I've heard it argued that the predictability of the amount of inflation/deflation could be more important for stability than the actual amount. If so, that would be an advantage for bitcoin over other currencies.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
EDIT: just saw your other comment where you said, "A bit of a tangent, but the increase in supply of bitcoin is not the only thing that affects the value of bitcoin. A key determinant is how much people want to hold bitcoin. How much people want to hold a currency is not a very stable thing, meaning that the even with a fixed quantity of bitcoin in circulation, the future value of bitcoin will be highly uncertain. This will also tend to produce gluts and shortages of bitcoin, which have their own negative effects."
I suppose that answers my question.
Yup, predictable inflation/deflation is going to be better than unpredictable inflation/deflation because people can plan for it. Bitcoin will have uncertainty about its future value. I don't know whether this would be more or less than for USD.
As a side note: because money is an asset, expectations about its future value are very important for its present value so most of the time "predictable inflation/deflation" will mean "constant inflation/deflation".
The following is just cause I misunderstood your post at first:
Predictable inflati...
Less Wrong used to like Bitcoin before it was cool. Monthly threads popped up around the same time a pricing bubble brought mainstream attention last year. When the bubble popped, and price continued to deflate, discussion on this site stopped entirely. Was there a change of sign in the social status of the topic, is the topic fully explored, or has there simply happened nothing of interest over the last year?
If you are not familiar with Bitcoin, here is one intro I happen to like.
Kaj Sotala lists a number of previous threads on the topic:
Less Wrong seems like a good place to discuss recent developments, if one does not want to suffer the inanity of the officially unofficial forum. If you are not longer interested in Bitcoin, perhaps send your remaining balance to the Singularity Institute?