inspired and beyond-all-debate-correct ones you & your friends hold. I'm afraid that being "small minded" isn't the monopoly of either far left or far right.

@Newnetherlander See, that's your problem, not mine. You think I'm talking about people's opinions. I'm talking about what people think opinions are, or that people have opinions on facts. The right overwhelmingly rejects science and analysis. They believe climate change is a hoax. They believed the sun went around the Earth. They believe in the Biblical and Quranic fables that are not only physically impossible but lacking in all proof.

People on the far left can and sometimes do have stupid opinions, but I don't see anywhere near half as many leftists proclaiming an opinion on a fact.

@niels0827 You mean opinions like Socialism can be good for people...like in Venezuela?

'@ammali'
It is a statistical fact, that cities are more leftist and rural areas are right leaning.
and there is direct correlation between how right wing thou art and how political wise thou art, and wise versa for left wing.

That of course does not say anything against what thou just say, there are smart people in cities, but the political map from voter patterns just shows that they are a minority.
Just look at the American or British elections

http://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028

the trend is clear, and it was the trend that I was talking about. There are always exceptions.
The problem with cities and the reason why they tend to float on a leftist bubble is because excess resources naturally float to them, they are unsustainable on their own.
Because they get excess resources, people in them tend to take resources for granted, they think of them as endless. They think like rabbits, like an r-selective animal.

That is the underlying biological divide, between being left wing orientated and right wing orientated. Of whether one is r-selective, or k-selective, that is whether one focuses on quantity or quality.

@rphb Heh, it's really entertaining that you don't actually understand those maps that you've linked.
http://metrocosm.com/election-2016-map-3d/
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/

That same effect demonstrated above can be applied to the brexit map.
The colored squares only indicate that a majority of the population of that area voted one way or the other, with no reference to the magnitude of the populations relative to one another, nor a very granular indication of the magnitude of the opposing votes.

Using that same criteria, imagine if only 20 people lived in all of China and 11 of them vote red. Now imagine you have 5,000,000 people in Poland and all 5 million of them vote blue. If those two countries were placed together on a voting map like the ones you've shared, then blue would have a tiny square, and red would have a massive one.
It doesn't show that 5,000,009 people voted for blue and 11 people voted for red, it just shows that >50% of the population in an area of land voted one way and disregards how many people actually did.

So, no, cities aren't a minority in terms of people at all. They might be a minority in terms of acreage, but not populace.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what your country's political parties beliefs are, but since you've holding up the USA's right wing as being analogous to your own and further equating them as being more wise or intelligent or whatever, I'm gonna use them as the basis of this next point.

Going along with the utterly flawed premise that humans can be anything but K-selective, the right wing here in the US believes in getting rid of birth control as much as is possible. Wouldn't it actually be more K-selective to allow for people to have contraceptive options so as to reduce the number of pregnancies in general, so that not only are the parents able to be of "higher quality" by contributing more and being productive before needing to take care of a child, but also the children would be of "higher quality" due to better preparedness on the part of the parents?

That doesn't matter though, since there isn't such a thing as an r-selective human and there is no underlying biological divide between humans of different political leanings any more than there's an underlying biological divide between two people standing on different sides of a street.

'@Breuger' ,

I never claimed that there were few people living in cities. I am fully aware that they are the population centers.
I said that a city cannot sustain itself and I said that in general they are not very productive.
Cities requires a huge and constant influx of resources, and the supply chain of today, especially with the adoption of “just-in-time principles, are incredible fragile. The smallest disruption could have devastating consequences.

Production is the key to prosperity, because that is where all economic wealth comes from. The established Keynesian economist are under the delusion that wealth somehow comes from consumption, which of course puts cities over the edge in terms of wealth, but even elementary school logic can kill that myth.
Because while we can produce things even if no one is consuming them, we cannot consume things that aren’t there.
Cities have a lot of people, that gives very little back to society at large, while the rural areas have few people that carry the burden of feeding everyone.
Where does money come from?
A cornfield, a mine or a central banks printing press?

Regarding r/K selection theory it is nice to hear someone that are familiar with it.
It is indeed very applicable for humans, it is also applicable for certain other species of animals where some r-selective individuals cheat their way to the female when the species as a whole is k-selective.

A truly r-selective species like rabbits don’t have cheaters, because there simply is no one to cheat.

But it is like this: k-selective are competitive, r-selective are anti-competitive, a k-selective would rather lose with honour then cheat, for an r it is the other way around, because r’s have no concept of honour or valour.

k-selective recognises scarcity, r-selective lives in the delusion of plenty.
Cities are the breading grown of r-selevtive humans because they are places of massive consumption and little production.
r-selective humans cannot survive in the wild, that is the key, they are parasitic by nature.
And that is what leftism (socialism) is all about, taking resources from the productive elements of society and giving it to the unproductive elements, such as single mothers.

Being right, that is being liberal, (true liberal, not fake socialist in disguise liberal), is about allowing people to be free, so they can make their own lot in life.
Socialism is fundamentally evil, because it punishes people for their virtues, but it is also self-destructive. Because r-selective humans cannot survive on their own, they need a strong k-selective population to leach of.
Cities have always been where r-selective grows from, because that is where thing are safe and orderly enough for them to exist, without having to compete.


The so called conservatives in America are against birth control, due to the moral hazard that it contains. A women’s virginity are as important as her youth and beauty. It is a little like the difference between a new car and a used car.
There is also a real limit to how many resources we really need in order to be able to provide for our children. Yes there really are people in the third world that truly are destitute. But in North America and Europe no one is truly poor.
All poverty in the west can basically be traced back to a case of personal bad judgement, such as substance abuse or having children out of wedlock.
Anyone in the west that are married, with no substance abuse and with a steady job, no matter how menial, are able to provide for as many children as they can carry. They may not be able to get the newest ipod and properly have to go to second hand stores but that is not really something that decreases happiness. We don’t need most of the material goods that we enjoy, but we do need to stay together. Every child needs both a mother and a father, and it needs to be their own.

'@rphb' "The so called conservatives in America are against birth control, due to the moral hazard that it contains. A women’s virginity are as important as her youth and beauty. It is a little like the difference between a new car and a used car."
And here I thought it was about some methods of contraception being considered abortive measures, therefore murder given that they consider fetus to be a live person

"Cities have a lot of people, that gives very little back to society at large, while the rural areas have few people that carry the burden of feeding everyone."
Using machinery built in cities. Industrialization requires concentrations of labor, cities do just that.

"Where does money come from?
A cornfield, a mine or a central banks printing press?"
Colored paper comes from printing press, value - from sum of economic activity, banks and markets allocate capital and resources.
You're reasoning along the same lines as French physiocrats did, economic theory advanced a bit since then.

'@comrade'_Comrade
1) Virginity
No virginity is not about contraception, it is about ethic, and it is about simple biology. It changes men but especially women to have sex, and them having just one former sexual partner drastically limits their ability to pairbond, which is the biological process needed for a marriage to work.
A successful marriage is one where the wows are not broken, where the man and the woman are faithful to each other until death.

2) Cities.
It is true that industrial centers are the home for much of the real economic activity in the world. That is where the goods from the primary producers are turned into finished products. It is the so called secondary sector.
But modern western cities aren’t the home of real economic activity. Take the Volkswagon factory in Germany as an example. It lies in the small town of Baunatal outside the minor city (200’000 people) of Kessel.
In America its former industrial capital (Detroit) is now more or less a ghost town.
The cities that are now prospering are places like New York or Los Angeles. Places that produces nothing of value. LA is the center of the American propaganda machine and NY its main finansial center.
But financialization don’t produce anything, it only makes everything worse. Banks are financial leaches. Banks don’t allocate resources, they steal resources. I don’t think thou know how banking works. Fractional reserve banking invents currency ex nihilo and then have the audacity to demand it back, with interest.
“Honorable banker” is an example of an oxymoron and the autonym to “integrity” is “bank”

3) Two economies.
There are two different economies in the world, there is the real economy that deals with stuff, and there is the fictional (or financial) economy, that deals with numbers (or imaginary concepts).

A gold coin is a type of stuff, so it can be money, a paper bill is only a claim check, so it is fictional, and numbers on a computer are even more fictional.
A society’s wealth cannot be measured by its economic activity, as much activity can be wasteful. We need to look at reality, we need to look at what is produced, not at what is consumed.
If consumption exceeds production then we have overconsumption and that is unsustainable. We need to underconsume for as long as we have overconsumed just to restore balance.
And if we drain the base, that is the gifts God have given us, such as the soil and what have been hidden in it, the future sustainable levels might be permanently lowered. In other words we might condemn our children’s children to a life of extreme hardship and suffering because we squandered the resources that we had been given by our ancestors.
The base is the most important of all, because it is the beginning of the supply chain, it is where all economic activity start.
The huge problem we have today is that the fictional economy have taken over the real economy, so that bankers and stock brokers are rich while farmers and industrialist are overindebted and broke.
That is why they are called stock brokers, they make us broke.

'@rphb' 1) whatever, Republicans in US care about contraception only as far as abortions go.

2) "real economic activity"
Economic activity is not limited to production of durable goods. R&D, production of consumables, maintenance, logistics, sales, etc are important as well, even if they do not produce tangible product.

"In America its former industrial capital (Detroit) is now more or less a ghost town.
The cities that are now prospering are places like New York or Los Angeles"
Detroit's decay has a lot to do with local politics, outsourcing of industrial jobs was just a final nail in the coffin. New York and Los Angeles are not so much prosper as not yet failing.

"LA is the center of the American propaganda machine"
And tech industry.

"NY its main finansial center"
Allocation is as important as production.

"But financialization don’t produce anything, it only makes everything worse."
As if command economy is any better.

"Banks are financial leaches. Banks don’t allocate resources, they steal resources."
Banks do not operate with resources. There are some compelling arguments against fractional reserve banking and consumer credits, but handwaving away importance and complexity of investment, savings, transfers and other services is just too much. Creators of various cryptocurrencies thought it's easy, recent five years shown that it's not.

"Fractional reserve banking invents currency ex nihilo and then have the audacity to demand it back, with interest."
Interest is a rationing mechanism and unavoidable in any case, unless you somehow abolish inflation. Hint: it's very unlikely that you can.

3) "There are two different economies in the world, there is the real economy that deals with stuff, and there is the fictional (or financial) economy, that deals with numbers (or imaginary concepts)."
You forgot to mention R&D and tech/IT. Recent wave of ransomware shows that IT has a significant value despite being completely intangible and non-durable.

"A gold coin is a type of stuff, so it can be money, a paper bill is only a claim check, so it is fictional, and numbers on a computer are even more fictional."
Value of gold coin is as fictional as numbers in computer. There is no such thing as innate and/or immutable value.

"A society’s wealth cannot be measured by its economic activity, as much activity can be wasteful."
Definition of waste varies greatly. Economic indicators like GDP, inflation, employment can at least be measured.

"If consumption exceeds production then we have overconsumption and that is unsustainable. We need to underconsume for as long as we have overconsumed just to restore balance."
I'd like to see an example of how society can consume more than it produces.

"And if we drain the base, that is the gifts God have given us, such as the soil and what have been hidden in it, the future sustainable levels might be permanently lowered."
If you abolish the market economy that scenario is possible. Otherwise rising scarcity will raise prices, which will lead either to technological solution or reduction in consumption.

"In other words we might condemn our children’s children to a life of extreme hardship and suffering because we squandered the resources that we had been given by our ancestors."
Recycling is always and option, but fusion rocket propulsion alone will make incredible amounts of resources available. Thomas Malthus was wrong so far.

"The huge problem we have today is that the fictional economy have taken over the real economy, so that bankers and stock brokers are rich while farmers and industrialist are overindebted and broke."
That only happens when you look at one country that outsourced a lot of industrial jobs abroad while total industrial output still grows. Decline of small scale farming is inevitable, large scale industrial farms did not completely win only due to government subsidies, various inefficiencies of distribution and conspicuous consumption (I'm looking at those who pay triple for "organic" food).
Pretty sure that industrial sector does ok unless it is being boned by excessive regulation and taxation. Industrial jobs may suffer from automation, but huge upfront expenses mean that it will happen over the course of several decades at least.

