Theymos: What the fuck is up with BFL and TradeFortress?

[themusicgod1]

LOL no, that's not a good feature, there has already being PAGES of discussions on why it's a bad idea.

This feature is exactly the whole point of Ripple.  Congrats for missing the core point - that only YOU can ensure that one IOU is one IOU is one IOU, and that the only way to do so is by having nurturing mutual trust, something that you have not shown a willingness to do.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

This feature is exactly the whole point of Ripple.

Then RIPple is totally broken. http://polimedia.us/trilema/2013/ripple-the-definitive-discussion/

[ervalvola]

TF, i thought i was in you ignorelist, and i was pretty proud of it.
By the way, i won't answer your question as you refused to answer mine.

Your logic is flawed, you are obsessed by Ripple, I don't know why and i'm not interested in.

There are a lot of other methods to explain what you think is a problematic feature of Ripple, you could have done it with fake currencies, for example; but you preferred to put at risk the money of people who trusted YOU, not Ripple. Risking theyr money, and reputation of this forum and cryptocurrencies at all.
You really deserve a scam tag and i am very disappointed of the admins, which must be your good friends to let you act like that.

[themusicgod1]

That post is mostly laughable, he does not seem to understand what he's talking about, and even if he does, I think a good case can be made that the flaws he perceives are not so.

For more discussion along those lines, see the posts in:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ripplers/comments/1f4jcy/ripple_the_definitive_discussion/

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

That post is mostly laughable, he does not seem to understand what he's talking about, and even if he does, I think a good case can be made that the flaws he perceives are not so.

For more discussion along those lines, see the posts in:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ripplers/comments/1f4jcy/ripple_the_definitive_discussion/

Posts from two people, yeah.

It's really worthless continuing to have this discussion for you, because you are delusional about Ripple.

[smoothie]

LOL no, that's not a good feature, there has already being PAGES of discussions on why it's a bad idea.

This feature is exactly the whole point of Ripple.  Congrats for missing the core point - that only YOU can ensure that one IOU is one IOU is one IOU, and that the only way to do so is by having nurturing mutual trust, something that you have not shown a willingness to do.

There is the problem. You are forced to TRUST another party. Counter-party risk. No thanks.

WE have this with the existing federal reserve system. May as well use that.

[Deprived]

No - he did NOT tell them to do that.  And they didn't tell  ripple to consider the two as equal in value.

Ripple AUTOMATICALLY considers them as equal in value without any such request being made. 

Deprived, whether you like it or not, but it isn't automatic, they actually told Ripple to consider the two as equal in value by trusting TradeFortress.

Let me be clear on what IS automatic - and shouldn't be.

I trust TF for 100 BTC - NOT automatic.
I trust Bitstamp for 100 BTC - NOT automatic.
Anyone else who trusts both can swap IOUs to me from one of TF/Bitstamp to the other - IS automatic and shouldn't be.

Or maybe you'd like to explain how a ripple user COULD extend trust to TF and NOT be forced by the software to accept his debt in return for other BTC debt?

exactly. He can't. Why should you trust someone for 1 USD if you know he's not going to repay that USD?

I explained this before.

Even aside from the issue of someone you WON'T repay there's the simple FACT that debts from different sources are often worth different amounts.  That depends not just on the degree of trustworthyness of the debtor - but also (and vitally) on the repayment terms of the IOUS.

Given counterparties who you trust equally, a debt of 1 BTC from one with a promise to redeem on request is, beyond doubt, worth more than a debt of 1 BTC from someone who promises to repay it in a year.  If I accepted IOUs for both debts then I'd (obviously) have built in a bigger markup when accepting the debt from the person who wasn't going to settle for a year.  Issuing a fixed-value IOU in return for a smaller amount of cash NOW is entirely reasonable.

Now ripple does NOT allow attachment of settlement terms to debts.  That leaves two alternatives:

1.  Settlement terms need to be agreed off-ripple.  This is what I assumed to be the case - and is why it is HORRIBLE for debts in the same currency to be considered of equal value.  The settlement terms define the value far more than the face value.
2.  All ripple BTC are to be immediately redeemable for 'real' BTC.  If this was the intent then the system is fucked beyond all belief - as there's not even a token effort to ensure issuers are even aware of that requirement, let alone comply with it.

