News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Thoughts on Bitcoin. Parent comment

Re:Thoughts on Bitcoin by aaron695 on Monday December 02, 2013 @02:58AM (#6832404)
> Many of the sources telling of the woes of tulip mania, such as the anti-speculative pamphlets that were later reported by Beckmann and Mackay, have been cited as evidence of the extent of the economic damage. These pamphlets, however, were not written by victims of a bubble, but were primarily religiously motivated. The upheaval was viewed as a perversion of the moral order—proof that "concentration on the earthly, rather than the heavenly flower could have dire consequences".[53] Thus, it is possible that a relatively minor economic event took on a life of its own as a morality tale.

^ From the same wiki page ^ No idea with the picture you reference where it's from.

The point about economic theory is the market needs to be fluid. It says nothing about crazy people in a small private market(obvious I guess)

The "Tulip" craze seems to me to just be the normal fundamental dogma that you get when people don't fully understand systems. People distorting instances that are not linked to push their views. To me the interesting thing is people 400 years ago also feared financial systems.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Thoughts on Bitcoin by thaumasiotes on Monday December 02, 2013 @03:16AM (#6832463)
Seriously, understand what other people are saying (or make some sort of note in your comment that it's unrelated to the one you're responding to).

The wiki page says that there was very little financial damage from the tulip crash. It also says that "There is no dispute that prices for tulip bulb contracts rose and then fell in 1636–37". I responded to the claim that high tulip prices were a myth. The wiki page cited does not support that idea to any degree. And the portion you cite, in particular, also does not support that idea. It says there was little economic damage from the crash, which I acknowledged, but barely mentioned, because it was irrelevant to my point.

The picture, as wikimedia notes, is from the tulip book of P. Cos, which you could read about here: http://www.oldtulips.org/index.php?section=broken&content=ea...

[ Parent | on HN ]