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Topic: Bitcoin: The Digital Kill Switch - page 13. (Read 55236 times)

hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
April 01, 2013, 08:10:11 PM
I think people here may be a bit madder and overexcited than I imagined.
Nah, the usual folks on this forum don't burn through tin foil hats like this guy does.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 07:58:27 PM
Jubalong, I was jogging. Very astute and thought provoking post. I have been contemplating this also, and you explain well.

I may have another reply for you after I absorb what you've written.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 07:44:17 PM
I appreciate the rational discussion, that is what we need.

The 51% attack remains a problem for my idea more so than bitcoin, because assuming I am correct that bitcoin becomes a favorite vehicle of the cartel, then they have an incentive to overtly attack any system which competes with bitcoin (and can't be cartelized).

I am thinking of a new way to prevent the double-spend (I already mentioned it if you search all my posts, hehe).

I am thinking of solutions to this attack vector.

P.S. Maybe "mad" is not the correct way of viewing it. On the emotional or philosophical level (orthogonal to my non-emotional approach to design and engineering), we remember the Trail of Tears and the Holocaust. We are loving, calm, stoic, and when the time comes where they (or YOU) won't stop slaughtering (or mind programming) our women and children then we rip their heart out and eat it in front of them before they die. This is only done on an individual self-defense basis to those who are evil beasts (not to the ignorant who don't know they are supporting the evil beasts), otherwise we are loving to all people. We shared our produce and meat with them when they couldn't eat during the hard winter. The Apache were not defeated.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
April 01, 2013, 07:17:58 PM
I think people here may be a bit madder and overexcited than I imagined.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1007
April 01, 2013, 07:08:35 PM
The only required fix is to not stop making new coins.

Have you looked at Freicoin?

Something where value is generated corresponding to real physical value (like human work or a product.)

Have you looked at Ripple?
newbie
Activity: 8
Merit: 0
April 01, 2013, 06:39:33 PM
Hello AnonyMint.

I read your OP with great interest. I wrote down some of my own thoughts about the past and coming situations. I see you have discussed and answered some of these things later in the thread, but I guess the main thing (interspersed somewhere in this rambling wall of text) is me disagreeing with you that initial wealth and the market cornering % attack stuff isn't a problem.

First of all, there are hard problems with mining and hoarding. Look back at when the current economic system was overlaid the older feudalistic system. There were two types of initial wealth vectors at that time: the old aristocracy converting their means into foundations, and the new system tycoons who absorbed wealth both from failed aristocrats and the public (mostly from failed aristocrats, making the new guard tycoons aristocrats by proxy - the public of our civilization haven't really owned anything of note since Rome.) With this initial wealth vector they have been able to completely dominate the modern economic system, as they did the previous. Powerful people always form cartels, there's no "might do" about it. This is simply because it's always more profitable (in the long run) for small groups to work together against the public than to compete. Long term planning always wins over the burst benefits of the short term.

I see no way the wealth vector from the old system wouldn't be able to flood into a mining system (as in if one machine can do a thing, a million machines can do a thing a million times.) It would be good to be able to construct a cryptocurrency that does not rely on mining in this way. Something where value is generated corresponding to real physical value (like human work or a product.) But then you lose the ability to entice people into the currency by playing off greed (like bitcoin,) making it extremely hard to implement. In essence, how does proof of work help when some are able to get insane amounts of more work done through socio-religious means? I point your attention to how fast the establishment smacked up the google and facebook networks (ready to serve billions of users) when the time came to implement Web 2.0. Cost, relating to the publicly shared money pool is, as you can see, a very small deterrence. In top circles, obviously, the currency is not money but slaves.

When attacking by "trying to match the resources of humanity" the rational thing to do is, of course, to turn humanity against itself. Another thing, computer prices are at present heavily subsidized with slave labor in the east - this is because in the coming governmental system everyone needs to be on (soon in) the net. If need be, the subsidization could be removed, or the platforms modified (smart phone?) Granted there is inertia to this, but it still needs to be considered.

Regarding gold, let me tell you a story about my great grandmother, who was an aristocrat of sorts. As WW1 drew closer common people invested in gold and silver as they do now, sensing the impending upheavals. At that time she was selling gold while transferring a large part of her estate into physical barter goods like canned food, alcohol, tobacco and cosmetics. Late during the war, when scarcity hit, her agents then traded these as black market goods into gold and silver at thousands of percent profit post-war. This is one of the ancient scams. Deflation and inflation is of no consequence. Bank and government price charts don't show the true value deflation of everything but necessities in a crisis. War is always coming (only the dead have seen the end of it,) but 99% of commoners act as if it probably won't. I remember as a kid listening to the old bastards laughing about it. Why do you think the hillbillies are being flooded with cheap meth?