Believing all debt in the same currency has the same value so long as the issuer intends to repay is just terribly naive and totally ignorant.  That the system not only treats them as equal value but offers no way to do otherwise is a huge flaw (yes - I'm aware there's apparently a way for the inner circle or maybe it's just a planned future way, but in a closed-source project that's not much use to everyone else).

If you believe someone won't repay then their IOUs have the same value as an IOU with no settlement terms : you can have no reasonable expectation of ever being repaid.  The lack of any settlement terms being propagated through ripple is a serious issue if the intent is to ever have debt being widely traded : even if users get the ability to price different debt they'll lack the information needed to do so.  That limits the usefulness of ripple to only debt issued by gateways that pass some quality control - which aside from being a limiting factor also means it has to remain centralised (if every man and his dog can create gateways and issue IOUs with no settlement terms then how do users decide which is trustworthy?).

[Este Nuno]

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

[Este Nuno]

Also, why not reward the people providing liquidity with XRP as a transfer fee to offset some of the risk?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

But then liquidity would be lowered on ripple and "it's the core point about ripple" and blah blah.

Also, why not reward the people providing liquidity with XRP as a transfer fee to offset some of the risk?

That's like asking the Federal Reserve to stop printing money for the bankers and actually distribute it to everyday people. Sorry, no, you don't have contacts within opencoin inc.

[crumbcake]

Sadly, we see amoral people using zero day exploits to empty people's Bitcoin wallets. Is that a flaw in Bitcoin?

Sorry to reach back to this old post, but no one answered it yet.

Sure, knowing that Bitcoin is not immune to abuse form amoral immoral hackers could be called a flaw in Bitcoin, just as the possibility of theft is a flaw in paper currency.  A flaw in the sense that its absence would make both products more desirable -- safer & less burdensome to use. 
What it comes down to is a matter of degree, a point where a shortcoming becomes a defining quality.  A point where, in Joe Stalin's words: "Quantity [becomes] a quality all of its own."

[Mitzplik]

Things for me are simple (maybe because my short vision).

Never trust another user in Ripple, even if he is you best friend.

Trust only in trustworthy gateways.

A gateway should trust nobody.

The trusts should be subdivided in:

1 - I trust you to issue IOUs to me (and not the opposite)
2 - I trust you to take my cash and get an IOU issued against you (and just that - if i am a gateway)

The problem with the trust the way it is now is that when you trust someone you are trusting he will not trust anyone that is untrustworthy, directly or indirectly. The untrustworthyness is not just bad faith, but stupidness too. Maybe the trusted person have good intentions but is a terrible administrator, etc.

TradeFortress is not a scammer, he issued his IOUs, thats ripple. IOUs have no maturity date.

[MPOE-PR]

Well the direct answer to the 'argument' you're making is that it's NOT roughly comparable.  To address it in any more depth would be giving credibility to the strawman you constructed.

Ahaha Joel CherryTruck Insanikatz strikes again.

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

Also, why not reward the people providing liquidity with XRP as a transfer fee to offset some of the risk?

Because they don't read Trilema. More importantly, because they can't afford actual consultants and don't have who to give them the quarter to buy a clue with.

[ElectricMucus]

Because they don't read Trilema. More importantly, because they can't afford actual consultants and don't have who to give them the quarter to buy a clue with.

So you are parroting everything MP tells you? Or did you look into ripple yourself and have a reason for you opinion?

[ervalvola]

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

Also, why not reward the people providing liquidity with XRP as a transfer fee to offset some of the risk?

Both are actually possible inside Ripple ; )
(about the second, if i'm not wrong, the fee is collected in the currency you are trading)

This should teach us something about people who answered you before me?

[Deprived]

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

Even IF you trust two parties the same amount you still should NOT allow their debts to be exchanged without your specific consent.  If you can't see why then you need to consider what the scenarios are where such exchanges would be requested - then realise that some of those scenarios have a cost/risk to you (specifically one where the party requesting the exchange has information you don't).  Which means you need to charge a premium for any exchange that you believe to be of equal value.  Apparently some sort of system to allow this does exist - but as it isn't open-source that can't be verified and it isn't available to the public anyway.  And I wouldn't be surprised if it was flawed (for example by insisting on using the same relative values for trades in both directions).

