Pool hopping... ethical or not?

[max in montreal]

Is taking money from a retarded guy ethical?

Is a lioness acting ethically when she kills an antelope?

I guess pool hopping is somewhere between these two.

So you admit, the ones not hopping are retarded...

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[max in montreal]

This whole topic is retarded. A fact is a fact, and an opinion will always be an opinion. They are not the same. The nicest color to me is blue, that is my opinion, prove me wrong. It is the same with ethics, its just an opinion.

I pool hop because I can. I don't care if people find it unethical. If you think you are being screwed by hoppers, do not hop at a pool that can be hopped.

All the examples trying to prove hopping is wrong or right are correct for the person posting their reasons. I hop because I can, and I hop because it brings me more coins. Those are 2 facts that we cannot argue about. Deal with it.

People might agree or disagree, but you cannot tell me I am wrong, because its my opinion, just like I cannot tell you you are wrong.

When using logic, we must follow fact, not opinion.

Vladimir, in my post above I was just being sarcastic...

[JoelKatz]

1. I'm lying about nothing. I never said these thing were within my moral compass, just that at different times and places different versions of morality have existed. You don't believe that I believe this? I really don't understand how you can not believe that in any given society the majority determine what is moral. Name me a culture where morality is not whatever the majority believe to be the best for their society.

Okay, answer my question directly: If everyone on the planet believed that torturing children for pleasure was moral, would that make it moral to torture children for pleasure?

2. Morality is not an unvarying unchanging thing. Slavery was considered moral, now it's not. What things do we hold to be moral now that won't be in the future?

That's a non-sequiter. I never said it was unvarying or unchanging. I was talking about what it is, not what it was or would be.

3. Believing that people from other cultures will on occasion make choices radically different from my own does not make me a monster. Believing that all cultures make the same choices as those you deem to be correct is the sort of ignorance that leads to misunderstanding, misery and war. Some religions have specialised in this sort of thing.

Non-sequiter. You have to address what I actually said, not some generalized version of that you can pretend you think I agree with. (Of course, I don't. It's like pretending that because I believe 3 plus 2 is 5, I believe that any number plus 2 is 5.)

I said that if you really believed that torturing children for pleasure would actually be moral just because people believed it was, then you were a monster. There are actually a few other possibilities, which I'll mention her just to be complete:

1) You are lying. You know that torturing children for pleasure is immoral no matter what people believe.

2) You have some secret deceptive "out". For example, you are reasoning "a false proposition implies any proposition" or "so much would have to change for people to not believe torturing children for pleasure is immoral that perhaps the facts underlying that piece of morality would change as well" or some such.

4. Where's the incoherency? Animals protect their young - a valid instinctive response. Children are young humans. Most people feel a need to protect children even if not their own. People don't have think about why your example is abhorrent, they just know it to be so. Many people would have a hard time thinking of facts to explain their response. What facts would you say there are? (Hint: "it is an evil act" is not a valid fact).

The incoherency is that you are saying there are no facts and then when challenged to explain it, you cite a bunch of facts. Sure, people would have a hard time thinking of the facts that explain their response. At one time, people had no idea what facts accounted for the sky appearing blue, but that doesn't mean there weren't such facts or that the sky looked whatever color people said it looked.

5. Do you honestly believe there's no biological basis for morality? From your inability to respond I'd say yes. Is this a religious problem for you?

Of course I believe there's a biological basis for morality. I've been saying all along that morality has a factual basis. (Biology, in case you didn't realize this, consists entirely of facts.)

6. Religion shouldn't be a final arbiter of ethics for a deep thinker like you. Many religions are not cultures I'd hold up as bastions of morality.

I'm not sure why you think I'm bringing religion into it. Perhaps you forgot that you were the one claiming that morality was not based on facts.

7. Finally, your last sentence makes no sense so I can only assume I've kept you up late. Responses based on instinct are not are not responses based on an understanding of the facts. Instincts are actually responses that require no conscious comprehension of facts whatsoever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

It's hard to be polite when you can say something so stupid and so insultingly at the same time, but I will do my best. Yes, instincts don't require conscious comprehension of facts. But that doesn't mean instinctive responses aren't purely fact based. Our instincts are responses to sensory data, which originates from facts about the world around us and gets to our body through a causal chain that is entirely factual. We respond in the way we do because of facts about how we are constructed. An instinctive response is not random. It is not magical. It is the end result of a cause and effect chain and the facts of the world that input that chain and form the links of that chain. Yes, it does not require conscious comprehension of facts. But so what?

