Bitcoin Forum

I'd like to put forth a few arguments to present the case that it's high time for all topics about Craig Scammer Wright to be moved to the Altcoins section [//EDIT: Or some other, more appropriate, section] on sight.  

• First and foremost, he doesn't deserve the attention we give him
• Almost all threads about Faketoshi devolve into people talking about forked chains and other altcoins anyway
• Even when he claims to be talking about Bitcoin, every insane thing Faketoshi says is deliberately calculated to attract attention towards his fork
• Faketoshi has absolutely no official connection to Bitcoin itself, but the more we talk about him, the more it appears as though he's somehow important or relevant
• It sets the tone that, as a community, we want to distance ourselves from the constant, sordid three-ring-circus/pantomime/freak-show he embodies
• We shouldn't be providing a platform for con-artists to further their fraudulent agendas, it's irresponsible

It's time to draw a line under this and move on.  Feel free to add more arguments, or dispute or critique the ones I've laid out.  If someone responds with an argument I like, I'll add it to the list.

^{Topic Rules:  Absolutely NO discussion of forked chains or altcoins here, please}

I get your point, and understand your outrage.  But, I don't think that all the threads about CSW would be on topic if they were moved to the altcoin board.  Some are specific to reputation, and most are better kept in the scam accusations board.  Because BSV is a scam, and CSW is a lying POS scammer.

I don't think we should hide topics about CSW or debunking all of his idiotic claims. While it is obvious for most, Craig (and the people supporting him) can do a great job of confusing newcomers. I agree that he doesn't deserve the attention but people should be protected against his lies until he goes to jail.

That's a fair point, OP edited to reflect that.  The Altcoins sub shouldn't be used as a dumping ground for garbage, even if it often feels like one.   :D

I assure you not many users over in the Altcoin section want to see his garbage either :D

I don't usually read much of the discussion about him, but if it applies solely to altcoin, and doesn't have any relation to Bitcoin at all then you can report it, and it'll likely be moved. As for discussion relating to Bitcoin as long as its quality discussion then I don't think censorship is the right answer.

I'd like to see a scam accusation section board within the Altcoin section. I think it would be beneficial as the current setup is a little confusing to see Bitcoin, and altcoin sections separated in most sections, but Scam accusations, and reputation.

Some people find his trolling amusing. Especially when he threatened to destroy bitcoin with one single move which never happened....
Pathetic piece of clown accompanied by a pedo-guy who should be jailed as well.

I agree that we should stop cuddling his mind-twisted ego, and just remain silent.

Never argue with an idiot. People watching (newbies in our case) won't be able to tell the difference.

As with most things I'd say take them on a case by case basis. If they're mostly about alts or specifically bitcoin cash then they should be in the alt coin section but if they're just repeating the same things and offer nothing new in terms of discussion or evidence then they're redundant and should just be trashed. There's already enough threads of who is satoshi and is craig wright really satoshi and they usually get trashed and so should any others unless they're claiming something new or fresh.


It might be funny if he was trolling, but he's not. He's deadly serious and has to be to try commit his various frauds. He's in too deep to just come out now and say otherwise and doing so would just open him up to a lot of legal trouble (as if he wasn't in enough already).

Okay so like how Welsh said, censorship might not be the way, but a suggestion if it wasn't obvious enough, tag the faketoshi guys. Its obviously quite sketchy and manipulative trying to delusionize people into believing in things that are made up by an absolute horse fucker of a nincompoop. Create flags, and start topics, and common retaliation and drama will follow, and soon they will disappear. As for the discussions, I am pretty sure mods will handle it calmingly well, they'll be trashed, or moved. You'll just get used to it, tbh, it will be like "mErIt sYsTeM sUcKs" all over again, except in different boards, and it will be Craig dumbshit Wright, and poor people's altcoins(forked crappy coins).

Though I love him dearly for his sheer ludicrousness I hereby vow to never contribute to another new thread about him ever again. I will be forced to dip into the scam accusation one occasionally as it's just too much fun. That's where he should remain, that and forever being the queen of our hearts.

On one hand I agree that threads related to him tend heavily to off-topic.

On the other hand, a big part of the reason that he's caused so much disruption (and he truly has)-- is because so many bitcoiners took one look at him, saw how transparently fake he was, and decided it was best to ignore him.  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.  And that is what has happened here--

It's easy for him to spin the people who do speak out against his fraud as somehow being involved with some kind of personal play against him because as a community we haven't stood united against his fraud.  Instead, far too many have just responded like "Good thing I'm not ignorant enough to fall for that, better stay away so I don't get targeted with drama too."

In the future we're going to see more crap like him threatening any business that accepts Bitcoin with patent litigation, to which the common response will be "damn, this bitcoin stuff isn't worth the trouble" from most parties who's business isn't primarily about Bitcoin.  How could you expect otherwise when your response to wright is "damn, this wright stuff isn't worth the trouble"?

Because his lies are so prolific and layered in every one of these threads there are some newer bitcoiners that end up being corrected and put on a more sensible path.  It isn't always a question of people believing him outright, often its falling for one of his lesser lies like the claim that he's an "og bitcoin investor" or that kleiman had something to do with Bitcoin's creation.

The Wright threads also make it really easy to identify many idiots and shills.  I think we're all made better off by having access to such a quick classifier of the character of our fellow posters.

If someone broke into your house and was stealing stuff-- you wouldn't just say 'that thief doesn't deserve our attention' and ignore them.  We shouldn't hesitate to defend Bitcoin and the community surrounding it.

People do, for the most part, ignore people that caused trouble in the past but aren't anymore. You hear about wright because his scams are ongoing and still growing.

Now-- if you want to argue that various threads aren't very effective and that the community could do better?  I couldn't agree more.

If you see topics about altcoins or about CSW in wrong sections, report them so that they're moved, or post here if they aren't being moved and you think they should.


