Bitcoin Forum

The Bitcoin Foundation has just announced the process for the upcoming election for two new seats on the Board of Directors.  Details can be found on our blog: https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=226

Here are the highlights:

Nominating Deadline: August 1, 2013

• To nominate, you must be a member of the Bitcoin Foundation.  Become a member here: https://bitcoinfoundation.org/support
• Individual Members can nominate and vote for the Individual seat, and Industry Members can nominate and vote for the Industry seat.
• Email Lindsay (lindsay@bitcoinfoundation.org) to have your nomination added to the list.  Each member can only nominate once; it is okay to nominate yourself.
• All nominees will be required to fill out, sign, and mail in a physical form declaring their willingness to run for a seat and serve on the board if elected.  Lindsay will provide that form upon nomination.

Membership Sign Up Deadline: August 23, 2013

• If you are not already a member of the Bitcoin Foundation, you must become a member by August 23, 2013, to vote in the election.  Details on becoming a member can be found here: https://bitcoinfoundation.org/support

Voting Begins: Week of September 1

• Details on how to vote will be sent to all members by email in advance of the first vote.
• If we have a large pool of nominees, multiple voting rounds may be necessary.

I'm not a fan of democracy, and this position isn't particularly important, but this election should be pretty interesting. It'll be the first big election in the Bitcoin ecosystem. There should be a lot of nice drama. :)

Has anyone announced their candidacy yet? Who do you guys think will run/win?

- gmaxwell says that he will not run
- Erik Voorhees would stand a good chance if he's interested
- Luke-Jr?
- jgarzik?
- Mike Hearn?
- casascius?
- ?

Anybody here have an interest in representing the general members of the Bitcoin Foundation? I'm willing to nominate any qualified person who could bring new skills and energy to the board.

Note, you don't have to be a member to run (but if you win, it would be rather awkward if you didn't want to join!).

Here's the current board composition:
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/about/board

I only see one person who shouldn't be on that list. Then again, maybe I'm just having a Sr. moment.

I wonder how many people nominate Trendon Shavers.

Or Pinkie Pie. I couldn't say it before, but now that she's a young adult, I wouldn't mind sniffer her tail.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130616034530/mlp/images/1/19/Pinkie_Pie_Equestria_Girls_doll.jpg

Detective Phinn, you've been serving the community for quite some time now...are you interested in running?

inquiring minds want to know Detective Phinn.

Phinnaeus Gage is an excellent choice.

If he is successful then I would expect to see the BF after BFL like a terrier onto a bone!

The field is wide open. I want the best person possible representing me. Get the word out!

I would like to officially nominate Trendon Shavers and Ian Bakewell  :P

Kidding aside, if Mike Hearn is interested, I definitely think it should be him.

I'm throwing my support behind Adam Levine should he announce his intention to run.

Is Max Keiser a member?

I wonder if I should toss my name into this crazy ring... I really hate popularity contests though  :P

I didn't know those were his goals. I take it all back ::)
I just think he would be an asset because he's a great developer. Anyways, he's probably too busy.

You should. None of the existing candidates are very well-known AFAICT. It might be too late to nominate yourself, though...

Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up. Just emailed, with 1 minute to spare  ;D

Here are the current candidates for the individual seat:
Elizabeth T. Ploshay
Edward Clements (edd) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=9378)
Duncan Goldie-Scot
Nilam Doctor (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=78860)
Christian Kammler
Ben Davenport (bpd) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=12473)
Trace Mayer
Luke Dashjr (Luke-Jr) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3318)
Dmitry Murashchik (Rassah) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=20203)
Aaron Lasher (chalash) (http://www.reddit.com/user/chalash)
Noah Silverman (noah977) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=94639)
Pedro Fernandes
Ryan Deming
Joerg Platzer (joecooin) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=27506)

Elizabeth Ploshay is my favorite candidate so far, though I still need to do more research. I wish there had been more active forum users nominated.

Edit: Updated list. This should be the final candidate list.

Hmm, I only know Ben and Edd. Ben because he has been somewhat active, and he's the guy I bought a few thousand $'s worth of bitcoin over PayPal back when they were at $22 in June of 201, right before they hit $30, and crashed (thanks for trusting me Ben). And edd works with us for Bitcoin100.


EDIT: Managed to squeeze in at the last minute. My application form is in the mail (from me to them).

I support Dmitry Murahchik.

If Adam is not running, then I will support Elizabeth.

What? Why?  ???

We should prepare a questionnaire for candidates, so that we can get them to state their position on the major issues that might come up. I'd love to get them on the record on several points.

Thanks! And nah, I'm a computer nerd through and through. I am very much uncool  ;D

This is going to be good...

Thats an excellent idea. Even better would be live interviews.

Don't worry, it's not a democracy when you have to buy in to vote, and you can pay $100k for your own board seat. 
Oh wait it's modeled on real rather than ideal democracy.  Never mind, you're right!

The only thing that the candidates are running for is the opportunity to work their asses off. Your comments suggest you have a better idea that doesn't cost money. Do tell.

Work their asses off? What board member is working their ass off? None, I have yet to see a board member do more for bitcoins than me or any other bitcoiner. It is a sham, and you are caught in it.

I understand that there are many people gunning for TBF right now.  With no other context I would have gotten that impression myself.  Glad you said something.  I was more being playful with Theymos about his word choice than trying to dig TBF.  
I think that ultimately the community will need to find a way to fund the developers separately from any political action, as to avoid conflict in the basic design process.  This doesn't mean that TBF is superfluous or sinister.

As far as your financial matters, I am fine with however it needs to be done in your situation.  If you take offense to me saying that a pay wall is undemocratic then technically you are right.  There have always been restrictions to voting.

There may be a more direct way to pay for things related directly to development, there have been many proposals.  A recent one I saw was:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210130.msg2209663#msg2209663

Did you see the long legal letter that was sent to California in response to the claim that the Foundation was being a money transmitter? That was at least public. Other than that, their members are flying all over the place, meeting with groups and politicians. That you don't really hear about. But they are working their asses off.

What has the Linux foundation done that made you go "wow?" My understanding is that foundations, being nonprofits and not for the purpose of designing or coming up with products and services, mainly exist to support things from the background, and thus are not really recognized or noticed for the little tweaks they do here and there.

Oh, how's this: When Gavin releases his multi-sig/multi-device authentication to the Bitcoin wallets, where your coins can no longer be stolen because they require two devices or a device and a service to spend, would that be a wow? That would be something that, at this point, is paid for directly by the foundation.

Grants for web wallets? I missed that news. Can you elaborate of provide a link please?

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=246

anyone think eleuthria over at btc guild would a good foundation member make??

ps,

i didnt ask him and not sure if he would want to anyway, just a thought....

There are some new candidates now....


I agree.

I am going to vote for whoever will best represent the members and interests of this forum. 

There are three more names for the individual seat:

Individual Candidate: Joerg Platzer 
Individual Candidate: Ryan Deming 
Individual Candidate: Pedro Fernandes 

And here I thought I just barely managed to get in, when I sent my application at 11:58pm on the day it was due  :P

I support Luke Dashjr because I think he and Gavin need to spend more time together. lol

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62037.0

That would be the LULZ of the year right here LMAO

Now I wonder what that could be in your opinion.

