Bitcoin Forum

Here's a transcript (http://polimedia.us/trilema/2012/amir-taaki-has-done-and-continues-to-do-huge-disservice-to-anyone-serious-involved-in-bitcoin/) of genjix's most recent idiocy.

You Intersangro/Bitcoin Consultancy/Bitcoinica people are pretty fucking stupid, we all know that. Between that nefariously idiotic McCarthy who needs no further introduction and Strateman aka phantomcircuit, who's the guy who emailed the entire Intersangro userbase the list of everyone's emails, cause "he can code," it looks pretty grim.

But this fuckwit Taaki takes the absolute cake. Read that goddamned thing, read what he says, read what the people ask, what he answers.

So here's the facts: Bitcoin is a great thing that has attracted a number of indescribable shitheads early on. It is upon us as a community to cut them loose. The trio should be under interdict, and everyone should stick to that interdict. Not "never do business with them" but simply never talk to them other than to remind them that they are too stupid to live and if they're unwilling to do the world a service and kill themselves they should at the very least do Bitcoin a service and never mention that word again.

Fuck.

Yeah.  :(

That is embarrassing to read. If this was someone's first exposure to Bitcoin I wouldn't expect them to give it a second thought...

Exactly. Precisely. Fucking hell.

Do you mean these?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-DVOYyx_6U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFWPOxSfxgc&feature=plcp

I mean he tries, but you can really see that he is awfully nervous and doesn't feel comfortable in this environment. Just look at his body language in the second video and compare it to the guy right next to him.

He has good intentions and he tries but he really screws up.

We desperately need people to do such events that actually enjoy speaking and are able to explain bitcoin from a business perspective and not the techy way.

Bitcoin is so superior to all the alternatives, it really hurts seeing it presented in this way.

The fact that the transcript is punctuated with "yeah", "um", and "like", and expresses the need to point out he "mispelled" (sic) my name in a Google search doesn't reflect well on the transcriber.  If he is allegedly an idiot, it would have to be because of the message, and not because he says "um" a lot.  I haven't read the transcript all the way through, but am bothered by the fact that I am seemingly being asked to judge him on his ability to articulate sentences in public, something that isn't a prerequisite for being who he is.

A transcript is a transcript, not a translation. Good catch on the misspelling tho, thanks.

It'd seem an ability to speak in public is both incompatible with umuh and a prerequisite for speaking in public. Not that the problems with Taaki are at all formal. It's the content that's the main problem.

In fairness, I can't spell your name either, Mr. P can't, your name is just too much to spell.

What was the event he was speaking on? Why were they interviewing him and not some representative from, say, Bitcoin Foundation, which, to my understanding, was built precisely to handle this kind of thing?

I can overlook the ums, yeahs, and likes.  I do it all the time, so do most people without really good public speaking skills. 

However what is painful is things like:

1) using the word "we".  "we are not a flashy startup".  He can't speak for Bitcoin.  It would be like someone giving a presentation on the internet and using "we" as if they own, control, and operate the internet. 

2) "I think".  As in "I think the banks will fail".  Irrelivent.  If the person in the audience disagrees with that statement they have just been tuned out.

3) Blantantly false or exagurated claims.  "apparently I can buy almost anything in Finland".  What is worse is the word apparently is a weasel word.  It leads the audience to doubt the claim almost as soon as it is said.  In this case they would be right.  Someone midly interested does their own research finds out it is false and then they dismiss the entire presentation.  Its bad.  In presenting unless you know a statement, claim, or fact is 100% guaranteed accurate don't say it.

4) Insisting there are no fees.  Hey Taaki what are these http://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees?  Also hint hint the subsidy is a form of hidden fee.  When 1% more coins are minted all existing coins have their value reduced by 1%.  Granted the demand is growing faster than the minting rate and thus price rises but Bitcoin HAS FEES.    Honestly the claim "no fees" is not only wrong it is counterproductive.  First it makes Bitcoin seem even more implausible.  If there are no fees then who/what pays for the network?  Is it a bunch of socialists who believe in "the common good" and expend energy, labor, and capital to give a superior product for free.   Saying "no fees" is just stupid.  THERE ARE FEES.  Say "lower fees than any other payment processing system", "very small fees", "some transactions may pay a small fee, we are talking less than a penny folks, and many transactions are free".

