Golly, if that’s not an incentive, I don’t know what is…
The problem is, since I don’t agree to the laws which dictate the use of the US dollar, I don’t use the US dollar.
The reason I’ll go out on a limb and say “That’s not a thing!” is not because of some lame appeal to authority, but rather because ponzi schemes only work between people, and are based upon investment rather than exchange.
A small amount of speculators can even out the supply/demand disparities. It’s when there are too many of them when things start going awry.
actually, a note. No. That’s not what that is, as I read it. It’s an attempt to describe his experience.
And you would like -your- POV respected, then maybe not calling something you do not understand a ‘word salad’ (loaded language referring to schizophrenic rantings) or any other ableist slur, would be a better place to start from. Tomorrow.
Bitcoin threads, which is to say bitcoin flame wars, make me sad that everyone can’t be wrong.
Everyone is wrong. Just to different degrees.
I’m never wrong. I once thought that I was wrong, but I was mistaken. 
Relevant currency proposal by Larry Niven.
One word about such discussions: bitchcoin.
Give it a few years and it will stabilize.
There are also other me-too cryptocurrencies out there, bitcoin is only the best known one. We’ll see which, if any, wins in long-term.
It’s good to have an alternative to “legal”, trackable currencies.
And yet your post was comparatively so constructive! Too bad we can’t all fail so you can feel better about yourself.
The only British accent I can think of that pronounces ‘book’ the way you describe is Liverpudlian/scouse (broadly speaking - it can be sub-divided again into several smaller accents). In most instances the oo in book becomes a ‘schwa’ sound, the most common vowel sound in British English. However, saying ‘gobbledygək’ would be a fairly unusual pronunciation too - perhaps some Scottish accents would lean this way?
Ah, come one. Let’s be clear: People speculating on bitcoin aren’t making it hard for poor folks to buy milk and eggs. They’re… speculating… with a bunch of other people who are speculating.
On that ground, speculating in bitcoin seems a lot more ethical than, say, folks speculating on commodities that actually matter to the world’s economy. I’d say that people who are into that kind of gambling (and I’m not one of them), should be encouraged to do so in bitcoin.
But this is bitcoin we’re talking about. I’d say that speculating in bitcoin has more in common with, say, a video game – maybe even something like video poker – than with currency speculation.
I don’t own any bitcoin, but if I did I’d think of it more like taking some money for a night of silly fun at the local casino than anything else…
Sounds like a conceptual problem. I have met many people who take the use of money quite seriously - but I don’t recall any of them saying that they “own” their money. If you don’t consider it a medium of exchange, that’s your problem.
The thread would be more interesting if more people’s criticism of Bitcoin went beyond smug dismissal. I am perfectly happy for you if your preferred currency was blessed by your dad, Uncle Sam, and Jesus. But that doesn’t mean I need to use it.
Money: Has a lot of names on it, none of them mine.
To take this even further, isn’t money given to you to use a loan? And don’t banks use countless techniques to accrue interest so that they always make more from your money than you do? Maybe - just maybe - even big banks such as the Federal Reserve do something similar, on a larger scale. By lending you their money to use, maybe they make ten dollars more for every ten dollars that finds its way into your hand! Maybe they could fool entire populations into working for their own emancipation while the house somehow wins every time. So the people who control the value of this money always have a controlling interest in your life, no matter how much money you think you have. The only way to not bankroll your own oppression is not to play.
I would say that some regions of scottish, (Billy Connoly) would pronounce ‘book’ as ‘Luke’. Northern Irish too.
This is how I’ve always pronounced ‘gobbledygook’
Certainly some parts of Scotland do. And I know several of my family members from the midlands of Ireland do, though it seems somewhat atypical for the accent there. Seems more common as you head further west and north. The British Isles are such a mish mash of small regional and class based dialects and accents it can be hard to generalize. But as an American who watches too much foreign anglophone TV it does seem to be most consistently common among the Scots. Though that might be skewed by Scots with a particular accent tending to come to international attention. Though @pixleshifter mentions Billy Connoly pronounces it that ways (Glasgow) and I’m reasonably sure Karen Gillan does as well (Inverness). Inverness and Glasgow aren’t particularly close to one another and they have two distinct accents. So that might speak to it being common.
Anyway, in terms of schwas: I’ll admit to being terrible at these sorts of linguistic terms, and standard pronunciation notations (which is why I try to write things phonetically). But if this wiki article is to be believed:
The proper, standard, usual, and non-offensive pronunciation of the final syllable of “Gobbledygook” is the same as the ‘U’ schwa listed (as is book in most American accents). Where as the slur it looks identical would always be pronounced more like all but one of the o’s in “ooooooooo ghosts are spooky!”. Both are American terms, and you very, very seldom hear them pronounced any other way, or really used anywhere else.
I am suddenly remind of the word “Niggardly” which has no relation to the word it obvious resembles, either etymologically or in terms of its definition/meaning . But they look terribly similar, and are pronounce effectively the same way.
Unfortunately, some of us are forced to take money seriously if we want to continue living indoors. I’m glad the hunter-gatherer thing is working for you, though.
Using a thing and respecting it are quite different. I am sure you understand that much about the world.
But if we are to avoid a variation of pronunciation of ‘gobbledygook’ based upon its resemblance, to a rude word, where does that leave the poor citizens of Scunthorpe?