'@comrade'_Comrade
1) Abortion.
I have said it often that I am against abortion, because I am pro-choice.
I think women are moral agents, and as such have the right to choose for themselves what to do. And exactly why they have the right to choose what to do, they also have to take responsibility for the choices they make. Giving them a get-out-of-jail-free-card that abortion is creates a moral hazard.
And we see that with women being needlessly slutty. If sluts were stuck with the children that they produce as a result of their sinful activities, and if they weren’t subsidized by the government, though welfare programs to single mothers; thou can bet that women would become a lot more responsible and reserved.

2) Real economy vs fictional economy.
I do plan to abolish inflation, and it is actually pretty easy, because inflation is man made and not at all natural as we have been let to believe.
If we just makes fraud illegal then there can’t be inflation, because all inflation is caused by fraud, specifically by the fraud of central banks such as the federal reserve’s constant expansion of the money supply, and of commercial banks fractional reserve lending.
By making all that illegal, and replacing it with a 100% backed gold standard, and a switch to full reserve banking, we won’t see inflation and we also won’t see any finanzialisation.
What we will see is that money will flow to where it is most productive.

I don’t have any problem with interest rates, that is just payment for the delayed gratification. If we choose to consume later and if we take risk in lending it to someone else, we ought to be compensated for it. The money just have to be real to begin with.

3) Intrinsic value
“Value of gold coin is as fictional as numbers in computer. There is no such thing as innate and/or immutable value”
It is intrinsic value that I am talking about here. Gold have intrinsic value, all stuff (real economic goods) have intrinsic value, their value is internal to the thing itself.
The opposite of intrinsic value is extrinsic value, which is when a finansial instrument have its value derived from an external factor such as a guarantee. A T-bill derives its value from the trust and confidence of the US government. How risky it is to poses depends on how likely we think the US is to default.

Because a gold coin have intrinsic value, and not dependent on somebody’s guarantee, it can’t go to zero.

Two other important aspect that we need to understand is the “resale value” and “end user value”
The resale value is how much we can get for it if we sell it to someone else. The end user value is what we can get out of it on its own.

It goes without saying that extrinsic financial instruments have no end user value, we always want them for what is implied they will get us, and not for our own sake. A bond should give us interest and a stock dividends, and if we have enough stocks we might also gain influence.
When we start to gain a controlling interest in a company stocks changes nature, as they go from a simple financial instrument to get dividents and becomes a certificate of ownership of real asset (the company)

For end user value gold have a number of chemical properties that makes it very useful, especially in electronic, and it is also objectively beautiful. That is why it will always be valuable, and thereby also have a resale value.

What we really need to look out for is things that have neither intrinsic nor extrinsic value, such as bitcoin. That is a mayor red flag.
We cannot use it to anything on its own. If nobody else wanted it, it would be Absolutely worthless, and it doesn’t come with a guarantee from anybody. It is simply a floating bunch of numbers worth only what somebody else is willing to pay.
But they are only willing to pay what they pay because they believe that somebody else will pay more later. That makes it a scam by definition.
All economic goods needs to have an end user. Extrensic goods like stocks and bonds are used to park wealth, as a form of delayed gratification and functions as an alternative to cash.

4) overconsumption
Thou want an example? That is very simply. Modern USA. Just look at the trade imbalance. When it imports more then it exports it overconsumes. That is only possible though finansialisation, the unbacked USD.
As long as the world was on a gold standard nature would force such overconsumption to stop, as America would have simply run out of gold. That was exactly what was close to happening in 1971 when Nixon “closed the gold window” that is ending the foreign central banks right to redeem dollars for gold.
Had the US not defaulted back then, a restructuring would have happened back to something that were sustainable. But thou art right that overconsumption aren’t natural and it can’t happen forever. But it can happen temporarily as a society consumes previously saved resources, that is it drains its reserves.
The financialisation have vastly distorted everything and when the illusion finally breaks the American empire will go down with it, and the world economy would have to be rebuild from scratch.

The problem with kick-the-can-down-the-road is that every time the can is kicked it gets a little bigger and the road is always uphill. Eventually it is going to crush us.

5) Draining the base
“scarcity will raise prices, which will lead either to technological solution or reduction in consumption.”
That is what will happen naturally yes, but finanzialisation twist everything and prevents the normal price discovery mechanism.
As such it can continue far past critical levels, which leads us to cause irrevocable damage to the environment.
The global warming alarmist always claims that their doomsday scenarios demands that we give up more power to global governance, but we can actually accept their premise and still reject their conclusion as the misallocation of resources caused by fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking, would contribute far more than any government interference could possibly subtract.

Finally the draining of the industrial base from the west and the US in particular are based on the tragic misconception that we live in a Riccardian world of competitive advantage.
We do not, that requires honest money, something we no longer have. With floating exchange rates and sinking currency value countries like China can get a permanent comparative and Absolute advantage that is only accelerated as they get more industrialized while deindustrialized nations like America races towards irrelevance and third world status.
Only honest money can restore the balance and it might take the west hundreds of years to rise again if we allow this trend to continue.

'@rphb' 2) "By making all that illegal, and replacing it with a 100% backed gold standard, and a switch to full reserve banking, we won’t see inflation and we also won’t see any finanzialisation."
Ok. MV=PQ. When you switch to gold standard you lose control over emission - it is now depends on scale and efficiency of mining. Since you've switched to full reserve banking, you either abolished lending completely or forced use of some other option which is not likely to be easily controlled. So, you've lost a good chunk of control over V.
a) what are you going to do when you're faced with deflation?
b) imagine that some firm captured and successfully mined asteroid that contains large amounts of precious metals. Over the course of one year, amount of available gold increased by 20%. How are you going to avoid inflation?

3) "Gold have intrinsic value, all stuff (real economic goods) have intrinsic value, their value is internal to the thing itself."
Ok. You are in the middle of the desert, with no hope of rescue and at least fifteen days walk to the edge. You have one container full of gold, another - full of water. You can carry only one. Which are you going to carry?
You are in the middle of the forest, right next to river. No hope of rescue, fifteen days walk, same containers and same limit. Which are you going to choose?

"What we really need to look out for is things that have neither intrinsic nor extrinsic value, such as bitcoin. That is a mayor red flag.
We cannot use it to anything on its own. If nobody else wanted it, it would be Absolutely worthless, and it doesn’t come with a guarantee from anybody. It is simply a floating bunch of numbers worth only what somebody else is willing to pay."
Wrong. Bitcoin has scarcity, it's emission is known, expected and is difficult to change, there is no risk of forgery so far and transactions do not require any intermediaries or institutions. Transaction cost is high at the moment, but if it's fixed then it can be much cheaper than wire transfer.

"Extrensic goods like stocks and bonds are used to park wealth, as a form of delayed gratification and functions as an alternative to cash."
They also serve to provide a source of funding to businesses which otherwise will either have to develop over decades instead of years, or never exist in the first place.

4) " When it imports more then it exports it overconsumes. That is only possible though finansialisation, the unbacked USD."
And investment.

"As long as the world was on a gold standard nature would force such overconsumption to stop, as America would have simply run out of gold."
No, not really. US could still accumulate 14 trillion dollars in public debt alone. By some estimated US can actually afford to reach 19 trillion without obvious negative consequences.
Society as a whole cannot consume more than it produces. If US consumes more, then China consumes less. Availability of credit can shift it from one part to another, nothing more.

"The problem with kick-the-can-down-the-road is that every time the can is kicked it gets a little bigger and the road is always uphill. Eventually it is going to crush us."
It may lead to US defaulting on it's debt at some point in future, it's going to look... interesting.
So far consumption will grow simply because production grows every day and some country will be able capture more of that growth anyway, producing what you see as decadence.

5) "but finanzialisation twist everything and prevents the normal price discovery mechanism"
Availability of credit actually facilitates that. If you see an undervalued lot of goods or stocks, you can buy it out with borrowed money, therefore raising the price of remaining volume to an appropriate level. Without credit your local knowledge will be utilized only to an extent that is afforded by your personal wealth. That, by the way, tips the scale in favor of holders of established wealth.

"With floating exchange rates and sinking currency value countries like China can get a permanent comparative and Absolute advantage that is only accelerated as they get more industrialized while deindustrialized nations like America races towards irrelevance and third world status."
That's not a problem of monetary policy, but of fiscal, labor and environmental one. Gold standard or full reserve banking changes nothing with regard to difference in corporate tax rate, different treatment of trade unions and with climate alarmism on one side while another doesn't care much about quality of water and air. Ricardian comparative advantage is the reason why China has managed to capture so much of investment in industry.

'@comrade'_Comrade

1) First of all, I am not completely sure that that equation: M*V=P*Q is valid.

But let us try to examine it.
If we switch to a gold standard and full reserve banking as I said, then M, money supply, will more or less be determined by Q, or the output produced, as gold mines requires a lot of work, gold sells near its production cost, and mines already work near top efficiency.
So the production of money (gold) will closely follow the general economic output.

Velocity, V are dependent on the general mood in the economy, so it is largely unpredictable, (and totally uncontrollable).
Regarding P, then history shows that the price of goods as measured in gold have been relatively stable over 5000 years. The changing moods will make the velocity osculate but stay in the same general area.

I am not a monetarist and neither am I a communist, (someone that believes in central planning) We need a money supply that is bound to the natural base, and to the energy output that drives the economy.
I believe that the invention of the SI system in the late 18th hundred was one of the greatest inventions of all time. As it allowed accurate measurement everywhere for everyone. It was like a single scientific language.
Like the archive meter we need achieve money, something that are based on a natural constant and not susceptible to human manipulation.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t have lending. People that have money should be allowed to lend them out, but they shouldn’t be allowed to lend them out twice.

I imagine that the role of banks change to something closer to that of a real estate broker. Let me come with an example.
Abe needs to build a new garage and don’t have the money for it. He goes to a bank, present his assets and annual income. The bank then gives their professional risk assessment and suggest an interest rate and repayment plan.
It is then put in their display.
Berth sees the display, she have money to invest, and based on the information given thinks she can trust Abe. So she provides him with the loan.
The bank never invest any of its own money into Abe’s garage, it only facilitates the contact and takes a fee as payment for its services. If Abe defaults anyway, then Berth loses her money, that is also why she is paid an interest, as she is taking a risk, and she bears the full risk, the bank is completely neutral.

2) Now regarding thy two scenarios
“a) what are you going to do when you're faced with deflation?”
Deflation is a good thing, it means we can get more for less, it is a sign of a growing economy, and it is temporary as it slows down growth, preventing it from becoming overheated.

“b) imagine that some firm captured and successfully mined asteroid that contains large amounts of precious metals. Over the course of one year, amount of available gold increased by 20%. How are you going to avoid inflation?”
That is basically what happened when Spain discovered the silver mountains in Argentina. The massive influx of silver and gold caused the Spanish economy to overheat. But that is a rare occurrence, the alternative that some monetarist kingpin sits on top of the economy to determine the supply of currency as have happened for the last 100 years and especially since the last restraint was lifted in 1971 have been disastrous.

A discovery of such an asteroid would only happen thanks to a massive real investment, and the gold rush it will create will bring people out to the final frontier, driving the colonization of space.
Besides thou think 20% would be bad? What about 200% That is what the monetarist expanded the US base currency with in the last financial crisis https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AMBNS
How can we even compare that with the rare occurrence of a prospector discovering gold as a result of his own hard work? Nobody worked for these fred money, it was just created out of thin air.

3) Intrinsic value
Okay the thing about thy desert and forest example is that both gold and water have intrinsic value.
Water is just more immediately useful.
What I am going to do in both scenarios are that I am going to bury the gold next to a prominent landmark so I can find it later when I am not desperate and then take the water.
This is especially true for the desert example, for the forest example where I am close to a river. I don’t need to carry water with me, I am staying with the river and follow it downstream.
I have little reason to dump the gold, but if it is too much for me to comfortably carry I would bury some of it, again near a prominent landmark.

4) Bitcoin
Nothing of what I said about it was wrong. And while it is true that it have scarcity, I got news for thee: SCARCITY IS BAD.
The purpose of all economic activity is to overcome it, it doesn’t give things value.
For thy two examples before where I was stranded in the wilderness, I was in a much better position in the forest, as the presence of the river ensured that water, (a resource of high intrinsic value that I need) was not scarce. So I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Beyond that, bitcoins scarcity is arbitrary, it is not natural like gold and there is an unlimited supply of potential cryptocurrencies.
I am sorry if thou hast fallen for it, but it is very obviously a scam.

