jgarzik goes berzerk in #bitcoin-dev, wtf?

[Herodes]

We as a community are asking for swift trouble from US govt bullies if we are actively marketing Bitcoin to Iran.  It has nothing to do with whether it's legal, moral, ethical or not. We are lucky they have left this project alone thus far.  Doing anything that looks like marketing to Iran will change that quickly.

+1

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[luv2drnkbr]

wow i really dislike that boot.  isnt the POINT of bitcoin to put money into PEOPLE'S hands?  unethical laws should not be obeyed, and a primary function of a system like this is to take that control to the people, where it belongs.  if he thinks it'll hurt bitcoin and that it's a bad idea, then discourage it being used that way and have that discussion, but booting him or crying that farsi translation or using sha256 is illegal is completely against the entire PURPOSE of bitcoin.  and in the link he gave, satoshi was clearly speaking purely from a pragmatic perspective.

[luv2drnkbr]

We as a community are asking for swift trouble from US govt bullies if we are actively marketing Bitcoin to Iran.  It has nothing to do with whether it's legal, moral, ethical or not. We are lucky they have left this project alone thus far.  Doing anything that looks like marketing to Iran will change that quickly.

+1

wtf guys!?  understanding the power structure of the world and being practical is one thing, but this is outright cowardice which has detrimental effects on the community

[Come-from-Beyond]

Timing is everything.

+1 for wisdom

-1 for cowardice

Let me use an analogy.

If you start doing mma, will you gradually go the ranks, and then when you're ready, challenge the best fighter, or will you as a newbie challenge the world champ immediately ?

From my point of view Bitcoin is strong enough to attempt to f*ck the state.

[BkkCoins]

Who's marketing to Iran? Who received any money for selling anything to Iran?
Creating a translation to Farsi has nothing to do with marketing to Iran. There must be plenty of people around the world who speak Farsi outside Iran.

I for one do not abide by the fascism that the USA mafia-state reeks of these days.

[becoin]

Stopping the issuer stopped the currency.

How would you stop the Bitcoin issuer?

[justusranvier]

Bitcoin is currently essentially useless for the regular joe in Western countries. You read it correctly, totally useless. In countries such as Iran or Argentina, it's far from useless. It's potentially a saviour.

Your statement is true if and only if the same kinds of currency controls and devaluations that have occurred in other countries that can't get their fiscal house in order never come to the Western countries.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

If you start doing mma, will you gradually go the ranks, and then when you're ready, challenge the best fighter, or will you as a newbie challenge the world champ immediately ?

From my point of view Bitcoin is strong enough to attempt to f*ck the state.

IMHO the analogy of "fighting the state" is not adequate. They're stronger, fighting is futile. But we can escape them. We should just learn how to run faster.
"... the lions are getting old. They don't run as fast these days. Zebras are multiplying.": http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north900.html

[Technomage]

Your statement is true if and only if the same kinds of currency controls and devaluations that have occurred in other countries that can't get their fiscal house in order never come to the Western countries.

I agree. My statement was a provocation anyway. I know plenty of people in Western countries that find Bitcoin useful, myself included, but it's true that the regular joe doesn't have many uses for it here. In restricted countries Bitcoin could help exactly the regular joe's but only if we give it a shot.

Now that I've seen more defences from notable members such as Casascius and miscreanity, I'm coming to the conclusion that we do indeed have a conflict on this issue.

I understand that it's much easier for someone from Finland to promote Bitcoin to Iran than it is for someone who is from the US. It's a delicate situation. Personally I'm taking a strong stance on this one and I'm forced to call cowardice on certain people, no choice.

I think it's inevitable that Bitcoin starts to get more attention and if this is it, then so be it. Bitcoin either can take the heat or it can't. We'll see. It will happen eventually anyway and there is really no way to stop Bitcoin from being used in Iran by us, unless we want to become exactly what we're opposing.

Again, it's easier for me to talk like this when I'm from Finland. I understand the difficulty of this from the point of view of people in the US. However, this is one of those things that forces the anarchist inside me to come out.

This simply is one of those times when I'll say, bring it on. I agree that in 2010 that would've been stupid but at this point we should be able to take some heat. Massive heat is unrealistic at this point, LocalBitcoins has had 34 transactions in Iran or something like that. Not a lot.

[justusranvier]

I understand that it's much easier for someone from Finland to promote Bitcoin to Iran than it is for someone who is from the US. It's a delicate situation. Personally I'm taking a strong stance on this one and I'm forced to call cowardice on certain people, no choice.

I think it's inevitable that Bitcoin starts to get more attention and if this is it, then so be it. Bitcoin either can take the heat or it can't. We'll see. It will happen eventually anyway and there is really no way to stop Bitcoin from being used in Iran by us, unless we want to become exactly what we're opposing.

Again, it's easier for me to talk like this when I'm from Finland. I understand the difficulty of this from the point of view of people in the US. However, this is one of those things that forces the anarchist inside me to come out.

This is precisely why tools like Tor and Freenet are so valuable. These kinds of discussions can happen in ways that greatly reduce the participants' susceptibility to retaliation.

[paulie_w]

Who's marketing to Iran? Who received any money for selling anything to Iran?
Creating a translation to Farsi has nothing to do with marketing to Iran. There must be plenty of people around the world who speak Farsi outside Iran.

