Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

...
Edit:
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/03/20/why-i-am-climate-change-skeptic

Human Emissions Saved Planet

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Lots of luck with that.  Most carbon is locked up in rocks:



I think that what has primarily happened is that some fraction of capable people got married to the Malthain idea that there are to many humans and they need to be off'd if they cannot be controlled by various 'injunctive' measures.  Of course, being capable they are able to control the thought patterns of many more (e.g., our friend Zarathustra here.)

The earth fell flat on it's promise to starve the masses out of existence.  So far.  The idea is so nice, though, that it is hard to part with.  Various kinds of propaganda and other more concrete measures are called for.  That they can increase the wealth and control already enjoyed by those who are the primary drivers of this thing probably contributes significant impulse to the project.

[1714053472]

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[1714053472]

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[1714053472]

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[1714053472]

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[rocks]

Combustion of fossil fuels accounts for about 5% or so of the total release of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.  Natural processes release and absorb many times that per year.

This is one of the dumbest 'arguments' of the anthropocentric truthers and bible throwers.

The natural process is a carbon circulation. Combustion of fossil fuels takes carbon out of the ground and transfers it into the ocean and the atmosphere.

It is not a circulation but a pump which over time slowly puts more and more carbon into the ground from out of the air. This is why the long term carbon graphs show carbon as constantly decreasing at a steady rate over millions of years.

No, not constantly decreasing. Cyclically decreasing. 150 Million years ago the concentration has been much higher than 300 Million years ago.
Anthropogenic experiments in changing the composition of the atmosphere in record time are anyway an idiocy. Man made, shock-like changes in the atmosphere determine shock-like reactions of flora and fauna.

200M years of continuously decreasing levels. We have barely reversed a mere fraction of that. Yes it is a change, but that does not mean it is a bad change.

http://theresilientearth.com/files/images/carbon_over_time.jpg

BTW, there was a mass extinction event around that 300M year bottom in CO2 levels. One of the proposed causes was that the prior explosion in plant life just prior to that dropped CO2 levels so far that it cooled the earth to a level that started the extinction event. Another explanation is that the bottoming in CO2 levels 300M years ago approached the minimum required for photosynthesis to function, which crashed plant life and animals higher up the food chain.

If that turns out to be the reason, then humans just saved the planet.

[TPTB_need_war]

I think that what has primarily happened is that some fraction of capable people got married to the Malthain idea that there are to many humans and they need to be off'd if they cannot be controlled by various 'injunctive' measures.  Of course, being capable they are able to control the thought patterns of many more (e.g., our friend Zarathustra here.)

The earth fell flat on it's promise to starve the masses out of existence.  So far.  The idea is so nice, though, that it is hard to part with.  Various kinds of propaganda and other more concrete measures are called for.  That they can increase the wealth and control already enjoyed by those who are the primary drivers of this thing probably contributes significant impulse to the project.

The ones who fell for this seem to think they won't be the ones culled. That is the most amusing aspect IMNSHO.

They actually think that by being on what they think it is righteous side of the issue, this saves them. As if being righteous suspends science, i.e. a form of confirmation bias.

Religion dies hard. Modern society successfully teaches them atheism, and they just can't resist the desire to be mind controlled by another form of barely obscured religion.

Any wonder why the elite call them cows or sheep?

Your problem tvbcof is the same as mine. How to not get culled along with them (or at least how to maximize good effort in this context)? I realize you probably feel the drama detracts from rationality but I could explain the same in more sober words if I was so inclined to invest the effort (I don't think it is worth my time, as people never change their minds).

[tvbcof]

I think that what has primarily happened is that some fraction of capable people got married to the Malthain idea that there are to many humans and they need to be off'd if they cannot be controlled by various 'injunctive' measures.  Of course, being capable they are able to control the thought patterns of many more (e.g., our friend Zarathustra here.)

The earth fell flat on it's promise to starve the masses out of existence.  So far.  The idea is so nice, though, that it is hard to part with.  Various kinds of propaganda and other more concrete measures are called for.  That they can increase the wealth and control already enjoyed by those who are the primary drivers of this thing probably contributes significant impulse to the project.

The ones who fell for this seem to think they won't be the ones culled. That is the most amusing aspect IMNSHO.

They actually think that by being on what they think it is righteous side of the issue, this saves them. As if being righteous suspends science, i.e. a form of confirmation bias.