5) Not answering the question asked.  Not sure what was going on here but surprisingly the audience had some good questions.  Questions completely ignored in some cases.   If you don't know say ... I don't know.  Simply talking about something else as an answer makes it seem like there is something to hide.


For the record I am not saying I am an amazing public speaker but anyone representing Bitcoin at a confrence, presentation, or in the media please
1) Leave your rhetoric at home
2) Get your facts rights
3) If it is a planned event write down your talking points and have the community critique them BEFORE you come off as an ass.
4) If you really want to help Bitcoin (and not just your own ego) take a public speaking class
5) (and this is something I do personally for meetings) try to anticipate the likely questions and have answers.  It will help you stay on script and seem more knowledgeable.
6) PLEASE be sure to emphasis Bitcoin is an open source project.  Be sure the audience understands that you are just one person working on (bitcoin related ventures, improving source code, doing academic research, launching a startup, etc).  If will help to perform damage control if you total FAIL HARD.  "Well that guy was a flake but Bitcoin does sound interesting".

A transcript can leave out utterances like "um" and "like", the same way it leaves out each time he inhaled between sentences.  No one is going to complain it's a bad transcript because it left out the "ums".  Unless perhaps it's a 911 call of a murder in progress, where every breath and sigh means something.

The content is so obscured by the um's.  If the point is to criticize the message and not the speaking skills, don't make it so hard to read.  If he spoke quietly or the mike wasn't turned up, you wouldn't put the transcript in a shade of grey barely darker than the background, so don't do the same with utterances if that's not the main conclusion you want me to take away.  If Satoshi outed himself and said um every other word, and sounded like puberty trapped in an adult body, that wouldn't disqualify him to have invented Bitcoin, and you would listen to him, ums or not.  Rendering a transcript full of ums is just as much a failure to communicate as not being able to speak clearly.

The points you have made would make sense in support of an argument that he shouldn't be the first-in-line candidate for being a keynote speaker at the next conference, but not that he is an idiot who should "never tell anyone" he is involved with Bitcoin "ever again", the proposition put forth by the OP.  It seems quite a large leap.

I agree with this. The inclusion of "ums" in the transcript makes me think the transcription was done in anger (which sounds like a real possibility).

Especially if the topic is Bitcoin, literally busting at the seams with 100% accurate facts and statements that need to be made to as wide an audience as possible as often as practicable.


Very much so.


This is a legitimate problem. I fail to see why you act as if the transcriber put those there. They did not, they were there. Which is part of the problem, just not the largest part.


The point is not to criticize. Criticism implies the possibility of redemption. There is no possibility of redemption involved here at all. Amir Taaki is a waste of space.

The point is to show the reasons this is so. Part of that reason: the ums. They are not the largest part, but they are nevertheless a part. The dichotomy you introduce is spurious.


This is also spurious. Satoshi actually did something. However, if Satoshi outed himself and then proceeded to give a talk on that level I would propose he never gives another talk on Bitcoin ever again. As an illuminating example, Ted Bundy, while arguably the most accomplished criminal of all time was not the most competent defense attorney in history. In fact, he sucked at talking about his murders even if he was the one that did them.

At any rate, I'm sorry the transcript wasn't made to satisfy your own personal requirements. On the continuum between accuracy and convenience some people prefer accuracy. You're perfectly free to favor convenience, go right ahead.

A transcription done in anger, cute. The reason Taaki is an idiot is because accurate transcripts of his idiocy are done in anger.

That transcription can only be done in disgust. You probably don't know this, as you probably never actually did a transcription, but it takes time. It's tedious and in general not the sort of activity that lends itself well to angry people.

But not to the point that someone becomes a "waste of space".  When I earn a "FREE FLIGHT" for spending my miles on the airlines, I still have to give a credit card number to pay the "September 11th fee", which certainly isn't "free", but I'm able to stay civil about it.  The Bitcoin transaction fee is at this point unnecessary, easily avoidable, I haven't paid one in months and probably haven't paid $1 USD worth of fees in my whole Bitcoin "lifetime", and is essentially free.  This would be like calling someone a waste of space because they say that pi is 3.14, when we all really know it's (fill in the blank here ad infinitum).  Says much more about the caller than the callee.