5) Stocks and bonds
I looked at it from the savers perspective, people that have capital, needs a place to put it. But if thou want to make industrial investment thou also need capital. If thou cannot raise it theeself thou can sell part of thy company to others or borrow money in the form of a bond. But one should be very careful about doing that.
I have seen so many cased of failed companies, that focused too much on growth. The life blood of any business is the profit. It is only too easy to overextend ones resources by focusing too much on growth, and all debt have to be repaid with interest, so one would need a 10% growth just to break even on a 5% loan when we take in the opportunity cost. And borrowing also always comes with increased risk, which we ought to minimize.

'@rphb' 1) "If we switch to a gold standard and full reserve banking as I said, then M, money supply, will more or less be determined by Q"
First of all I don't see how output of gold mines correlates with overall industrial production. Then you essentially admit that you have a problem on your hands: your monetary mass M is more or less constant and you do not control money velocity V. That means that given constant output Q the only way that this equation holds is that price index P oscillates to reflect changes in V. That means that you have no practical way of avoiding swings between inflation and deflation without either diluting gold standard or controlling production. Anyone hoping to save money for future use will curse your name.

"Like the archive meter we need achieve money, something that are based on a natural constant and not susceptible to human manipulation."
When supply and demand are involved there are no constant values. Even more, values of most things vary wildly across different regions.

"I imagine that the role of banks change to something closer to that of a real estate broker."
So example that you've provided means that individual lender faces much greater risk than in existing scheme, while not much changes for every other party involved. Sure, there is no risk in run on the bank, but significant financial disturbance will instead completely wipe out investments by individual lenders. Advantage of this arrangement is not obvious.

2) "Deflation is a good thing, it means we can get more for less, it is a sign of a growing economy, and it is temporary as it slows down growth, preventing it from becoming overheated."
Deflation is good when you're not in debt, do not require credit and your business can survive a few months or even years of depressed sales. For everyone else deflation sucks. Especially for businesses that depend on ability to raise money in order to exploit market opportunities or survive seasonal downturns. On top of that, anyone who works for a wage is at risk of either suffering from a wage cut that can easily last through following inflation or losing the job altogether if employer is unable to pay less for some reason.

You seem to like farmers, now imagine what will happen to them when a poor harvest coincides with deflation.

imagine that some firm captured and successfully mined asteroid that contains large amounts of precious metals. Over the course of one year, amount of available gold increased by 20%. How are you going to avoid inflation?
"But that is a rare occurrence"
Given time it will be regular occurrence. And, unlike with inflation targeting by central bank, you have no option to remove excess monetary mass from circulation, you've stuck with increase in M. "It could have been worse" is an argument that works for existing system as well.

"A discovery of such an asteroid would only happen thanks to a massive real investment"
No, not really. Any number of viable targets can be discovered by a single observation satellite in Earth's orbit, total budget of that program may be within 0.5-1 billion dollars. Estimates of extraction and logistics are difficult to estimate given huge amount of possible options, but let's say that mining hardware costs 10 billion dollars, about as much as new nuclear aircraft carrier. Each trip to asteroid and back with 100 tons of cargo would cost about 120 million (that's twice over what SpaceX expects to spend on each trip of it's Interplanetary Transport System to Mars). Cost of entire ITS development is expected to be around 10 billion dollars. Make it 20, just because. Entire development, deployment and first mission of this system will cost less than 20% of Apple's cash money reserve or about ten nuclear power stations, or GDP of Albania. Not so massive, and most of investment will go towards R&D.

"That is what the monetarist expanded the US base currency with in the last financial crisis"
That graph has dips. Not going to happen with gold, line will steadily go up and up.

"Nobody worked for these fred money, it was just created out of thin air"
M adjusted to match PQ given current V, works as intended, will be sequestered as needed further.
Better than having a death spiral of major recession.

"Okay the thing about thy desert and forest example is that both gold and water have intrinsic value.
Water is just more immediately useful. ...
This is especially true for the desert example, for the forest example where I am close to a river. I don’t need to carry water with me, I am staying with the river and follow it downstream.
I have little reason to dump the gold, but if it is too much for me to comfortably carry I would bury some of it, again near a prominent landmark."
So what you're saying is that "end-user value" of gold in desert scenario is vastly lower than that of the water, and in forest scenario reverse is true. It shows that intrinsic value exists only in your estimation, in reality value will depend on changing circumstances like scarcity and utility. QED.

4) "I got news for thee: SCARCITY IS BAD."
Your entire argument in favor of gold depends on it's scarcity, immutability and predictable emission. If scarcity is bad then gold standard is bad as well.

"bitcoins scarcity is arbitrary, it is not natural like gold and there is an unlimited supply of potential cryptocurrencies"
Nope, scarcity of bitcoin is set in it's code and it's not very likely that it will be changed under anything but most extreme circumstances. Even then the blockchain will likely split and option with previous emission settings will remain active. Happened to Ethereum already.
Also, you can spike gold with tungsten, can't do the same with bitcoin. In it's uniformity and immutability it's more real than gold.

"I am sorry if thou hast fallen for it, but it is very obviously a scam."
That scam performed better than AMD's stock after news about Ryzen thanks to utility of smart contracts and fast transactions. At this point anyone who bought sufficiently early and has strong nerves is unlikely to lose more than invested. Insider trading is a problem, but to a lesser extent than four or five years ago. Also spikes and dips are fun and weed out weak, timid and oblivious.

5) "But if thou want to make industrial investment thou also need capital. If thou cannot raise it theeself thou can sell part of thy company to others or borrow money in the form of a bond. "
So, essentially we're back to banks and stock markets, maybe under different name. Failing companies are not an issue as long as they are able to liquidate more or less efficiently. For a developing company borrowing is not just risk, it's necessity.

'@comrade'_Comrade

' @comrade'_Comrade
I am not anti-capitalism, I am anti central planning.
No one can control the velocity of money, that is entirely dependent on the mood of the people. I also said that I am not convinced that that equation is even valid. Because where in it is the base?
The raw resources, the crops, the iron the oil?
I heard a funny joke a while back, it is about Bernanke and Krugman, both of them have been sent to that farm up north, that farm that all central bankers are sent to when they are no longer useful.
They are out walking when they see a big pile of bullshit. The reason why we know it is from a bull and not a cow is because on the FED farm all the cows are flown to China every day to be milked, so only the bulls stay home.
Anyway, Krugman says to Bernanke “Tell you what, I will give you 20’000 dollars if you will eat that pile of bullcrap” And Bernanke immediately accept.
After having finished that business the two very bearded men walk past another bull that have likewise left a little present, and now Bernanke is coming with the same offer to Krugman, which he also accepts.
After that business is finished with both men, having visible stains in their beards Krugman is whistling a happy tune but Bernanke have started to get a little sick, he complains to Krugman: “why are you so happy we both ate crap and none of us is any richer”, whereto Krugman says :”you are forgetting the bigger picture, we increased GDP by 40’000$ and created two jobs”


Anyway, the point is that money can’t be controlled, all that the experiment with fiat currencies have done, is shown itself to be one giant pyramid scheme, the people closest to the central banks have grown rich and the rest have been struggling.

Thou art thinking that prospectors finding huge gold loads in space is going to be some kind of problem, I see it only as an opportunity, we have had many gold rushes throughout the ages so it is not a new thing, and considering that gold is a hundred times below its fair value we would need to increase the supply a hundred fold just to make the current price fair.
ETF’s naked shorting and other insidious schemes have been used to artificially suppress gold.
Look at this article from today: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-20/how-will-great-deflation-impact-gold-dollar
At 0.8% of the market gold would need to rise 125 times in price to be able to cover all bonds, stocks and real estate, and then we havn’t even talked about derivatives thou can forget about that.
Point being, a 20% increase is hardly a dent.

2) deflation.
Deflation is bad for people in debt, and debt is bad so it is good for society when people that over consume are adequately punished for their overconsumption

3) intrinsic value
“So what you're saying is that "end-user value" of gold in desert scenario is vastly lower than that of the water, and in forest scenario reverse is true. It shows that intrinsic value exists only in your estimation”
What immediate concerns we have does not change the innate properties of the metal. I have a hard time grasping why thou would think that changing the circumstances should also be able to change gold so it follows me. Its value is intrinsic, that means that it does not depend on anything else, or vary based on anything else.
To take another example we can also take a sandwich. It also have intrinsic value. But a sandwich intrinsic value decays over time, as its bread hardens and its contents starts to rot. It also have the problem that it is not fungible. No two sandwiches are exactly alike, it is not just a matter of freshness but also of content and quality of content.
Gold is almost unique in that it is completely fungible, and don’t decay at all over time. Even silver oxidize, but gold is inert and will never corrode. Doubling or tripling the supply wont change that but it will allow us to use the yellow metal in ways that are today too expensive.
Think about how much longer a car would last if all of its metal parts were plated in gold?

4) Scarcity
“scarcity of bitcoin is set in it's code and it's not very likely that it will be changed under anything but most extreme circumstances”
I know that is what makes it arbitrary. Arbitrary scarcity is when the scarcity of something is purposefully limited by a human decision. Such as a limited edition, book coin or something like that. It is a manipulation technique and it is a scam.
Real economic activity is all about finding ways to overcome scarcity, to make it easier to bring about the underlying value of the good to the consumer.
There is also five kinds of scarcity.
1) Elemental scarcity, that is a scarcity that comes from it being a basic element. As such it cannot be manufactured in any way but have to be found in nature.
2) Molecular scarcity, such as diamonds, that is just neatly ordered carbon atoms. As such it is theoretically possible to turn any pieces of coal into diamond, we just have to figure out how.
3) Ecological scarcity. That is biological substances such as caviar or saffron. Pineapples were onces super scarce like these two, but a modern plantations and logistic networks have made the once extremely rare and expensive fruit that only kings could afford become so common that it is now mostly known as a pizza topping.
4) Creative scarcity, such as art.
5) Artificial scarcity, where the scarcity is purposefully limited in order to drive up price, this is often the case of things with little or no intrinsic value such as beaniebabies or bitcoin.
I don’t know when the bitcoin bubble will pop, but the fact that it have gotten bigger don’t change the fact that it is a bubble.
How many people got rich on the dot.com bubble? The vast majority rode it on the last leg up and then all the way to the bottom.

'@rphb' "I also said that I am not convinced that that equation is even valid. Because where in it is the base?"
That will be part of the Q. As for the joke, if they've both valued utility of seeing the other one eating shit so high then not only did they raise the GDP, but also provided a valuable service to each other.
Also, author of the joke did not think it through in terms of efficiency - both parties could increase their profit by recording a video and capturing some revenue in niche market of coprophiliac fetish videos. Maybe some goldbugs would pay to see it as well. If you think about, it's just a sad story of wasted opportunity.

"Anyway, the point is that money can’t be controlled, all that the experiment with fiat currencies have done, is shown itself to be one giant pyramid scheme, the people closest to the central banks have grown rich and the rest have been struggling."
Inflation targeting is more or less works, constraining or increasing supply of money so far did it's job in US. Not so much in Zimbabwe, where Gideon Gono thought that his estimates of value were important.

"considering that gold is a hundred times below its fair value we would need to increase the supply a hundred fold just to make the current price fair"
Gold is already above it's fair value, there isn't nearly enough demand for industrial applications to support it's current price. Supply shocks that wipe out savings aren't something good either.
As for article, if author is right then it's best to invest in a house next to a river, hydroelectric generator, tools and a lot of metal stock.
By the way, a lot of people actually forget that personal reserve of gold means that for every transfer you make you have to assay it first. High transaction cost and lag are major downsides.

2) "Deflation is bad for people in debt, and debt is bad so it is good for society when people that over consume are adequately punished for their overconsumption"
And we're back to a system where growing a business takes decades instead of years and entrenched elite with huge money reserves are the only ones who can utilize market opportunities fast enough. Also, remember that deflation is also bad for employers and employees as well, depending on how easy it is to cut wage or fire workers.

3) "What immediate concerns we have does not change the innate properties of the metal. "
In desert scenario you chose ownership of water over ownership of gold. Usefulness of innate properties of item changes dependent on your current or expected situation.

"Its value is intrinsic, that means that it does not depend on anything else, or vary based on anything else."
Properties is what fixed, value is not because it depends on utility and scarcity within reach.

"To take another example we can also take a sandwich. It also have intrinsic value."
Put a peanut butter on a bread and it will have vastly different value for someone who is suffering from peanut allergy. Value may even become negative, as in "pay me or I'll force feed you this sandwich". So far in every example you provide that intrinsic value is set by your estimate.

