Topic: Big Shots in favor of Bitcoin (Read 7187 times)

Exactly, I'm sure he is the greatest thinker of our time. By reading his books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan I took his advice to look out for positive black swans and although I only found out about Bitcoin a few months ago, it was an easy decision for me to go all-in.

need to get 'TheBitcoinChannel' to talk about that guy

Sorry, here you go:

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

He wrote the bestseller "The Black Swan" (no, not the Natalie Portman one) and is a former "Big Shot" Wall St. derivatives trader turned hedge fund manager turned finance professor/philosopher.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no other public intellectual who I would rather see making a positive comment about Bitcoin.

who is Nassim

and we need a video of Al Gore's line

Well, it has taken some time (almost 4 months now, more than I thought) and a 525% rally in market prices, but we've finally had some Big Shots say something positive about Bitcoin.  Two in fact, on the same day:

Al Gore:  https://twitter.com/carsonj/status/314382483468713984

Nassim Taleb:  http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1aoi0s/iam_nassim_taleb_author_of_antifragile_ama/c8zb3d8


I'll consider this case closed.

I agree that this is how mainstream views the Austrians, but my point is that that this is irrelevant for the future of Bitcoin. It's only relevant for the future of mainstream economists.

No offense, I just think that they don't understand bitcoin. The vast majority of people will not understand why they should use bitcoin. Why do you expect the same of economists?

Here is a nice example of their work: http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2010/Papers/IEEE-HST/ieee_hst.pdf

I'd be interested to hear an appraisal of the bitcoin system by Tim Berners-Lee and/or the Decentralised Information Group http://dig.csail.mit.edu/ at MIT.

It seems like it would fall within their sphere of expertise.

The concept of bitcoin is completely revolutionary. When someone has an idea that runs so contrary to the status quo, with regard to central banks, credit card companies, and everything in between, most people will find ways to poke holes in it. Most revolutionary ideas fall flat on their face, like the DeLorean.

I think that prominent public figures will not typically promote such a revolutionary idea unless
a) It aligns with or would further their world view, or
b) It profits them.

Why stick your neck out and risk tarnishing your reputation promoting a concept that will fail?

With eCommerce, most interest is with companies that are working within the status quo. A normal startup would pose the question, "how do I make money working within existing government regulations and partnering with major credit card vendors." I believe bitcoin was built and started by someone for philosophical reasons as an experiment, not as a way to make a quick buck.

So what prominent public figures are aligned with the philosophy of bitcoin? In the realm of modern economics, most of the "great minds" seem focused on central planning: central banks, IMF, World Bank, insolvent banks, etc. It's fun to play God by moving billions or trillions of dollars from one part of the world to another via taxes and public policy. This is the fastest way to change the world, if they can convince enough people to give them the keys.

The only people I would expect to support bitcoin while it is still in its infancy are those who believe that inflation and centralized control of monetary policy is more dangerous than deflation; that freedom of international trade is more valuable than intense regulation. The others will ignore it until it gains serious traction, or spend all their time trying to criticize or change bitcoin to fit their economic leanings, as some members of this forum do.

Honestly, I was not interested in bitcoin until I saw it achieve some level of stability and success. I think that the success encountered thus far is *evidence* that a deflationary currency may work; the next four years will indicate whether a decentralized bitcoin can achieve enough stability to become more mainstream. Bitcoin will live or die by its own merits, not celebrity endorsements.

Not at all, I'm pleased you found my little tale useful. Bitcoin has this funny way of making you question the world you thought you knew and understood. You may find this effect extends to areas you were not expecting! My political views have changed so much over time, but I never thought I'd end up with this sort of "frankenstein's monster" of views in less than a year! I basically don't know what to think or who to believe on many, many things that I previously thought to be so fundamental that they were unquestionable. Although thankfully, Bitcoin exposure hasn't yet changed the color of the sky or stopped the wind blowing. Yet!