Honestly, if you have no idea why leaving them out is appropriate, then no amount of explaining will help.  You should leave them in.  It helps a reader put your criticism in its proper perspective.

Well done.

The transcript cost more than the entire total you've paid in Bitcoin fees so far. I guess this inadvertently also puts things in perspective.

I would narrow the statement down to "don't let him talk in public/in front of a big audience about bitcoin until he has more experience in that".

Public speaking skills are something you're rarely born with and depending on personality don't come easily. I bet though that any student will agree with me that when put under pressure you come up with stupid stuff that you wouldn't believe afterwards that you were capable of saying. As far as I've seen, Genjix/Amir has write quite a bit of code of Bitcoin clients, so he probably has some more insights into the system than the audience. Not being able to communicate that is bad, but not as bad as you make it look.

Could you please record a video of you explaining Bitcoin (or MPEX?) to a big crowd? TedX Events are also big in Romania and I bet they would love to hear about alternative currencies or even a romanian stock exchange based on internet funny money!

holy shit, representative of bitcoins?, now you will censor people speaking about a open source project by some anonymous person :) of which you seem to be only legitimate owner?

I think this part of a really amazing TED talk is really fitting for this thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=chXsLtHqfdM#t=841s

"The truth about entrepreneurship: You have to be able to do three things beautifully, make it optimally, sell it optimally, handle your finances optimally and no single human being can do all three optimally."

Taaki simply can't sell it and he shouldn't try doing what he can't do. (Well he can't make anything or handle finances either, but's another story..  ::))

O M F G!

That first video was fantastic! LMFAO

About half way through Amir's presentation his phone goes off... and he answers it. Cue the room to erupt in laughter.

This is why I love the Internet and this time in history. You get so much raw, unfilitered... life.

Really, this is no big deal. Sure, he is obviously not a great public speaker and he doesn't seem to have great ability to explain things effectively, but you can't deny he has passion. Give me someone like that any day.

I'm not sure he quite understands what he's talking about, but he seems to have a gut level sense of what Bitcoin is...I'm surprised he acknowledged himself as an expert...rather than an enthusiast.

I wouldn't go so far as to say he's a waste of space and get all upset and use swear words and what not (which IMHO reflects poorly on the community)...I think the big boy thing up do is to communicate to him about him...not to us about him...

Hey MPOE-PR, can you explain whats going on here?

http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Data-Processing-Data-Entry/Wordpress-Related-Data-Entry-Plenty.html

http://www.freelancer.com/job-search/polimedia/

SEO work.

I can't agree with the OP's anger, but yes I think he's essentially correct.

First off its like an Enron executive giving a talk about energy. 

Second, his attitude of "we're all just a bunch of hackers having fun" may have been appropriate last year but not at this point when lots of people work on bitcoin-related companies full time and Mt. Gox exchanged just under 10 million USD (bitcoincharts.com) in the last 30 days.  His use cases move from Silk Road to dodging the Wikileaks financial blockade to donations to print guns.  What's a simple shopkeeper going to think?  A more balanced portrayal needs to happen, and one that contains a lot less personal ideology.

Third, he actually doesn't seem to know technical details or any facts (about the size of the economy, etc)!  On the one hand this is surprising since I guess he's written a client, but on the other hand (bitcoinica) maybe not.

Fourth, its pretty clear that he lost the confidence of the audience -- there are lots of hints but really the kicker is when someone from the audience attempts to answer another member's question (incorrectly).

Relevant quotes for TL;DR

(Presenter)
And um, well, I like it, this is, this is Amir’s only slide, and I rather like it cause it says “down with banks, rise of bitcoin,” so uh, over to you Amir.