"Doubling or tripling the supply wont change that but it will allow us to use the yellow metal in ways that are today too expensive."
Like adding gold flakes to food? :)
Mechanical properties of gold are so bad that making entire components out of it is one of the worst options. Corrosion resistance, IR reflectivity or aesthetics require only a thin plating, which can also be recycled. And it is being done already.

"Think about how much longer a car would last if all of its metal parts were plated in gold?"
It won't be of much use if you put gold plating over the lead in battery :)
About as long as car that has all relevant components made from stainless steel, since plating is still going to wear out in places, and with proper lubrication corrosion will not be an issue with already available materials. You will eventually scrap it anyway.

4) "Arbitrary scarcity is when the scarcity of something is purposefully limited by a human decision. Such as a limited edition, book coin or something like that. It is a manipulation technique and it is a scam."
Ok. Gold is a scam as well, it's availability is constrained by use in jewelry which could be as easily made from more dilute alloys or cheaper metals with plating.
Arbitrary scarcity of bitcoin is secured by the fact that in order to change emission setting someone has to persuade an impractically large number of people to agree with that. If someone manages to do it, it probably means that this action is warranted.

"Real economic activity is all about finding ways to overcome scarcity, to make it easier to bring about the underlying value of the good to the consumer"
Oh, like overcoming scarcity of available funding when you have to, say, build a new business, just what stocks and fractional reserve banking do?

"Elemental scarcity, that is a scarcity that comes from it being a basic element. As such it cannot be manufactured in any way but have to be found in nature"
"Artificial scarcity, where the scarcity is purposefully limited in order to drive up price, this is often the case of things with little or no intrinsic value such as beaniebabies or bitcoin."
Yep, so elemental scarcity cannot be controlled and guaranteed, unlike scarcity of bitcoin. While, by the way, scarcity of gold depends on both inability to yet find deposits massive and concentrated enough to change the status quo, conspicuous consumption that ties up excessive material in jewelry and agreement to punish people who put a tungsten cores in gold bricks.

"I don’t know when the bitcoin bubble will pop,"
SEC decision on ETF is likely to cause a spike in one direction or another.

"but the fact that it have gotten bigger don’t change the fact that it is a bubble"
The fact that it is immediately useful as a way of transferring money is important. Investors who bought in early are at no risk of loss unless you count opportunity cost and ability to make ideal trades constantly. People who buy near the top with more money that they can afford to lose and do not use stop loss orders... Well, fool and his money are soon parted.
Actually, I was working with accountant who in 2011 insisted that his plan to put all his savings in gold was a sound decision and guarantees that his deposit will grow at 10% annualy, thereby securing him and early and comfortable retirement. Yeah... Almost feels bad that I've quit, now I can't ask him how well his plan worked.

'@comrade'_Comrade

1) The Road to Ruin
Have thou read it? It is by Jim Richards and is from 2016 and it explains in great details how not well they have maintained the systems. Much of what I am about to say is derived from that book if thou want to check it.
But the economy is a so called complex system. And risk in a complex system aren’t normally distributed as the central planners think, controlling the economy is not like flying a plane, instead the risk is distributed on a power curve, the bigger the system gets the more the risk rises and it rises exponentially.
An example of a complex system is snow on a mountainside. A little snow is no problem but as the snow gathers in greater and greater quantities the risk of an avalanche becomes greater and greater, and the scope of the avalanche will also become worse and worse.
A smart ski research provokes small controlled avalanches in order to prevent the system from ever becoming too complex.
But what the central bankers have done is to build barriers that prevents the snow from falling down from the mountains, what they have done is to allow the system to become much more complex then what would happen naturally.
So as more and more snow gathers on the mountain, the barriers have to be extended more and more too. However there is a problem, at a certain point that is simply not possible anymore. At a certain point the forces that are contained on the mountain have become so big, that it cannot be contained by any means. Not by the FED, not by the ECB, not even by the IMF.
When the avalanche finally happens, it is going to bury everything.
It is called “systemic failure” and it is a mathematical certainty.

The thing about Zimbabwe, or Weimar Germany, or John Law’s France if we have to go further back, is that it was all isolated instances. It bought down a nation, but other nations still used sound money, the foresighted could simply move to another country and wait it out; this time, for the first time it is global, and it is going to hit every market and every currency on Earth.

2) Bitcoin
Did thou not get how scarcity means hurdle, as in something to overcome?
Yes people have different needs and wants and they change over time, and that is completely different from a things intrinsic value. The intrinsic value is the properties of the thing itself. Gold is unique because its intrinsic value don’t decay over time as most other things, so it can store economic energy like nothing else.
Bitcoin as I said have no intrinsic value, if nobody wants it, it is absolutely worthless. That is part of what is so critical to remember, the supply chain and the end user. People that likes bitcoin suffer from circular reasoning. They want it because they thing others want it more later.
This is a funny little video about how a man that invested all of his money in the now almost worthless beaniebabies found a way to make use of them anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIhu5XxXKxA

But bitcoin to take just one aspect of it, is not a useful medium of exchange, for the simple reason that it is too volatile. A business person cannot plan on it.
Imagine a shoe salesman that needs to buy 5000 varies forms of shoes each year. Can thou tell me how many bitcoin he would need to buy his shoes next year? And the tear after that? Can thou even tell me what the price will be a month from now.
Bitcoin have no connection to Reality, so its price will always be based purely on speculation, it can’t logically be based on anything else.

Now imagine instead of bitcoin this hypothetical alternative.
The McDonald corporation decides to make their own currency, the mac. They guarantee that the mac is fully redeemable in any McDonald anywhere in the world for 1 Big Mac, and everything else on their menu can also be bought for macs in a fixed exchange rate.
The would exist both as a physical token coins and notes as well as electronically in the form of debit cards.
As a Big Mac costs about 5 USD today the largest 500 mac note would be worth 2500 dollars, and unlike the dollar it is inflation proof as it is burger backed, and unlike bitcoin its price wont fluctuate as the price of the mac is fixed.

'@rphb' "The Road to Ruin" - didn't read it, checked out the synopsis. Maybe he's right, gold won't help either way. You cannot use it directly and store locally due to obvious difficulties of securing and moving it, as well as having to prove it's purity in every transaction. If you instead move to a gold standard when government stores majority of gold and sets value of arbitrary amount of paper money to each unit of gold. Ok, what prevents the same government to adjust the ratio of paper money to gold?
At least rules of cryptocurrency are set in code that can only be changed if majority of users and/or miners agrees, can be traded at decentralized exchanges, can be anonymous, has fast transaction times and more or less immune to forgery (at least until useful quantum computers are developed).
The only way to freeze transactions and trades is to shut down the internet, which is very unlikely at this point and will become even more difficult with proliferation of internet over satellites.

Also that "buy the things that last" advice is stupid. If you're rich enough and worried about crash of financial system then it's best to have as small money reserves as possible and reinvest in building a business that is more or less resilient against possible crisis. Maybe build a business as big as small country. Go full Krupp. Well, maybe avoid that part about slave labor for which you go to prison and lose ownership of the company.

"The thing about Zimbabwe, or Weimar Germany, or John Law’s France if we have to go further back, is that it was all isolated instances. It bought down a nation, but other nations still used sound money,"
Nope. Zimbabwe used fiat money, US used fiat money. Zimbabwe almost hit an all time high inflation figures, US - not so much. Guess that gold standard wasn't the difference you're looking for.

"the foresighted could simply move to another country and wait it out; this time, for the first time it is global, and it is going to hit every market and every currency on Earth."
You mentioned Weimar Germany, but forgot that following Great Depression hit everyone. Well, maybe tribal societies in Africa, South America or Pacific islands weren't affected, but you wouldn't have much use for gold there and standard of living wasn't that great either.

"But bitcoin to take just one aspect of it, is not a useful medium of exchange, for the simple reason that it is too volatile. A business person cannot plan on it."
For medium of exchange volatility is not an issue as long as there are no significant fluctuations in exchange rate during the time it takes you to accept payment and convert to reserves and currency you use to pay suppliers, wages and taxes. Nothing prevents you from letting willing investors bear the risk. For cryptocurrency that time is relatively short.
Also for something only ten years in existence, facing relatively huge fraud of Mt.Gox and increasing adoption at breakneck speed bitcoin is not as volatile as it could be. Greater adoption and capitalization, technological maturity will lead to a decrease in volatility.

"Can thou tell me how many bitcoin he would need to buy his shoes next year? And the tear after that? "
No. Same goes for gold. That accountant figured it out the hard way.

"Bitcoin have no connection to Reality, so its price will always be based purely on speculation"
Same goes for gold. Demand for industrial applications is nowhere near justifying it's current price.
But ok, assume that it does. Steel is real, it has useful properties, majority of it is in use and with sufficient care it can be stored for really long time. Worst case is that you lose surface layer to rust.
Price still oscillates and is on downward trend, especially if price is adjusted for inflation. Same goes for copper.

"it can’t logically be based on anything else."
Ok. Ethereum does smart contracts and moving towards applications running on blockchain.

"As a Big Mac costs about 5 USD today the largest 500 mac note would be worth 2500 dollars, and unlike the dollar it is inflation proof as it is burger backed, and unlike bitcoin its price wont fluctuate as the price of the mac is fixed."
Ok, in next five years artificial beef, GMO wheat, increased automation and improved logistics decrease the price of Big Mac to 2.5 inflation adjusted dollars per unit. Congratulations on your investment in Mac Standard, hope you had diversified portfolio.

'@comrade'_Comrade

1) Road to ruin
Gold will help and it is easy to transport. Gold by today’s prices are very expensive, too expensive for many, but it allows a great deal of wealth to be stored in a very confined space.
Hast thou seen a maple leaf gold coin with the newest lazar engraving, it is every bit as secure as a modern central bank note.
And one maple leaf gold coin that fits easily in a coin purse (thou can have 10 with no problem) contains more wealth (1250USD) then the largest central bank note the 1000 switch frank (1028USD).
So no gold is not difficult at all to transport. And if we want to pay with it online we can use a bailment service like goldmoney, that also offer prepaid credit cards. So it is actually easier to pay with then bitcoin.
Gold, and to a lesser extent silver, is properly the only thing that is really going to help us in the coming great deflation.
Real estate while also real (and not imaginative like USD and bitcoin) is still overvalued due to the vast leverage that everyone in the market uses.
People don’t borrow money to buy gold like they borrow money to buy real estate. There is also the problem of transport.
Real estate can’t be moved, so if the political situation in a country becomes untenable thou could lose thy farm to government confiscation (all real estate always rest on a governments guarantee to protect and honour the ownership).
South Africa is moving towards white genocide (inspired by the brilliant example of Zimbabwe).
Let us imagine two white people in south Africa that are at great risk of being killed and having their assets seized Al and Ben. Both are worth 1 million dollars. Al have his farm and Ben have it in gold (about 3,7 kilogram).
They are both inside hostile territory but Al can’t take his farm with him so he is screwed, but any adult man can easily carry less than 4 kilograms, so if only he can get himself across the border him and his fortune are safe.

2) “Zimbabwe used fiat money
, US used fiat money. Zimbabwe almost hit an all time high inflation figures, US - not so much. Guess that gold standard wasn't the difference you're looking for.”
The difference is that the US is a lot bigger then Zimbabwe, so it will take longer for the effect to play out. The USD is also more interconnected to the world economy, it is the hub of the world economy so when it goes everything goes.
These places are just a little prologue about what is going to happen globally soon.

3) The Great Depression, did not hit everyone, the soviet union was spared, and gold proved itself to be the primary safe heaven in the west. In the US gold went from 20 dollars an oz to 35 dollars an oz, and in Germany, oh boy these who had kept their savings in gold marks came out of it a lot better than the majority that used the paper mark, the later got destroyed, the former could buy prime real estate at extreme bargain prices.

4) “For medium of exchange volatility is not an issue as long as there are no significant fluctuations in exchange rate during the time it takes you to accept payment and convert to reserves and currency you use to pay suppliers, wages and taxes”
No because then we aren’t using it as a medium of exchange, then we are treating it as a hot potato to get rid of as soon as possible. Thou hast to imagine that people want to be paid in it, but no employee, supplier or customer would want a salary or contract in bitcoin. Because these people don’t want to gamble they want something they can count on. The most important aspect of a currency is short time price stability.

