@mmmaybe - much appreciated - we are in this together and hopefully AT and Burst will be a successful combination (both myself and vbcs are very pleased with how AT has been integrated with Burst).

Looking to making more history with an actual "atomic cross-chain transfer" hopefully happening within the next month!

I would like the PR team to please get their terminology straight about the "smart contracts" as some of the articles I've read are just plain wrong.

For a start please use the term AT - Automated Transaction(s) when referring to the "smart contract" technology (i.e. what flavour of "smart contracts" does Burst use) and a specific use case (or "smart contract") such as the Lottery AT.

Thus "smart contracts" would be the most general term - so you'd say that "our platform has implemented AT for its smart contracts" (vs. say Ethereum).

An "Atomic Cross-Chain Transfer" is just a use case (it is not a technology like AT is) so don't confuse that (treat ACCT just as you do the Lottery).

It would also be appreciated if "created by CIYAM Developers" could be included in the PR material about AT as we really do need to try and get other coins to also adopt AT (so that we can actually start using ACCT ATs) and we have no PR team ourselves.

So the first decentralised lottery (running on Burst and powered by AT) has now commenced.

Although it is perhaps going to take a while for the implications of this to sink in those that run "gambling for profit" businesses are now going to find themselves facing competition from programs that don't actually need to make a profit in order to continue operating (they just need players).

Those wanting to get attention for their alts might want to consider how offering something like a Satoshi Dice which works on *zero percent margin* might attract users to their coin.

The developer appears to have gone quiet for some time now.

An AT "trustless lottery" is already running on the Burst blockchain (mainnet) - the announcement was made here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=731923.msg10254497#msg10254497 and the actual AT assembler code can be found here: http://pastebin.com/xiDdMzEG

Expect more of the AT use cases to be appearing soon.

I think that just because scientists can't add unknown variables into their predictions (i.e. future technologies or some major earth changing event that simply couldn't have been predicted) doesn't mean we should sit and wait with our collective "fingers crossed".

There are very clear steps that we can take now which also can allow for changes down the track should new things give us a new direction.

The smart guy in the back seat is the "scientist" and in my opinion is he is the one you should be listening to (I'd be advising the other guy to shut up and put on his seat belt).

Smart guy in the back seat has been carefully watching out the back window every few seconds to gauge the speed at which the avalanche is advancing and calculates that we can certainly put the car into 3rd gear without risking it hitting us (he also knows that putting the car into 3rd gear at our current speed won't destroy the vehicle and that we can always put it into neutral in the unlikely event that we we do ruin the gear box as a last resort).

Now maybe 3rd gear won't save us from going off the edge but it is certainly better than not doing anything (the other guy in the back seat doesn't have any better suggestion than just keep going as he wasn't paying attention to the speed of the avalanche and actually has no idea at what speed the gears are safe to engage as he never learned much about cars).

Sure - so let's say it is like we are driving a car down a winding mountain road and our brakes have failed (and that we have poor visibility so no way to know how far we have to get to the bottom of the mountain).

We have been told by the smart guy in the back seat that we can slow the car down by using the gears but then the guy next to him says - sure but if we do that we are likely to hurt the vehicle and for all we know we are already nearly at the bottom of the mountain anyway. So the driver says a prayer and just keeps going without trying to use the gears to slow the vehicle.

It seems to me that the second guy is a bit like the modern economist, the driver is the political leader and the vehicle is the economy.

Having someone to blame when we go off the side of a cliff really isn't much of a concern when you only have seconds to live and bear in mind even if we ruin the vehicle if we are still in good health then we can just get out an walk.

So basically the Liberal party in Australia have often used the argument that "it will hurt our economy" to actually do anything to properly address climate change (and I am sure they are not the only political party in the world pushing that message).

The statistics that they quote are normally sourced from reports that are created by Treasury (when they are in power) or by economic forecasting organisations (when they are not in power - but without really anything much in the way of scientific input either way).

So - if the economists are never going to take climate change into account (as that should be up to climate change scientists) and the politicians just focus on using reports whose main input comes from the economists then I think you can begin to see why we might have a problem.