(Taaki)
Uh, yeah. How’re you doing, nice to meet you all. Uh, yeah I don’t have much faith in uh finance industry. I think it’s a bit of a sinking ship, and uh, I don’t think the change is gonna come from within, it’s like gonna have to come from outside

--

we’re not some flashy start-up we’re just hackers, we’re technology people that are like enthused with and like absolutely fascinated with technology and this is I think one of the most interesting applications of technology. Uh there have been a number of really cool technologies over the years like bittorrent, wikileaks, and bitcoin is uh, one of the culminations of the applications of whole– a bunch of concepts have come along and you know we’re just hackers who are very much interested in uh these things and uh yeah.


--

Question 2)
Well how, you talk about bitcoin being completely decentralized. Where does the supply come from?

(Taaki)
Mathematics. Yeah.

(Question 2)
I don’t understand that.

(Taaki)
Well, okay I can explain how bitcoin works, right? Uh, (inaudible from audience) well it is it’s tied into like the infrastructure and how bitcoin actually works, you know? Is, like–

(Question 2)
I’ve got a calculator at home, if it’s mathematics I can just put loads of numbers in and–

(Taaki)
Right. But, uh the underpinning, of the infrastructure, for security the network, is tied into how supply –(drowned out by cell phone interference)–you know?

(Possibly Question 5, else new Question)
But the European Central Bank prints Euros. Who’s printing the bitcoins?

(Taaki)
No one’s printing bitcoins. It’s tied to the underpinning of the network, how the network functions.

(Audience member offers to explain, exact verbiage inaudible.)

(Someone else in audience: Can you tell us, in English?)

(Audience Explainer)
There’s a mathematical series a bit like prime numbers, but there’s not an infinite supply, there’s only about a million being discovered. And those are basically what represent the bitcoins, and so you buy one of those numbers, and then someone keeps a registry of who owns which numbers. So you might (inaudible) the number five (inaudible). And so uh

(Someone else in audience, to Audience Explainer)
So how do you create an exchange rate? There needs to be an exchange rate.

(Audience Explainer)
Well it’s a free market, trading things so you post on (inaudible mumbling). So uh, it’s a bulletin board exchange system.


(Question 7)
Hi. Uh, sorry, firstly I wanna condone a few of the very cynical remarks and cynical tones of voice from people around here, it’s a complex system, in all fairness, I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it is very complex and I suggest you go and read about it on Wikipedia if you really wanna learn about it...


(Taaki)
No. It’s not a credit card, because a credit card you pay fees. But I’m saying that I’m able to change money without paying any fees.

(Question 7)
You, you do pay fees.


And on and on...

Dear God this is terrible. Seriously, if any of you are ever in the position where you'll be presenting about bitcoin, at the very minimum you MUST read this:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations

+1000

What was the target audience for this particular presentation?  Knowing Amir's political leanings, it might have been a somewhat appropriate presentation if he was trying to convince anarchists of the value of Bitcoin as a political tool.  No so much if he was trying to sell the idea of Bitcoin as something useful for commerce, though.

Watch the video.  It really is an embarrassment.  Especially the Q and A where the moderator finally mercifully cuts him short.

London New Finance
London's largest FinTech meetup
http://www.london.newfinance.org/

I think the OP is too harsh (e.g. he should kill himself?  totally uncalled for), and Taaki is obviously free to tell anyone he likes he's involved with bitcoin, but I think he's done quite enough to give himself a bad reputation in this community (not that I've got a really good one) and he clearly isn't good for bitcoin public relations.  What I've noticed about Amir is that he likes to say things that he thinks will impress his audience regardless of whether what he says is (1) true or (2) he can make it true.  DeathAndTaxes brought up some examples of this here and there are literally pages and pages of that behavior from the bitcoinica debacle.

Thanks.  Yeah, looking through the comments section on the website it looks like the group has a pretty heavy professional focus and professionals are a tough audience to captivate.

200+ and 40+ view on youtube, I think it's kinda small audience for now.. If this is'nt more widespread infos, that's no too damaging for Bitcoin. 

About Takir or whaterver his name is.. the stuff is a shame for sure. 
My mother taught me : In each and every thing, are stupid, haters, and bad or corrupt humans.  Only hope they dont get too much attention, and those who listen are intelligent enought to understand that this is crap...

in this case, no need to be really intelligent to understand that !

