Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[TPTB_need_war]

You are wrong about centralization. There is not a general tendency towards centralization. Centralization is the tool of the violent.

I don't see either your technical refutation of my technical analysis of why Bitcoin is centralizing. The logical implication you intended for your last sentence is vacuous or incomplete articulation (care to elaborate?).

Eventually, in your own ability to make things happen.

Well I agree that there is a reasonable chance the free market will overcome, e.g. with altcoins. I am just arguing Bitcoin is not the total solution. I have also said I support Bitcoin as it broadens the capital base in this crypto economy.

You make some good points, and bitcoin is not a divine force. But the invention solved the single problem that has plagued cryptocurrencies since the invention of public key cryptography in 1978. For 30 years, people have tried to apply it to make a practical crypto money system, and satoshi solved the puzzle.

Not only that but "he" implemented it, which I assume you agree is the more important accomplishment.

Mining is a competitive business with a very low barrier to entry.

You can try to improve it, and the market will choose the best systems. My bet is on bitcoin.

The last part of the first sentence is a very astute point. PoW is how we can widely distribute coins competitively with very low barrier to entry (especially if the CPU is not challenged by ASICs yet).

And the low barrier to entry is also a salient point  (but not the only requirement) for sustaining decentralization. On the second sentence I believe I stumbled onto a solution to the puzzle which is a radical improvement that lowers the barrier to entry much closer to 0 and foils entirely the 21 Inc business model.

As one of my supporters wrote to me today in Bitmessage, "release the tech, then they will come to secure their spot" (paraphrased)

I am still not sure though. I need to spend more time to evaluate what I think it realistic (not the design, but the logistics of producing a coin and avoiding trouble with the law).

Anyone sacrificing a part of the profit, however small, for something that is not just finding blocks and include transactions, will lose. A resourceful rogue force ready to sacrifice a large sum of money to change its direction, will also lose, because he is dependant on the users following, and they will follow only if the new money is better for them.

You forgot the 21 Inc model makes them the lowest cost supplier of hash cycles and the users have the incentive of discounts on heating devices and smartphones. That scales to the point that they have ~100% of the hashrate. Economies-of-scale and access to massive amounts of capital and cartel alliances (e.g. marriage with Samsung and telcoms) required to pull this off means they won't have any competition.

[Erdogan]

I don't care about 21 Inc, currently, to me, they are just big talkers.

[TPTB_need_war]

I don't care about 21 Inc, currently, to me, they are just big talkers.

TPTB count on that apathy (and unfalsifiable individual overconfidence) and inability to understand they work on timeframes that are longer than typical attention spans.

The DEEP STATE is not incompetent. The creation of Bitcoin is a prime example of their competence. 9/11, the War on Terror, and FATCA are more examples.

If you don't respect your enemy, you will not defeat him. And that includes Satan w.r.t. to self-destruction.

[Erdogan]

With fiat, you could say that the dollar paper rectangles are the money, corresponding to bitcoins, and the physical movement of the paper rectangles to another person giving him ownership, corresponds to a blockchain transaction.

With that in mind, the banks, the visas and mastercards, the central banks, the imf and the bis are all off chain systems enabling large, quick, and cheap transactions that ideally should all be executed with the rectangles. There is third party dependence, risk of no confirmation or late confirmation, risk of third party going bust, risk of information leak, risk of confiscation and so on. We do use it, because the cost of transacting with on chain paper rectangles cost too much and are sometimes also time consuming, have risk of theft, confiscation and so on.

Just compare localbitcoins online trading with fiat cash trading. An online trade can be done in five minutes if you are lucky and the counterparty is close to his terminal. A cash trade includes making an appointment that is acceptable to both, driving somewhere for a cost, parking somewhere for a cost.

So in the current fiat regime, you mostly depend on off chain systems, to the degree that the fiat paper rectangle blockchain is about to be disbanded. And the fiat paper rectangle blockchain is already centralized and taken over by rogue forces.

In bitcoin, the third party services will have to be restrained by the market, they can focus of one end of the transaction only, lower barriers to entry, less capital needed, basically they can be more decentralized than the current off chain services. Still the base system can not be taken over and monopolized. So I am not afraid of centralization, not even in third party services.