As obvious as it should appear to be (with nChain/CSW applying for hundreds of cryptocurrency-related patents) I had never actually taken that into consideration. Many businesses, especially smaller ones may react just like that.

While censorship is not something I would vote for I do think this situation requires more of a fight back from the bitcoin community, my fear is that the Nchain and BSV sockpuppets are in full attack mode against not only bitcoin but many of the outstanding people in the space.

 I have found many new BSV supporters taking to Youtube to slate and attempt to discredit some of the long term bitcoin supports..

Some of the people who have been attacked in public are Andreas Antonopoulos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBQvJkATZVE
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKqVuMDIfxjtooRKCS-G0hg

You only need to look at this guy to know he's a shill probably being paid to output this content.

Now while I do say everyone has the right to chose to use what every they see fit what I don't think is right is the fact that not 1 but 2 projects now have taken the bitcoin name and attempted to use it to manipulate users.

There must be some way we can protect  the Bitcoin name from abuse like this and I think the community should be looking into ways to protect bitcoin thru the relative channels.  

Furthermore we need more education for new users and businesses to help protect them from this toxic bunch of people.

While the love for bitcoin is still strong and those who understand and have been "around the block" for some time understand what is going on but for the new users or company's out there looking at us from the outside.. Things may not look so peachy.

Faketoshi is Bitcoin's biggest enemy and we should be talking about the enemies of bitcoin core,even in the Bitcoin discussion forum.Ignoring him completely simply won't work in the long term.
Newcomers in the forum have to be aware about Wright,or they will think this guy has something to do with bitcoin.

Threads about BSV should be moved to altcoins. This is blatantly obvious - BSV is not bitcoin.

Threads about CSW are more tricky. I am not in favor of censorship (regardless of how stupid CSW's lies are). The most recent thread - Craig Wright claims , today will be the last day for Bitcoins (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214053.0) - actually probably does belong in bitcoin discussion, since it is discussing bitcoin and not BSV. I do agree with DooMAD that it is obvious that threads like this, although talking about bitcoin, are designed solely to drum up interest in BSV. However, I will also concede that given this thread is about a recent event/new "claim", although again obvious nonsense, shouldn't be trashed.

There are other threads, however, which I think should be trashed. Threads like Craig Wright: "BTC is not Bitcoin" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5210354.0) and How an interviewer made Craig Wright sweat about the question if he's Satoshi! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5212569.0). These threads are low value and uninteresting. They are bringing no new information which hasn't been discussed 100 times before, namely CSW doesn't like bitcoin and claims to be Satoshi. At the very least, they should be moved to Off Topic since they are discussing CSW and not bitcoin.

[Quick edit:  Please see topic here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215128.0

That was motivated by what I took to be gmaxwell’s suggestion of some better community organizing.  I made some good talking points:  A new angle that will resonate with people, written up in short, easy-English sentences (not like this post).  A simple logical argument, wrapped up in thick layers of emotional appeal delivered with visual impact (as I say in this post, below).  That is my strength, but I know my weakness:  I am not good at spreading the word far and wide.  Please help spread the word, for Anastasia and for Satoshi!]

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Not oft does an Internet forum post instantly persuade me on a very deep level that I was dangerously wrong on an issue about which I had a strong opinion.  That happened here.

Since I found gmaxwell’s post, I have spent much of the past two days examining and rethinking this issue.  WIP.  At logically divergent points, this post will express my intentions for related future work in /* C-style comments */.

The following is primarily addressed to the people who have already posted in this thread.  It is long, complicated, and also, not as well-organized as I would like /* WIP */.  It is not the style that I would use in arguing with BSV shills, for reasons that you will see presently.


BSV happened when I was gone.  For the past few days, I have noticed the spew of Craig Wright/BSV threads; and I have been deliberately ignoring them.  I think it may help others if I introspectively analyze why (though I will sharply limit the analysis at certain points, to avoid giving tips to BSV shills).  A key point is an essential difference between BCH propaganda and BSV propaganda.

A few years ago, much of the most popularly repeated BCH propaganda was based on half-truths.  We are taught as children that the most dangerous lie is a half-truth, for the untrue half is the poison made plausible by the true half.  This is peculiarly effective when the true part is an oversimplified fact ripped out of context, and the false part cannot be understood without significant technical knowledge.  And much of the other BCH propaganda was based on twisting the semantics of technical jargon; when evaluating such propaganda or arguing against it, even an expert can be tripped up if he is not sufficiently careful, almost obsessively careful with the precise meanings of words.

E.g.:  “Anyone can spend” (true: name of an opcode; false: misrepresenting how validation actually works on the P2P network).  “Removes signatures” (true: signatures are removed from the part of the transaction hashed for the txid; false: signatures are removed entirely—actually, they are just moved to the witness data—and there is here another compound half-truth that I will omit for brevity).  Characterizing Segwit as a type of extension block or block extension (blurring of concepts, and semantic confusion of unrelated concepts).

Such lies are subtle.  They alarm intelligent people who fully understand them, because they look like the types of lies that could fool intelligent non-experts.^*  By comparison, BSV/Faketoshi yelling looks stupid and clownish.  Yes, you are Satoshi—and I’m the Queen of England!  For evidence-minded people, wildly implausible claims based on zero evidence are much easier to dismiss than plausible, subtly false claims.  And Craig Wright’s claims are so implausible that when Gavin bought them on the basis of obviously fake “evidence” (or at least said he did, for whatever motive), the substantial result was not only to instantly destroy Gavin’s credibility, but to make of him a laughingstock.

