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

[bg002h]

I'm not sure he quite understands what he's talking about, but he seems to have a gut level sense of what Bitcoin is...I'm surprised he acknowledged himself as an expert...rather than an enthusiast.

I wouldn't go so far as to say he's a waste of space and get all upset and use swear words and what not (which IMHO reflects poorly on the community)...I think the big boy thing up do is to communicate to him about him...not to us about him...

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[Blazr]

Hey MPOE-PR, can you explain whats going on here?

http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Data-Processing-Data-Entry/Wordpress-Related-Data-Entry-Plenty.html

http://www.freelancer.com/job-search/polimedia/

[Raoul Duke]

Hey MPOE-PR, can you explain whats going on here?

http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Data-Processing-Data-Entry/Wordpress-Related-Data-Entry-Plenty.html

http://www.freelancer.com/job-search/polimedia/

SEO work.

[thezerg]

I can't agree with the OP's anger, but yes I think he's essentially correct.

First off its like an Enron executive giving a talk about energy. 

Second, his attitude of "we're all just a bunch of hackers having fun" may have been appropriate last year but not at this point when lots of people work on bitcoin-related companies full time and Mt. Gox exchanged just under 10 million USD (bitcoincharts.com) in the last 30 days.  His use cases move from Silk Road to dodging the Wikileaks financial blockade to donations to print guns.  What's a simple shopkeeper going to think?  A more balanced portrayal needs to happen, and one that contains a lot less personal ideology.

Third, he actually doesn't seem to know technical details or any facts (about the size of the economy, etc)!  On the one hand this is surprising since I guess he's written a client, but on the other hand (bitcoinica) maybe not.

Fourth, its pretty clear that he lost the confidence of the audience -- there are lots of hints but really the kicker is when someone from the audience attempts to answer another member's question (incorrectly).

Relevant quotes for TL;DR

(Presenter)
And um, well, I like it, this is, this is Amir’s only slide, and I rather like it cause it says “down with banks, rise of bitcoin,” so uh, over to you Amir.

(Taaki)
Uh, yeah. How’re you doing, nice to meet you all. Uh, yeah I don’t have much faith in uh finance industry. I think it’s a bit of a sinking ship, and uh, I don’t think the change is gonna come from within, it’s like gonna have to come from outside

--

we’re not some flashy start-up we’re just hackers, we’re technology people that are like enthused with and like absolutely fascinated with technology and this is I think one of the most interesting applications of technology. Uh there have been a number of really cool technologies over the years like bittorrent, wikileaks, and bitcoin is uh, one of the culminations of the applications of whole– a bunch of concepts have come along and you know we’re just hackers who are very much interested in uh these things and uh yeah.


--

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.

(Taaki)
Well, okay I can explain how bitcoin works, right? Uh, (inaudible from audience) well it is it’s tied into like the infrastructure and how bitcoin actually works, you know? Is, like–

(Question 2)
I’ve got a calculator at home, if it’s mathematics I can just put loads of numbers in and–

(Taaki)
Right. But, uh the underpinning, of the infrastructure, for security the network, is tied into how supply –(drowned out by cell phone interference)–you know?

(Possibly Question 5, else new Question)
But the European Central Bank prints Euros. Who’s printing the bitcoins?

(Taaki)
No one’s printing bitcoins. It’s tied to the underpinning of the network, how the network functions.

(Audience member offers to explain, exact verbiage inaudible.)

(Someone else in audience: Can you tell us, in English?)

(Audience Explainer)
There’s a mathematical series a bit like prime numbers, but there’s not an infinite supply, there’s only about a million being discovered. And those are basically what represent the bitcoins, and so you buy one of those numbers, and then someone keeps a registry of who owns which numbers. So you might (inaudible) the number five (inaudible). And so uh

(Someone else in audience, to Audience Explainer)
So how do you create an exchange rate? There needs to be an exchange rate.

(Audience Explainer)
Well it’s a free market, trading things so you post on (inaudible mumbling). So uh, it’s a bulletin board exchange system.


(Question 7)
Hi. Uh, sorry, firstly I wanna condone a few of the very cynical remarks and cynical tones of voice from people around here, it’s a complex system, in all fairness, I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it is very complex and I suggest you go and read about it on Wikipedia if you really wanna learn about it...


(Taaki)
No. It’s not a credit card, because a credit card you pay fees. But I’m saying that I’m able to change money without paying any fees.

(Question 7)
You, you do pay fees.


And on and on...

[Maged]

Dear God this is terrible. Seriously, if any of you are ever in the position where you'll be presenting about bitcoin, at the very minimum you MUST read this:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations

[jgarzik]

Second, his attitude of "we're all just a bunch of hackers having fun" may have been appropriate last year but not at this point when lots of people work on bitcoin-related companies full time and Mt. Gox exchanged just under 10 million USD (bitcoincharts.com) in the last 30 days.  His use cases move from Silk Road to dodging the Wikileaks financial blockade to donations to print guns.  What's a simple shopkeeper going to think?  A more balanced portrayal needs to happen, and one that contains a lot less personal ideology.

