we deal with all existential threats here.

hey, it worked didn't it? 

i got his identity within minutes and from the most unlikely of all sources, brg444 himself.  and i didn't have to pay a dime.  btw, the 2 BTC bounty is still open for any evidence, subject to my approval, of a direct link of Alex Berg @bergalex to Blockstream.

it really helps to know who your opponent is. isn't that what Sun Tzu said?  for a moment there, he had me worried i was talking to gmax or luke and i'd actually have to learn something technically.  instead, i now know he really is a 24 yo kid with a shitty job who has only been in Bitcoin for a mere 8mo and who has no perspective on the ups and downs of Bitcoin since Jan 2011 when i got involved (lurking).

hell, when i was 24 yo my career success was baked in the cake.  i was in the middle of my training at the #3 ranked school in the nation for what i do and the #1 research grant recipient for same said school.  i've gone on to reach the absolute apex of my field and in my element i have absolute authority to which ppl have to respond within seconds or else lose their jobs.  i work with the highest and coolest of technologies and enjoy a level of respect from clients only granted to a few select professions.  i love what i do and i have time for Bitcoin, which i also love.

and it didn't come with a silver spoon or connections.  i grew up in a lower, middle class family in a shitty city.  the only way i was going to a quality university was to get a full scholarship out of high school, which i did.  that was the ticket that got my career rolling.

so yeah, it really helps to know who i'm dealing with.

let me distill it even further.

brg444 is trying to scare us into believing that unless we implement spvp to core, all these thousands of SC entities are going to move to federated servers which are opaque and much more ominous and threatening to Bitcoin.  somehow.

the way i see it, adding the spvp to source forever alters Bitcoins property of Sound Money.  i would no longer view it as a SOV. 

as it currently stands, you want outsiders to either pay hard cash to buy BTC's to get a seat at the table or trade something of value for BTC.  by introducing an offramp spvp, these same outsiders also may have figured out that Bitcoin is broken and instead of buying in, they will simply bolt onto Bitcoin via the spvp offering some speculative asset to trade into and just wait.  eventually, once everyone figures out that there's a leak in the system they will start moving out in droves into all manner of speculative assets and SC's

it's like a barn full of cattle.  they feel perfectly safe and secure while the barn door is closed.  the wolves outside have no way of getting in except for scaling the side of the barn to an open upstairs window.  the cost is high for the wolves cuz they might fall and kill themselves.  instead, someone throws the front door wide open.  initially nothing happens and an occasional cattle glances over at the open door and figures the owner will close it back up to protect them.  eventually they figure out the door isn't closing.  instead of the wolves rushing thru the front door, they decide to just wait outside and pick off every single cattle that comes storming out with time.

that was an interesting video.  thx for sharing.

is the skiplist as described in the SC WP the same as SCIP?  doesn't sound like it.

the SC's idea was hatched in the minds of the Blockstream ppl at least a year ago from an interview,iirc, and someone put up a link on bitcointalk from a thread by killerstorm initially discussing the idea maybe 2 yrs ago.  they then filed the trademark in April 2014.  so we know they've been thinking about making this move for at least a year.  

http://www.inovia.com/products/directory/trademarks-number-86247026/blockstream-trademark-owned-by-blockstream-corporation

sure it can scale.  Gavin has proposed at least one.  

how can you see coins move from SC A to SC B?  the Bitcoin network won't be monitoring all these SC's and there aren't enough mining resources to be able to MM all of them.  on the contrary, they will be opaque and maintained by trusted owners of the SC's and as such are different ledgers than Bitcoin.

i don't want to stop innovation.  i just want truly needed innovations to be implemented on MC.  i disagree that it's so dangerous.  we've done it before.  maybe no one has introduced such a fundamental change b/c we haven't needed one?  code has to be thoroughly vetted and tested on testnet or even on these federated server SC's.  just don't introduce an offramp spvp to the source which breaks Bitcoin.

