[2015-11-17] Andreas Antonopoulos: Trolls are Disrupting Bitcoin Development

[LiteCoinGuy]

Andreas Antonopoulos: Trolls are Disrupting Bitcoin Development

Mastering Bitcoin Author Andreas Antonopoulos was recently featured on a panel discussion at the Bitcoin Foundation DevCore Workshop at Draper University, and he shared some interesting thoughts on the idea of certain individuals doing their best to disrupt the Bitcoin development process via dissent, negativity, and trolling.

The development process has indeed slowed down a bit as more controversial protocol changes have been debated by the community, and some of the language on both sides of the scalability discussion has been downright nasty. According to Antonopoulos, the possible fracturing of the Bitcoin community as a whole could be partially due to paid trolls who work for various government agencies around the world.

http://insidebitcoins.com/news/andreas-antonopoulos-trolls-are-disrupting-bitcoin-development/35829

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[Carlton Banks]

If this is Andreas' euphemism for "I'm a Bitcoin XT man, the majority of devs and users are the trolls", then his good reputation is in serious jeopardy.


The overwhelming majority of devs identified the XT shills as the trolls, and all the worst offenders were banned from the development mailing-list. People know what they want from the system they're using, we're being forced to reject XT dozens of times a day. This campaign to wrest control of Bitcoin away from it's users is not going to work.

[DooMAD]

If this is Andreas' euphemism for "I'm a Bitcoin XT man, the majority of devs and users are the trolls", then his good reputation is in serious jeopardy.

It sounds more like a "both sides are as bad as each other" sort of thing.  One side thinks blockstream are trying to take over, the other thinks Gavin and Mike are trying to take over.  Neither side is right and both are sounding more and more desperate to score cheap points off each other by the day.  Like the article says, it's all "assuming bad faith" and baseless accusations of ill intent.  No one is actually discussing the issues anymore because it's easier to turn everything into an "us vs them" mentality and resort to character assassinations.

[Carlton Banks]

If this is Andreas' euphemism for "I'm a Bitcoin XT man, the majority of devs and users are the trolls", then his good reputation is in serious jeopardy.

It sounds more like a "both sides are as bad as each other" sort of thing.  One side thinks blockstream are trying to take over, the other thinks Gavin and Mike are trying to take over.  Neither side is right and both are sounding more and more desperate to score cheap points off each other by the day.  

There's one problem with that: Gavin and Mike think that Gavin and Mike are trying to take over. They say it too.

So it turns out that you're wrong; Gavin and Mike explicitly state that they intend to take over, and you say that's not true.

Gavin and Mike also state that they want to remove censorship resistant transactions and weaken Tor support. None of that is an "assumption of bad faith", it's literally their publicly stated intent. So, clearly both you and this article are at odds with real world facts.

[DooMAD]

If this is Andreas' euphemism for "I'm a Bitcoin XT man, the majority of devs and users are the trolls", then his good reputation is in serious jeopardy.

It sounds more like a "both sides are as bad as each other" sort of thing.  One side thinks blockstream are trying to take over, the other thinks Gavin and Mike are trying to take over.  Neither side is right and both are sounding more and more desperate to score cheap points off each other by the day. 

There's one problem with that: Gavin and Mike think that Gavin and Mike are trying to take over. They say it too.

So it turns out that you're wrong; Gavin and Mike explicitly state that they intend to take over, and you say that's not true.

If you think constantly taking that "benevolent dictator" comment out of context for the remainder of time qualifies as them "trying to take over", then sure.

However, if you're not a troll, then no, that's just more "us vs them" bullshit designed to deflect from the real issues.  Thanks for aptly highlighting my point for me.

[Carlton Banks]

Gavin and Mike also state that they want to remove censorship resistant transactions

Source?

chmod755, you've been here a long time. A really long time. You don't need me to find the huge number of pages (and threads) that accompanied Mike Hearn's call for "colour listings" (red coins etc). You know already. So why are you asking?


As for Gavin, he made a controversial reddit post only days ago saying that fungibility should be sacrificed to fight crime. You're telling me you've already forgotten?

I mean, I will provide these links if you insist, but you see my point? You should know better, and yet for some reason, you're playing dumb.

