Time flies. With this post in period 1369, death_wish shall be activity-bumped to Member rank.
then maybe you can start a thread or even start your own fund?
Is that your suggestion, Jay?
it's a possibility..
I want to make this clear up-top:
That was NOT on my mind when I raised this discussion.
In the past, it has happened that I was privately solicited to do such a thing. At the time, it was partly a thinly-veiled way to try to make me stop wasting time, and work on Core myself. The implication from the one with the money was that I would be eligible to take a grant from the fund—
hint, hint, write some code! That looked like a fiduciary COI to me; and moreover, although I am competent to evaluate hypothetical grants, I am frankly intimidated by the idea of coding for Core myself. I have a very high opinion of my own abilities, but I also know my limitations. Dunning-Kruger cases are unable to evaluate where they stand—I know perfectly well where I stand. I am
not an experienced C++ coder (C, yes—C++, no, and it is
a very different language despite the similarity of names). Some of the leading Core devs are like rock stars to me. And “mission critical” barely even begins to describe the importance of supreme competence in Core.
What it boiled down to is that I did not want to undertake that level of commitment and responsibility. Not as a fiduciary, and not merrily making COI payments to myself to write code in an environment where my self-confidence is so shaky. All in all—it was flattering, but the idea went nowhere.
That was NOT on my mind when I raised this discussion.
Now that you raise it, I want
to emphasize this in BIG BOLD LETTERS: At this particular point in time and circumstances, the
only way that I would start such a fund would be if (a) I could show a solid commit history myself, or (b) I had a private source of nontrivial funding, before asking the public for anything.
In the latter case, I would NOT be starting a thread in the manner of, “I have nothing, I offer nothing, but I am talented at evaluating grant applications to hand out Other People’s Money—please, please, please contribute!!!”
Rather, it would be: “Here is a fund, with not-insignificant provable assets. I am now evaluating grants, and paying out money. Core developers are welcome to apply, so that they can get paid to devote more time and effort to Core. HODLers are welcome to chip in, if they trust my honesty and my absolute executive discretion in deciding who should get what for which type of work. Grants from my starting source of funds will develop a track record for my handling of Other People’s Money. If nobody else ever contributes, then fine—I will simply spend the existing money until it’s gone, then put the whole thing on pause unless/until more money is available. Those who don’t believe in my integrity are free not to give; if you don’t know me, I do not take it personally. Those who
wish not to believe in my integrity, but wish to smear me and spite me, can go piss up a rope; I will rain hellfire on them, to the extent that I deign to notice them at all.”
Jay, one of the advantages of never being a beggar is that I never need to beg.
In terms of known interest, my best contacts for this purpose disappeared years ago. Nonetheless, I do know some people who have money on a “does not waste time on Internet forums” level, who care about Bitcoin because they are deeply invested in it. I could ask if they are interested. Of course, that would be up to them; and given that the types of people who could afford this tend to have cut-and-dry savvy and careful planning, I think a bad bear market is an unlikely time to get support for suddenly starting such a project. The bigger question to me is whether I should even be
thinking of such a thing right now, instead of working for my own profit in a healthy way.
And that leads me to:
Yes, it seems to make some differences regarding how much help that you have.... and maybe even how long you (or your organization) has been in existence. You must have at least 3 assistants D_W.. hahahaha
Maybe part of the reason that many charitable groups are criticized for having so many administrative costs would be that sometimes it can even take some time to figure out how money is going to be given, but at the same time, once systems are in place (and criteria) established it likely becomes somewhat easier to keep doing what you are set up to do.
I generally detest the “nonprofit” world. Generally. There are some good people doing good work with honest motivations; I do not want to broad-brush here. But generally, “nonprofit” attracts corruption. In the past, I personally knew some people who drew six-figure salaries in executive sinecures spending Other People’s Money, at famous-name, highly-trusted organizations. Their behaviour made me sick. Much sicker to me was how highly they were hailed for their personal “altruism” and “philanthropy”.
For that reason, anytime I aim to do some noble deed, I attempt to self-fund. Even devoting my time and effort to writing about issues I deem important—I so fiercely guard my integrity and independence that I even dislike putting out a tip address like yours, even though there’s nothing wrong with that; I may want to reconsider such extremes. Suffice it to say, I now have some problems with an abject lack of self-funding resources. I currently have a project I deem important under another identity, not on this forum, which is stalled since my BTC got almost wiped.
