[FoRK] Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from "ZeroState.net" <***@zerostate.net> -----

From: "ZeroState.net" <***@zerostate.net>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:34:57 +0000
To: Doctrine Zero <***@googlegroups.com>,
zs-***@googlegroups.com
Subject: Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if
you can!
Reply-To: zs-***@googlegroups.com

Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!

http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html

ZSF - The Zero State Fund - is a mutual fund being planned by and for
Zero State citizens and friends.

This is an important historical opportunity for avowed Transhumanists
and others aware of a radically disruptive future to achieve a degree
of control over their collective fates by beginning to gather
resources and a degree of influence over how world events affect us.

It is particularly important that you inform yourself ahead of the
launch event by watching the Youtube presentation beforehand, and
thinking about it carefully. Please also allow yourself time to test
the Openqwaq client software (again, details below), to minimise the
chance of having any difficulties on the day.

The following message is from Anu (Rudiger Koch), regarding the ZSF
launch event on November 17th, 2012:


Hi all,

I'd like to invite you to the first virtual ZSF conference on Nov
17th, 18:00h UTC ( 05:00h ZST). This meeting will start where the
Youtube presentation

ends
- it will mainly be a panel discussion of the Zero State Fund (ZSF).

A video of the event will be published via this webpage
(http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html) immediately after discussion has
finished, and an email thread will be created for discussion of
pledges on the main Zero State mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero

Pledges are currently at $6,015 for options, $48,120 for shares. As
the minimum initial capital for a mutual fund in St.Kitts is $100,000,
we need at least $12,500 in pledges on options to reach that. But we
need to be a bit higher just to make sure.

Deadline for Pledges will be Nov 19, 24:00h ZST. If at this point we
have more than $15,000 in pledges, ZSF will happen, otherwise it will
be canceled and a chance for ZS to shape history will have passed
unused.

The Conference will take place in Openqwaq. Please get the client
software from:

http://qwaq.3dicc.com/client/

Please ask Eugen [***@zerostate.net] for a login.

We'll meet at the teleXLR8 Main Conference Hall.

Thanks
Anu
--
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[Gary Stock]

Does ZS have a "loyal opposition"? The presentation is appealing, but
avoids revealing any weaknesses.

Brief examples of triggers of doubt:

Discussing BCI, without ever defining the acronym, suggests a mild but
natural flavor of "inbreeding toward irrelevance." It leaves me
wondering if the group is too self-referential.

Pitching Bitcoin as so highly profitable has all the hallmarks of an
investment scam. It leaves me wondering if the group is unaware of how
that appears to outsiders.

Can someone recommend a usable -- i.e., rational, moderate, concise --
statement of ways in which ZS or bitcoin may ~not~ work as intended?

Of what has not been said, but might ~need~ to be considered?

Thanks,
GS

Post by Eugen Leitl
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:34:57 +0000
Subject: Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if
you can!
Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!
http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html
ZSF - The Zero State Fund - is a mutual fund being planned by and for
Zero State citizens and friends.
This is an important historical opportunity for avowed Transhumanists
and others aware of a radically disruptive future to achieve a degree
of control over their collective fates by beginning to gather
resources and a degree of influence over how world events affect us.
It is particularly important that you inform yourself ahead of the
launch event by watching the Youtube presentation beforehand, and
thinking about it carefully. Please also allow yourself time to test
the Openqwaq client software (again, details below), to minimise the
chance of having any difficulties on the day.
The following message is from Anu (Rudiger Koch), regarding the ZSF
Hi all,
I'd like to invite you to the first virtual ZSF conference on Nov
17th, 18:00h UTC ( 05:00h ZST). This meeting will start where the
Youtube presentation http://youtu.be/QihIz59sfxY ends
- it will mainly be a panel discussion of the Zero State Fund (ZSF).
A video of the event will be published via this webpage
(http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html) immediately after discussion has
finished, and an email thread will be created for discussion of
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero
Pledges are currently at $6,015 for options, $48,120 for shares. As
the minimum initial capital for a mutual fund in St.Kitts is $100,000,
we need at least $12,500 in pledges on options to reach that. But we
need to be a bit higher just to make sure.
Deadline for Pledges will be Nov 19, 24:00h ZST. If at this point we
have more than $15,000 in pledges, ZSF will happen, otherwise it will
be canceled and a chance for ZS to shape history will have passed
unused.
The Conference will take place in Openqwaq. Please get the client
http://qwaq.3dicc.com/client/
We'll meet at the teleXLR8 Main Conference Hall.
Thanks
Anu

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Bitcoin, while elegant in theory, is blood money, tied cryptologically
to all the criminal activities that contributed to it's shared
value--with it's participants condoning that criminal activity by being
compensated through accretive value by turning a blind eye to that very
same criminal activity.

Greg

Post by Gary Stock
Does ZS have a "loyal opposition"? The presentation is appealing, but
avoids revealing any weaknesses.
Discussing BCI, without ever defining the acronym, suggests a mild but
natural flavor of "inbreeding toward irrelevance." It leaves me
wondering if the group is too self-referential.
Pitching Bitcoin as so highly profitable has all the hallmarks of an
investment scam. It leaves me wondering if the group is unaware of how
that appears to outsiders.
Can someone recommend a usable -- i.e., rational, moderate, concise --
statement of ways in which ZS or bitcoin may ~not~ work as intended?
Of what has not been said, but might ~need~ to be considered?
Thanks,
GS

Post by Eugen Leitl
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:34:57 +0000
Subject: Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if
you can!
Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!
http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html
ZSF - The Zero State Fund - is a mutual fund being planned by and for
Zero State citizens and friends.
This is an important historical opportunity for avowed Transhumanists
and others aware of a radically disruptive future to achieve a degree
of control over their collective fates by beginning to gather
resources and a degree of influence over how world events affect us.
It is particularly important that you inform yourself ahead of the
launch event by watching the Youtube presentation beforehand, and
thinking about it carefully. Please also allow yourself time to test
the Openqwaq client software (again, details below), to minimise the
chance of having any difficulties on the day.
The following message is from Anu (Rudiger Koch), regarding the ZSF
Hi all,
I'd like to invite you to the first virtual ZSF conference on Nov
17th, 18:00h UTC ( 05:00h ZST). This meeting will start where the
Youtube presentation http://youtu.be/QihIz59sfxY ends
- it will mainly be a panel discussion of the Zero State Fund (ZSF).
A video of the event will be published via this webpage
(http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html) immediately after discussion has
finished, and an email thread will be created for discussion of
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero
Pledges are currently at $6,015 for options, $48,120 for shares. As
the minimum initial capital for a mutual fund in St.Kitts is $100,000,
we need at least $12,500 in pledges on options to reach that. But we
need to be a bit higher just to make sure.
Deadline for Pledges will be Nov 19, 24:00h ZST. If at this point we
have more than $15,000 in pledges, ZSF will happen, otherwise it will
be canceled and a chance for ZS to shape history will have passed
unused.
The Conference will take place in Openqwaq. Please get the client
http://qwaq.3dicc.com/client/
We'll meet at the teleXLR8 Main Conference Hall.
Thanks
Anu

_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Bitcoin, while elegant in theory, is blood money, tied cryptologically

I understand that the favorite blood money of the world is the
greenback, with 500 EUR notes being a very weak contender.

Seriously, you can buy (almost) anything you want with
BTC https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade and the list is getting
longer day by day. E.g. Wordpress and Slysoft in the last
couple days, the ones I noticed myself. And I plan to make
BTC acceptable in my own two commercial projects.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
to all the criminal activities that contributed to it's shared

Speaking about blood, let's outlaw gold. And diamonds.
And mobile phones http://bloodinthemobile.org/

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
value--with it's participants condoning that criminal activity by being
compensated through accretive value by turning a blind eye to that very
same criminal activity.

Which criminal activity, particularly? I'm aware of a botnet
operator who mines BitCoin, and defrauds his victims for the
electricity cost, and extra bandwidth. There is malware which is
actually stealing your bitcoin wallets. That's not because your
wallets are criminal, but perhaps the users are criminally
negligent?

Anything else? You don't mean drugs, do you?

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

No, the botnet, criminal marketplaces for stolen data, and extortion
schemes, not what can be purchased with it.

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl
Which criminal activity, particularly? I'm aware of a botnet
operator who mines BitCoin, and defrauds his victims for the
electricity cost, and extra bandwidth. There is malware which is
actually stealing your bitcoin wallets. That's not because your
wallets are criminal, but perhaps the users are criminally
negligent?
Anything else? You don't mean drugs, do you?
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
No, the botnet, criminal marketplaces for stolen data, and extortion
schemes, not what can be purchased with it.

Yes, criminals will use money. This doesn't mean that money
is tainted, and we all stop using it. Murderers and surgeons
both use sharp steel, for different purposes.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Wouldn't that be a logical fallacy? You don't remember the Napster
legal arguments do you?

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
No, the botnet, criminal marketplaces for stolen data, and extortion
schemes, not what can be purchased with it.

Yes, criminals will use money. This doesn't mean that money
is tainted, and we all stop using it. Murderers and surgeons
both use sharp steel, for different purposes.
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Wouldn't that be a logical fallacy? You don't remember the Napster
legal arguments do you?

I don't recall these arguments. I see no problem with P2P in general,
by the way. I'm not happy that Ents are persecuted by tree killers,
too, not that I personally care about trees.

But money definitely has utility, and claiming that money is
tainted because it's being use by evil, bad, no good people
does not follow any recognizable chain of logic, at least
none I'm familiar with.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

You keep changing the subject.

The idea that all money is equivalent is the argument bitcoin wants to
make. You asked for flaws in that argument, so I played devil's
advocate. The flaw is that bitcoin is not accredited and the amortized
value is being fed by criminal activity.

The legal argument against Napster was that it was solely a criminal
enterprise, whose only purpose was to steal copyrighted material, and
the criminal activity was not separate from the purpose of its being.
Further, everything that it was and will ever be, would never evolve
past the ability to steal copyrighted material. (You can agree or
disagree with that, but that was the determination that led to its
downfall).

That's not to say that bitcoin (or Napster which failed to do so) can't
evolve past a criminal enterprise. I was simply pointing out that it
hasn't done so thus far and the mechanisms it's using are incentived so
that investors have a vested stake to cover up or remain willfully
ignorant of that criminal activity.

