Initiative Q - Money from nowhere?
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
Stop the hand waving,
Isn't that verboten now, too, because it might trigger some who was traumatized by a parade, or something?
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@boomzilla regulations also come in to play:
sand will have to be brought in by hundreds of trucks from a sand mine near Lake Okeechobee due to a federal law that prohibits local governments from importing foreign sand.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Money from nowhere?:
Ooh, ooh, I'm looking through their FAQs. Apparently they'll be using "advanced artificial intelligence models" in order to help ensure secure transactions.
And apparently they have a "vision paper". And an "economic model".
And they claim cryptocurrency is a brilliant solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
On each current transaction, there are money loss due to handling fee charged on whoever had put their hands on your money in order to pay their bill.
I wonder who pay the bill to host those "advanced AI".
Latecomers who put real money or goods with real value to the system maybe?
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
Some local toll roads also have dynamic pricing and only offer the vaguest of rationalizations as to why a ten mile trip should cost twenty bucks or more.
It's not vague at all. They have a contractual obligation to keep speeds at a minimum level. When speeds drop they have to raise the tolls.
I'd be cool with that if someone at the relevant authority presented a table like the following for the public to look at:
Average speed (mph) Toll per mile 65+ $0.20 55-64 $0.25 45-54 $0.30 35-44 $0.50 ... Then the public can objectively verify that the tolls are in order, and they don't immediately suspect greed when the price for a trip jumps from $2 to $15 if there's an accident or a rainstorm (or both).
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery Nope. It's a crime to fuck up banking to where you don't have your money anymore, and banks are FDIC insured even if it does happen. It is possible with a government, but I put it at a much lower chance of a government failing than Initial Q.
Most of our money is 1's and 0's now. If your bank fucks it up and your money vanishes in to the ether...how would you prove it?
By keeping records. It's effort, but you can.
I think most of those types have sailed off into the ledgers of history by this point.
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@lorne-kates said in Money from nowhere?:
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
Yeah, and that will go up if your "property value" goes up.
Oh well. If taxes get so high so that nobody can afford the monthly payment, what do you think will happen to property values?
Nothing. Then the property will go into default, the back will foreclose and seize it, and sell it to some rich asshole. Repeat until the entire housing market crashes, taking the economy with it.
The market segment targeted at rich assholes is already covered by properties like that aforementioned $900k townhouse upthread.
In addition to being able to buy more than three of my house(s) at that price, my deck and yard are about three times as big as some of the exterior decks on those properties.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@boomzilla regulations also come in to play:
sand will have to be brought in by hundreds of trucks from a sand mine near Lake Okeechobee due to a federal law that prohibits local governments from importing foreign sand.
I'm surprised that more fiscally-concerned folks haven't yet told the regulators to go pound sand.
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
I'm surprised that more fiscally-concerned folks haven't yet told the regulators to go pound sand.
The regulators are friends with the federal law enforcers.
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@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
@dcon Goddamned you guys are good at taking interesting threads and talking about REALLY BORING things inside of them.
Well, they are, yes, but this wasn't an interesting thread.
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@scarlet_manuka said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
@dcon Goddamned you guys are good at taking interesting threads and talking about REALLY BORING things inside of them.
Well, they are, yes, but this wasn't an interesting thread.
It wasn't until a brownnose from the project showed up to try a marketing mindtrick and lols ensued.
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@lorne-kates Yes, it was briefly interesting then. It was particularly nice to see them pick up on a few of the forum's standards. But we drifted back into uninteresting territory well before the digression Blakey was complaining about.
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@lorne-kates said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Enough
So you're saying you won't pay out what you've promised? That your currency is worthless, and your own words can't be trusted?
Again, Qs currently have no value.
Note that this is not about "us paying out". It's about building a network that gives Qs intrinsic value, according to the "equation of exchange".
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
The idea is to bring the best minds in the payment industry to work in an environment where they aren't burdened by critical mass limitations. So first we need to create that environment.
I have a feeling you're gonna need a ton of VC to even keep the lights on for that. I worked at a ten-man shop a decade ago where the developers were paid about 50-75% the local rate, and the CEO said the company's monthly running costs were about $100k per month. Now, if you want the best and brightest, you're probably going to want to pay around $200k salaries, if not higher. How long exactly is it going to take this crack team to build this perfect system?
We've raised tens of millions of VC funding in previous projects. This too will require investments, which should be possible if millions of users join.
There is constant movement of talent between the leading players in the field, so everyone knows what the others are using. Of course, the specific models and code are secret, but the approach and technologies are well known.
Interesting. In the industry I work, if you did that and didn't get your pants sued off for breaking an NDA/non-compete, you might also face criminal charges.
That's not how most industries work. Talent moves and knowledge dissipates. Law suits happen only in extreme cases of explicit trade secrets violations.
