~

[Gyrsur]

~

[mobile4ever]

I'm familiar with the open source community late in the nineties as Linux becomes popular and loved the spirit of the people back then. With Bitcoin it is a bit comparable but the difference Bitcoin is money and money has a attraction for a special kind of people which I don't like so much.

Greedy humans which has no mind for public weal and which are seeking always their personal advantage. I won't talk about socialism but a healthy community needs ethics and people which live out these ethics. In the last months Bitcoin went more and more in the direction of these people.

This is my own feeling if I read the topics in the forum. There are a few people and companies which live the spirit of open source and combine it with the nature of money which is well because we all need money for living. But the massive amount of people in this forum which are seeking permanently opportunities to make a quick (dirty) Bitcoin sucks really!

So what should the goal of the Bitcoin open source community be? What are their aims for the next year? I'm still missing a kind of masterplan because a community need this to grow up even if this community is distributed like Bitcoin.

Thoughts are welcome.

Cheers!

The goal: Freedom from the control of greedy people. Bitcoin is a tool to make a direct payment without the need of a "middleman". When a small group of middlemen have taken fees while they take control over a large group of people the outcome is repeating economic depressions. Men can not handle too much power.


Bitcoin is not going to solve greed, but it can bring more freedom. As a spoon is not to be blamed for making people fat, Bitcoin is not to be blamed for making people greedy.

[Graet]

I'm familiar with the open source community late in the nineties as Linux becomes popular and loved the spirit of the people back then. With Bitcoin it is a bit comparable but the difference Bitcoin is money and money has a attraction for a special kind of people which I don't like so much.

Greedy humans which has no mind for public weal and which are seeking always their personal advantage. I won't talk about socialism but a healthy community needs ethics and people which live out these ethics. In the last months Bitcoin went more and more in the direction of these people.

This is my own feeling if I read the topics in the forum. There are a few people and companies which live the spirit of open source and combine it with the nature of money which is well because we all need money for living. But the massive amount of people in this forum which are seeking permanently opportunities to make a quick (dirty) Bitcoin sucks really!

So what should the goal of the Bitcoin open source community be? What are their aims for the next year? I'm still missing a kind of masterplan because a community need this to grow up even if this community is distributed like Bitcoin.

Thoughts are welcome.

Cheers!

The goal: Freedom from the control of greedy people. Bitcoin is a tool to make a direct payment without the need of a "middleman". When a small group of middlemen have taken fees while they take control over a large group of people the outcome is repeating economic depressions. Men can not handle too much power.


Bitcoin is not going to solve greed, but it can bring more freedom. As a spoon is not to be blamed for making people fat, Bitcoin is not to be blamed for making people greedy.

kudos, really well said

[Graet]

yep, every community/race/occupation has its good and bad people.
when something has value it draws bad people - they try and find easy methods to take things of value from good people.

unfortunately in our internet world people with a complaint shout (post lots more) much louder than happy people

I guess Bitcoin is like a micrcosm of the real world

[impulse]

The goal: Freedom from the control of greedy people. Bitcoin is a tool to make a direct payment without the need of a "middleman". When a small group of middlemen have taken fees while they take control over a large group of people the outcome is repeating economic depressions. Men can not handle too much power.


Bitcoin is not going to solve greed, but it can bring more freedom. As a spoon is not to be blamed for making people fat, Bitcoin is not to be blamed for making people greedy.

+1

99% of what all internet technologies do is remove middlemen. Most of the time these middlemen add cost, corruption and inefficiency to the ecosystem that they live in. Record companies, the postal service, news and media organizations, retailers, and now banks are all middlemen that can be removed with the creation of new technologies. This new system operates with increased efficiency and creates new opportunities, but also introduces new problems. It will take time to solve these new problems, but in the end we will all be better off for it.

[nevafuse]

Greedy humans which has no mind for public weal and which are seeking always their personal advantage.