(* Incidentally, I understand Segwit much better because the Btash propaganda inadvertently pushed me to study it.  The Btashers confused me, and I thought that maybe they were right.  I wanted to know the truth!  So I did the logical thing, and studied what Segwit actually does.  After many hours of examining both primary sources (BIP 141, source code) and secondary sources (long Internet arguments—including in /r/btc, not only Core-friendly venues), I concluded that Segwit is awesome, Pieter Wuille is a genius, and Bcashers are liars.  Here’s to freedom of speech and independence of opinion!)

Since that time, ignoring Craig Wright has become a habit.  And that habit is reinforced when one notices that all he seems to have in his favour is a knack for getting attention.  Attention, surely, is the last thing that any sane person wants to give him.  Indeed, I cursed under my breath when I saw intelligent, respectable people arguing in BSV threads:  Why are you feeding into that?  It is beneath contempt!  Naturally, my such reactions strictly deterred me from getting involved.  I would not want anybody to question my motives for bumping BSV shill threads; and I would no more waste my time with “Craig Wright is Satoshi!!11” claims than argue in the notorious Flat Earth megathread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1009045.0).

Observe that I am not one to be shy of controversy.  I did not avoid BSV threads from a desire to avoid “drama”.  I simply saw it as pointless, unimportant drama that could only gain importance if I deigned to notice it.  That was an egregious error in judgment.

Whereas BSV propaganda is actually more effective than Bcash propaganda, because contra what you were told as a child, a half-truth isn’t the worst lie:  A Big Lie is.^*  For those not inclined to cool, objective examination of evidence, a wildly implausible claim is more plausible, because it is wildly implausible:  If it’s wildly implausible, then nobody would dare to fabricate it, so it must be true—Q.E.D.  As an implicit feeling and not an explicit process of ratiocination, that is just how human psychology works:  Extraordinary claims are their own evidence.

(* Before anyone calls Godwin on me:  Godwin is hereby inapplicable, because in fact, Hitler didn’t actually advocate using the Big Lie; he accused a Jewish conspiracy of using the Big Lie, which he condemned in no uncertain terms.  My discussion of an age-old flaw in human nature is not relevant to irrelevant history.  Anyway, I would not do the gross injustice of equating BSV shills to Hitler.)

Worse, calling out a Big Lie for what it is can backfire:  You thereby underscore the point that a statement would be so outrageous if untrue, nobody would dare to lie about it.  And logical argumentation will not work, because the essential “argument” is emotional.  E.g., if you state your own standard:  “I would believe a Satoshi claimant who met criteria, A, B, and C; Craig Wright meets none of those criteria,” it won’t help.  It won’t help, because Satoshi says so!  (Does that not make sense?  None of this makes sense:  Human nature is insensible.)

Moreover, BSV manages emotional appeal in subtle ways that the typical nerd totally fails to comprehend.  For example, look at this post (https://web.archive.org/web/20200105183141/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5154098.0).  The headline content, the primary content, the only real content is photographic.  No meticulously footnoted statements of verifiable facts:  A visual.  Craig Wright is presented looking movie-handsome (most people have low standards), strong, confident.  He is wearing a suit (not very well, but hoi polloi don’t know the difference).  He is holding a purported “diploma”, i.e. an appeal to authority.  And he is surrounded by a retinue of suit-wearing men, i.e. social proof.  (Hoi polloi are not sufficiently insightful to read the vulture-faces.)

I think that many readers are now sneering at me—no really, that is what is important!  If you’re sneering at me over what I just said, it means that you do not understand how propaganda works in real life.  And if you think this discussion is beneath your principles, then you are effectively renouncing the world to the Craig Wrights of the world so that you can live in an idealistic fantasy.

(It is at this juncture that I hope the Winklevi are real Bitcoiners in their hearts of hearts.  They look a thousand times sharper than Craig Wright:  To the 1% who can tell the difference, they wear their suits like rich men, not like dolled-up rubes running a scam.)

Craig Wright looks like a leader (to those whose idea of “leadership” is informed by the mass-media and modern-day democratic political systems).  But that is not the biggest issue.  Until gmaxwell’s post made me revisit the issue, I did not realize what Craig Wright had done.

He has assumed the name of Satoshi, and thus given Satoshi a face.  A human face is important; consider why Facebook now has 2×10^9 users.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Against that, Bitcoin has a mysterious, quasi-mystical ghost called Satoshi, some anonymous cypherpunks, facts, logic, coding skills, and a bunch of nerds who probably don’t wear sharp suits.

The human need for a human face is present even in most Bitcoiners who would never fall for Faketoshi.  Vide the continued use of Dorian Nakamoto’s image, mostly by people who openly state that Dorian is not Satoshi.  That was always a mistake (plus just being wrong).  It does illustrate the power of the terrible vacuum left by a faceless founder.

In brief, the foregoing discussion suggests the following actions:

• Add emotional appeal.  Don’t give up on logical, factual arguments (though you may sometimes need to simplify them, to avoid losing the audience).  Add appeals to emotion in your arguments.  If that feels dirty to you, then I am very sorry:  In real life, you need to deal with human psychology.
• Non-anonymous Bitcoiners should refine their human image.  If your photo is already available online, then you have nothing to lose by making yourself look good.  Not what you think looks good, but good according to the social conventions of people who are impressed by Craig Wright’s suit.  If you have naturally photogenic qualities (as judged by usefulness to a good cause, not by your ego), then get a professional haircuit (long or short—get it neatened), get a pro-quality photo of yourself wearing a good suit, and use that as your profile photo or avatar on Github, on Gravatar, and on this forum.  If you lack those qualities, then don’t:  Play to your own strengths, and avoid your own weaknesses.  (And if your feelings are hurt by my suggestions, none of this post is for you.)
• /* XXX TODO:  Create and link here a topic expanding on what Bitcoiners can do as a counterstroke against the emotionally-evocative, image-oriented aspects of BSV propaganda. */

Quote from: gmaxwell on January 03, 2020, 04:48:41 PM

In the future we're going to see more crap like him threatening any business that accepts Bitcoin with patent litigation, to which the common response will be "damn, this bitcoin stuff isn't worth the trouble" from most parties who's business isn't primarily about Bitcoin.  How could you expect otherwise when your response to wright is "damn, this wright stuff isn't worth the trouble"?

