Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

i smell DOOM for Blockstream, gmax, and Adam:

“We have really good communication with Gavin Andresen on this issue."

Doom is not the ideal outcome.

It would likely mean any positive contributions they could make would be squandered.

well, they could go BK; in a year or so.  

mining really is the last piece to Gavin's puzzle and that quote is telling.  everyone else in the space clearly has an interest in seeing tx growth; users, merchants, exchanges.  and they have expressed themselves as such.  the only one's that were questionable were the miners; esp the big Chinese one's that had spoken up a couple of weeks ago.  now that they seem to be clearly onboard with the Big Picture, which Blockstream clearly isn't, the only thing remaining is just exactly how much we are going to increase the block size.  since 8MB is completely fine with them, that should be the starting point.  we definitely should build in an automatic increase.

the only part that makes me pause is this voting mechanism for block size expansion which was part of Jeff's proposal.  but overall, quite positive.

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[TPTB_need_war]

some witness testimony, the probability of NORAD wargames on the same day under the same scenario (same thing happened in London on 7/7)

You can be refuted on these points. Stay with hard physical science of the collapse of the buildings and the pools of molten lava that was superhot for weeks. Those can't be explained without thermite.

When you have looked at these issues with the relevant scientific background, then the comments that others make about extraneous BS just looks so damn lame there aren't really words to describe.

[Erdogan]

I'm not sure there is much rational behind this logic, seems pretty similar to the coincidental Cypriot rise? Still it's getting some media coverage so worth a look

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-16/bitcoin-spikes-greeks-follow-cyprus-template

go figure?

You know, this is like a complicated game. You have to speculate what others speculate what others think... So it does not have to be real in any way, the greeks do not have to be involved, but still it could be the reason.

[TPTB_need_war]

But why are you focused on circumstantial innuendo and not on the hard physical science of it?

I couldn't move on with my life until I had researched the hard science of it. I just had to know. I don't understand why others would be so apathetic?

Because ultimately I will never have access to the evidence or the expertise to evaluate it, and most importantly: I don't care if it was Saudi terrorists or American terrorists who planned the attacks.

Even if the US government is 100% responsible for 9/11, it has done far worse than kill those 3000 people, both before and after the event.

So focusing on whether or not they are responsible is a bit like obsessing over whether or not a serial killer also deserves a parking ticket.

But by denying the knowledge of the power you are up against, it enables to you believe in fantasies about human ability to overcome with a network design which is fraught with centralization vectors and inertia.

But thank you. You explained why you are easily willing to hop onto hope. You don't want to know. You prefer hope than hard reality.

And this is why the 90% slow burn in the NWO plan works, as I explained mathematically upthread.

Any way, if you are sincere in your desire for what is best for humanity, then the best way for the two of us to interact is via concrete engineering designs. All of this fighting over piecewise dis-analysis of the problem set is just noise. Then you can make your decision which one you support. Probably you will choose the hope and wet dreams of Bitcoin no matter what. Because that is just the way your personality and mind is programmed apparently. That is okay. We need a market of winners and losers. There can't be all winners, else there isn't a market, unless of course we are just expanding the pie for everyone so even the losers in the market are gaining nominally while losing relative to the winners. And only after the fact will we prove which choices were correct. I am not asserting that I have proven you will be the loser. I don't know for sure even what your future choices will be. And I don't know for sure what outcomes will be achieved, especially from my side.

Again thank you for your candid honesty. And I hope I have returned the same.

Edit: this hope curse is something I am dealing with too. I been trying to convince myself that what I want to embark on is not just hope. To gain some estimates of realism and the market. One thing I have learned from my past successes is, don't rely on others they slow me down. Don't expect anyone to help me, because they will just parasite. Close off the world and code and amazing things happen. "Have faith in yourself, you've done this before". Don't try to reason it all out. Code and ship it.