Oh - and I am not a Labor party supporter (for any Aussies wondering).

Politicians are forever talking about statistics and the economy so virtually any interview with any politician where they mention anything about the economy should suffice as an example (and they often put forward economic "excuses" as to why climate change is something we can't afford to do anything about now).

But let's get to what riles me most - here is a well known publicly made statement from the current Australian PM (it was made before he was PM but he was leader of the opposition at that point in time).

"Climate change is crap." (Tony Abbot)

It is not surprising that even America (which has dragged its feet on doing anything much to address the issue of climate change) is now finding Australia's complete lack of political will and funding to be of concern (which has been recently been brought up).

That is close to what the point of this (perhaps ultimately pointless) topic was.

What was perhaps implied rather than explicitly stated is that the "constant message" that is being broadcast by the general media (IMO) is that the world's most serious problems don't need fixing because the economic experts (which the politicians love to quote) have this all "under control" (or even worse that there simply is no problem).

So "why are we even asking the economists?" is in fact *exactly* what I was meaning (and by "we" I am really meaning those that are giving us the messages not literally "we" as I am pretty sure that most of us know that given any set of X economists you'll get X different predictions).

And @twiifm I am not mad at you (you'd have to do a lot better than say that I am ignorant).

You seem to be awfully sure of how ignorant I am - but that is okay as I know that your type just care about "winning arguments" rather than actually "doing anything useful to help the world".

So enjoy "winning your argument" and convincing everyone that they should just shut up and let the politicians and economists save us (because we all know what a great job they are doing).

I do think this is the problem - those who support the non-scientific "pseudo-science" of economics would rather see us all asphyxiate in pollution than admit there is anything wrong with their theories.
 

It is a bit like the people who thought that the Titanic could not be sunk - one section too much and look what happened (and how quickly).

This is exactly what is happening with the earth (but it is always the economists that say it is "unsinkable").

By the time you have built your solar panel - it will be too late (i.e. "wake up").

Finally - a voice of reason.

And this is exactly why I felt that I needed to create this topic.

I find that quite a stretch and think you should back that up with some very hard evidence as the *vast majority* of scientists in the world are in agreement that we have huge problems that we have created ourselves due to our lifestyle (no matter how some people want to spin things).

Also which Nobel prize laureates are you referring to specifically (and saying that I supported any of them is a bit odd as I didn't name any - did I)?

If you think Beijing is just one overly extreme example then try living in most other major cities in China also (whilst Shenzhen was a lot better it still ain't clean and where I live now isn't much better either).

They are switching on new coal fired power plants virtually every day of the year in China - how can things possibly not get worse in every city anywhere near them?

Also the city I was born and grew up in (Melbourne, Australia) has had to implement severe water restrictions for nearly 20 years now (even if they have managed air pollution much better than cities in China which is mostly because the coal fired power plants in Victoria are a long way away from the city and they have created very few new power plants in the last 30 years there).

It is this thinking that somehow we'll work out a way that has led to climate change and cities like Beijing now being literally dangerous places to live in if you happen to breath air (seriously check the air quality readings).

But sure - let's just keep on building more and more and consuming more and more because "we're confident it'll all work out without even needing anything more but a belief in just that" (despite the very vast majority of scientists telling us all the time it won't without now drastic action).

If people aren't prepared to go to any efforts to get privacy then they are simply not going to get it (they'll probably just use something that "says it is anonymous" but in fact isn't).

From my limited understanding that would be from banks (in the form of something like a housing loan) or the government state (they are in charge of the printing press so there is no real way to stop them from printing it for themselves if they want to apart from something like a revolution).


What you call money today could become far less useful as that in the future if its supply has become drastically restricted (this doesn't really apply the same to Bitcoin due to its divisibility). What would normally happen then is that people would turn to something else to take place of the less useful money.

If we were using gold and the vast majority of gold was taken out of supply (by hoarding or by it being dropped to the bottom of the ocean) then people would turn to something else (such as silver - but again this doesn't apply very well to Bitcoin so I wouldn't be expecting to get rich from holding Litecoin for a very long time).