Can you elaborate on this?

Joe

I am impressed. Elizabeth apparently makes a great politician and communications manager. Her skills at using many words to say little, and answering questions with very long "feel-good" speeches that lack substance and never actually address the question, is very impressive. In fact, her words are such an inspiration, that I am now quite motivated to work pro-bono as an "individual" liaison, to represent the community to the foundation and vise versa (a position I am convinced will still be wide open after the election is over), even if I should I loose. Elizabeth would likely make an excellent lobbyist though, representing "the individual" to politicians.

I wasn't yet a member of the TBF. Besides, there are much better choices than I, presently, to best fill the position.

Elizabeth T. Ploshay?
Rassah?

I hope the meetings are recorded

Luke is an extreme introvert iRL, keeping very quiet and to himself unless asked something directly. At the San Jose conference, he was like some ghost, slinking around the entire conference without saying anything or being noticed. So I doubt him and Gavin being in the same room will be as entertaining as him and Gavin on the same forum.

https://i.imgur.com/3ueYI2W.jpg (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/344-individual-candidate-joerg-platzer/)

Shame :(

Theymos, would you please update your list to link in Joerg "Joe" Platzer's (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/344-individual-candidate-joerg-platzer/) user account here (joecooin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=27506)) as well?

The board member will be spending 99% of his/her time on non-controversial outreach, political efforts, etc. For this, I believe that Elizabeth is the best candidate due to her experience with politics and communication. In the unlikely event that she would have to decide on something important, her statements convince me that she is one of the most likely candidates to decide correctly. Some of her articles/speeches are low in substance (true of almost all politicians), but she has also made detailed and explicit statements about her platform:


This is really just a boring political job more than anything, without much potential for abuse or excellence. (If it was an important position, I would have nominated myself...) The way the Foundation is set up, a single board member is unable to do much. A single board member has essentially no chance of convincing the Foundation to, e.g., issue harmful Bitcoin network edicts. The worst thing that a single board member is likely to do is say something very damaging to Bitcoin's reputation ("Everyone should use Bitcoin for tax evasion and money laundering!"), especially since it's difficult for the board to remove a board member. It's unlikely that Elizabeth will make this mistake, and she'll be able to use the position to effectively lead lobbying efforts, reach out to non-Bitcoiners, etc.

^^ These are views and positions that pretty much all of us hold, though. And maybe I misunderstood what the purpose of the position was. But you're pretty much right that she would be best if all that will be required is to write up communication memos and talk to politicians.

P.S. No, I'm not being a "sore looser," being upset because I might not win. I'm not expecting to, anyway, as there are a lot of really qualified competitors in this race. I'm honestly just concerned that the candidate most likely to win the "individual board member" position may be someone who has pretty much no ties to the community, especially when the general concern I keep hearing about the Foundation is the view that they are an "exclusive club of self-elected elitists" who don't represent, or care about, or have any ties to the Bitcoin community as a whole. Though that's not true, and I don't know if the Foundation even cares about getting support from the overall user base (they may not need it if their main goal is to focus on bringing in business support), but if they do, Elizabeth will have a lot of work ahead of her.

You make the job description sound like that of a secretary :P ...I have to say I'm a little surprised by Theymos's endorsement of Ploshay. Now that the Foundation is under Jon Matonis's leadership, there's going to be less lobbying in Washington D.C. and more of an international, non-Empire focus. So, we don't need more D.C. lobbyists.

The most accomplished of the candidates in effecting actual real-world change is Joerg Platzer (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/344-individual-candidate-joerg-platzer/), owner of Room 77, the first brick-and-mortar establishment in the world to accept bitcoin payments and these days the host for our regular bitcoin gatherings here in Berlin. An entrepreneur with a background in strategic corporate communications, Joerg has put Berlin and Bitcoin on the map. As I posted over on the Foundation forums:


https://i.imgur.com/7PVCRq1.jpg (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/344-individual-candidate-joerg-platzer/)

Read (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/can-germany-really-tax-bitcoin) about Joerg's accomplishments in making Berlin the center of gravity for bitcoin in Europe (and beyond), watch (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/26/bitcoins-gain-currency-in-berlin) his countless media appearances, listen to his Q&A (https://soundcloud.com/mindtomatter/bf-debate-joerg-platzer) for Let's Talk Bitcoin the other day, and then tell me there is a better candidate. Certainly there are a few other good candidates I might vote for if Joerg wasn't running, but he is running, so there is just no contest.

Here's Joerg's take on the internationalization of the Foundation and the necessity to be looking beyond the U.S.:

I'm wondering if Joerg's talents may not be wasted there. Bitcoin Foundation's current goals seem to be pretty focused on marching right into Mordor and keeping Sauron's armies from stomping all over everything. I'm almost wondering if there shouldn't just be other foundations in other countries that focus on local issues and developers, since there are definitely a ton of localized issues and a ton of talented developers around Europe (our best Android wallets and wallet hardware seem to come from there  ;D). I'd say decentralize the foundations to keep them from being too vulnerable to any single country or group's infighting, while allowing the separate groups to focus specifically on their local strengths and issues,. And I'd say US's obsession with wanting to regulate everything new is quite a massive issue for the established foundation to fight. For example, with their focus on Washington,  I haven't heard the foundation mention anything about the customs issues that have been plaguing the ASIC businesses in China, or the banking issues around UK that have made buying or selling bitcoins a major pain there.

But yes I'll probably vote for him. And would definitely support him should he decide to start his own organization in Germany.

Yes, as it happens Andreas Schildbach (http://schildbach.de), the developer of Android Wallet (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet&hl=en) for Android, is based here in Berlin and indeed is a core member of Joerg's Crypto Economics Consulting Group (http://www.cecg.biz/) who help (free of charge!) businesses in Berlin get started accepting bitcoin payments.

That's the Bitcoinkiez (http://bitcoinhood.wordpress.com/) project (German for "Bitcoin Hood"), the Berlin neighborhood that has the highest density of Bitcoin-accepting businesses in the world. A highly successful model that ought to be emulated anywhere and everywhere around the world, and the Foundation could conceivably provide some of the auspices for that.

Also, Mycelium is in Europe, as are the Bitcoincard and Trezor. You guys are rocking it over there.

You gotta be kidding Theymos! :)

'Director' comes from directing things, defining the direction in which to go.

There will be seven on this board so each of them will have one out of seven votes on all issues regarding the direction of the Bitcoin foundation.

You do know that exactly, why else would you post a candidate's views on really important strategical matters if it was only a secretary's job?

I am surprised that you believe we need _more_ lobbying efforts really. I would vote Ben, unfortunately I do not have a vote :(.

Joe

Addon to clarify if this position is rather a secretary's or a director's. Let me quote Adam Levine:

"... whoever wins the seats will help influence the direction of the foundation, and represent the interests of the community. It is an important role."

Joe

Hopefully whoever wins will honestly report on how much direction he/she is capable of as a member of the board. Maybe I'm wrong, but my strong impression is that directors won't be doing much interesting/important decision-making.


