Yeah we only have ONE lonely little Merit Source. We surely need another with preferably a bigger bag than the bare minimum.

Seriously..?? Whatever dude! Nobody needed the flat-earther..You are the one quoting him so apparently, you did.

Bitcointalk username: amishmanish
Bitcointalk profile URL: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1107844
Amount of earned merit in the last 120 days: 47
BTC Address: bc1q58fyah8t0k3qz8u66g33ryl3x6d4n809p8hckf

Congratulations to all the prodigies for making it into the hallowed halls.. Suchmoon with his 17000+ posts should have probably just gotten an extra honorary spot.

Quite frankly, judging by the number of good posters that apply, there is a humongous supply vs demand gap here in particular and signature campaigns in general. I have to admit that it does look more and more like this train has left a long time ago..

This is where the argument about you calculating the percentage wrongly actually started:


The math is basically settled that if someone asks that How much has CO2 concetration increased from pre-industrial levels, they will quote the 20-40% figure depending on what baseline you take. Check this BBC report that quotes "has increase by about 40%".This report says "20% increase in less than 40 years"

Lets put it to rest as it really doesn't matter how the motley three of us look at the figure in this rather non-descript corner of the BCT forum.

Lets just agree that if you can accuse us of saying that "it is alarmist to show 300 PPM to 400 PPM as a 33% increase", then you can be similarly accused of supporting those who want to continue polluting the environment by saying that "Hey, its not a problem, Carbon has only gone up by 0.01%".

The real question as you say is:

Which is what i wanted to ask from your discussion on percentage increase not being a problem when i said:

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So yeah, the three of us have been wasting our breath on the percentage argument.

When you say whether this is dangerous or not, that is when we get to that stage of climate skepticism that says, "Hey its just not hot enough yet". The basic infographic on any climate report I have seen quotes the worldwide observations like reduced polar ice caps, Receding Glaciers, Erratic Weather patterns. I have spent at least 2 decades seeing the summers getting harsher and watching people face drought conditions. So when i see that report and match it with my personal experience as well as what Discovery/ NG shows on the receding polar ice caps, I go, oh well, maybe it is increasing.

I am interested in knowing that what makes you think that 0.04% (+0.01 or 33% increase.. )is not dangerous. We have to consider that if emissions keep increasing at the same rate, this percentage of the total will increase resulting in the 1.5 deg celsius temperature increase that needs to be adhered to as per consensus. What is the harm in erring on the side of caution when its supposedly the planet's inhabitability which is at stake?

Like I keep asking and you keep ignoring, What is the solution from your side of the non-alarmist debate. What sources are you referring to? Are there any or you are just feeling colder as years pass by like I feel warmer here around the tropics..?? LOL..

Also, Should I start a separate topic on this if @Saltypitoon and you would be interested AND if we can stop hurling insults and expressing skepticism at each other's mental faculties...??LOL..

The thing about blockchain is that if a private, corporate entity wishes to use it for the "advantages" it offers, it will always be a dead use-case from the beginning.

When Satoshi formed the genesis block with the unspendable 50 BTC, it was not exactly for profit. People used to throw around 1000s of BTC on random services/ goods. They weren't exactly looking for profit. Things changed for Bitcoin gradually but the trustlessness of blockchain and the utility of cryptography for anonymity still remains.

Today if someone starts a blockchain for a "not-for-profit" purposes and finds a good enough use case that a lot of people would willingly contribute towards (by running the code on their machines), It can still become a big thing. Evolving better dialogue on Social media platforms is one thing that comes to mind. So I won't be too quick to jump to conclusions about blockchain applications or blockchain development, purely as an intellectual exercise, being completely useless.

Some of the hype that was created for logistic / Supply Chain (How pure are your bananas? How good is your Tuna) etc. will need explanations on their own that why would anyone do it that way.

The other major hype area was Financial instruments. Here, Smart Contracts running in a partly decentralized way where big institutions who mutually need each other but wouldn't like to mutually trust each other can still be a big use-case. Blockchain developers can definitely have some utility there, although nothing remotely like Bitcoin can come out of it.

I quoted those incidents in a very India specific context @eality. The guy @escrow.ms had not scammed anyone on the forum here as far as you could tell from the opinion other members had about him. If you go through his case, he was simply screwed by the concerned local police. These things don;t even gain enough traction in our country when there is Taimur smiling or a rape-victim's relatives getting killed while a case is ongoing against a powerful MLA. So relying on "full support from everyone" is hardly the wise thing to do.