[TPTB_need_war]

And you all thought Bitcoin is inspiring the masses to change the system...

2. he was using bitcoin and not fiat ie he was successfully running a commercial operation with bitcoin. This is good news. It was however found what he was connected to (drugs etc) was against the law so he is off to prison but he would have gone to prison for doing the same things using fiat.

Bitcoin's raison d'être is to be a xerox of fiat in the sense of allowing the government to regulate commerce and legal tender? I thought Bitcoin was supposed to enable permission-less commerce.

Never mind the small details. Carry on.

I do no think there has ever been "permission-less' commerce nor will there ever be. For example, governments run on tax revenue so they are always going to put things in place to collect some from commercial activities. They expect even illegal activities to declare taxable income. So if trading with Bitcoin or fiat the tax man cometh.

You are free (ie do not need permission) to set up silk road 3.0 and start trading anytime you like. By using bitcoin you can send and receive funds that do not go through permission based entities (eg banks). Just do not expect governments to do nothing, They react to fiat based activities so they will do the same for bitcoin eg in my country the tax man carries out snap audits of house painters that are doing all their jobs for cash with homeowners so they can to avoid sales and income tax.

And after the tax man comes the law enforcers. Governments are not good ie efficient or effective at controlling things but they love to do so - and will dedicate lots of resources to it. So if you take up being the new Ross then you had better be more nimble than he was.

My point is then WTF are we creating Bitcoin for then if the permission-less quality is not that viable? (note that if the State can track you down as they did to Ross, then they can surely regulate Bitcoin and remove the permission-less quality)

So we can track ourselves in a public ledger and create the Digital Kill Switch (i.e. blacklisting individuals who the State doesn't like) that didn't exist before with cash.

My underlying motivation is I think we need a more anonymous system (and more surely decentralized so it doesn't devolve).

[sickpig]

Gavin's plan to break stagnation seems to have worked. Gregory Maxwell has proposed a blocksize increase plan (in a manner of speaking).

Any pointer to such proposal?

[Erdogan]

And you all thought Bitcoin is inspiring the masses to change the system...

2. he was using bitcoin and not fiat ie he was successfully running a commercial operation with bitcoin. This is good news. It was however found what he was connected to (drugs etc) was against the law so he is off to prison but he would have gone to prison for doing the same things using fiat.

Bitcoin's raison d'être is to be a xerox of fiat in the sense of allowing the government to regulate commerce and legal tender? I thought Bitcoin was supposed to enable permission-less commerce.

Never mind the small details. Carry on.

I do no think there has ever been "permission-less' commerce nor will there ever be. For example, governments run on tax revenue so they are always going to put things in place to collect some from commercial activities. They expect even illegal activities to declare taxable income. So if trading with Bitcoin or fiat the tax man cometh.

You are free (ie do not need permission) to set up silk road 3.0 and start trading anytime you like. By using bitcoin you can send and receive funds that do not go through permission based entities (eg banks). Just do not expect governments to do nothing, They react to fiat based activities so they will do the same for bitcoin eg in my country the tax man carries out snap audits of house painters that are doing all their jobs for cash with homeowners so they can to avoid sales and income tax.

And after the tax man comes the law enforcers. Governments are not good ie efficient or effective at controlling things but they love to do so - and will dedicate lots of resources to it. So if you take up being the new Ross then you had better be more nimble than he was.

My point is then WTF are we creating Bitcoin for then if the permission-less quality is not that viable? (note that if the State can track you down as they did to Ross, then they can surely regulate Bitcoin and remove the permission-less quality)

So we can track ourselves in a public ledger and create the Digital Kill Switch (i.e. blacklisting individuals who the State doesn't like) that didn't exist before with cash.

My underlying motivation is I think we need a more anonymous system (and more surely decentralized so it doesn't devolve).

Your belief in the divine powers of government is astonishing, in light of all the insights you have shown.

[TPTB_need_war]

Your belief in the divine powers of government is astonishing, in light of all the insights you have shown.

I believe I have a reasonable grasp of the DEEP STATE's (not the government), i.e. TPTB's, strengths and weaknesses.

Execution with military precision of intricate, high-capitalization, long-range plans with numerous competing experiments floated is a strength.