I don't see any harm in talking to politicians. It probably won't provide huge gains, but I doubt it will make the legal situation any worse.

 Elizabeth T. Ploshay is a good choice I agree with our sig.

I would really like to know the opinion of each candidate on a number of issues... I'm going to try to make a list of what I think are the major issues. Suggestions are welcome.

Questionnaire for the candidates:

1. How would you respond to regulatory pressure to alter the Bitcoin protocol?
2. What are the defining features of Bitcoin and which is the most important?
3. What is your position on censorship and freedom of speech?
4. What are Property Rights?
5. How important is the 21 million BTC limit?
6. What is your stance on privacy? what about financial privacy?
7. What is the purpose of the Bitcoin Foundation?
8. What is your position on maximum block size?
9. What is your position on miner's fees?

Did you see the Q&A (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=286007.0) that Adam Levine put together? That was pretty good. The recording(s) are at http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-foundation-candidate-debate/

No, I hadn't seen it. Looks very good. Thank you very much.

I predict that these candidates will get the most votes in the primary, listed from most votes to least:

Elizabeth T. Ploshay
Joerg Platzer
Trace Mayer
Ben Davenport
Dmitry Murashchik
Luke Dashjr
Duncan Goldie-Scot

What do you think?

FWIW I will also probably be voting for Elizabeth, my only concern being that I felt some of her answers lacked gravitas and authority and sounded a bit sound-bitey compared with some of the other candidates e.g. Trace Mayer.  I'm listening to all the interviews on bitcointalk and will probably make my final decision after this.

I do think that we need to get ahead of any government regulation.  Governments are the core component of authority in the world we live and we can't just avoid that.   The biggest threat to bitcoin is that regulation clamps down on the exchanges and bitcoin becomes an undercover currency with no future in the modern economy - a currency where the only way of exchanging it is to meet someone on localbitcoins, and you can't buy anything online, simply has no future.  While it seems this might be the aim of some part of the bitcoin community since they will ideologically reject any form of government involvement, I think that getting legislators educated in bitcoin and give them a greater understanding that it's not just use for crime and is no different from cash, is absolutely critical to bitcoin's future success.

There is a key difference here between engaging with legislators and educating them that bitcoin does not need heavy handed regulation (as the foundation has done last week in Washington), from just shunning governments entirely and hoping that they will leave us alone saying 'na na you can't shut us down because you can't turn off the internet!!'.  This is the path to destruction, so any candidate that engages with regulators and government would get my vote.

Will

In that case, you might be interested to hear more about what Joerg Platzer (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/344-individual-candidate-joerg-platzer/) has to say. Joerg's ongoing dialogue with the German authorities, particularly with lawmaker Frank Schäffler, recently resulted in the German finance ministry officially recognizing bitcoins as a unit of account (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/can-germany-really-tax-bitcoin), what many consider a major milestone here in Europe.

Here's Joerg's no-holds-barred take on regulation vis-a-vis proactively educating authorities about Bitcoin as he has been doing for the past three years here in Berlin:



https://i.imgur.com/B7Zqmnd.jpg (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=286047.0)

I think the top-4 on this list, at least, seem like the obvious shortlist, as judged from conversations here, Reddit, and the Foundation forums (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/forum/9-board-elections-2013/). And indeed I'd myself vote for Joerg, Trace, or Ben—in exactly that order, in fact.

Have anyone placed bets on the outcome with one of the Bitcoin-based prediction markets, by the way? If so, please do post links...

I was impressed with Platzer's interview, but this quote is why I would struggle to vote for Platzer.  It's simply unrealistic to think that governments will ignore or let Bitcoin continue unless they are educated and 'lobbying' is done.  One cannot simply 'opt out' of lobbying, because the existing players in the market e.g. the banks and financial institutions whose business models are due to be disrupted by Bitcoin will be lobbying and be buying out the congressional representatives - if the Foundation does not get involve in this then put simply, it will lose, and Bitcoin will lose as a result.

Believing that somehow Bitcoin's benefits will somehow on their own impress governments and regulators enough with it's pure awesomeness is just naive - laws aren't passed because they are good for the country, laws are passed because someone stands to benefit from them.  The world has changed a lot since the creation of the printing press.

'you can't regulate the regulatable' is also a very worrying statement to hear - yes, sure you can't shut down bitcoin because you'd have to shut down the internet etc etc etc it's so awesome etc etc, but governments can regulate how businesses in jurisdictions operate - if the US government says that it's illegal to transfer USD to bitcoin, then bitcoin is dead, regardless of the existence of the underlying protocol, or small pockets of people using localbitcoins.   Saying something won't happen doesn't make it not happen.

I agree that the way the current (US) system of lobbying is far from ideal, the fact that special interest groups are pretty much able to buy out votes and attach riders onto bills to further their own gains is really quite bad, but it's the way things are done and it's better, in my view, to play the game than to opt out of the game entirely and lose out of principle.

By the way I have immense respect for what Platzer is doing in Germany and the EU, and I do think that the best approach is to educate legislators (as the BCF have already done!) and not go out and ASK for regulation, but I don't think that opting out of the whole dialog with Government is an option here, and lobbying is a key part of that dialog (like it or not!), and I see a worrying amount of rhetoric from Platzer's statements that this is what he wants to do out of principle.

Will

So you are suggesting the Bitcoin community should form a lobby that is more powerful and influencal than the existing lobby of banks and financial institutes and that has more buying power than those to be able to buy out more congressmen? If you really think that is possible I shall reconsider my statements ;).


That is exactly how I see it, and in our case the 'somebody' can be defined as the legacy financial aristocracy. Since these groups will never ever benefit from an unregulated free market currency you will never ever see any approval for it from them.  That simple.


'you can't regulate the UNregulatable' is what I said. And with that I meant the concept of crypto currency altogether, not just Bitcoin. We can sacrifice Bitcoin on the altar of regulation now but that will not stop crypto currencies from taking over the financial system, it will merely throw the development back a couple of years and destroy all the value that has by now evolved in the Bitcoin economy.


Sorry in case I wasn't clear enough on that. I don't say we should not interact with and talk to government.

But looking at the disruptive potential of crypto currency I strongly believe that the lobbying-concepts of the past will not take us anywhere when it comes to organising a smooth transition of our current system to one based on crypto technology.

There is no point trying to get crypto currency implemented into the old system and it's ideals and ideas, now's the time to develop entirely new systems and ideas that are only now possible with the advent of the blockchain.

Governments an financial institutions will play a much smaller role in that new system and this is what we need to educate them about. We need to develop new ideas for how an adminstration can get the funding for necessary projects after having lost the power to tax income or to confiscate bank accounts whenever they need some cash because simply these times are coming to an end. We need mechanisms that allow the funding of public goods and services based on volantury contributions by the people who understand that their society needs these goods and services and who can by funding these projects make their vote for what the government should do with every payment.

We are talking about hyperdemocratisation.

And we need to consult government in regards to what they can do to make the transition as painless and with as little victims and collataral damage for society as possible. That is their ultimate responsibility.