Color vision doesn't require conscious comprehension of facts. Is the sky whatever color people say it is? Is the sky and the grass the same color if people only say so? Or is the sky blue because of facts about Rayleigh scattering? And do the sky and grass appear different colors because of facts about their composition, how human color vision works, and so on?

[max in montreal]

Is taking money from a retarded guy ethical?

Is a lioness acting ethically when she kills an antelope?

I guess pool hopping is somewhere between these two.

So you admit, the ones not hopping are retarded...

I never said that. Nor do I think so. And you mister go get some logic classes.

But from another post...

Miner's loyalty should be to his wallet.dat not to some pool.

According to that shouldn't people be pool hopping?

This does not make stealing from those with low mental capacity, ethical.
One of the ways to demonstrating the loyalty to your wallet.dat is switching from a hoppable pool to a not hoppable now.

Pool hopping is a temporarily phenomena. Before long hoppable pools and hoppers and stupid idiots who mine in hoppable pools 24/7 will be extinct.

[max in montreal]

Before you go, just to clarify, when you say;

This does not make stealing from those with low mental capacity, ethical.

Who are you talking about?

[max in montreal]

So you say

This does not make stealing from those with low mental capacity, ethical.

Then I ask who you are talking about, then your answer is:

I meant those who mine 24/7 in successfully hopped pools.

Meaning the ones who do not hop.

I would loosly define a retarded person as a person with a low mental capacity.

so the logic would be those who do not hop are retarded.

seems clear to me thats what you are saying.

But whatever, thanks for the advice on logic classes, Im looking into it rigt now...

[organofcorti]

So you say

This does not make stealing from those with low mental capacity, ethical.

Then I ask who you are talking about, then your answer is:

I meant those who mine 24/7 in successfully hopped pools.

Meaning the ones who do not hop.

I would loosly define a retarded person as a person with a low mental capacity.

so the logic would be those who do not hop are retarded.

seems clear to me thats what you are saying.

But whatever, thanks for the advice on logic classes, Im looking into it rigt now...

Here's your first class:

all a's are b != some a's are b.

For example, all fulltime miners are stupid != some full time miners are stupid. In this case the difference would be (and I'm talking for Vladimir here) that not all full time miners mine at hoppable pools.

[jgraham]

Feel free to address the argument if you like, but please stop denying it exists.

To be clear. I'm not denying that you are making some arbitrary argument.  I'm saying that you haven't made an argument sufficient to close the gap between ICoFDaGF and your idea of "no pool hopping".

Say coal miners have a cooperative where they share in the profits. A miner joins the cooperative just as they uncover a rich vein. He stays in during the easy mining, getting a share of the profits from that vein. Just as the vein is exhausted and the other miners are settling in for the hard work of exposing a new vein, he leaves them to join another cooperative that has just unearthed a rich vein. This was his plan from the beginning, and he gets a disproportionate share of the benefits relative to the amount of mining he does at the expense of the other miners.

Is this the same as?

A coal mine owner hires miners.  They have agreed to be compensated for their labour with a percentage of the profits the mine generates at some pre-defined interval.    A coal miner employed at another mine with a similar compensation scheme sees this mine is starting to give better payout than s/he is currently getting.  S/he switches mines and stays there until s/he spots another mine which is paying better than their current mine.  The miner repeats this process.

If not, please cite the specific differences.

And for crying out loud...

A Non sequitur (spelled correctly for once) is an argument that does not force it's OWN conclusions. So if you say "Candy is good" and then "Therefore all candy is mine" this is a non sequitur since the property "good" does not imply "owned by JoelKatz" (except trivially).   It does not make comment on other peoples abilities to properly state or refute your argument.  We, in fact have completely different words for these things:

A person who is refuting an argument you have not made is making a strawman fallacy.
A person who is making an argument that draws a conclusion that does not contradict your thesis or is a distraction from your point is enaging in ignoratio elenchi  or perhaps a red herring fallacy

Not only that but a non sequitur is a pretty vague term to pin on someone.  It would be better and far more to the norm in logical literature to cite the specific direction and terms of the logical flaw being used. i.e. Affirming the consequent.