+1000

[repentance]

What was the target audience for this particular presentation?  Knowing Amir's political leanings, it might have been a somewhat appropriate presentation if he was trying to convince anarchists of the value of Bitcoin as a political tool.  No so much if he was trying to sell the idea of Bitcoin as something useful for commerce, though.

[BCB]

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.

Watch the video.  It really is an embarrassment.  Especially the Q and A where the moderator finally mercifully cuts him short.

[BCB]

What was the target audience for this particular presentation?  Knowing Amir's political leanings, it might have been a somewhat appropriate presentation if he was trying to convince anarchists of the value of Bitcoin as a political tool.  No so much if he was trying to sell the idea of Bitcoin as something useful for commerce, though.

London New Finance
London's largest FinTech meetup
http://www.london.newfinance.org/

[proudhon]

I can overlook the ums, yeahs, and likes.  I do it all the time, so do most people without really good public speaking skills.  

The points you have made would make sense in support of an argument that he shouldn't be the first-in-line candidate for being a keynote speaker at the next conference, but not that he is an idiot who should "never tell anyone" he is involved with Bitcoin "ever again", the proposition put forth by the OP.  It seems quite a large leap.

I think the OP is too harsh (e.g. he should kill himself?  totally uncalled for), and Taaki is obviously free to tell anyone he likes he's involved with bitcoin, but I think he's done quite enough to give himself a bad reputation in this community (not that I've got a really good one) and he clearly isn't good for bitcoin public relations.  What I've noticed about Amir is that he likes to say things that he thinks will impress his audience regardless of whether what he says is (1) true or (2) he can make it true.  DeathAndTaxes brought up some examples of this here and there are literally pages and pages of that behavior from the bitcoinica debacle.

[repentance]

What was the target audience for this particular presentation?  Knowing Amir's political leanings, it might have been a somewhat appropriate presentation if he was trying to convince anarchists of the value of Bitcoin as a political tool.  No so much if he was trying to sell the idea of Bitcoin as something useful for commerce, though.

London New Finance
London's largest FinTech meetup
http://www.london.newfinance.org/

Thanks.  Yeah, looking through the comments section on the website it looks like the group has a pretty heavy professional focus and professionals are a tough audience to captivate.

[DoomDumas]

200+ and 40+ view on youtube, I think it's kinda small audience for now.. If this is'nt more widespread infos, that's no too damaging for Bitcoin. 

About Takir or whaterver his name is.. the stuff is a shame for sure. 
My mother taught me : In each and every thing, are stupid, haters, and bad or corrupt humans.  Only hope they dont get too much attention, and those who listen are intelligent enought to understand that this is crap...

in this case, no need to be really intelligent to understand that !

No worry here !

On a perso basis :
I'd wish to ask a national radio featuring technologies to do an interview/small doc about bitcoin.  I can assure you, even before talkin to those radio program representative, I'll be ready, well prepared, and my notes will have been reviewed by peers here !

[MPOE-PR]

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.

[MemoryDealers]

People need to remember that Amir is the one who stole the Bitcoinica source code by "Open sourcing it"
Before he did that,  it was likely to be sold for enough money to pay back all the people Bitcoinica owed money to.
Instead Amir destroyed the one asset Bitcoinica still had that could be used to solve the problem.

A little bird told me that he may face some criminal problems for releasing that code.
I can't say that I will feel bad for him.

[davout]

speaking to conference crowds is that the ROI doesn't justify the expense

surely spending a couple of hours transcribing one has a much better ROI

[hashman]

I really don't like what this guy says, and he gets too much publicity. 
So here, please, you all should read it, here's some links and I'll even put it on my own website. 

 

[prezbo]

Does anyone else find it curious that the guy created a bitcoin client but doesn't know how to switch a mobile phone off?

The Q&A section was so painful to watch I had to stop.

[kangasbros]

speaking to conference crowds is that the ROI doesn't justify the expense

surely spending a couple of hours transcribing one has a much better ROI

LOL'd.

I don't see the problem. No one owns bitcoin. Anyone can go to any conference and try to make a speech there. If you think that you can do better job, please do.

[MPOE-PR]

speaking to conference crowds is that the ROI doesn't justify the expense

surely spending a couple of hours transcribing one has a much better ROI

Much easier to outsource.

Not everyone is a broke dreamer living by the seat of his pants you know.

[proudhon]

People need to remember that Amir is the one who stole the Bitcoinica source code by "Open sourcing it"
Before he did that,  it was likely to be sold for enough money to pay back all the people Bitcoinica owed money to.
Instead Amir destroyed the one asset Bitcoinica still had that could be used to solve the problem.

A little bird told me that he may face some criminal problems for releasing that code.
I can't say that I will feel bad for him.

It almost seems like nobody remembers the Bitcoinica shit anymore.