Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Aquent]

I may be off here, but it seems to me that gmaxwell is pulling an old trick, one that dictators are know to pull now and then, with the latest example being Putin. I don't know if you guys remember, but sometime last year there was frenzied speculation as to where Putin went following an apparent cancellation of some trip by him and his lack of public appearance for some two weeks or so.

The commentators were then stating that this wasn't the first time the trick was pulled by a dictator, which apparently has an aim of showing to everyone just how "irreplaceable" and "necessary" he was as the country would not be able to "function" without him.

Of course, gmax runs no country, officially holds no real power and is in no way indispensable, but, his "withdrawal" has managed to create some sympathy as well as perhaps some feeling of "helplessness" and already had an effect as one solution to scaling bitcoin has been rejected outright with no reason given.

However, of course I may have completely misconstrued the situation and perhaps he is indeed "burned out", but, he is a co-founder of a company which entirely depends on bitcoin, withdrew from a, what seems to me, polite debate on the mailing list and withdrew from reddit ostensibly on what seemed to be a sarcastic "request". So I can not see how this could be any more than a stunt and if not then he should explain himself rather than run away from light to behind the scenes.

 

[cypherdoc]

@Aquent

i stick to my theory here:

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-104#post-3731

 

[Justus Ranvier]

which apparently has an aim of showing to everyone just how "irreplaceable" and "necessary" he was as the country would not be able to "function" without him.

Some would refer to this tactic as a "shit test".

 

[awemany]

He's no doubt very capable of playing in the social arena. Which makes me quite curious how he's (seemingly playing?) ignorant when confronted by @Peter R.'s economic arguments...

I know people who hide their skill at social manipulation behind being 'just an awkward nerd with an opinion'. A tactic and personality I very much dislike.

I am not yet sure whether I should classify Greg as such - but one thing is for sure:

I am not anymore assuming benevolence when he or others in the blocking crowd are behaving in odd ways. That phase is simply over. We're in the part of the game where people play according to their self-interests and they play dirty.

And I am certain that we big-blockers didn't start the fight in that area.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I suspect something is going on, I can't help but think we would be succumbing to the "shit test" by paying very much attention to whatever social plays are happening here.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

-Buckminster Fuller

 

[AdrianX]

@Peter R.: People are asking you to simply present the paper on a video. I think that's a brilliant idea and it would allow you to protest and participate at the conference at the same time.

You could also use this to emphasize the decentralized nature of the Internet and this beast named Bitcoin that they're trying to tame behind (essentially) closed doors.

If you have the balls (I must I admit I wouldn't... ), you could also go to the conference and the post your video on youtube during a pause or similar and people there surfing reddit would certainly notice it and it might cause the necessary stink

@Peter R there is this http://www.meetup.com/bitcoinvan/ they may host your talk (may be best to do it at a local library as the venue while perfect is kind of small. For visual effect I think it should be presented in a open and well lit venue. I'd volunteer to film it.

 

[Bloomie]

Precious comment from /r/buttcoin of all places

Peter R's central thesis is that there is no need for a block size limit. He has shown that the mining dynamics will lead to a natural, free-market limit.

Of course, the butters that are working for blocking the butt stream are not happy with this, as their business plan of selling services to gambling websites requires that the butts move slowly. So they have rejected his paper.

It's intellectually bankrupt. Whoever is behind that decision ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 

[cypherdoc]

well, there you have it.

so just who is selling us out to the banks?:

Confidential Transactions is one element within the sidechains project, which Hill says has garnered a lot of interest from Wall Street.

"Sidechain Elements is like a Lego tool kit for building blockchains. It doesn't define what the end blockchain looks like, but it gives a whole bunch of new powerful tools that allow you to construct blockchains according to whatever rule set you desire. In some situations those are going to be public, openly available blockchains, in other situations they might be federated blockchains," said Hill.

Corporates trading with multiple partners and transferring stock, bonds or loan products would constitute such a private blockchain environment, due to corporate confidentiality and protecting customers' records.

Hill said: "The whole concept of Sidechains is that you can build multiple blockchains that are all interoperable. Confidential Transactions could potentially be included in the Bitcoin blockchain but I suspect that would take a lot of time (maybe never? i thought the whole point was to backport these innovations?) and would be a major change because all wallets, everything that talks to the Bitcoin blockchain would have to upgrade and there would be a very long period of testing.

"Some are trying to bootstrap new networks, and that's a different approach. We believe fundamentally that it's much easier to build a parallel sidechain, where you are leveraging all of the existing work that's done and allow people to move coins in and out of that network freely. We think that gives a really good environment to make some of these technologies actually commercially viable."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/blockstreams-austin-hill-confidential-blockchains-can-remove-systemic-risk-finance-1529333

 

[saddit42]

Peter R, not letting you talk at scaling bitcoin is just ridiculous..

 

[Peter R]

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/clearing-up-the-confusion-my-hong-kong-presentation-proposal-was-not-accepted.209/

 

[albin]

@Peter R

Did you ever think things would turn out this way, at least WRT the conflict between the self-interest of devs against academic papers?

Maybe two years ago I would've thought the trajectory of somebody like you in the research space would've been collaborating with developers to flesh out their preliminary ideas into something with more rigor. Which judging from the treechains "literature" out there (for example) is something that is sorely needed!