You say that the power elites don't want to be obvious, the rationale sounding like this will stay their hand in the matter. This is a truth with modifications. Granted, they will operate covertly when they can, but I think history has shown amply that if the gains are alluring enough, they can be quite obtuse in their implementations. You need look no further than WW2 (the restructuring of imperial bureaucracy to a socialistic-oriented base (was it to be international or national?)) killing off a couple of hundred millions in the process.

To truly tackle this beast with a currency you would need to get at all three pillars of empire. Coinage, for sure, but also the courts (international, national) and religion (media and education.) To attempt to topple the tower by attacking just one pillar would be possible, but it has increased difficulty because the other fundaments stand ready to compensate and flood in. It must be designed so that it can stand up to this. The solution whatever it is must be holistic, outlaw-friendly and jihad-proof.

As you, I don't mean to be negative. Nothing I say should be taken as a deterrence, just perhaps food for thought. I work at the problem from a completely different angle, so it would be strange if we agreed. I do agree, however, that diversity is key, support your project and will follow it with interest.

How about TRUECOIN or FAIRCOIN? Hehe.

Best of luck!
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 06:27:38 PM
Okay we're good Wink

I will be old by then any way.
hero member
Activity: 566
Merit: 500
April 01, 2013, 06:22:24 PM
Just do it. There's nothing to lose (hmm?), and everything to win. Unseen forces come to aid for the brave ones Wink
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 06:13:28 PM
Quote
Okay we are good. Thank you.

You might be the only other person on the internet who can reconcile after a perceived conflict.  Cheers haha  Smiley

I hold no grudges (unless you gouge my remaining eye out), I love people that is why I am fighting for our freedom. Would be easier for myself if I joined the elite  (you know they are going to kill me for doing this, who else is brave enough?). And if I can make money, okay, but remember I said in the beginning that I would prefer bitcoin fix this or someone else create this.

But looks like I am the only one who can, so I will stop my other project to do this. I should be rewarded for that, but I won't cheat. I won't pre-mine.

I haven't figured out how to handle testing and launch yet. Will cross that bridge if I get there.

I have 5% cherokee blood. I take bullets. We do not descend from Chinese, the Cherokee genetically were from the first wave of migration from Europe.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 06:11:24 PM
From what I understand about the mining proposal it is not a "bigger is better" kind of thing.  It is more like anyone with enough drive space to store the needed information gets a chance to mine on a random basis.  But yes if I can run 1000 nodes I would then have 1000 "lottery tickets" to your 1 "lottery ticket" if you are running only one node.

I have not yet waded through the entire paper as it mostly says what is wrong with everyone else and is pretty light on implementation details.

Suggestion:  could you cut out just the details of the proposal from the document so we don't have to find it among all the other stuff?

I will of course soon do that. The first step was to establish that we need to fix the cartelization flaw.

Then hard-disk-space proposed improvement for Proof-of-Work is a separate issue.

It is not socialism. More capital gets more coins, that is the way it should be.

The difference is that everyone already has a harddisk, so they have some capital already. More level playing field that doesn't throw existing capital in the garbage.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 502
April 01, 2013, 06:09:51 PM


Okay we are good. Thank you.
[/quote]

You might be the only other person on the internet who can reconcile after a perceived conflict.  Cheers haha  Smiley
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 06:03:16 PM
But if having a bigger HDD means you earn more, wouldn't that also lead to a spontaneous symmetry break where whoever gets enough of an advantage first becomes able to increase their own advantage exponentially faster than anyone else and eventually will hoard the equivalent of 51% of the storage space of the network?

1. I am not worried about an overt 51% attack, because Bitcoiners are correct when they say the world will fix any such damage. Overt attacks won't succeed. I am worried about the insidious cartelization threat that nobody can see even when it is in place, as I described very on the prior page of this thread.

2. So I don't have to worry if some large player controls 51%. I only need to worry that there isn't an economic death spiral that causes all miners to disappear except the evil ones. At least our transactions will still go through if our NUMBER has been turned off by the cartel.

With my proposed fix, they can never get any where close to 100% of the mining in any passive hidden scheme.

And realize that if there is a competing P2P currency with my proposed fix, then Bitcoin is also inherent fixed. Nice eh?

(fixed means cartel can never get near 100% control over all P2P currencies processing in any passive hidden scheme that fools the masses)

Litecoin AFAIK has same flaw as Bitcoin in stopping the coins at 84 million, so it is not a fix.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 05:51:10 PM
And the Marxist thing was a playful jab - I'm a moderate but I do like the way Marx thought.  Capital was the only book I've ever read that was simultaneously interesting and boring lol

Okay we are good. Thank you.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 502
April 01, 2013, 05:47:44 PM
Good points, but your economics are a bit off.

