[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation Board Election Details Announced

[solex]

When Theymos started censoring our project threads, it seriously undermined the creditability of Bitcointalk's moderation in my opinion. The Bitcoin universe is larger than Bitcointalk and its 22,000 members.

For info. At the time of writing reddit has 49,912 Bitcoin readers, closing in on the magic 50k
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

[Rassah]

That wasn't meant to hurt feelings. People running for any elected office (with government or private industry) can't allow anything to hurt their feelings.

...

I just don't believe your goal of, as you state it, "make reliance on banking systems and government issued currency obsolete" should be the primary objective of Bitcoin at this stage in the game. Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. I would have preferred that no one lobby the US government and instead allow officials to learn about Bitcoin with lengthy research allowing Bitcoin more time to grow first. However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

I wasn't really hurt, sorry for making you concerned (well, maybe a bit about the "international" part). For the record, my "platform," and my view in general, is that bitcoin has certain aspects that are just simple facts of its existence. It is what it is, and it can't be changed. Politicians may want to control issuance of bitcoins to keep it from forming speculative bubbles, or be able to reverse fraudulent transactions, or be able to track every transaction and link it to every identity, but that simply won't happen. They'd be legislating at a wall. So the best that anyone can do from that angle, really, is inform them of the facts, and help them regulate their way around those. Most probably this will involve a very specific new class of regulations that deal with specific criminal issues, instead of the current "monitor everything and hope we can catch something later" methods that they use with the established financial system. The best analogy I can think of would be meeting legislators and explaining to them that, for example, pretty soon gun control legislation may be a waste of resources when anyone can simply 3D print their own gun at home, that they should get ready for such a reality, and maybe they should focus instead on fighting the causes of violence instead of the tools. Likewise with bitcoin, I'm sure they want to keep regulating to keep everyone safe and keep things fair, but with bitcoin, they'll have to change their strategy and focus more on looking for actual criminals instead of just making things difficult for everyone. I also think that lying to them by trying to assuage them with things like "bitcoin isn't really anonymous" and "you can't launder large quantities of money with bitcoin," when it can be, you can (slowly) and when both of these things are being actively developed, is very productive, either. It's the same situation as above, and we might as well let them know what it is they are going to be faced with and let them adjust to the new reality, lest we end up with other semi-useless regulations which people will still not be able to comply with.

For info. At the time of writing reddit has 49,912 Bitcoin readers, closing in on the magic 50k
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

Is Elizabeth on Reddit at least?

[joecooin]

Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. ... However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

@QuestionAuthority: is that some kind of extreme authority questioning, almost radical?

Joe

[QuestionAuthority]

Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. ... However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

@QuestionAuthority: is that some kind of extreme authority questioning, almost radical?

Joe

Everyone makes that mistake. You think it means the greater society. The authorities I question are the supposed power players in Bitcoin. The likes of Nefario, Pirateat40, Zhou Tong, Bruce Wagner, Matthew Wright, Luke Dashjr, numerous pool operators I've mined for that were stealing and many others made me that way. I have a "trust no one" attitude here and the ones I trust the least are the authority figures.

[td services]

I consider "Questionauthority" and others like him to be in the same class of people as the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis

[willphase]

I consider "Questionauthority" and others like him to be in the same class of people as the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis

[solex]

HAHAHA. Brilliant and so true...

[QuestionAuthority]

I consider "Questionauthority" and others like him to be in the same class of people as the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis

I haven't actually flown to Washington and lobbied to be involved in the formation of Bitcoin laws. That would be your foundation doing that. I'm the one that said don't tell them anything. Let them research for themselves. So I guess your foundation and every major Bitcoin businessman is a collaborator. You should really learn to read. Going through life as a dumbass is no way to live.

[mindtomatter]

I consider "Questionauthority" and others like him to be in the same class of people as the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis

Why you got to be so hateful. Seriously!

Because sometimes people have a hard time differentiating between people they disagree with about minor parts of a much larger issue and inflatable stereotypes they consider the pinnacle of evil.

It's not that their judgement is bad, they just don't have any middle settings between "Don't Care" and "THE END OF THE WORLD"

I guess this means they don't don't care

[bg002h]

For the record, Rassah was on my short list.

The truth is that we had a large number of great candidates....great candidates who are and will continue to be great stewards of the community. ...

+1 That's the best news of all. 

Thanks for mentioning that bg002h.

I sincerely hope we don't cut each other down as we try to build the Foundation up. The last thing we want are people leaving the community over the election. A strong foundation will be useful for many things, but, the community is and needs to always be more than the Foundation.

You can never stop the community; the Foundation can technically be stopped, but another similar entity would emerge from the community to take it's place. If that ever happened, and I hope it doesn't, where do you think it would reemerge from? I would bet right here, on bitcointalk.