Imagine an asteroid heading towards earth on collision course. Seeing it comming, does it make more sense to turn around and ask the government if that asteroid has all the licences it needs to creat a compliant impact on the planet's surface or does it make more sense to try to estimate the location and magnitude of that impact and to evacuate as many people as possible and to get prepared for the consequences of the impact?

Crypto currency is a rather huge asteroid for the financial system and it does not care about being licensed or not in the long run and no license will reduce its impact.

I think.

Joe

I just don't think it's the time yet for 'hyperdemocratisation', I think that will come some time in the future once adoption has picked up more.  We need to deal with the existential threat to bitcoin, which is that governments will misunderstand it, and slam misguided regulation on the transfer of funds in and out of the virtual currency space, based on a combination of paranoia, lack of education, and lobbying from the big players in the existing financial system.

I agree that the core bitcoin protocol can't be regulated, but the protocol itself without any links into the existing financial system, will fail and just not get the widespread adoption that bitcoin needs to succeed.  I think you're letting your idealist long-term vision of a world where everyone transacts in bitcoins peer-to-peer and taxes are gone because it's the community funding community projects based on merit, the legacy financial system is dead and buried, cloud the short term goals that are more important.

As such, we need someone who will engage fully with the US government, not someone who is saying 'trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd' and hope that the banks who are refusing to open accounts for bitcoin businesses understand, or that the momentum will pick up enough in isolation that it becomes inevitable - it won't.

Will

There is a huge difference between "educating legislators" and paying kilobuck-an-hour white-shoe lawyers from top-rung lobbying firms to engage with the influence peddlers of Mordor on the Potomac.

For example, the foundation could fund development and maintenance of a grassroots, participatory network based on tech like CivicRM (http://civicrm.org/ (http://civicrm.org/)). This in turn can be used GLOBALLY to enable individuals and businesses to educate legislators, the bureaucracy, and other businesses, on every level from hyper-local to international. CivicRM can also be used for fundraising and volunteer recruitment efforts in a host of areas.

I believe Joerg's coming at this from a multi-decade cypherpunk perspective where he's witnessed time and again that you can try all you want to get all your ducks in a row and proactively ask the powers that be to regulate you, and still get screwed. At least when it comes to U.S. interests, for whom maintaining the dollar hegemony is a categorical imperative that is not open to negotiation.

As Jon Matonis aptly put this, "Doug Jackson of e-gold knows you can have the rules changed on you at any time." (http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com/2013/07/bitcoin-foundations-legal-defense-fund.html) ...and: "We can see from the case against digital money provider e-gold that an efficient challenger to the provision of a stable monetary unit will not be permitted." (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/10/04/bitcoin-prevents-monetary-tyranny/)

That is, e-gold tried to do everything "right", with what in hindsight was an almost pathetic naivety and trust in the rule of law and justice in the U.S., and they still got screwed over big time. (Indeed, as Jeffrey Tucker puts it, "Bitcoin is karma for e-gold"; which speaks to Joerg's point that sometimes the next generation can learn from the previous one's naivety.) Joerg and Jon Matonis clearly see eye-to-eye on this question. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=129461.msg1390444#msg1390444)

As you no doubt have heard, Mt.Gox are presently getting a good taste, to the tune of a cool $5M, of how it feels when the rules get changed on you retroactively. It's a safe bet they won't be the last to learn that lesson, regardless of any and all lobbying efforts to the contrary.

Your example implies Gox had the rug pulled from under them. Wasn't it Gox that was not following the rules?

+1

Couldn't have explained it better myself.

You cannot negotiate with terrorists.

I just voted by email.

Gox was following the rules, since at the time of their founding, Bitcoin was nothing more than collectibles, a hobby, or a fake money that was just a part of an experiment among geeks. Then suddenly Bitcoin started to be worth something, FinCEN changed the rules, and two month later, since Gox hasn't complied yet, seized their money.

I do believe we need a lobbyist. I do agree that Bitcoin is like the inevitable asteroid, but we can't strap rockets to it to bring it down faster any more than government can legislate where it must land and what kind of licensing it must have to make a landing. Bitcoin will get there on its own, and I believe it will be inevitable. In the meantime, we should make sure that it getting there is as easy on Bitcoin users and businesses as possible. This means both, educating the legislators on what Bitcoin is and how to best deal with it, and organizing bitcoin businesses and users into a powerful block that can defend itself, somewhat in Washington (though it may be hard against established lobbyists), and especially in the public eye. We must demonstrate the benefits of Bitcoin, and advertise all the good things about it, so that the established powers don't have a target to attack it with. This means proactively building support, both among legislators and among the general public, in a way so that by the time they come with claims that it's being used drugs and money laundering, everyone will already know it, know that that's no different from how other currencies are used, know that those bringing these accusations are themselves guilty of those crimes (looking at you HSBC), and know that Bitcoin is a better option. This will require a very cunning game of political chess.
Or we can sit back, talk about random meaningless shit, and just let the inevitable happen, including all the crashing and burning that will likely come as a result.

I am still listening to the interviews (was visiting in-laws this weekend, so didn't have time to catch up). I will obviously vote for myself in the first round, but I am not naive enough to believe that I am the best candidate for this job. That said, I am torn between Elizabeth and Joerg. I think Joerg is the best candidate I've heard so far. His views represent mine the closest. Strategically he is also the best to represent Bitcoin, both because he understands what kind of fight will be involved, and most importantly because he can build a sort of offshore beachhead, should things go bad here. Even if they don't, attacking this thing from two sides will make winning this fight easier, since we here in US can point to Germany, the European financial powerhouse, and say, "But they're going along with it," then turn around, point to US from Germany, and say the same thing. On the other hand, I think Joerg may do better on his own, if he was not tied down by the foundation. He strikes me as someone who will do whatever he feels is necessary, regardless of what the rest of the world tells him, so I believe he will do what is right for Bitcoin in Germany whether he wins or not. As for Elizabeth, based on her writing she doesn't seem like a very strategic person, but she does have a way with words. Not necessarily enough to convince any INTJ/ENTJ types, since most of her writings didn't really say much, but maybe that's what the foundation needs if they are to try to persuade Washington and the public: someone who can communicate with feelings about how great Bitcoin is, instead of bothering with logic and detailed point-by-point rebuttals, and who can sell it to the general public.
I'm still leaning towards voting for Joerg in the second vote.

I believe there are at least 3 highly qualified candidates in this election, namely Elizabeth Ploshay, Trace Mayer and Joerg Platzer.
Both Elizabeth and Trace write and speak very well about Bitcoin. I met Trace at a NACHA conference in Vienna where we were both invited to pseak and I was impressed with his etnhusiasm and clarity. Elizabeth has experience in dealing with the powers to be and would add much needed gender diversity at the board.
Joerg has my vote today though because of what is has helped accomplish in Berlin (convince local businesses to start accepting bitcoins), an experience I would like to replicate in my home town (Paris). He would add much needed international diversity to the board too.

I voted for Joerg Platzer

Just a reminder:

Voting in the election runs until 11:59 pm PDT, September 08, 2013.

A link that enables voting was sent to Bitcoin Foundation members via e-mail.