This is extremely worrisome, and I was insufficiently aware of the issue due to ignoring Craig Wright.  A typical business owner will avoid like plague anything whatsoever that has hanging over it the clouds of IP litigation that could destroy the business.

Compare:  BSD Unix was treated as radioactive by businesses due IP litigation and threats thereof, at just the time when Linus first released Linux.  By the time the lawsuit was over, it was too late:  Linux took over the world.  (The principal differences being that Linus had nothing to do with the lawsuit; it was just a coincidence.... and that was copyright; patent suits are even worse, i.e. more catastrophically expensive.)

Counteracting that type of threat will require a well-financed, organized response by non-anonymous parties who have excellent lawyers.  Here is one immediate idea for the forum:  Document prior art that can be used by lawyers to attack the patents directly, wrecking the patent troll’s whole business model.  It worked for Cloudflare (https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-project-jengo-saga-how-cloudflare-stood-up-to-a-patent-troll-and-won/) (and regardless of my general opinion of Cloudflare, it does not alter the point that they, non-cypherpunks with their non-cypherpunk lawyers, deployed an innovative strategy against a patent troll).  If someone is already doing that, I duly apologize for having been sleeping on a mountaintop in a circle of fire for the past twenty months; please drop me a link.  Any other practical ideas?

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Quote from: gmaxwell on January 03, 2020, 04:48:41 PM

It isn't always a question of people believing him outright, often its falling for one of his lesser lies like the claim that he's an "og bitcoin investor" or that kleiman had something to do with Bitcoin's creation.

The ancient principle that “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” needs a signature ad (q.v.).

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Quote from: gmaxwell on January 03, 2020, 04:48:41 PM

If someone broke into your house and was stealing stuff-- you wouldn't just say 'that thief doesn't deserve our attention' and ignore them.  We shouldn't hesitate to defend Bitcoin and the community surrounding it.

The analogy is inadmissible:  You wouldn’t debate the thief—especially not if he started by announcing that it is his house and his stuff, and you are the thief violating his “vision” of what he wants done with his stuff.  You would not dignify that with a verbal reply!  Instead, you would reply with violent force—either directly, or by proxy with recourse to the State (“call the cops”).

In theory, this is the proper use of IP laws.  If you invent an innovative technology and you name it “Bitcoin”, then you patent any patentable methods used by your invention, enforce a trademark over the good name of Bitcoin®, and claim copyright over the source code.  The State promises to enforce your monopolies on these things.  Their ultimate means of enforcement is that they can and will kick doors down.  Usually in IP lawsuits, it does not get that far, because people obey court orders to avoid getting their doors kicked down.

Perhaps the analogy is sound after all!  The problem is that we are living in a house that has no defence against thieves, other than for us to say, “Please let us explain in logical terms why the thief is wrong.”  And the thief can even steal the identity of the house’s founder.  (Action tip:  Refer to “identity thief Craig Wright” and his identity theft, because that is exactly what it is by definition—and “identity theft” is a hot buzzword with emotional appeal (#post_post_emotional_appeal).)

Satoshi did it the cypherpunk way.  IP laws are neither enforceable against strongly anonymous parties, nor enforceable by strongly anonymous parties.  “Cypherpunks write code”, then release it from behind Tor whilst ignoring the State.  That is what Satoshi did; and as a result, Bitcoin never even had an identifiable owner to enforce a trademark protecting the good name of Bitcoin (never mind other types of IP).

That was by design; and that design has benefits that I should not need to explain to the readers in this thread.  But the design has tradeoffs; there is also a cost.  For comparison, there is a reason why, e.g., Linus Torvalds has consistently claimed and been prepared to defend his trademark on the name Linux.  If Craig Wright pulled the same shenanigans against Linux, then Linus could and would sue hell out of him.

At this juncture, I must raise another issue.  Although it is NOT the legally applicable standard to Bitcoin (Satoshi used the MIT License), the spirit of the CPL (http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/) reflects the type of thinking that left Satoshi’s identity open to theft:

Quote from: cypherpunks

Interpretation

The user can redistribute the work or a derived or modified work

• under a different license of their choosing
• with or without source code as they choose
• without acknowledging the distributors or authors
• with false or innaccurate claims about authorship of the work
• advertise without acknowledging the authors

This is an issue that has long bothered me, and left me wondering if I am the only one in the world to notice it.  By coincidence, I recently touched on this in another thread—without elaboration, but with an intent to explain further in an appropriate context:

Quote from: nullius on January 01, 2020, 10:29:38 PM

Unlike copyright law violations, plagiarism is truly the theft of ideas.  It is singularly the most reprehensible wrong that can be committed within the realm of the intellect; and it is inherently fraudulent, an intellectual scam by definition.

/* XXX TODO:  Publish and link here an essay concisely explaining the total difference in concepts between copyright and plagiarism, and how this confusion, promulgated by the copyright lobby, has been made worse by both GPL and the Creative Commons.  Disclosure:  I am opposed to all current copyright laws.  (And the question of whether an ideal copyright law enforced by unicorns and faeries could be morally justified is mental masturbation, when all current copyright laws are corrupt beyond repair.) */

Overall, we need a better way:  A way for anonymous parties to interface with the State via non-anonymous parties.  /* XXX TODO:  Create and link here a topic about this. */  Meanwhile, we are left with this:

Quote

Now-- if you want to argue that various threads aren't very effective and that the community could do better?  I couldn't agree more.