Religion dies hard. Modern society successfully teaches them atheism, and they just can't resist the desire to be mind controlled by another form of barely obscured religion.

Any wonder why the elite call them cows or sheep?

Your problem tvbcof is the same as mine. How to not get culled along with them (or at least how to maximize good effort in this context)? I realize you probably feel the drama detracts from rationality but I could explain the same in more sober words if I was so inclined to invest the effort (I don't think it is worth my time, as people never change their minds).

I should preface my remarks by saying that my thoughts here are more flights of fancy and I don't really see a 'culling' as imminent if it is a realistic concern at all, but one never knows.  That said...

If I were an 'elite', I would consider the Zarathustra type to be among the disposable useless eater class.  Mostly because they are numerous and boring.  The skeptical types who saw through the opacity, however, might be amusing toys to play with.  Provided they posed no realistic threat of course.

[tabnloz]

1965.15 was the end of precious metals money.

2015.75 (51.6 years later, i.e. the ECM cycle based on Pi) will be the end of cash money and the start of a massive expropriation of wealth.


U.S. Changing Credit Card Liability on October 1, 2015

Curious note: On October 1, 2015 – the day of the Big Bang – the U.S. will begin shifting to EMV (Europay, MasterCard® and Visa®) “smart card” credit cards as a more secure way of accepting payments. Anyone accepting a card without a chip will be liable for any fraudulent payments. The banks will be exempt from accepting responsibility for fraudulent cards. Instead, the risk will shift to the merchant for accepting any non-EMV cards.

The End of Bonds? Look Out Below 2015.75

Since 1985, I have warned that the Big Bang was coming 2015.75. Here is the slide from our 1998 World Economic Conference (WEC). This target is the culmination of 51.6 years from the first break in the Bretton Woods Monetary system – 1964.15.

So what was 1964.15? That was the end of silver coinage. The following year began the copper-nickel coinage. We should see important turning points in 2017 and 2020. We will be going over these targets at the upcoming WEC in November.

There is a crisis unfolding in the bond markets right now. There is no bid for bonds and liquidity is vanishing rapidly. When the crack materializes, this is going to be so bad it is scary. This is BIG BANG in spades.

The World Share Market Reports for 2015.75

There are always the FALSE MOVES that will cause many people to lose their shirts. Therefore, we have the high probability of watching a suspension in interest payments in debt, widespread banking crisis as reserves of banks are undermined, and confused governments who will respond only out of their self-interest making matters far worse as they have historically always managed to accomplish.

I don't know what to make of Armstrong, it will be interesting to see what happens around sept/oct. I read this today that said basically the same thing re: liquidity

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-next-financial-crisis/

The climate debate also is difficult. On one hand you have a fairly comprehensive book like This Changes Everything and the word of many scientists etc. On the other hand there are the greenland ice core samples going back 20000 yrs that show a almost rhythmic up and down of global temps (barring 12800 & 10600 yrs ago when there were major spikes/falls possibly associated with comet impact). Also there is the examples of Deepwater Horizon & the massive spill where (iirc) 32 of 33 scientists came out in support of BP's finding that the harm done was minimal. Guess how many whose privately funded by BP themselves (see Vultures Picnic).

[solex]

My reply on an interesting thread in Dev & Tech:

Those of us who want to see an increased block size limit are at a disadvantage because "doing nothing" achieves the same result as a consensus decision to keep the 1MB and seeing what happens to the Bitcoin ecosystem when confirmation times blow out from the 10 minute average, which everyone expects today.

Yet, Wladimir commented last month that he was "weakly against" making this change.

So, since then, we know there is a clear majority for this change on all user polls, lists of businesses and wallet providers, and now mining opinion.

Mike and Gavin didn't follow consensus procedures? Boo hoo, too bad. They knew that there was a lot of entrenched opinion against changing the 1MB (whether misguided about Satoshi's original vision or not), so they probably tried very long and very hard to obtain consensus among the github commit access developers. They failed, so rightly took all the arguments public, where they found overwhelming support for the change.

Core Dev need to ask themselves "If the 1MB limit did not exist, would it get any ACK to put it in place in an upcoming change (e.g. v0.11)?"
This is not a rhetorical question, this is a valid question to ask. I bet that this type of change, a blunt hard limit with unknown consequences would get zero support in Bitcoin Dev. There would be all sorts of objections about how it's a naive attempt to vaguely "increase fees", "stop spam", "slow the decline in full nodes" could be done far more effectively in far more elegant ways. Implementing the 1MB today would get an unanimous NACK.