Thanks for this ^ Carlton,

It is just the kind of thing I needed to read before closing down for the night - a reminder of what it is I'm here for.  I found myself on another thread today getting dragged into a more directly confrontational spat than I generally intend.  I got caught up in 'someone is wrong on the internet' syndrome (search for the cartoon if you don't know it)!  Good to hear your story.  Look forward to more of your contributions in future

I can see why that may appear to be the case, and don't get me wrong, I'm not 100% sold on any of this. The trouble is, that the Austrian school and the mainstream very often directly contradict one another. But manifest evidence of the theorising from both camps exists in the real world. Who are you to believe, David or Goliath? I'd never heard of Austrian economics before Bitcoin, but I knew that the more I read about mainstream economics, the more and more complicated it gets and the more slippery the concepts seem. But I always stuck with it, after all, the people who really get this stuff are often pretty wealthy.

But Bitcoin burst that bubble. I didn't dive in in 2011 when I heard first, the whole thing seemed too good to be true. Then I started to pick up on the (alternative) economic theory behind it, and still thought it sounded wrong (like I said, it contradicts mainstream view a great deal). But, money talks as they say, and Bitcoin kept telling me that it was potentially very valuable, and also that money should be scarce and resources abundant, not the other way around. Still not 100% decided on this conclusion, but I'm a hell of a lot of the way there.

A few points:

1.) Slashdot also panned the first iPod, being the forward-thinking geeks that they are.

2.) Economists are pseudo-science practitioners. No better than someone claiming to split atoms in their backyard with a circle scribed in the dirt. They wield mathematics, but their results are frequently incorrect. It is the only job in the world that I know of where being consistently wrong and having dismal performance doesn't cause you to lose your position.

3.) The conversion to bitcoin is continuing apace, and Wordpress is just the start. Don't be surprised to see other advancements, and when it finally comes to that magic moment where everyone starts to "get it", there will be a torrent of complaints by late-comers that we -- the early adopters and risk-takers -- are gaining significant ground just because we dared to be first.

4.) Competing blockchains have the decided disadvantage of not being the 'first mover' in the space. Ask Amazon, they were the first to do large-scale retail distribution, and they remain that way largely because of their enormous head start in that arena. As we have already seen, competing blockchains do exist, but the mining resources allocated to them are fractional at best.

Fair enough.  Maybe it's that I'm not that familiar enough with what conventional economics teaches and I just haven't been around long enough to come to the conclusions you have regarding the consistency of his antagonistic posts.  For now his posts - and he does appear to know his stuff even if 'we' don't respect the discipline from which these principles emanate - are contributing to what is easily available here for me to consider in addition to the consensus economics on this forum which sometimes feels to me disturbingly like 'group mind'.

That would make sense, if he wasn't so antagonistic. And that very pugnacious and uncompromising style of cunicula's is what incites the flaming, not the fact that people disagree. Some people call what cunicula's doing trolling. I don't care what they call it, I'm calling it antagonism. And it makes for a pretty uninspiring debate, as cunicula simply litters the discourse with dogmatic assertions, usually founded around consensus economics. His basic argument is: "Economics says such-and-such, and this contradicts the economic principles that govern Bitcoin". And he never budges an inch, or talks about much else. Not really my definition of a good debate.

[off topic]
I wish people would stop asking cunicula why he's still here.  You talk of the ignore button, why not just use it?  I may disagree with much of what he says and the way he says it but sometimes it's healthy for the discussions to have someone coming at these issues from a totally different angle.  When it results in debate rather than flame (which may not happen nearly as often as it could) we can all learn.
[/off topic]

See my post above. Why are you still here, cunicula? If you don't like this movement, why would you want to stick around trying to make an enemy of the people here? People who, judging by your ignore level, have no interest in becoming your enemy. It feels slightly like you're trying to start a war on the forum, and that's a very unfriendly and aggressive thing to do. Not pleasant.

My big question for you is this: what are your beliefs about the world economic system? Maybe if you tell us instead of doing nothing but disparaging our movement, people might be more friendly towards you. They might even start to find you endearing, sound good? Surely everyone wants to be liked, no?

I made a claim about how Austrians are perceived by the majority of the economists. Are you disagreeing with me. If not, then what is your point?

In truth, any "big shot" economist that has come to the realise that lots of established economic theory is just some abstract math that doesn't describe the real world it purports to model, that economist probably knows that they're out of a job if they try to cut through the nonsense. Academics have a vestive interest in over-complicating anything they theorise or discover, as it helps them to earn more money, acclaim and status from said academic work. Economics is probably the most freakish caricature of this effect.