yes, we have been through this, that's how thoroughly we've all picked this apart.  i think it's conceptually constipating to stop your view of what's happening at the SPVproof (spvp) border, as if those BTC's always remain on the MC.  no, it's much more illuminating and as a laxative to view the spvp as an offramp into another speculative asset (defined as anything other than BTC which is the only sound hard money) such as Cashcoin, Truthcoin, votecoin, stocks, bonds, prediction markets, anything else.  as well, your model implies that someday these have to just be unlocked on a journey back to mobile BTC.  not true, whatever emerges on the other side of the spvp may never come back as Bitcoin has been forever changed by the mere insertion of the spvp.  i think that mere insertion forever breaks the Bitcoin concept as Sound Money.  it's like throwing the front door of your cattle barn wide open.  at first, nothing happens.  but once the cattle realize they are no longer safe from wolves entering, they start wandering out until you eventually get a stampede.

see above.

brg444 has also changed his argument to "there will only be Blockstream creating 2 utility SC's to now there will be a bunch of Blockstream-like companies like Google, IBM producing SC's in droves".  i believe this new backpedaled theory is what will happen.  that's b/c the spvp has inserted a costless, riskless, backdoor offramp which breaks Bitcoin's hard money security and allows a siphoning of value to these 1000's of SC's as new speculative assets.

once we allow that offramp to be inserted into the source code, it's game over.

Has anyone else noticed that we have won a major, major concession from brg444 inadvertently?

For the first 150 pages or so of this debate he has argued that SC's are one and the same ledger as bitcoin. He had contorted that definition with terms like "extensions"  or "sub ledgers"  in his rush to defend Blockstream and SC's .

Now,  for the last 50  pages or so he has inadvertently given up that battle and now inexplicably agrees with with every argument I've used assuming that they are in fact different ledgers.  This is what happens when you're blindy  defending something based not on principle but emotion.

And that is a major victory. Certainly one worth pointing out. The different ledger theory is a major pillar of the objection against SC's due to their insecurity and potential for manipulation.  

Another way to look at this is that with my model, outsiders wishing to use Bitcoin have to buy a seat in the system by putting up hard cold cash to purchase bitcoin. This helps drive the price which helps all of us. With SC's, all they have to do is "attract" btc by bolting themselves onto the system using the SPVProof.

c'mon now Adrian.  focus on the bright side.

brg444 has effectively increased the #views on this thread by over 186,308.  now that's good news for those of us participating in the conversation.

we've all become famous.

i mean at one point, i actually was worried i was talking to gmax or even lukejr.  then, i might actually have to learn something. 

i'm so disappointed he is who he said he is.  sheesh, now i might have to actually ignore someone.

i mean it's like talking to a chameleon.  he makes one shitty argument, i rebut, then he diverts to a totally different argument as if the first one never existed. 

i say one thing, he twists all around and misrepresents it, and then insults me. 

and then he claims victory.

at least in our disagreements, there is some intelligence there and the ability to think deeply.

i don't know, should i put him on ignore?   i know it would take away alot of your fun.

well, he could have a shitty job simply b/c of his shitty attitude.  he could behave at work just like he does here.  do you think i should put him on ignore?

don't hold your breath.

i'm quite relieved knowing who he is.  you think i should just put him on ignore?  never done that before.  it's not like i learn anything from him.

Peter exactly distilled both our arguments, along with NL's.  so yeah, i'm happy.  

why do i put up with brg444?  i don't know.  not that i can do anything about him.  he does help me distill and crystallize my thoughts on this issue which is good.  i know exactly where my objection lies:  the SPVproof.  aka offramp.

everything i said makes sense even with federated servers.  they're INSIGNIFICANT to Bitcoin as they don't change the source code.  that's all i care about.

wat?!  lol!

always misportraying my position to try and make yourself look good.  girl.

i'm just relieved to know that i really am arguing with a 24yo kid with a shitty job.   (who still might be a Blockstream shill)