[thezerg]

For the expansionist here, what do you think?  Should we compromise at 8MB?  Personally I am ok with that, esp if an automatic periodic increase is baked in.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114577/chinese-mining-pools-propose-alternative-8-mb-block-size

EDIT: page 1337!  gotta have something substantive on it :-)

i'm ok with it with the automatic expansion.  but i'm alittle concerned with the miner voting for expansion.  why just them and is voting really the way we want to go?

Yes the BIP 100 voting scheme seems a bit under developed at this point.  The problem is that POW mining is the only way to prove independent existence, this is the basis of distributed consensus -- you can easily create a bunch of fake AWS "full" nodes for example -- 1000 nodes just forward requests to a single full node.  And if you could solve the voting problem without using mining, you could use that solution to remove mining from consensus (i.e. from bitcoin).

One way to prove unique nodes is to require that every node use asymmetric functions to encode the data to be stored, with uniquifying "salt".  This is essentially hashing but backwards.

For example, every node chooses a unique 256bit identifier (salt).  Then for every 8 or 16 bits of blockchain data Di, it finds and stores Xi such that Hash(Xi + identifier + i) = Di (where "+" means "append").

This search happens continually as the blockchain is being created.

Now a client can validate the uniqueness of storage by another node by requesting random chunks of data from the node.  The node responds with its ID and Xi0-i1.  The client can then quickly validate this by running the hash function and comparing the result to its own blockchain.

A "full" node (one that is calculating this data and storing it as the blockchain is created) will be able to respond quickly where one that is not doing so will have to calculate the reverse hash function (essentially a random search like mining but easier because only 8 or 16 bits) on the fly.

Once you have this "proof of storage" you might be able to turn it into allowing node voting...

[TPTB_need_war]

For the expansionist here, what do you think?  Should we compromise at 8MB?  Personally I am ok with that, esp if an automatic periodic increase is baked in.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114577/chinese-mining-pools-propose-alternative-8-mb-block-size

EDIT: page 1337!  gotta have something substantive on it :-)

i'm ok with it with the automatic expansion.  but i'm alittle concerned with the miner voting for expansion.  why just them and is voting really the way we want to go?

Yes the BIP 100 voting scheme seems a bit under developed at this point.  The problem is that POW mining is the only way to prove independent existence, this is the basis of distributed consensus -- you can easily create a bunch of fake AWS "full" nodes for example -- 1000 nodes just forward requests to a single full node.  And if you could solve the voting problem without using mining, you could use that solution to remove mining from consensus (i.e. from bitcoin).

One way to prove unique nodes is to require that every node use asymmetric functions to encode the data to be stored, with uniquifying "salt".  This is essentially hashing but backwards.

For example, every node chooses a unique 256bit identifier (salt).  Then for every 8 or 16 bits of blockchain data Di, it finds and stores Xi such that Hash(Xi + identifier + i) = Di (where "+" means "append").

This search happens continually as the blockchain is being created.

Now a client can validate the uniqueness of storage by another node by requesting random chunks of data from the node.  The node responds with its ID and Xi0-i1.  The client can then quickly validate this by running the hash function and comparing the result to its own blockchain.

A "full" node (one that is calculating this data and storing it as the blockchain is created) will be able to respond quickly where one that is not doing so will have to calculate the reverse hash function (essentially a random search like mining but easier because only 8 or 16 bits) on the fly.

Once you have this "proof of storage" you might be able to turn it into allowing node voting...

So someone rents hard disk space on Amazon AWS during the voting period and becomes many unique entities.

You were correct that there is no way to prove one computer, one vote. PoW doesn't work by voting. It works by random chance. The only problem PoW solves is consensus on ordering.

Ah I grow weary in this thread.

[justusranvier]

Voting schemes are not the simplist thing that could work.

[thezerg]

For the expansionist here, what do you think?  Should we compromise at 8MB?  Personally I am ok with that, esp if an automatic periodic increase is baked in.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114577/chinese-mining-pools-propose-alternative-8-mb-block-size

EDIT: page 1337!  gotta have something substantive on it :-)

i'm ok with it with the automatic expansion.  but i'm alittle concerned with the miner voting for expansion.  why just them and is voting really the way we want to go?