/* XXX TODO:  Discuss further within the scope of this thread; and create and link other topics expanding that scope, including:

• An essay on Lightning Network and radically rethinking the future of Bitcoin.  I began working on this a few weeks ago; I intended to finish and publish it today (2020-01-05), but put it aside to examine the BSV issue.  This can be pivoted and adapted in a positive way to integrate with a counterstoke against BSV.  Don’t worry:  When I say “radically rethinking”, I mean that I am an extremist for the principles more moderately espoused by the most well-known Core and LN developers.
• The already-intended sequel to the preceding item:  An essay on rebranding Bitcoin in the Lightning era.  Same relevance here.  I list strengthening the positive message before I get to the negative, on the principle that you should always define yourself by what you are for before you say what you are against.
• More coherent analysis of Craig Wright, and how to tear down his sham.  First, I need to catch up on what he’s been doing for the past two years.

*/

With due apologies for the double-post, I request guidance that should surely be useful to others:  What is the appropriate forum for creating threads about CW/BSV, for analysis and advocacy from a Bitcoin perspective?

Please don’t tell me to go to altcoins.  This is a Bitcoin issue, and I’m trying to protect Bitcoin.

Some of my intended discussion will go to the Ivory Tower, including some essays I’ve had simmering on the back burner for awhile (now adapted to deal with issues that I was ignoring).  I’m not asking about those—some things are just Ivory Tower issues.  And I already created a relevant topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215128.0) in the forum which is the opposite of Ivory Tower.  (Note my use of a different writing style.  I even use smileys.)  I am looking for something in the middle:  A forum regularly watched by the types of people in this thread, but open to everybody, but with fewer shitposts and higher S/N than Bitcoin Discussion.

Where should we organize and advocate on this issue?  Perhaps I should propose the creation of a “Bitcoin Advocacy” forum; would those reading this thread support that idea?

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My +20 to gmaxwell was not mere grandstanding.  Ignoring Craig Wright as a clown was catastrophically naïve on my part.  I see this now—now that I am actually reading BSV propaganda.

Craig Wright is not Craig Wright.  Somebody must be pulling his strings; read between the lines.  And the agenda being pushed is one that is backed by extraordinary intelligence, in multiple senses of that word.  —Also, backed by unlimited resources.  I now believe that Wright is only a tool, who will be discarded if BSV does not bring the desired results—meanwhile, of course, he can pocket as much money from this as he can grab, without fear of arrest or lawsuits.  If my theory is correct, as long as he serves his purpose, his handlers would not care about the money or what he does with it; they have bigger fish to fry.

(And at this point, I don’t think that Gavin was stupid:  I suspect that he was compromised.)

---

The draft of one of my not-yet-published essays opens with the observation that Bitcoin has a fatal flaw; and I continue with some personal discussion of why I’m not “Bitcoin rich”:  I spent years casually watching Bitcoin as an intellectual curiosity, whilst assiduously avoiding use of an append-only global public ledger—an idea which frankly horrified me.  (My proposed solution is Lightning.  By the way, observe who hates Lightning and the Layer-1 technologies that enable it.)  BSV agrees with me, after a fashion:


Orwellian word-twisting and imposter-claims aside, the quoted portion is correct:  Bitcoin, as originally designed, is an anti-privacy technology.  I saw that years ago.  That’s why I am poor.  I am not revealing non-public information by pointing out that “nullius” appeared on the Zcash project forum before appearing here.  The Zerocoin paper caught my attention in 2013, and I am too patient for my own good.  I am not advocating Zcash here—to the contrary!  Lightning makes “privacy coins” obsolete.

The biggest incentive that I can think of to keep Bitcoin’s design “set in stone” is to retain its anti-privacy characteristics.  BSV openly, explicitly declares that this is its agenda!  WAR IS PEACE.  FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.  FINANCIAL SURVEILLANCE IS PRIVACY.

Wake up, people!  This is not about Craig Wright.  This is much bigger than a scam to grab money (though Wright is no doubt enjoying that ancillary benefit for himself).  It is a strategy to impose KYC-GovCoin by the backdoor, with the explicit public approval of “Satoshi Nakamoto”.  Financial surveillance is “Satoshi’s Vision”.

[Edit:  Need a mass-appeal meme graphic with a creepy-looking photo of Craig Wright and some imagery suggestive of Nineteen Eighty-Four:  “Satoshi’s Vision:  ‘SATOSHI’ IS WATCHING YOU.”]

Now, please, let’s not discuss that here.  Instead, let’s figure out the right forum for new topics about these issues; and I will take it up there.

What an absolutely brilliant post   ;D

Ah gentlemand I have to say that your take on this whole issue is, dare I say equally funny as much as it is baffling !

If my friend and colleague (gentlemand) who is held in very high esteem and very high regards by members across this board states that Wright associated threads should be incarcerated within the Scam Accusations section for all of eternity where he shall remain being the "queen of our hearts" then who am I for one to disagree with such a highly intellectually apt thesis which deserves nothing but recognition and praise on a universal basis?

My working theory was that, now the great pretender has painted himself into a corner, there was nowhere left for him to go.  That's why I thought the time had now come to simply ignore him.  But what I'm reading here in response tells me that people see the problem escalating if we do that.  So if we're fighting it head-on, count me in.  I do like the sound of a Bitcoin Advocacy sub, although I don't know if it would garner sufficient traffic to be viable.  But I'm all for presenting a united front against this figurative shitfountain.  However we're doing it, it's definitely time for the community to make a stand.

https://i.ibb.co/ZLBV7Qr/csw.png
(imgur seems on the fritz)

Eh?

Maybe I'm warped but I never saw any type of 'threat' in the first place. He's a ludicrous shit heel backed by a pervert who've attached themselves to a fork of a fork.

Two seconds of googling would give anyone with a functioning mind an immediate overview of the fountain of diarrhoea they've spouted since turning up.