In the RISKS part of the transhumanist/bci portfolio, the
over-dependence on bitcoin should be spelled out as a specific risk,
unless of course the ZS people truly believe they are post-logical and
true believers, which would make them a cult and not the ultra-logical
transhumanists they truly believe.

I'm not claiming what you state below, only that the market which was
set up has yet to evolve past the tipping point. Do you believe bitcoin
has evolved past a criminal enterprise?

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Wouldn't that be a logical fallacy? You don't remember the Napster
legal arguments do you?

I don't recall these arguments. I see no problem with P2P in general,
by the way. I'm not happy that Ents are persecuted by tree killers,
too, not that I personally care about trees.
But money definitely has utility, and claiming that money is
tainted because it's being use by evil, bad, no good people
does not follow any recognizable chain of logic, at least
none I'm familiar with.
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
You keep changing the subject.

Well, I'm trying to figure out the rationale behind your
objections to BTC, so I'm sampling a bit randomly.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
The idea that all money is equivalent is the argument bitcoin wants to

Bitcoin users are not a single entity. In fact, there are several
factions within it with mutually incompatible motivations.
That's not a bug, it's a feature.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
make. You asked for flaws in that argument, so I played devil's
advocate. The flaw is that bitcoin is not accredited and the amortized

What do you mean by accredited, specifically? I realize that some
people tend to define money in a very special way, usually
reaffirming their biases. I see money simply as naturally scarce tokens,
signifying debt. Whether it's cowry shells, or bits of
silver bar cut off with axes, or bits, I don't really care.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
value is being fed by criminal activity.

What does criminal specifically mean? That classification varies
both over space and time. Let's look at the Silk Road, which
probably still constitutes the bulk of transactions made in
BTC today (a mere 2 MUSD/month, apparently), though they should
become quite insignificant in future, given growth in the BTC
economy, and resulting network effects which make the goods
available to buyers willing to spend BTC progressively
more attractive.

Why I personally see absolutely no issues with people buying
and selling drugs I'd rather wish the Silk Road weren't there.

In fact, I'd wish the BitCoin did not quite see that explosive
growth. It's not healthy, as the underlying economy doesn't
grow that rapidly. On the other hand, the Prohibition saw rapid
growth in certain areas, and rise of new players. So maybe it's
all good, after all.

The main problems I see is the overproportional impact of
early adopters, at least those who hoard their stash instead
of bringing it into circulation. Also, those users who actually
wish to spend their coins often can't, since it's not available
in the bitcoin market, at least not directly.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
The legal argument against Napster was that it was solely a criminal
enterprise, whose only purpose was to steal copyrighted material, and

You're looking at formalities again. Copyright is a rather new, and
rather counterproductive idea, and sharing is certainly not stealing.
Somebody seeing his established, parasitic business model suddenly
going down the drain through technical innovation, big fucking
deal. Happens all the time, one think they should have gotten
used to it.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
the criminal activity was not separate from the purpose of its being.

I don't even know what criminal activity means. I understand
the Mexican drug wars, the people who fund wars, and such,
but it's all done in regular fiats. Bitcoin's reputation is
lily-white in comparison.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Further, everything that it was and will ever be, would never evolve
past the ability to steal copyrighted material. (You can agree or
disagree with that, but that was the determination that led to its
downfall).

Yes, you can buy laws and make really nice public witch burnings.
But unfortunately there is no witchcraft, in reality. Just because
you have a good business lobby it doesn't mean you have a case in
the moral court.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
That's not to say that bitcoin (or Napster which failed to do so) can't
evolve past a criminal enterprise. I was simply pointing out that it

The BitTorrent, which forked from MNet, a way too ambitious project
for its own good, is a protocol. Protocols can't be possibly a criminal
enterprise, whatever 'criminal' happens to mean this decade.
That way, TCP/IP is way waaay waaaay more 'criminal', and we should
shut down the Internet. And be it just because of bronies.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
hasn't done so thus far and the mechanisms it's using are incentived so
that investors have a vested stake to cover up or remain willfully
ignorant of that criminal activity.

A friend of mine had no money on him, so I bought him a beer,
and he paid me in BitCoin, from smartphone to tablet, over 3G,
instanteous transfer. Was that criminal, somewhere, under some
lunatic court of law? I don't know, and couldn't care less.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
In the RISKS part of the transhumanist/bci portfolio, the
over-dependence on bitcoin should be spelled out as a specific risk,

Yes, very much so. I don't think that's the plan, though.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
unless of course the ZS people truly believe they are post-logical and
true believers, which would make them a cult and not the ultra-logical
transhumanists they truly believe.

Logic is overrated.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm not claiming what you state below, only that the market which was
set up has yet to evolve past the tipping point. Do you believe bitcoin
has evolved past a criminal enterprise?

BitCoin is a cryptographic system, implemented in a system that is
open source, and used by real people for things they find useful.
Some of their activities you might find objectionable. In fact, so
do I. But this whole idea that the cryptosystem, protocol and
its implemenation can be 'criminal' just smacks of cathegory error.

People do things other people find objectionable, this hasn't changed
for the last few million years we've been around. The tools themselves
are good or bad only instrumentally, never morally.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

I'm going to have to pop out.

It's not what you buy with bitcoins, but what underlies the market where
you can buy them. Further, what supports the value.

Accredited means insured and underwritten by some responsible market.
I'm quite familiar with the concept of Rees-Mogg's Sovereign Individual,
so...

I have no desire to discuss the identity of criminal activity wrt
bitcoins on a public forum, so you're on your own.


Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
You keep changing the subject.

Well, I'm trying to figure out the rationale behind your
objections to BTC, so I'm sampling a bit randomly.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
The idea that all money is equivalent is the argument bitcoin wants to

Bitcoin users are not a single entity. In fact, there are several
factions within it with mutually incompatible motivations.
That's not a bug, it's a feature.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
make. You asked for flaws in that argument, so I played devil's
advocate. The flaw is that bitcoin is not accredited and the amortized

What do you mean by accredited, specifically? I realize that some
people tend to define money in a very special way, usually
reaffirming their biases. I see money simply as naturally scarce tokens,
signifying debt. Whether it's cowry shells, or bits of
silver bar cut off with axes, or bits, I don't really care.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
value is being fed by criminal activity.

What does criminal specifically mean? That classification varies
both over space and time. Let's look at the Silk Road, which
probably still constitutes the bulk of transactions made in
BTC today (a mere 2 MUSD/month, apparently), though they should
become quite insignificant in future, given growth in the BTC
economy, and resulting network effects which make the goods
available to buyers willing to spend BTC progressively
more attractive.
Why I personally see absolutely no issues with people buying
and selling drugs I'd rather wish the Silk Road weren't there.
In fact, I'd wish the BitCoin did not quite see that explosive
growth. It's not healthy, as the underlying economy doesn't
grow that rapidly. On the other hand, the Prohibition saw rapid
growth in certain areas, and rise of new players. So maybe it's
all good, after all.
The main problems I see is the overproportional impact of
early adopters, at least those who hoard their stash instead
of bringing it into circulation. Also, those users who actually
wish to spend their coins often can't, since it's not available
in the bitcoin market, at least not directly.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
The legal argument against Napster was that it was solely a criminal
enterprise, whose only purpose was to steal copyrighted material, and

You're looking at formalities again. Copyright is a rather new, and
rather counterproductive idea, and sharing is certainly not stealing.
Somebody seeing his established, parasitic business model suddenly
going down the drain through technical innovation, big fucking
deal. Happens all the time, one think they should have gotten
used to it.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
the criminal activity was not separate from the purpose of its being.

I don't even know what criminal activity means. I understand
the Mexican drug wars, the people who fund wars, and such,
but it's all done in regular fiats. Bitcoin's reputation is
lily-white in comparison.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Further, everything that it was and will ever be, would never evolve
past the ability to steal copyrighted material. (You can agree or
disagree with that, but that was the determination that led to its
downfall).

Yes, you can buy laws and make really nice public witch burnings.
But unfortunately there is no witchcraft, in reality. Just because
you have a good business lobby it doesn't mean you have a case in
the moral court.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
That's not to say that bitcoin (or Napster which failed to do so) can't
evolve past a criminal enterprise. I was simply pointing out that it

The BitTorrent, which forked from MNet, a way too ambitious project
for its own good, is a protocol. Protocols can't be possibly a criminal
enterprise, whatever 'criminal' happens to mean this decade.
That way, TCP/IP is way waaay waaaay more 'criminal', and we should
shut down the Internet. And be it just because of bronies.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
hasn't done so thus far and the mechanisms it's using are incentived so
that investors have a vested stake to cover up or remain willfully
ignorant of that criminal activity.

A friend of mine had no money on him, so I bought him a beer,
and he paid me in BitCoin, from smartphone to tablet, over 3G,
instanteous transfer. Was that criminal, somewhere, under some
lunatic court of law? I don't know, and couldn't care less.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
In the RISKS part of the transhumanist/bci portfolio, the
over-dependence on bitcoin should be spelled out as a specific risk,

Yes, very much so. I don't think that's the plan, though.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
unless of course the ZS people truly believe they are post-logical and
true believers, which would make them a cult and not the ultra-logical
transhumanists they truly believe.

Logic is overrated.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm not claiming what you state below, only that the market which was
set up has yet to evolve past the tipping point. Do you believe bitcoin
has evolved past a criminal enterprise?

BitCoin is a cryptographic system, implemented in a system that is
open source, and used by real people for things they find useful.
Some of their activities you might find objectionable. In fact, so
do I. But this whole idea that the cryptosystem, protocol and
its implemenation can be 'criminal' just smacks of cathegory error.
People do things other people find objectionable, this hasn't changed
for the last few million years we've been around. The tools themselves
are good or bad only instrumentally, never morally.
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm going to have to pop out.

Ok; it looks more like a cop out to me, but whatever floats your boat.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
It's not what you buy with bitcoins, but what underlies the market where
you can buy them. Further, what supports the value.

If you're morally consistent, then you should immediately stop supporting
the most criminal currency of the largest rogue notion of the
world, the USD.

And, no, I'm not joking here, at all.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Accredited means insured and underwritten by some responsible market.

