Meni Rosenfeld's vanity thread

[Dansker]

Amazing to see such level headed replies from Meni Rosenfeld to these questions.

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[augustocroppo]

I don't understand your argument or its notation. "Believing that X could be true" is not the same as "Believing that X is true and not knowing how to prove it".

Which goes back to Graham's point - you seem to be wanting me to "pick a side" instead of treating it like any other statement that one can be uncertain about.

I am sorry about my mistakes. I completely forgot that sets must be represented by upper case letters and not numbers. My argument is based on the exactly meaning of the two words. I agree that there are connotations, but this do not change the meaning of the words.

The acceptance of a possible existence imply a belief in the subject existence. Of course you could argue that the existence could be true or is true. Whatever argument you choose, you have to accept the subject existence to determine if is true or could be true.

Let's imagine three hypothetical dialogues:

- Do you believe in the existence of Santa Claus?
- Yes.
- Why?
- Because is possible that a old man dressed in red clothes are living somewhere in the north pole.

- Do you believe in the existence of Santa Claus?
- No.
- Why?
- Because is impossible that a old man dressed in red clothes are surviving in the north pole under extreme low temperatures.

- Do you believe in the existence of Santa Claus?
- No...
- Why?
- I do not believe Santa Claus, but is possible that a old man dressed in red clothes are living somewhere in the north pole.

Notice the contradiction in last dialogue. The hypothetical character answering the questions first refuse the existence of the subject, then when required to justify his/her answer, he/she assumes the existence of the subject. This contradiction is not present in the first two dialogues because once the hypothetical character express his/her belief or disbelief, he/she straightly assumes the possible or the impossible existence of the subject.

My argument using mathematical notation is:

p ∈ B

The possible existence of the subject is element of the belief.

i ∈ D

The impossible existence of the subject is element of the disbelief.

B ≠ D

Belief and disbelief do not share any common element, therefore there is not any intersection between theism or atheism.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

What did/would you say when approached by recruiters from Moss@d?

Never heard of it and am unable to find any information on it.

Oh, I get it now (if the leetspeak was to reduce Googleability, I think it's working). I was never approached by them. I doubt a position will be found there that suits my personality, but I wouldn't rule out anything a priori - all depends on what the position would require from me and how interesting and lucrative it is.


@augustocroppo - You still seem to assume that for every person X and statement Y exactly one of "X believes that Y" and "X believes that not Y" is true, and that "X believes that Y" is the same as "X believes that it is possible that Y". This is simply incorrect and no kind of logic argument can change that.

The word "believe" is pretty fuzzy and the accurate concept we need to consider is subjective probability. For every person X and statement Y, X has a given probability p assigned for Y, even if he does not explicitly quantify it. We generally understand "X believes that Y" to mean "X assigns a high probability to Y", let's say >0.9. So if 0.1<p<0.9 then X believes neither Y nor not Y; and if 0<p<0.1, then X believes not Y but still believes Y is possible.

Let's simplify the Santa Claus example by agreeing that "a Santa Claus" means "a person wearing red clothes living in the north pole". Consider the following discussion:

Q: Do you believe that a Santa Claus exists?
A: No, in fact I believe that a Santa Claus does not exist.
Q: Is it possible that a Santa Claus exists?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: It is not that cold in the north pole, someone could live there if he wanted, and red clothes are easy to come by.
Q: If so, why do you believe no Santa Claus exists?
A: Because I don't see any reason why someone would want to go live in the north pole. Hence, it is unlikely anyone actually did that.

The answerer very consistently holds both the belief that a Santa Claus could exist (in the modal sense) and that no Santa Claus exists (as a contingent fact).

The same thing can happen with any other statement - I could believe it will rain tomorrow (since the forecaster said so) and that it is possible it will not rain tomorrow (since there certainly are sunny days, and the forecaster doesn't always get it right), etc. There is nothing special about statements asserting the existence of something; those have a subjective probability like any other statement, and one could give any kind of evidence or argument to establish his subjective probability.

Your set notation is still messed up. B ≠ D means that B and D are unequal (there is an element in one which is not in the other; there could still be an element common to both), not that they are disjoint (have no common element).

[augustocroppo]

Your set notation is still messed up. B ≠ D means that B and D are unequal (there is an element in one which is not in the other; there could still be an element common to both), not that they are disjoint (have no common element).

I agree, the elements which forms the belief and the disbelief are unequal.

