[COMMUNITY] Taaki, never tell anyone you are involved with Bitcoin ever again.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Could you please record a video of you explaining Bitcoin (or MPEX?) to a big crowd? TedX Events are also big in Romania and I bet they would love to hear about alternative currencies or even a romanian stock exchange based on internet funny money!

Leaving aside how retardedly besides the point this is, the problem with speaking to conference crowds is that the ROI doesn't justify the expense, or at least that's the boss' take. If you have something definite in mind that you're proposing I'm sure he'll hear you out.

but you can't deny he has passion. Give me someone like that any day.

Passion in and of itself is worthless. This point cannot be emphasized enough. The passionately stupid are in general a worse liability to anyone and anything than the simply stupid. McCarthy has already proven this point, Taaki has already proven this point, it's time this community such as it is plucks its collective head out of its collective ass and comes to terms with the simple truth of the matter: passion by itself has no value and is no excuse. Passion is no substitute for competence, or for sense, or for shutting the fuck up. Bitcoin does not need more passionate people, it needs more competent people and it urgently, desperately needs to get rid of the passionate idiots it has attracted so far.

Very seriously: if the only thing you have going for yourself is "passion" stfu and blend in the backdrop. You're not helpful and you're not helping.

Fucking passion.

Damn straight! Here's two videos drivin' the passion aspect home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wroj0FLvzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyvqhdllXgU

[repentance]

Amir's not the only one who might not be the best one to present Bitcoin to a specific target audience. What's Jesse's excuse?

“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

[jgarzik]

“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

Yeah, who is that idiot?  Multiple facepalms there.

[repentance]

“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

Yeah, who is that idiot?  Multiple facepalms there.

He founded Lewt and Payward and is one of the plaintiffs in the Bitcoinica lawsuit.

http://lewt.com/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=116955.0

[MemoryDealers]

“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

Yeah, who is that idiot?  Multiple facepalms there.

I've known Jesse for 15+ years and I highly doubt Jesse actually said any of those things.

The author also misrepresented many of the things I said as well.

[Transisto]

What's a shame is the people organizing this conference didn't do any background check before allowing him to speak.

Notice how nobody from Amir, Donald, or Patrick Strateman has made any meaningful comment about Britannica fiasco in about 5 months.

They allowed thefts totaling almost a million $ worth of bitcoin and they can't find the time to at least try explaining their actions. ...
 Occam's razor point to incompetence, carelessness, then collusion and theft.

[ninjarobot]

Notice how nobody from Amir, Donald, or Patrick Strateman has made any meaningful comment about Britannica fiasco in about 5 months.

That's because they had nothing to do with Bitcoinica.

Remember; Zhou was *not* an employee and the Intersango trio where *not* partners. Everyone was just hanging out. They are all experts so don't worry, it's cool.

[btcx]

“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

What better way to pitch Bitcoin to people from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-future-of-money-its-not-in-your-hands/#ixzz2EgK26EJQ

Yeah, who is that idiot?  Multiple facepalms there.

Response here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130103.msg1391832#msg1391832

[MPOE-PR]

What's a shame is the people organizing this conference didn't do any background check before allowing him to speak.

The problem is that if someone who's not a year+ veteran of BTC does a background check it would seem like Amir is respectable, precisely because nobody makes threads such as these, precisely because pretty much everyone would rather circlejerk than speak the usually uncomfortable truths, mostly because if anyone does there's a ciuciu barrage + a "you're just a competitor" barrage + all the rest of the idiocy. Speaking of which, I'm surprised nobody's yet come up with the "Amir Taaki is a competitor to MPEx so therefore". Oh no, wait, actually...that's what the entire "where's YOUR presentation" talk is all about, huh. A well.

Notice how nobody from Amir, Donald, or Patrick Strateman has made any meaningful comment about Britannica fiasco in about 5 months.

That's because they had nothing to do with Bitcoinica.

Remember; Zhou was *not* an employee and the Intersango trio where *not* partners. Everyone was just hanging out. They are all experts so don't worry, it's cool.

It's funny how when shit hit the fan GLBSE turned out to no longer have been a corp (oh, we had papers but "nobody signed them"), which is the exact same thing claimed by Bitcoinica which in general puts into light a very clear pattern. And then people come in here to defend the muppets. It boggles.

[repentance]

I've known Jesse for 15+ years and I highly doubt Jesse actually said any of those things.

The author also misrepresented many of the things I said as well.

If that's the case, then you both need to contact the author and ask for corrections to be made to the article.  You've been a businessman long enough to know that you don't let those kinds of inaccuracies stand in articles the community is hailing as "huge" or "awesome".

[casascius]

It's funny how when shit hit the fan GLBSE turned out to no longer have been a corp (oh, we had papers but "nobody signed them"), which is the exact same thing claimed by Bitcoinica which in general puts into light a very clear pattern. And then people come in here to defend the muppets. It boggles.

Just to be clear, I didn't come to defend him, but mainly complained that the criticism was way too dramatic for me to take seriously.  Fortunately, others have stepped in to solve that problem.  Consider drawing a distinction between those disagreeing with the message versus those disagreeing with the presentation.