Insured, underwritten, responsible? Somebody tell me where I can
get these. It sounds like you're suffering under a major case of
the Stockholm syndrome.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm quite familiar with the concept of Rees-Mogg's Sovereign Individual,
so...
I have no desire to discuss the identity of criminal activity wrt
bitcoins on a public forum, so you're on your own.

That sounds like a yet another cop out to me, but, yeah, sure.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Again, tis an elegant system, I'm sorry you can't recognize the flaws in
the real world, though you surveyed for them.

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm going to have to pop out.

Ok; it looks more like a cop out to me, but whatever floats your boat.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
It's not what you buy with bitcoins, but what underlies the market where
you can buy them. Further, what supports the value.

If you're morally consistent, then you should immediately stop supporting
the most criminal currency of the largest rogue notion of the
world, the USD.
And, no, I'm not joking here, at all.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Accredited means insured and underwritten by some responsible market.

Insured, underwritten, responsible? Somebody tell me where I can
get these. It sounds like you're suffering under a major case of
the Stockholm syndrome.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
I'm quite familiar with the concept of Rees-Mogg's Sovereign Individual,
so...
I have no desire to discuss the identity of criminal activity wrt
bitcoins on a public forum, so you're on your own.

That sounds like a yet another cop out to me, but, yeah, sure.
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Maybe I'm not even clear. I'm speaking specifically to the bitcoin
relationship. Do you currently participate in
https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/?

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
You keep changing the subject.

Well, I'm trying to figure out the rationale behind your
objections to BTC, so I'm sampling a bit randomly.

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Maybe I'm not even clear. I'm speaking specifically to the bitcoin
relationship. Do you currently participate in
https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/?

The first time I ever hear of it. Looks like a random exchange
to me. What's the beef with it?

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Lol...do you even know WTF you are proposing then?

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Maybe I'm not even clear. I'm speaking specifically to the bitcoin
relationship. Do you currently participate in
https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/?

The first time I ever hear of it. Looks like a random exchange
to me. What's the beef with it?
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Lol...do you even know WTF you are proposing then?

We seem to be talking completely past each other.
You can't parse me, and I can't parse you.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Okay, my respone might have been a little over the top. I just was just
trying to state that as someone who I respect and has come across as
hyper-rational, there might be some risks that need to be considered in
a quantitative way.

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Lol...do you even know WTF you are proposing then?

We seem to be talking completely past each other.
You can't parse me, and I can't parse you.
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
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[Joseph S. Barrera III]

There would never have been a gold standard if alchemy were possible.
The supply of gold is roughly constant. That's a precondition of the
gold standard.

But crunching bits improves every day... clock rate and algorithms and
better architectures (GPUs). And amazing things can be done when solving
a very specific problem (e.g. mining bitcoins).

So what rational person would invest in bitcoins?

- Joe

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Apparently they've said they've considered that and are able to
arbitrarily devalue it at will.

And those who say it's not a fiat currency...fully informed:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/16/3649784/bitcoin-mining-asics-block-reward-change

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508061/custom-chips-could-be-the-shovels-in-a-bitcoin-gold-rush/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/11/16/whats-your-bitcoin-strategy-wordpress-now-accepts-bitcoin-across-the-planet/

http://www.online-casinos.com/news/news0211795.asp

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/11/bitcoins-black-market-trading-or-just-filling-in-market-inefficiencies/

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
There would never have been a gold standard if alchemy were possible.
The supply of gold is roughly constant. That's a precondition of the
gold standard.
But crunching bits improves every day... clock rate and algorithms and
better architectures (GPUs). And amazing things can be done when solving
a very specific problem (e.g. mining bitcoins).
So what rational person would invest in bitcoins?
- Joe
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[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Apparently they've said they've considered that and are able to

arbitrarily devalue it at will.

Sure, but the devaluation will be after-the-fact and will surely favor
the tech-advanced. Right?

Your links, at cocktail hour, are intrinsically tl;dr. But I will read
them tomorrow.

- Joe

[geege schuman]

Tech gets the carrier-pigeon advantage?

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Apparently they've said they've considered that and are able to

arbitrarily devalue it at will.
Sure, but the devaluation will be after-the-fact and will surely favor the
tech-advanced. Right?
Your links, at cocktail hour, are intrinsically tl;dr. But I will read
them tomorrow.
- Joe
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[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are
cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

Greg

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Apparently they've said they've considered that and are able to

arbitrarily devalue it at will.
Sure, but the devaluation will be after-the-fact and will surely favor
the tech-advanced. Right?
Your links, at cocktail hour, are intrinsically tl;dr. But I will read
them tomorrow.
- Joe
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[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are

cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

Wow. Is there any analog to that in the physical gold world? Any such
that I can think of are easily circumvented. But maybe with bitcoins
it's different. After all, gold is perfectly fungible, and bears no
timestamps.

- Joe

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Goldfinger (1964), though I think that was to manipulate the price
upwards using nuclear contamination and keeping it from the market for
the life of the half-life of the contaminants, not devalue it.

Greg

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Wow. Is there any analog to that in the physical gold world? Any such
that I can think of are easily circumvented. But maybe with bitcoins
it's different. After all, gold is perfectly fungible, and bears no
timestamps.
- Joe
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[Joseph S. Barrera III]

It's kind of a bitch from a transmutation point of view that Gold has
like 20+ isotopes but only one is stable.

But nuking Fort Knox is different because eventually the radioactive
whatever would probably decay back to non-radioactive gold.

- Joe

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Goldfinger (1964), though I think that was to manipulate the price
upwards using nuclear contamination and keeping it from the market for
the life of the half-life of the contaminants, not devalue it.
Greg

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Wow. Is there any analog to that in the physical gold world? Any such
that I can think of are easily circumvented. But maybe with bitcoins
it's different. After all, gold is perfectly fungible, and bears no
timestamps.
- Joe
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[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

I guess you could always mine diamonds instead.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin-Minecraft

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
It's kind of a bitch from a transmutation point of view that Gold has
like 20+ isotopes but only one is stable.
But nuking Fort Knox is different because eventually the radioactive
whatever would probably decay back to non-radioactive gold.
- Joe

[Gordon Mohr]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are
cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

That's not what happened at all! Even before the availability of mining
FPGAs/ASICs, a decrease in the reward was scheduled for this point in
the growth of globally-shared 'blockchain'. (This grows by one block of
new transactions roughly every 10 minutes. It's like a giant shared
consensus account balances ledger.)

The timing of this change was based on block count, *not* net
computational ability, though there are other system parameters that
adjust as more computation comes online. There has never been a fixed
return on a certain amount of block-solving power: it has always been
probabilistic, and relative to the total amount of other competing power
for a given block.

There are sometimes grumblings about the way the particular block-reward
problem (a partial hash collision) encourages certain kinds of
optimizations, or is power-wasteful compared to theoretical
alternatives. A better system might come along someday, starting fresh
or forking off from the bitcoin protocol/blockchain.

But there's no shadowy "they" having recently decided any changes in the
mechanism or rate of production; the adjustments baked in at the
beginning have just continued as planned, like clockwork.

- Gordon

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Greg

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Apparently they've said they've considered that and are able to

arbitrarily devalue it at will.
Sure, but the devaluation will be after-the-fact and will surely favor
the tech-advanced. Right?
Your links, at cocktail hour, are intrinsically tl;dr. But I will read
them tomorrow.
- Joe
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[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Thanks for the clarification.

Post by Gordon Mohr

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are
cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

That's not what happened at all! Even before the availability of mining
FPGAs/ASICs, a decrease in the reward was scheduled for this point in
the growth of globally-shared 'blockchain'. (This grows by one block of
new transactions roughly every 10 minutes. It's like a giant shared
consensus account balances ledger.)
The timing of this change was based on block count, *not* net
computational ability, though there are other system parameters that
adjust as more computation comes online. There has never been a fixed
return on a certain amount of block-solving power: it has always been
probabilistic, and relative to the total amount of other competing power
for a given block.
There are sometimes grumblings about the way the particular block-reward
problem (a partial hash collision) encourages certain kinds of
optimizations, or is power-wasteful compared to theoretical
alternatives. A better system might come along someday, starting fresh
or forking off from the bitcoin protocol/blockchain.
But there's no shadowy "they" having recently decided any changes in the
mechanism or rate of production; the adjustments baked in at the
beginning have just continued as planned, like clockwork.
- Gordon

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are
cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

Arbitrarily, huh.

Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, or are, they're not stupid.

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Eugen Leitl
Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, or are, they're not stupid.

Barrera's postulate: you are safer trusting an enormous bunch of crooks
than a smaller bunch of maybe-not-crooks.

- Joe

[Gary Stock]

I fear that may be axiomatic only where enormous < 60, given:

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/job-opportunities/facts.shtml

"Alaska has the smallest bicameral legislature in the nation,
with a Senate of 20 members and a House of Representatives of 40."

Stock's Lemma: Barrera's Postulate is inapplicable to bicameral
legislatures.

GS

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III

Post by Eugen Leitl
Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, or are, they're not stupid.

Barrera's postulate: you are safer trusting an enormous bunch of
crooks than a smaller bunch of maybe-not-crooks.
- Joe

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Lol, Joe, my favorite QOTD.

BTW, I'm still going to go back to my original point. If you have a
GPGPU or an FPGA, you have an advantage over those who don't.

The recent changes don't have anything to do with that, only keeping BTC
from being devalued which is a completely different subject.

Saying "trust them because their smart" would a little pre-mature if you
don't even know what to trust them about.

"There's no sense being precise..."

Greg

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III

Post by Eugen Leitl
Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, or are, they're not stupid.

Barrera's postulate: you are safer trusting an enormous bunch of crooks
than a smaller bunch of maybe-not-crooks.
- Joe
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[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Abitrary referred to the miners and not the policy, of which I am
familiar.

In fact, based on your article that included the economic breakdown, I'd
say that the distribution graph of people able to mine is all over the
map based on individual miner's capabilities.

Explain to me how making mining harder favors those with lesser
computing and cripples those with greater advantage.

The point is that it doesn't. It just helps prevent previously mined
BTC from being devalued. Mining still favors those with better
computing technology, or even less power consuming if BTC profit is your
requirement.

So I keep talking about two different players competing for BTC doing
computational mining at the same time and you keep talking about current
miners being restricted from devaluing previous miner's work.