“Greater adoption and capitalization, technological maturity will lead to a decrease in volatility.”
That is just a postulate, or what can be called “wishful thinking”.
But why would there ever be greater adoption when it don’t fulfil the primary need of a currency. In a time of greater and greater uncertainty, people desire security. The only reason why it have the size it have now is because people have excess money they are willing to gamble with.

“No. Same goes for gold. That accountant figured it out the hard way.”
Gold have maintained a very stable purchasing over thousands of years.
In ancient Rome one could buy a toga and a pair of sandals for one ounce of gold, today a fancy suit and a pair of designer shoes can be bought for the same.

“Same goes for gold. Demand for industrial applications is nowhere near justifying it's current price”
That is because gold is not just a commodity. It is first and foremost money, and it is the best kind of money there is it is power money http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/05.09/images/pyramid.jpg
It have industrial applications, its demand for jewellery is a lot greater, but its primary use is as money.

“Ok, in next five years artificial beef, GMO wheat, increased automation and improved logistics decrease the price of Big Mac to 2.5 inflation adjusted dollars per unit. Congratulations on your investment in Mac Standard, hope you had diversified portfolio.”
We should have a diversified portfolio, and it might be true that the Big Mac is going to become cheaper, but is that really a bad thing? If everything else in the economy keeps up with how more efficient McDonalds at making burgers, we will be able to buy the same things with the mac in five years as we can today, If we had invested in gold we would be able to buy more, as the greater efficiency will be deflationary for gold. But the mac would do what it is supposed to do, keep the same price.

Now artificial beef and GMO wheat will decrease the quality of the burger, which might drive people away from McDonarlds. If nobody buys their burgers the company will default and with it of course the mac. But that is the risk, because there is always risk.
Personally I am glad I don’t live in America, these things are not legal in my country, so if McDonalds wants to operate they have to guarantee that their products are GMO free and contain real beef. (and we also don’t allow corn syrup, and transfats)

'@rphb' "maple leaf gold coin with the newest lazar engraving, it is every bit as secure as a modern central bank note."
Security features are on reverse. From the looks of it, nothing prevents me from drilling out the side, introducing tungsten or lead element, covering it with gold and reapplying reeds. Would need a specifically formed replacement elements and maybe a laser to melt a gold plug in place, but I guess it can still be possible in near future if not already.

"So no gold is not difficult at all to transport"
It does if you're talking about millions of dollars daily. Security and some heavy lifting will be required.

"bailment service like goldmoney"
So then you surrender control of your gold and have to trust fraud and theft resistance of third party. It works as long as gold is a gimmick and not a widely used currency.

"People don’t borrow money to buy gold like they borrow money to buy real estate"
At least some people in 2011 did.

"could lose thy farm to government confiscation"
Same goes for gold.

"Both are worth 1 million dollars. Al have his farm and Ben have it in gold (about 3,7 kilogram)."
One million US dollars would be about 25kg of gold at current price. If Ben is not shot while illegally crossing the border at night, in new place of residence he will have to assay the gold and, most likely, prove it's provenance, unless he is relieved from it by local criminals. More likely is that before he can bolt across the border, government thugs will come for him because someone informed them about a guy that was buying gold before. Even if gold is stashed away securely, Ben is likely to tell where it is after they use a hammer on his fingers or bastard file on his teeth. Opponent has a say in your plans too.

2) "The difference is that the US is a lot bigger then Zimbabwe"
No, difference was that FRS uses inflation targeting and Gideon Gono is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

3) "The Great Depression, did not hit everyone, the soviet union was spared,"
No. Soviet economy was already struck by isolation and falling price of grain decimated profit from export. Skilled economic refugees from abroad were useful, but some of them eventually got a free trip to Siberia.

"and gold proved itself to be the primary safe heaven in the west."
So much that Great Britain could pull itself out of recession only when gold standard was abandoned.

4) "No because then we aren’t using it as a medium of exchange, then we are treating it as a hot potato to get rid of as soon as possible. "
It serves it function and it's use incurs no loss to both parties of the deal. There was no difficulty in finding willing buyers even during race to the bottom. Selling large volume without loss could take some time, but market as a whole was relatively shallow back then.

"imagine that people want to be paid in it, but no employee, supplier or customer would want a salary or contract in bitcoin"
Some already do, and it's not even widely accepted yet.

"The most important aspect of a currency is short time price stability."
Yeah, gold has issues with that too.

Greater adoption and capitalization, technological maturity will lead to a decrease in volatility.
"That is just a postulate, or what can be called “wishful thinking”."
No. Main reasons for price oscillations are news about changes in legal status, access to market in new countries or improvements in technology. Price will stabilize once those factors are settled and volume of trades is such that it would be difficult for individual "whales" to create large swings. Greatest threat for bitcoin is it's founders stash, there is no guarantee that it will never move again and there is a lot in there. Other cryptocurrencies are less exposed to such risk.

"But why would there ever be greater adoption when it don’t fulfil the primary need of a currency. In a time of greater and greater uncertainty, people desire security."
Sucks to be them.

"Gold have maintained a very stable purchasing over thousands of years."
Not even over recent decade.

"In ancient Rome one could buy a toga and a pair of sandals for one ounce of gold, today a fancy suit and a pair of designer shoes can be bought for the same."
Sounds awfully lot like a conjecture.

Same goes for gold. Demand for industrial applications is nowhere near justifying it's current price
"That is because gold is not just a commodity."
So it's price is an agreed upon fiction.

" it might be true that the Big Mac is going to become cheaper, but is that really a bad thing"
Yes, if you were the one who trusted in Mac Standard. You could have invested the same money in, I don't know, burger flipping robot manufacturer and get a much better return on investment.

"If we had invested in gold we would be able to buy more"
If current trend holds - not likely.

"But that is the risk, because there is always risk."
Bingo. So either you do not trust in any gold or mac standard and hold and manage your investments in stock and/or own business carefully or don't save at spend about as much as you earn.

'@comrade'_Comrade

1) Gold coins security.
There is always ways to overcome it, but tungsten aren’t undetectable either. It weight almost but not quite the same as gold. And there is also the simply cost-benefit difference.
A sufficiently advanced maple leaf forgery is not worth the cost, at least not at present values. When we do see a forgery it is usually in the big 400 oz good delivery bars. And it is exactly because of that forgery risk that the Shanghai gold exchange have adopted the 1kg 9999 gold bar standard. The old good delivery bars of the London bullion exhange have to go through a refinery before they can arrive at the Shanghai market, and that guarantees their authenticity.

2) Third parties.
Electronic transfer of ownership requires a third bank-like party, there is no way around that. I know thou art in love with Bitcoin but as I have also repeatedly said, it is not connected to reality, and if it were connected to realty then the thing whose ownership is being transferred have to be in some physical location.
I havn’t invested in gold money because at the moment I prefer to spend my countries fiat currency when I shop and save in gold, and I like to have it physically, and don’t have much use for banking, but if I were to transfer huge amounts of cash, in the many millions of dollars, then someone like them would be ideal.

“It works as long as gold is a gimmick and not a widely used currency”
No it works better when it have become more widely used, but it can also work now as it functions like a hybrid with dollars or euroes.

“"could lose thy farm to government confiscation"
Same goes for gold.”
Yes but the point is that they have to find it first. They always knows where my farm is, and the same is true for electronic assets like stocks and bonds, but physical moveable objects like gold, that requires them to both know where it is and to send a swat team to collect. Gold is the hardest thing in the world for government to confiscate because it is so easy to hide, which is why they usually don’t bother, unless it is for a particular large horde, one worthy of a dragon.

3) Gold vs real estate
“One million US dollars would be about 25kg of gold at current price. If Ben is not shot while illegally crossing the border at night, in new place of residence he will have to assay the gold and, most likely, prove it's provenance, unless he is relieved from it by local criminals. More likely is that before he can bolt across the border, government thugs will come for him because someone informed them about a guy that was buying gold before. Even if gold is stashed away securely, Ben is likely to tell where it is after they use a hammer on his fingers or bastard file on his teeth. Opponent has a say in your plans too.”
Yea, wrong currency calculator. 25 kg is harder to carry but still possible, but the smartest thing in that situation will properly be to bury it in many different places.
It is a bad situation in any case, and if the situation is truly this bad, just getting out of the country will be a win, but remember a devisable gold horde works a lot better as a bribe then a farm. A thug can’t put a farm in their pockets and then look the other way the way they can with a couple of gold eagles.

4) Inflation
No, difference was that FRS uses inflation targeting and Gideon Gono is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Thou cannot control inflation. 98% of all currency in circulation is in the form of bank deposits Only 2% is M0 physical base currency. If people don’t borrow and banks don’t lend the money supply shrinks even if M0 doubles or triples.
And then we haven’t even taken the velocity into consideration that have a lot to do with peoples mood.
If we are in a deeply deflationary environment and the central banks makes sufficiently extreme extraordinary measures to change the direction, then it will be like opening Pandora’s box, because that is where hyperinflation start.
I like to define hyperinflation as “loss of faith in the currency”. A hyperinflation starts the moment a currency goes from something to be treasured to a hot potato that one have to get rid of as fast as possible.
As soon as this mentality sets in it is game over for that currency, nothing the central bank can do at that point can turn it around.
One of the old Roman emperors tried to issue a decree promising the death penalty for anyone that took more than a certain amount for their goods and it didn’t help because their choice was die in the gallows if they get caught or die for certain by starvation if they follow the edict.
So we have historical precedence that shows that not even a credible death threat can stop a hyperinflation once it starts.

5) "and gold proved itself to be the primary safe heaven in the west."
So much that Great Britain could pull itself out of recession only when gold standard was abandoned.”
The British recession following world war one was caused by dishonesty, they had printed a lot of pound but thought that they could be held at the same price as before the war. Had they devalued the pound properly to what it now were worth there wouldn’t be a deflation. And their “abandoming the gold standard” was in reality the stealing of their citizens gold and then defaulting on their promise. It was the same thing FDR did in America.
Government shouldn’t have been involved with money at all. And gold were a safe heaven for the private individuals that held on to theirs despite their governments urging.


"But why would there ever be greater adoption when it don’t fulfil the primary need of a currency. In a time of greater and greater uncertainty, people desire security."
Sucks to be them.
Sucks more to be a bitcoin “investor” Because if Bitcoin can’t provide that, (and it can’t) then people will abandon it, when they need their money for something more pressing. I understand that thou feel smug, because thou art ridding a bubble up at the moment, but I have seen the peak and I know what lies in the bottom.
I hope for thysake that thou art only gambling with the houses money at this point. If thou don’t understand the metaphor, it comes from the casino where people come with their own cash going in, and the smart gambler puts some of his winnings away, until it equals his starting bankroll. As soon as he have put that away, and committed to not touch that again, he is only gambling for the houses money, the money he have won in the casino, so if he gets unlucky later at least he wont have lost money.

6) Mac
" it might be true that the Big Mac is going to become cheaper, but is that really a bad thing"
Yes, if you were the one who trusted in Mac Standard. You could have invested the same money in, I don't know, burger flipping robot manufacturer and get a much better return on investment.”

Yes and I agree, but thou don’t get my point. The point of the Mac is not that it should be an investment, it is not supposed to give a return on investment, it is supposed to be money and maintain its purchasing power.
Bitcoin shouldn’t give a return on investment either, for their to be a return on investment there have to be a growth.
For instance the return of investment in a cow is a calf. If we want to look at return on investment we have to look at businesses.
The purpose of stocks, the real purpose of stocks is the dividends they give. If the only reason why we buy a stock is that we think it will be worth more later but it don’t give dividends it will be like investing in a sterile cow that don’t produce milk, sooner or later the illusion breaks, and all that is left is to slaughter the cow and fight for the scraps (bankruptcy)

7) Trends
"But that is the risk, because there is always risk."
Bingo. So either you do not trust in any gold or mac standard and hold and manage your investments in stock and/or own business carefully or don't save at spend about as much as you earn”

It is about recognizing undervalued and overvalued assets. Of course gold can go into a bubble as anything else, but right now it is one of the most undervalued assets there is. Stocks real estates and bonds are likewise all very overvalued and due for a crash.

It is said that there are four places where one can invest
1) Paper
2) Real estate
3) Businesses
4) Precious metal

Paper is the worst place to be because it is risky without offering any control. To invest in a business is a great idea if thou know what thou art doing, as the risk is moderate and thou hast full control. As the owner of a business thou can decide what to do with it.
To own a stock is just a way to get a share the profit of another man’s great ideas, but it offers no control so if he screws up, thou loses.
The key to successful investment is to have as much control over ones portfolio as possible.
As I am not rich enough to own businesses, and only moderately so with real estate, I have invested most of my energy in understanding precious metals. At least until I can afford to invest in the other two categories properly.