Yes the BIP 100 voting scheme seems a bit under developed at this point.  The problem is that POW mining is the only way to prove independent existence, this is the basis of distributed consensus -- you can easily create a bunch of fake AWS "full" nodes for example -- 1000 nodes just forward requests to a single full node.  And if you could solve the voting problem without using mining, you could use that solution to remove mining from consensus (i.e. from bitcoin).

One way to prove unique nodes is to require that every node use asymmetric functions to encode the data to be stored, with uniquifying "salt".  This is essentially hashing but backwards.

For example, every node chooses a unique 256bit identifier (salt).  Then for every 8 or 16 bits of blockchain data Di, it finds and stores Xi such that Hash(Xi + identifier + i) = Di (where "+" means "append").

This search happens continually as the blockchain is being created.

Now a client can validate the uniqueness of storage by another node by requesting random chunks of data from the node.  The node responds with its ID and Xi0-i1.  The client can then quickly validate this by running the hash function and comparing the result to its own blockchain.

A "full" node (one that is calculating this data and storing it as the blockchain is created) will be able to respond quickly where one that is not doing so will have to calculate the reverse hash function (essentially a random search like mining but easier because only 8 or 16 bits) on the fly.

Once you have this "proof of storage" you might be able to turn it into allowing node voting...

So someone rents hard disk space on Amazon AWS during the voting period and becomes many unique entities.

You were correct that there is no way to prove one computer, one vote. PoW doesn't work by voting. It works by random chance. The only problem PoW solves is consensus on ordering.

Ah I grow weary in this thread.

U repeated exactly what I said.  And then didn't read my partial soln

[lunarboy]

I'm not sure there is much rational behind this logic, seems pretty similar to the coincidental Cypriot rise? Still it's getting some media coverage so worth a look

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-16/bitcoin-spikes-greeks-follow-cyprus-template

go figure?

You know, this is like a complicated game. You have to speculate what others speculate what others think... So it does not have to be real in any way, the greeks do not have to be involved, but still it could be the reason.

Probably true, but that sounds a little like a fools errand to me. I realise the system is vastly more complex than I can understand. It's nice watching the pieces fall into place though. I think that's where I get the most satisfaction.

edit: reuters has it too now http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-eurozone-greece-bitcoin-idUSKBN0OW2DS20150616?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

enjoying this narrative 

[tabnloz]

It's always shocked me how many 9/11 conspiracy theories people buy into, where there exists significantly more evidence that FDR knew of Pearl Harbor a day or so in advance, but allowed it to happen in order to push a reluctant US into war.

It is very likely that he did.  In my fairly rudimentary research on the matter I would say it's almost a certainty.  That's a leader's job.

Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

FDR had it easy in that he had someone (and a very foolish someone) who was actually able and willing to attack us.  Ah, the good old days.

FDR's platform was to remain isolationist, however as time went on it was increasingly obvious the US could not remain so as the Allies were beng dominated by the Axis throughout Europe and Japan had controlled much of Asia for years by 1942. In order to provoke Japan, the US (iirc) blocked oil supplies to the Home islands, amongst other things, effectively daring them to throw the first punch that would get the American public onside. Hitting Pearl Harbour (and Darwin in Australia) was an attempt to decimate the US fleet in the Pacific to stymie the effectiveness of the US when they eventually joined (as the Japanese knew was inevitable). and, iirc someone stood up in parliament (Denmark?) in the weeks before the attack and spoke of intelligence of an attack on PH.....

That is the biggest bunch of historical revisionist bunk. FDR was the very opposite of isolationist and very strongly pushing the US to support Briton very early on. This was to the point where the US was essentially engaging the German navy on Briton's behalf on the Atlantic side. FDR explicitly intermixed US merchant ships with British convoys, providing explicit protection to the Brits. That is not isolationist.