 - https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=226

As an annual member I still do not have received any mail which contains the link to vote. I also mailed John Stahl about this. Anyone else has problems to vote as a member?

Platzer.

How did you vote? Get everyone a personal link by email?
I became an annual member yesterday. Tomorrow is the deadline. Hopefully its not to late for me.

By the way. I also want to vote for Platzer.

Thanks for this sad news. This was the main reason for my 0.20 btc membership fee. :(

Platzer

The intent behind the sign up deadline was to prevent someone from stuffing the ballot box; membership is cheap but foresight is not. We didn't want someone spending a months salary and buying the election.

I don't want to buy election. Just want to vote. That's all...

Since you're obviously tied into the decision making at the foundation, can you tell me why so many people want a German to head up a U.S. Bitcoin business organization? Joerg Platzer probably has an incidental interest in seeing Bitcoin spread worldwide. Other than that, I can't see the reason for supporting him.

Our decision making process was made via a thread on our forum. I coordinated the thread and put the recommendations we made to the board on GitHub.

A large fraction of foundation members are not from the US...not sure exactly how many...maybe 30-40%? I think internationalizing the foundation is critical and should be a priority. I suspect that's driving some votes.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I just see the recent foundation lobbying efforts in Washington and the primary business donors/members as evidence of a U.S. centric organization. It would be in the foundations best interest to move away from that considering the overall government reception in the U.S. for Bitcoin and similar businesses.

He's the only one who finds the decentralization of bitcoin a very important thing to keep. The other members are more open to centralization for bitcoin, which is in my opinion a danger to bitcoin. 

Centralization, in and of itself, isn't a necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it could create a larger user base and instill trust in the system for the common man. Bitcoin would simply cease to be the Mecca currency for liberals and anarchists. For Bitcoin to reach truly great heights it can't be exclusively used by the annual Porcfest attendees. It makes perfect sense for businessmen to want as large a user base as possible. That will require at least some control by a central authority.

The Bitcoin Foundation's mission is here:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/about/
(nothing specific about the US)

- Bitcoin is a protocol with a global user base.
- 60%* of the Foundations member are from outside of the US(* from the recent bitcoin foundation newsletter).
- New Bitcoin Foundation Executive Director Jon Matonis talks about his agenda for the foundation here.
https://soundcloud.com/mindtomatter/e23-2-setting-the-agenda-with

While the path that legislation and regulation take us down in the US is important this should not be the sole concern of the foundation.
https://plus.google.com/114798402540078632611/posts/KUEn4qQ3NpA

The point is: No central authority call be trust.
The whole concept / fundamentals of bitcoin are built upon that no one even bitcoin itself can not be trust. Only the decentralization can protect this concept.  Central planning / banks were the reason Satoshi built this thing. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Given the results of the Ron Paul campaign, I estimate the freedom movement potentially consists of 5-10% of the US population. This is about 7.5 to 15 million adults in the US alone. This is way more than enough to form our own economy, build our own businesses within our community, and have our own decentralized money and banking systems. We do not need to dumb down and centralize Bitcoin to attract a larger audience out of the vast pool of mass media manipulated Borg drones of the corporate state who have been responsible for destroying the country for the last 100 years. It can grow organically into an ecosystem at a steady pace as it is with a quality user base. I would estimate another potential 20-40% of the population may follow as they see the initial users prosper. There is another 50% of the population for which there is probably no hope since they are dependent on maintaining the status quo at all costs.

I know I will lose complete interest in Bitcoin if it is 'Paypaled' into near uselessness.

I understand and I'm not disputing the above statement. I also agree that foundation membership is made up of members of this forum so it's multinational. Platinum and silver members are mostly running U.S. based businesses and the largest investors in the membership like the Bitinstant (Winklevoss twins) and Bitcoinstore are going to attempt to set the agenda based on the needs of U.S. based businesses. Mark Karpeles, even though he's a frenchman running a Japanese business, must understand the value of supporting the business startups in the US. Just because you vote for the president does not mean you will vote on every action that they take on a daily basis.

I'm not sure you can classify every Ron Paul supporter as a Bitcoin supporter but maybe. Bitcoin will have a really difficult time being used by the non "Borg Drone" crowd if U.S. businesses fail because that business is driven underground. I do agree that you and many like you will stop using Bitcoin. I already said that above.

Not every Ron Paul supporter is a Bitcoin enthusiast, but are very much in line with its goals. There are also a lot of Bitcoin users who are not Paul supporters, either as anarcho capitalists and agorists who avoid politics completely, or other ideologies which the mainstream would also consider on the fringe. My overall aim is to estimate the potential size of an alternative economy without any need to try to mainstream (and destroy) Bitcoin.

If all else fails, there are alt coins and the option of forking Bitcoin.

Classifying destruction is subjective. Everyone has their own reason for using it. The political use is only one of many and, I suspect, isn't the primary motivator for businessmen. It's not my reason. I want Bitcoin to hit four digits against the US dollar and there to be a place for me to exchange my coins without risking a prison term when I do. I realize Bitcoin was founded in extremist ideology and that's great. Many users are in it for profit and few are mining for free.

One of the most true statements I've ever heard in my life came in a fortune cookie. "Love is the bread of life but money is the honey." You can love your fellow man and want to over throw the evil government all day long but profit is necessary for business.

Primary results:

---

INDIVIDUAL SEAT

    Elizabeth T. Ploshay (30.0%)
    Trace Mayer (17.1%)
    Ben Davenport (16.8%)
    Joerg Platzer (16.8%)
    Luke Dashjr (7.1%)

INDUSTRY SEAT

    Meyer (Micky) Malka (68.6%)
    Tony Gallippi (8.6%)
    Jaron Lukasiewicz (8.6%)

---

I'm surprised at how poorly Joerg Platzer did. It seems that a lot of people like him. He may gain votes in the next round.

Congrats to Elizabeth !!
Glad to see such a strong showing for her. She really is an impressive addition to the foundation.

Apparently there aren't a lot of voters at all in this thing: https://electionbuddy.com/elections/9452/results/sdq6pd958

Elizabeth only got 84, and Joerg only got 47. We get that many voters on some of our rather silly polls around here. Admittedly, one of the big reasons I don't like Elizabeth is because her campaign seems to be more about winning a popularity contest than about actual issues. She posts a lot, but much of it is "wow, bitcoin is great." And sure, she matches with some of our general beliefs, but so does everyone else who is anywhere near libertarian politically. There's not much more than "yeah, I agree with what you said" in her writing. I also just can't see her doing much more than supporting the Bitcoin Foundation in their lobbying and working within US only endeavors. So, my next vote I'll be supporting Joerg, who not only seems to understand why bitcoin might need government support, but also why it can survive in spite of it, and can see where we may be headed with it in the future, and even if Joerg doesn't win, I would support him starting up his own Euro-centric foundation as well.

I think you are right, it looks like only about 40% voted. Just like a government election,lol.
I do support Elizabeth, however I see what your saying about being America-centric. In future elections to the board I would like see more representatives from Europe, Asia, Africa, etc.   

How many votes did you get Rassah?  Given that you're a prominent figure in the Bitcoin community and given how few people voted, it seems like you should have cleaned up. 