They are two completely different things.

Greg

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Don't bother reading, there's too much, I'll sum up.
They've arbitrarily decided that people with FPGAs and GPGPUs are
cheating, so they are devaluing the ability to mine value.

Arbitrarily, huh.
Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, or are, they're not stupid.
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[Gordon Mohr]

The limits on Bitcoin creation are imposed by a schedule laid down in
the initial design of the system, *not* computational power.

Relative computational power just helps nodes 'win' allocations
according to that original schedule. The difficulty threshold for
winning even self-adjusts as bitcoins are disbursed, so no matter how
fast computation improves, 21 million BTC will be handed out through
2140 CE, then no more.

The balances in the system are quite interesting and worth reading
about. There are potential problems and risks, but increasing production
with computational progress is not an issue.

- Gordon

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
There would never have been a gold standard if alchemy were possible.
The supply of gold is roughly constant. That's a precondition of the
gold standard.
But crunching bits improves every day... clock rate and algorithms and
better architectures (GPUs). And amazing things can be done when solving
a very specific problem (e.g. mining bitcoins).
So what rational person would invest in bitcoins?
- Joe
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FoRK mailing list
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[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
There would never have been a gold standard if alchemy were possible.
The supply of gold is roughly constant. That's a precondition of the
gold standard.
But crunching bits improves every day... clock rate and algorithms and
better architectures (GPUs). And amazing things can be done when solving

FPGAs, with ASICs ante portas.

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
a very specific problem (e.g. mining bitcoins).
So what rational person would invest in bitcoins?

Because the designers made the difficulty adaptive

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Bitcoin-Block-Reward-Halved-25BTC

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Can you prevent forging a bitcoin from an earlier era before
reward-halving? If so, how?

Forgive me for not having read the papers yet.

This is somewhat I guess like forging a rare one-penny red new guinea stamp.
But see http://www.amazon.com/Great-Work-Time-John-Crowley/dp/0553293192
Somehow this stuff never ends up well.
Unless you really like seaweed.

- Joe

[Gordon Mohr]

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Can you prevent forging a bitcoin from an earlier era before
reward-halving? If so, how?

The answer is "mu".

A "bitcoin" isn't a solution that you hold and use later. Rather,
winning the block competition, and announcing that solution to the
world, and having it accepted by the network, causes your chosen account
key(s) to be credited with the block reward balance.

The consensus ledger then agrees that your key can spend those bitcoins.

Only if someone gets your private key can they pretend to be the owner
of those previously-minted-on-schedule coins.

- Gordon

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Forgive me for not having read the papers yet.
This is somewhat I guess like forging a rare one-penny red new guinea stamp.
But see http://www.amazon.com/Great-Work-Time-John-Crowley/dp/0553293192
Somehow this stuff never ends up well.
Unless you really like seaweed.
- Joe
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[Joseph S. Barrera III]

"tied cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to
its shared value"

Greg, you've seen this, but I post this for folks on this list who haven't.

I'm curious if anyone can convincingly refute the following statements
from this article. Oh, and also note:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/new-documents-suggest-irs-reads-emails-without-warrant

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=219284

".... In order to do this the system that implements the currency must
maintain and expose a full and complete record of each and every
transfer from the origin of that particular coin forward!

"This is the only way I can know that nobody else was presented the same
token before I was, and that the last transfer made of that token was to
you. I must know with certainty that both of these conditions are true,
and then to be able to spend that coin I must make the fact that I hold
it and you transferred it to me known to everyone as well.

"Now consider the typical clandestine transaction -- Joe wishes to buy a
bag of pot, which happens to be illegal to transact. He has Bitcoins to
buy the pot with. He finds a dealer willing to sell the pot despite it
being illegal to do so, and transfers the coins to the dealer. The
dealer must verify the block chain of the coins to insure that he is not
being given coins that were already spent on gasoline or that Joe didn't
counterfeit them, and then he transfers the pot to Joe. There is now an
indelible and permanent record of the transfer of funds and that record
will never go away.

"This creates several problems for both Joe and the dealer. The dealer
can (and might) take steps such as using "throw-away" wallets to try to
unlink the transfer from his person, but that's dangerous. In all
jurisdictions "structuring" transactions to evade money laundering or
reporting constraints is a separate and unique crime and usually is a
felony. Therefore, the very act of trying to split up transactions or
use of "throw-away" wallets in and of itself is likely to be ruled a
crime, leaving any party doing that exposed to separate and distinct
criminal charges (along with whatever else they can bust you for.)

"Second, due to the indelible nature of the records you're exposed for
much longer that with traditional currencies to the risk of a bust and
in many cases you might be exposed for the rest of your life. In
particular if there is a tax evasion issue that arises you're in big
trouble because there is no statute of limitations on willful
non-reporting of taxes in the United States, along with many other
jurisdictions. Since the records never go away your exposure, once you
engage in a transaction that leads to liability, is permanent.

"Third, because Bitcoin is not state-linked and thus fluctuates in value
there is an FX tax issue. Let's say you "buy" Bitcoins (whether for
cash or in exchange for a good or service you provide) at a time when
they have a "value" of $5 each against the US dollar. You spend them
when they have a "value" of $20 each. You have a capital gain of $15.
At the time of the sale you have a tax liability too, and I'm willing to
bet you didn't keep track of it or report it. That liability never goes
away as it was wilfully evaded and yet the ability to track the
transaction never goes away either! [...]"

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Bitcoin, while elegant in theory, is blood money, tied

cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to its
shared value--with its participants condoning that criminal activity by
being compensated through accretive value by turning a blind eye to that
very same criminal activity.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Greg

Post by Gary Stock
Does ZS have a "loyal opposition"? The presentation is appealing, but
avoids revealing any weaknesses.
Discussing BCI, without ever defining the acronym, suggests a mild but
natural flavor of "inbreeding toward irrelevance." It leaves me
wondering if the group is too self-referential.
Pitching Bitcoin as so highly profitable has all the hallmarks of an
investment scam. It leaves me wondering if the group is unaware of how
that appears to outsiders.
Can someone recommend a usable -- i.e., rational, moderate, concise --
statement of ways in which ZS or bitcoin may ~not~ work as intended?
Of what has not been said, but might ~need~ to be considered?
Thanks,
GS

Post by Eugen Leitl
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:34:57 +0000
Subject: Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if
you can!
Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!
http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html
ZSF - The Zero State Fund - is a mutual fund being planned by and for
Zero State citizens and friends.
This is an important historical opportunity for avowed Transhumanists
and others aware of a radically disruptive future to achieve a degree
of control over their collective fates by beginning to gather
resources and a degree of influence over how world events affect us.
It is particularly important that you inform yourself ahead of the
launch event by watching the Youtube presentation beforehand, and
thinking about it carefully. Please also allow yourself time to test
the Openqwaq client software (again, details below), to minimise the
chance of having any difficulties on the day.
The following message is from Anu (Rudiger Koch), regarding the ZSF
Hi all,
I'd like to invite you to the first virtual ZSF conference on Nov
17th, 18:00h UTC ( 05:00h ZST). This meeting will start where the
Youtube presentation http://youtu.be/QihIz59sfxY ends
- it will mainly be a panel discussion of the Zero State Fund (ZSF).
A video of the event will be published via this webpage
(http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html) immediately after discussion has
finished, and an email thread will be created for discussion of
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero
Pledges are currently at $6,015 for options, $48,120 for shares. As
the minimum initial capital for a mutual fund in St.Kitts is $100,000,
we need at least $12,500 in pledges on options to reach that. But we
need to be a bit higher just to make sure.
Deadline for Pledges will be Nov 19, 24:00h ZST. If at this point we
have more than $15,000 in pledges, ZSF will happen, otherwise it will
be canceled and a chance for ZS to shape history will have passed
unused.
The Conference will take place in Openqwaq. Please get the client
http://qwaq.3dicc.com/client/
We'll meet at the teleXLR8 Main Conference Hall.
Thanks
Anu

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[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

You've seen the "Contaminated Currency" theory of US dollars right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

I'm sure it's a government plot where it's not really drugs, but
transaction-dna "sin"-encoded smart water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartWater
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/smart_water.html

So I guess btc is just like usd.

Greg

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
"tied cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to
its shared value"
Greg, you've seen this, but I post this for folks on this list who haven't.
I'm curious if anyone can convincingly refute the following statements
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/new-documents-suggest-irs-reads-emails-without-warrant

[Lucas Gonze]

Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?

Aren't transaction costs much lower?

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
You've seen the "Contaminated Currency" theory of US dollars right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Contaminated_currency<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency>
I'm sure it's a government plot where it's not really drugs, but
transaction-dna "sin"-encoded smart water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**SmartWater<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartWater>
http://www.schneier.com/blog/**archives/2005/02/smart_water.**html<http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/smart_water.html>
So I guess btc is just like usd.
Greg

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
"tied cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to
its shared value"
Greg, you've seen this, but I post this for folks on this list who haven't.
I'm curious if anyone can convincingly refute the following statements
http://www.aclu.org/blog/**technology-and-liberty-**
national-security/new-**documents-suggest-irs-reads-**
emails-without-warrant<http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/new-documents-suggest-irs-reads-emails-without-warrant>

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[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?

Is trading and investment non-criminal?
How about https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Post by Lucas Gonze
Aren't transaction costs much lower?

That's just the point. It's a transaction currency.

See Falkvinge on the matter
http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/

http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/

http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/12/what-we-learn-from-this-bitcoin-correction/

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?

Seems like its primary use is speculation, which isn't inherently
criminal :-)

- Joe

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?

Seems like its primary use is speculation, which isn't inherently

criminal

(unless, of course, you don't report your capital gains on your taxes)

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Seems like its primary use is speculation, which isn't inherently

criminal
(unless, of course, you don't report your capital gains on your taxes)

Only if you cash out.

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Eugen Leitl

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
Seems like its primary use is speculation, which isn't inherently

criminal
(unless, of course, you don't report your capital gains on your taxes)

Only if you cash out.

and from http://bitcoinintro.com/bitcoin-overview/use-cases/ which Lucas
just posted:

"Storing cash for a long period of time is not profitable because of
inflation – a government’s printing of unbacked notes. After Bitcoin’s
pre-programmed inflation period ends, it will begin to deflate due to
attrition. Storing your coins for a long period of time may actually
increase their value!"

