Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zarathustra]

I think it's just the latest move in the downward spiral created by the in-for-an-inch-in-for-mile dynamic of Theymos's original opinion-molding program.

While mods are getting broader and broader powers to banhammer as they see fit, the real trolls (those tortured souls who pop up in every thread, defending the party line with the same long-refuted talking points) are being deputized to report anyone who commits everyday debate fallacies like - gasp! - a strawman, and the environment will just grow worse as the mods predictably fail to notice that the real source of the decline is their own policies and broad discretionary powers to delete and ban for the purpose of shaping opinion, Theymos having set the standard as exactly this and having recruited those most keenly salivating over the prospect of exercising such bald power over debate while having the nerve to harp about vote brigading.

The /r/Bitcoin mods will reap that which they have sown, on and on, zig-zagging toward irrelevance all the faster the more vicious they turn.

Alternative interpretation:

A few of the saner mods want a good excuse to ban/demote the twirpiest small blockers and rabid mods among them, since these are some of the worst offenders in terms of quasi-trollish squabbling and actually end up making the small block camp look worse than it is (if we had some of these guys on our side, I'd be rebuking them for showing up like gadflies in every blocksize thread making such wooden, unthinking arguments; isn't it interesting how the small blockers don't see fit to do this (with a few exceptions, like /u/eragmus sometimes)).

Although I strongly suspect it's just the zig-zag into irrelevance, for individual mods there may be some nuanced ideas being entertained as to how to salvage the situation (naively I think, because the worst mods will take it as nothing other than an upgrade to their banhammer). We'll find out the true motive behind this move soon enough.

Amazingly, that thread - where the mods are collecting several hundred downvotes - remains stickied.

 

[Bagatell]

Theymos is compromised. Neither r/Bitcoin or BCT will ever be the same. Time to move on.

Anyone ever spend any time on GLP?

 

[sickpig]

@Bagatell sorry for the naive question, what does GLP mean?

 

[Bagatell]

Click the link. That's the future for Theymos.

 

[Zarathustra]

Honestly, I feel it is really hard to predict long (>2100) or even mid-term (50years) future of humans or the planet already, even if thinking hard about all these issues.

Maybe something like that:
(Translation; Original is in french) Enjoy!

"At this juncture, any strictly social contestation that refuses to see that what we’re faced with is not the crisis of a society but the extinction of a civilization becomes an accomplice in its perpetuation. It’s even become a contemporary strategy to critique this society in the vain hope of saving this civilization.
(...)

Second Circle
“Entertainment is a vital need”

A government that declares a state of emergency against fifteen-year-old kids. A country that takes refuge in the arms of a football team. A cop in a hospital bed, complaining about being the victim of “violence.” A city councilwoman issuing a decree against the building of tree houses. Two ten year olds, in Chelles, charged with burning down a video game arcade. This era excels in a certain situation of the grotesque that seems to escape it every time. The truth is that the plaintive, indignant tones of the news media are unable to stifle the burst of laughter that welcomes these headlines.

A burst of laughter is the only appropriate response to all the serious “questions” posed by news analysts. To take the most banal: there is no “immigration question.” Who still grows up where they were born? Who lives where they grew up? Who works where they live? Who lives where their ancestors did? And to whom do the children of this era belong, to television or their parents? The truth is that we have been completely torn from any belonging, we are no longer from anywhere, and the result, in addition to a new disposition to tourism, is an undeniable suffering. Our history is one of colonizations, of migrations, of wars, of exiles, of the destruction of all roots. It’s the story of everything that has made us foreigners in this world, guests in our own family. We have been expropriated from our own language by education, from our songs by reality TV contests, from our flesh by mass pornography, from our city by the police, and from our friends by wage-labor. To this we should add, in France, the ferocious and secular work of individualization by the power of the state, that classifies, compares, disciplines and separates its subjects starting from a very young age, that instinctively grinds down any solidarities that escape it until nothing remains except citizenship – a pure, phantasmic sense of belonging to the Republic. The Frenchman, more than anyone else, is the embodiment of the dispossessed, the destitute. His hatred of foreigners is based on his hatred of himself as a foreigner. The mixture of jealousy and fear he feels toward the “cités“ expresses nothing but his resentment for all he has lost. He can’t help envying these so-called “problem” neighborhoods where there still persists a bit of communal life, a few links between beings, some solidarities not controlled by the state, an informal economy, an organization that is not yet detached from those who organize. We have arrived at a point of privation where the only way to feel French is to curse the immigrants and those who are more visibly foreign. In this country, the immigrants assume a curious position of sovereignty: if they weren’t here, the French might stop existing.
----------

full book here:

https://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

 

[AdrianX]

Lol, pay to play or be banned!

 

[Inca]

The /r/bitcoin farce continues apace..

Someone posted a thread asking about alternative venues for discussion of bitcoin without censorship. I linked here and now it's been deleted from the front page.