Let me take the time to remind everyone that the value of gold and Bitcoin (or whatever, really) isn't determined by the labor theory of value (you little Marxists, you).  These assets are valuable because they're scarce, not because labor or wages contributed to their genesis.  I mean come on...that's like Econ 101.

I assume you are making the argument that the labor or wages component of the mining cost (or even the mining cost itself) is not what gives the value to the Bitcoin?

This has nothing to do with the thesis of my article and the diabolical threat I have shown exists.

Indeed you are correct that the value of Bitcoins derives from factors that have nothing to do with the cost of mining.

And the threat I am explaining has nothing to do with the value of the Bitcoins.

The threat I am explaining can coexist with a very high value for the Bitcoins.

I am explaining that the threat is that since there is no guaranteed income stream for the miners after the 21 million coins are minted, then cartels can offer the processing for free (or below actual cost), thus driving all other honest miners bankrupt. Thus the cartel will control the system. It doesn't mean they will do anything noticeably malicious. They can hide their malicious activities in a way that the broad public will never see, somewhat analogous to how they hide now their crackdown on freedom behind the lie of a "war on terror". The broad public believes it is a war on terror-- they don't understand it is a war on freedom.

Your post is an example of why I think it is important to let newbies post on this thread (you had 5 posts at the time of writing the above). You demonstrate that you don't understand the application of the economic concept you are putting forward as an argument.

Your cockiness about "Marxists" is so ironic, because your misapplication of economics makes you the Marxist and you don't even realize it. Wake up sheep! Your ignorance will lead you into your cocky slaughter by the cartel. They confuse you very easy.

The correct reaction is not to feel hurt, but to thank me for snapping you out of your delusion.

Lol.

Bitcoin's value originated as essentially a composite ETF comprising different dark sectors of the black market.  Anonymity is the scarce commodity, not Bitcoin itself.

And the Marxist thing was a playful jab - I'm a moderate but I do like the way Marx thought.  Capital was the only book I've ever read that was simultaneously interesting and boring lol
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 05:46:34 PM
I have some technical questions about this whole disk drive thing.  But it sounds as if you have it all worked out so I say go for it!

Thank you for another vote to proceed. As I said, I am taking a market survey, so I am counting these.

Realize that the disk-space Proof-of-Work is not critical for fixing the design flaw in Bitcoin that allows cartelization. The only required fix is to not stop making new coins. This was called "inflatacoin", but it is only a very small rate similar to gold which is debased roughly 2.5% per year (consider it a storage fee if you want). This is not inflation, it is funding your miners and keeping the ecosystem from degenerating to cartelization.

I hope you all know that Rockefelller got his opening, because of the bottleneck of the railroads and that creating railroads cost (on an opportunity cost yearly ROI basis) "more" than could be earned from the fees of transport. So it is analogous in that way and also where there could be two competing railroads, then better to form a cartel than drive each other bankrupt (remember this is very large capital so it is ripe for political capture too). Remember all utilities end up under the control/regulation of the government. The cellular wireless networks are similarly heading this way for the same reasons.

My proposed disk-space Proof-of-Work improvement is a separate improvement, as are my proposals to increase anonymity, make transactions faster, fix micropayments, etc. Many improvements I am proposing over current Bitcoin.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 502
April 01, 2013, 05:45:32 PM
Good points, but your economics are a bit off.

Let me take the time to remind everyone that the value of gold and Bitcoin (or whatever, really) isn't determined by the labor theory of value (you little Marxists, you).  These assets are valuable because they're scarce, not because labor or wages contributed to their genesis.  I mean come on...that's like Econ 101.

I assume you are making the argument that the labor or wages component of the mining cost (or even the mining cost itself) is not what gives the value to the Bitcoin?

This has nothing to do with the thesis of my article and the diabolical threat I have shown exists.

Indeed you are correct that the value of Bitcoins derives from factors that have nothing to do with the cost of mining.

And the threat I am explaining has nothing to do with the value of the Bitcoins.

The threat I am explaining can coexist with a very high value for the Bitcoins.

I am explaining that the threat is that since there is no guaranteed income stream for the miners after the 21 million coins are minted, then cartels can offer the processing for free (or below actual cost), thus driving all other honest miners bankrupt. Thus the cartel will control the system. It doesn't mean they will do anything noticeably malicious. They can hide their malicious activities in a way that the broad public will never see, somewhat analogous to how they hide now their crackdown on freedom behind the lie of a "war on terror". The broad public believes it is a war on terror-- they don't understand it is a war on freedom.

Your post is an example of why I think it is important to let newbies post on this thread (you had 5 posts at the time of writing the above). You demonstrate that you don't understand the application of the economic concept you are putting forward as an argument.

Your cockiness about "Marxists" is so ironic, because your misapplication of economics makes you the Marxist and you don't even realize it. Wake up sheep! Your ignorance will lead you into your cocky slaughter by the cartel. They confuse you very easy.