So I was wrong. The primary TWO uses of bitcoin are:

1. Speculation
2. Hoarding

(although personally I'd rather hoard gold. It's prettier.)

[Lucas Gonze]

Personally I don't do either.

Speculating in Bitcoin is an extreme sport.

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
1. Speculation
2. Hoarding

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Of course there are.

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?
Aren't transaction costs much lower?

[Lucas Gonze]

http://bitcoinintro.com/bitcoin-overview/use-cases/


Send emergency Bitcoins instantly to stranded family and friends abroad
directly to their smartphone! No waiting for the bank to open, no $25 wire
fees. Instant assistance!
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Safer than a lemonade stand for kids to make their first earned money (more
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like home made beads/necklaces/bracelets/etc.
Worried about making large transactions in public and having to safely
transport the money to safety afterwards? Accept Bitcoins to your smart
phone, then transfer them to your home computer or off-line Bitcoin address.
Your computer just failed to boot with a wierd error message. You Google it
and discover a forum thread where someone already solved the problem and
helps you get your computer back online. You decide to reward them by
sending a few BTC to the Bitcoin address in their signature line as thanks
for helping you get back to business.
Are you a merchant and tired of payment processor usage fees? Tired of
dealing with fraud and chargebacks? Transactions do not require transaction
fees. And once the money is sent to you, the transaction cannot be reversed.
Storing cash for a long period of time is not profitable because of
inflation – a government’s printing of unbacked notes. After Bitcoin’s
pre-programmed inflation period ends, it will begin to deflate due to
attrition. Storing your coins for a long period of time may actually
increase their value!

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Of course there are.

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?
Aren't transaction costs much lower?
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[Lucas Gonze]

Businesses which need to make payroll will be wary because of the
incredible fluctuation in value.

OTOH the lower transaction costs should enable merchants to lower prices.

Post by Lucas Gonze
http://bitcoinintro.com/bitcoin-overview/use-cases/
Send emergency Bitcoins instantly to stranded family and friends abroad
directly to their smartphone! No waiting for the bank to open, no $25 wire
fees. Instant assistance!
Want to store a value of bitcoins securely for a long period of time.
Generate Bitcoin keys off-line, print them, store them in a safe at your
bank. Transfer Bitcoins to the off-line address and they are super secure
until you need to spend them! Offline Bitcoins are not vulnerable to
malicous software that may lurk on your computer.
Safer than a lemonade stand for kids to make their first earned money
(more anonymous, no real world contact). They can sell their arts and
crafts, like home made beads/necklaces/bracelets/etc.
Worried about making large transactions in public and having to safely
transport the money to safety afterwards? Accept Bitcoins to your smart
phone, then transfer them to your home computer or off-line Bitcoin address.
Your computer just failed to boot with a wierd error message. You Google
it and discover a forum thread where someone already solved the problem and
helps you get your computer back online. You decide to reward them by
sending a few BTC to the Bitcoin address in their signature line as thanks
for helping you get back to business.
Are you a merchant and tired of payment processor usage fees? Tired of
dealing with fraud and chargebacks? Transactions do not require transaction
fees. And once the money is sent to you, the transaction cannot be reversed.
Storing cash for a long period of time is not profitable because of
inflation – a government’s printing of unbacked notes. After Bitcoin’s
pre-programmed inflation period ends, it will begin to deflate due to
attrition. Storing your coins for a long period of time may actually
increase their value!

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Of course there are.

Post by Lucas Gonze
Are there significant non-criminal use cases for bitcoin?
Aren't transaction costs much lower?
--

______________________________**_________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/**listinfo/fork<http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork>

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

All good scenarios.

But back to the point. Unlike other currencies, each individual bitcoin
is cryptographically tied to every single transaction such that you can
track the individual bitcoin all the way back to any previous uses of
it. The equivalent to the USD would be if each time any bill was used,
the serial number was captured at the point of that exchange similar to
the where's george app.

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

In the early days of bitcoin, it was the most popular way to purchase
social security numbers, credit card numbers, and mass password lists
because it was capable of completing transactions online, using grey and
black market exchanges, and not dependent on common financial tools and
methods. Many criminal groups had a vested interest in seeing the value
of bitcoin remain high so that these initial markets didn't dry up.

Also, similar to Napster where there was a percent of Napster used for
illegal copyright violation, at that time, bitcoin had a higher use for
legitimate transactions for illegal goods. Using the Napster legal
argument, my comment was that at that time and without much galloping
inferentialism, it wouldn't be a stretch to state that bitcoin would be
considered a criminal enterprise by certain US courts.

I swear I've explained this concept on 5 different lists already.

Let me ask two questions on the subject of perfect information.

Would you feel comfortable using a US dollar bill that was stolen from a
little old lady that was murdered on the street? Maybe, maybe not. If
the bank gave you the note and it was recovered, sure why not.
Ignorance is bliss. If you personally saw the murder and the murderer
gave you the dollar bill to make you pretend you didn't see anything,
probably not.

If you had an ability to look up the provenance of every single bitcoin
and found that someone wanting to pay you for your pizza or your porsche
with 20% "dirty" bitcoins and 80% clean ones. Would you take it? Would
you insist on only the clean ones? Would it matter depending on how
dirty the coins were? If at all?

Greg

Post by Lucas Gonze
http://bitcoinintro.com/bitcoin-overview/use-cases/
Send emergency Bitcoins instantly to stranded family and friends abroad
directly to their smartphone! No waiting for the bank to open, no $25 wire
fees. Instant assistance!
Want to store a value of bitcoins securely for a long period of time.
Generate Bitcoin keys off-line, print them, store them in a safe at your
bank. Transfer Bitcoins to the off-line address and they are super secure
until you need to spend them! Offline Bitcoins are not vulnerable to
malicous software that may lurk on your computer.
Safer than a lemonade stand for kids to make their first earned money (more
anonymous, no real world contact). They can sell their arts and crafts,
like home made beads/necklaces/bracelets/etc.
Worried about making large transactions in public and having to safely
transport the money to safety afterwards? Accept Bitcoins to your smart
phone, then transfer them to your home computer or off-line Bitcoin address.
Your computer just failed to boot with a wierd error message. You Google it
and discover a forum thread where someone already solved the problem and
helps you get your computer back online. You decide to reward them by
sending a few BTC to the Bitcoin address in their signature line as thanks
for helping you get back to business.
Are you a merchant and tired of payment processor usage fees? Tired of
dealing with fraud and chargebacks? Transactions do not require transaction
fees. And once the money is sent to you, the transaction cannot be reversed.
Storing cash for a long period of time is not profitable because of
inflation – a government’s printing of unbacked notes. After Bitcoin’s
pre-programmed inflation period ends, it will begin to deflate due to
attrition. Storing your coins for a long period of time may actually
increase their value!

[Stephen Williams]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
All good scenarios.
But back to the point. Unlike other currencies, each individual bitcoin is cryptographically tied to every single transaction
such that you can track the individual bitcoin all the way back to any previous uses of it. The equivalent to the USD would
be if each time any bill was used, the serial number was captured at the point of that exchange similar to the where's george
app.
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
In the early days of bitcoin, it was the most popular way to purchase social security numbers, credit card numbers, and mass
password lists because it was capable of completing transactions online, using grey and black market exchanges, and not
dependent on common financial tools and methods. Many criminal groups had a vested interest in seeing the value of bitcoin
remain high so that these initial markets didn't dry up.
Also, similar to Napster where there was a percent of Napster used for illegal copyright violation, at that time, bitcoin had
a higher use for legitimate transactions for illegal goods. Using the Napster legal argument, my comment was that at that
time and without much galloping inferentialism, it wouldn't be a stretch to state that bitcoin would be considered a criminal
enterprise by certain US courts.
I swear I've explained this concept on 5 different lists already.
Let me ask two questions on the subject of perfect information.
Would you feel comfortable using a US dollar bill that was stolen from a little old lady that was murdered on the street?
Maybe, maybe not. If the bank gave you the note and it was recovered, sure why not. Ignorance is bliss. If you personally
saw the murder and the murderer gave you the dollar bill to make you pretend you didn't see anything, probably not.
If you had an ability to look up the provenance of every single bitcoin and found that someone wanting to pay you for your
pizza or your porsche with 20% "dirty" bitcoins and 80% clean ones. Would you take it? Would you insist on only the clean
ones? Would it matter depending on how dirty the coins were? If at all?

It doesn't matter at all in either case. If someone gave you stolen goods, which are not money, in the US at least, then you
can't take them. This is one reason I don't understand the final outcome of this:
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

Because the end-recipient isn't a thief he apologizes and says she should keep it in return for him embarrassing her? Is this a
European thing? In the US, she has committed an illegal act: receiving stolen property. Under a theory not unlike that used to
justify anti- child pornography, making reception of stolen good illegal tends to dry up the supply chain. Is this a foreign
concept in both Iran and Europe?

http://www.geek.com/apple/hidden-app-tracks-stolen-macbook-from-london-to-iran-1551846/
http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/11/tehran-oh-saw-us-thefts-stolen-mac-is-sending-back-snaps-from-iran-3593634/
https://www.google.com/search?q=stolen+mac+recovery+iran+picture

But money or other fungible money-like commodities are generic stored value. In the case of the LoL / murderer, there are three
reasons to take the money:

1. It's money.
2. The social contract to report a violent crime is much stronger than the contract to make a personal agreement, so I'd report
the crime anyway.
3. It would be the safest thing under the circumstances. Why telegraph that you're going to turn him in, turning you into a
100% liability?

While there is some tracking for "conflict diamonds", doing something similar for gold, in general, is pretty tough. And you
could use similar reasoning as above to make the case that any gold not freshly mined is blood-gold, probably many times over.
And the dirt your food is grown in has dead people in it. You drink water that has been everywhere. And the land you live on
was stolen from American Indians, etc. Anything other than direct causality or supportive causality inducement (i.e. creating a
market that encourages repeating) is superstitious and irrational.


I'm not sure how to resolve the capital gains problem of Bitcoin, although it seems that currency traders and really everyone
who uses any monetary system would have exactly the same problem. How is that resolved? Isn't it technically a problem that I
use money from a month ago to buy an ebook in EU?


