Appply same principle of buying and holding for 10+ years and get the Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter and buy their pics periodically. Excellent stock research.
To save everyone from the oozing condescension of this guy's rant I'll boil down his thesis: Just because someone can spend Satoshi's bitcoin doesn't PROVE that they're Satoshi. Given by the many common sense reasons he listed with the know-it-all fervor of an 8th grade WoW player (someone could have stole it or the original team passed it around among themselves etc). Sure it doesn't prove anything ABSOLUTELY if Craig Write actually moved a bitcoin, but it certainly would help his case.
Too many naysayers in this thread (get burned before guys?).
Motley Fool Investment Guide is where I started. I've subscribe to their Stock Advisor newsletter for nearly a decade and have picked from their recommendations in that newsletter. Basically i've invested money in one of their picks once per month with the expectation to hold that investment for 10+ years. That portfolio has gained an average of 25% PER year and I've never researched a stock.
i had an idea that if I were a US bank I would create a USD token on Ethereum that would be redeemable at my bank (or my network of banks). A eUSD token would created via smart contract and be pegged to the dollar and thereby tradable on the Ethereum network. Individuals and business could then do business in USD (or any fiat of choice for that matter. Obtainable on an Ethereum exchange or through said bank(s)). Other implications: An accounting firm could create a smart contract that calculates and or files my taxes. A business structure (LLC, IPO etc) in can be written into a smart contract. And so on.
True, but there are also other brilliant minds in the field that are creating solutions that you can also learn from. Isolating yourself from that doesn't help much either.
I think the introduction of bitcoin into the current paradigm would only serve to deepen and strengthen it. A universal currency with no barrier of entry and a slew of other features and benefits can and should be leveraged.
Also, socioeconomic status is key here. i.e. If no one in your life values education then incentive to learn is greatly diminished no matter how intelligent you are.
Well I provided many arguments in attempt to illustrate my points. They proceeded to get cherry-picked--which effectively removed their context. You deconstructed all of my posts in an attempt to redefine each term used. Maybe I mistook a straw man for you, but you haven't acknowledged any of my greater themes here so either you missed them or their outside of your worldview. I'm sorry if I wasted your time.
The subjective apple has objective correlative brain patterns indeed, but what else?
You're imagining an apple, using stored memories to create an image in your mind. Nothing else.
What if I imagine an object that i've never seen before? No stored image there. Or just watch the ambient closed-eye-visuals that seem to run constantly in the background like a screen saver? Those and many other examples of different ways that people use their brains will require just as many rebuttles which I'm sure you'd provide but that gets us nowhere.
The image of an apple "means" something and cannot be completely reduced to electrons or synapse patterns without losing the concept of "apple".
Sure it can, it is just patterns after all.
Then why do we look at images on the computer monitor? Why not just watch the electrons flow? Why do we imagine in images at all then? Either way the tiresome point-by-point breakdowns into arguing the logical bits outside of their context very much captures symbolically the essence of what we're going on about here I think.
Reductionism. The following statements both true:
A cell is nothing more than a giant chemical reaction and can be eventually explained (with enough scientific understanding) on the molecular level.
The cell as a whole exhibits characteristics and behaviors totally different than any of its molecular counterparts.
You say the latter above quote that the apple image can be boiled down to its electrons and it is still an apple on that level. But then you say in response to my previous quote:
It loses the apple, for now it is just "brain patterns" or electrons.
No it doesn't, materialism doesn't deny subjective mental experiences.
And then:
Neuroscience has pretty well established that consciousness is an illusion Followed by That's merely a subjective mental experience of reality, something completely accepted by materialists and science.
Then go on accuse me of misunderstanding materialism. But in fact your position changes from reductionist materialism to non-reductionist twice in one post. Which is progress in my opinion!