Bitcoin Foundation Final Debate

[mindtomatter]

On Saturday, September 14th at 11am California time the Bitcoin Foundation Individual Seat Finalist Debate was recorded live on the Let’s Talk Bitcoin voice server.

The five remaining candidates answered a series of questions about the future of the foundation offered by both the moderator and the other candidates, who were allowed to converse and question each other.

Sponsored By:
The Bitcoin Foundation

Moderator:
Andreas M. Antonopoulos

Participating Candidates:
Elizabeth Ploshay
Trace Mayer
Ben Davenport
Joerg Platzer
Luke Dashjr

Official Timekeeper:
David Perry

Music Provided By:
Jared Rubens (@jaredarubens)

Producer:
Adam B. Levine

Tips for the Moderator
1andreas3batLhQa2FawWjeyjCqyBzypd

Tips for the Production
1QJ7xL3aYoVpVKLPnWzj1VByuyzsawBSjh

[1714777580]

1714777580

[1714777580]

1714777580

[1714777580]

1714777580

[1714777580]

1714777580

[1714777580]

1714777580

[pedrog]

Thanks for sharing.

[theymos]

Wow, that was a really good debate! All of the candidates did very well. Much better than any debate I've seen.

Joerg and Trace seem to want the Foundation to be in charge of development at some level, which I find very dangerous for any legally-defined organization to do.  I'd prefer the Foundation to be totally uninvolved in Bitcoin-Qt development and focus more on legal stuff, behaving more like the NRA or EFF. It'd also dangerous for one US-based Foundation to act as some sort of oversight organization for many Bitcoin Foundations worldwide; the Foundation should help international organizations, but each organization should be separate in order to maximize decentralization. Elizabeth said some nice things in these areas.

I wish someone would have corrected Trace when he was complaining about the Foundation taking money from people and then removing them from bitcoin.org: The Foundation has nothing to do with bitcoin.org, so this is a ridiculous complaint.

I liked most of what Elizabeth, Ben, and Luke said here. I'd be satisfied if any of them won, though I think that Elizabeth is the best candidate.

[Arto]

My personal take on the final debate, as posted to the Foundation forum:

Just finished listening to the recording. Good stuff. In my view, Joerg and Trace gave the strongest impressions, just about tied, but Ben also did a good job (all the more so given the raspy throat, which can't have been pleasant, as Adam noted).

The debate formed clearly around a big divide (to a first approximation coincident with the Atlantic?) regarding the necessity to internationalize the Foundation, and I suspect the votes next week may fall not dissimilarly—with Joerg and Trace on the one side, and largely Ms. Ploshay on the other.

As Joerg pointed out in the debate, what's at stake here is whether, going forward, this Foundation is to become the global umbrella organization for the Bitcoin universe, or merely remain a perceptibly U.S.-centered "Big Bitcoin" business club. If the Foundation's ~40% U.S.-based electorate should fail to look outward in this election, another organization will soon enough fill that void and the international relevancy of this Foundation will diminish accordingly and appropriately.

I know that a bunch of people over here in the Old World are just itching to make that happen, but I'd personally rather see this Foundation salvaged and repurposed towards better ends, as Jon Matonis is as ideal an appointment for an outwards-looking Executive Director as anyone could hope for. In any case, the electorate's decisions next week will be revelatory and significant.

Kudos to Adam, Andreas, and everyone else involved in producing the debate. Tips sent for both production & moderation.

[Kluge]

Wow. Ironically, the replies in this thread have finally convinced me to pay up and join out of worry there may be one big international blob heavily influencing Bitcoin development. Congrats, theymos.

Will listen to debate and determine if fear is justified. ETA: Writing up a transcript, too - because why the fuck don't these people do transcripts? Seriously. Wtf.

ETA: The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (64000 characters). Yikes!

[cypherdoc]

way to go Andreas.  the whole thing was well done.

great moderating.