The Germans however learned their lesson in WWI, where the US only entered the war after their uboats sunk US merchant ships. Without that Wilson would not have been able to get the US to enter WWI. So in WWII the Germans went very far out of their way to avoid a direct confrontation with the US navy or US merchant ships. Very far out of there way. To call FDR isolationist is absurd, he was pro-Briton.

This presented a problem for the pro-Briton FDR. He needed a spark, and found it in Japan.

No, its not revisionist bunk. If the environment was so hawkish the US could have just joined the war on the allied side without a catalyst. You're really almost agreeing with what I wrote, so my use of 'FDR's platform to remain isolationist' is what is to blame / incorrect. It would have been better to say he came to power in an environment where public sentiment and congress were decidedly dovish. Platform isnt the right word. The events of ww1, not joining the league and the effects of the depression were a big part of the landscape in the early to mid 30's. Even in 39-40 the sentiment was still anti-war. the Allies also were being pushed back, France capitulated and an invasion of the UK was a possibility. He wasn't overtly hawkish, often meeting Churchill in secret, so he needed a spark as you wrote. Blocking supplies to Japan was what caused it, as without oil the Japanese war machine would halt. This backed Japan into a corner and culminated in the attack.

[TPTB_need_war]

It's always shocked me how many 9/11 conspiracy theories people buy into, where there exists significantly more evidence that FDR knew of Pearl Harbor a day or so in advance, but allowed it to happen in order to push a reluctant US into war.

It is very likely that he did.  In my fairly rudimentary research on the matter I would say it's almost a certainty.  That's a leader's job.

Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

FDR had it easy in that he had someone (and a very foolish someone) who was actually able and willing to attack us.  Ah, the good old days.

FDR's platform was to remain isolationist, however as time went on it was increasingly obvious the US could not remain so as the Allies were beng dominated by the Axis throughout Europe and Japan had controlled much of Asia for years by 1942. In order to provoke Japan, the US (iirc) blocked oil supplies to the Home islands, amongst other things, effectively daring them to throw the first punch that would get the American public onside. Hitting Pearl Harbour (and Darwin in Australia) was an attempt to decimate the US fleet in the Pacific to stymie the effectiveness of the US when they eventually joined (as the Japanese knew was inevitable). and, iirc someone stood up in parliament (Denmark?) in the weeks before the attack and spoke of intelligence of an attack on PH.....

That is the biggest bunch of historical revisionist bunk. FDR was the very opposite of isolationist and very strongly pushing the US to support Briton very early on. This was to the point where the US was essentially engaging the German navy on Briton's behalf on the Atlantic side. FDR explicitly intermixed US merchant ships with British convoys, providing explicit protection to the Brits. That is not isolationist.

The Germans however learned their lesson in WWI, where the US only entered the war after their uboats sunk US merchant ships. Without that Wilson would not have been able to get the US to enter WWI. So in WWII the Germans went very far out of their way to avoid a direct confrontation with the US navy or US merchant ships. Very far out of there way. To call FDR isolationist is absurd, he was pro-Briton.

This presented a problem for the pro-Briton FDR. He needed a spark, and found it in Japan.

No, its not revisionist bunk. If the environment was so hawkish the US could have just joined the war on the allied side without a catalyst. You're really almost agreeing with what I wrote, so my use of 'FDR's platform to remain isolationist' is what is to blame / incorrect. It would have been better to say he came to power in an environment where public sentiment and congress were decidedly dovish. Platform isnt the right word. The events of ww1, not joining the league and the effects of the depression were a big part of the landscape in the early to mid 30's. Even in 39-40 the sentiment was still anti-war. the Allies also were being pushed back, France capitulated and an invasion of the UK was a possibility. He wasn't overtly hawkish, often meeting Churchill in secret, so he needed a spark as you wrote. Blocking supplies to Japan was what caused it, as without oil the Japanese war machine would halt. This backed Japan into a corner and culminated in the attack.

