2013-01-10 slashdot.com - Online Gambling Site Bets On Bitcoin To Avoid U.S. Law

[labestiol]

Using rid in this case is your way of being derogatory. Saying invest implies the same thing except one has an expectation of a result or a profit.

I got rid of my dollars to buy a dividend paying stock that each year the company gets rid of their excess dollars and pays me a certain amount per share.

Seriously? Who talks that way?

Would you prefer :

"I sold my dollars to buy a dividend paying stock that each year the company gets rid of their excess dollars and pays me a certain amount per share."

It's the same thing anyway. The idea is to limit your fiat holdings.

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[Mike Hearn]

I've been reading and posting to Slashdot for over a decade. I've posted thousands of comments there over the years. Several of them are on that story (I am the real mike) and got modded up to +5.

Heck, many Bitcoiners were introduced to the project through Slashdot.

Pan it all you want, but that site is a mirror of the tech world. I encounter the same comments and concerns from technical, educated people about Bitcoin all the time. So instead of trashing its moderation system (which actually works quite well), go dive in and learn how to tackle the arguments raised.

[kiba]

I've been reading and posting to Slashdot for over a decade. I've posted thousands of comments there over the years. Several of them are on that story (I am the real mike) and got modded up to +5.

Heck, many Bitcoiners were introduced to the project through Slashdot.

Pan it all you want, but that site is a mirror of the tech world. I encounter the same comments and concerns from technical, educated people about Bitcoin all the time. So instead of trashing its moderation system (which actually works quite well), go dive in and learn how to tackle the arguments raised.

Hacker News reader are far less likely to make stupid comment about bitcoin.

[TraderTimm]

(snipped)
Pan it all you want, but that site is a mirror of the tech world. I encounter the same comments and concerns from technical, educated people about Bitcoin all the time. So instead of trashing its moderation system (which actually works quite well), go dive in and learn how to tackle the arguments raised.

I think the underlying frustration here is not with the fact that it is Slashdot per se, but the commenters there should honestly know better than to raise questions that have already been answered in the bitcoin wiki or even by reading the whitepaper.

I would expect someone who frequents a site with the tagline "News for nerds, stuff that matters", wouldn't be above doing some basic research on what they're trying to talk about. I've been browsing Slashdot for a while too, perhaps not as long, but you're correct - it is a mirror of the tech world - as it exists today.

And that mirror is showing some disturbing trends. Younger tech workers come in with a "Too long; didn't read" mindset and start spouting off whatever half-formed hypothesis is rattling around their skull. While it is a slashdot hallmark to not read the parent post and start commenting away, most of the time in the past these comments came from people who actually KNEW THEIR MATERIAL, so they could get away with it.

Now its just regurgitated trolling with no real examination of the underlying principles outlined in the technical references for bitcoin. Questions that have been answered over and over keep coming up - because nobody there does any research on it. Despite the small handful that "get" it, they are overwhelmed by the people who are dog-piling on just to have a good old internet smackdown.

Asking critical questions about bitcoin isn't the issue, I welcome those, because they take time and articulation to even pose - and equally dextrous responses to counter. That isn't happening here. Its just the usual - "We didn't bother reading all that whitepaper stuff, LOL - hey, its backed by nothing, what about deflation, some dude hacked an exchange so you can print bitcoins right?" stream of complete simpleton sewage.

Sorry, but Slashdot has become another internet echo-chamber like yahoo trading forums. I'll read a headline and check out stories, but the comments are not worth sifting through for that one gem in the muddy river of LOLs.

[Mike Hearn]

The white paper does not address any economic topics, and the website is useless, so it's not surprising these things come up repeatedly.

[TraderTimm]

The white paper does not address any economic topics, and the website is useless, so it's not surprising these things come up repeatedly.

I find your reply disturbing, as I took you at face value to have at least put in the work necessary to understand bitcoin at the protocol level.

The white paper explains how the blockchain works, proof-of-work and propogation delays inherent in peer-to-peer networks of any non-trivial size. That would answer how bitcoin can't be counterfeited on a whim, among other considerations - and that is useless?

Economic topics are covered here, among other things:

Bitcoin Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths - all of these answers are useless?

I'm unclear on what you're defending - lack of applying knowledge, or just Slashdot's particular aggregation of ignorance?

[Spaceman_Spiff]

...no-one can know if bitcoin will hold its economic value in the long term.  You are totally right about that.  But I don't need such an empiric argument.  All I need is to run a version of the bitcoin software where the total amount of bitcoins is written in the code.

One bitcoin will always be a twenty-one millionth of the total amount of bitcoins.  That's what I mean when I say it can not be devaluated.  It's a fact written in the code.  It does not need the proof of time to be considered true.

There are no facts written above with which I was not already very familiar - and have even explained to others quite a lot.  Yet for me a penny dropped with what you just said in the last two sentences.

competing crypto-currencies really do not matter providing you and I (and a few others) value the fact of its inbuilt-invariable scarcity - and that we have the means of verifiably transfering it to one another.

