On Dec 12, 2003, at 5:59 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
-- On 11 Dec 2003 at 21:00, Neil Johnson wrote:
Even Ayn Rand weaves this into "Atlas Shrugged" where the competitors of Reardon Steel get the government to try and force him to give them his formula for his high-strength steel because it's putting them out business and "unfair".
Ah yes, recall big steel corporations talking about 'fair trade" in recent weeks.
Tim has been implying that I am a pinko, gold nut, and randroid, which sort of hints that Ayn Rand is too pink for him.
Rand supported taxes for the space program and for support of big business. So, yes, she was very pinkoid. And like Rand, you have the same delusions about what's possible and what's not. Your notion that "a gold atom cannot be distinguished from another" has anything important to do with issues at the crypto and traceability layers is symptomatic of this delusion. Hint: the alleged traceability of Federal Reserve Notes at the serial number level has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with traceability of payments and the reasons we need digital money. When a person deposits $10,000 and then writes a check to another person, or wires money, or withdraws cash, and so and so forth, do you think some record of the serial numbers was the means by which this transaction was traced? Your foolish faith that "E-gold" is some significant step "because gold atoms look like all other gold atoms, because there is only one stable isotope of gold" is embematic of the delusions which the gold bugs and offshore platform silly people have. And people wonder why the wrong issues are being worked on. --Tim May