A reminder to moderators, @dinofelis and I are continuing this discussion because it pertains to the ban and the fact that BCT does not allow formation of groups.
Yep, Usenet wasn’t easy-to-use nor could it remain popular with the much better user experiences with current websites.
That was just a matter of making a better newsreader client. I think that was not the problem. It is true that usenet originated in the unix/command line/text interface world, and its traditional users probably didn't see any reason to switch to some fancy graphical interface and "feature-hiding", but it could easily have evolved. As I said, that was not, IMO, the principal reason for its abandoning.
The user experience includes the fact that without moderation Usenet was disorganized mess.
And sorry but you are incorrect.
Everything I wrote about why it died is correct.
Technically there were
all sorts of problems and the
lack of monetization due to the fact that it was a not a blockchain with a monetization model. And it sucked and no one had the incentive (or even the top-down power to) to organize and improve the system holistically.
Frankly, @dinofelis but I know my field of software very well. I have been a specialist in this field for 38 years.
I never had any technical issues, honestly.
…
But usenet worked very reliably, technically. No "bad user experience" (if you didn't mind command line client software and ascii, but on a VT-100 terminal, you mostly didn't have anything else in any case !).
Incorrrect. See the linked references above.
You are conflating decentralized with disorganized shit. Decentralized software systems can be indistinguishable in terms of user experience from centralized software systems. That is your broken clock aliasing error again. I do not understand why your brain continually does this. You seem like you have a very high intellect, but you seem to so often make these egregious errors of logic.
As I said, and I've been using usenet for more than a decade, it wasn't "disorganized shit" at all
Incorrect.
You were close to correct. They actually want tribal leaders. They want to compare reputations, because this is what humans have always done in tribes.
But you are incorrect to equate this with a single centralized authority. Humans are quite well adapted to forming groups with group leaders.
Now, there can be dynamics in the "decentralized layer" of tribal leaders (for instance, warfare) that have the tendency to make only one the dominant one ; or there can be dynamics that will rather make it difficult to dominate. Depending on the dynamical laws of the system, there will be convergence to a "natural monopoly" or not. Things which have network effect tend to have this convergence towards monopoly, and discussion forums are part of that.
Twitter is a prime example of group leaders yet interacting for a larger economy-of-scale network effects.
Each person’s Twitter feed is their own self-moderated domain, yet these group leaders do choose to interact and cite tweets by each other. Each top level tweet is analogous to a new self-moderated forum thread. Then discussion proceeds in that thread.
So there is already a very popular precedent for what I want to do. The major distinction is that Twitter does sometimes remove content and with a blockchain that will be impossible. And the other major distinction is that Twitter’s database is closed source so that no one can build alternative clients and ways of interacting with the data. With a blockchain, new sorts of apps and forum designs can sprout spontaneously without any permission nor interference from a centralized overlord (e.g. Twitter or Theymos).
Well that's not Theymos' "fault". He's just the tribal leader of the tribe that became a natural monopoly. If you want to be part of his tribe, there's not much else to do but to submit to his rules (or stay under the radar).
Sorry but you yet again do not grasp the point.
Theymos’ has not improved the software so that groups can form within the monolith of BCT. I do not know why you are so obstinate and refuse to grasp points that are made to you. It makes it very frustrating to have a discussion with you. It is when you make replies like this, I doubt whether you have a high intellect.
Usenet wasn't a "database". That's important. It was a *discussion* of which old interactions disappeared.
Group leaders will never tolerate such a system. Would never become popular because the flock follow where the tribal leaders go.
That's exactly why I think that usenet got abandoned ; because people wanted tribal leaders (= centralisation = hierarchy and authority).
You can not seem to wrap your mind around the concept that there are levels of decentralization. A single top-down control which does not allow the natural splintering of top-down groups as the usership grows beyond the Dunbar limit, is thus going to stagnate and die. Which is what is happening now to BCT. Whereas, Twitter which does allow natural fitness of splintering into group formation is thriving. Whereas, Usenet which was derelict in so many ways and moderated groups was added as an after thought and did not function that well compared to other options that group leaders have, thus died.
We build systems for the group leaders. They are the most important users.
The group leaders will drive the demand for the decentralized systems, because they do not want to invest in closed source, because they risk their investment being stolen by the centralized authority of the closed source.
Forum software is mostly open source... (?)
The database of this forum is not open source.
I disagree. I often refer back to my discussions to remember what I was thinking. Can you remember everything you ever said and thought
Even if you can, how many people can do that?
I can remember a lot of what I have written. Maybe 500 pages of it, but not verbatim. I can remember well enough to use Google to find the post I want.
That's actually one of your irritating posting habits.
Quoting is disruptive to discussion and I contemplated how we might think about striking a better balance.