There is where I diverge from Armstrong. He characterizes FDR's confiscation of gold and the devaluation of the dollar as necessary to restart to economy. Whereas I follow the late One Handed Economist who pointed out that Americans were eating more butter and chicken per capital in 1933 than they were in 1929, and then almost no butter in the great sacrifice of the war. The war was also the way to pull women out of the house and introduce them to working.

FDR was apparently a former Wallstreet guy and was aligned with the banksters.

The New Deal socialism, the turning of the income tax into tax on all wages when by law it is only a tax government wages, etc all took place during his dictatorial reign.

[tvbcof]

...
Btw, just because you want to stay only in BTC, doesn't mean others won't want to speculate on higher ROI and the potential to jump back in time and front run your early investment in BTC. And they might be correct. One thing you have to contemplate is that an altcoin could be structured to benefit from the pegged side chain BTC investment it (yes an altcoin that is also a pegged side chain) and offer a higher ROI on its own coin. You might assert you'd opt for the pegged side chain clone that eliminated the side coin atribute, but market dynamics may not play nicely with your desire.

I try to never play in a game where other's have superior info, though sometimes it's not avoidable.  I don't play the various mainstream markets for this reason.  I'm also lazy.  It's funny and half-true that I don't really care that much about ROI, and if someone jumps out and back in again and does better than me, more power to them.  They have my respect for having balls, skill, and luck.

I've timed various things about as perfectly as possible (so far), but it has been almost complete luck and in a funny way that I cannot put my finger on, I think it has been a result of fairly deliberately not trying very hard to maximize my ROI and such.  I seem to be uniquely bad at predicting price behaviors on less than year long intervals.

Sometimes I've had myself half-convinced that if I had to choose between Bitcoin achieving something substantive for humanity and Bitcoin making me rich, I'd choose the former.  Sometimes not.  Since I've made some money already I'm pretty sure that I will put a fairly significant emphasis on furthering other goals going forward.  At this point I see the goals of making money and having Bitcoin (or a follow-on) being worthwhile as being fairly aligned but this is just and accident of fate.

---

I also do anticipate that sidechains will be 'half-alt' in most situations.  I anticipate that the maintainers of them will generally have their own inflation/deflation schemes among other things.  I'd anticipate (and look forward to) situations where an sidecoin had sort of a 'buffered peg' such that they could play with the circulation but not so fast that they could rip people off.  As long as things are what Peter Todd characterizes as a 'glass bank', I'm cool with that.

I think that some of my conceptions of sidechains are at significant variance to what Back is thinking and I say that in part because he is anticipating a very much smaller number of sidechains that I am anticipating. That's fine with me...and probably would be with Back as well I'm guessing.  It's possible to have an unknown future but be pretty confident that whatever it is will be better than the status quo.

[Melbustus]

I don't think the full node count would scale as far as 12m in the growth example above, but payment channels for node services would at least reverse the decline even when it becomes necessary to support that loading.

I agree.  

I've been thinking a lot about full node count lately, and I could also imagine a future where node count continues to decline but network decentralization actually improves.  

Let's imagine a distant future where:

  - Every major research university operates 1 full node on average (there's 108 in the US, 15 in Canada, and let's assume 150 elsewhere). That makes about 280 nodes.  

  - Every major bitcoin company in this "bitcoin future" and every mining pool operates a full node.  Assume another 280 nodes.  

  - Various branches of governments in most countries run a few nodes.  Assume 190 countries x 2 nodes = 380 nodes.

  - And a bunch of wealthy bitcoiners operate their own nodes.  Assume another 300 or so.
 
This gives a total of only ~1,240 nodes, but I think such a configuration would be more decentralized than the current state of the network.  

I'm not suggesting that this will actually happen, just pointing out that the network doesn't necessarily need hundreds of thousands of nodes.  

^ I think this is spot on. The practical essence of decentralization is what needs to be maintained; that is not usefully measurable by a raw node-count number.

Szabo agrees, btw:


https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/610654279775461376

So looks like you're, as usual, in good company, Peter.