Elizabeth bothered to put together (herself) a very comprehensive platform website that seems (to me) to be much omre than "Yeah I agree with what you said"  Where can I find your comprehensive platform thread/website? 

http://elizabethtploshay.com/platform/

I've been watching the reaction around the community and it feels a whole lot to me like sour grapes.  Elizabeth legitimately put in a large amount of time, reached out to EVERY SINGLE member of the foundation personally to solicit feedback and introduce herself, and it paid dividends for her.  Going into this, she was arguably the least known of all the candidates who made it into the top five, and she nearly doubled the next three in vote totals.  How can she win a "popularity" contest if everyone was more popular than she was going into it?

This is a position on the Bitcoin Foundation, not a position in "Bitcoin" - 40% turnout might be standard but in a field with 14 candidates a 30% first round result is as close to overwhelming as you get.  Elizabeth did and continues to do the work, people see that and voted for who they thought was the best candidate.

I've made it known a bit early that I don't expect to win, don't intend to win, and intend to support Joerg. So, yeah, I got 5 votes, and am not too surprised about that.


Sorry, I've been too busy doing bitcoin stuff, instead of making up glittery cardboard posters to post around the school, so to speak. And her platform is sort of what I'm talking about. On international growth, she says, and I quote,

“ As a member of the Bitcoin Foundation Board, I will look forward to facilitating a Bitcoin meet-up guide and work to assist leaders and individuals who are passionate about the currency in nations around the world.”

On charitable contributions, she says,

“As a Member of the Bitcoin Foundation Board, I would work to educate non-profits and charitable organizations on the ease of transaction with Bitcoin and the many benefits of accepting donations in BTC.”

In short, there's a list of feel-good words that, to summarize, say, "I will work to make bitcoin more international" and "I will work on getting charities to use bitcoin." There's just not much there besides, "I'll do this general thing I'm being asked about." For example, my own platform also includes, "I will reach out to the community," and "I will get more people to use bitcoin." I am really struggling to find where her platform has anything other than lots of words without actual plan or substance. Even herresponse to the open source topic is basically, "open source is good, and bitcoin should be open source," as if there is any way to change that.


Sorry, not from me. I didn't expect to win, and have legitimate concerns about her.


By running on a platform of answering questions with lots of words that make people feel good, and posting tons of such stuff everywhere she could, but having little substance in what she actually says. So, literally, winning based on trying to gain popular support through fluff campaigning instead of through raising support for ideas and context. As I mentioned, she is very much a politician, knowing how to say a lot to answer questions on positions without actually answering the questions.

And yes, I do feel bad for attacking her directly like this. She is an actual person with actual feelings and ambitions, not just some anonymous name on the internets, but I am just genuinely concerned about whether this is a position that she is right for. I'm not saying she is a bad person, I'm just worried she may not have the skills and experience the Foundation actually needs. However, that may depend on the direction the Foundation wants to take. As I said, if the Foundation wants to mainly focus on lobbying US government, she may be perfect. But that may not be what I and others want the Foundation to focus on.

Good post, Rassah, that's exactly my impression of her. She's very active, takes the initiative and seems to have great interpersonal skill, but her words lack specificity.

You can see how few votes it would take to buy the needed votes to sway this thing. The foundation is focused on growing globally (and Elizabeth is quite in support of that). I do think having BF-USA underneath a Bitcoin foundation alongside BF-EU, BF-China, etc is the way to go. Keeping us together through that transition rather than splintering I think is important.

The correct person won the election. She is exactly what enterprise needs to support profitable growth. There is nothing wrong with "feel good" words and cheer leading. Ask any politician about the importance of perception over substance. Politicians need two qualities to effectively lead. They need to take and follow directions from the correct source and implement those directions using every political trick in their toolkit. She should be able to accomplish the necessary objectives with her toolkit. I'm sorry Rassah, I think you're too passionate about your personal agenda for Bitcoin to ever be an effective international leader.

It's almost like she'd be an advocate for the community...

The community was referring to was the membership of the Bitcoin Foundation.  It costs .2btc to be a member for a year.  I paid the membership cost, so did a little less than 700 other people.  If you want to be represented by the foundation you should join too.

And before you say "Shouldn't she be advocating for the Bitcoin community" take a look at what most of the complaints are about the Foundation - People say they try to represent themselves as the Bitcoin community when in fact they're a small subset.  This is true, and it's exactly why your vote would matter a whole bunch more if you had indicated the actions of the foundation mattered to you.

There's a second round of elections. She may be the one most likely to win, but there is a smaller field now, and most people who threw away their vote last time despite not wanting to vote for Elizabeth (like I did) will be more serious this time. Not saying she will not win, but it's not guaranteed.


I thought that's what the Industry candidate was running for?


That depends on what her job will be. If her job will be to try to sway the masses towards accepting bitcoin, yeah, she's be extremely great at it. If her job will be to influence politicians, as the Foundation seems to hint as being their near-term goal, then, as they say, you can't bullshit a bullshitter. Politicians do this stuff every day, and they'll likely see right through that. I'm sure the Foundation will recognize the skills of whoever wins, and use them appropriately though. At least I hope so.


Well now I'm hurt. I don't think my personal agenda for bitcoin is any different from bitcoin's own agenda, which is to make reliance on banking systems and government issued currency obsolete. Just because that also happens to involve some political connotations and consequences isn't my fault. And from the discussions there, there were very few people who seem to have any clue about international issues with and ramifications for bitcoin: myself, Joerg, Nilam, and maybe two more. Elizabeth wasn't one. You are right about one thing though, I am not much of a leader. I'm more or a mastermind adviser, preferring to point out any issues or opportunities to someone else who is much better at getting people following them than I. I'm an introvert, in search of a charismatic, power-hungry extrovert  ;D



That was actually one of my initial concerns: how can you be an advocate for the community when you aren't even involved in it? I guess if she wins, she'll have a lot of catching up and introductions to go through.



FIFY. Don't forget, Bitcoin is way bigger and much more resilient than any self-appointed "official" organization. It was specifically designed to be that way.

For the record, Rassah was on my short list.

The truth is that we had a large number of great candidates....great candidates who are and will continue to be great stewards of the community. Our main goal should be figuring out how to build an effective community and I think the Foundation is part of it. Others disagree and that's ok. I donated a small amount to bitcointalk (฿10? It was cheap at the time) and some think that's stupid. I disagree (and I think history is on my side on this one). Only time will tell how effective different parts of the community are for different goals. But I think arguing that Bitcoin doesn't need any community at all is foolish.

I'm proud to be members of the same community and foundation as everyone who ran. Each deserves a hearty thank you for stepping up to be counted amongst the doers. 

it is a pity for someone who seems so passionate about bitcoin, Elizabeth doesn't seem to spend much time interacting with the 'vibrant' bitcoin community here.