'@rphb' 1) cost of forgery will go down with rising availability of sufficiently powerful lasers and CNC machines. Anything that can precisely mill and melt copper will do the same with gold. Forming tungsten to fit inside the coin is difficult part, but I'm sure that given enough demand China will, as always, provide.

2) "Electronic transfer of ownership requires a third bank-like party, there is no way around that. I know thou art in love with Bitcoin but as I have also repeatedly said, it is not connected to reality, and if it were connected to realty then the thing whose ownership is being transferred have to be in some physical location."
If it's an ownership of bitcoin, then transfer happens in decentralized ledger, so only a sender, a receiving address and connection to the net are required. In this sense cryptocurrency is as connected to reality as any written word that distributed across millions of copies which can be compared to each other and no single entity can change it unilaterally. Decentralized exchanges, service like localbitcoins or bitcoin ATMs mean that it's as close to peer-to-peer network in real life as currently possible.

"Gold is the hardest thing in the world for government to confiscate because it is so easy to hide, which is why they usually don’t bother, unless it is for a particular large horde, one worthy of a dragon"
As long as someone knows that you had it or if you used it to buy something then you become an opportunity for a snitch or a sting operation. Trying to leave the country means that you're either have to pass through a border check point, so search is inevitable, or cross it illegally which is difficult by design. If full martial law is in effect, then even moving your stash is a risk since you can be subjected to a search at checkpoint or random search. If rule of law has deteriorated sufficiently, intimidation, torture or other measures of varying legality are on table. You can read plenty of stories about people trying to leave dangerous parts of Ukraine and being kidnapped, tortured, held for ransom.

3) "25 kg is harder to carry but still possible, but the smartest thing in that situation will properly be to bury it in many different places."
Funny thing is, that's exactly what my grand grandfather did - he had some unspecified valuables buried somewhere during dekulakization. He was very tight lipped about this, wanted to outlast Stalin or at least leave it all to my mother. One slight problem - he died in 1950s fast enough to be unable to reach anyone he could trust with information. To this day there is not even a slightest idea about at least general area where that stash was buried.

"A thug can’t put a farm in their pockets and then look the other way the way they can with a couple of gold eagles."
On the other hand, offer of bribe is an indicator that you may have more. There is no way to win in situation like that unless one escapes early, finds security through obscurity or collaborates.

4) "Thou cannot control inflation. 98% of all currency in circulation is in the form of bank deposits Only 2% is M0 physical base currency. If people don’t borrow and banks don’t lend the money supply shrinks even if M0 doubles or triples."
Fiscal policy, immediate borrowing, or interest rate and reserve requirements set by FRS. Direct money injection is an option to control deflation.

"And then we haven’t even taken the velocity into consideration that have a lot to do with peoples mood."
Technically, it can be affected by promise of changes in policy or credit availability. Quality of policy design in this case is paramount, as well as ability to pass appropriate legislation. Gold standard and absence of fractional reserve banking make that problem worse.

"A hyperinflation starts the moment a currency goes from something to be treasured to a hot potato that one have to get rid of as fast as possible."
US already handled inflation rates as high as 14% between 1970 and 1980, including stagflation. Granted, at 20%+ death spiral may become more difficult to overcome, but with enough political will solutions are available.

5) "The British recession following world war one was caused by dishonesty, they had printed a lot of pound but thought that they could be held at the same price as before the war. Had they devalued the pound properly to what it now were worth there wouldn’t be a deflation. "
Deflation, is by definition, a situation when currency is overvalued. Being able to print more money and still have a deflation requires an interesting set of circumstances.

"Sucks more to be a bitcoin “investor”"
No, it really sucks in general to live in a relatively unstable period in history and have a desire for stability. At this point frequency of innovation shocks should be rising, so number and importance of decisions will only increase.

"Because if Bitcoin can’t provide that, (and it can’t) then people will abandon it, when they need their money for something more pressing."
Same goes for anything else. So far ease of access and increasing attention means that there is always a buyer. Biggest threat to long-term success of bitcoin is in several technical difficulties, but it seems that decision to sort them out is now being reached. Another big problem is dependence on China, but with growing acceptance in US and access to markets in Korea and Japan it will be reduced.

"I understand that thou feel smug, because thou art ridding a bubble up at the moment,"
I really don't. For legal reasons I cannot confirm or deny if there are any positive side effects from my (hypothetical, for legal reasons of course) hobby, but I see a lot of potential in blockchain technology on it's own.

"but I have seen the peak and I know what lies in the bottom."
Rise, correction, flatline, as usual. Unless something makes blockchain completely obsolete, but at this point some people are already thinking about possibility of quantum-resistant cryptocurrency.

"only gambling with the houses money at this point"
At this point any investment in (hypothetical, of course) hardware has been paid off, I don't have to spend anything other than my time. Return on that investment is, hypothetically, very encouraging.

6) "The point of the Mac is not that it should be an investment, it is not supposed to give a return on investment, it is supposed to be money and maintain its purchasing power."
But it will not, because relative to other options it's value will change. Same can be said about bimetallic standard, for example. If you have a reserve that consists in equal parts by value of gold and silver, given enough time changes in availability and utility may lead to one part of reserve having, say, 90% of value. Add to that possibility that total value of reserve relative to some basket of goods can decrease by 10% at the same time. If you're going to assign arbitrary value to a unit of gold, peg silver to it and everything else to bimetallic standard, then it's not much better than assigning arbitrary value to any other item purity and availability of which can be reasonably controlled. In this case physical existence of unit is only a matter of convenience, as long as you can achieve immutability and controlled emission by some other means.

7) treating metals, precious or not, as investment is something I can easily agree with. Problem is that a lot of goldbugs overestimated this asset in 2010-2011 and are now in the same position in which bitcoin enthusiasts were in 2014 or 2015. Well, at least bitcoin's exchange rate recovered, I'm not so convinced about gold or silver yet.

'@comrade'_Comrade

' @comrade'_Comrade
1) Fake gold
As I said it the best kind of gold forgery is tungsten with real gold coating as tungsten is the only thing whose density is close enough to gold to fool people on the basis of pure weight.
But there is many other ways to test the coins authenticity, such as the ring test.
Tungsten unlike gold is very hard and brittle, so it sounds completely different when hit, while a pure gold coin have a pure ring to it when hit.
I told thee, it is practically impossible to forge a gold coin, especially a small gold coin, which is why basically all known forgeries have been with bars and most of them of the good delivery variance.

2) Things
Bitcoin is not connected to reality because it is not a thing. If thou don’t know what a thing is then I will tell thee: a thing is everything that can be put in a wheelbarrow or a whellbarrow can stand on.
And if it is a thing, it needs to be somewhere, that is where the third party custodian comes in.

2.2) Martial law.
Such a situation sucks, but we can properly also both agree that getting our physical bodies across the border is more important than transporting our wealth, no point being the richest copse in the graveyard.
Gold can be used as a convenient bribe which bitcoin can’t. Not only does gold not require a medium, but it is by nature untraceable, that is why governments hate it. The whole point of the blockchain is that every transaction is recorded, so the thugs masters will always be able to see if they have been taking bribes that way.
That is a whole other aspect I don’t like about bitcoin, the lack of anonymity. Gold coins don’t leave a trail, because the point of gold is not about calculating the ownership but all about the physical possession.

3) “Funny thing is, that's exactly what my grand grandfather did - he had some unspecified valuables buried somewhere during dekulakization. He was very tight lipped about this, wanted to outlast Stalin or at least leave it all to my mother. One slight problem - he died in 1950s fast enough to be unable to reach anyone he could trust with information. To this day there is not even a slightest idea about at least general area where that stash was buried.”

That is too bad, sometimes even the best plan isn’t good enogh. But look at the bright side, at least Stalin didn’t get it either.
I remember a story from last year where someone found a gold stash that had been buried for thousands of years. I believe the archeologist said it was from the late bronze age. It was properly someone in a similar situation to thy grandfather, trying to escape from some tyrant and burying his treasure on the way, and then never finding anyone to trust with the information of its whereabouts. I will consider it a half win that a horde gets lost to the ages rather than to fall into the hands of a tyrant, that would surely only use it for evil.

4) Gold standard
“US already handled inflation rates as high as 14% between 1970 and 1980, including stagflation. Granted, at 20%+ death spiral may become more difficult to overcome, but with enough political will solutions are available.”

That is not even close to a hyperinflation. And as I said a hyperinflation is not just inflation on steroids, it is “loss of confidence” in the currency. That havn’t happened in America since the continental.
But thou hast to understand that the advantage of a gold standard is exactly because it is a shackle on government and banks. It forces fiscal restraint.
I read this kronik in zerohedge today: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-23/emerging-markets-its-time-dump-most-central-banks-and-their-currencies-too
It is more against central banks in general then it is for a gold standard but its point is still important. It shows the great advantage that Panama have over other developing countries because it don’t have a central bank and its own currency, but have decided to simply use the USD. This takes away the monetary tool that most governments have that always ends up being misused.
That is the whole point of a gold standard, to eliminate monetary policy. To prevent any central authority from setting interest rates and controlling the money supply. By having the money supply constrained by nature and letting the market set the interest rates itself, we prevent the manipulation that distorts the markets and makes everything more and more out of wrack.
I told thee, as the book “The Road to Ruin (2016)” also describes, complex systems cannot be controlled, and risk are not normally distributed but are instead distributed on a power curve. Once it hits critical mass, and it is impossible to predict when that is, only that the risk rises exponentially with size, the system collapses. And this systemic collapse is inevitable, it cannot be stopped by any means. Derivatives are already measured in the quadrillions of dollars.

A solution would have been to as I said, ban fractional reserve banking, impose a 100% backed gold standard and of course ban all derivatives. The last bit is by far the most important. Initiatives like glass steagall while imperfect, did create a ward that prevented the system hindered the system in getting too out of wack.
As Warren Buffett is known to have said “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction”
5) Regarding currency
I don’t advocate for a fixed exchange rate, I advocate for government to more or less get out of the money business altogether.
Competing currencies are great, and should be encouraged. But in order to have stable trade we need a standard.
My vision is to see something like AUG (aurum gram) as a sort of 8th basic unit.
1 solar would be defined as 1 gram of pure gold and
1 lunar would be defined as 1 gram of pure silver.
Various mints, both public and private would then produce these coins in different sizes and accepted for trade everywhere.
There would be no fixed exchange rate between gold and silver, the market will determine the exchange.
Everyone and their mother will be free to mint their own coins, but some coins would of course be more trusted then others. The punishment for forgery would be high and the hit to the reputation of a mint caught will be devastating.
That alone ensures that it need not be regulated.

'@rphb' looks like it's time to wrap this up, so I'll make this reply my last.

1) ok, I'll have to figure out a better method of forgery then :)

2) we probably will never agree on whether it is important or not
2.2) there are bitcoin mixers that anonymize payments, if their use is prohibited there are now more or less established cryptocurrencies which are specifically designed to be anonymous. I concede that bribe is more conveniently paid in physical items since it does not require access to net and having relevant applications downloaded, though I'd say that cash or jewelry will work better than gold coins, unless they are already mainstream at that time and place.

4) Term "hyperinflation" is supposed to mean inflation with rate of about 20% or more. I'd say that 14% peak is close enough. What worked for Panama didn't turn out that good for Greece. Common monetary policy also requires common fiscal policy, otherwise one member of monetary bloc can threaten stability of everyone else. Adoption of USD or gold in this case does not eliminate monetary policy, it just moves control of it to something outside of local government. Since historically countries on gold standard still had recessions and market crises, there will always remain a political pressure to return to fiat money or at least dilute standard somehow, like moving to bimetallic standard or something else.
As for "Road to Ruin", another issue is that economy of even a single country is not just a system - it's a system of systems, and each one of those learns, adapts to current situation, tries to change current rules in it's favor and has something similar to will to live. The fact that various actors in economy will predict, influence, exploit or work against new rules in measures indeed means that reliable regulation is difficult. New crisis may indeed be more severe than previous, but in order for economy to rearrange itself to new conditions the only thing that is required is for government to create no additional uncertainty. Appropriate monetary policy can facilitate the process by countering the loss of liquidity that usually occurs during the crisis.