[TPTB_need_war]

For the expansionist here, what do you think?  Should we compromise at 8MB?  Personally I am ok with that, esp if an automatic periodic increase is baked in.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114577/chinese-mining-pools-propose-alternative-8-mb-block-size

EDIT: page 1337!  gotta have something substantive on it :-)

i'm ok with it with the automatic expansion.  but i'm alittle concerned with the miner voting for expansion.  why just them and is voting really the way we want to go?

Yes the BIP 100 voting scheme seems a bit under developed at this point.  The problem is that POW mining is the only way to prove independent existence, this is the basis of distributed consensus -- you can easily create a bunch of fake AWS "full" nodes for example -- 1000 nodes just forward requests to a single full node.  And if you could solve the voting problem without using mining, you could use that solution to remove mining from consensus (i.e. from bitcoin).

One way to prove unique nodes is to require that every node use asymmetric functions to encode the data to be stored, with uniquifying "salt".  This is essentially hashing but backwards.

For example, every node chooses a unique 256bit identifier (salt).  Then for every 8 or 16 bits of blockchain data Di, it finds and stores Xi such that Hash(Xi + identifier + i) = Di (where "+" means "append").

This search happens continually as the blockchain is being created.

Now a client can validate the uniqueness of storage by another node by requesting random chunks of data from the node.  The node responds with its ID and Xi0-i1.  The client can then quickly validate this by running the hash function and comparing the result to its own blockchain.

A "full" node (one that is calculating this data and storing it as the blockchain is created) will be able to respond quickly where one that is not doing so will have to calculate the reverse hash function (essentially a random search like mining but easier because only 8 or 16 bits) on the fly.

Once you have this "proof of storage" you might be able to turn it into allowing node voting...

So someone rents hard disk space on Amazon AWS during the voting period and becomes many unique entities.

You were correct that there is no way to prove one computer, one vote. PoW doesn't work by voting. It works by random chance. The only problem PoW solves is consensus on ordering.

Ah I grow weary in this thread.

U repeated exactly what I said.  And then didn't read my partial soln

Ahem, try reading again. You proposed proof-of-storage as a potential means to voting.

[TPTB_need_war]

I don't think the full node count would scale as far as 12m in the growth example above, but payment channels for node services would at least reverse the decline even when it becomes necessary to support that loading.

I agree.  

I've been thinking a lot about full node count lately, and I could also imagine a future where node count continues to decline but network decentralization actually improves.  

Let's imagine a distant future where:

  - Every major research university operates 1 full node on average (there's 108 in the US, 15 in Canada, and let's assume 150 elsewhere). That makes about 280 nodes.  

  - Every major bitcoin company in this "bitcoin future" and every mining pool operates a full node.  Assume another 280 nodes.  

  - Various branches of governments in most countries run a few nodes.  Assume 190 countries x 2 nodes = 380 nodes.

  - And a bunch of wealthy bitcoiners operate their own nodes.  Assume another 300 or so.
 
This gives a total of only ~1,240 nodes, but I think such a configuration would be more decentralized than the current state of the network.  

I'm not suggesting that this will actually happen, just pointing out that the network doesn't necessarily need hundreds of thousands of nodes.  

^ I think this is spot on. The practical essence of decentralization is what needs to be maintained; that is not usefully measurable by a raw node-count number.

Szabo agrees, btw:


https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/610654279775461376

So looks like you're, as usual, in good company, Peter.

Okay now take the analogy of Amazon being one entity controlling all 10,000 nodes, and then imagine the government controlling all those 1240 universities (and other institutions) because they are extremely visible and vulnerable to comply with regulation. Thus the universities are actually controlled by the banksters. Via regulation and other means they have installed their people as the leaders and powerful alumni at all major universities.

The name of the late One Handed Economist was Howard Katz, a Jew who graduated from Harvard. He wrote about how the universities have been captured based on his personal experience and other insights.