As far as legitimacy and criminal intent, if there is an active, legal use of Bitcoin, then it doesn't matter if some people use
it to further illegal purposes.
The tracking problem is interesting since the goal of early Cypherpunk talk about digital currency was to have something that
was untraceable. Presumably there is some way to achieve this, but presumably those would be illegal if there weren't strong
legal purpose. You could easily argue that there are simple privacy reasons to have private transactions: which books you read,
movies, etc., but most people don't care now.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Greg

Stephen

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Lucas Gonze
http://bitcoinintro.com/bitcoin-overview/use-cases/
Send emergency Bitcoins instantly to stranded family and friends abroad
directly to their smartphone! No waiting for the bank to open, no $25 wire
fees. Instant assistance!
Want to store a value of bitcoins securely for a long period of time.
Generate Bitcoin keys off-line, print them, store them in a safe at your
bank. Transfer Bitcoins to the off-line address and they are super secure
until you need to spend them! Offline Bitcoins are not vulnerable to
malicous software that may lurk on your computer.
Safer than a lemonade stand for kids to make their first earned money (more
anonymous, no real world contact). They can sell their arts and crafts,
like home made beads/necklaces/bracelets/etc.
Worried about making large transactions in public and having to safely
transport the money to safety afterwards? Accept Bitcoins to your smart
phone, then transfer them to your home computer or off-line Bitcoin address.
Your computer just failed to boot with a wierd error message. You Google it
and discover a forum thread where someone already solved the problem and
helps you get your computer back online. You decide to reward them by
sending a few BTC to the Bitcoin address in their signature line as thanks
for helping you get back to business.
Are you a merchant and tired of payment processor usage fees? Tired of
dealing with fraud and chargebacks? Transactions do not require transaction
fees. And once the money is sent to you, the transaction cannot be reversed.
Storing cash for a long period of time is not profitable because of
inflation – a government’s printing of unbacked notes. After Bitcoin’s
pre-programmed inflation period ends, it will begin to deflate due to
attrition. Storing your coins for a long period of time may actually
increase their value!

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

Post by Stephen Williams
It doesn't matter at all in either case. If someone gave you stolen
goods, which are not money, in the US at least, then you can't take
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

Wow, I'm guessing that the people identified in the pictures live in
fear of the state. Even though they aren't the original criminals, they
probably committing some minor crime that could ensue in very harsh
punishment if documented by the pictures. I think they still cut off
people's hands in Iran.

I'm assuming he doesn't want her hands chopped off.

Post by Stephen Williams
While there is some tracking for "conflict diamonds", doing something
similar for gold, in general, is pretty tough. And you could use
similar reasoning as above to make the case that any gold not freshly
mined is blood-gold, probably many times over.

You can super-mildly irradiate gold post-smelting.

Greg

[r***@ai.mit.edu]

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Stephen Williams
It doesn't matter at all in either case. If someone gave you stolen
goods, which are not money, in the US at least, then you can't take
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

Wow, I'm guessing that the people identified in the pictures live in
fear of the state. Even though they aren't the original criminals, they
probably committing some minor crime that could ensue in very harsh
punishment if documented by the pictures. I think they still cut off
people's hands in Iran.
I'm assuming he doesn't want her hands chopped off.

They may also have bought the laptop in a flea market or through some
sort of Iranian Craigslist, while being unaware of where it originally
came from, or how. It's very likely the case that gray- to
black-market channels are the only way they can buy consumer
electronics of any kind, due to trade sanctions. To give you some
idea, the hospitals in Iran are having trouble importing even basic
medical supplies, which are supposed to have an exemption, due in part
to funds transfer restrictions, and in part to overseas sellers just
not wanting the hassle:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/13/iran-lifesaving-drugs-international-sanctions

(This is one of the intended results of the sanctions policy, which is
justified, in part, as intended to generate internal domestic
discontent, as a way of motivating the Iranian government to clean up
its act --- or of motivating the people to get another government. To
which one Iranian of my distant acquaintance might reply that they
already tried that, in the Green Revolution, and it didn't work out so
hot for anyone other than the government.)

rst

[Stephen Williams]

Post by r***@ai.mit.edu

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Stephen Williams
It doesn't matter at all in either case. If someone gave you stolen
goods, which are not money, in the US at least, then you can't take
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

Wow, I'm guessing that the people identified in the pictures live in
fear of the state. Even though they aren't the original criminals, they
probably committing some minor crime that could ensue in very harsh
punishment if documented by the pictures. I think they still cut off
people's hands in Iran.
I'm assuming he doesn't want her hands chopped off.

They may also have bought the laptop in a flea market or through some
sort of Iranian Craigslist, while being unaware of where it originally
came from, or how. It's very likely the case that gray- to
black-market channels are the only way they can buy consumer
electronics of any kind, due to trade sanctions. To give you some

True, but doesn't change the logic of not allowing receiving of stolen goods. They should fix the government, not get by.

Post by r***@ai.mit.edu
idea, the hospitals in Iran are having trouble importing even basic
medical supplies, which are supposed to have an exemption, due in part
to funds transfer restrictions, and in part to overseas sellers just
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/13/iran-lifesaving-drugs-international-sanctions
(This is one of the intended results of the sanctions policy, which is
justified, in part, as intended to generate internal domestic
discontent, as a way of motivating the Iranian government to clean up
its act --- or of motivating the people to get another government. To
which one Iranian of my distant acquaintance might reply that they
already tried that, in the Green Revolution, and it didn't work out so
hot for anyone other than the government.)

The population voted them in office and allowed this disaster to happen, at each step losing power to stop it. Ignorant and
stupid and sad.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111944123

Post by r***@ai.mit.edu
Unidentified Man: There might have been tears in the eyes of the shah as he left Iran for what could be the last time. There
was nothing but sheer delight on the faces of the demonstrators who took to the streets of the capital in their thousands to
celebrate the departure of the man they have hated for so long.
INSKEEP: The ouster of Iran's ruler and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini created the Islamic government that rules Iran to this
day, and that now faces its own street protests. BBC journalist Kasra Naji was a young demonstrator then.
Give me an idea. What was it like to be an Iranian on the street of Tehran in early 1979?
Mr. KASRA NAJI (BBC Journalist): It was most exciting. We were university students in those days in 1979. The dominant
politics of universities was leaning towards the left, if you remember. And those days, a revolution was something we were all
looking for, anyway. And what happened in Iran was exactly what we were looking for. We wanted democracy, and the revolution
was promising that.
INSKEEP: And there are images of what looked like millions of people on the streets of Tehran as the shah of Iran, the ruler
of that time, abdicated and left the country.
Mr. NAJI: Yes. It was a most popular revolution, you can imagine, throughout Iran, not just the capital Tehran. Even in remote
villages, people were up in arms against the shah and were demonstrating. I was part of some of these demonstrations when I
was in Tehran. These demonstrations, mostly in central parts of the capital Tehran, mostly, often and invariably descended
into running battles with the army soldiers who were in charge of maintaining the security, and they used to shoot in the air
and occasionally, very occasionally, into the crowds. They used to fire tear gas at us. We used to run away and sort of
regroup down the street. And this is how it went. We used to shout these slogans: Down with the shah. And that was the
unifying slogan, if you like.
INSKEEP: You mentioned university students who have leftist ideologies. You mentioned people who wanted democracy. They wanted
more freedom. They wanted more openness. They wanted things that sound, to our ears, like Western values. And yet this same
giant crowd was the crowd that welcomed Ayatollah Khomeini when he returned to Iran to take control.
Mr. NAJI: He played a very clever game. Those days, before he returned to Tehran, all he would talk about was democracy and
freedom. He would not talk about a religious revolution. He wouldn't talk about a religious state, and democracy and freedom
worked for us too, on the left, in a sense that we wanted to have a say. And freedom and democracy would provide that.
INSKEEP: How long did it take for a wide group of Iranians, not just student intellectuals, to begin doubting the direction
that the country was taking under Ayatollah Khamenei in those early years?
Mr. NAJI: The doubts had begun even before the overthrow of the shah. But, of course, as more people joined this doubt, if you
like, had more doubts, and these groups were - the groups that were started to be eliminated from the political process. And
Iran became pretty ugly.
I remember a few months after the Revolution, they were executing about 100, 150, 160 people a day and they would announce and
print their names in the afternoon papers. I used to - I remember, I used to go and get the afternoon papers and just go home
and sort of cry because you just, you know, just going through these names of, you know, a lot of people you didn't know, but
obviously, you know, the night before 160 people had been executed. And this went on for months on end.
INSKEEP: It's striking to hear you say that the regime, the new regime was not sticking political opponents on airplanes and
flying them out and dropping them over the sea, for example, the kind of thing that was done in other countries. They weren't
secretly executing people. They were doing it openly and allowing it to be published in the newspaper.
Mr. NAJI: Absolutely. They wanted to make sure that people get the message that leftist groups and secular groups are not
wanted and they would not be tolerated.
INSKEEP: Are the people who ran the Revolution or who won, the ones who were not executed at that time, still the people in
power today, by-in-large?
Mr. NAJI: No. This is very interesting. This whole establishment is divided into an extremist wing and a moderate wing, and
they fight each other, and the moderates are eliminated. And then you'll have the extremists taking over.
And then a year or two down the line, the extremists are divided into two between the moderate extremists and the other
extremists. And then the moderate extremists are eliminated, and so on and so forth. And we've got to this point, that today,
the extreme of the Islamic establishment is in power today in the shape of President Ahmadinejad and his supporters. And even
amongst them now, we would see this fight between the moderates - if you like - extremists, and the extremists behind
President Ahmadinejad.

I can only hope that a lesson will be learned to cancel all of this eventually and inoculate against it for a long time.

Related:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/ksfr/.artsmain/article/5/1338/1950394/Books/Daughter.Of.The.Storm.An.Iranian.Literary.Revolution

Post by r***@ai.mit.edu
rst

sdw

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

Post by Stephen Williams
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/image/48038094141

The best thing about Presence was the cover art.

- Joe

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

They still listen to zep in Tehran? Those kids are so wild.

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III

Post by Stephen Williams
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/image/48038094141
The best thing about Presence was the cover art.
- Joe
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

They don't listen to Zep, they just sit around and do incredibly
realistic reconstructions of the cover art a la "The Mill and the Cross".