Sheesh did everyone go to the "bitcoin2cash" school of chop logic?

[max in montreal]

So you say

This does not make stealing from those with low mental capacity, ethical.

Then I ask who you are talking about, then your answer is:

I meant those who mine 24/7 in successfully hopped pools.

Meaning the ones who do not hop.

I would loosly define a retarded person as a person with a low mental capacity.

so the logic would be those who do not hop are retarded.

seems clear to me thats what you are saying.

But whatever, thanks for the advice on logic classes, Im looking into it rigt now...

Here's your first class:

all a's are b != some a's are b.

For example, all fulltime miners are stupid != some full time miners are stupid. In this case the difference would be (and I'm talking for Vladimir here) that not all full time miners mine at hoppable pools.

I am missing something here...We are talking about those who mine 24/7 in successfully hopped pools, meaning the non hopper, because the hopper will not stay 24/7...

But thank you again for showing me that you are the best. Had you not pointed it out I would never have known.

[CanaryInTheMine]

The problem here is that a bunch of people claim that there are certain legal principles that are governing joining a pool or sending work to one.

This is completely wrong.  If the pool has to stated terms of service that prohibit hopping, there's no contract.

The only way you can apply legal principles in contract law is when you are bound by some contract.  if there's no contract, you CAN NOT sit on your high horse and continue to spew legal principles.  this is blatantly wrong and misleading.

You can not pull out and enforce a contract that someone did not agree to.

You can not claim implied contract when you don't like technically permitted behavior. The remedy is not with the user but with the pool.

Additionally, you are not entering a contract by simply "working" on the same thing, like sending work to a pool.  this is another fallacy.
you enter a contract by explicitly agreeing to one.  you can not enforce a contract that was never agreed to.

be honest and admit that those who are against hopping, simply don't like it.  that's where this argument should stop.
I don't like it, I don't do it, but as long as a pool does not prohibit hoping in it's terms of service, those who don't like hoping are SOL.

Force the pools to clearly state what the policy on hopping is.

However, as you all know, lots of pools simply don't care, in fact ultimately they want higher hash rates.  they don't care how they get them and for how long.

Which, begs the question?  who is the enabler of hopping?  the algorithm, the pool or the miner?

P.S. it's clear that this is pointless to continue.  we have people who mis-use legal principles, twist them to meet their ends, mis-apply them in order to be able to put a bunch of big, legal sounding words to appear like they know what they are talking about.

we have people here that bring up esoteric, wild, provocative examples that are not even in the same ball-park as this argument.

all a bunch of useless nonsense.

[organofcorti]

I am missing something here...We are talking about those who mine 24/7 in successfully hopped pools, meaning the non hopper, because the hopper will not stay 24/7...

But thank you again for showing me that you are the best. Had you not pointed it out I would never have known.

No no no. Lets go over that first class again. We'll substitute instead hoppable pools and non hoppable pools.

all pools are hoppable != some pools are hoppable.

Vladimir was making the distinction between:
1. Hoppable pools
2. Pools that cannot be hopped.
3. 24/7 miners on hoppable pools
4. 24/7 miners on non-hoppable pools
5. Hoppers.

You seem to only consider cases 1, 3 and 5 for some reason.

Class dismissed.

[organofcorti]

P.S. it's clear that this is pointless to continue.  we have people who mis-use legal principles, twist them to meet their ends, mis-apply them in order to be able to put a bunch of big, legal sounding words to appear like they know what they are talking about.

+1

Any idea how I can permanently remove this thread from my "updated topics" section?

I think the only way is to convince Theymos to switch to a forum software which has this feature. I'll support a switch for the same feature.

I really have to learn to ignore this thread when it pops up.

[CanaryInTheMine]

CanaryInTheMine. I would think that from legal point of view there are 3 possibilities:

2. Pool does not have any terms and conditions.

This seems to be a very common approach at the moment. In this case by act of submitting shares to the pool any miner is agreeing to some implied contract terms of which are not exactly clear, but could be guessed based on pool's website content, ads and "common industry practice" (whatever that is).

Surely there is a contract, there is always a contact for everything that involves transfer of goods, services or money. If miners want to claim that there is no contract than perhaps they should not expect to get any BTC, because why should they, if there is no contract.