[DooMAD]

Gavin and Mike also state that they want to remove censorship resistant transactions

Source?

chmod755, you've been here a long time. A really long time. You don't need me to find the huge number of pages (and threads) that accompanied Mike Hearn's call for "colour listings" (red coins etc). You know already. So why are you asking?


As for Gavin, he made a controversial reddit post only days saying that fungibility should be sacrificed to fight crime. You're telling me you've already forgotten?

I mean, I will provide these links if you insist, but you see my point? You should know better, and yet for some reason, you're playing dumb.

So to put this into perspective, if I express an opinion you disagree with, am I trying to take over too?  Is it a power grab if I attempt to build software to reflect my own personal views and encourage others to join me in running that software?  I'm not saying I want to introduce those things, but since when does discussing controversial ideas equate to a full blown coup?

Sure, disagree with controversial ideas if you want, but get off the troll-train and jumping at shadows every time someone says something you disagree with.  It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a couple of guys with a different perspective that you clearly don't agree with.  Big deal.  They're not a threat to the existence of all crypto everywhere, unlike that silly "rekt" thread would have you believe.  Maybe you've just spent a little too much time with ice'n'berg to see it.

[eddie13]

paid trolls who work for various government agencies around the world.

I wouldn't doubt that, I have seen some crazy shit in my time around crypto..

[Carlton Banks]

So to put this into perspective, if I express an opinion you disagree with, am I trying to take over too?  Is it a power grab if I attempt to build software to reflect my own personal views and encourage others to join me in running that software?  I'm not saying I want to introduce those things, but since when does discussing controversial ideas equate to a full blown coup?

That's literally not putting things into perspective, because the disagreement isn't the problem. You're subtly re-framing the issue in order to state something that I did not and have never said.

The problem is the clearly expressed intent to take control of the system, as stated by accomplished software developers that could conceivably do so. There's no meaningful comparison between an unknown random expressing their opinion about development direction on the one hand, and a pair of seasoned developers publicly and explicitly laying out a plan to take over Bitcoin development.

In other words, black is still black, and white is still white.

Sure, disagree with controversial ideas if you want, but get off the troll-train and jumping at shadows every time someone says something you disagree with.  It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a couple of guys with a different perspective that you clearly don't agree with.  Big deal.  They're not a threat to the existence of all crypto everywhere, unlike that silly "rekt" thread would have you believe.  Maybe you've just spent a little too much time with ice'n'berg to see it.

Every single aspect of that is a convenient half-truth. Didn't you start this off by saying that people should be playing the ball, not the man?

[Carlton Banks]

Mike Hearn's call for "colour listings" (red coins etc). You know already. So why are you asking?

Do you honestly think creating lists equals removing censorship resistance?

Do you honestly think creating lists isn't intended as a means to removing censorship resistance? As was literally stated? What are you going to tell us? "Well, technically, if you specifically aren't being censored, then censorship isn't a problem, no?"


You literally know that Mike Hearn was proposing exactly this. Answer the question: why are you trying to play dumb?

[Carlton Banks]

Do you honestly think creating lists isn't intended as a means to removing censorship resistance? As was literally stated? What are you going to tell us? "Well, technically, if you specifically aren't being censored, then censorship isn't a problem, no?"

It wasn't stated anywhere. You refuse to provide a source, because you're making this up.

Mike Hearn discussed lists, but did not implement such a system. He didn't even start working on it.

He didn't just discuss, he proposed. And provided an outline, as well as his motivation: censoring transactions. What's the list for, otherwise?

I'll find his thread and link it, it's not difficult to repudiate facile accusations.

[Carlton Banks]

He didn't just discuss, he proposed. And provided an outline, as well as his motivation: censoring transactions. What's the list for, otherwise?

I'll find his thread and link it, it's not difficult to repudiate facile accusations.

A system to censor transactions based on a list exists, but that was implemented by Luke-Jr.

Here's the bitcointalk thread where it started: Mike Hearn, Foundation's Law & Policy Chair, is pushing blacklists right now

To be fair, Mike's idea was to destroy fungibility implicity, not explicitly. So in a way, you were right.


But how would it play out if the Bitcoin protocol included blacklisting, and wallets displayed them, along with a Crime hotline telephone number? Come on now. Hearn is frequently espousing ideas that are framed as "helpful" that are designed to hinder. Funny how you keep supporting him.