5) since we already went through pros and cons of gold standard, I'll just point out why I'm more optimistic about having cryptocurrencies as "private money" than government in developed country moving to some sort of standard stricter than current fiat systems.
As long as political climate remains the same, government will never move out of regulating money supply. Regulation creep in less significant matters is difficult if not impossible to reverse, money supply is one of the pillars of government policy. Having a government that regulates everything it does now, but not money is about as easy and lasting as splitting the Red Sea. Expectation of regulation is why mainstream adoption of bitcoin led to creation of less known cryptocurrencies geared specifically for privacy and servicing the "shadow economy".
Unless there is a major shift in attitude toward government and policy, only way to for something to remain outside of top-down regulation and manipulation by bureaucracy is to be either too obscure or too new.

'@comrade'_Comrade

Something is going to change, I told thee, the systemic collapse. When confidence in the system have been lost, governments will be forced to move to something that don’t require confidence, like gold and silver.
And I hope thou hast noticed that both fiat currencies and bitcoin are reliant upon confidence it is a confidence game (a con).

It didn’t work well for Greece because the situation in Greece are completely different from that of Panama.
There is nothing that can stop a third or second world country from declaring that they are simply using a stable first world countries currency, it is quite different to have a monetary union. If Greece defaulted it would strain the confidence of the entire block which created a moral hazard for Greece, making it less responsible then under its own system.
Moral hazards are very dangerous and a big part of the reason for why the system is destined to collapse.

'@comrade'_Comrade

PS. just a small side note, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOwqS6G7AMU

@rphb

"there is direct correlation between how right wing thou art and how political wise thou art"

When you define "politically wise" as "agrees with me" then yeah it's easy to make such claims, but otherwise... Keep up the comedy act though

'@Zeust'
Agree with me?
No not at all, being right wing have nothing to do with agreeing with each other. It is simply about recognising our right to live our own lives.
The thing about left wingers are that they want to use cohesion to force people to live a certain way and that is something that any independent minded person would oppose.

@rphb What a stupid assertion. I don't know where you're from (I'll be damned if you're Danish), but in my country, the stupidest and most uneducated are very predominantly rural. Not to mention they tend to live in places with no "closeness to God." There is no majesty or beauty in their cornfields, grasslands, and oil-soaked rivers and bays.

How do rural people experience the "horrors of the world" more than urban people do, anyway? People who live in cities actually see something other than their lawn and a neighbor every day. They live with other people. They've seen violence and poverty, sickness and crime.

Rural people are religious partially because in their small, lanky towns, everyone is the same race, the same class, and the same religion. Anyone would find it difficult to be anything but a Christian in a small town that's nearly all Christian. Cities have diversity. Podunk towns do not. Serenity be damned.

'@niels0827'

Cities in the west, of today have a lot of diversity, that is the problem, because diversity kills, literally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTROCGb5qj8
It is the greatest weakness a society can have. We want unity, not diversity.
Ethnicity, religion, language, history, culture, public institutions are all part of what makes a group of people a nation, the more they share, the stronger is the cultural cohersion.

Now when I say “closer to God” I in this context, might as well have said closer to nature. People that live in rural areas are more independent, they are or are close to the primary producers of goods.
Thou art familiar with the division of the economy into the primary, secondary and tertiary sector I hope?
It all starts with the primary producers, where we take the gifts of God, rich soil, minerals, sunshine, water, ect. and turn it into goods. That is why they are closer to God.

People in cities have much less concept about how the goods they enjoy are made, they take them for granted, and as such are less connected to the real world, and therefore dumber (more left leaning)

@rphb Is it really diversity that kills, or is it what a regressive society tells people about diversity? I live in a city that's 18% white, 32% Asian, 30% Hispanic. We also have the lowest rate of crime per capita of any city in the U.S. over 250,000 people and we're arguably more diverse than any of the rest. Maybe because it's been very diverse for ages. Maybe it's our politics. But I suppose you're going to tell me diversity is always bad? Lack of respect for diversity comes from a lack of education; this is called stupidity.

City people get close to nature, in case you haven't noticed. Despite my city having well over a million people, there's a park every few blocks, it's surrounded by mountains, the coast is 30 minutes away, and the forests and deserts are just a couple hours.

And I'm not sure if you're aware, but people in cities know where their products come from at least as much as rural people know where their products go and what they're used for. Nevertheless, if not being familiar with where the goods you use come from is a primary indicator of stupidity, explain how "rural people" have the burden of proof for believing in a God and are always unable to come up with it. I think believing in something without concrete proof is more evidence of stupidity than someone who merely hasn't taken a moment to think about where their shit comes from. You people believe in a God because you, yourself, are unable to contemplate the scientific explanation for the things around us. And just because it's too complex for your small mind doesn't mean the reason for their existence or purpose is a fantastical myth.

'@niels0827'
1) We don’t have the burden of proof regarding God
2) God is not a phenomena he is a concept, as such the very question falls outside the realm of science that is only concerned about observable facts.

3) What city art thou talking about? And how diverse is it? Diversity is not just about race. I mentioned many criteria: Religion, culture, history, language, political institutions, ideology among others.
I happen to be an expert on this subject, specifically; it was the focus of my master thesis. I studied many different nations, in order to find out what gave them sufficient unity to stay together. Japan of course have the strong belief in the emperor that have kept the country whole even when it was mostly divided between many feudal daimyos.
But a more interesting case is actually Switzerland. Switzerland don’t have a language, it stands almost uniquely so among nations for not having a national language. But its strong national culture, public institutions and ideology makes up for it.
A nation can be diverse in one aspect but still united in others.

And if thou were to think rationally about this, thou should be able to see this, because it is axiomatically obvious that diversity, that is people that have little to nothing in common, don’t work and live as well together, as people that have a lot in common.
Because it is the things we have in common, the things we share, that connects us to each other

@rphb A little late to the party; also, not a whole bunch of this I care to argue about. One thing you should remember though. The Burden of Proof comes from whoever makes a claim - Your claim was that God(s) exist; also meaning that said God(s) are bound to be proven to be true.
And since neither side can provide a positive or negative proof of said God(s) such arguments should be left alone til either side can provide a proper proof of said God(s).

'@Corvintus'

' @Corvintus'

The first thing is to understand the concept. And the central concept of God is that “he” (or it, as God don’t have a gender) is Absolute.
That means that there cannot logically be more than one

The second part is finding out more about the Absolute, and what can be deducted from it.

The third part, after all of this have been understood, is then to accept or reject the Absolute, with the full knowledge of what such and acceptance or rejection entails.

But thou hast to understand that the burden of proof cannot be placed here. That is what the atheist most often results too. It would be like two people arguing over whether the stove was hot or cold, but no one wanted to get off their ass to check, because they wanted to establish who had the burden of proof first, the one that said it was hot or the one that said it was cold.

@rphb
First of, I don't care whether there is God(s) or not. I can't possible prove nor disprove it; so why bother caring so much about it?
For me, there is no reason to do so and therefore I do not.

Secondly, the burden of proof is to proof an assertion; whoever asserts whether there is or is not God(s) is the one that should be able to provide proof of that assertion.
It has nothing to do whether something is a concept or not; it has to do with asserting things in an argument without being able to backup the assertions.

'@Corvintus'

We are talking about two different things. Thou hast to understand what God is first.
“god” is a classification of any sufficiently powerful mythological being.
“God” is a metaphysical concept about the Absolute, the Eternal, the unmoved mover, the universal spirit. In short God is not just a powerful being, but a category all of its own, different from anything else.
And there can logically only be one.
So there are a fundamental difference between polytheistic mythologies, that revels around “gods”, and monotheistic religions that makes a claim about “God”

Thou hast to understand that anyone that talks about God talks about the same being, and any disagreements they have, are about its nature.
That is also why the two main monotheistic religions, Christendom and Islam are incompatible, they make mutually exclusive claims about God,
If Christendom is True then Islam have to be false, and wise versa.
And all believers in a religion, believes that their religion is True.

So when an atheist says that it is silly to fight over fiction, the makes the claim that God is false without even considering that their faith is different from his.

Doth thou understand this?

@rphb
Problem is, how do you know whether there is only one God and not more multiple? You can't, unless you are prepared to accept the burden of proof and then simply provide the neccessary proof of such an entity.
Secondly, this was about the burden of proof, nothing else. I am not going to get dragged into some stupidly silly argument about whether or not God(s) exist; I don't care.
I care about using the term "Burden of Proof" properly. Any and all that decide that they are correct in their assumption of whether such an entity exist or not, has to provide the proof of them being correct, because if you can't provide the proof, why are you even bothering with fighting? Believe what you want and stick to it, I once again do not care.

'@Corvintus'

I do know that there is only one God, because unity is a necessary condition for the concept that we are talking about.
I know that there is only one God the same way that I know that every point on a circle is an equidistance from the center. I know it the same way that I know that a rectangle have four and only four corners that are all right angels and the sides runs parallel to each other. I know because of definition.
People that are talking about more “gods” are simply talking about something qualitatively different from people that talk about “God”.
“gods” are mythological creatures such as Zeus, Thor and Ra meant to explain natural pheromones like thunder and rain. It is primitive, superstitious, occult, anti-rational and anti-scientific, and it is because it is all of these things, that atheist wants to denote “God” as if it were the same thing. By not recognizing the unity of the concept they are criticizing, they are creating a strawman, rejecting Christendom on the basis of a ridiculous concept that is not only not part of the faith but that the church have actively fought against for thousands of years.

@rphb
To make sure you are not drifting into another topic here; you are still saying you KNOW a God(s) exist; therefore, you have the burden of proof. That is literally the meaning of the burden of proof, to assert something you have to be able to prove it.

The other things you came up with can be proven quite easily, but a "concept" if you will for the 3 Gods of Christianity is impossible to proof. Therefore it doesn't matter what you write in this comment thread, you can NOT prove your assertion that God(s) exist.

'@Corvintus'
' @Corvintus'
I know that God is a unity by definition of what God means.
So questioning the unity means that thou don’t know what we are talking about.

If we can agree on that, then the question becomes if that unity exist.
But to deny its existence have some very sinister logical implications.
And there is no logical reason to disbelief it any more then there are to believe it. Both positions are based on faith.
But the atheist faith is contradictory in so far as they deny dogmas yet are themselves dependent on them, because atheism is a religion itself.

@rphb
You are once again drifting away from the discussion. It has nothign to do with agreeing on a definition, it has to do with showing proof of your assertion.

Why are you suddenly talking about atheism? I am pretty sure, that I already said multiple times: You can not disprove or prove that God(s) exist; therefore it, there is no reason to act as if you know whether such a thing(s) exist.
Stop using silly verses and stop trash talking each other.
If you believe in something, but can not proof it, fine, that is just fine! But stop acting as if you have some supernatural knowledge of something that you can not show any proof of.
If you do not beleive in something, but can not proof that it isn't there, it's just fine! But stop acting as if you know everyone else is an idiot, when you can not proof that something isn't there.

You see how that works? Keep the boring and unnecassary crap out of here. This has to do with THE BURDEN OF PROOF.

If I say I have a hot dog - you don't believe me; I need to proof that I have the hot dog, which if I have it, should be rather easy.

@niels0827 To be fair, his point about diversity isn't really wrong. Diversity is very much the antithesis of unity, and unity is the backbone of a nation. You can't judge the unity of a nation, and subsequently it's backbone, by the way it functions when in peace time. A nation needs unity when beset by crisis. The more crisis ravaging the nation, the more important unity is. (think pre-Hitler Germany kind of crisis)

And don't be mistaken; diversity IS the antithesis of unity. The less things people have in common, the less likely they are to be in unity.

A study was done that showed that diversity of community leads to these things:

• Less confidence in local government, leaders, and news
• Less political efficacy/confidence
• Less likelihood to vote
• More protests and social reform
• Less expectation of cooperation in dilemmas (= less confidence in community cohesiveness)
• Less contributions to the community • Less close friends
• Less giving to charity and volunteering
• Lower perceived happiness
• Lower perceived quality of life
• More time indoors watching TV
• More dependence on TV for entertainment
• Lowered trust in the community
• Lowered altruism
• More ethnic-based cohesion (aka, more "Racism")

There is little to no reason for advocating a diverse society. Please take note that I say "advocate it," as in, little benefit in calling for it. Not saying that system-wide discrimination should be applied to "fix" the situation, but calling diversity a strength is not exactly true.