It would be impossible to argue that such an implied contract exists if there are no terms of service at all.  you can argue forever about what should be in there or not.  the burden is not on the miner to figure out the intent.  This is clearly a pool operator's issue.

The interesting point here is that in cases when a pool which is vulnerable to hopping does not take effective measures to prevent pool hopping could be in breach of fiduciary duty it has to some subset of miners participating in the pool. If such pool takes some extra money from hoppers for the privilege to hop there, than it potentially could even be classed as fraud. I suppose 24/7 miners could have a valid claim again operator of such a pool. Considering that there are money on the line, that pools that hold on customer's money could be considered as depositary institutions (i.e. banks), some courts would be very non sympathetic to the defendant in such cases.

In other words the likely legal problem in today's 'bitcoin proportional pool industry' is not whether pool hoppers acting lawfully, but how much money pool operators who are in bed with hoppers are going to have to pay in damages to 24/7 miners eventually or maybe whether this can/will be enforced by law at some point.

Of course, there are different jurisdictions and different laws and IANAL.

now that's a much more appropriate and fascinating point/question!!! bravo!
+43% LOL

[jgraham]

This seems to be a very common approach at the moment. In this case by act of submitting shares to the pool any miner is agreeing to some implied contract terms of which are not exactly clear, but could be guessed based on pool's website content, ads and "common industry practice" (whatever that is).

I would agree that some kind of contract is in place but from my understanding this is derived from a few things.  The first is what is involved in the process of getting involved.  So the websites content may not be usable as evidence of terms if it is not visible before someone commits.  Common industry practice is usually reserved for interpreting words - especially technical ones.  i.e. being paid "on spec".  It, AFAIK does not matter what the industry generally *does*.  Since that could justify all sorts of unethical behavior.

Anyway I suspect that much of this is beside the point.  Legal does not necessitate ethical.

[Sukrim]

3. Pool does specifically states that pool hopping is against the rules

Simple case, pool hopping is unlawful and pool operator lawfully can claim damages from pool hoppers, use right of set-off or whatever.

Actually the case is far from being simple, as there is no exact definition of what pool hopping even is. If you define it as someone only submitting valid shares until 43.5% of difficulty have been reached, how do you classify people who mine until 45% or 100% or 150% (even at 150% hopping is mildly profitable!)? Does submitting a single share at 50% difficulty make you no longer a hopper? Where do you draw the line?

To enforce these rules, you need to publish them in the most exact manner + give users ways to make sure they stay "lawful" (so no delayed stats!).
A negative example on banning hopping would be "bitminersunion.org" who seeem to have developed a "hopping protection" for their prop. pool that they don't wnat to publish, don't want to explain in detail and if you complain that they stole shares from you, they claim that their algorithm is infallable and you MUST be a hopper. There was NO mentioning of even any payout algorithm (and nothing about pool hopping being punished/disallowed) on their website. Ever.

Edit:

Say coal miners have a cooperative where they share in the profits. A miner joins the cooperative just as they uncover a rich vein. He stays in during the easy mining, getting a share of the profits from that vein. Just as the vein is exhausted and the other miners are settling in for the hard work of exposing a new vein, he leaves them to join another cooperative that has just unearthed a rich vein. This was his plan from the beginning, and he gets a disproportionate share of the benefits relative to the amount of mining he does at the expense of the other miners.

1) Is this unethical?

2) Does it breach the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between the miners in the cooperative?

3) If you answered "yes" to 1 or 2, how is pool hopping different?

1) This depends on how earnings are being distributed. As he seems to have earned as much as others, who were mining far longer than him, I'd say there is a flaw in their distribution system and he's gaming it. If (for whatever reason) there would be no other way to distribute earnings, then yes, this would be unethical in my opinion.

2) As he is imo no real part of the cooperative but just a newcomer that is suddenly appearing and being accepted, I'd go with a cautious "no".