Since every single credible person who's given an opinion on this has clearly stated it's all balls if someone wants to wander off into their loving embrace anyway then I hope they enjoy themselves.

After they've yielded to them they may start to wonder why it's not on Coinbase, Binance or Kraken, never written about in the press other than the whole thing being a joke and why they're laughed at openly every time they pipe up by almost everyone from every crypto faction.

To me at least it feels a little like a crypto care home where the special cases can see out their decline in peace without polluting everywhere else.

eddie13, fork you!  You forking forker.  I simultaneously laughed aloud, and vomited a little bit in my mouth.

Please link to the Wright photo from which you got that face.  I want to use the same one, and take my own shot at this.  My mind’s eye envisions something to get the message across to people who deeply trust the police, embrace ubiquitous ID checks that “keep people safe”, yet also quote Orwell and brag about how lucky they are to not live in a police state like those nasty Easteurasians.  (I know plenty like that.  How?  Doublethink.)

---

72 hours ago, I could and would have written that first sentence.


Two seconds of effort is too much to expect from the average person.  The “functioning mind” part is an assumption which, like Craig Wright’s Satoshihood, is backed by zero evidence and contradicted empirically.

If a supermajority—no, a bare majority—no, even a significant plurality of people had the will and ability to research facts and think for themselves...  If even that plurality cared about freedom...  Then, tyranny in any form would not exist in this world.  Now, take two seconds to look around you.

Contra popular delusions, the “consent of the governed” is not a political theory that must be imposed:  It is a natural reality that is unavoidable, even to the most ambitious of tyrants.  Regardless of iron-fisted tactics, any régime that lacks the consent of the governed will fall within a what is a relatively short span on historical timescales; and it will meanwhile suffer internal instability.  Vide the Soviet Union.  The mere existence of stable, tyrannical régimes that last through the course of generations is proof positive that those tyrannies has at least the tacit, passive consent of the governed.  Collectively, people do get the government that they deserve—much to the dismay of the few dissenters in their midst.

Limiting myself here to only a few issues:  All Western democratic régimes today have slave-level taxation, fiat monetary systems based on debt and inflation, mass surveillance, and all those other lovely features that Bitcoiners oft complain about.  I can summarize these issues in simple terms, in 5 minutes, to anybody who will listen—probably you can, too.  But few will listen, and fewer still will take the mental effort to understand.  (Never mind taking great personal risks, as is necessary to actually change anything.)  Thus do these “features” have the “consent of the governed”.

---

I have observed that otherwise smart, freethinking people tend to fall into the nearly-universal trap of assuming that others are like them.  I here speak from experience.  Fully escaping that trap requires a level of detached objectivity that almost no one can achieve—perhaps one in ten thousand or fewer.

It’s obvious to you that Craig Wright is a liar, a scammer, etc., etc.  Now, step outside yourself.  Go beyond objectivity:  Get into the heads of millions of grinning idiots happily living on Facebook between obedient daily stints at wage-slavery, and subjectively evaluate the world from their perspectives.

You now have an IQ several standard deviations lower than your own, but that’s the least-important difference.  (IQ is important, generally.  But I know many high-IQ, highly-educated people who are slavishly devoted to the chains that bind them.)  You have a near-total lack of motivation to actually think, especially when your thoughts may reach unhappy conclusions—or worse, when you risk the cognitive dissonance that may result from questioning your pre-existing beliefs.  Happily for you (in the sense of ignorance being bliss), you have a habit of forming “opinions” by copying thoughts which feel like they have social approval.

Congratulations!  You just bought BSV, beaming with sophisticated excitement about how you are on the cutting edge of “cryptos”!  You also nodded your head autonomically, unconsciously, when you saw a TvFacebookYoutube talking face tell you that measures K, Y, and C are needed to protect you from drug-dealing child-pornographic terrorists using Bitcoin on the “darknet”.  Because, tax evasion.

At this juncture, one must descend from the ivory tower, and speak in short, simple, emotionally evocative sentences peppered with smileys—sandwiched between pictures that will melt your heart into a puddle of tears.

---

gmaxwell’s above post struck me like a lightning bolt, because I did not evaluate it by looking at the world through my own eyes.  I stepped outside myself, then took a hard look at Craig Wright through the eyes of people who are not me.  People who are dumber, less reckful, more careless, and vastly more numerous than I am.

I thereupon concluded that the obvious clown show of BSV is an existential threat to Bitcoin, and to all that Bitcoin stands for.  It was not unlike that moment when you realize that the latest American war based on made-up non-facts is going to happen anyway with millions of people cheering, and somewhere in the world, safely hidden behind the TV screen, people who did nothing wrong are going to get blown to smithereens because of it.

Bitcoin and its community are adaptable to meet and counteract such threats.  But it will not happen if we ignore them.  I observe that in 2017, BCH and S2X failed to destroy Bitcoin through well-funded simultaneous attacks from multiple directions.  I further observe that in 2017, the Bitcoin community was not laughing and brushing it off—people were angry; they saw the threat.

I think that's a teensy bit dismissive of the average person and I myself am an average person.

When I first looked into buying BTC after remembering it it must've been July/August 2013 perhaps. At that point Mt Gox was still the most recommended place by all the major sites though cracks were definitely emerging. I knew effectively nothing about Bitcoin. I spent five minutes reading about Gox and resolved to never, ever, ever touch it no matter what and I wondered what the hell was wrong with anyone who did use it.

That was simply being objective and moderately pacing myself.

If someone does decide they want to buy BSV the first thing they'll discover is that they can't buy it on the most common platforms, the thing called Bitcoin without weird letters that everyone is selling and talking about costs rather a lot more and there are hardly any wallets for it. That should be enough of a clue to look a little deeper.

There's certainly no harm on keeping the visibility of what idiots they all are high but they themselves do an excellent job of it. Literally nothing he has done or said has disproved what the consensus is regarding him.



