I know it's a long post, but theres a dick joke at the end :-)
Coming up with an awesome idea and implementing it so that you can destroy it instead of letting someone else do it and then you can destroy it is beyond me. If that's a good plan it's for reasons so subtle and amazing that I'll never understand.
with all respect, I beg to differ sir, I believe, of all people you would be able to understand this theory.
I'm proposing that people who have invested in btc are made up of two groups:
1)those who know the code is solid
2)those who trust people who know the code is solid, and are most likely to invest their money in such a trust
what I am saying is, most likely (1) represents 5% to 10% of the invested funds (and I'm of the opinion that this is a high estimate). group (2) represents the remainder.
What this means is, that if today we all log into our btc clients and discover that we have been the victims of a massive attack, both groups (1) and (2) will be quite pissed off, however these groups will handle their anger in two different ways, group (1) will, inspired by this idea set to work in making a system that is unattackable. If they are successful, then they are going to run back to (2) and say "ye did it! we did it! we made a super currency! its the way of the future.. revolution.. bla bla.. invest your money again group (2) we got it right this time!" and group (2) will just be reminded of that time when group (1) said something quite similar(remember btc?) which resulted in them losing their investment and its profits, thus, be much less likely to invest again. now imagine this happens when btc hits 100$, that is a massive group (2) to be disgusted by the idea of decentralized currency, they won't know the specifics, they don't think in specifics, they just know they were millionaires, now they are back to being the poor middleclass schmucks they have been since birth, all thanks to decentralized currency, good luck getting them to invest again.
I know this may seem pessimistic or paranoid, however, I am of the mindset that if I hear a proverbial noise in my closet, I go open it to see whether or not there is a monster in their instead of hiding under my sheets and letting my fear fester in in the back of my mind. By discussing it, instead putting my fingers in my ears and saying "bla bla bla, i can't hear you" or "can we just kill this thread yet?"(which i feel mcdett is by no means alone in his sentiment), we are doing ourselves a favor.
I think the chances of the scenario i propose are slim, it seems like the enemies would be better off waiting for a network to emerge and then trying to crush it. This brings up the question, at what point can we be sure that the network is large enough to not be crushed? It seems like we are in a sort of race right now to get to that size, which makes it a real shame that those who claim they believe in btc as a method of changing the world for the better, don't take this belief to almost a religious zealousy in order to win this race and actually change the world. Instead it seems they would rather just keep clicking refresh over at mtgox and patting themselves on the back for that one good decision they made months ago when they first invested in btc. It really pains me considering how easy it would be to get the word out on a much more massive scale than it now is, just look a my '"I've heard of that" post' if a mere hundred btcers commit to just 10 little pieces of paper a day, thats 30,000 new btc exposures in a month(now calculate 1000 - I think we'd win race), but instead they would rather hide under their sheets jackin their dicks with a refresh button, if the monster gets 'em it gets 'em.