There's nothing wrong with greedy humans.  Is Bill Gates greedy for developing & selling Windows?  These people fill a need that people pay for voluntarily.  The real issue is people that try to take away that power - politicians.  Politicians don't want you to choose between OSX & Windows.  They want you to "choose" what company gives them the most money by creating rules that limit competition.  The founding fathers are to blame when they created a republic instead of a democracy.  The politicians vote - we don't.  It is a lot harder to bribe 150 million people versus 500 people in Washington.  Bitcoin is the answer to that problem.  If you don't like the government, stop paying.  Bitcoin is the equivalent to having all your money in your front pocket that no one can see or steal.  Once we starve the beast, we can start over by putting ourselves in control.

[mobile4ever]

imagine you are new in this forum and take a look around and read some of the topics. what will your impression be at the moment or if you will also in the last months with all the bitcoinica and pirate and anything else issues. you won't tell me that this is a healthy, non greedy community with a good spirit?

EDIT: and second where is the masterplan for the next months and years. what are the goals of the engineers and developers? or is it still more experimental like Gavin said in an interview and if ASIC comes into the game it is a sign that Bitcoin slowly grows.

I would say it would be easy for any newcomer to be disappointed with any hard project. The internet is just a part of the "real world" even though people call the offline part the "real world". (?) Those who fail generally at hard projects will fail in the Bitcoin realm as well. But if they focus on the negative without keeping their eyes on the positive,  the end goal,  → freedom, will fade in importance. Balance is key.



Your masterplan question is better answered by Gavin Andresen. I am a budding developer and my goal for Bitcoin is to secure it from being tampered with. The power of ASIC will be a temporary change in the Bitcoin economy in my opinion and perhaps bring that last BTC to the world a bit faster. ☺


To any developer who knows the gravity of what they are doing:

[mobile4ever]

99% of what all internet technologies do is remove middlemen. Most of the time these middlemen add cost, corruption and inefficiency to the ecosystem that they live in.

Exactly. Another example is Job Services, they get millions for what LinkedIn is now doing.


We live in an age of transition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GooNhOIMY0


Machines exist to make our lives easier, but some make machines just for destruction. That is, they are created with an evil purpose. When I die, I want to know that I helped man to advance, not  regress.

[evoorhees]

The "goal" of Bitcoin is to privatize money.

With privitization, comes freedom. Those who wish to work without profit, for some "community good", can do so unmolested. Those who wish to work for profit, for some selfish ambition, can do so unmolested.

Bitcoin enables whatever goals each individual has, to be pursued only to the limits of that individual's capabilities. With Bitcoin, no individual may dictate to any other what he may do with his wealth, and men must resort to the nobler pursuits of negotiation, persuasion, production, and reason, if they wish to get their way.

In a Bitcoin world, you needn't be frightened by people seeking profits, for the only manner by which they can take something from you, is for you to give it voluntarily to them. Bitcoin is a brilliant, civilized, voluntary aparatus of exchange.

[JoelKatz]

Look at what the Internet has done for information distribution. Today, even the world's most repressive governments are finding it almost impossible to keep their people from reading media from around the globe and sharing their experiences with the rest of humanity. This is having a profound pro-freedom effect around the world today. Humanity has taken a giant step forward.

Distributed, decentralized currencies like Bitcoin will do the same thing for finances. Today, many people around the world are essentially held hostage by government-controlled currencies. The government can control who can produce new currency and how much and can impose tight regulations on how money is stored and transferred. However, systems that evolve from Bitcoin will almost certainly change this in the next 40 years or so. The rich and powerful will not be able to use governments to control who can create money, how much they can create, how it can be transferred, and so on.

People will soon be as free to store and exchange money as they wish as they now are to exchange information.

[evoorhees]

Look at what the Internet has done for information distribution. Today, even the world's most repressive governments are finding it almost impossible to keep their people from reading media from around the globe and sharing their experiences with the rest of humanity. This is having a profound pro-freedom effect around the world today. Humanity has taken a giant step forward.