That was a viable threat. This one is distasteful and pathetic and a pure quasi surreal piss take. That's why it's laughed at.

Mr. Maxwell's view will have a ton more weight and direct experience than mine but that's what it looks like from here at least.

https://qz.com/674129/an-australian-nobody-claims-to-be-the-inventor-of-bitcoin-but-no-one-knows-for-sure/

All I really have to say about that is every time I hear a normie say "Their aught to be a law for that" I die a little more inside..
I have had too many debates about more laws VS less laws, and most people seem to think that it is impossible for humans to fend for themselves without a million laws to protect them..
Not to mention the "This should be free, That should be free" types..
People want to end the right to bear arms.. People want to curtail free speech to protect the feelings of the pathetic.. etc. etc.

They don't teach the kids to value freedom and liberty.. They teach the kids to obey authority and that the government can fix anything if they just make more laws and have more control..

I'm 90% clownpilled at this point.. (Not be depressed about the direction of the world but rather give up and just laugh at it)

Even this forum..
I am often blown away by the lack of loyalty to the principles that started all of this (Bitcoin and BitcoinTalk)..
Should just make more rules and it will fix everything..

So, I am taking the hint, and implementing a strategy upon these of my principles:

The most effective way of telling people what Bitcoin is not, is to start with a better positive statement of what Bitcoin is (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215927.0).

First principle:  Say what you are, before you say what you’re against.  The positive is the reason for the negative, and not vice versa.

I am not anti-BSV as a cause:  I am anti-BSV as an effect, because I am pro-Bitcoin.  I love Bitcoin.  I hate those who attack, steal, degrade, defile, and destroy that which I love.  Therefore, I am anti-BSV.

That is the principle of the matter; and people’s reactions will be consistent with that principle.  If some member of the public who knows nothing about these issues just sees you making accusations against Craig Wright, then no matter how many facts you have on your side, he may feel that you are just yelling.  It perversely makes criminals look like victims; well, who knows, maybe you are just jealous of “Dr.” Wright.  But if you first explain that you are passionate about something that will make the world a better place, and then you shout from the rooftops that Craig Wright is lying scammer who is trying to hijack and wreck a good thing by literally stealing the identity of its creator (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215128.0), then people will understand why you are angry.  And they should thus understand why they should be angry, too.

I am only one obscure thinker.  All I can do is to urge others to action, share ideas, and, I should hope, inspire everybody to come together in an organized effort with a positive direction.  “...the community could do better?”  Yes, I think so; and I am acting on that, with the vision that others will stand with me, act with me, and come together as a community to take a stand here—then, organizing here, expanding the campaign to other forums, to social media, to “IRL” scenarios in business, in investing, at technical conferences, in everyday life—if necessary, in courtrooms—in every venue, on every potential battleground where this issue may arise.  Not only as a reaction to Craig Wright:  As a positive Bitcoin culture, a culture that can be shared even by people who agree on nothing except Bitcoin, a culture that can draw people together to defend Bitcoin from any threat, anywhere, anytime in the future.

It is already beginning to work.  Within the past 24 hours, the “Bitcoin SV” account on this forum stopped acting like a garden-variety scammer, and started acting completely insane.  People of low character know what is dangerous to them, and it frightens them into lashing out wildly (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215743.0).  But of course, for my part, I am only one individual taking a few tiny steps toward a huge goal.  This effort needs everybody who cares about Bitcoin.

That is my vision:  A Nullian Vision.  And I daresay, it is consistent with Satoshi’s vision for Bitcoin—the vision implicit in Bitcoin’s design, and not the sick travesty of a “vision” kludged together from twisted words, out-of-context quotes, and wholly made-up nonsense by a two-bit scammer dolled up in an ill-fit suit who doesn’t even know anything about cryptography.

---

I want to reply to some of the thoughtful discussion here.  I have not forgotten, and I’ll be back here.  The same applies in some other threads, and I’m sorry to say, sometimes for response to PMs.  For one individual, those few tiny steps require considerable thought and preparation behind the scenes.

For the record, the “Bitcoin social phenomenon” post was in some form first intended by me in December of 2017.  I think of it as my Bitcoin manifesto, or at least a part of it.  Its implementation has been much altered by its use now; no, it is not my usual style, and yes, its style is fully intentional.  Some of my actions in the future will similarly be adaptations of things that were already in my pipeline, as I alluded upthread.

My thanks to DooMAD for starting the discussion here, and to gmaxwell for giving me the wake-up call.  This will be remembered as the classic forum thread that sparked a new Bitcoin community effort.  “...the community could do better?”  Those were the right words at the right time.

I have worn a positive Bitcoin avatar and personal text for a very long time and I would be happy to wear a well designed pro-Bitcoin signature as well as long as I'm not using it for any purpose..
We have many top users running no signature at all while they could be making a pro-Bitcoin statement if someone came up with some cool Bitcoin signatures :)

It almost seems like you want to create an NRA like organization for Bitcoin for purposes of support, positive image portrayal, defense, possibly lobbying and such methods of influence.. Sounds like a good idea to me..


A while back I had an idea for a sort of merge-mined altcoin whose purpose would be to support Bitcoin via funding positive image ad campaigns across the internet for Bitcoin, and possibly even giving some financial incentive to Bitcoin node operators and others supporting Bitcoin..
There it is if you would like to look but it didn't get much for attention at all..

Why BSV is proof that Craigh Wright is NOT satoshi

First things first: I never really participated in the CSW bashing, I never took him seriously, I never felt it necessary to speak up against this imposter and fraud.
But I was wrong. The post by gmaxwell and several by nullius made me rethink.
CSW is an identity thief and desecrator of Kleiman’s grave.
We finally lost Gavin’s valuable support based on his trickery (sure, the relationship between Gavin and the other core developers was already tense, but CSW was the final nail to the coffin).
My knowledge of the English language isn’t sufficient to express the contempt I feel for his actions.