@rphb
"...and therefore dumber (more left leaning)"

Is that so? They are richer, but they appreciate their wealth less, so their desire to give their wealth away to those who would better-appreciated it... that is indicative of stupidity?

If urbanites are as stupid and unthinking as you say they are, what damage is it to tax them for the sake of restoring to health those who've been injured by the real world? If urbanites are as stupid and unthinking as you say they are, what damage is it to tax them for the sake of creating the public and cultural institutions that make a group of people into a nation?

You say that people in rural areas are more independent, but I have no idea how or why. I grew up in a "town" that was an unbroken, even distribution of rural areas that just happened to have been conglomerated together under its own authority. Fewer people were distributed across our random stretch of country than were gathered into my college intro biology class, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the people in my college intro biology class were far more "independent" than anyone in my hometown; for their only "dependence" was on social infrastructure, on systems freely available to all; whereas in my hometown, life depended on the interdependence of people with each other, on social networks that were not available to all, and therefore distributed their fruits not from a pure meritocratic standpoint, but from mere nepotistic happenstance of access. Success in my hometown depended on being born in to a rich and happy family and doing whatever they demanded so that you could keep yourself there; only the urbanite could afford to forgo such connections and truly do it according to their own true principles.

It is this *interdependence* that characterizes those who are close to the primary producers of goods. To be a true child with God, you must start by recognizing your dependence on His gifts and be attuned to what He tells you about them; that if you do not respect them, He will take them away, but that if you return to them and to Him what is just, that then, always then, and only then will He continue to richly reward you.

Say what you like about right-wing "independence" being the only true intelligent way of understanding the real world; I will continue in the Lutheran theology that I was taught: that humility is as salutary as it is needful.

@niels0827 The cities have high paying jobs that require advanced skills and hard education while the countryside have unemployment and dependance on handouts from the rich cityfolk. The city progress while rular areas regress. Smart kids can't wait to move from the countryside to the city where they can develop and challenge their inteligence. The citydweller needs strong social skills to make it in a quickly changing enviroment where he meets new people all the time, perhaps the most important form of intelligence for pack animals like humans. The social skills of a rural person who never meets new people stagnate. This doesn't prove much about the intelligence of the individual of course but I think it proves that cityfolks are generaly less lazy and try to use their brains full potential.

'@Rogers' https://www.ttu.ee/public/m/mart-murdvee/EconPsy/2/McDaniel_2006_Estimating_state_IQ_-_Measurement_challenges_and_preliminary_correlates.pdf

Apparently, Wyoming has a lot of big cities with high paying jobs. California? Not so much.

@comrade_Comrade That's a study of hypothetical iq accounting for factors of ethnicity, school expenditure, and crime. :/

@freeellipses Also says nothing about high paying jobs, but I don't think you read it. I'm fine with this kind of literature though.

Also California is just one of the low ranking states, and by no means is there a pattern of urban as opposed to country iq. Except the proportion of Hispanics. Also I have no clue where they got their crime statistics from smh

I don't understand why anyone devotes their time to this. It's more of a trial of basic statistics skills. Why publish it on the web?

'@freeellipses' "That's a study of hypothetical iq"
"State IQ was estimated from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) standardized tests for reading and math that are administered to a sample of public school children in each of the 50 states"
IQ is mostly hereditary, therefore can give at least an idea about previous generation.

"Also says nothing about high paying jobs"
Read post I was replying to.

"Also California is just one of the low ranking states, and by no means is there a pattern of urban as opposed to country iq."
Wyoming is one of the most rural states and has second least population density.

"Also I have no clue where they got their crime statistics from smh"
"This measure is drawn from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2006) and reports violent crimes per thousand
people. It is the mean of the years 2002 through 2004."

"Why publish it on the web? "
Why not?

@Rogers
"The citydweller needs strong social skills to make it in a quickly changing enviroment where he meets new people all the time..."

Mein Gott, kaveri, have you ever even *been* to New York City?

Over here on the continent of gichi-gami, urbanites categorically have the worst social skills; because in a city, your daily interactions in public are invariably perfunctory, except with the limited set of people you work / drink with. Cities let you self-select those with whom you interact deeply, so that you do not need to encounter those who think in ways different from yourself.

It's the predecessor of the internet's self-selecting effect; and this shouldn't even be a surprising idea. History shows that while progress always percolates out to the countryside eventually (...FDR and rural electrification? ...Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution? ...the windfields of Iowa and Texas? ...my own hometown, which had internet speeds faster than Google Fiber back before Google Fiber even existed?), iconoclastic revolutions still always started in cities (because until very recently it was only there that enough like-minded people could gather and reinforce themselves into extremism; even Mao himself, perhaps the best counterexample against the theory that radicalism springs from cities, adopted Marxism-Leninsm while at Peking University, and only later went to the countryside to gather his rural army).

This is all very different from the small towns at least of America, where everybody from the churchladies to the storeclerks to the office secretaries are going to expect you to hold a certain non-zero degree of conversation when you meet them. Meeting this expectation teaches you to remember not to bring up politics with the Trump supporting lady at church, not bring up religion with the atheist redneck at the butcher's shop, and not to bring up sports with the office secretary who doesn't follow them. The limited diversity of rural areas forces you to learn how to interact *deeply* with *a selection of people not of your own choosing*, and that breeds an understanding of the full spectrum of diversity of thought. It is anti-self-selection, so truly that I can say anecdotally without a single doubt the effect even bleeds over into the online interactions of my rural friends versus my urban friends.

"Smart kids can't wait to move from the countryside to the city where they can develop and challenge their inteligence."

Ha! I was like that once. I went out to Yale with the explicit purpose of developing and challenging my intelligence. I'm even gay, figured I'd be more likely to find a boyfriend in an area with more gay people. Given what I said above, of course, it should come as no surprise that both those searches there were utterly futile, including that it was in a rural area where I found a guy intelligent and understanding enough that I could be comfortable being different around him. I'm now quite happily-moved to Iowa where Universities still try to teach the capacity of developing new understanding, instead of just challenging the uninitiated with perpetual lists of pre-discovered "facts".

I say "facts" in quotes because once I finally took classes from a rural-born professor at the forestry school, I had to unlearn what the urbanites taught me. There were many such "facts" to unlearn, but the most damning was how my urban-born professors told me categorically that photosynthesis only occurs in the palisade layer except in a few weird flowers.

That photosynthesis only occurs in the palisade layer is true of the microbiologist's favorite pet plant, Arabidopsis, but is categorically untrue of the *vastest majority* of other plants, most of those which have been studied. In fact, most plants specifically *avoid* doing photosynthesis in the palisade layer; the palisade layer's *entire purpose* is as a sun-shield to protect the spongy mesophyll and control the light flow to individual chloroplasts, to avoid bleaching their chlorophyll and reduce the amount of energy that must be devoted to replenishing their supplies.

Urbanite specialists, who grew up able to choose to interact only with those who confirmed their beliefs, naturally in their professional lives continued this habit, self-segregating themselves in microbiology into cliques of self-reinforcing beliefs which assumed that their experiences were already universal despite being based on limited evidence; whereas the foresters, whose ranks naturally included members who grew up with rural socialization (the children of lumbermen are far more likely to want to study lumber than those who view lumber as scenery)... these people had a habit of not even attempting to provide a universal claim until the data collected could be more-reasonably be said to be universal.

Most damning of all, of course, is that the cliquey-ness of the microbiologist meant they undervalued the relevance not just of the published publicly-available forestry literature which would utterly destroy their own assumptions, but even of the segments of their own research which disproved their assumptions. Proof against their theories was right in front of them the whole time, but in their mind, their lack of natural tendency to look beyond their own opinion meant they might as well have been saying to the foresters "you're not one of us, what could you possibly have to teach us?"

Thus it is that it's only among the intersectionally-thinking rural-born, in places like Iowa State, that the biological sciences are being done properly right now: and I truly do thank God that I was born among them so I could see it.

"This doesn't prove much about the intelligence of the individual of course but I think it proves that cityfolks are generaly less lazy and try to use their brains full potential."

My experience is so far along towards the opposite of yours that I can only assume there must either be something radically different between your individual intelligence and mine, or something radically, radically different about the cultures of Sweden and America to have led us to such polar opposite conclusions.

@niels0827 "There is no majesty or beauty in their cornfields"

There's an organization here in Ames, Iowa called "Food at First". It's a free meal, open to anyone, no questions asked. They get all kinds; college kids looking for free food, folks on hard times who could use a meal to stretch their budgets, lonely shut-ins looking for company, and everything in between.

A local farmer donates a few acres of corn every year so that Food at First can stretch their food-buying budget.

You urbanites find it so easy to say "water is life" when you see pictures of Native folks yelling the way you do. I find it easy too, because I know they are yelling because it will help them save their livelihoods. I find it just as easy to say "food is life" when I see "podunk" parents going hungry silently, because they have no options to fight for their food, because their serenity is free, and because it helps their children live through the night, and that hope in the future will save their livelihoods just as surely as the revolutions of the Sioux.

Diversity be damned: life is about how we respond to suffering, and everything, everything, everything else is tangential to that.

@rphb

No, not really. I have friends who are farmers, and friends who are city folk. Stupidity and self-regard grow everywhere.

@rphb LOL. 13 hours old your comment has 21 downvotes, and only 3 people explaining why.

As a northerner in Norway, where the house lifts when there's a wind (Or hurricane as others call it.), and traditionally up to one third of all males could look forward to die by drowning, I think I know the reason for any aroese religiosity.

The center imbecility is ofte due to them being "heimfødinger", homeboys. They never move outside of their circle, whereas those from the outskirts have to travel and visit the center. And being removed from nature leads to them believing any line about "evil wolf killers" or "evil whale killers" or even "evil fish killers". Too sad that they often are unable to even argue.

@Ferrari27 All them triggered city folk

'@Ferrari27'
so what's thy point, that I am right?

@rphb I've read the comments of this thread and despite the de facto hostility that involves defending Christian values (visible in the number of downvotes) you have not resorted to baseness like some others who only speak shit for the pleasure of doing it and feel superior. But above all you have been tolerant of your retractors and you have supported much of your argument with sources of information. Even if I disagree in some respects, as if diversity kills society, let me shake your hand from poet to poet.

'@Danieleon'

Wow, thanks.
I can only say that diversity is a serious weakness to any society and I believe it is written into the Mexican constitution that the government are not allowed to fundamentally change the ethnic composition of the country, as many governments in Europe are in the midst of doing.
Germany for instance are called Germany, because it is the home of the Germans. If it were the home of the Turks it would have been called Turkey, and there is already a country like that.

A few people are without a country such as gypsies and kurds, but while it is tragic for them, it is not a fate we should wish on anyone else.
It is sad that so many people cannot appreciate what they have until it is lost.

Now that Portugal has won the Eurovision, it would be nice to finally see him/her in a comic.

@Spiclypeus Yeh.... I was hoping for that :/

@Spiclypeus indeed... i had such high hopes! :[

No Portugal?
Darn, my best friend was getting excited to see Portugal in SATW for the first time :/

@Jonas_Hrafnagil same here... :[

"I heard there was a sale. Is it still going on?"
"Jesus saves!"
"Good. Now let me just ... I'm 2 króna short. Can I still buy the book?"
"Go to Hell!"

A word of advice, don't scroll through the comments. Paragraphs and paragraphs of debate and discussion. O__o

This weeks comic is WEAK :(

@LogicMeister yeah. But they can't all be masterpieces I suppose...

'@ryttyr' True, true...

Y’all need Jesus

@ApplesRock

Gabriel Iglesias reference. Nice!

This site ought to have an upper character limit for comments.

@EricTheRedAndWhite ^^^^ I agree with this. This comment is correct in my opinion.

@EricTheRedAndWhite Or show only part of long comments by default with an expand button.

@Zeust that's better. Long comments can be fascinating too, and "part one of two" comments are worse than just long ones.

@EricTheRedAndWhite
When I can write 10^3 i's, I agree.

@EricTheRedAndWhite Did not enjoy; would not click again. ;-p

@EricTheRedAndWhite nah that just makes your job easier! I really want to make an incredibly long comment of nonsense now I know how u feel about long comments, but just can't think of much to say

@EricTheRedAndWhite
There is...

I mean, I've hit the 7787 character limit twice, :-/

@Dalamard #9637757 Wow, 7787? That sounds so arbitrary. I would've expected a power of 2. Now I'm curious why 7787

@Zeust I don't know, that's the character count I got from this post that cut of the end.

#9382050