[rebroad]

Here's a transcript of genjix's most recent idiocy.

He's given better interviews in the past. Looking at another recent video of his, he seems very preoccupied with other things on his mind. Not surprising given the current ongoing lawsuits and potential personal liability.

[augustocroppo]

But this fuckwit Taaki takes the absolute cake. Read that goddamned thing, read what he says, read what the people ask, what he answers.

So here's the facts: Bitcoin is a great thing that has attracted a number of indescribable shitheads early on.

Fuck.

I understand you anger... Amir Taaki is really fucked up:

(Question 2)
Well how, you talk about bitcoin being completely decentralized. Where does the supply come from?

(Taaki)
Mathematics. Yeah.

(Question 4)
Are bitcoins a creative form of electricity?

(Taaki)
Uh…that’s not quite how it works, but maybe you can put it that way if– like it’s actually like something that’s like, it’s like, if you were asking me like, ‘Oh, uh…wh-what is an operating system, is it like a computer?’ you know, I would have to explain like, okay there’s a (ios?) layer in your computer and you need to have access to these device drivers, you know? So, it’s part of like some…complex–

(Question 7)
But you condemned the financial industry and bitcoin is actually an extreme example of that. You know?

(Taaki)
I don’t think so. Like I traveled to Amsterdam, to London, to Warsaw, to Prague, you know to Barcelona, and I never once, oh yeah and Rio de Janiero, and I never once paid money to money changers, like I was able to change my money without paying any fees whatsoever.

[Chief Satangkai]

WTF ?!!  On the other hand there's no such thing as "bad publicity" or marketing... (except your own obituary) 

[joecooin]

If you want to invite an expert on Bitcoin to such a conference these days you can easily find a wide range of people from different fields with different perspectives and different competences. Financial experts from the traditional system could have invited business-oriented financial experts from the Bitcoin economy.

These people chose a young enthusiastic idealist raving hacker living in hackspaces all over the continent and they got just what they ordered.

THEY heard what THEY wanted to hear otherwise THEY would have invited someone else.

Now the question is what do WE want THEM to hear?

Honestly: when I look at this group of bankers and hear that they want to find out something about Bitcoin my first reaction is like 'oh, no, give Bitcoin a little more time before you take it seriously please!'. I see no point in attracting the banking world to this technology nor in making them understand it's potential danger for their monopolies. The longer this takes, the better.

And in this respect Amir's performance was the best thing that could have happened there.

I don't know what Amir's intention was. In case he wanted to attract them to Bitcoin he probably partied too much the night before the talk. In case he wanted to distract them then this might as well have been a brilliant social hack.

Joe

[deeplink]

Honestly: when I look at this group of bankers and hear that they want to find out something about Bitcoin my first reaction is like 'oh, no, give Bitcoin a little more time before you take it seriously please!'. I see no point in attracting the banking world to this technology nor in making them understand it's potential danger for their monopolies. The longer this takes, the better.

And in this respect Amir's performance was the best thing that could have happened there.

I didn't see his entire performance yet because my stomach couldn't handle it.

But I agree that this unwanted diversion may be beneficial. What does Bitcoin have to gain from the banking world? The whole point is to escape from the their monopolies. The longer Bitcoin has time to grow underground, the stronger it will be when it has to fight the inevitable opposition in the future.

[disclaimer201]

Who's great idea was it to hold the second conference in a banking center of the world to begin with? fail

[AlexWaters]

The fact that the transcript is punctuated with "yeah", "um", and "like", and expresses the need to point out he "mispelled" (sic) my name in a Google search doesn't reflect well on the transcriber.  If he is allegedly an idiot, it would have to be because of the message, and not because he says "um" a lot.  I haven't read the transcript all the way through, but am bothered by the fact that I am seemingly being asked to judge him on his ability to articulate sentences in public, something that isn't a prerequisite for being who he is.

The OP's original statement might hold more water if there was audio to accompany the transcript. I can't judge Amir for what could be a bad speech, or angry transcript writer. Adding commentary that people should off themselves or excommunicate someone - doesn't service your presentation. If you don't like what he has to say, either don't listen to it - or take up public speaking yourself.

[BCB]

AlexWaters

There is a link to a youtube video in here somewhere.

While I don't condone the extremes called for in this thread, that fact remains that Amir's presentation was unfortunate for both him personally and for bitcoin generally. Especially considering the the other bitcoin disasters with which Amir has been personally involved.

Even some of the statement made in the Macau video are unfortunate.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131918.msg1413467#msg1413467


Again, my point here is to stress that bitcoin should (and actually does have to a degree [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations] ) have  generally available talking points.  Anyone involved in bitcoin who speaks with the media would do well to review these points before making statments that end up reflecting on us all.

[AfricanHunter]

(Question 2)
Can I be a millionaire overnight, can I create my own money?

(Taaki)
Uh, no, that’d be ridiculous. What, why would you want that? That’d be silly.

(Question 2)
Well how, you talk about bitcoin being completely decentralized. Where does the supply come from?

(Taaki)
Mathematics. Yeah.

(Question 2)
I don’t understand that.

"Where does supply come from?"

"Mathematics yeah"

Seriously, never speak in public again.

But thx for the laugh