Lack of omniscience and spontaneous innovation are their Achilles Heel because they must maintain control and compartmentalization on who they employ.

In other words, they can be defeated with a Black Swan. They can also be defeated because their strength originates from reducing prosperity, e.g. the NWO paradigm is not competitive to the Knowledge Age paradigm.

The government is intentionally incompetent.

[Erdogan]

I don't care about 21 Inc, currently, to me, they are just big talkers.

TPTB count on that apathy (and unfalsifiable individual overconfidence) and inability to understand they work on timeframes that are longer than typical attention spans.

The DEEP STATE is not incompetent. The creation of Bitcoin is a prime example of their competence. 9/11, the War on Terror, and FATCA are more examples.

If you don't respect your enemy, you will not defeat him. And that includes Satan w.r.t. to self-destruction.

I agree on that principle. In stead of regarding them as omnipotent, assess their capabilities and act accordingly.

[cypherdoc]

i already addressed those things.  and i said you got it backwards.

we know this b/c of what happened in 2008.  who got bailed out?  the banksters or the ppl who took the loans.  ans:  the banksters.

What logic is that? You are asserting that because the banksters got bailed out, then the People got harmed thus you assert it must be the case that they People will have an awakening.

But if you study history, analogous forms of corruption have been repeating over and over again throughout all human history and the People never wake up. As I explained to you by example, even where they thought they were fighting oppression by joining Napoleon (by refusing to fight when he came to conquer their lands) analogous to Bitcoin supporters who imagine they are fighting oppression with Bitcoin when in fact in both cases (and all cases in human history) you are just supporting another head of the monster the elite have manufactured (or co-opt).

What was the result of your IQ test? Seriously. You don't even consider that your logic does not follow. There is no logical reason that the People must wake up when they've been fucked in the ass by the system. For them do so, requires not only that they understand how they have been harmed but also what is the correct action to rectify their plight. They get particularly misdirected on the latter.

Instead of ASS-U-ming your logic requires your conclusion, you must use the scientific method to test your theory and by studying history we can see the People never do wake up. Then we can start to reason about why they never do. And I have explained it to you upthread. Humans are easily deluded because their self-interests conflict with the global optimization. Although on a local level, I could dance in front of a group of humans and inspire them to choose freedom over conformance, in terms of scaling the mass belief systems, the powers-that-be (TPTB) have a natural advantage because the individual self-interests of the masses are not aligned with looking at the reality of the actual situation BEHIND THE CURTAIN. Instead they are easily swayed to follow delusions (the ass of the sheep in front of them) such as "gouge the 1% with punitive taxes" (Did you not watch the Youtube debates between Peter Schiff and the Operation Wallstreet youth?). And "thanks to Obama, I don't have to pay my rent any more" (have you not seen the Youtude?).

Come on man get a grip on reality. Go out into the street and talk to random people and you will learn that your armchair theories are complete bullshit.

In 1992, I went house-to-house and talked to people all ages (from young couples to grandmothers) as a volunteer for the Ross Perot 1992 POTUS campaign. I saw that people would listen to me, but they wouldn't be able to carry it forward in terms of complete understanding and action. I learned that people have other incentives that are driving their lives and they don't have the focus to become experts on politics, what is actually going on behind the curtain, and what to best do about it.

The people have become more aware that there is massive corruption. But their solutions are to hand more power to the TPTB with regulatory actions such as massive support for the unconstitutional power grab of the FCC regulation of Net Neutrality. Their angst is directed towards supporting the powers-that-be who have regulatory capture. They will end up supporting regulation of Bitcoin which unwittingly hands it to TPTB.

The people don't have the focus and diligence to monitor and maintain a decentralized Bitcoin when the natural incentives are towards centralization. If you want a crypto-coin to remain decentralized, then it must do so natural not because of diligence of the masses who are preoccupied on their own personal lives and (often mutually conflicting, e.g. abortion, gay rights, etc) self-interests.

I do not respect your ignorance. And I do not appreciate you asserting that you any where near my level of cognition of these matters. The Dunning-Kruger effect is too blatantly obvious here and I don't know what to do other than wasting my time trying to spank (your young cocky ass) with you words hoping you might gain some appreciation. But I observe you are too boastful to realize.