We actually think steps 2 and 3 are very difficult. But step 1 is what makes them maybe possible. If there was certainty they would succeed a Q would be worth close to $1 today...
There are of course many plans we didn't yet publish, but to be modest - most of the innovation will come in the future from bringing the best talent in the industry. And for that, we need to achieve step 1.Well, then may you hire the best and brightest and not bleed to death from the negative cashflow in the process.
Thank you sir.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
I'm sorry so how does the "belief" get converted into hard currency exactly? Gonna need you to connect the dots here.
I don't see how having 40,000 people "believe" they have $50,000 gets me any closer to my $50,000.That's actually basic economic theory. Money, by definition, is whatever people believe money is. If I had a bunch of sand and I could convince everyone that it was a valid store of value and medium of exchange, then it would become one because we'd start using it as one.
But you couldn't because there is essentially no scarcity to sand.
There doesn't seem to be any scarcity with this stuff either. You get 50K of them just for having an email address.
Initiative Q's scarcity comes from governance. Exactly like the US$.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
VISA don't need us to tell them about it. They already know how to do it, but they can't, because it requires building a new network from scratch, and they don't know how to get everyone to move to the new payment network.
That seems improbable. ISTM that if a payment processor with the reputation and clout of VISA told their merchants, "We're setting up a new network that's more secure and with lower fees," there would be a stampede to the new network. Customers would be forced to move, because eventually the old one would stop working.
Why would there be a stampede? What's the rush? Every seller will wait to see that others are moving, before making the investment.
...you don't see how that makes your plan problematic? Not like Social Justice "problematic". Really real problematic.
No. How?
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@stillwater said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq Ben, How do you have time to be on a forum like this when you're trying to get a product off the ground. If anything, Mad respect for time management skills.
This is the first forum to discuss Q (remember we haven't officially launched yet, just sent the link to a few friends), so it's a great way for us to collect feedback.
My feedback is that it's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. All of the worthlessness of cryptocurrencies, with none of the independence and guarantees.
Read the Crypto section in https://initiativeq.com/FAQ
The ideas is to provide independence and guarantees from governance rather than cryptography (like governments do), and that allows you to build a currency that anyone can use without constantly fearing their life savings can be erased any minute.One question: Do you have any economists on the payroll? If so who are they so we can look up their credentials?
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@dcon said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Of course, but having a payment network with an exclusive currency is what allows us to get wide adoption.
My opinion is it's exactly opposite. As a consumer, why should I put any trust in an exclusive currency? Cryptocurrencies have tried - I have less than zero trust in them! (We have several threads in the forum about the massive practically-daily breaches they keep incurring)
Because you could go buy bread with it, and you could sell it to the Q monetary committee for US$. See more in the Economic Model page.
When? Why do stores have any incentive to use your system when your currency is worthless? You are skipping about eleventy billion steps in the process.
Read the "Economic Model" page. It's a complex gradual process of incentivizing trust.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Because they can get more buyers when accepting Q.
Why?
Because 1) People have Qs they want to spend. 2) It's a superior payment technology.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
After you get to critical mass, get the world's top talent to design the ideal payment network
Visa, MasterCard, et al. already have the critical mass and the talent. What makes you think you can do better?
They have critical mass for their current network. If they want to build a new one, no one will come.
Why not? They have the backing, the brand recognition, the infrastructure, the marketing, the clout, the track record...I could go on and on. Stop the hand waving, give me a reason they couldn't. What would stop them, if you start to show momentum, from just doing what you are doing with their trillions of dollars in transactions and squashing you like a bug?
Nothing.
Already answered above: Everyone will wait for everyone else to join first. Having the word "VISA" on it doesn't solve a game theoretic deadlock.
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@mrl said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
according to the "equation of exchange".
The what?
look it up.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@mrl said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
according to the "equation of exchange".
The what?
look it up.
No.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Already answered above: Everyone will wait for everyone else to join first.
That is especially true for your project: you will have the "critical mass" of people who hold the currency and want to spend it.
But why would I start giving goods or work for it?- A lot of the currency is distributed to people who signed up with an email, without putting any work: why should they now get other to work for this currency?
- I must wait for my suppliers/employees to start accepting that currency, otherwise how would I pay them? And they wait for their suppliers/employees in turn, etc.
- As an employee, I want my salary to pay rent, food, etc - but landlords and farmers are probably not on the forefront of technology and jumping to adopt new currencies.
There will be a big supply of your currency, but no demand.
But while unlikely to succeed, your project is harmless: you don't sell the tokens for real money, and its not a blockchain so it does not waste energy. So have fun with it, and if you end up killing PayPal, it will be for the best.
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
Some local toll roads also have dynamic pricing and only offer the vaguest of rationalizations as to why a ten mile trip should cost twenty bucks or more.
It's not vague at all. They have a contractual obligation to keep speeds at a minimum level. When speeds drop they have to raise the tolls.