The only form of decentralization that is not ultimately controlled by the government are those nodes that can pop in and out of the network at any time at random places by random individuals. And not on hosts since the government will crack down on hosts if they need to. The government can't effectively crack down on every random person on the globe. They can crack down on the ISPs but if necessary we can use stenography to obscure traffic in normal web browsing. One of my major goals centers around building out a network for browsing that is impervious to filtering based on content. HTTPS is not sufficient since the certificate providers are compromised by the NSA.

I really can't fathom why some of you don't understand (or agree with) this. It is so blatantly obvious. I just can't understand how you guys think (or don't). Sorry I am not trying to be condescending nor insult you. But I really can't fathom how grown men can be so oblivious to reality      

(again the answer is because you don't want to know. You've willfully chosen to live in a world of fantasy because reality is a world you wouldn't want to live in. Most people can't deal with pain. They actively avoid it at any cost to rationality. I actually seek out pain and love to fight it, although this M.S. is pushing the limits of my tolerance. I remember when I was about 13 years old I used to immerse myself in scalding hot water in the bathtub.)

[Zarathustra]

check out of the gold collapse

I told you all upthread there would likely be a bounce this June in both gold and BTC but the final lows are still coming.

I continue (via Armstrong) to predict every price move. Yet I (and he) get no acknowledgement.

What a shame! The feet of the prophets are to be kissed!

He is still pissed off because I don't buy into his "we are going back to cavemen" theory of economics.

No. This species is going forward; leaving your collectivist behavior behind. Crypto based Anonymity is not a tool to maintain collectivism; it will destroy collectivism and society and that will lead to the rebirth of the selfsufficient community. Not nice for you the collectivsts, but inevitable.

[TPTB_need_war]

check out of the gold collapse

I told you all upthread there would likely be a bounce this June in both gold and BTC but the final lows are still coming.

I continue (via Armstrong) to predict every price move. Yet I (and he) get no acknowledgement.

What a shame! The feet of the prophets are to be kissed!

He is still pissed off because I don't buy into his "we are going back to cavemen" theory of economics.

No. This species is going forward; leaving your collectivist behavior behind. Crypto based Anonymity is not a tool to maintain collectivism; it will destroy collectivism and society and that will lead to the rebirth of the selfsufficient community. Not nice for you the collectivsts, but inevitable.

Well then take solace in that I am working for you then because I (as AnonyMint) have been pushing for greater anonymity since 2013. And I am pushing for it not just in cryptocoins but also on the entire internet and my plans are much broader in scope than just cryptocoins.

[TPTB_need_war]

...
Btw, just because you want to stay only in BTC, doesn't mean others won't want to speculate on higher ROI and the potential to jump back in time and front run your early investment in BTC. And they might be correct. One thing you have to contemplate is that an altcoin could be structured to benefit from the pegged side chain BTC investment it (yes an altcoin that is also a pegged side chain) and offer a higher ROI on its own coin. You might assert you'd opt for the pegged side chain clone that eliminated the side coin atribute, but market dynamics may not play nicely with your desire.

I try to never play in a game where other's have superior info, though sometimes it's not avoidable.  I don't play the various mainstream markets for this reason.  I'm also lazy.  It's funny and half-true that I don't really care that much about ROI, and if someone jumps out and back in again and does better than me, more power to them.  They have my respect for having balls, skill, and luck.

I've timed various things about as perfectly as possible (so far), but it has been almost complete luck and in a funny way that I cannot put my finger on, I think it has been a result of fairly deliberately not trying very hard to maximize my ROI and such.  I seem to be uniquely bad at predicting price behaviors on less than year long intervals.

Sometimes I've had myself half-convinced that if I had to choose between Bitcoin achieving something substantive for humanity and Bitcoin making me rich, I'd choose the former.  Sometimes not.  Since I've made some money already I'm pretty sure that I will put a fairly significant emphasis on furthering other goals going forward.  At this point I see the goals of making money and having Bitcoin (or a follow-on) being worthwhile as being fairly aligned but this is just and accident of fate.