Distributed, decentralized currencies like Bitcoin will do the same thing for finances. Today, many people around the world are essentially held hostage by government-controlled currencies. The government can control who can produce new currency and how much and can impose tight regulations on how money is stored and transferred. However, systems that evolve from Bitcoin will almost certainly change this in the next 40 years or so. The rich and powerful will not be able to use governments to control who can create money, how much they can create, how it can be transferred, and so on.

People will soon be as free to store and exchange money as they wish as they now are to exchange information.

I've never seen a JoelKatz post I didn't like.

[Elwar]

Bitcoin is like giving guns to every human in the world.

On the upside, it empowers people.

On the downside, it empowers people.

[waspoza]

I've never seen a JoelKatz post I didn't like.

I've never seen a JoelKatz or evoorhees post I didn't like. 

[benjamindees]

The most you can expect is an equal opportunity and the absence of aggression.  Bitcoin mostly provides that.  At the least, it's a vast improvement over the status quo, so the question should be "what's the better option?"

[knight22]

Bitcoin can free us from the banking system witch is the best thing on earth. As said before, bitcoin is the symbol of financial freedom for all people who trust the protocol. Now, what will you do with that freedom? It's only up to us to not fuck it up.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Bitcoin is to money as the internet is to communication.

[Timbert33]

The goal: Freedom from the control of greedy people. Bitcoin is a tool to make a direct payment without the need of a "middleman". When a small group of middlemen have taken fees while they take control over a large group of people the outcome is repeating economic depressions. Men can not handle too much power.


Bitcoin is not going to solve greed, but it can bring more freedom. As a spoon is not to be blamed for making people fat, Bitcoin is not to be blamed for making people greedy.

+1

99% of what all internet technologies do is remove middlemen. Most of the time these middlemen add cost, corruption and inefficiency to the ecosystem that they live in. Record companies, the postal service, news and media organizations, retailers, and now banks are all middlemen that can be removed with the creation of new technologies. This new system operates with increased efficiency and creates new opportunities, but also introduces new problems. It will take time to solve these new problems, but in the end we will all be better off for it.

Pretty accurate. Only thing I disagree with is the postal service being an "unnecessary middleman"? I mean... delivering packages is a legitimate service. Unless you're talking about sending letters and documents, which is unnecessary due to pdf and e-mail.

[kiba]

...Bitcoin world domination!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Look at what the Internet has done for information distribution. Today, even the world's most repressive governments are finding it almost impossible to keep their people from reading media from around the globe and sharing their experiences with the rest of humanity. This is having a profound pro-freedom effect around the world today. Humanity has taken a giant step forward.

Distributed, decentralized currencies like Bitcoin will do the same thing for finances. Today, many people around the world are essentially held hostage by government-controlled currencies. The government can control who can produce new currency and how much and can impose tight regulations on how money is stored and transferred. However, systems that evolve from Bitcoin will almost certainly change this in the next 40 years or so. The rich and powerful will not be able to use governments to control who can create money, how much they can create, how it can be transferred, and so on.

People will soon be as free to store and exchange money as they wish as they now are to exchange information.

+1

From the very first day I started reading this forum, I've enjoyed reading your post, Joel, albeit your avatar has always reminded me of Cro-Magnon.

~Bruno~

[JoelKatz]

From the very first day I started reading this forum, I've enjoyed reading your post, Joel, albeit your avatar has always reminded me of Cro-Magnon.

Thanks. I do have a large, flat forehead and people have frequently made those kinds of jokes about it. That picture does accentuate it though. It's not quite as dramatic as it seems in that picture.

I think I'll switch to the picture from Bitcoin Magazine. That was taken by son, and is a typically awful picture of me. But some kind of magic was done to it before publication that makes me look awesome. (Though you can't tell that I'm wearing a Bitcoin Miner T-shirt.)

Update: Done.