[COMMENTS] Bitcoin press hits, notable sources

[molecular]

enough is enough. for the third time today I had a short comment written on one of the Press Hits from the thread "Bitcoin press hits, notable sources" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1958.0) and then cancelled it because I didn't want to pollute the thread with my comment that really didn't add much and was certainly not a press hit in itself .

Also often a Press hit plus maybe a couple of comments really don't justify opening a new topic, so I figured I'd try making a comments thread accompanying the famous mother-thread.

Let's see if it works, I'll make a start by commenting on a comment from the thread in the next post...

[1714023953]

1714023953

[molecular]

« Don't get me started on "money laundering." It's a completely artificial crime. It wasn't even heard of 20 years ago, because the "crime" didn't exist. Now, everyone speaks of it as though it were a real crime, like murder. It's ridiculous, and further proof of the totally degraded state of the average person worldwide, absolutely including US citizens – what we used to call Americans. The government proclaims something as a law, and "sheeple" robotically assume it's part of the cosmic firmament. If an official tells them to do or not to do something, they roll over on their backs like whipped dogs and wet themselves out of fear. The War on Drugs may be where "money laundering" originated as a crime, but today it has a lot more to do with something infinitely more important to the state: the War on Tax Evasion. »

Oh their god, this is a marvelous quote!

he forgot to mention the war on child porn... that's what takes away a large chunk of our freedoms these days.

maybe that's too touchy a subject even for casey.

no man in his right mind would touch that with a ten foot pole.

[BadBear]

Off topic split here
Let's keep it on topic
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67884.0 (fixed bad link)

[FreeMoney]

« Don't get me started on "money laundering." It's a completely artificial crime. It wasn't even heard of 20 years ago, because the "crime" didn't exist. Now, everyone speaks of it as though it were a real crime, like murder. It's ridiculous, and further proof of the totally degraded state of the average person worldwide, absolutely including US citizens – what we used to call Americans. The government proclaims something as a law, and "sheeple" robotically assume it's part of the cosmic firmament. If an official tells them to do or not to do something, they roll over on their backs like whipped dogs and wet themselves out of fear. The War on Drugs may be where "money laundering" originated as a crime, but today it has a lot more to do with something infinitely more important to the state: the War on Tax Evasion. »

Oh their god, this is a marvelous quote!

he forgot to mention the war on child porn... that's what takes away a large chunk of our freedoms these days.

maybe that's too touchy a subject even for casey.

no man in his right mind would touch that with a ten foot pole.

What does that mean? You support violence on people for having or sharing information about crimes committed by others or you don't support that violence, but don't want to say?

[molecular]

« Don't get me started on "money laundering." It's a completely artificial crime. It wasn't even heard of 20 years ago, because the "crime" didn't exist. Now, everyone speaks of it as though it were a real crime, like murder. It's ridiculous, and further proof of the totally degraded state of the average person worldwide, absolutely including US citizens – what we used to call Americans. The government proclaims something as a law, and "sheeple" robotically assume it's part of the cosmic firmament. If an official tells them to do or not to do something, they roll over on their backs like whipped dogs and wet themselves out of fear. The War on Drugs may be where "money laundering" originated as a crime, but today it has a lot more to do with something infinitely more important to the state: the War on Tax Evasion. »

Oh their god, this is a marvelous quote!

he forgot to mention the war on child porn... that's what takes away a large chunk of our freedoms these days.

maybe that's too touchy a subject even for casey.

no man in his right mind would touch that with a ten foot pole.

What does that mean? You support violence on people for having or sharing information about crimes committed by others or you don't support that violence, but don't want to say?

What I had in mind (and I think also paybt.c had this in mind) was that saying things like: "look, child pornography is used as an excuse to sneak in all kinds of liberty-reducing laws and regulations" is very dangerous because your "enemies" can then easily say stuff like: "look, this scumbag is promoting child pornography". You're making yourself an easy target.
For example there has been lengthy discussions a while back in germany about dns censoring using a secret blacklist. It was specifically argued by the proponents that this was to "stop child porn" (of course the real motivation was likely quite different). Opponents argued (rightfully as I think) that such a secret list would be a slippery slope to other types of censoring (even politically motivated). It's very dangerous for a public figure to argue "We can't introduce mechanisms to enable censoring child pornography" because that can destroy your public image easily.

That's what I was getting at by saying "no man in his right mind would touch that with a ten foot pole."