I do not worry about the country-ban resulting in me personally getting indicted if i use BTC to trade, yet I can understand if people would be concerned about the anonymity, fearing the typical high-handed approach that law-enforcers are allowed in our country.

I am not alarmist about the prospect of dealing in bitcoin. The case at SC has had some good progress. I will gladly carry on trade with BTC or be associated with it without any fear for my identity. Yet, if you are a very well known, old person on BTC forum, there is nothing stopping "law-enforcers" or "random strangers" making assumptions about the net-worth that can be coerced out of you. There have been physical attacks and that is why, if you intend to do any trades, best to put the cypherpunk ideals to practice.

PS: I agree that i took a swipe on you because your statement about Theymos seemed ill-placed. You quoted me as saying:
Never did i say that i fear for my identity as the owner of the forum may compromise it. I have followed theymos here and have read his posts at reddit etc. for a long time and am well aware of his commitment to privacy. My doubt was on the extents to which our own law-enforcement can go, not on Theymos. The case of law-enforcement officials using their findings to earn bitcoin for themselves are well known. You could read about the dirty cops who manipulated Ross Ulbricht..
So yeah, lets put it aside and be friends again..LOL..

As is the custom in these parts..

Username: amishmanish
Post Count: 752
BTC Address: bc1q58fyah8t0k3qz8u66g33ryl3x6d4n809p8hckf

I got close a few times earlier but the competition keeps getting fiercer. Maybe Darkstar should start conducting an online aptitude test for this..

It was fun to begin with but hard to come by without investing a lot of time and energy into Bitcoin and the community.

To me, merits have been a quiet reckoning about the limitations I have in terms of involvement with bitcoin and crypto. Some due to my procrastination on reading all those whitepapers and some because of where I live. It has also acted as a positive reinforcement when I get them. Yet, during periods of inactivity, months pass and you don't get any and it did get discouraging.

There was a phase when most active users could get enough merit to rank up to Hero or Sr. Member simply by being around and reading/ commenting on topics. Even now, the key i think is to be around the discussed topics, find something interesting and work your way to add something relevant. This just gets a bit difficult when all of the most merited discussions are about merits, reputation, trust etc etc. A snake eating its own tail.

There is nothing in the Discussion and Economics section which is stimulating enough to not sound like you are repeating yourself for the 100th time or watching someone else say the same thing that you were gonna say, the 100th time.!! That is why, i call this a quiet reckoning that when everybody else knows what I know, then maybe I don't know nothing..LOL..
It has become a worthy enough goal though, to do something that would be merit-worthy. It has also made me realize how upheavals in personal life can hinder your professional/ work-life. Hopefully, It has also taught me that it is important to learn how to avoid this spillover effect. Any tips on this are welcome..LOL..

One last thing is that too much foucs on merit has made the forum a bit impersonal. People sound more judgemental as everyone is judging your "quality". Its a shame that lot of newbies have to focus on "proving themselves" rather than just basking in the aura of the brilliant discussions that used to happen here, which of course is no longer the case.

The overall ecosystem too has become much more mechanical and has lost the feeling of wonder and awe that initially pulled people towards this. Though I guess it is mostly because of too much money being involved and hence the professionalism.

Like earlier, we had these crazy ideas of Sea-steads and unbridled worldwide innovation that bitcoin and crypto were supposed to make real. Now, that amazement seem to have vanished behind the cold veil of professionalism.

Well, Whiny rant over. Thanks for the opportunity.

Great change.. This will make it possible to actually find topics in the Altcoin sections that at least have some working teams/ intellect behind them rather than simply being bumped by "Reports" and such.
 
I stopped looking at the Altcoin sections because they are all the same. Now if the topics show some real intellectual possibility, they may become easier to spot. Whether the Altcoin section falls to farming or not will now depend on how many of the honest users actually spend time their. If the majority of honest users are maximalists or have given up completely on Alts (which seems to be the case presently at reddit and twitter), they will still fall back to the farms.

Fine. Let us not worry about the Maths. Lets look at the logic of the non-alarmist viewpoint you are supporting. I request you to help me understand your viewpoint.

You are essentially saying that in 1880 CO₂ was only 0.03% of atmosphere. In 2019 it is only 0.04%. According to you, this should not be taken very seriously. We can safely wait for it to reach maybe 0.5% or 1% and then we could be concerned. Till then we have all this other 99% of atmosphere which is Not CO₂ and is completely fine and survivable.

This is maybe also the reason you feel that saying "An increase of 300 PPM to 400 PPM is a 33% increase" is alarmist. Please let me know if i understand this correctly.