I for one do not abide by the fascism that the USA mafia-state reeks of these days.

yes, this is all ridiculous hysteria. let the people of iran market bitcoin, but there's no sensible reason to deny them the whole platform.

[RodeoX]

jgarzik is quite right. The SHA-256 algorithm is property of the US and export regulations for SHA-256 expressively forbid exporting the algorithm or products based on the algorithm to Iran.

Why are people ignoring this fact. It is illegal. And I think other restrictions on Iran would also apply. As a U.S. citizen I'm almost certain that it would be a crime for me to send BTC to Iran. To give an example of how far Iran has to go to avoid any U.S. dollars, look at how they sell oil.
First they ship the oil for sale to Turkey. They cannot be paid in dollars so they take Turkish Lira. Then they go shopping for gold bars in Istanbul. The gold is then brought in small amounts to Dubai by couriers. From there the gold can be used to buy things Iran needs.  

[paulie_w]

i think a worthy couple of questions to ask of the bitcoin foundation members is:

_exactly_ what kind of world view do they have? what do they truly see as bitcoin's place in the world, and what kind of entanglements are they willing to get themselves into in order to bring that about?

i too find lawful censorship arguments about bitcoin unworthy of much serious discussion, but maybe there is something to it. perhaps jgarzik knows about flaws in bitcoin that make it extremely vulnerable right now. it would be helpful to know his views above, and about this.

[becoin]

I am going to have to agree with jgarzik here.

We as a community are asking for swift trouble from US govt bullies if we are actively marketing Bitcoin to Iran.  It has nothing to do with whether it's legal, moral, ethical or not. We are lucky they have left this project alone thus far.  Doing anything that looks like marketing to Iran will change that quickly.

Also, bitcoin-dev is a publicly logged channel.  If I am a Bitcoin developer on a publicly logged chat channel where my actions could be scrutinized by the media and the world and someone wants to discuss Iran, kicking and banning in a publicly visible manner would be prudent.  That is truly not a good place to talk about that subject.

I sure as hell would not want to discuss bringing Bitcoin to Iran in any place where my discussion was being logged and published.

I'm disappointed. I shall not purchase US government physical bitcoins anymore!

[paulie_w]

jgarzik is quite right. The SHA-256 algorithm is property of the US and export regulations for SHA-256 expressively forbid exporting the algorithm or products based on the algorithm to Iran.

Why are people ignoring this fact. It is illegal. And I think other restrictions on Iran would also apply. As a U.S. citizen I'm almost certain that it would be a crime for me to send BTC to Iran. To give an example of how far Iran has to go to avoid any U.S. dollars, look at how they sell oil.
First they ship the oil for sale to Turkey. They cannot be paid in dollars so they take Turkish Lira. Then they go shopping for gold bars in Istanbul. The gold is then brought in small amounts to Dubai by couriers. From there the gold can be used to buy things Iran needs.  

do you find that to be a sensible law, or practice? and if not, do you find it sensible to submit to submit to nonsensical laws?

[Technomage]

i too find lawful censorship arguments about bitcoin unworthy of much serious discussion, but maybe there is something to it. perhaps jgarzik knows about flaws in bitcoin that make it extremely vulnerable right now. it would be helpful to know his views above, and about this.

I agree with this. He is in the core dev team and knows a lot about the protocol, if he thinks we're vulnerable right now I'm going to listen. This is not the first time we've had this type of debate so I believe he will explain himself at some point. I'm interested in that explanation.

[SysRun]

We're not in fight club, this is a long drawn out chess match.

I'm with jgarzik. You don't win at chess by taunting your opponent. Is our main concern not the long term survival of bitcoin? I think we all have that in common.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB5r6HeOA-8

[Come-from-Beyond]

I don't understand u, guys. Bitcoin lets us to do a lot of things to make the world better. Why the hell should we ask the state? Why do we need to care about their opinion? Forget about their rules and use our own ones.

Sorry, but I can't resist the temptation to repeat it:

FUCK. THE. STATE.

[Technomage]

Read this article. I think it's relevant in this context.

http://www.dgcmagazine.com/the-old-radical-how-bitcoin-is-being-destroyed/

[BkkCoins]

jgarzik is quite right. The SHA-256 algorithm is property of the US and export regulations for SHA-256 expressively forbid exporting the algorithm or products based on the algorithm to Iran.

Why are people ignoring this fact. It is illegal. And I think other restrictions on Iran would also apply. As a U.S. citizen I'm almost certain that it would be a crime for me to send BTC to Iran. To give an example of how far Iran has to go to avoid any U.S. dollars, look at how they sell oil.
First they ship the oil for sale to Turkey. They cannot be paid in dollars so they take Turkish Lira. Then they go shopping for gold bars in Istanbul. The gold is then brought in small amounts to Dubai by couriers. From there the gold can be used to buy things Iran needs.  

There is no such thing as sending BTC to Iran. People in Iran may not even "have" any BTC in Iran. The only place they exist is as data in a blockchain database on computers everywhere. So, in fact, if a single node in Iran is running then all our BTC are already in Iran just as much as any user from Iran. And who are these users when there is no link between an address and a user.

Given it's illegal to send crypto software to Iran I think susceptible people shouldn't do that. If they want to use it in Iran they'll have to figure out their own way to get it. Or use an eWallet service. Whatever.

Read this article. I think it's relevant in this context.

http://www.dgcmagazine.com/the-old-radical-how-bitcoin-is-being-destroyed/

Yes.