Core Dev also need to make a decision. they either:

a) delay the v0.11 until it gets a scaling improvement which replaces the max block size constant (whether by a patch reflecting Jeffs' BIP 100, or a functionally comparable patch from Gavin). After all, Gavin gave notice 2 months ago that he wanted to submit a patch for v0.11

b) release v0.11 without the above, which is effectively a declaration that they are prepared to allow the 1MB limit to be maxed out (noticeably affecting user confirmation times) before considering to release a patch for it. This might not be "1MB 4EVR" but it is practically equivalent as far as the rest of us are concerned who want to see the limit raised/modified/improved/removed before the inevitable PR disaster from inaction.

We have heard Gregory's opinion loud and clear on Bitcointalk and Reddit, so what does Wladimir think today?

[justusranvier]

https://twitter.com/JustusRanvier/status/611709923450351616

[TPTB_need_war]

I should preface my remarks by saying that my thoughts here are more flights of fancy and I don't really see a 'culling' as imminent if it is a realistic concern at all, but one never knows.  That said...

If I were an 'elite', I would consider the Zarathustra type to be among the disposable useless eater class.  Mostly because they are numerous and boring.  The skeptical types who saw through the opacity, however, might be amusing toys to play with.  Provided they posed no realistic threat of course.

Since we are just playing around and I know you also didn't intend any insult to Zarathustra, but rather just postulating how long a cat might be entertained with an acorn versus a grasshopper, I retort that the elite have no time to play with any of us who are not leaders of thousands, and they will expend no time to classify us differently than Zarathustra. The only people worth their attention are those who command significant following, wealth, or some uber technology such as Armstrong's supercomputer model. Also my model of the culling is a long and slow burn into totalitarianism. These collapses take decades to morph into genocide. The timing for the next Great Depression to start is Oct 2015 (that will correspond to 1929). Remember how many years from that until the killings fields began at the hands of the Nazis.

Also the circumstances are different in that Asia and not the USA is the safe haven for this coming transition, but Asia is already highly top-down structured in many respects.

I suspect most of the widespread death (if it comes) will be due to perhaps a pandemic, which Armstrong's model has targeted for 2019.

Westerners  will have relied on the government and environmentalism and feminism to save them, and won't have the tools to save themselves. We saw that during Katrina in 2006 and that was not a pandemic.

Why own a generator because that pollutes with carbon! Why learn how to make ethanol, because that does not power an electric motor, etc..

Another source of great culling can be letting boomers rot in Obamacare rationed hospice. I offer the VA scandal as a test run example.

[explorer]

 In other news, the Federal govt is giving $500,000,000 in grants and loans to upgrade Sacramento's sewage treatment facilities.

Have they figured out how to run it on CO2 when there's no more water?   

[tvbcof]

I should preface my remarks by saying that my thoughts here are more flights of fancy and I don't really see a 'culling' as imminent if it is a realistic concern at all, but one never knows.  That said...

If I were an 'elite', I would consider the Zarathustra type to be among the disposable useless eater class.  Mostly because they are numerous and boring.  The skeptical types who saw through the opacity, however, might be amusing toys to play with.  Provided they posed no realistic threat of course.

Since we are just playing around and I know you also didn't intend any insult to Zarathustra, ...

Of course not

I might add that TPTB will certainly want some breeding stock.  Animals are domesticated by retarding certain aspects of their maturation process leaving them juvenile in some ways.  In humans this would be related to dependency and subservience to leadership.  (Forgive me if I've bored folks with this concept on this thread already.)  Of course all humans have these attributes to a degree since we are social animals, but it is more well expressed in some than in others just by natural variation...if not by other means.  I suspect that this is what the focus on testing and data analytics embraced in our 'common core' education makeover is all about.

It is already not practical to hide.  Big brother knows most of us better than we know ourselves.  You either love him or you don't.  This makes it somewhat impractical to fake being model herdstock and hope that you sneak under the wire that way.  Even if you pulled it off (which is pretty much impossible at this point) you would still have to win the roulette roll since there are a lot of high-quality sheep out there.