No worry here !

On a perso basis :
I'd wish to ask a national radio featuring technologies to do an interview/small doc about bitcoin.  I can assure you, even before talkin to those radio program representative, I'll be ready, well prepared, and my notes will have been reviewed by peers here !

Leaving aside how retardedly besides the point this is, the problem with speaking to conference crowds is that the ROI doesn't justify the expense, or at least that's the boss' take. If you have something definite in mind that you're proposing I'm sure he'll hear you out.


Passion in and of itself is worthless. This point cannot be emphasized enough. The passionately stupid are in general a worse liability to anyone and anything than the simply stupid. McCarthy has already proven this point, Taaki has already proven this point, it's time this community such as it is plucks its collective head out of its collective ass and comes to terms with the simple truth of the matter: passion by itself has no value and is no excuse. Passion is no substitute for competence, or for sense, or for shutting the fuck up. Bitcoin does not need more passionate people, it needs more competent people and it urgently, desperately needs to get rid of the passionate idiots it has attracted so far.

Very seriously: if the only thing you have going for yourself is "passion" stfu and blend in the backdrop. You're not helpful and you're not helping.

Fucking passion.

People need to remember that Amir is the one who stole the Bitcoinica source code by "Open sourcing it"
Before he did that,  it was likely to be sold for enough money to pay back all the people Bitcoinica owed money to.
Instead Amir destroyed the one asset Bitcoinica still had that could be used to solve the problem.

A little bird told me that he may face some criminal problems for releasing that code.
I can't say that I will feel bad for him.

surely spending a couple of hours transcribing one has a much better ROI ;)

I really don't like what this guy says, and he gets too much publicity. 
So here, please, you all should read it, here's some links and I'll even put it on my own website. 

 

Does anyone else find it curious that the guy created a bitcoin client but doesn't know how to switch a mobile phone off?

The Q&A section was so painful to watch I had to stop.

LOL'd.

I don't see the problem. No one owns bitcoin. Anyone can go to any conference and try to make a speech there. If you think that you can do better job, please do.

Much easier to outsource.

Not everyone is a broke dreamer living by the seat of his pants you know.

It almost seems like nobody remembers the Bitcoinica shit anymore.

HOE HOE HOE

FTFY

It was written exactly as intended, but thanks :D

The best way to shun someone is to ignore them. Negative attention often feeds such people.

I would have done worse than him before my 6 months in Toastmasters where I learned how to speak in front of crowds and they taught me to not use "um", "ahh", "you know", etc...

But I would still likely be nervous in front of an audience trying to explain everything there is about Bitcoin. I have seen some great speakers speak on all aspects of the technology from the economic perspective to the technological. I would have had a hard time describing the blockchain portion of it up until a few months ago after diving into the code of it, and I would still only be able to give a general idea of it with difficulty if someone wanted more detail on the cryptology portion of it.

But in all actuality, I could easily consider myself a "Bitcoin expert" in front of a group of people who have heard nothing about it and want to learn about it.

Face it, most of us are geeks that have some good knowledge but are not comfortable in the area of communicating. Especially in front of a large audience that ended up being somewhat hostile toward the end.

If I were to do something like that I would have a speech prepared and limit the questions and say "we can discuss that further afterwards" often.

Plain as day,  Taaki is a thief.  (He stole the Bitcoinica source code,  and published what wasn't his to publish)

You fuck off. Bitcoin is not about geeks. I'm sure a familiar rock awaits you somewhere.


Fuck off #2. Taaki and McCarthy, Genjix and Nefario are exactly alike. And they're exactly what has no business associating itself with BTC, or - horribile dictu - pretending BTC is associated with them.

watching the first video i could tell straight away this guys background is in the 'anonymous' hacker area. and not a business/financial background.

i am a fan of these crypto currencies but even i could not see one positive thing that guy said that actually helped bitcoin have some credibility.

i really wonder where these financial conferences advertise that they require 'experts' to talk about bitcoin. As that guy seriously should not have been a public face of bitcoin.

making comments such as businesses are accepting bitcoin and making a loss purely because they see the potential. and when questioned about how can someone get bitcoin. he seemed to have no clue about mining or how to explain it simply.

i face-palmed atleast 30 times whilst watching the video. what a waste of a potentially good chance to show bitcoin as better then other payment methods.