This is the why 90% slow burn into the NWO is so assured, because most people don't act to save themselves until it is too late. They actively avoid pain if the losses to society are only 10% on each iteration:

nwo future prosperity = 0.90 ^ n, where n is time elapsed and 1 is maximum prosperity and 0 is total destruction of the human race.

Also people get lulled to sleep by their past success in following the herd.

My rebuttal is talk to some people whose grandparents lost everything in the Great Depression because they trusted society to not go F.U.B.A.R. Realize that every 79 years or so, society does default and reset.

I do firmly believe your Bitcoin will be expropriated before 2032 (most likely before 2024), unless you've cashed out to something more protective BEFORE THE NSA HAS BEEN TRACKING IT. Gold will only work if you plan to never be able to cash it nor spend it, i.e. it won't work.

I do believe there will be clawbacks and they come asking what you did with the Bitcoin you sold back in the day. And they will use any excuse to expropriate everything they can find. The only wealth that is going to survive what is coming is that which can't be found.

---

I also do anticipate that sidechains will be 'half-alt' in most situations.  I anticipate that the maintainers of them will generally have their own inflation/deflation schemes among other things.  I'd anticipate (and look forward to) situations where an sidecoin had sort of a 'buffered peg' such that they could play with the circulation but not so fast that they could rip people off.  As long as things are what Peter Todd characterizes as a 'glass bank', I'm cool with that.

I think that some of my conceptions of sidechains are at significant variance to what Back is thinking and I say that in part because he is anticipating a very much smaller number of sidechains that I am anticipating. That's fine with me...and probably would be with Back as well I'm guessing.  It's possible to have an unknown future but be pretty confident that whatever it is will be better than the status quo.

If I did a pegged side chain with its own coin, that coin would be entirely orthogonal to the BTC coins in the chain. I wouldn't want the BTC holders to feel threatened in any way. They bring greater network effects to the coin, thus indirectly driving up the value of the coin used to pay miners with debasement.

Btw, in my coin's design the miners can not be paid with transaction fees that originate from prior balances because this is a source of censorship of transactions (even if the inputs are blinded by a mix because one blacklisted input in the mix could cause censorship of the entire mix). My design is 100% censorship free (no heuristic arguments, rather 100% provable).

Shit I am giving away too much of my design. I better STFU.

You will end up buying my coin if I create it, because it will blow your fucking mind or I mean to say the design will make your jaw drop to the floor and you will say, "I must buy this".

[Zarathustra]

But just step back for a moment and ask yourself who in the hell had the power to do 9/11?

Anyone who took some flying lessons?  Because pilots were trained to follow a terrorist's orders, similarly to how bank tellers today are told "no heroics, just give a robber the cash; we'll round him up eventually".  

And FYI the idea literally was written into a Tom Clancy novel years before (although IIRC it was Japan that attacked) so the terrorists did not even need to be creative.

That same novel put forth the idea of combined physical/economic warfare as well -- crash the stock market just before you attack.

Chomsky's confrontation with a truther idiot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i9ra-i6Knc

[Zarathustra]

check out of the gold collapse

I told you all upthread there would likely be a bounce this June in both gold and BTC but the final lows are still coming.

I continue (via Armstrong) to predict every price move. Yet I (and he) get no acknowledgement.

What a shame! The feet of the prophets are to be kissed!

He is still pissed off because I don't buy into his "we are going back to cavemen" theory of economics.

No. This species is going forward; leaving your collectivist behavior behind. Crypto based Anonymity is not a tool to maintain collectivism; it will destroy collectivism and society and that will lead to the rebirth of the selfsufficient community. Not nice for you the collectivsts, but inevitable.

Well then take solace in that I am working for you then because I (as AnonyMint) have been pushing for greater anonymity since 2013. And I am pushing for it not just in cryptocoins but also on the entire internet and my plans are much broader in scope than just cryptocoins.

Wow, on the entire internet?! That's really impressive!