I just hope for everyone's sake they don't try to reconstruct "Houses of
the Holy".

- Joe

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
They still listen to zep in Tehran? Those kids are so wild.

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III

Post by Stephen Williams
http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/

http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/image/48038094141
The best thing about Presence was the cover art.
- Joe
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Lorin Rivers]

Most US currency already has cocaine and stripper glitter on it. Along w E. coli.

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/the-nsa-worked-to-track-down-bitcoin-users-snowden-documents-reveal/

Post by Joseph S. Barrera III
"tied cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to
its shared value"
Greg, you've seen this, but I post this for folks on this list who haven't.
I'm curious if anyone can convincingly refute the following statements
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/new-documents-suggest-irs-reads-emails-without-warrant
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=219284
".... In order to do this the system that implements the currency must
maintain and expose a full and complete record of each and every
transfer from the origin of that particular coin forward!
"This is the only way I can know that nobody else was presented the same
token before I was, and that the last transfer made of that token was to
you.  I must know with certainty that both of these conditions are true,
and then to be able to spend that coin I must make the fact that I hold
it and you transferred it to me known to everyone as well.
"Now consider the typical clandestine transaction -- Joe wishes to buy a
bag of pot, which happens to be illegal to transact.  He has Bitcoins to
buy the pot with.  He finds a dealer willing to sell the pot despite it
being illegal to do so, and transfers the coins to the dealer.  The
dealer must verify the block chain of the coins to insure that he is not
being given coins that were already spent on gasoline or that Joe didn't
counterfeit them, and then he transfers the pot to Joe.  There is now an
indelible and permanent record of the transfer of funds and that record
will never go away.
"This creates several problems for both Joe and the dealer.  The dealer
can (and might) take steps such as using "throw-away" wallets to try to
unlink the transfer from his person, but that's dangerous.  In all
jurisdictions "structuring" transactions to evade money laundering or
reporting constraints is a separate and unique crime and usually is a
felony.  Therefore, the very act of trying to split up transactions or
use of "throw-away" wallets in and of itself is likely to be ruled a
crime, leaving any party doing that exposed to separate and distinct
criminal charges (along with whatever else they can bust you for.)
"Second, due to the indelible nature of the records you're exposed for
much longer that with traditional currencies to the risk of a bust and
in many cases you might be exposed for the rest of your life.  In
particular if there is a tax evasion issue that arises you're in big
trouble because there is no statute of limitations on willful
non-reporting of taxes in the United States, along with many other
jurisdictions.  Since the records never go away your exposure, once you
engage in a transaction that leads to liability, is permanent.
"Third, because Bitcoin is not state-linked and thus fluctuates in value
there is an FX tax issue.  Let's say you "buy" Bitcoins (whether for
cash or in exchange for a good or service you provide) at a time when
they have a "value" of $5 each against the US dollar.  You spend them
when they have a "value" of $20 each.  You have a capital gain of $15.
At the time of the sale you have a tax liability too, and I'm willing to
bet you didn't keep track of it or report it.  That liability never goes
away as it was wilfully evaded and yet the ability to track the
transaction never goes away either! [...]"

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Bitcoin, while elegant in theory, is blood money, tied

cryptologically to all the criminal activities that contributed to its
shared value--with its participants condoning that criminal activity by
being compensated through accretive value by turning a blind eye to that
very same criminal activity.

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer
Greg

Does ZS have a "loyal opposition"?  The presentation is appealing, but
avoids revealing any weaknesses.
Discussing BCI, without ever defining the acronym, suggests a mild but
natural flavor of "inbreeding toward irrelevance."  It leaves me
wondering if the group is too self-referential.
Pitching Bitcoin as so highly profitable has all the hallmarks of an
investment scam.  It leaves me wondering if the group is unaware of how
that appears to outsiders.
Can someone recommend a usable -- i.e., rational, moderate, concise --
statement of ways in which ZS or bitcoin may ~not~ work as intended?
Of what has not been said, but might ~need~ to be considered?
Thanks,
GS

-----

Post by Gregory Alan Bolcer

Post by Eugen Leitl
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:34:57 +0000
Subject: Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if
     you can!
Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread the word if you can!
http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html
ZSF - The Zero State Fund - is a mutual fund being planned by and for
Zero State citizens and friends.
This is an important historical opportunity for avowed Transhumanists
and others aware of a radically disruptive future to achieve a degree
of control over their collective fates by beginning to gather
resources and a degree of influence over how world events affect us.
It is particularly important that you inform yourself ahead of the
launch event by watching the Youtube presentation beforehand, and
thinking about it carefully. Please also allow yourself time to test
the Openqwaq client software (again, details below), to minimise the
chance of having any difficulties on the day.
The following message is from Anu (Rudiger Koch), regarding the ZSF
Hi all,
I'd like to invite you to the first virtual ZSF conference on Nov
17th, 18:00h UTC ( 05:00h ZST). This meeting will start where the
Youtube presentation http://youtu.be/QihIz59sfxY ends
- it will mainly be a panel discussion of the Zero State Fund (ZSF).
A video of the event will be published via this webpage
(http://zerostate.net/ZSF.html) immediately after discussion has
finished, and an email thread will be created for discussion of
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero
Pledges are currently at $6,015 for options, $48,120 for shares. As
the minimum initial capital for a mutual fund in St.Kitts is $100,000,
we need at least $12,500 in pledges on options to reach that. But we
need to be a bit higher just to make sure.
Deadline for Pledges will be Nov 19, 24:00h ZST. If at this point we
have more than $15,000 in pledges, ZSF will happen, otherwise it will
be canceled and a chance for ZS to shape history will have passed
unused.
The Conference will take place in Openqwaq. Please get the client
http://qwaq.3dicc.com/client/
We'll meet at the teleXLR8 Main Conference Hall.
Thanks
Anu

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_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
FoRK ma

[Eugen Leitl]

Post by Gary Stock
Does ZS have a "loyal opposition"? The presentation is appealing, but

That would be probably Dale Carrico (probably, not too loyal).
Actually, that's an excellent point, everybody feel free
to pluck the tenets of Zero State apart. (/Me ducks, and covers).

Post by Gary Stock
avoids revealing any weaknesses.
Discussing BCI, without ever defining the acronym, suggests a mild but

A habitual danger in futurist circles. BCI stands for
Brain-Computer Interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface

I'm personally quite skeptical that BCI is of any near-term
(20-30 years) utility, since elective neurosurgery (e.g. for ECoG)
is somewhat frowned upon, and real IQ-enhancement would require
~10^6 to ~10^9 in situ probes and according processing power behind it,
so unlikely to be of any relevance to anyone reading this message
in the year 2012, or even 2020, or 2030 as the technology
won't mature during their biological lifetimes, and, no, I
don't think that you can push the lifespan envelope by more
than 20 years, tops.

What I think is definitely relevant is the potential need for
a way to eliminate the peri-arrest phase in cryonics patients
due to compromised perfusion (interested people are pointed
towards https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bw5aoFXKXj7OQ1pyZTNXNHRQVkE ),
which would require a friendly jurisdiction (Netherlands and
Switzerland, sadly, do not qualify).

Post by Gary Stock
natural flavor of "inbreeding toward irrelevance." It leaves me
wondering if the group is too self-referential.
Pitching Bitcoin as so highly profitable has all the hallmarks of an
investment scam. It leaves me wondering if the group is unaware of how

May I interest you in in some stock of the South Sea company? ;)

Post by Gary Stock
that appears to outsiders.
Can someone recommend a usable -- i.e., rational, moderate, concise --
statement of ways in which ZS or bitcoin may ~not~ work as intended?

BitCoin itself looks remarkably well-engineered, and so far has
resisted attacks (other than by means of market manipulation,
break-ins and scams, that is). It scratches a real itch, so it's
unlikely to go away even if there's a crackdown on exchanges
within the next 5 years, or so. So I think BTC, and its cousins
(no heir apparent yet, though) will be around for a while.

As to ZS, see above.

Post by Gary Stock
Of what has not been said, but might ~need~ to be considered?

I must plead a bad case of Dunning-Kruger here. Anyone here
hip to the unknown unknowns? Anyone? Anyone? Rumsfeld?

[Rüdiger Koch]

It is always delightful to read how much bile people throw at Bitcoin who
should thank Satoshi on their knees. But then, they do the same with Linus
and Stallman.

Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:33:59 -0800
Subject: Re: [FoRK] Reminder: ZSF launch event tomorrow! Please help spread
the word if you can!
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64;
rv:16.0) Gecko/20121026 Thunderbird/16.0.2
You keep changing the subject.
The idea that all money is equivalent is the argument bitcoin wants to
make.

It doesn't. Bitcoin is commodity money. USD and all the rest is Fiat money.
Fiat money exists to extract money from people - it is fraud of the largest
scale:
www.zerohedge.com/news/money-debt


That's not to say that bitcoin (or Napster which failed to do so) can't

evolve past a criminal enterprise.

You are being offensive. I use Bitcoin very often, almost daily. Why do you
imply that these transactions are criminal? None of them were.

I was simply pointing out that it
hasn't done so thus far and the mechanisms it's using are incentived so
that investors have a vested stake to cover up or remain willfully
ignorant of that criminal activity.

I suggest you support such serious allegations with at least some evidence.
Of what do you accuse me?

In the RISKS part of the transhumanist/bci portfolio, the over-dependence
on bitcoin should be spelled out as a specific risk, unless of course the
ZS people truly believe they are post-logical and true believers, which
would make them a cult and not the ultra-logical transhumanists they truly
believe.

You guessed quite right. This is not a conservative portfolio comprising
0.3% interest govt bonds, some NYSE shares and some Nikkei shares.

I'm not claiming what you state below, only that the market which was set
up has yet to evolve past the tipping point. Do you believe bitcoin has
evolved past a criminal enterprise?

Again, this time you seem to accuse Satoshi Nakamoto himself to be the
mastermind behind some --- what? Maybe you should get an informed opinion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=radmjL5OIaA#t=0s
but then - maybe Stallman is a dirty criminal for you, too. After all, he
stole reputable corporations their well earned monopoly.