I'd be cool with that if someone at the relevant authority presented a table like the following for the public to look at:
Average speed (mph) Toll per mile 65+ $0.20 55-64 $0.25 45-54 $0.30 35-44 $0.50 ... Then the public can objectively verify that the tolls are in order, and they don't immediately suspect greed when the price for a trip jumps from $2 to $15 if there's an accident or a rainstorm (or both).
That's a different scheme than what they have, though.
People are idiots. They know damn well how traffic works around here: It sucks. That section of road never seemed to average 45mph when it was HOV only (and now you only pay the tolls when you're driving alone) so I didn't understand how opening it up to additional traffic was going to improve anything there, except that it would take some traffic off of other routes.
Honestly, it's a form of tolling that actually makes a lot of sense in that it gives people real incentives to not all drive at the same time in the same place.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Because they can get more buyers when accepting Q.
Why?
Because 1) People have Qs they want to spend. 2)
It'sWe hope it will be a superior payment technology.I make that correction because you've said multiple times that it doesn't exist and you're relying on drawing in "the best" people to build it for you.
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@initiativeq How will you close the arbitrage hole? If the real market value of one Q ever goes below one USD, then speculators can buy up Qs from people and cash them in with the Q board, using the proceeds to buy up more Q, depleting the funds backing the Q currency for their own enrichment. And if the Q board tries to stop this -- for example, by limiting USD redemption -- that just devalues Q more and gives the speculators more leverage.
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@initiativeq Fair warning since you're new here: Just ignore Polygeekery. He's essentially the local village idiot, a rabid ideologue who has never in the history of ever approached an argument in good faith. He's just here to troll you and waste your time with a bunch of cynical, intellectually dishonest nonsense. Most of the other people in this thread are worth engaging with, though.
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@masonwheeler That downvote is mine. You and he have a history. We get that. But personal attacks to third parties are outside the forum norms, outside the garage.
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@benjamin-hall He and everyone has a history. It's not just me he does this to. (As evidenced by him doing this to @initiativeq here in this very thread!) I'm just trying to give the "third party" fair warning so he doesn't waste time and mental effort on a fruitless pursuit of trying to engage with a troll.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
After you get to critical mass, get the world's top talent to design the ideal payment network
Visa, MasterCard, et al. already have the critical mass and the talent. What makes you think you can do better?
They have critical mass for their current network. If they want to build a new one, no one will come.
Why not? They have the backing, the brand recognition, the infrastructure, the marketing, the clout, the track record...I could go on and on. Stop the hand waving, give me a reason they couldn't. What would stop them, if you start to show momentum, from just doing what you are doing with their trillions of dollars in transactions and squashing you like a bug?
Nothing.
Already answered above: Everyone will wait for everyone else to join first. Having the word "VISA" on it doesn't solve a game theoretic deadlock.
That is not an answer. That is a handwave.
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@benjamin-hall He and everyone has a history. It's not just me he does this to. (As evidenced by him doing this to @initiativeq here in this very thread!)
Funny definition of everyone you've got there. Regardless, badmouthing people (especially in vitriolic terms like that) is well outside the non-garage norms. That's why the down-vote.
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@benjamin-hall said in Money from nowhere?:
Regardless, badmouthing people (especially in vitriolic terms like that) is well outside the non-garage norms.
So is the way he is behaving in this thread. Therefore, is it not appropriate to give someone who's not even familiar with the garage a heads-up?
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
He and everyone has a history
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@benjamin-hall said in Money from nowhere?:
Regardless, badmouthing people (especially in vitriolic terms like that) is well outside the non-garage norms.
So is the way he is behaving in this thread. Therefore, is it not appropriate to give someone who's not even familiar with the garage a heads-up?
You're letting your own history color your viewpoint. I see the same gentle (for TDWTF) mocking of an inordinately stupid idea that is common throughout the non-garage portions.
Edit: the response to the Enlightenment "guru" who posted in that thread was basically identical, if not more harsh. From lots of people. So that's well within the norm. Vitriolic and hyperbolic personal attacks to third parties are not within the norm, from my experience.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
We've raised tens of millions of VC funding in previous projects.
No, my penis is bigger. Ask my girlfriend in
CanadaSvalbard@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
This too will require investments, which should be possible if millions of users join.
Oh hey! It's a Silicon Valley Sociopath Special, where you swindle money off the work and effort of others. Yay!
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
That's not how most industries work. Talent moves and knowledge dissipates. Law suits happen only in extreme cases of explicit trade secrets violations.
That is EXACTLY how most industries work. It's amazing how many different topics you don't have even the most basic understanding of, yet claim to be an expert in.
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
I make that correction because you've said multiple times that it doesn't exist and you're relying on drawing in "the best" people to build it for you.
It doesn't exist yet.
