[EM] A secure distributed election scheme based on Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work protocol

[Mike Frank]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Why would you sell it below market price? You sell it at the market's bid
> price.
>

Well true, but the bid price is usually below the median price between
highest bid and lowest ask (in the middle of the spread).  If you were not
trying to short, or to sell quickly, you might bid in the middle, or a
little above, and wait for the bids to come up.


>  Yes. And whoever it was would demand their bitcoins back if the value ever
> went over the capital they knew I had. And then I'd be wiped out, even if I
> was later proven right at the end of the two year time period. Which is the
> reason I don't do this; I'm not willing to put an upper bound on people's
> gullibility. I correctly called the tech crash (instead of selling out my
> tech stocks, I endowed a preschool scholarship with them) and the US real
> estate crash (I invested in non-US mutual funds, which turned out to be
> stupid, but oh well). Neither of these took brilliance to see coming, and
> the bitcoin crash doesn't either. But I couldn't short either of them
> safely, and I can't short bitcoin safely.
>

Well, it depends... There is usually some way to bet on the outcome in some
sense.  I foresaw the tech crash too, in 1999, and "shorted" it in a way, by
selling my stock options with my dot-com employer, and going back to school.
 And I foresaw the real estate bubble too, in 2005, and "shorted" that too,
by selling my house and getting an apartment, just before the price growth
stalled.

But, might I point out, those who invest in Bitcoin, including myself, are
essentially shorting all traditional currencies - betting that their value
will eventually crash relative to Bitcoin.  Or at least, they are hedging
against the possibility that this might occur.  If you don't invest in
Bitcoin at all, and all of the non-cryptocurrencies eventually do crash, you
could be left holding the bag...

At least, that's part of my motivation to participate.  All this recent talk
about not extending the US debt ceiling is making me nervous (and the debt
itself makes me nervous too).  And the fact that the wealthy in the US are
so dead-set against paying enough in taxes to help jump-start the system,
and have such an iron grip on the political climate, doesn't help either...
 Not to mention various looming resource & environmental crises... I think
the powers-that-be in this country (and the world) are rapidly driving all
of us off a cliff.

IMHO, our entire global civilization has been one giant excessive-growth
bubble for the last half-century or so, and a major correction to *that* is
coming, not far away.  I foresee severe hardship, massive social unrest, &
widespread revolution in much of the world, not far away...  To me, Bitcoin
is potentially a part of a solution, at least a kind of slim hope for a
lifeline towards a more sustainable civilization on the other side.

-Mike
-- 
Full name:       Michael Patrick Frank
Email addr.:     michael.patrick.frank at gmail.com (pers. email)
Snail mail:      820 Hillcrest Ave., Quincy, FL,  32351-1618
Phone/voicemail: (413) 842-6670 (main number, uses Google Voice)
Webpage URL:     http://www.facebook.com/M.P.Frank (pers. profile)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20110618/a012ce3f/attachment-0004.htm>