The correct reaction is not to feel hurt, but to thank me for snapping you out of your delusion.

Lol.

Bitcoin's value originated as essentially a composite ETF comprising different dark sectors of the black market.  Anonymity is the scarce commodity, not Bitcoin itself.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 502
April 01, 2013, 05:42:54 PM
Good points, but your economics are a bit off.

Let me take the time to remind everyone that the value of gold and Bitcoin (or whatever, really) isn't determined by the labor theory of value (you little Marxists, you).  These assets are valuable because they're scarce, not because labor or wages contributed to their genesis.  I mean come on...that's like Econ 101.

I assume you are making the argument that the labor or wages component of the mining cost (or even the mining cost itself) is not what gives the value to the Bitcoin?

This has nothing to do with the thesis of my article and the diabolical threat I have shown exists.

Indeed you are correct that the value of Bitcoins derives from factors that have nothing to do with the cost of mining.

And the threat I am explaining has nothing to do with the value of the Bitcoins.

The threat I am explaining can coexist with a very high value for the Bitcoins.

I am explaining that the threat is that since there is no guaranteed income stream for the miners after the 21 million coins are minted, then cartels can offer the processing for free (or below actual cost), thus driving all other honest miners bankrupt. Thus the cartel will control the system. It doesn't mean they will do anything noticeably malicious. They can hide their malicious activities in a way that the broad public will never see, somewhat analogous to how they hide now their crackdown on freedom behind the lie of a "war on terror". The broad public believes it is a war on terror-- they don't understand it is a war on freedom.

Your post is an example of why I think it is important to let newbies post on this thread (you had 5 posts at the time of writing the above). You demonstrate that you don't understand the application of the economic concept you are putting forward as an argument.

Your cockiness about "Marxists" is so ironic, because your misapplication of economics makes you the Marxist and you don't even realize it. Wake up sheep! Your ignorance will lead you into your cocky slaughter by the cartel. They confuse you very easy.

The correct reaction is not to feel hurt, but to thank me for snapping you out of your delusion.

Lol.
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
Firstbits.com/1fg4i :)
April 01, 2013, 05:33:19 PM
But if having a bigger HDD means you earn more, wouldn't that also lead to a spontaneous symmetry break where whoever gets enough of an advantage first becomes able to increase their own advantage exponentially faster than anyone else and eventually will hoard the equivalent of 51% of the storage space of the network?
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 05:21:53 PM
So, retailers will be mining?

One of the global moderators here told me (in a prior post in this forum) that was the conclusion from prior discussion as to what Satoshi meant by "some will be provided free" and the logical hope or conclusion of discussions the experts had in this forum long ago.

Ok, so as one of these large mining/retailer operations would I be including just the transactions for my store or all the transactions for the entire network?

I deduce (as agreed/expected/hoped by the bitcoin experts in prior discussion) they would prioritize their own transactions, that is one of the points of giving it away free. One might deduce that they would probably process transactions for others that have a fee attached.

If each mining/retailer is including only the transactions they care about (for free) into their blocks then we end up with "retailer specific" blocks.  Since each retailer does not want their customers to wait to be included in a block I see an "arms race" between these miner/retailers in hashing power, right?

One can deduce numerous ways that the incentives play out, but all roads lead to cartelization in the long run, because the economic incentive is there in the Bitcoin design flaw of ending the new coins reward for miners in the future.

If so then it sounds like the business to be in would be building hashing rigs for these mining retailers.

Might be a good business. Doesn't affect my thesis though.

This sounds very expensive in the long run as they compete with each other.  At some point you must have them cooperate and include each other's transactions or set up mining as a separate entity.

Or cartelize. Which is what always happens in the quagmire you describe, because a winner must arise to lower the costs of fighting each other. This is Standard Oil all over again.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
April 01, 2013, 05:05:55 PM
I am capable of coding what you all need to prevent this outcome. This will not destroy the value of Bitcoin, it will merely provide an alternative, maybe 10% market share is enough to insure we don't get locked into 666.

But I need to hear that you all understand, you want me to code it, and that you are willing to defend my thesis, so I don't have to come here always. I need time to code.

Bitcoiners should stop perceiving this as a threat. It will help to expand the awareness and bring more interest to P2P currencies. Competition is a good  thing. You bitcoiners like competition or a monopoly for bitcoin? Competition will put pressure on the bitcoin developers to improve their rate of innovation and improvements.

Tell me now please.

I was in the middle of coding a decentralized social network. I am willing to stop that work to do this, but I need to see serious support. I don't do half-assed projects. If I do something, I do it correctly and professionally.

mobodick if you said, "I understand, please go make yours, let the market decide", I would not be so discouraged by your posts.
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