 

Oh My God. Climate researchers always find it hard to clarify that "The Science is settled". Is it going to be Mathematics too now?  It is one thing  believing what I want to believe. It is an entirely different thing proposing Alternate-Mathematics.

If I had 300 Satoshis and I get a 33.33% return everyday.
I'll have an additional (33.33% x 300= 100 Sats) the next day.
Second day total would be 400 Sats.

The percentages wouldn't change if i said that i have 0.000003BTC instead?

Good Job summarizing the points akhjob. Whenever you are quoting something verbatim, it is best to put a reference url in that same post or put that text in a quote window. There were mass bans a few months ago as a bot has either been checking for plagiarism or someone is using a bot to do that.

This isn't confirmed but better be safe than sorry. Generally, plagiarism detection can lead to perma-ban and a lot of heartburn with minimum chance of a hearing.  You can edit your post to include a reference URL.

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Coming to the report, I feel they have taken a positive view on crypto from the word go. At Page 13, it says "Lending and investment". The peer-to -peer lending being talked about sounds eerily similar to an endorsement of the ICO method of raising investment. Importantly, the report will also serve to strengthen the "RBI vs Exchanges" case as it acknowledges the risks involved and talks about a "Consumer Protection Framework" at Page 78. An overall good sign.

Some of the problems in the report are that it has steered completely clear of the status of virtual currencies viz-a-viz the payment system debate, especially Bitcoin. The way it talks about "ICO's" at page 21, you really have to wonder if the people writing this report in 2019 are naive enough to not include a warning about them..

I don't know where did you get this impression that we are posing doubt on theymos. LOL. Why bring the man in the discussion?

Knowing your IP address isn't the only way to ascertain identity out here. You should consider that it wasn't just the cypherpunks who joined this forum and not everyone was so diligent about privacy. Maybe you were. The "doubt" doesn't pertain to what you concluded man..Its about the amazing law-enforcement we have in our country. I am sure you've heard about the cases where the police personnel colluded to extort bitcoin from a Gujarati businessman.

Imagine if they were to ban bitcoin. There won't be any dearth of "genius investigators" who will jump to portray an anoymous forum as the den of money-launderes and criminals. (just to earn a few brownie points). Law enforcement in our country has a history of making people's lives difficult by making sensational announcements of success on highlighted issue. Remember how the UP Police botched up Ayushi Talwar investigation to declare "case solved"? This is not the USA where the cops chasing your car will ask "Sir, can i see some ID". There are no bodycams here. What they do is their own discretion and a lot depends on how connected or powerful you are as a person.

It may not be a real risk but this just goes on to show that its best to keep your identity seal-tight on the forum. You must be aware of the fact that Ross Ulbricht lost his identity here at the forum and I don't think he has seen the outside of a jail compound since then.

Do you know about the guys from "Darwin Labs" who were involved in providing software services to the GainBitcoin mastermind Amit Bhardwaj. Two of those guys are still in custody. Read about the travails of the guy escrow.ms on this forum who had to go through hell when Delhi Police rounded him up as he acted as an escrow on the forum.. All guilty by association..So frankly, its not about your or anyone else's trust on theymos. People should discuss and be aware of the potential risks that simply being "associated" can bring to you in a country like ours..Keep your records clean..Pay your taxes..Know what your are doing..That sort of stuff..

I do hope Theymos would someday see your post and acknowledge your declaration of loyalty../s LOL..

It'll be great though if he does. We'll have a better chance at getting someone to moderate the Indian sub. Although, there isn't much to moderate till the RBI comes clean on its stupid stance and we can have some real commerce going on here. It is all strangulated right now.

I don't think we are saying the same things..You are not looking at the Carbon credits scheme as a solution to incentivize emission-reduction. Although we agree on this, yet you also need to view it without the lens of " all polluters are powerful, evil industries". It is a global issue that required coordination between countries too. Why should a country like India or Nigeria accept the same levels of reduction as the historic polluters? (Even though India has stupidly done this since 2014 and have seen the economy struggle since then).

Viewing it all as an economic conspiracy cannot make the real problem go away. I keep asking, What is the solution on your side of the belief for the problem??


The love of "Us vs Authority" is also visible in the way a large section of early bitcoin supporters no longer see eye to eye with the Core Devs.  This is also something that was so visible at the forum with Newbies and the Older members. A lot of the loud-mouths just do it to spite authority.
Ohh and "Google effect" like you said in the last post.. There was a time before the internet revolution when forming an opinion on a matter needed in-depth study, a few library visits or at least, having read a few books on topic. Today, I can comment on Banking, Climate change, Artificial Intelligence, Pop culture, Music..All at the same time..