To be fair, Amir has never claimed to be a business/financial person.  He's often said that all he wants to do is write code. 

im not against coders at all for instance gavin andersen would be a perfect fit to have gone to this conference, or someone from bitpay/bitinstant/mtgox.

but in this case this particular coder going to a financial conference is like a pimp going to a WI meeting to explain womens rights.
the second video shows the other panellists showing more positives for bitcoin and slightly defending it, but that dude really needs a lesson in PR

Quote to quote.

Here is another quote for you:

Patrick Strateman (Phantomcircut) is a liar,  and has implied physical threats of violence against myself.

That's not the appropriate way to conduct business.

BTW,  when will you be giving me back my 23,291.7726294  Bitcoins? (Currently worth about $300K USD)
I didn't even get a single Bitcoin back from you.

http://archive.is/5A1c

Would you care to actually answer my question rather than linking me to my own posts?

I'd be up for speaking about Bitcoin, I enjoy talking to audiences. I think as a community though we need some good wiki about what to actually SAY to people. I've been trying out different intro-to-bitcoin talks one people for the past couple years and still haven't gotten much farther then, "huh?" from most people. And it's not for the lack of me trying to talk normally.

In addition to writing lots of open source software related to bitcoin, Taaki has also promoted bitcoin actively in various tech conferences etc around the world. He also kept bitcoinmedia.com (in addition to other sites), which doesn't update any more, but at one point it was pretty popular.

This is bitcoin, anybody can just start promoting it in any way possible, and there is no central authority to forbide someone working or promoting the tech. If you think that Taaki (for example) is doing a bad job, bitching on the forums won't probably help much. Start doing the promotion etc job yourself and do it better.

It won't hurt to do both..Maybe people are helping Genjix by telling here that they don't think he's using the right words.

There is:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations

I love how phantomcircuit comes on here and plays around with the people from whom he's helped obstruct access to their assets.  Classy.

I love that video, hazek, hence starting a thread on it over a week ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128387.0

~Bruno K~

Damn straight! Here's two videos drivin' the passion aspect home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wroj0FLvzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyvqhdllXgU

Amir's not the only one who might not be the best one to present Bitcoin to a specific target audience. What's Jesse's excuse?


What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

Yeah, who is that idiot?  Multiple facepalms there.

He founded Lewt and Payward and is one of the plaintiffs in the Bitcoinica lawsuit.

http://lewt.com/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=116955.0

I've known Jesse for 15+ years and I highly doubt Jesse actually said any of those things.

The author also misrepresented many of the things I said as well.

What's a shame is the people organizing this conference didn't do any background check before allowing him to speak.

Notice how nobody from Amir, Donald, or Patrick Strateman has made any meaningful comment about Britannica fiasco in about 5 months.

They allowed thefts totaling almost a million $ worth of bitcoin and they can't find the time to at least try explaining their actions. ...
 Occam's razor point to incompetence, carelessness, then collusion and theft.

That's because they had nothing to do with Bitcoinica.

Remember; Zhou was *not* an employee and the Intersango trio where *not* partners. Everyone was just hanging out. They are all experts so don't worry, it's cool.

Response here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130103.msg1391832#msg1391832

The problem is that if someone who's not a year+ veteran of BTC does a background check it would seem like Amir is respectable, precisely because nobody makes threads such as these, precisely because pretty much everyone would rather circlejerk than speak the usually uncomfortable truths, mostly because if anyone does there's a ciuciu barrage + a "you're just a competitor" barrage + all the rest of the idiocy. Speaking of which, I'm surprised nobody's yet come up with the "Amir Taaki is a competitor to MPEx so therefore". Oh no, wait, actually...that's what the entire "where's YOUR presentation" talk is all about, huh. A well.


It's funny how when shit hit the fan GLBSE turned out to no longer have been a corp (oh, we had papers but "nobody signed them"), which is the exact same thing claimed by Bitcoinica which in general puts into light a very clear pattern. And then people come in here to defend the muppets. It boggles.