As Armstrong says, study history because it is catalog of repeating outcomes that we should learn from but never do.

and that is precisely b/c the ppl with the loans were not in fact in control and demanding of the loans they received; they were hoodwinked into taking easy no doc loans by banksters

The poor fuckers who got a house and shouldn't have. As if they had no desire to get a house.  

What happened is the perfectly natural outcome of the power vacuum I have explained to you over the past 2 - 3 pages of this thread. But you can't seem to grasp that and want to delude yourself into believing that the problem lies on the side of the banksters. The problem is a natural phenomenon that always repeats because a power vacuum is an unstable state of matter and sucks in the corruption. Until you eliminate the power vacuum, you are just deluding yourself. You won't be able to change the fact that individuals prioritize their self-interest and not the global optimization. Bitcoin can't get you there because it is not immutably decentralized and anonymous without diligence from the People, the lack of which causes the power vacuum in the first place. In short, you are a dog chasing your tail and you don't even realize it.

who knew they were going to win no matter what happened.  as it turned out, they rode the loan  mkt up with mark to market and when the market turned around they subverted the rule of law and went to mark to model.  then, when the shit really hit the fan, they went before Congress and threatened to blow up the whole economy unless they received bailouts.  and who went to bat for them in this time of crisis according to the playbook?  Bernanke, Paulson, & Geithner.  so the banksters got bailed out despite 80% disapproval by the American public, ordinary ppl lost their homes, the toxic debt got shifted over to the Fed and the American ppl got their USD debased by $4T in new money printing.  the gvt has since more than doubled the national debt to re-pump stocks to the banksters benefit.  so just who is in control?  certainly not the ppl as you suggest.

I never stated the People are in control. I said the People are implicitly complicit because their self-interests do not align with your delusion of them being focused on optimizing global causes. The control over money is a global cause that requires an extreme amount expertise and dedication of life that only very few of us experts can justify, and thus it is not a self-interested priority (focus) for the masses, a.k.a. the People.

and you expect all of us to believe that TPTB are going to just give up this ideal system they control with a free printing press while they roll the dice with a system that has the potential to ruin their party?  how risky and insane is that?  and then somehow they will  hit the Digital Kill Switch and drive us all into a Great Depression?  so what monetary system takes over when that happens?  what happens to all their big corporate partners?  what will all the banks do?  what a crock.

They are not giving up anything by destroying the national central banks and moving to a one-world reserve currency system. They are doing creative destruction and using a massive crisis to usher in a greater level of totalitarian, corporate-fascist control.

I have provided the link to the following thread numerous times, but you apparently still haven't read it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985481.0

It is all explained there for you. And 29% of readers get it and agree.

They are not rolling any dice. They have a masterful plan which by now appears to be quite inescapable. Planting Bitcoin was a masterful coup getting you deluded fools to chase your own tail and fight for their cause.

Driving us into a Greater Depression (more so with FATCA and other large scale aspects, than Bitcoin as the Digital Kill Switch which is more of future concern) will bring about the political support amongst the masses for a global compromise on central banking to take the power away from the USA dollar and move it to an international cooperation (consensus) in a multi-polar world, a.k.a. the one-world reserve currency. There is no way the People would agree if they were not suffering. The People have many competing self-interests. It is only by bringing the People to their knees in massive war and suffering can they be made to plead for a global consensus. They will see that the nation-state model has utterly failed them (of course fabricated to fail and with manufactured conflicts, all from TPTB).


Edit: that you frame the issue in your mind as one of who is in control demonstrates simpleton conceptualization of the issue. You need to look at the incentives in the system and the structure of the system. Even TPTB are not in control. Btw, I am just saying "young cocky ass" in jest. Your fervor is what I expect from an ideological younger person, but the problem is when your fervor exceeds your conceptualization. If you are willing to actually dig in and consider the model I have presented, then we can have an intelligent and cordial dialogue.

Dont you think there's something off, as in your brain,  in you continually berating me about thousands of years of sheeples being manipulated, no chance that Bitcoin can change anything, yet you coming in here and telling us that for $10000 you will let us in on your altcoin that WILL change everything?