I'm not absolutely sure how to flesh out this argument, so here goes nothing:

Satoshi’s true vision was (as explained in the white paper):
"The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power.“

You can’t get much clearer than that.
Satoshi wanted Bitcoin to be the one chain that could prove that it „contained“ the most „CPU power“.

Now, CSW claims that BSV is Bitcoin. But BSV doesn’t have the most CPU power for its hashing algorithm.
If he truly were satoshi and stood by his vision, he would have seen to it that his chain would again have the most CPU power for its given algorithm.
I.e., if satoshi had created BSV, he would have changed the algorithm.
Therefore, the creators and supporters of BSV cannot be satoshi.

This is actually a quite simple argument, and not likely to be refuted.

We’re now basically left with one of two conclusions:
a) CSW is not and never was satoshi
b) CSW was satoshi, but had a stroke or something and no longer understands the motivation of his former personality
I strongly tend to a), but I can’t prove that it’s not b) ;)

But either way: CSW is not satoshi.
q.e.d.

https://i.imgur.com/vRGlFSZ.gif

 ;)



https://youtu.be/IUixj25hxDY?t=10176

1Hr's 50 Min  


Managed to break my way into there chat and asking the BSV community about the Stolen MTGOX coins listed as part of the Tulip trust..

Few of them said they think he should go to jail..  
Then they tried to shoot me down and discredit me but the truth is out there...

Enjoy!

I clicked on that YouTube link, MagicByt3, and I listened to a bit more than 20 minutes of it (can I get those minutes of my life back?).  I did not hear any challenge to anyone on that call or even any reference to GOX coins including at the point that you flagged at 2Hr's 50 Min....

Very painful listening to them for more than a few minutes, especially when they start to refer to Craig as if he really were satoshi or had any credibility at all...  He is referred to an alpha male who knows things, instead of the narcissistic self-absorbed lying nutjob that he is. 

Sometimes it seems that nobody can really believe those kinds of things, but hey you hear the nonsense coming out of their mouths and the level of dumb within that video even while they are proclaiming everyone else to be dumb.... except for the Craig acolytes and Craig's team. 

Gosh, people surely want to be on the "correct team," so there is that kind of wanting to be on the correct team dynamics of wanting to stick to your team.. and maybe us bitcoiners are like that too?  I hate to believe that bitcoiners are attaching to the team in the same kind of way, but listening to those guys, it just seems that they are suggesting that they are the ONLY ones in possession of the truth.

We Bitcoiners are obviously the same.
We are always looking for self-affirmation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-affirmation) in groups.
Every single human being without a severe personality disorder is.

But: there are ways to overcome those thinking patterns, you can learn them, but they will always remain kind of painful.
This is what Skepticism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism) is all about.

http://prntscr.com/qmo7k6

Not sure why but on mine it's at 2hr's 50 as soon as you see the blue circle on the chat is when it is.
But it's 1000% in there.   

O.k.  Thanks for clarifying that, MagicByt3.  I was able to find it based on your clarification that showed that the there was an hour difference between the clip that you had mentioned and the link that you provided... so when I went back an hour on the link that you provided, I was able to find your appearance, which was between 1h:50m and 2h:19m.   Yes, you made a lot of reasonable points, and even attempting to give a lot of benefit of the doubt to those diptwats in several ways.  So, maybe you were even too nice, but perhaps if you had been more aggressive, they might not have allowed you to speak at all.. so anyhow, there was a lot of cognizant dissonance from each of the other participants who spoke while you are on - in terms of trying to deny court documents and to say that the court documents that you mentioned was fake news even though fucktwat craig wright's legal team had submitted that evidence with the signature of fucktwat craig wright on the document.

So additionally, yeah a little bit of irritating that they spent a few minutes trying to figure out who you were or getting you to provide a link.. ridiculous.. and wanting to devolve into personal attacks...... but you were not really giving them too much to attack except largely sticking to your original point to provide discussion of the irony of the document that Wright submitted to the court.... 

So, yeah, I appreciated that you largely stuck to your points and you were the only one who seemed to be reasonable and attempting to deal with reasonable points, even when they were suggesting bitcoin stagnation and supposed transactions on bcash SV... lunacy... .

I pretty much had to stop watching after you got off of the call.... but the portion that you were on the call was actually decently worthwile... so yeah, it can make quite a bit of difference just having one person, like yourself, who is actually grappling with reality and attempting to be genuinely reasonable rather than just making shit up, which seemed to have been the circumstances of every single other participant on that call that I heard in the portion to which I listened.

Thanks I do feel that one or two of them actually listened and I hope they go away and look at the info provided also I made it clear there is personal attacks from SV you-tuber and they said we cannot police everyone yet they seem'd to know who the guy was by name.

I really just wanted people to see they have a narrow narrative and when real tangible proofs are put in front of them they descend into the he don't like the "big bad ozzy man" was what they kept saying also the fact they then attempted to say Mr CSW would not have submitted that he probably just singed off on it which I find absurd.

Anyway gave them and there viewers something to chew on before I release the next big whammy.

Watch this space..  :D

I understand that when you are engaged in a live conversation with anyone and you are trying to be genuine, you need to attempt to listen to what others are saying and to attempt to give them some benefit of the doubt that they are trying to make valid and reasonably genuine points.  Nonetheless, I considered almost everything that each of them said in response to you was leaning towards absurd, but surely there can be a little bit of reasonableness in some of the absurd points that some of them were making. 

I wouldn't say it needs any further fleshing out.  It's succinct and to-the-point.  Combined with the argument that the fork-coin clients are incapable of syncing with the chain built by the largest pool of CPU power because of the myriad consensus rules they've broken, it's a slam dunk.