It can't exist until it is popular.
It won't be popular until it exists.
Great business model.
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
So is the way he is behaving in this thread.
He isn't. He's asking perfectly reasonable questions, most of which everyone else in the thread has asked (or similar).
And look, if I'M stepping into defend Poly, then you know you're sailing the wrong boat off a waterfall of burning bridges there, Mason.
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq Fair warning since you're new here: Just ignore Polygeekery. He's essentially the local village idiot, a rabid ideologue who has never in the history of ever approached an argument in good faith. He's just here to troll you and waste your time with a bunch of cynical, intellectually dishonest nonsense. Most of the other people in this thread are worth engaging with, though.
Shut up Wesley.
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@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
So is the way he is behaving in this thread.
Where?
This little scheme of theirs is bugfuck insane and everyone here except you can see that.
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@sockpuppet7 said in Money from nowhere?:
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
and my property's value should go up, up, up in response.
If all property goes up, the cost of moving to a better one increases. It's only good when it's just yours that's going up.
It depends. What if I were to choose to blow this popsicle stand in 30 years and move to somewhere with a lower cost of living?
If you're on silicon valley, you could probably sell your house and never work again, living with the interest of your money in a cheaper place.
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On the one hand, there's some people here who promulgate foolishness that simply won't work (because the world is imperfect; deal with it). On the other hand, there are also people round here who are downvoting stuff without any sort of good reason at all, behaviour which makes me suspect that they're using autovoting scripts instead of considering what people are actually saying. I don't like foolishness, but I really don't like voting on the basis of someone's identity rather than their actions; that's the sort of echo-chamber stuff that rightly gets labelled as toxic. Those who are fools will (willingly and amply!) provide the evidence of their foolishness, but do not need to be labelled as such other than at the points where they provide the demonstration.
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@dkf said in Money from nowhere?:
On the one hand, there's some people here who promulgate foolishness that simply won't work (because the world is imperfect; deal with it). On the other hand, there are also people round here who are downvoting stuff without any sort of good reason at all, behaviour which makes me suspect that they're using autovoting scripts instead of considering what people are actually saying. I don't like foolishness, but I really don't like voting on the basis of someone's identity rather than their actions; that's the sort of echo-chamber stuff that rightly gets labelled as toxic. Those who are fools will (willingly and amply!) provide the evidence of their foolishness, but do not need to be labelled as such other than at the points where they provide the demonstration.
This is why I always explain my (very rare) down votes. And I primarily down vote for things that are violations of perceived community norms. Idiots being idiots don't get down-votes, merely pity.
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@benjamin-hall said in Money from nowhere?:
Idiots being idiots don't get down-votes
There would be nobody here with positive reputation if they routinely did
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@jaloopa said in Money from nowhere?:
@benjamin-hall said in Money from nowhere?:
Idiots being idiots don't get down-votes
There would be nobody here with positive reputation if they routinely did
Myself very much included. I'm pretty good at being a cantankerous idiot, especially when I'm irritated about something else.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
VISA don't need us to tell them about it. They already know how to do it, but they can't, because it requires building a new network from scratch, and they don't know how to get everyone to move to the new payment network.
That seems improbable. ISTM that if a payment processor with the reputation and clout of VISA told their merchants, "We're setting up a new network that's more secure and with lower fees," there would be a stampede to the new network. Customers would be forced to move, because eventually the old one would stop working.
Why would there be a stampede? What's the rush? Every seller will wait to see that others are moving, before making the investment.
...you don't see how that makes your plan problematic? Not like Social Justice "problematic". Really real problematic.
No. How?
Every seller will want to see what others are doing before making the investment on a payment system from a trusted name. How is that not a billion times worse for you who is not a trusted name?
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@polygeekery Q will be totally trusted when everyone has 50,000 Qs that they're not spending
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
I'm sorry so how does the "belief" get converted into hard currency exactly? Gonna need you to connect the dots here.
I don't see how having 40,000 people "believe" they have $50,000 gets me any closer to my $50,000.That's actually basic economic theory. Money, by definition, is whatever people believe money is. If I had a bunch of sand and I could convince everyone that it was a valid store of value and medium of exchange, then it would become one because we'd start using it as one.
But you couldn't because there is essentially no scarcity to sand.
There doesn't seem to be any scarcity with this stuff either. You get 50K of them just for having an email address.
Initiative Q's scarcity comes from governance. Exactly like the US$.
Why should we trust you and your governance to not fuck it up worse than the US government? I realize that is a high bar to surpass but you guys launched without a service so you already have momentum in to territory.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Because they can get more buyers when accepting Q.
Why?
Because 1) People have Qs they want to spend. 2) It's a superior payment technology.
You are still skipping steps. I have dog turds I would like to spend but no one will accept them because they cannot trade them for other things they need.
Also, your payment technology does not even exist yet.