<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>JamisonM</author><text>I do not necessarily accept the premise that consumerism is necessarily good or bad but I do not find the argument that a currency that discourages economic interaction is a good thing very compelling. I do not think that having someone else prepare a meal for you in the evening, lets say, once a week is &amp;quot;useless hole digging&amp;quot; but and honest exchange of services for money. Drastically changing the dynamic of such interactions seems like a pretty wild economic experiment, not one to be taken lightly.&lt;p&gt;When spending within the economy is restricted in this way by market forces value will concentrate very highly in essential goods and infrastructure and attracting rent-seekers to those areas of investment. The net result, it seems to me, is casting off the tyranny of fiat currency for a new kind of tyranny. The same kind that lead to the trust-busting era in US politics.</text><parent_chain><item><author>snitko</author><text>Yet people still bought computers knowing full well they are going to be cheaper in a couple of months. Why? Because they needed them. Same thing with Bitcoin. Of course, you won&amp;#x27;t be buying stupid stuff you really don&amp;#x27;t need. And you know what, that&amp;#x27;s a very good thing for the economy, because it will make people very responsible when it comes to buying things and investing their money. Bitcoin is an ultimate cure for consumerism and excessive spending. Economy as a whole and people in it don&amp;#x27;t really profit from investing into useless hole digging, even though it may look good on the paper.</text></item><item><author>JamisonM</author><text>This is true, but the definition of &amp;quot;really want&amp;quot; changes if everything you can buy is subject to deflation in your currency of choice. If you believe Bitcoin will keep rising you will defer every expense until the last possible second and many transactions you will defer and later find that you do not need to engage in them, thus there is less commerce ongoing.
How does a rational consumer justify going out for dinner on Friday if on Sunday they expect the date to be 15% cheaper, and Tuesday to be 20% cheaper, and so on? It is like the pain of finally biting the bullet and buying a new computer in the 90&amp;#x27;s knowing it will be cheaper in 3 weeks, but on every transaction you make.</text></item><item><author>snitko</author><text>I spent bitcoins on many things and intend to do so in the future. The thing is, if you need something, you&amp;#x27;ll buy it, either with USD or Bitcoin. If you buy it with USD, then that is the amount of Bitcoins you haven&amp;#x27;t bought instead. So it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter. Bitcoin in no way stops you from spending it when you really want.</text></item><item><author>vinhboy</author><text>Bitcoin worshippers will tell you, &amp;quot;no it does not matter, why would you not spend bitcoins, it&amp;#x27;s better than fiat&amp;quot;, blah blah blah...&lt;p&gt;Yet if you look at &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;BitCoin, there are dozens of &amp;quot;OMG!! I spent all my bitcoins on Pizza instead of holding on to them, look at this gif of me being sad&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question, it&amp;#x27;s just insanity.&lt;p&gt;I miss the days before this month when BitCoin prices were stable for a couple of months. Spending it was actually pretty cool.</text></item><item><author>rescripting</author><text>Hopefully someone can clear this up for me: With the price rising so quickly what incentive is there to actually use BTC as intended, as a currency?&lt;p&gt;Because the maximum number of coins is fixed it&amp;#x27;s pretty easy to project where the valuation is headed, and so anyone in their right mind should just hoard their BTC instead of spending it, which in turn should drive the price down, no?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Bitcoin Reaches 1000 USD</title><url>https://www.mtgox.com/?Currency=EUR</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jmonegro</author><text>That is actually &amp;#x2F;not&amp;#x2F; very good for the economy at all. If you abruptly reduce spending to the absolute minimum, sure it sounds very idealistic, but you&amp;#x27;re grinding most economic activity to a halt, causing hundreds of millions of layoffs, and minimizing the job market.&lt;p&gt;I estimate that we&amp;#x27;d have about 60-70% unemployment, and no jobs for those people to go to because, well, other people just aren&amp;#x27;t spending any money.</text><parent_chain><item><author>snitko</author><text>Yet people still bought computers knowing full well they are going to be cheaper in a couple of months. Why? Because they needed them. Same thing with Bitcoin. Of course, you won&amp;#x27;t be buying stupid stuff you really don&amp;#x27;t need. And you know what, that&amp;#x27;s a very good thing for the economy, because it will make people very responsible when it comes to buying things and investing their money. Bitcoin is an ultimate cure for consumerism and excessive spending. Economy as a whole and people in it don&amp;#x27;t really profit from investing into useless hole digging, even though it may look good on the paper.</text></item><item><author>JamisonM</author><text>This is true, but the definition of &amp;quot;really want&amp;quot; changes if everything you can buy is subject to deflation in your currency of choice. If you believe Bitcoin will keep rising you will defer every expense until the last possible second and many transactions you will defer and later find that you do not need to engage in them, thus there is less commerce ongoing.
How does a rational consumer justify going out for dinner on Friday if on Sunday they expect the date to be 15% cheaper, and Tuesday to be 20% cheaper, and so on? It is like the pain of finally biting the bullet and buying a new computer in the 90&amp;#x27;s knowing it will be cheaper in 3 weeks, but on every transaction you make.</text></item><item><author>snitko</author><text>I spent bitcoins on many things and intend to do so in the future. The thing is, if you need something, you&amp;#x27;ll buy it, either with USD or Bitcoin. If you buy it with USD, then that is the amount of Bitcoins you haven&amp;#x27;t bought instead. So it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter. Bitcoin in no way stops you from spending it when you really want.</text></item><item><author>vinhboy</author><text>Bitcoin worshippers will tell you, &amp;quot;no it does not matter, why would you not spend bitcoins, it&amp;#x27;s better than fiat&amp;quot;, blah blah blah...&lt;p&gt;Yet if you look at &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;BitCoin, there are dozens of &amp;quot;OMG!! I spent all my bitcoins on Pizza instead of holding on to them, look at this gif of me being sad&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question, it&amp;#x27;s just insanity.&lt;p&gt;I miss the days before this month when BitCoin prices were stable for a couple of months. Spending it was actually pretty cool.</text></item><item><author>rescripting</author><text>Hopefully someone can clear this up for me: With the price rising so quickly what incentive is there to actually use BTC as intended, as a currency?&lt;p&gt;Because the maximum number of coins is fixed it&amp;#x27;s pretty easy to project where the valuation is headed, and so anyone in their right mind should just hoard their BTC instead of spending it, which in turn should drive the price down, no?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Bitcoin Reaches 1000 USD</title><url>https://www.mtgox.com/?Currency=EUR</url></story>