[cypherdoc]

So iCE. Are you working for Blockstream?

I'm working for Nick Szabo.  That's why I asked you to calm down and stop exaggerating.

Blockstream will hire me right after recruiting Mircea.  Any second now...   

You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with clown Mircea. Actually I don't have anything against him but he acts like one.

[TPTB_need_war]

Dont you think there's something off, as in your brain,  in you continually berating me about thousands of years of sheeples being manipulated, no chance that Bitcoin can change anything, yet you coming in here and telling us that for $10000 you will let us in on your altcoin that WILL change everything?

When debate on the merits has been conceded, the loser often resorts to character assassination.

Bitcoin will surely change some things, and I assert not all for the better. I never claimed Bitcoin was a /dev/null event and in fact argued that it is a monumental event.

I doubt anything I or others might attempt would change everything. Experiments are experiments. And I have no delusion about changing everything. I might hope to make some positive contribution if after more thought it is concluded that moving forward is viable and wise.

I support Bitcoin because for every 100 masses we introduce to crypto-currency, maybe 1 will awaken and be an important ally. I have repeatedly said I support spreading Bitcoin because it adds to the capital base (remember capital is not money, but the productive capacity).

I view Bitcoin as the scattershot coin (assuming iCe et al lose[1]). I entertain the hope and ideas about potential anonymity and decentralized focused altcoin(s) that serve vertical (hopefully horizontal growth) markets.

In short, "you can't do just one thing" and this applies to anything TPTB create as well. There is always a reactive force and seepage.

[1] I have entertained the thought that Coinbase, Paypal, etc might prefer a 1MB limit because it would push transactions to offchain. But I doubt that is their overriding calculus.


Edit: the many readers I and others have been able to touch (including our dialogue here) is one of the seepage effects Bitcoin is causing. I do not assert that Bitcoin has no positive effects. I've been derogatory on the overriding effect of Bitcoin on the masses. You are correct to call me out and get me to clarify this point.

[cypherdoc]

Dont you think there's something off, as in your brain,  in you continually berating me about thousands of years of sheeples being manipulated, no chance that Bitcoin can change anything, yet you coming in here and telling us that for $10000 you will let us in on your altcoin that WILL change everything?

When debate on the merits has been conceded, the loser often resorts to character assassination.

Bitcoin will surely change some things, and I assert not all for the better. I never claimed Bitcoin was a /dev/null event and in fact argued that it is a monumental event.

I doubt anything I or others might attempt would change everything. Experiments are experiments. And I have no delusion about changing everything. I might hope to make some positive contribution if after more thought it is concluded that moving forward is viable and wise.

I support Bitcoin because for every 100 masses we introduce to crypto-currency, maybe 1 will awaken and be an important ally. I have repeatedly said I support spreading Bitcoin because it adds to the capital base (remember capital is not money, but the productive capacity).

I view Bitcoin as the scattershot coin (assuming iCe et al lose[1]). I entertain the hope and ideas about potential anonymity and decentralized focused altcoin(s) that serve vertical (hopefully horizontal growth) markets.

In short, "you can't do just one thing" and this applies to anything TPTB create as well. There is always a reactive force and seepage.

[1] I have entertained the thought that Coinbase, Paypal, etc might prefer a 1MB limit because it would push transactions to offchain. But I doubt that is their overriding calculus.


Edit: the many readers I and others have been able to touch (including our dialogue here) is one of the seepage effects Bitcoin is causing. I do not assert that Bitcoin has no positive effects. I've been derogatory on the overriding effect of Bitcoin on the masses. You are correct to call me out and get me to clarify this point.

what a bunch of dissembling, conflicted, and illogical bullshit.

[Pruden]

[...]

what a bunch of dissembling, conflicted, and illogical bullshit.

You have to be pretty thick to find that text illogical.

BTW, regarding stocks, this week will be bad, but not terrible. And the Dollar is going to resume the uptrend, as per this guy I respect immensely (I hope you don't accuse me of being him just for linking his texts): http://www.moneyshow.com/articles.asp?aid=GURU-42781

And in case you haven't noticed, bitcoin price has started to move, and it's not in your preferred direction. On Balance Volume makes me think this is not a fakeout.