I forget about immediately what I say (even though by saying it, I improved a conceptual understanding of something). It is like an oral conversation: you simply have to say again whatever it might have been what you were saying before. I consider a discussion "without memory", and arguments only to be valid at the moment of discussion in the flow of the arguments. Of course, during some "back and forth" in a *given discussion*, one can refer to some earlier posts if they inspired a reply to a reply or something, but indeed, everything from more than a week ago should be forgotten (and in my case, mostly IS forgotten).
Logical reasoning is "instantaneous", well, for the length of the argument, and is then "back into the bit bucket", just like in the case of an oral conversation. You are not going to have people listen to pre-recorded older conversations in a given conversation, are you ?
Your group will be enjoined by people who want to have the sort of discussion you like. My group will be enjoined by those who like my
German attention to detail (I do have German ancestry and some Germans are known to write an accounting of everything they ever buy). Note I also have Welsh, southern French, and Cherokee native American ancestry as well. So I have a mix of ancestral personality types. Sometimes I will do a very rash/erratic/belligerent action, and that is probably my Cherokee genetics. I am very creative so I am not just your typical boring German, which I attribute to the exotic mix of Welsh, French, and Cherokee.
What will be ironic is after all your obstinance here in this thread, you’ll probably ending using Bitnet and loving it.
Decentralization does not necessarily mean that there are no group leaders. You are thinking in terms of absolute decentralization, but there is no absolute. Decentralize all the atoms in our bodies, we can not even post anything, and that is still not absolute.
Ah, to me, yes. Decentralization is the total absence of hierarchy, leadership and the perfect "flatness" of all command and control - which can only happen in a totally disorganized system.
Then splinter yourself into the smallest known particles or wave actions known in the universe, yet you still will never be maximally disordered because the 2nd law of Thermo says entropy is always trending to maximum.
There are levels of decentralization, and there are no absolutes in our universe.
Disorder and decentralization are not the same concept. You are conflating. Decentralization is about distributing the control of a system. It does not mean the distribution has to be maximal to the point that there is no control whatsoever (complete disorder, i.e. maximum uncertainty and random chance).
Ok, well, to me, both notions are the same.
Aliasing error again.
I'm not saying that a decentralized system cannot implement dynamics that naturally evolve towards forms of leadership, but I consider then that they centralize ; unless they also contain dynamical rules that destroy these leaders, so that leadership is an ephemeral phenomenon.
You are concerned that any system which can centralize will grow ever more centralized.
Actually that is an incorrect fear about the way nature is. That happens in fungible finance because fungible finance is a winner-take-all paradigm:
Edit: we are having a discussion over at slack and Craig Wright (@csw) the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto
is participating. I am posting there as @anonymint:
https://pastebin.com/S6quvGMktula [3:05 AM]
@anonymint ok thx.. so it was as i thought ..you assume unregulated blocksize leads to 100% centralization ..because bigger pools have an advantage over smaller pools (no shit)
thus "proving" that bitcoin does not work (is a ponzi scheme) and we need a central bank.
also mathematically proving that generally free market capitalism does not work and thus the only system that works is communism (this should give you a hint where i think you made a mistake) (edited)
anonymint [9:59 AM]
@tula correct fungible finance is always a winner-take-all paradigm. Marxism rose up (as promoted by the shadow elite to give us a way to deceive ourselves and keep us preoccupied) as a false antithesis because it is also a loser-take-all paradigm. Neither of these are the solution. But I have good news for you. Both of those paradigms are dying and I know the solution. The death of fungible money is underway and the rise of Inverse Commons in the knowledge age is coming (see links below for more details). My project is all about this. This is why @dinofelis says I have a confirmation bias on my conspiracy theories, yet my math and logic is cogent.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.msg18526830#msg18526830https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.msg18505797#msg18505797But humans actually refuse to remain in groups larger than their Dunbar limit. They can only be enticed to do so by massive debt-based bribes of socialism, but this is not sustainable.
I'm not talking about a SINGLE grouping, but *every* form of sustained grouping. Tribal groupings are also, as I said, centralized from the point of view of a tribe member. Whether you have to obey to your tribe leader, or you have to obey to the king of the world, doesn't really matter from the point of view of a member.
Users will have the freedom to join different groups and even create their own groups, as they do on Twitter.
P.S. more links on why EU is going to have a hard crash landing:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/hunting-tourists-in-europe-for-fines/https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/french-elections-a-sell-signal-long-term-for-the-eu-regardless-of-who-wins/https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/poland-the-next-crisis-for-the-eu-independent-sovereignty-is-the-issue/Nope we are all in the majority of being tribal.
I'm not very tribal.
You do appear to be an oddball. I do not see how you cope in society since you believe in absolute decentralization which can not exist. We could get into the theoretical Physics of that, but not now.
I view you as a pessimist curmudgeon. You dislike humanity and wish they’d all be culled (except as you said some of your friends which means you are tribal). But
humanity is actually fantastically creative.
I still am inspired by humanity. Of course I would like to be able to filter the trolls from my group, but I would not want to ban them from the view of others who wish to see their posts.