3) There are alternative ways of distributing mined coal earnings/bitcoins. Even in your example the guy can ONLY game the system, because the coal miners seem to use a broken payout algorithm or overpaying him willingly/knowingly. Using fair payout schemes, neither your example nor pool hopping would be possible. If it is possible, it would only be unethical imho if the miner in your example would be the only person in the world having this knowledge. If everyone could do it in theory, then it's an individual choice of NOT doing it, even if it means earning less.
It is current state of knowledge that pool hopping increases your income, potentially very significantly. If you don't do it, you willingly decrease your income, just like using a CPU for mining, where it is common knowledge that it is so inefficient, that you'll burn more money for electricity than you'll earn in bitcoins at current market values. Profiting from decisions of others is not unethical - if the miners in your example decide that he has earned his too big share, he has earned it. It would only be unfair, if there would be no way for the other miners to make sure how much he gets paid. This is not the case in Bitcoin mining (and also not coal mining - which is most likely "Pay per hour" with a few potential bonuses, like any other job).

[jgraham]

1) This depends on how earnings are being distributed. As he seems to have earned as much as others, who were mining far longer than him, I'd say there is a flaw in their distribution system and he's gaming it. If (for whatever reason) there would be no other way to distribute earnings, then yes, this would be unethical in my opinion.

So are you saying that to earn more than others who have worked longer is unethical in general?  I think there's more to it than that.

  Anyway I think the physical mining model doesn't really capture what bitcoin mining is like.  It's probably more like a voluntary lottery pool where each week people put whatever they can spare (we will call this "lotto money") into a pool and at the end of the month tickets are purchased for the draw happening that day. The draw always pays out the same amount and winnings are divided according to the money invested i.e.: lotto payout * (Your $$ invested/Total $$ invested by everyone in the pool).

  So each week an employee is faced with the decision of if they should invest their "lotto money" or not.   One of the things which would influence that is how much of a share this would buy them.  Given that everyone at the company does not make the same amount of money and has different expenses the pool grows in an irregular way.  So each time you invest your "lotto money" you are not necessarily getting the same return on investment.   That is to say, this week the pool is at $1000 so if nobody invests any more money you would earn 0.05 * payout if they win.   However next week the pool might be $10000 which means your $50 only buys you 0.005 * payout if they hold the winning ticket.

  Since we can't predict if or how much people will put into the pool tomorrow.  The only information that can guide your decision to invest is the current size of the pool.   This gets more interesting when your office has more than one pool and each week you can decide whether to put your $50 in with the HR folk (which is $1000) or the IT Folk (which is at $10) or the Executives (which at $100,000).  It is this decision which people are calling intrinsically unethical.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

 Anyway I think the physical mining model doesn't really capture what bitcoin mining is like.  It's probably more like a voluntary lottery pool where each week people put whatever they can spare (we will call this "lotto money") into a pool and at the end of the month tickets are purchased for the draw happening that day. The draw always pays out the same amount and winnings are divided according to the money invested i.e.: lotto payout * (Your $$ invested/Total $$ invested by everyone in the pool).

That's not really a good example because if the pool is larger, the probability to win is also larger, so the expectation is the same.

[jgraham]

 Anyway I think the physical mining model doesn't really capture what bitcoin mining is like.  It's probably more like a voluntary lottery pool where each week people put whatever they can spare (we will call this "lotto money") into a pool and at the end of the month tickets are purchased for the draw happening that day. The draw always pays out the same amount and winnings are divided according to the money invested i.e.: lotto payout * (Your $$ invested/Total $$ invested by everyone in the pool).

That's not really a good example because if the pool is larger, the probability to win is also larger, so the expectation is the same.

If the odds of winning the lottery are poor enough the difference in pool probability is negligible.

[JoelKatz]

If the odds of winning the lottery are poor enough the difference in pool probability is negligible.

Negligible in absolute terms but not in relative terms. If you double the size of your lottery pool, your chances of winning millions doubles. In absolute terms, it increased by something like .0004%. In relative terms, it increased by 100%.

[jgraham]

If the odds of winning the lottery are poor enough the difference in pool probability is negligible.

Negligible in absolute terms but not in relative terms.

Which is sort of the point now isn't it?  Meni appeared to be talking about the persons perception (expectation) of winning - which IMHO doesn't really change the argument since an intrinsically unethical act wouldn't suddenly become ethical if there was significant advantage.  Anyway in the interest of trying to make the example as palatable as possible as long as someone perceives the difference in probability to be negligible or non-existent it doesn't really matter if they have twice (or a million) times the probability of winning.  

It's still a better example than one about coal miners needlessly cluttered with overly emotional terms.