I still think competing crypto-currencies could be a dealbreaker for bitcoin.  But it would have to have a serious advantage over bitcoins, not just another "please-make-me-rich-fast" bitcoin clone.  Moreover, the longer bitcoin stays the biggest game in crypto-town, the better established it gets, the higher the barrier for switching from bitcoin to another currency.  It would have to be that much better in order to abandon bitcoins.

[Mike Hearn]

I find your reply disturbing, as I took you at face value to have at least put in the work necessary to understand bitcoin at the protocol level.

My understanding of Bitcoin is fine, thanks. Are you disputing my claim? Where in Satoshis paper is economics addressed?

Economic topics are covered here, among other things:

Bitcoin Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths - all of these answers are useless?

I said the website is useless, not that page specifically.

Let's see how a casual reader might approach learning about Bitcoin. Bear in mind, they are not very motivated, maybe they figure they have five minutes to take a quick look at this thing they heard about.

Go to bitcoin.org. Click "learn about Bitcoin". That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? See some entirely superficial and nerdy information that is hard to understand, like what does "Double spending is prevented using a block chain" mean? Maybe, they spot the "Bitcoin Wiki" link in the top right corner - not that it's very easy to see. Click it. Get dumped into an un-organized index of all topics with the Technical category applied. Stop.

How about another attempt?

Go to bitcoin.org. Maybe spot the link that says, rather mysteriously, "We use coins! Start here". This is a statement, not a description of what you might find there. OK, so we click and arrive at the site. Click questions/answers. This is better. The 2nd-to-top question on the economics section is "Does hoarding really hurt Bitcoin" But the answer is a, again, a wall of text that superficially might appear to be an official answer of the project, but in reality is just a random opinion from David Schwarz/Joel Katz. It's not a badly thought out argument or opinion, but it's got some very deeply questionable things in it, and the answer doesn't provide any references or citations. For instance it tries to claim that hoarding is usually bad and studies have shown it's bad, but Bitcoin is special.

Actually, "hoarding" or what you may call deflation has been shown in studies to be uncorrelated with depression. That's a critical, key point that should be top and center with a link to the study itself. But there's no mention anywhere to be found.

Finding the myths page requires a lot of clicking around disorganized and unprofessional looking websites. But even if you manage to find the Bitcoin Myths page, the question addressing deflation (which is one of the most common topics you see raised) is buried in question 17, which simply links to the deflationary spiral page, which is enormous and doesn't provide any explanation that fits into a 5 minute browsing session.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I find your reply disturbing, as I took you at face value to have at least put in the work necessary to understand bitcoin at the protocol level.

My understanding of Bitcoin is fine, thanks. Are you disputing my claim? Where in Satoshis paper is economics addressed?

Economic topics are covered here, among other things:

Bitcoin Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths - all of these answers are useless?

I said the website is useless, not that page specifically.

Let's see how a casual reader might approach learning about Bitcoin. Bear in mind, they are not very motivated, maybe they figure they have five minutes to take a quick look at this thing they heard about.

Go to bitcoin.org. Click "learn about Bitcoin". That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? See some entirely superficial and nerdy information that is hard to understand, like what does "Double spending is prevented using a block chain" mean? Maybe, they spot the "Bitcoin Wiki" link in the top right corner - not that it's very easy to see. Click it. Get dumped into an un-organized index of all topics with the Technical category applied. Stop.

How about another attempt?

Go to bitcoin.org. Maybe spot the link that says, rather mysteriously, "We use coins! Start here". This is a statement, not a description of what you might find there. OK, so we click and arrive at the site. Click questions/answers. This is better. The 2nd-to-top question on the economics section is "Does hoarding really hurt Bitcoin" But the answer is a, again, a wall of text that superficially might appear to be an official answer of the project, but in reality is just a random opinion from David Schwarz/Joel Katz. It's not a badly thought out argument or opinion, but it's got some very deeply questionable things in it, and the answer doesn't provide any references or citations. For instance it tries to claim that hoarding is usually bad and studies have shown it's bad, but Bitcoin is special.

Actually, "hoarding" or what you may call deflation has been shown in studies to be uncorrelated with depression. That's a critical, key point that should be top and center with a link to the study itself. But there's no mention anywhere to be found.

Finding the myths page requires a lot of clicking around disorganized and unprofessional looking websites. But even if you manage to find the Bitcoin Myths page, the question addressing deflation (which is one of the most common topics you see raised) is buried in question 17, which simply links to the deflationary spiral page, which is enormous and doesn't provide any explanation that fits into a 5 minute browsing session.

Welcome to open source software ..... struggle to understand how you think it would be different. At this point, it is all voluntary effort, except for Gavin A. as I understand it.

The level of documentation fits exactly with the people who have been exposed to bitcoin and felt motivated to wiki, by definition almost. When others arrive they bring it to their acceptable level I'd imagine. If you want professional start a bounty, pay someone maybe?