-Anu

[Rüdiger Koch]

Post by Rüdiger Koch
It doesn't. Bitcoin is commodity money. USD and all the rest is Fiat
money. Fiat money exists to extract money from people - it is fraud of the
www.zerohedge.com/news/money-debt

Sorry, this was badly worded. Let me try again:

Bitcoin is commodity money. USD and all the rest is Fiat money. Fiat money
exists to extract goods and services i.e. wealth from the people for
worthless pieces of paper - it is fraud on the largest scale.

-Anu

[Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo]

Post by Gordon Mohr
The consensus ledger then agrees that your key can spend
those bitcoins.
Only if someone gets your private key can they pretend to be the owner
of those previously-minted-on-schedule coins.
- Gordon

That's the part that I don't get, even after reading. When you do get around to spending your bitcoins, do those earlier bitcoins have their original purchasing power? Or do they only have the more recent "devalued" purchasing power?

Asked a different way, are all bitcoins of equal "value" all the time, just as 1 "dollar" of fiat currency is always equal to any other 1 "dollar" of that same fiat currency at any single point in time? Or is there a different value between the earlier and more recent. Eg. Is there some distinction based on the different "vintages" that are baked into the "revaluation" process such that at the same instant in time 1 unit of bitcoin mined before a devaluation event is "worth" more than that same size unit mined after.

There seems to be an assumption in some folks' questions that there is a difference in "value" by vintage, eg. related to/marked by each "revaluation" stage. I'm not sure, so I have to ask the dumb question.

Or perhaps there is something else baked into the process such that after a devaluation event the payout for a block is relatively smaller than it would have been before the devaluation event to offset the relative change in value due to the revaluation?

Or do I just need to change my bifocals? Or my meds. Or both.

...ken...

[Gordon Mohr]

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo

Post by Gordon Mohr
The consensus ledger then agrees that your key can spend those
bitcoins.
Only if someone gets your private key can they pretend to be the
owner of those previously-minted-on-schedule coins.
- Gordon

That's the part that I don't get, even after reading. When you do
get around to spending your bitcoins, do those earlier bitcoins have
their original purchasing power? Or do they only have the more recent
"devalued" purchasing power?

There is no 'devaluation event'. There's a decrease in the reward
credited when someone wins the race to supply the next canonical
transaction-log block.

The reward used to be 50 BTC per block; now it's 25 BTC per block. It
will keep halving at regular intervals until it's less than the smallest
representable value in the protocol.

1 BTC from a recent 25 BTC reward is exactly the same as 1 BTC from an
earlier 50 BTC reward. Age of origin doesn't matter, and in normal use,
the balances that originated in different block rewards get mixed
together. (A subsequent use of that mixed balance just refers back to
the immediately previous mixing-use. While it is *possible* to keep
looking further back to precedent transactions, it's not *necessary*.)

Unfortunately the terms and analogies used to describe Bitcoin often
lead to confusion. They're not really 'created by computation' or even
'discovered', but disbursed on a reward schedule that's set by the
system's 'technical constitution'. Who wins the
hash-collision/block-creation competition only affects to whom the
values are disbursed.

Thinking about them as a tangible thing (or even a specific
number/solution) can also lead you astray; they're just a credit, in a
shared globally-readable ledger. Based on that consensus ledger, veryone
agrees a particular public-key may reassign that balance to one or more
other public-keys (by submitting a signed transaction).

It's more like a bunch of swiss bank accounts in the peer-cloud, than it
is some collection of digital rarities kept secure via confidentiality.
(You just keep your signing keys -- your bank account passwords, if you
will -- secret, so that no one else can issue signed transactions
drawing down your balances.)

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
Asked a different way, are all bitcoins of equal "value" all the
time, just as 1 "dollar" of fiat currency is always equal to any
other 1 "dollar" of that same fiat currency at any single point in
time? Or is there a different value between the earlier and more
recent. Eg. Is there some distinction based on the different
"vintages" that are baked into the "revaluation" process such that at
the same instant in time 1 unit of bitcoin mined before a devaluation
event is "worth" more than that same size unit mined after.

Yes, all bitcoin balances are denominated in the same
mixable/interchangeable units. Vintage doesn't matter.

1 BTC (from any block/txn) + 1 BTC (from any other block/txn) = 2 BTC

(There are some other subtleties, regarding balances that were recently
awarded or transferred. So by convention some balances may not be
immediately/preferentially spendable. But in such cases just waiting for
the blockchain to get a bit longer over 1-20 hours makes the balances
completely equal.)

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
There seems to be an assumption in some folks' questions that there
is a difference in "value" by vintage, eg. related to/marked by each
"revaluation" stage. I'm not sure, so I have to ask the dumb
question.
Or perhaps there is something else baked into the process such that
after a devaluation event the payout for a block is relatively
smaller than it would have been before the devaluation event to
offset the relative change in value due to the revaluation?

Any assumptions involving a 'devaluation event' or 'revaluation
vintages' would be based on misconceptions.

Of course, the value of 1 BTC against other currencies floats around
based on what people are willing to pay, but that's a different thing
entirely.

- Gordon

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
Or do I just need to change my bifocals? Or my meds. Or both.
...ken... _______________________________________________ FoRK
mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[geege schuman]

http://news.techworld.com/**security/3415592/tor-network-**
used-command-skynet-botnet/<http://news.techworld.com/security/3415592/tor-network-used-command-skynet-botnet/>

By Lucian Constantin
Techworld.com
10 December 2012

Security researchers have identified a botnet controlled by its creators
over the Tor anonymity network. It's likely that other botnet operators
will adopt this approach, according to the team from vulnerability
assessment and penetration testing firm Rapid7.

The botnet is called Skynet and can be used to launch DDoS (distributed
denial-of-service) attacks, generate Bitcoins - a type of virtual currency
- using the processing power of graphics cards installed in infected
computers, download and execute arbitrary files or steal login credentials
for websites, including online banking ones.

However, what really makes this botnet stand out is that its command and
control (C&C) servers are only accessible from within the Tor anonymity
network using the Tor Hidden Service protocol.

Tor hidden services are most commonly Web servers, but can also be Internet
Relay Chat (IRC), Secure Shell (SSH) and other types of
servers. These services can only be accessed from inside the Tor network
through a random-looking hostname that ends in the .onion
pseudo-top-level domain.

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo

Post by Gordon Mohr
The consensus ledger then agrees that your key can spend those
bitcoins.
Only if someone gets your private key can they pretend to be the
owner of those previously-minted-on-schedule coins.
- Gordon

That's the part that I don't get, even after reading. When you do
get around to spending your bitcoins, do those earlier bitcoins have
their original purchasing power? Or do they only have the more recent
"devalued" purchasing power?

There is no 'devaluation event'. There's a decrease in the reward credited
when someone wins the race to supply the next canonical transaction-log
block.
The reward used to be 50 BTC per block; now it's 25 BTC per block. It will
keep halving at regular intervals until it's less than the smallest
representable value in the protocol.
1 BTC from a recent 25 BTC reward is exactly the same as 1 BTC from an
earlier 50 BTC reward. Age of origin doesn't matter, and in normal use, the
balances that originated in different block rewards get mixed together. (A
subsequent use of that mixed balance just refers back to the immediately
previous mixing-use. While it is *possible* to keep looking further back to
precedent transactions, it's not *necessary*.)
Unfortunately the terms and analogies used to describe Bitcoin often lead
to confusion. They're not really 'created by computation' or even
'discovered', but disbursed on a reward schedule that's set by the system's
'technical constitution'. Who wins the hash-collision/block-creation
competition only affects to whom the values are disbursed.
Thinking about them as a tangible thing (or even a specific
number/solution) can also lead you astray; they're just a credit, in a
shared globally-readable ledger. Based on that consensus ledger, veryone
agrees a particular public-key may reassign that balance to one or more
other public-keys (by submitting a signed transaction).
It's more like a bunch of swiss bank accounts in the peer-cloud, than it
is some collection of digital rarities kept secure via confidentiality.
(You just keep your signing keys -- your bank account passwords, if you
will -- secret, so that no one else can issue signed transactions drawing
down your balances.)
Asked a different way, are all bitcoins of equal "value" all the

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
time, just as 1 "dollar" of fiat currency is always equal to any
other 1 "dollar" of that same fiat currency at any single point in
time? Or is there a different value between the earlier and more
recent. Eg. Is there some distinction based on the different
"vintages" that are baked into the "revaluation" process such that at
the same instant in time 1 unit of bitcoin mined before a devaluation
event is "worth" more than that same size unit mined after.

Yes, all bitcoin balances are denominated in the same
mixable/interchangeable units. Vintage doesn't matter.
1 BTC (from any block/txn) + 1 BTC (from any other block/txn) = 2 BTC
(There are some other subtleties, regarding balances that were recently
awarded or transferred. So by convention some balances may not be
immediately/preferentially spendable. But in such cases just waiting for
the blockchain to get a bit longer over 1-20 hours makes the balances
completely equal.)
There seems to be an assumption in some folks' questions that there

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
is a difference in "value" by vintage, eg. related to/marked by each
"revaluation" stage. I'm not sure, so I have to ask the dumb
question.
Or perhaps there is something else baked into the process such that
after a devaluation event the payout for a block is relatively
smaller than it would have been before the devaluation event to
offset the relative change in value due to the revaluation?

Any assumptions involving a 'devaluation event' or 'revaluation vintages'
would be based on misconceptions.
Of course, the value of 1 BTC against other currencies floats around based
on what people are willing to pay, but that's a different thing entirely.
- Gordon
Or do I just need to change my bifocals? Or my meds. Or both.

Post by Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo
...ken... ______________________________**_________________ FoRK
mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/**listinfo/fork<http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork>

______________________________**_________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/**listinfo/fork<http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork>

[Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo]

Post by Gordon Mohr

Post by Gordon Mohr
The consensus ledger then agrees that your key can spend those
bitcoins.
Only if someone gets your private key can they pretend to be the
owner of those previously-minted-on-schedule coins.
- Gordon

That's the part that I don't get, even after reading.  When you do
get around to spending your bitcoins, do those earlier bitcoins have
their original purchasing power? Or do they only have the more recent
"devalued" purchasing power?

There is no 'devaluation event'. There's a decrease in the
reward credited when someone wins the race to supply the
next canonical transaction-log block.

Thanks Gordon. That's sort of what I was getting at with my last musing: the work is devalued, not the currency.

...ken..