[pedrog]

(..)I'd prefer the Foundation to be totally uninvolved in Bitcoin-Qt development and focus more on legal stuff, behaving more like the NRA or EFF. It'd also dangerous for one US-based Foundation to act as some sort of oversight organization for many Bitcoin Foundations worldwide; (...)

That was the point I felt it was the most interesting, I see no reason why Bitcoin foundation should have anything to say about Bitcoin-QT, the fact they are a US based organization is a liability, I hope we see many Bitcoin Foundations popping around all around the world and some can pay for developers, or a developing model similar to the Linux model, I often refer to the Bitcoin Foundation as the US Bitcoin Foundation, bitcoin is global and decentralized, related organizations also have to be.

[drama247365]

"The clock is ticking and we do not have much time until Bitcoin is compromised" - Hamster Girl.

[qwk]

Will listen to debate and determine if fear is justified. ETA: Writing up a transcript, too - because why the fuck don't these people do transcripts? Seriously. Wtf.

ETA: First ~25m. Will get to rest later, and redo parts I couldn't hear well.

Thanks a lot for the transcript. Nice mimicking the accents and pronounciation.
By the way, the name is Joerg, not Bjork.

Also, agreed, why don't they do transcripts?

[matonis]

way to go Andreas.  the whole thing was well done.

great moderating.

Thanks to LetsTalkBitcoin for hosting the debate on very short notice and thanks to Andreas for moderating.
I appreciate all of the candidates making time over Saturday to participate.

[genjix]

Also, agreed, why don't they do transcripts?

Be grateful they are doing this free service to the community.

[BCB]

Also, agreed, why don't they do transcripts?

"They" are "we",  the members of this community. Did you volunteer to do transcripts like they volunteered to produce and participate in this debate?

Kluge,  thanks for transcribing.

And thanks to everyone involved in producing this debate.

I'm continually impressed by the talent and commitment and the passion of this community.

[Carlton Banks]

ugh, Bitcoin + politics = a million (more) contradictory and confused messages and impressions that cannot be made sense of.

Why can't we have some kind of mechanism that ensures the one person who least wants to be on the board wins the seat? Is it too late to endorse Bill Still for Bitcoin Foundation?  

[mindtomatter]

Will listen to debate and determine if fear is justified. ETA: Writing up a transcript, too - because why the fuck don't these people do transcripts? Seriously. Wtf.

ETA: First ~25m. Will get to rest later, and redo parts I couldn't hear well.

Thanks a lot for the transcript. Nice mimicking the accents and pronounciation.
By the way, the name is Joerg, not Bjork.

Also, agreed, why don't they do transcripts?

Last time LTB partnered with BitcoinMagazine, who paid one of their freelance writers to do the transcriptions, and they were out two days later.    Dan Roseman is going to do transcripts towards the end of the week if they're not done by someone else in the community, but everybody is very busy and transcribing (as Kluge knows) is quite time consuming.

[qwk]

Why can't we have some kind of mechanism that ensures the one person who least wants to be on the board wins the seat?

Hm, just how do we get one of them onboard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people?

 

[2weiX]

"Bjork" = "Joerg"


Hahahahhaha.

[CIYAM]

The effort to make the transcript is appreciated - but is there any reason to be putting *accents* into it?

[Arto]

The effort to make the transcript is appreciated - but is there any reason to be putting *accents* into it?

An obvious reason would be a personal bias against a candidate, and that certainly seems in ample evidence in this "transcript".

Still, beyond cheap potshots, it could at least be useful as a starting point for somebody else looking to make a more serious, neutral effort of it.

[cypherdoc]

"Bjork" = "Joerg"


Hahahahhaha.

"Bjork" + "Joerg" = "Borg"? 

[qwk]

Thank you again, Kluge.

I'd like to point you to my new bounty for LetsTalkBitcoin transcripts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294947.0

You might want to rework your's, though