[QuestionAuthority]

For the record, Rassah was on my short list.

The truth is that we had a large number of great candidates....great candidates who are and will continue to be great stewards of the community. ...

+1 That's the best news of all. 

Thanks for mentioning that bg002h.

I sincerely hope we don't cut each other down as we try to build the Foundation up. The last thing we want are people leaving the community over the election. A strong foundation will be useful for many things, but, the community is and needs to always be more than the Foundation.

You can never stop the community; the Foundation can technically be stopped, but another similar entity would emerge from the community to take it's place. If that ever happened, and I hope it doesn't, where do you think it would reemerge from? I would bet right here, on bitcointalk.

Wise words.

[LightRider]

The bitcoin foundation is significantly orthogonal to the general bitcoin community and the project itself. Fortunately, political structures are largely irrelevant to a mostly open source software effort.

[Ipsum]

The bitcoin foundation is significantly orthogonal to the general bitcoin community and the project itself. Fortunately, political structures are largely irrelevant to a mostly open source software effort.

That depends on if you're interested in bitcoin staying small and niche, or if you're interested in mainstream bitcoin adoption.

I'm interested in the latter.

[Ipsum]

In my opinion, the board doesn't need software experts or entrepreneurs. The board deals with policy, not software development. I think the best candidate is Ryan Deming. He's a finance guy and Bitcoin is a payment system. You can't find a better fit.

Finance and payment systems have very little to do with each other.

[Bitware]

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

[2weiX]

One more reason Joerg Platzer needs to be on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation (yes, if you're a member, you can vote for him!), to show these guys how this is an actual factual thing that happens ON THE STREETS.

Nothing for 'sters and guys in suits.


"This guy is in finance..."

Well THIS guy is ON THE STREET actually WORKING with Bitcoin.

/spamrant

[joecooin]

The bitcoin foundation is significantly orthogonal to the general bitcoin community and the project itself.

I don't know if it is orthoganal but at least it right now seems to represent only a fraction of opinions from only one jurisdiction.

The main reason for me for having accepted the nomination is to help the foundation to clearly position itself and to clearify this question for the whole Bitcoin community. In my opinion, the members of the Foundation will with the result of these elections decide if their organisation will in the future be a SF/DC-Bitcoin-Business-Club or the global roof organisation representing the whole diversity of the international Bitcoin community, which it claimed to want to be when it started and for which, by the way, a lot of non-US-citizens and a lot of people with other stuff than regulation in mind donated a lot of money.

Deciding if that money is now going to be spent on a fancy office space, lawyers and Cocktail-bills in DC or on R&D for decentralised exchange and mixing will make that positioning clear for everybody to see.

I stand for the latter, my strongest opponent for the former. Of course I would love to win and be able to throw my opinion and vote into the decicion-making of the Foundation, but if I loose against Elizabeth I already win again, together with the whole Bitcoin-community:

we will gain clarity.

To freedom of transaction!

Joe

[frankenmint]

vote....for franenmint

[QuestionAuthority]

Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. ... However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

@QuestionAuthority: is that some kind of extreme authority questioning, almost radical?

Joe

So will your entire campaign platform be based on belittling people that could potentially vote for you or am I the exception to rule?

[joecooin]

Good business will require that Bitcoin representatives play nice with governments and find a niche inside of fiat systems like a low cost Western Union replacement. ... However, they have already opened that Pandora's box and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

@QuestionAuthority: is that some kind of extreme authority questioning, almost radical?

Joe

So will your entire campaign platform be based on belittling people that could potentially vote for you or am I the exception to rule?

I am sorry if I made the impression to want to belittle you, I did not.

You will have to admit though that your nick and the above statement (please read it over again!) are somehow contradictory. You basically state that you are questioning authority but at the same time are very willing to obey to it since someone else has already suggested to obey anyways. In case I misinterpreted you you are free to clearify that.

No, I did not walk out to belittle the people who could potentially vote for me but I did not take on this nomination to try to please everyone who could potentially vote for me by watering down my opinions either. Therefor I do not run a middle-of-the-road campaign trying to please everybody with feelgood-blabla. If you think that this honest and integer approach is the wrong one and there should be someone else on the board who is better than me in giving out feelgood-blabla without any substance then you know who to vote! I am no good for 'playing nice' with authorities and I will never be.

... and will need someone that can play nice and agree to work within the system instead of working to make the system obsolete.

I am not working on making the system obsolete. With the advent of the blockchain the system HAS BECOME obsolete, finally.

I believe that crypto currency is going a bit deeper in questioning authority than merely questioning it, it is abolishing financial authority. And I believe that someone who chose the nick 'QuestionAuthority' might as well appreciate that as much as I do. We can't be that far away from each other really.

Joe