If that's the case, then you both need to contact the author and ask for corrections to be made to the article.  You've been a businessman long enough to know that you don't let those kinds of inaccuracies stand in articles the community is hailing as "huge" or "awesome".

Just to be clear, I didn't come to defend him, but mainly complained that the criticism was way too dramatic for me to take seriously.  Fortunately, others have stepped in to solve that problem.  Consider drawing a distinction between those disagreeing with the message versus those disagreeing with the presentation.

He's given better interviews in the past. Looking at another recent video of his, he seems very preoccupied with other things on his mind. Not surprising given the current ongoing lawsuits and potential personal liability.

I understand you anger... Amir Taaki is really fucked up:

WTF ?!!  On the other hand there's no such thing as "bad publicity" or marketing... (except your own obituary)  :-\

If you want to invite an expert on Bitcoin to such a conference these days you can easily find a wide range of people from different fields with different perspectives and different competences. Financial experts from the traditional system could have invited business-oriented financial experts from the Bitcoin economy.

These people chose a young enthusiastic idealist raving hacker living in hackspaces all over the continent and they got just what they ordered.

THEY heard what THEY wanted to hear otherwise THEY would have invited someone else.

Now the question is what do WE want THEM to hear?

Honestly: when I look at this group of bankers and hear that they want to find out something about Bitcoin my first reaction is like 'oh, no, give Bitcoin a little more time before you take it seriously please!'. I see no point in attracting the banking world to this technology nor in making them understand it's potential danger for their monopolies. The longer this takes, the better.

And in this respect Amir's performance was the best thing that could have happened there.

I don't know what Amir's intention was. In case he wanted to attract them to Bitcoin he probably partied too much the night before the talk. In case he wanted to distract them then this might as well have been a brilliant social hack.

Joe

I didn't see his entire performance yet because my stomach couldn't handle it.

But I agree that this unwanted diversion may be beneficial. What does Bitcoin have to gain from the banking world? The whole point is to escape from the their monopolies. The longer Bitcoin has time to grow underground, the stronger it will be when it has to fight the inevitable opposition in the future.

Who's great idea was it to hold the second conference in a banking center of the world to begin with? fail

The OP's original statement might hold more water if there was audio to accompany the transcript. I can't judge Amir for what could be a bad speech, or angry transcript writer. Adding commentary that people should off themselves or excommunicate someone - doesn't service your presentation. If you don't like what he has to say, either don't listen to it - or take up public speaking yourself.

AlexWaters

There is a link to a youtube video in here somewhere.

While I don't condone the extremes called for in this thread, that fact remains that Amir's presentation was unfortunate for both him personally and for bitcoin generally. Especially considering the the other bitcoin disasters with which Amir has been personally involved.

Even some of the statement made in the Macau video are unfortunate.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131918.msg1413467#msg1413467


Again, my point here is to stress that bitcoin should (and actually does have to a degree [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations] ) have  generally available talking points.  Anyone involved in bitcoin who speaks with the media would do well to review these points before making statments that end up reflecting on us all.

"Where does supply come from?"

"Mathematics yeah"

Seriously, never speak in public again.

But thx for the laugh

Honestly I don't understand this criticism. Making good answer to that question is _very_ difficult. When I try to explain it, I usually fail, even when the counterparty is total programmer nerd. Then I resort to "you have to research it yourself from internet, start with the wikipedia article" or something. I usually ask if concepts such as cryptographic hash function and public-key crypto is known, and rarely even this is the case.

And usually these finance people tend not to be very math/crypto-heavy, so trying to explain it would have been only distraction.

It isn't that hard to explain and can be done without any low level explanation of cryptographic functions.  Here is an example. If the Q&A is at the end of a presentation which explains transaction processing this explanation can be simplified further.  Then again if you go up there with a single slide which provides no useful details then you are setting yourself up to fail.

"Where does the supply come from?"

D&T.  Clear and concise and not overly complicated.  You should contribute to the wicki.  Seems that even other bitcoin business have trouble simply explaining to the laymen what it is that we do.

THAT'S A PROBLEM.

Absolutely.