Gavin will visit the Council on Foreign Relations

[mmitech]

this is really interesting, can I speculate on this one ?   be courageous and calm, I wish good luck...

[edukoBIT]

Certainly good news, I think is an important event where we have to bitcoin known to be accepted by more and more people, much encouragement Gavin I hope you bring us great news.

The bitcoiners we should work more on expanding bitcoin worldwide.

I encourage the entire community to work hard these years.

PD: Sorry for my bad English;)

Regards

[aminorex]

Certainly the core team is the weak point of bitcoin, and cooption is the most effective strategy.

[Luckybit]

The word conspiracy theory is for hiding behind the straw man. People in the US just don't realize that their capitalistic system is a corporate system through and through. They don't even notice it. And corporatism means that business and government co-opt into a single net of of power. And its exactly institutions that CFR that stand for this.

It's a bit more complicated than that. I'll agree with you that they are the establishment but it's not a bad thing to explain Bitcoin to the establishment. Maybe if they had a better understanding on what Bitcoin can do for the world then they adopt better policy stances.

Why assume every meeting will go bad or that just being in the establishment makes someone evil? Those are conspiracy theories and they don't help.

Of course if you're inside that bubble you don't realize it and think everything is just fuzzy and perfect. Like say a Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg, running around and explaining how the future will just be more of the same. Of course they have no problem with working with the government on spying on people.

The CFR has an agenda and I will admit that. Everyone knows what their agenda is. But you have to expect that they'll need Bitcoin explained to them and Gavin is the person to do it. I don't see this as negative.

Would you see it as negative if President Obama wanted to meet personally with Gavin? I would not see that as negative, I would see it as an extremely bullish signal. If they were hostile there would be no meetings, no discussions, no questions and answers.

They just don't call it that. And for someone in such a position to come out in the year 2014 (post Snowden) and play the conspiracy card is very telling. I hope the bitcoin community can really come up with much better positions than that.

Do you really expect a meeting with Obama to go well if you go in hating the US government and everything it stands for? On the other hand if you actually care and just have a difference of opinion on how the government should be run or how thing should be handled that is different.

Bitcoin is not going to overthrow the US government but it is going to change the world and change how all governments operate in the same way that the web, the Internet and the industrial revolution changed everything. It's essential that people in the CFR understand the importance of Bitcoin because whether you like them or not they have control over the legacy institutions and those institutions need to adapt to change.

[dewdeded]

Does he have to present there, because he is in the US civil service?

[ProfMac]

Does he have to present there, because he is in the US civil service?

He said he accepted an invitation.  I think that is pretty literal.  Although some invitations really shouldn't be turned down.  I suspect it is a very great honor, and a very heavy burden.

An earlier link in turn lead to a pdf for a Congressional Research Service analysis of bitcoin.  I read that paper.  The word choices and scenarios presented in this analysis suggests to me that they are viewing bitcoin as a disruptive technology, but not in a knee-jerk fearful manner.

[Wekkel]

It's just part of the real world.

Have a great time at the meeting, Gavin.

[btcusury]

If you check the CFR board of directors, you'll find the names of some of the "democratically elected leaders" who directly lied to the world in order to justify wars of aggression against foreign nations. There are also several lesser-known figures that might have participated at a lower level in the facilitation of the murders of hundreds of thousands of people. And I would bet 25 BTC that most of those who don't fit into either of those two categories fit into the 3rd category: war profiteers.

That's not to say there are no good people in the CFR. But know who it is, what it is, that we are talking about. This is not by any stretch of the imagination an organization with your/our interests at heart. These are millionaires and billionaires seeking to influence/direct government policy for their personal benefit and amusement.

Noted CIA asset and self admitted space alien Gavin Andressen confirmed today that he is conspiring with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral commission and the Bilderberger Group to bring about global hegemonic control of all bitcoin transactions through secret NSA backdoors and HAARP mining/weather control datacenters. When asked for comment, noted investigative journalist Alex Jones stated "I predicted this 10 years ago!"

Hilarious! But don't confuse/conflate Alex Jones (the Rupert Murdoch of alternative media) with "the opposite view" of the "official view". The official/default view is given by some of the biggest liars and richest people on the planet. There's no actual reason to believe them any more than Alex Jones. If you truly believe the "default/official view" about think tanks like the CFR as presented in the MSM is more credible than Alex Jones' fearmongering drivel, here is a good starting point to rid yourself of that delusion:

When talking about these guys, one word is all you need to check into:

'Ponerology'

And as coinrevo pointed out:

We have to get on from the conspiracy theories. Let us be realistic, if someone has to meet with these groups it should probably be Gavin. I view this development as excessively positive for the future of Bitcoin.