Earlier we all agreed on what each one of us knew. Now it often becomes a competition on who first googled the slam-dunk argument...lol..It can lend a very disrupting tone to discussion at times.

There was also the case of Gujarat businessman from whom Police personnel extorted Bitcoin after they came to know that he was involved in Bitcoin. No wonder people don't want to come out on the Indian sub and businesses in general, lest people start thinking that you have extortion-worthy/ murder-worthy amounts.. 

Though this guy seems to have gotten his wealth by perpetrating a scam on his "investors".

You may not be imagining this. Maybe Theymos has automated the merit allocation to merit sources depending on their activity and how they spend them.
I had been inactive for a period between April to June/July owing to some personal issues. My refilled merit decreased this morning. So i guess its a half-yearly review sort of thing and redistribution happening. Automated or otherwise..

Can anyone else confirm this?

Banks, have you studied the issuance of the Carbon-Credit under the present system? It does not work the way you were telling earlier. The total allowable carbon credits is fixed at the start and then decreases each year. From my reading, this is how it works:

1. The total GHG emission in tonnes during the baseline year defines the total available credits.
2. These are allocated as allowances to polluting industries.
3. The available credits decrease every year to achieve the Emission reduction target (as taken up in form of NDC's under Paris Agreement)
4. Industries that use beyond allowable allowances need to buy credit.
5. Industries that implement clean-tech (at significant costs) stand to save some part of their allowance which they can sell.

There is nothing suspicious in this. These are the only industries that are covered under the scheme. There is no "us" to whom they can sell these credits. At least that is what people should know. Individuals aren't supposed to buy Carbon Credits as an investment. Those are generally just scams. They are to be traded among the polluters themselves.

Once again, I think we are reading from vastly different sources. Like i said above, there is no "power to print" carbon credits. Of course there is the power to buy and sell them based on how much a polluting corporation can save from its "annual allocated allowance".

I think that you are trying to tell me that the data is wrong and that there is not as much warming as people want to project (promoted by the big industries so they can create a market). This is a point i don't find convincing for the reason I explained above. Your understanding of the "Carbon Credit Printing" isn't how this works.

Also, Didn't i ask this to you first..? LOL..  I have been pretty clear on this that the Paris Agreement and Emission allowance market is the way to go. You cannot just force present corporations  out of business and usher in an era of only Clean energy corporations.
Steps are needed so that all countries/ companies have the incentive to make investments in clean energy. People will never do this out of the "goodness" of their hearts.  I am sure you know this way better than me.
We need a different thread.

EDIT: I think you mistakenly put my sentence in your own quotes in the previous reply. With all the "bots" going around, you should probably edit it..

Doc, The legislation has not yet gone through..The highest court has ordered the central bank to explain "Why implement ban when you can regulate?".. The P2P exchanges are working alright and there is quite a lot of interest in bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies. So as of now there is no ban or threat of 10 year jail term..Though if a ban comes into effect, would they come to catch the "kingpin?".

Do you think that being a mod could be risky like that?

Carbon Credit legislation (Kyoto Protocol et al) came out of the need to bring the developed and developing economies on board. The parties involved are Governments of developed countries whose interests align with those of major polluting corporations'. There are developing countries and others which deem it unfair to have themselves restricted in this way because their share of Global Industrial emissions (at that point of time) wasn't as big.

I have generally seen it as quite a clever way to bring these disparate interests together so that "selfish parties can be made to act for the common good because of Market forces". I respect your opinion but I'll have to see where your above mentioned belief is coming from? Or maybe I'll just google to see what I can find (despite having to face OP's Trust conundrum ). Lets see what new I can learn.

Say, if we agree that Copenhagen summit, Paris treaty, Kyoto etc. is a big farce, sponsored by the most powerful people, then what according to this school of thought is the solution? Isn't it well-documented that the oil industry actively worked against Climate change theories beginning in the 70s-80s?
They changed the track to dominate the renewable's market. This is because those who have the money to invest will do it anyways. After Tesla, there has been a host of manufacturers who have warmed up to the prospect of Electric cars and are thus coming out with models of their own.
Again, like i said, what is the solution if not these international treaties?? Its a global issue and compromises have to be made between countries.

I think we are reading from vastly different sources. Damn Google/ youtube suggestions!!