[cypherdoc]

And in case you haven't noticed, bitcoin price has started to move, and it's not in your preferred direction. On Balance Volume makes me think this is not a fakeout.

well then, you should go short.

[tvbcof]

...
You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with clown Mircea. Actually I don't have anything against him but he acts like one.

You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with Hearn and Andresen.

I don't have anything against these two as people but they are wholly mainstream and by every indication they love big brother at the very least.  I find this out-of-band with a lot of the early adopters of Bitcoin and where I believe the center-mass should be in order to carry Bitcoin forward as a viable and valuable feature of our world.

[cypherdoc]

...
You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with clown Mircea. Actually I don't have anything against him but he acts like one.

You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with Hearn and Andresen.

I don't have anything against these two as people but they are wholly mainstream and by every indication they love big brother at the very least.  I find this out-of-band with a lot of the early adopters of Bitcoin and where I believe the center-mass should be in order to carry Bitcoin forward as a viable and valuable feature of our world.

well, the half woman half man dude is definitely more out there btwn the 3. 

Hearns has made some outrageous statish-like proposals in the past.  never could reconcile that.  but no doubt he's smart as hell.

Gavin can't and shouldn't be blamed for talking to the CIA back in the day.  it was purely by request on their part, i'm convinced.  what is with guys like you that hate him so much?  i'm seriously asking what is the beef b/c i can't identify one really.

[iCEBREAKER]

So iCE. Are you working for Blockstream?

I'm working for Nick Szabo.  That's why I asked you to calm down and stop exaggerating.

Blockstream will hire me right after recruiting Mircea.  Any second now...   

You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with clown Mircea. Actually I don't have anything against him but he acts like one.

Thanks doc, I'll take that a compliment.

Mircea clowns for the same reason we do, entertainment.  His IQ is probably higher than either of ours and MPEX has never been hacked, much less regulated.

Remember the time he clowned the SEC?  Hysterical.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institutions-a-guide/

Dear Mr. Popescu

My name is Daphna Waxman and I am an attorney with the Enforcement Division of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Commission staff would like to speak with you concerning the listing of shares of SatoshiDICE on MPEx.

It just gets better from there... 

You have fun aligning with Gavin the pointy-haired boss and his Catbert minion Mike Hearn.

After watching the debate and considering the evidence I'm more comfortable with the consensus of the core devs, which is to not hard fork to 20mb blocks at this time.

Bitcon must eschew bloating horizontally and scale up orthogonally.  Skyscrapers of settlement and storage, not sprawl and spam.  Ultimate quality, not trade-offs and compromises for anticipated quantity.

Plenty of room in the side/tree/alt chains for Frappuccinos and pizza.

[cypherdoc]

So iCE. Are you working for Blockstream?

I'm working for Nick Szabo.  That's why I asked you to calm down and stop exaggerating.

Blockstream will hire me right after recruiting Mircea.  Any second now...   

You got a lot of balls aligning yourself with clown Mircea. Actually I don't have anything against him but he acts like one.

Thanks doc, I'll take that a compliment.

Mircea clowns for the same reason we do, entertainment.  His IQ is probably higher than either of ours and MPEX has never been hacked, much less regulated.

Remember the time he clowned the SEC?  Hysterical.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institutions-a-guide/

Dear Mr. Popescu

My name is Daphna Waxman and I am an attorney with the Enforcement Division of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Commission staff would like to speak with you concerning the listing of shares of SatoshiDICE on MPEx.

actually, that was impressive and kudos to him for the hutzpah to have done that.  i guess i could learn to admire a transsex.

ultimately though, i think you're making a mistake by not facilitating dissemination of Bitcoin to as many ppl worldwide outside the jurisdiction of the US for security reasons.  b/c unfortunately, i view our USG as the biggest threat to Bitcoin and the more enemies hands it gets into the more resilient and secure for all it will be.  you should want that from what you want as a universal money.  it can't be a digital gold equivalent otherwise.  it's the little African kid who will either use it for a meal or run guns for the Junta that will actually secure Bitcoin the most just out of sheer usage and demand.  at least, that's how i see it.

[Odalv]

Plenty of room in the side/tree/alt chains for Frappuccinos and pizza.

+1 MB block size :-)