[Deprived]

Well the direct answer to the 'argument' you're making is that it's NOT roughly comparable.  To address it in any more depth would be giving credibility to the strawman you constructed.

Ahaha Joel CherryTruck Insanikatz strikes again.

Why not have different levels of trust? Like say I have Mt.Gox and Bitstamp on my first tier, and I consider those equal value and provide liquidity for them. And then tier two could be my immediate family/friends I trust. And then lower tiers for other more risky people/gateways such as TradeFortress.

Is the system not compatible with this arrangement?

Also, why not reward the people providing liquidity with XRP as a transfer fee to offset some of the risk?

Because they don't read Trilema. More importantly, because they can't afford actual consultants and don't have who to give them the quarter to buy a clue with.

In fairness to ripple, MP appears to not totally understand ripple.  He seems to be confusing XRP with IOUs/debt on occasion (in the IRC conversation) and also making the mistake many have made of believing if you trust someone and they then trust someone else that causes a problem.  It doesn't - at least not one related to ripple specifically, just the general risk that they lose money to someone else and can't pay their debt to you.  The big problem comes where you trust two different parties and that trust is then treated by ripple as being identical in value and fungible if it has the same denomination.

Specifically this is incorrect:

"Well… that’s not how Ripple works. As long as you trust both Lou Jiwei and some random Chinese dude any people who trust you can trade LJ’s yuans straight for the random dude’s."

The emboldened part should read "any people who trust LJ and hold random dude's yuan can exchange random dude's yuan for any of LJ's yuan that YOU hold".

They don't need to trust you at all - or even know you exist.  And if they do trust you it wouldn't make any difference - as it isn't YOUR (as in ones issued by you) yuan being traded.  They need to hold random dude's yuan (they can have zeroed trust to him) to send you and trust LJ sufficiently to accept whichever of his yuan you hold.  Then they can exchange the junk for good stuff with you - limited by the extent to which you trust random guy.

A lot of people arguing about this don't really understand this - so describe a problem which doesn't actually exist, giving ripple an easy way out (by letting them focus on addressing factually incorrect assertions about how ripple works whilst ignoring the real problem).

The general issues pointed out by MP at the start ARE real problems of course - particularly the whole system being based on a requirement that users willingly accept CP risk (I might not get my money back) and opportunity cost (my money isn't earning anything) without remuneration.  If the software is amended to fix the specific issue discussed in this thread (which effectively blind-sides people into providing general liquifity when they thought they were holding specific debt) then it's hard to see where liquidity will come from - as providing liquidity at significant risk but with no benefit isn't going to appeal to too many people (not ones who still have significant funds that is - the ones willing to do that should mostly have lost their money by now doing the same stupid thing before).

All of that said, if I can figure out some way to pay interest on Ripple I'd seriously considering offering bonds on it.  If there's people willing to provide liquidity for no cost then I'm guessing I wouldn't have to pay a very high rate - making it a cheaper way to fund-raise than I currently use.

[themusicgod1]

There is the problem. You are forced to TRUST another party. Counter-party risk. No thanks.

No one forces you to trust anyone.  You are grossly mistaken

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1b9k4b/why_arent_we_using_ripple_as_an_exchange_instead/c953blo

[themusicgod1]

Things for me are simple (maybe because my short vision).

Never trust another user in Ripple, even if he is you best friend.

Trust only in trustworthy gateways.

A gateway should trust nobody.

The trusts should be subdivided in:

1 - I trust you to issue IOUs to me (and not the opposite)
2 - I trust you to take my cash and get an IOU issued against you (and just that - if i am a gateway)

The problem with the trust the way it is now is that when you trust someone you are trusting he will not trust anyone that is untrustworthy, directly or indirectly. The untrustworthyness is not just bad faith, but stupidness too. Maybe the trusted person have good intentions but is a terrible administrator, etc.

TradeFortress is not a scammer, he issued his IOUs, thats ripple. IOUs have no maturity date.

Gateways have entities they can trust, such as employees, and true friends will trust eaxhother with trivial amounts ( which do add up in aggregate. )

[Mitzplik]

I woudnt trust a gaeway that trusts someone else.
If your friend needs help, send him money.