...but rather just postulating how long a cat might be entertained with an acorn versus a grasshopper, I retort that the elite have no time to play with any of us who are not leaders of thousands, and they will expend no time to classify us differently than Zarathustra. The only people worth their attention are those who command significant following, wealth, or some uber technology such as Armstrong's supercomputer model. Also my model of the culling is a long and slow burn into totalitarianism. These collapses take decades to morph into genocide. The timing for the next Great Depression to start is Oct 2015 (that will correspond to 1929). Remember how many years from that until the killings fields began at the hands of the Nazis.

Long years of leisure and boredom await those at the top of the pyramid if they pulled it off.  All I can say, and all I said, is that if 'I' were an elite I would anticipate this and tune my selection criteria accordingly.

Also the circumstances are different in that Asia and not the USA is the safe haven for this coming transition, but Asia is already highly top-down structured in many respects.

America probably needs to get much closer to a Chinese style totalitarian regime before things can go without a hitch, and I sense many of our leaders drooling at the thought of such a panacea.  You might take the time to look up some of James Corbett's  work on the relationship between the U.S. and China (and the FSU) if you've not done so.  The hypotheses he proposes are intriguing.

I suspect most of the widespread death (if it comes) will be due to perhaps a pandemic, which Armstrong's model has targeted for 2019.

Westerners  will have relied on the government and environmentalism and feminism to save them, and won't have the tools to save themselves. We saw that during Katrina in 2006 and that was not a pandemic.

Why own a generator because that pollutes with carbon! Why learn how to make ethanol, because that does not power an electric motor, etc..

Another source of great culling can be letting boomers rot in Obamacare rationed hospice. I offer the VA scandal as a test run example.

I've long felt that a pandemic is a no-brainer for culling.  Effective, selective, and relatively humane...I don't see any reason why most of the elites would be excessively cruel for no good reason.  I mean they are not God!

If the 'elite' don't get us with a biological agents one of their crackpot minions who's been brainwashed into an anti-humanic frenzy probably will eventually.  A single post-doc with some lab equipment could probably pull it off at this point.

[Zarathustra]

Combustion of fossil fuels accounts for about 5% or so of the total release of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.  Natural processes release and absorb many times that per year.

This is one of the dumbest 'arguments' of the anthropocentric truthers and bible throwers.

The natural process is a carbon circulation. Combustion of fossil fuels takes carbon out of the ground and transfers it into the ocean and the atmosphere.

It is not a circulation but a pump which over time slowly puts more and more carbon into the ground from out of the air. This is why the long term carbon graphs show carbon as constantly decreasing at a steady rate over millions of years.

No, not constantly decreasing. Cyclically decreasing. 150 Million years ago the concentration has been much higher than 300 Million years ago.
Anthropogenic experiments in changing the composition of the atmosphere in record time are anyway an idiocy. Man made, shock-like changes in the atmosphere determine shock-like reactions of flora and fauna.

200M years of continuously decreasing levels. We have barely reversed a mere fraction of that. Yes it is a change, but that does not mean it is a bad change.

Abruptly engineering an environment with conditions of the pre-mammalian age could indeed be a good change.
The planet would at least be spared from anthropocentric poison drinkers and hyper-collectivists (bible throwers, Keynesians, Austrians, tvbcofs, anonymints and other fascist collectivists) and the command of their idols: Dominum terrae.


The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all — is called "life."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra#Ch._11_:_The_New_Idol

[TPTB_need_war]

Combustion of fossil fuels accounts for about 5% or so of the total release of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.  Natural processes release and absorb many times that per year.

This is one of the dumbest 'arguments' of the anthropocentric truthers and bible throwers.

The natural process is a carbon circulation. Combustion of fossil fuels takes carbon out of the ground and transfers it into the ocean and the atmosphere.

It is not a circulation but a pump which over time slowly puts more and more carbon into the ground from out of the air. This is why the long term carbon graphs show carbon as constantly decreasing at a steady rate over millions of years.

No, not constantly decreasing. Cyclically decreasing. 150 Million years ago the concentration has been much higher than 300 Million years ago.
Anthropogenic experiments in changing the composition of the atmosphere in record time are anyway an idiocy. Man made, shock-like changes in the atmosphere determine shock-like reactions of flora and fauna.

200M years of continuously decreasing levels. We have barely reversed a mere fraction of that. Yes it is a change, but that does not mean it is a bad change.

Abruptly engineering an environment with conditions of the pre-mammalian age could indeed be a good change.
The planet would at least be spared from anthropocentric poison drinkers and hyper-collectivists (bible throwers, Keynesians, Austrians, tvbcofs, anonymints and other fascist collectivists) and the command of their idols: Dominum terrae.


