Agorism, Part II (Steem on, dream on: The Hustle for a new and better world.)
MaidSafeCoin logo
Agorism is economics in its natural habitat. No state to extort your funds, no red tape to strangle your ideas. If you can fucking work, and the market digs your shit, you can do it.
Of course, the state does and will try to intervene, often with serious consequences. See Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road. See Ed and Elaine Brown.
See Monsanto warning farmers that to save their own seeds (yes, naturally growing plant seeds) is a crime. See the entire "drug war."
Sadly, being civil folks in a chaotic, murderous-amoeba (read "politician")-run world, we face these possible negatives in simply choosing to live as the free beings we are, and were born as. Pretty fucked up, huh?
Practical Agorism
Here are some ways I am practicing Agorism right now in my life.
1. Crypto
My crypto-hustles are modest at this point, but I want to talk about one potential winner (aside from Steem, of course) I see here. Others such as Ethereum, Factom, and Augur are on the list, but I am really, really pumped about MaidSafeCoin.
You godddamn right.
MAIDSAFE COIN: The dudes at MaidSafe are attempting to build a whole new internet stored entirely on private storage, decentralized and distributed across the globe.
The idea is this: People volunteer free space on their computers. This space is used to store fragmented pieces of other users' files. User files are broken into bits and stored on these other computers in the network and only "reassembled" when the file owner opens the file. When someone shuts their computer down, these bits of files from these other anonymous users are moved to other active computers in the network through a process called "churning." Thus, nobody knows what anyone is storing, who anyone is, or what encrypted, unreadable, and fragmented pieces of files are in their computer while it runs.
This effectively creates a whole new, virtually impenetrable (see the MaidSafe coin logo) internet. Those who volunteer storage space earn coins through this process, which is called "farming." The coins can also be purchased on many major exchanges. I am pretty excited about this coin, and more importantly, this idea. Check out a great interview with the developers here
2. Flips
Inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, I have begun to build a small store on Ebay to flip items. I am currently focusing on Japanese toys and collectibles. The idea is simple, and is kind of like a form of arbitrage. You just find an item for cheap, check prices on Ebay, and make a profit.
This is the beauty of subjective value. Sure, that stuffed Pikachú might not mean shit to you, and you can buy it for a buck from the resale shop, but to the collector looking for that exact doll miles away, to no avail, you are a fucking hero, and that person is going to pay you for being that hero. That is the basic idea. I'd encourage all of you to check out Gary talking on this subject here.
3. Cash Payments
Not going to go into too many personal details here, but anything I can do for cash, I do it. "Under the table" is a phrase people use to shame those who deal in such ways, but I think it more accurately should be used to shame those who make such "clandestine" transactions necessary, by threatening force against peaceful people if the fruits of their labor aren't surrendered at will. As I said earlier, amoebic-type potato shit, i.e. "taxation."
For those of you who may not understand why taxation is immoral, here is a very simple breakdown:
- Your body is yours.
- The value your body creates is thus yours.
- Taking these fruits of your labor by force (gunpoint) is thus stealing, plain and simple.
followed, upvoted, tweeted, resteemed 😜
Thank you for reposting this. I would not have found it otherwise. See what I get for following you (hehehe)
~Cheers~
Sweet!
Cheers!!!
Ya man this is great. Not too long. Not too short. Thought provoking. Gonna sit down tonight and reread and think about it.
I once knew an English teacher whose sole purpose in coming to Japan was to scour every music store in the country looking for old records, which he would then turn around and sell on EBay for obscene prices. He inspired me to try getting into the flipping business for myself, but sadly I proved terrible at finding stuff that people really wanted to buy. Here's wishing you more success than I had.
MaidSafe does look quite interesting. I'm not invested in it, but keeping an eye on it. I see a potential for synergy between MaidSafe and Ethereum, given how Ethereum-based dapps are naturally suited for web front-ends due to the JavaScript API that interacts with the Ethereum blockchain. Hopefully a lot of these blockchain 2.0 projects can mesh with one another to construct a whole seamless ecosystem. One can dream, anyway...
Great article. Question: I have an oil-cooled computer I built right at the end of the GPU mining craze, just for mining alt-coins. I shut it down and pulled it apart for storage. I would like to fire it back up--making it useful again (plus its cool to look at--all Steampunky).
My question is, do you know where I can look for newer alt-coins that I can solo mine or pool mine, that actually make a profit? Loved your post. I just followed you. Check my blog out, and if you like what you see, please follow me as well. ~Cheers~
https://steemit.com/@james83501
Have you considered nicehash.com? I'm making about $4 a week with my crappy single GPU computer.
Is that after electrical expense? If so, what is your "crappy single GPU" model and hash rate? I have a handful of HD 6990 GPUs to choose from. What algo is nicehash mining at? and can one solo mine, or does one need to pool mine? Lastly, I am trying to get going here on Steemit. Could you spend a little time looking over my posts, and if you like what you see, vote them up, and resteem them for me? I followed you as well, and I plan to resteem any article I really like a lot. Thank you. ~Cheers~
Not sure about the electric. Can't be more a dollar so I guess you can subtract that from the payout. I'm mining with an RX 460 and FX-4300 CPU. The nicehash mining program determines which algorithm is most profitable. I used my payout to buy steem power. Here's my current stats.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment, James. I like the list of coins on the Coin Cap app for iOS. Lots of altcoins listed and their market cap, plus lifetime performance history.
Your computer looks cool! Unfortunately I know zilch about mining by myself. There are tons of altcoins out there though that are still affordable to mine solo, it seems to me.
Followed back. Cheers.
Thank you. I have an Android, so iOS probably won't help. I will try to find it on-line though. Keep up the good work! ~Cheers~
Thanks! I think Coin Cap is also for Android, though. Give it a look.
OK, thank you ; )