 

[cypherdoc]

So either this means that Ledger Journal is going to be a complete failure because of its Managing Editor and all its academic board reviewers made a terrible mistake participating OR the Scaling Bitcoin Review Committee is a farce.

 

[Inca]

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3td6b9/to_those_who_are_interested_in_judging_whether/

Give this a nudge..

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Going back through the mailing list, I'm struck by how many people have brought up the kinds of points we've been making here. They keep acting like they're new.

On that note, any chance we can get Thomas Zander in here? Among other good points he raised, this perfectly conveyed the feeling I get when reading Core/BS circumlocutions about "consensus":

When I was a little boy of maybe 12 years, I remember reading a short story, that stuck with me. It was about a man that had vowed to never lie. He was invited to a dinner party and asked to assist with another man's accusation of a crime he claimed to not have committed. The end result was that the accused man was indeed guilty, but he minced his words so well that every sentence uttered was true. To the layman he seemed truthful and pleasant. Certainly innocent. But to the man that never lied, his stories quickly fell apart as he himself had had years of practice with the same. And the guilty man was jailed.

In addition to the usual semantic games and evasions, this practiced mincing of words so that everything they say is true seems to be part of the culture.

That's why there needs to be a new culture, outside the ivory tower. A multidisciplinary one. A pluralistic one. One where competition and open debate flourish.

 

[AdrianX]

This explains why I see a generational divide occurring on the block size debate. Those who have life experience favoring a more open and inclusive approach to block size.

 

[Melbustus]

BU membership opens: https://bitco.in/forum/threads/bitcoin-unlimited-membership-join-us.208/

ZB I think you (or was it someone else) asked "should I tell people about the active development?" I can't find the posting... but anyway, let's wait until we get the founding members. That will reduce drive-by signups.

"Signed up" in that thread. Thanks for putting this together Zerg!

 

[rocks]

I may be off here, but it seems to me that gmaxwell is pulling an old trick, one that dictators are know to pull now and then, with the latest example being Putin. I don't know if you guys remember, but sometime last year there was frenzied speculation as to where Putin went following an apparent cancellation of some trip by him and his lack of public appearance for some two weeks or so.

The commentators were then stating that this wasn't the first time the trick was pulled by a dictator, which apparently has an aim of showing to everyone just how "irreplaceable" and "necessary" he was as the country would not be able to "function" without him.

Of course, gmax runs no country, officially holds no real power and is in no way indispensable, but, his "withdrawal" has managed to create some sympathy as well as perhaps some feeling of "helplessness" and already had an effect as one solution to scaling bitcoin has been rejected outright with no reason given.

However, of course I may have completely misconstrued the situation and perhaps he is indeed "burned out", but, he is a co-founder of a company which entirely depends on bitcoin, withdrew from a, what seems to me, polite debate on the mailing list and withdrew from reddit ostensibly on what seemed to be a sarcastic "request". So I can not see how this could be any more than a stunt and if not then he should explain himself rather than run away from light to behind the scenes.

This trick only works if you have real power and are indispensable and unreplaceable. In Putin's case this is true, things fall apart without him.

gmax's and the other blockstream dev's only source of power is that they control the check-in process on the "official" client. Although this is a powerful position, it is fleeting. If the market switches to another client, poof bye bye power.

This form of power in open source only works if you don't use it (or very sparingly use it). With Linux you could say that Linus is all powerful, but this is only true because he enables an open collaborative environment that moves Linux forward in a way most people and companies want.

Imagine if Linus started to abuse this power and force Linux in a direction Google, Facebook, IBM, etc. did not want to go? Do you think his power would remain? Or everyone would abandon ship to GoogleLinux or something similar?

In the end, check-in control in open source is not real power because you cannot abuse it. If you do, people fork your code and you lose everything. How the blockstream guys do not see this is beyond me. I could really see Coinbase and several other firms take over development on an alternate branch.

 

[awemany]

This explains why I see a generational divide occurring on the block size debate. Those who have life experience favoring a more open and inclusive approach to block size.

A lot of it seems to be the usual call for an authority, when confronted with uncertainty.

Some small amount of uneasiness due to some uncertainty is expected. It seems to grow to a crippling condition in many people, though.

`Leaders' know and exploit this - witness other current events in the world.

But unfortunately, Bitcoin absolutely relies on a certain amount of uncertainty to function properly!

 

[cypherdoc]

small hint. retailers down:

[doublepost=1447947090][/doublepost]It’s a wretched yet predictable ritual after each new terrorist attack: Certain politicians and government officials waste no time exploiting the tragedy for their own ends. The remarks on Monday by John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took that to a new and disgraceful low.


It is hard to believe anything Mr. Brennan says. Last year, he bluntly denied that the C.I.A. had illegally hacked into the computers of Senate staff members conducting an investigation into the agency’s detention and torture programs when, in fact, it did. In 2011, when he was President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, he claimed that American drone strikes had not killed any civilians, despite clear evidence that they had. And his boss, James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has admitted lying to the Senate on the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of data. Even putting this lack of credibility aside, it’s not clear what extra powers Mr. Brennan is seeking.


The intelligence agencies’ inability to tell the truth about surveillance practices is just one part of the problem. The bigger issue is their willingness to circumvent the laws, however they are written.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/opinion/mass-surveillance-isnt-the-answer-to-fighting-terrorism.html?_r=0