The word conspiracy theory is for hiding behind the straw man. People in the US just don't realize that their capitalistic system is a corporate system through and through. They don't even notice it. And corporatism means that business and government co-opt into a single net of of power. And its exactly institutions that CFR that stand for this. Of course if you're inside that bubble you don't realize it and think everything is just fuzzy and perfect. Like say a Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg, running around and explaining how the future will just be more of the same. Of course they have no problem with working with the government on spying on people. They just don't call it that. And for someone in such a position to come out in the year 2014 (post Snowden) and play the conspiracy card is very telling. I hope the bitcoin community can really come up with much better positions than that.

Anything labeled a "conspiracy theory" is subconsciously considered false/impossible. Such is the power of the MSM.

Also, make sure that you are on your toes!

These types of meetings are meant for one thing only...to evaluate you / to size you up, so that they can figure out how to manipulate the situation in their favor.

Remember...Bitcoin doesn't need to ask for permission.  It doesn't need to cozy up to the enemy.  And, make no mistake, these guys are the enemy...of the masses...of the planet.

The more I think about it, this meeting is a real $*&t deal!

Absolutely spot-on observation. Those clueless old rich men in suits are hoping to use Gavin to help wrap their minds around the very concept of decentralized digital currency. Their intent is most likely to find ways to "regulate" (control) it.

It's essential that people in the CFR understand the importance of Bitcoin because whether you like them or not they have control over the legacy institutions and those institutions need to adapt to change.

Hahaha, you have got to be kidding me!

You're saying that because they currently have control, it's important that we help them adapt to the change that Bitcoin brings?

"It's essential that people in the Mafia understand the importance of Bitcoin because whether you like them or not they have control over the legacy institutions and those institutions need to adapt to change."

[tvbcof]

...
Anything labeled a "conspiracy theory" is subconsciously considered false/impossible. Such is the power of the MSM.
...

Dead on.  The 'conspiracy theory' label has become an astonishingly effective way to completely short circuit any critical thinking among people who otherwise have them mental capacity to do so.

The neat trick is that even when crazy conspiracy theories such as 'them' being able to turn on the mics of our cell phones become factual truths, the conditioning is still effective and keeps working without a hiccup.

---

On a different subject, I would have a bit more respect for Gavin if he just said "My presentation, the Q&A, and any conversations I have will be public record.  Period.  Else go piss up a rope."

Clearly this is not how Gavin rolls as evidenced by the structure and methods of the Bitcoin Foundation, and that is a major part of the reason that I do not support Gavin or the Bitcoin Foundation.

I suspect that the entire Bitcoin project is in danger of losing what support it has among the more radical of the 'open' group of thinkers.  If/when this happens it may happen in a landslide.  This would be a great loss because many of these people are highly skilled, and the concept of transparency is one which can resonate strongly with large swaths of humanity and that sentiment is likely to grow.  If the Bitcoin Foundation were smart, they'd at least try to pay some lip service if nothing else to the concept of transparency.

[freedomno1]

Gavin visits the aristocracy...

Part 1 of a saga

[dewdeded]

tvbcof: Don't be disappointed and upset. The crypto-currency movement is stronger then NSA & CIA with their agents positioned at the Foundation board.
The Free World will make cryptos develope further and survive, for the better of mankind. Looks like, only the US will kinda be left behind.

[coinrevo]

The developers have all my respect for the technical issues. In terms of political issues there is much too be desired. I strongly believe cryptocurrencies are inherently political - in the end its as much about consensus of people as it is of nodes (nodes are run by people).
Who makes the decisions about bitcoin and by what authority? The problem really is that the code is coupled to SSH keys. We need a distributed model for code changes, which is very hard to do. Hopefully there will be enough competition of coins, although some think it's impossible.

[BitCoinDream]

tvbcof: Don't be disappointed and upset. The crypto-currency movement is stronger then NSA & CIA with their agents positioned at the Foundation board.
The Free World will make cryptos develope further and survive, for the better of mankind. Looks like, only the US will kinda be left behind.

*cough* *cough* ...your SHA256 is written by NSA 

[dewdeded]

*cough* *cough* ...your SHA256 is written by NSA  

Yeah, you are wise man. Embrace USA, embrace NSA & CIA, embrace all war and war criminals, embrace water boarding, embrace guantanamo, embrace greed, embrace Bitcoin Foundation. Do it. And ridicule and make fun of everybody not sharing you great ideas and mindset.

[tvbcof]

tvbcof: Don't be disappointed and upset. The crypto-currency movement is stronger then NSA & CIA with their agents positioned at the Foundation board.
The Free World will make cryptos develope further and survive, for the better of mankind. Looks like, only the US will kinda be left behind.