Anyway, thank you by the answer. I will meditate on your logical argument to provide an consistent response.

[Vandroiy]

No, not everyone are qualified to express opinions on everything. Politics is one area where this observation is often forgotten.

So true, I just had to quote it. If only more people would acknowledge what they're not qualified for.

the discussion on religion looks way too familiar. I personally say "fine, just treat me as an atheist" at some point. But actually, deep within, I just can't deny the possibility that Haruhi made this world for her amusement.



I see the Bitdaytrade accusations are still lingering about. As I said before, I believe Meni is honest, had no intention of things turning out this way, and it was a bad deal for him too. To anyone who still wants to nag about this: there are so many liars, fraudsters and other truth-benders around, just pick a different target! Everyone can make a mistake. The original Bitcoin client once had a freaking integer overflow, did we all run screaming "ZOMG Satoshi must be so stupid to overlook it, I'll never trust his stuff again"? Also, it's not a secret who ran Bitdaytrade and how he did it.

[MPOE-PR]

To anyone who still wants to nag about this: there are so many liars, fraudsters and other truth-benders around, just pick a different target!

Remarkably enough, this is the story of every caught thief, who's not one bit sorry he stole but terribly terribly sorry he got caught: "ah, there's so many others why pick on meee!"

Satoshi's dubious coding practices are not a standard for anything. More importantly, the ways, means, ideas, opinions, criteria and so forth of computer programmers aren't either interesting or important in any discussion outside of their practice.

[Elokane]

Another satisfied customer chiming in.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

So, today there was a major Israel article (thread). This prompted a major news channel, channel 10, to do a story about Bitcoin, and I was interviewed for it. As were Josh Harvey and others.

It should be broadcast tonight, 23:35 Israel time, on channel 10.

Thought I would mention it.

[WiW]

If I'm already here, and actually managed to skim through the philosophical debate (how did that happen?) I might as well add my 2 satoshis.

Meni may not know me personally, but I bought a significant amount of bitcoins through his site on two occasions and I am a happy customer. Markup is significant, but all in all excellent service. Thank you! Will buy again.


As for anyone interested in anyone else's personal opinion about the Israeli geopolitical position today in regards to other nation's geopolitical position, I would recommend considering that geopolitical positions may, just may, be a result of psychopaths in very influential positions and less of individuals of the public. I am in no way vouching for role of the Israeli public in whatever you may see as right or more probably wrong with the current situation, but I wouldn't consider the many Americans who vote for the federal government really at fault for anything that happened or currently happening in dozens of American-war-ridden countries around the world over the last several decades. Seriously, these things are larger than individuals.

I may have a personal vendetta against any individual Nazi in WWII-era Germany, but I wouldn't take it as seriously as some seem to take it here. If he weren't in Nazi Germany he would probably be torturing small animals and be just as much of an asshole, and I would have just as much of a vendetta. Even if anyone were to believe that Meni is a full-on Israeli oppressor, why isn't anyone asking Meni if he tortures small animals? Is his opinion in the geopolitical game any more relevant?

[Andrew Vorobyov]

There is one rule - never talk about politics and religion  - it will never turn into something positive

[roy7]

I, for one, am glad you made this point and found it quite interesting. As it turns out, my Masters thesis in Computer Science was also somewhat related to machine learning (summary, I used a naive Bayes classifier and some other tools to increase the click-through rate of ads on a web site). I suspect yours was far heavier on the math, though. (My Bachelors's was also in C.S. with a minor in mathematics, but that feels so long ago.) I left the computer industry in 2001-2002 after the dot com implosion, but my hobbyist interest remains, likely for life.

I'm thankful for your contributions to the community and to mining pool compensation analysis.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

I, for one, am glad you made this point and found it quite interesting. As it turns out, my Masters thesis in Computer Science was also somewhat related to machine learning (summary, I used a naive Bayes classifier and some other tools to increase the click-through rate of ads on a web site). I suspect yours was far heavier on the math, though. (My Bachelors's was also in C.S. with a minor in mathematics, but that feels so long ago.) I left the computer industry in 2001-2002 after the dot com implosion, but my hobbyist interest remains, likely for life.

I'm thankful for your contributions to the community and to mining pool compensation analysis.

Thank you, and you're welcome.

If you have some spare time, you don't have to speculate about the contents of my thesis - it's available at https://bitcoil.co.il/files/Thesis-Meni-f2.pdf.