Will

That wasn't meant to hurt feelings. People running for any elected office (with government or private industry) can't allow anything to hurt their feelings. I think you're a great spokesman for Bitcoin with unrivaled passion. Bitcoin would suffer without you as a warrior fighting the good fight. I just don't believe your goal of, as you state it, "make reliance on banking systems and government issued currency obsolete" should be the primary objective of Bitcoin at this stage in the game. Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. I would have preferred that no one lobby the US government and instead allow officials to learn about Bitcoin with lengthy research allowing Bitcoin more time to grow first. However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

+1 That's the best news of all.  :)

Thanks for mentioning that bg002h.

In the LTB interview, she sounded like a ditzy cheerleader. She's fuckable but I would suggest getting that out of your system via tube sites before casting your vote next time.

When Theymos started censoring our project threads, it seriously undermined the creditability of Bitcointalk's moderation in my opinion. The Bitcoin universe is larger than Bitcointalk and its 22,000 members.


Thank you for making my point about community engagement. If you want people to reach out to you, then maybe you shouldn't say hurtful and off the cuff remarks. I know Elizabeth and I can assure you that she is both passionate and very bright. She will be a great leader in the Bitcoin community.

For info. At the time of writing reddit has 49,912 Bitcoin readers, closing in on the magic 50k
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

I wasn't really hurt, sorry for making you concerned (well, maybe a bit about the "international" part). For the record, my "platform," and my view in general, is that bitcoin has certain aspects that are just simple facts of its existence. It is what it is, and it can't be changed. Politicians may want to control issuance of bitcoins to keep it from forming speculative bubbles, or be able to reverse fraudulent transactions, or be able to track every transaction and link it to every identity, but that simply won't happen. They'd be legislating at a wall. So the best that anyone can do from that angle, really, is inform them of the facts, and help them regulate their way around those. Most probably this will involve a very specific new class of regulations that deal with specific criminal issues, instead of the current "monitor everything and hope we can catch something later" methods that they use with the established financial system. The best analogy I can think of would be meeting legislators and explaining to them that, for example, pretty soon gun control legislation may be a waste of resources when anyone can simply 3D print their own gun at home, that they should get ready for such a reality, and maybe they should focus instead on fighting the causes of violence instead of the tools. Likewise with bitcoin, I'm sure they want to keep regulating to keep everyone safe and keep things fair, but with bitcoin, they'll have to change their strategy and focus more on looking for actual criminals instead of just making things difficult for everyone. I also think that lying to them by trying to assuage them with things like "bitcoin isn't really anonymous" and "you can't launder large quantities of money with bitcoin," when it can be, you can (slowly) and when both of these things are being actively developed, is very productive, either. It's the same situation as above, and we might as well let them know what it is they are going to be faced with and let them adjust to the new reality, lest we end up with other semi-useless regulations which people will still not be able to comply with.



Is Elizabeth on Reddit at least?

@QuestionAuthority: is that some kind of extreme authority questioning, almost radical?

Joe

Everyone makes that mistake. You think it means the greater society. The authorities I question are the supposed power players in Bitcoin. The likes of Nefario, Pirateat40, Zhou Tong, Bruce Wagner, Matthew Wright, Luke Dashjr, numerous pool operators I've mined for that were stealing and many others made me that way. I have a "trust no one" attitude here and the ones I trust the least are the authority figures.

I consider "Questionauthority" and others like him to be in the same class of people as the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis

HAHAHA. Brilliant and so true...

I haven't actually flown to Washington and lobbied to be involved in the formation of Bitcoin laws. That would be your foundation doing that. I'm the one that said don't tell them anything. Let them research for themselves. So I guess your foundation and every major Bitcoin businessman is a collaborator. You should really learn to read. Going through life as a dumbass is no way to live.

Because sometimes people have a hard time differentiating between people they disagree with about minor parts of a much larger issue and inflatable stereotypes they consider the pinnacle of evil.

It's not that their judgement is bad, they just don't have any middle settings between "Don't Care" and "THE END OF THE WORLD"

I guess this means they don't don't care :)

I sincerely hope we don't cut each other down as we try to build the Foundation up. The last thing we want are people leaving the community over the election. A strong foundation will be useful for many things, but, the community is and needs to always be more than the Foundation.

You can never stop the community; the Foundation can technically be stopped, but another similar entity would emerge from the community to take it's place. If that ever happened, and I hope it doesn't, where do you think it would reemerge from? I would bet right here, on bitcointalk.

Wise words.

The bitcoin foundation is significantly orthogonal to the general bitcoin community and the project itself. Fortunately, political structures are largely irrelevant to a mostly open source software effort.

That depends on if you're interested in bitcoin staying small and niche, or if you're interested in mainstream bitcoin adoption.

I'm interested in the latter.

Finance and payment systems have very little to do with each other.

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

One more reason Joerg Platzer needs to be on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation (yes, if you're a member, you can vote for him!), to show these guys how this is an actual factual thing that happens ON THE STREETS.

Nothing for 'sters and guys in suits.


"This guy is in finance..."

Well THIS guy is ON THE STREET actually WORKING with Bitcoin.

/spamrant

I don't know if it is orthoganal but at least it right now seems to represent only a fraction of opinions from only one jurisdiction.

The main reason for me for having accepted the nomination is to help the foundation to clearly position itself and to clearify this question for the whole Bitcoin community. In my opinion, the members of the Foundation will with the result of these elections decide if their organisation will in the future be a SF/DC-Bitcoin-Business-Club or the global roof organisation representing the whole diversity of the international Bitcoin community, which it claimed to want to be when it started and for which, by the way, a lot of non-US-citizens and a lot of people with other stuff than regulation in mind donated a lot of money.

Deciding if that money is now going to be spent on a fancy office space, lawyers and Cocktail-bills in DC or on R&D for decentralised exchange and mixing will make that positioning clear for everybody to see.

I stand for the latter, my strongest opponent for the former. Of course I would love to win and be able to throw my opinion and vote into the decicion-making of the Foundation, but if I loose against Elizabeth I already win again, together with the whole Bitcoin-community:

we will gain clarity. :)

To freedom of transaction!

Joe

vote....for franenmint

So will your entire campaign platform be based on belittling people that could potentially vote for you or am I the exception to rule?

I am sorry if I made the impression to want to belittle you, I did not.

You will have to admit though that your nick and the above statement (please read it over again!) are somehow contradictory. You basically state that you are questioning authority but at the same time are very willing to obey to it since someone else has already suggested to obey anyways. In case I misinterpreted you you are free to clearify that.

No, I did not walk out to belittle the people who could potentially vote for me but I did not take on this nomination to try to please everyone who could potentially vote for me by watering down my opinions either. Therefor I do not run a middle-of-the-road campaign trying to please everybody with feelgood-blabla. If you think that this honest and integer approach is the wrong one and there should be someone else on the board who is better than me in giving out feelgood-blabla without any substance then you know who to vote! I am no good for 'playing nice' with authorities and I will never be.


I am not working on making the system obsolete. With the advent of the blockchain the system HAS BECOME obsolete, finally.

I believe that crypto currency is going a bit deeper in questioning authority than merely questioning it, it is abolishing financial authority. And I believe that someone who chose the nick 'QuestionAuthority' might as well appreciate that as much as I do. We can't be that far away from each other really.