[cbeast]

I appreciate Matthew's foray into video production. The problem with communicating to folks about Bitcoin is that it requires either a deep understanding of technologies, math, and economics, or it requires a deep empathy for the human condition. Using both, you are able to broadly communicate the significance of Bitcoin. The Weusecoins video does this well. A good slideshow and well produced narration is easy to make. While editing clips together may seem to add veracity, it looks sloppy. It's fine to use short clips as emphasis to the monolog, but a clear speaker engages the listener to the narrative.

[molecular]

crosspost from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1958.msg801183#msg801183

I made a "comment"-thread meant to accompany this famous thread. It's meant to be used for comments on items in here that don't merit their own thread.

So, if you like this idea and have a comment on stuff in this thread, feel free to pollute this thread instead:

"[COMMENTS] Bitcoin press hits, notable sources" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67873.0)

This whole thread consists of
20% discussion
5% reposts of old mentions
5% meta

If you want it to be 100% "Bitcoin press hits, notable sources", make a wiki page. A wiki would also allow to organize all the re-runs, collectively moderate vandalism like this very post, richer presentation, ...
The wiki is down to me again. Not good for backing my point

I agree, but what happened to the other 70%??

70% self-referential discussion ^^

[cbeast]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1958.0
Archipelego coutries like the Philippines might also benefit from such banking methods. Countries facing geographical challenges would likely accept a more efficient financial system.

[grondilu]

I was quite positively surprised by RMS talking about bitcoin the way he did recently.

He's basically pro-bitcoin, but not for the reasons most people are.  I personally didn't see anonymity as bitcoin's main feature.  RMS does, and I think he might be right.

Apart from bitcoin, Internet paiements on internet rely heavily on strict user identification.  As a consequence, every thing you buy is known by someone, somewhere.  One doesn't have to be a conspiration theorist to understand that this is an unacceptable highway to an Orwellian society.

Long lives RMS.

[molecular]

I was quite positively surprised by RMS talking about bitcoin the way he did recently.

He's basically pro-bitcoin, but not for the reasons most people are.  I personally didn't see anonymity as bitcoin's main feature.  RMS does, and I think he might be right.

Apart from bitcoin, Internet paiements on internet rely heavily on strict user identification.  As a consequence, every thing you buy is known by someone, somewhere.  One doesn't have to be a conspiration theorist to understand that this is an unacceptable highway to an Orwellian society.

Long lives RMS.

I'm not sure I would say Stallman is pro-bitcoin. He said he had heard of it and forgot about it and then stressed the necessity of anoymous online payment. I'm not sure wether he considers bitcoin a solution to this. His bookstore example really is an example of anonymous payment. Buying stuff online with bitcoin is not, because of the necessity of giving up a shipping address.

[grondilu]

I'm not sure I would say Stallman is pro-bitcoin. He said he had heard of it and forgot about it and then stressed the necessity of anoymous online payment. I'm not sure wether he considers bitcoin a solution to this. His bookstore example really is an example of anonymous payment. Buying stuff online with bitcoin is not, because of the necessity of giving up a shipping address.

Well, anyway he made me realize that anonimity is not a minor feature of bitcoin (and to me, bitcoin is much more anonymous than people say, but that is a whole different topic)

[phatsphere]

i wrote this once before: i'm for creating a new sub-forum "press" besides "legal". each press hit is a new thread, where we can discuss or bash it.
stucking all this into one thread is just ugly.

[grondilu]

i wrote this once before: i'm for creating a new sub-forum "press" besides "legal". each press hit is a new thread, where we can discuss or bash it.

A sub-forum "press" is a good idea indeed.

[apetersson]

slowpoke moved to this thread

[molecular]

i wrote this once before: i'm for creating a new sub-forum "press" besides "legal". each press hit is a new thread, where we can discuss or bash it.

A sub-forum "press" is a good idea indeed.

I'm all for it.

[hazek]

i wrote this once before: i'm for creating a new sub-forum "press" besides "legal". each press hit is a new thread, where we can discuss or bash it.

A sub-forum "press" is a good idea indeed.

+1

[BitcoinBug]

+1

[julz]

I quite like the idea of a press subforum.. although the nice thing about a single thread is that people can get an alert for each hit.
Still.. with the inevitable discussion posts that sneak into the press hits thread, the notifications are perhaps not that useful anyway.

Time to push this idea in the Meta subforum?

edit: oh.. It's already being talked about there. Good.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67884.0