Ya, well, I'm an U.S. American and I like most of my countrymen on a personal level.  I find a lot to like about certain parts of our history, and I even like a certain fraction of our current and recent state sponsored activities.  I don't want to be left behind!  Better that then bludgeoning every other human on the face of the earth into submission though.

[justusranvier]

On a different subject, I would have a bit more respect for Gavin if he just said "My presentation, the Q&A, and any conversations I have will be public record.  Period.  Else go piss up a rope."

Clearly this is not how Gavin rolls as evidenced by the structure and methods of the Bitcoin Foundation, and that is a major part of the reason that I do not support Gavin or the Bitcoin Foundation.

I suspect that the entire Bitcoin project is in danger of losing what support it has among the more radical of the 'open' group of thinkers.

A preferable scenario would be for Bitcoin Foundation and the reference client to loose support while the rest of the project continues on without it.

A better way of putting it would be to retire the reference implementation as a prototype that has served its purpose, once a heterogeneous mix of two or three clean slate implantations are ready to replace it.

[tvbcof]

On a different subject, I would have a bit more respect for Gavin if he just said "My presentation, the Q&A, and any conversations I have will be public record.  Period.  Else go piss up a rope."

Clearly this is not how Gavin rolls as evidenced by the structure and methods of the Bitcoin Foundation, and that is a major part of the reason that I do not support Gavin or the Bitcoin Foundation.

I suspect that the entire Bitcoin project is in danger of losing what support it has among the more radical of the 'open' group of thinkers.

A preferable scenario would be for Bitcoin Foundation and the reference client to loose support while the rest of the project continues on without it.

A better way of putting it would be to retire the reference implementation as a prototype that has served its purpose, once a heterogeneous mix of two or three clean slate implantations are ready to replace it.

One one of these threads some time ago I proposed the following:

A separate exact mirror repository be maintained by a group of devs who have the trust of a sub-set of users (i.e., Maxwell and Todd.)

It would make no different what repo was pulled from (or binaries built from) functionally, but users could sort of 'vote' in a way by choosing one distribution channel or the other.

The advantage of this, in addition to providing a way for users to express sentiment, would be that a separate distribution channel would be  exercised and thus more understood and ready to go in case of a dire need (e.g., Gavin comes under pressure to introduce (or not introduce) some critical code structure.)

If such a structure were developed and proved to be popular I think it could also have the effect of discouraging evolution along paths that a majority of end-users considered to be harmful.  As it stand now, a fair fraction of the userbase seems to not trust the Bitcoin Foundation and their motives for the ecosystem (with good reason in my opinion) and I don't think it is a rational argument that this body has no influence on the code-base direction.

[2bfree]

Stall them so the bit and altcoins get to a billion people by the time they regulate or ban it it will be to late. I use to think the Communist where evil till my eyes opened and saw how deceptive the those control freaks are with access to the money printing and government and big corporation they hate freedom even more but yell freedom freedom. They will crush bitcion or crush it with regulations. In any case if that starts in 5 years it will be to late (hopefully)

[ninjarobot]

Thanks for the advance disclosure Gavin.

FYI: Most recent CFR session mentioning Bitcoin on Nov 21st:

http://www.cfr.org/global/us-economy-fiscal-policy/p31935 (video here)

QUESTION: David Slade, Allen Overy. Could you comment on the significance of our reserve currency status to these issues, and the risk, if any, of our losing that?

REINHART: So a part of the reason there's no pressure on politicians is there's no -- we happen to enjoy the benefits of being the reserve currency historically. The first basic principle of economics applied here is, you can't beat something with nothing, and there's no other alternative obvious reserve currency right now. The euro, perhaps?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Bitcoin? Bitcoin.

REINHART: Bitcoin, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

[dewdeded]

I think the repo is mirrored already to instant starting a fork, when bitcoin foundation (with its bad actors) is try something that is bad for Bitcoin. Forget by whom.

It's pretty obvious, that the core dev team is already split into:

- Team USA with Gavin, Mike & Allies on on side (with their plans and hopes to implement blacklists, wallet freezings, bringing SSL cert insecurity to Bitcoin, ...)

and on the other side:

- open-minded people, serving the public good like Gregory Maxwell, Peter Todd, Pieter Wuille, Amir Taaki and many more.


Project will most likely fork into:

- a USACoin fork (managed, regulated and backdoored by the US government) for Americans
- ("real"or "orginal") Bitcoin fork/version used by everyone in the free world, which follows and assures all values and ideas by Satoshi and the movement