Joe

Wow, in just this one response you have:

Proven that you failed to read my response to your belittling comment to me providing me with evidence that you don't listen to constituents, don't understand them when they tell you something, or both.
Taken a quote out of context, not directed at you, and used it to twist a line of conversation your direction.
Shown me that you have absolutely no business acumen whatsoever.
Shown me that your understanding of the best use for Bitcoin is on the far reaches of what even the most nutty radical libertarian would think is sane.

I guess you will make a good politician. Good luck with your campaign.

The system is your enemy whether you know it or not.

Good luck Joecoin, hope you win since you represent my views and are far more tactful than myself in expressing them.

@Gweedo: Yes, publicly funded libraries are obsolete and a waste of taxpayer money. They should be privatized.

I'll avoid responding to other comments since I'm likely to make another nasty comment if I get wrapped up in the heat of discussion with those who are unlikely to align with my views, and I lost interest in trying to persuade people a long time ago.

As I noted earlier, it is always possible to move to a new blockchain if Bitcoin is compromised.

No I have not and you know that very well and you don't need to try to interpret our conversation in your personal and subjective way as it is up there for everybody to read and interpret for themselves.

I am thankful that you are daring me like this as you and I are in here for very different reasons and you are stating an example of that difference here. I may quote you from two pages earlier in this thread:


So you are here for the profits. And I am here for what you call the 'extremist' ideology from which you now expect to gain your profits of which you wish that the government will allow you to have them :).


I guess I will never and I just prooved that here by loosing your vote entirely.

Joe

Vote for Joerg for finally having a much needed European member:
Joerg Platzer (joecooin) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=27506)

Pissing contest aside, do you actually expect the Platnum and Silver members (business members) to vote for you with that platform? You're not exactly pro business.

IIRC business members are voting on the industry seat.


What do you mean by that? From what I heard he's doing business on his own and got several others to accept Bitcoin.

He is not for profit but more for extremist ideology. His stance to avoid working with governments and instead fight against them (see his quote in bold above). His position might work in Germany but will have a difficult time working in the US.

I couldn't find him mentioning that he's planning to fight governments.

Joerg? Do you pay taxes?

I also havent heared that he is planning to fight governments.
Anyway he is the only choice not from the US.
And as it is the foundation is doing things for the US only.
It would be nice to have some diversity, too.

The friendly folks at Let's Talk Bitcoin have now posted the audio recording of the final debate (http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-foundation-final-debate/), which took place yesterday (Saturday).

My personal take on it, as posted to the Foundation forum:

This is an incredibly offensive question to ask someone. I immediately and completely distrust anyone who asks it.

 I like the facebook guy , he looks like more experienced on the field than other candidates. There was a young guy , he looked very enthusiastic but not that much knowledge comparing to others . The german guy sounded like he will do his best but his best didnt look that good :D of course , I am not allowed to talk about liz since I am afraid of a ban from theymos if I say something bad about her :D

 This is the view of a noob on this topic , just from the podcast.

Joerg has by far the best thought-out position of all candidates. He has both technical and business expertise.

And what's most important: He supports organic growth of the bitcoin ecosystem by increased usage by the people and not by bootlicking corrupt governmental institutions.

The lobbying endorsed by the majority of TBF-members is an outright naive approach which both lacks effectiveness and moral integrity. The US are among the worst countries for running a Bitcoin foundation, because "freedom" there has become an abstract monument of no practical real-life significance which is only hailed to at Independence Day.

I think we need someone who can build bridges not burn them. A simple attack on the evil banking system will fall on deaf ears and lead to over regulation. That's why I'm backing Elizabeth Ploshay.
 "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar".

Don't feed the bears with honey. They'll tear you up as soon as you're done feeding them. I'm endorsing Joerg.

I agree with every word. I should just cut and paste your post.

Agreed, though this is why I'm backing Ben Davenport, as Elizabeth is a little bit of a Christian nutter.

Tough decision.  I agree with a lot of the positions of the candidates, but in varying contexts.   I personally feel that the Bitcoin Foundation should represent the global bitcoin community, and that it should be powerless.  I think that other organizations are better suited to focusing on legal issues and interfacing with authorities in specific jurisdictions.  "Freedom of transaction" is a powerful mission statement that resonates with me.

We have enough fly catchers in the US already, its time for some European ones. Joerg is the man.

It was meant to be a rhetorical question (talking about 'extremist ideology')-- I publicly said that I voted for Joerg (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255136.msg3095373#msg3095373) and I trust him to act responsibly. I'm sorry if you were offended...

There are a lot of people running with beliefs likely different from yours our mine...but I wouldn't classify any of the candidates as extremists or "nutters" at all.

Agreed. I am an atheist. But I try to look at the whole package. Many people I love believe in this or that God. They are not nuts, they are just following the pattern they grew up with.

I've always found it curious how supposed liberal free thinkers can end up being the most prejudiced people I meet. I'm an atheist too but don't believe in shunning someone because of their religious beliefs. If I did that I would have no friends. Most of the world believes in some form of religion.

Amen to that. QuestionAuthority, I'm writing your name down in my cool book!  :-*

lol - It's been quite a while since someone thought of me as cool.  ;D

Elizabeth won:
https://electionbuddy.com/elections/9787/results/pqdyb3n39

:)

Great election, everyone!

Was there ever a doubt.  ;D

She ran a great campaign.  Congrats to her.

rigged :D

lol, yes. She rigged it by developing relationships with potential voters. She then solicited input and articulated a position. She's diabolical!

Emphasis on "potential voters." It was other candidate's mistake to actually try to reach out to the community, instead of only focusing specifically on the small and closed-off Bitcoin Foundation forum membership.

And it is her fault that the general community did not participate in the election or the Foundation in general?

Sounds like sour grapes.

Just concede and move on.

Or maybe you should start your own organization.

Not at all. Just a mistake on all the other candidate's part, including myself.

You may be right. Reaching out to the community allowed the true colors of the candidates to become apparent to the foundation voting public so that neither you nor the candidate you supported could win. That does sound like sour grapes.

It's never a mistake to engage the community...recognizing that the community is really a bunch of individuals from which great ideas, companies, and groups form. But, in the end, the foundation election was decided by foundation voters.

Not exactly. It just meant that the supporters of the candidate I supported, and I, spent most of our time posting and discussing the election here, trying to drum up support, while Elizabeth pretty much spent all her time posting there, where people are actually able to vote for her. We spent time on people who couldn't vote, while she spent time only on people who can. It's simple as that.

So, you don't believe foundation members read this forum?

The results were so close that I didn't see a significant mandate for the winner. Also, it turned out that joining was not allowed after the election was announced. It might be better to have ranked voting with instant run-off and a majority needed to win for the next election.

The membership dead line for voting rights was announced ahead of time, but no one thought to modify the sign up pages to repeat that message (it should have been plastered in big bold letters every where).

We had a dead line to prevent somebody from spending $250 bucks for sock puppet accounts and buy g the election. More rounds of voting would have been better IMHO.

As well as sending unsolicited PMs.

I'm sorry your guy didn't win Roger. 

Looking forward to the evolution of the process next time. Attack ads with ominous music, flyers with the wrong voting dates and locations, voter intimidation, purging of the rolls, all that good stuff.