The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all — is called "life."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra#Ch._11_:_The_New_Idol

Eliminating mankind entirely may be your lunatic goal, but that particular goal is very, very, very difficult to achieve. Entropy is not on your side.

As I wrote upthread, the most amusing aspect IMNSHO is you somehow think your goals spare you from your implicitly desired outcome.

I wonder where your hatred of man originates? Did your relatives or priest rape you? Is it a power trip of jealousy (if I can have it all, then no one else should have anything)?

Btw, for anyone who isn't aware, afair Zarathustra was trying to convince me in 2013 that the tribal life that existed for example in the Philippines before the arrival of any modern technology, is the ideal life. What he doesn't comprehend is that the Laws of Thermodynamics do not allow for a reversal of time (reversible processes don't exist). The only way to go back, is to destroy all life because it is intertwined with all that has changed (increased entropy towards the maximum entropy required by the Second Law). How would you burn all the books and memories of technology?

Humans are social. The work I am attempting now is to move the power from the center back to the ends of the network as was the case when there were many small tribes competing. So I don't know how you can accuse me of being hyper-collectivist. If I succeed with a bearer coin and ecosystem, then much of the centralized power will fall away. The work I am attempting is to reenable the superiority of small communities, so in that respect our goals are aligned but just don't expect it to happen without technology.

I admit that when I used to live in Camarillo, California in my early 20s and I was addicted to sugar (and programming WordUp by Neocept which you can Google), I had these fantasies of going back to simpler time and living off the land. So by 1991, I took off to the Philippines to test out my theory. I even hiked through Mexico and Guatemala in 1993 to learn. I slept with a family high in the mountains in Guatemala that only had a dirt floor. I had to squat outside in the night to defecate; a dog ate the warm feces (very cold up in the mountains at night) while I was still in the act.

It just isn't the fantasy I thought it would be. There are some aspects of the simpler life I love. But life without modern things is very difficult and not always as pleasant. And it also retarded my productivity. I nearly gave away all the best years of my potential career to this experiment. I was on the path to be a maverick in the software industry and I threw most of it away for this fantasy. Well perhaps not all; perhaps I still have one more chance to redeem myself. 50 is old, but hopefully not too old to still do some great work.

Edit: I don't disagree with the notion that most of the food we eat is poison. The natural foods are the best. I have this theory that my Multiple Sclerosis is due to losing the good bacteria in my digestive tract (supported by research that shows correlation between imflammation, autoimmunity, and gut bacteria deficiencies; as well a severely debilitated M.S. patient was able to be mostly cured by receiving fecal transplants). A recent finding of science is that native tribes have a much more diversified gut flora and better health because of it. They even discovered that some good bacteria act as natural antibiotics. Apparently our immune is intertwined with our digestive system (perhaps since that is where most pathogens enter). Since a week ago I've been fermenting salsa for two days before eating it. So far, I feel significant changes but don't know if this is a cure.

Edit#2, Zarathustra do you still have those images of the ideal tribal life? Can you insert them into your prior post so that readers can visualize what you are proposing?

[Kupsi]

Peter Todd again. I don't like this.

Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the previous transaction.

http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08422.html

[Zarathustra]

Eliminating mankind entirely may be your lunatic goal, but that particular goal is very, very, very difficult to achieve. Entropy is not on your side.

Mankind along with many other species is already nearly entirely eliminated by the society, which does not represent mankind. Society/collectivism is a cancerous, proliferous cartoon of mankind. It is a pandemic disease. My goal is the rebirth of mankind. The society/collectivism is something to be overcome.


Doctor doctor, what is wrong with me?
This supermarket life, is getting long
What is the heart life of a color TV?
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen?
Ooh Western Woman
Ooh Western Girl

News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches onto that symbol of detachment
Attracted by the peeling way of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell, the belle
Ooh Western Woman
Ooh Western Girl

The children on Melrose strut their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough?
And out in the valley, warm and clean
The little ones sit by the TV screen

No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath

Bartender what is wrong with me?
Why am I so out of breath?
The captain said 'Excuse me ma'am'
'This species has amused itself to death'

Amused itself to death
It has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death

We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told, bought and sold
It was the greatest show on Earth
But then it was over

We oohed and ahhed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen eyed lookout spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
Our last hurrah

And when they found our shadows
Groups 'round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their list
And then
The alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-P614lmP3Y&list=RDK-P614lmP3Y#t=25

[TPTB_need_war]

Peter Todd again. I don't like this.

Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the previous transaction.

http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08422.html

This means you can double-spend within a 0-confirmation against a recipient listening on the P2P network, just by sending another transaction with a higher transaction fee?

What is the motivation for such a change?

[TPTB_need_war]

Doctor doctor, what is wrong with me?
This supermarket life, is getting long
What is the heart life of a color TV?
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen?
Ooh Western Woman
Ooh Western Girl

Hey I escaped from that culture (perhaps to something different only in superficial appearances?) in my 20s. I remember getting annoyed in my girl friend's apartment because she and her roommates where watching some sitcom that was treating us like we had an IQ of 90. After that, I think I rarely watched TV again, perhaps just only sporting events.

You will never change the fact that the center of the bell curve has the propensity to be sheep.

The only thing we can truly accomplish is to push the power to the ends of the social+technology network, so that the sheep can't cause centralized contagion.

If you succeed to accomplish a complete wipeout of technology (e.g. NSA power derives from your support of environmentalism) and resource dispersion (e.g. your religious battle against carbon), you will get instead a horrific outcome w.r.t. to the human species.

P.S. I edited my prior post.

The risk you are failing to attribute to gold is that you won't be able to find any where to sell it.

The government will close down all black markets when they move us to electronic money.

Black markets can only exist where the mainstream money is not trackable. Ponder that.

Your only chance to not lose all your wealth will be an anonymous crypto-currency. Remember I warned you and you didn't listen.

Why would someone who has anonymous crypto-currency want to trade it for gold wherein they risk their anonymity in a sting operation. Duh.

[Peter R]

Peter Todd again. I don't like this.

Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the previous transaction.

http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08422.html

I've never understood Peter Todd's rationale for promoting replace-by-fee.  

The way Bitcoin was designed, if a node sees a second transaction that spends an output already spent by a previous transaction, it ignores the second transaction.  The result is that the second (and in most cases, fraudulent) transaction propagates to very few nodes and has little chance of being mined into a block.  If the entire network applies this policy homogeneously, double-spending zero-confirm transactions is very difficult, especially if merchants just wait a few second to monitor the propagation of the TX with a well-connected listening node.

What Peter Todd's "replace-by-fee" support does, is allows any unconfirmed transaction to be removed from a node's mempool if a conflicting transaction, received after the original transaction, pays a higher fee.  If all nodes in the network adopted this policy, it would make zero-confirm transactions trivially-easy to double spend.  

Is there some benefit to RBF that I'm missing?  This seems like a reckless policy.  

[sickpig]

Peter Todd again. I don't like this.

Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the previous transaction.

http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08422.html

I've never understood Peter Todd's rationale for promoting replace-by-fee.  

me neither.

that said I've collected a few resources in a "read-later" fashion, with the aim to eventually understand Todd's reasons, here's a partial list:

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32276657/
http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06992.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg07122.html
https://medium.com/@octskyward/replace-by-fee-43edd9a1dd6d


Fwiw f2pool representative just post in the aforementioned thread:

Hello. We recognize the problem. We will switch to FSS RBF (*) soon. Thanks.

(*) FSS RBF =  first-seen-safe RBF

[Peter R]

Fwiw f2pool representative just post in the aforementioned thread:

Hello. We recognize the problem. We will switch to FSS RBF (*) soon. Thanks.

(*) FSS RBF =  first-seen-safe RBF

Yay, I'm happy!  First-seen-safe RBF is fine by me

(Although I think child-pays-parent solves all the problems with "stuck transactions" in a more elegant way.)  

[TPTB_need_war]

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32276657/

Afaics, some hair-brained idea to attempt to discourage double-spends within a 0-confirmation interval (or n-confirmations of an orphaned chain).

The only way to deal with double-spends within this interval is to trust the reports from a majority of the P2P network and assume that is what will be in the winning chain.

All these other ideas will just be worse. Todd so far (in the few instances I've come across his logic) has not impressed me as being an astute designer and developer.

However, my assumptions could be wrong if there are other complex (and fragile!) rules being employed in the P2P network w.r.t. to transaction ordering. I do expect Bitcoin to become a fragile, broken spaghetti. This is what happens from design-by-kitchen-soup consensus.