What a lot of effort expended to destroy a subreddit. I would be curious to see the traffic stats for this place since inception..

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Haven't the small-blockers been stonewalling and sidetracking since the middle of the summer? Come on now, the entire small block position is one big logical fallacy

in /r/bitcoin mod-speak, pointing that out is an ad hominem.

 

[cypherdoc]

we're going to get a daily swing high on the $DJI today most likely with a short term sell signal. as i said yesterday, the $DJT was not confirming and looks to be causing a roll in the $DJI as would be expected. long term the Dow Theory primary bear trend is in full force:

the mirror image of this, imo, is the rise off the bottom in Bitcoin. we've already had our 90%+ pullback over an almost 2 yr bear culminating in a classic double bottom flush:

 

[sickpig]

another good inside on LN from Paul Sztorc:

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-October/011525.html

LN transactions are a substitute good for on-chain transactions.

Therefore, demand for on-chain transactions will decrease as a result of
LN, meaning that fees will be lower than they would otherwise be.

However, the two are also perfect compliments, as LN transactions cannot
take place at all without periodic on-chain transactions.
The demand for *all* Bitcoin transactions (LN and otherwise) is itself a
function of innumerable factors, one of which is the question "Which
form of money [Bitcoin or not-Bitcoin] do I think my trading partners
will be using?". By supporting a higher rate of (higher-quality) Bitcoin
transactions, the net result is highly uncertain, but will probably be
that LN actually increases trading fees.

 

[cypherdoc]

note how the $DXY is dropping as well. as i've said before, i don't think the US is going to be lucky enough to have both the dollar and UST's rise in the next crisis. it'll be all about supporting the debt pyramid:

@sickpig

i know Paul Sztorc is a bright guy but i think he lives in an intellect's bubble. not to mention the fact that he has a vested interest in seeing Truthcoin ride the SC's wave as i warned about last Fall. i was not impressed with his presentation at Scaling.

 

[Mengerian]

This is just what I've been arguing for, fork the core with the single change for BIP101 (or unlimited). Makes it clear and removes the "don't go to Hearn's private client" arguments. It creates a single decision for people and removes everything else.

The problem is that while this approach may hasten a solution to the block size problem, it does little to address the far more serious problem of development centralization.

The current situation is the first phase in a long process of establishing credible competing, or parallel, implementations. It is not even that important for XT to aim for more user adoption yet. It just has to be there as a viable alternative at the ready if the need arises. Things are progressing very well. XT development is plugging along, building useful features (mempool limiter, bandwidth traffic shaping), and building a community of developers, users and contributors.

As long as it keeps plugging along, XT is advancing the goal of more distributed development. It is establishing credibility, building capacity for growth. This is a necessary precursor for growth, actual growth can come later. In future, once it has established mindshare, and mainstream users (Coinbase?) are comfortable switching, change can appear to happen quickly.

 

[cypherdoc]

meanwhile, interest rates resume their drop reflecting trouble ahead:

 

[theZerg]

WRT XT "building a community of developers" I'm not sure if that is going to happen given some attitudes regarding contribution. See the bottom page or two of comments in: https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/81

 

[cypherdoc]

Bitreserve, a "blockchain only" proponent, goes down:

"Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of this bitcoin company is that its founder and CEO aren’t bitcoin believers.

Watson sounds even more negative on bitcoin. “I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years,” he has told Fortune. “The value of bitcoin isn’t the currency, but the technology. I think once the world becomes more accustomed and attuned to the platform of bitcoin, the noise will go away, and the currency will go away too. "

Minor, too, predicts that bitcoin as a currency “will get destroyed.”

http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/bitreserve-bitcoin-uphold/

 

[bitsko]

It's weird how their new definition of trolling is mostly about using logical fallacies. "Straw men," "ad hominem," "stonewalling" and "sidetracking" will get you banned?? Haven't the small-blockers been stonewalling and sidetracking since the middle of the summer? Come on now, the entire small block position is one big logical fallacy

As far as I understand sidetracking, disallowing discussion of XT by erroneously trying to label it an altcoin is the most successful and longstanding argumentative sidetracking ongoing, perpetuated by /u/theymos himself. Ban yourself, theymos, please.

 

[cypherdoc]

WRT XT "building a community of developers" I'm not sure if that is going to happen given some attitudes regarding contribution. See the bottom page or two of comments in: https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/81

that doesn't sound too serious at all.

Andrew might be annoyed with Thomas but he will get full attribution he was always going to get esp according to the lead Mike.

 

[cypherdoc]

SIBOS:

 

[theZerg]

I hope so... I was more remarking on Gavin's comment which was more on the lines of "if you don't like it bugger off"

 

[cypherdoc]

@theZerg

yeah, understood.

tbh, i'm glad he's getting a little more persnicketty lately as evidenced in his podcast with Adam and Trace. he's probably a bit frustrated at this whole debate. imo, it's high time he throws his weight around more. re: Andrew, it was just one comment...