If I were to do something like a Core development fund, then insofar as practicable, I would want to avoid or minimize spending it on reimbursing myself for my own time and effort. Even to the extent that that would be justified, I dislike that idea. That leaves a practical problem right now. I probably should not even be thinking about this right now. “Ruthless mercenary capitalist” is supposed to be my agenda!
I suppose over the years, many of us in this thread have seen how bitcoin is broken in x, y or z areas.. and it can be a bit wearing.. so frequently the suggestion would be what you doing to try to fix it rather than just whining about the so many ways that bitcoin is deficient/defective and other coins have some supposedly various better processes and features that need to come to bitcoin.... so sometimes it can end up causing questions regarding what's the purpose to be constantly whining about the so many areas that bitcoin is supposedly broken.. and maybe many of us might not even agree with starting out with such premise that it is broken.. even though maybe some things can be built or more awareness on certain topics.. [...]
I agree with that. I balance that against the need for candor in
constructive criticism, avoiding the problem of yes-men, groupthink, cheerleading, and hollow shilling. Perhaps you and I may balance that differently, but I do try to balance it.
A life protip for you: It is possible for a poor person to be friends with a rich person, if the former has the pride never to be a beggar, a mooch, or a cheater. I learned this when young: By a peculiar circumstance, I had lunch with a businessman. He was impressed that when lunch was done, I pulled out my wallet and picked up my part of the tab. I was a youth working odd jobs for low wages. He was rich, and accustomed to people trying to mooch off of him. We became fast friends.
Are you telling me something that you speculated that I did not already know in regards to judgement/character and even things that sometimes might happen in the real world to affect how character/credibility might be assessed by others? A lot of factors come to play in terms of judging the character of others and whether there is trust, and also how much time/testing has to take place before trust develops. there can be a difference between I trust you to do my gardening or I trust you to drive my car or I trust you to do my office work or I trust you to be my personal accountant... or I trust you to take my daughter on a date... hahahahaha thought that I would throw that last one in there for fuuuuuuun..
Another thing I want to make
excruciatingly clear: There is no bigger red flag than someone who gratuitously brags about his own honesty, and demands that others trust him for no apparent reason. There is even a stereotype of a scammer who uses the word “Honest” in the name of his business.
Doth protest too much, methinks.I do not and would not do that. But when others cast groundless, wholly unjustified insinuations
against my honesty (or in the case of some others here, viciously smear me as a liar), then sometimes, I do need to defend my honour. It may involve walking a fine line.
Please recall my initial response when you implied some questions about the veracity of something I had said. I told you that you are free to think whatever you want, as long as you do not defame me with what, in substantial effect, would be an attack on my reputation based on all cynicism and no evidence. I said, in effect, that I do not wish to waste my time discussing anything with anyone who does not find me credible.
That is fair.
I have asked nothing from anyone here. I have spent time and effort contributing posts that some people found valuable. I have friends off-forum who know me and trust me; a part of the reason for my current WO posting spree is to relieve them of an emotional burden
they have been suffering since January. After months of patiently enduring my misery, they didn’t catch the brunt of my grief at catastrophic loss—y’all did, right here.
Why should I subject myself to your questions about my integrity? I don’t need you, and I don’t need
that. Regrettably, due to opsec, I cannot even be tempted by your daughter—not unless you can PGP-encrypt her and send her through Tor to tryst with me.
I have friends who are wealthier than I am. I have never abused their friendship—not even at times when I was personally in much worse desperation than I am now. Because I never abuse their friendship, they respect me as their equal—even if I am flat broke. I have nothing but contempt for the bent of your strawman.
It's too bad that you feel contempt... about my way of attempting to grapple with my perceptions of what might be important and/or relevant points to make in these here interwebs. It could be possible that others might potentially be able to get value from some of our interactions, if they had not fallen asleep half way though them.
Contempt was for the implications of raising an idea that I was neither offering nor thinking about, then shooting it down based on slighting my credibility to do your idea. Not for you personally.
Poll
