The relationship between Nash and bitcoin is not so strange: Nash was a mathematician who got a Nobel prize for economics, was interested in constructing an "ideal money", has essentially founded the field of mathematical game theory, was seriously interested in cryptography, and was considered paranoid for the down-to-earth and obvious observation that the government is the enemy of the people. What well-known scholar could be closer do several aspects of bitcoin than Nash ?
So it is a very sensible hypothesis that Nash had something to do with bitcoin.
Where @iamnotback and I differ fundamentally in opinion is:
- to me, bitcoin's design is "too little, too late" in a sense, and I tried to indicate many technical details where bitcoin's design is somewhat silly. As such, I do consider that who-ever was Satoshi, was a smart guy that knew about the previous attempts of electronic money, and did an invention that merits our attention, the block chain with proof-of-work consensus resolution. But bitcoin's design didn't live up to the desires set out by its inventor. It simply didn't work the way he intended it to work, and technically/mathematically/cryptographically Satoshi didn't always understand exactly what he was doing, and was clumsy. It turns out that bitcoin's clunky design results in quite horrible game-theoretical aspects, leading in the best case to an imploding speculative bubble, but in the worst case, in a financial dictatorship by a few maffioso who will own most of the world, it will be an ecological disaster and will be the end of any form of financial freedom and independence. In other words, a kind of Frankenstein monster of finance. Personally, I don't give bitcoin much chance to go beyond a certain niche of sleazy business.
- @iamnotback is absolutely convinced that Satoshi is Nash, an ultimate evil genius at the service of an Evil Elite, and sees all the bad design of bitcoin as on purpose, and is absolutely convinced that bitcoin will be this (planned) Frankenstein monster by the "elite", the Rothschilds or by some other dark force, and every disfunctional aspect is seen by @iamnotback as a sign of the subtly evil design meant to be that way.
Nevertheless, I think that both of us agree fundamentally that bitcoin is not what most bitcoin maximalists think it is. I think it is because of its clunky design and the limited capacity of Satoshi, @iamnotback thinks that all of this was planned in advance by a mightily brilliant genius that fucked all those believers hard in the ass.
But in the end, the intention doesn't even matter: bitcoin is NOT what it was said it would be by Satoshi, so much must be clear now.
In other words, the main difference in opinion between @iamnotback and me is that I think that bitcoin was simply badly designed, and that all the bad things we see are simply due to "stupidity" (everything is relative). @iamnotback thinks that instead of stupidity, it is evil genius.
This is also why @iamnotback thinks that bitcoin will become world-dominant (an evil genius will do something that will work out his evil plan) ; and why I am not convinced that bitcoin is up to a big future (because a stupidly design will not go very far).
I think that @iamnotback suffers from cognitive dissonance, because he is working on "killing bitcoin" and of course, the more bitcoin was the successful work of a brilliant evil genius, the more he is Batman beating the evil genius. @iamnotback thinks that I'm suffering from cognitive dissonance, because I would be too frightened in my currently comfortable position to see the full evil impact of bitcoin on the world.
I think my position is superior over his on this last point, exactly because he's working on his bitcoin killer: if he's right, he will kill bitcoin and I don't have to be afraid, and if he's wrong, I don't have to be frightened, because I'm right, so in the end, there's no reason for me to be scared, and hence to be suffering from cognitive dissonance after all
Bitcoin is not doomed, bitcoin is simply not what you think it is. It is NOT a payment instrument that brings freedom to people ; it is a niche application only for very rich people (at best - my view) or is going to be the ultimate enslavement of people by finance (@iamnotback view). And it will not change. You are stuck for ever with 1 MB blocks.
Well, all empirical evidence indicates that it can't change, because it is designed that way. Where @iamnotback and I differ in opinion, is whether this was on purpose. I consider this as yet another mistake by Satoshi in the creation of his Frankenstein monster, he considers this as perfectly designed that way on purpose.
Yes, he indicated that in an initial phase, there would be a P2P network with (useful idiots running) full nodes, but when the network would grow bigger, the block chain would grow with 100 GB a day, only sustainable by a few big data centers, the miners. He even considered that these big miners wouldn't even distribute the block chain any more, keeping their privilege to themselves.
Everything else is noise and a distraction.
You are right. Satoshi's vision was an oligarchy of a few miners, that run the only few full nodes in the world, and everybody connecting DIRECTLY to them with their light wallets.
In perfect contradiction with:
1) his introduction of 1 MB blocks (meaning, he wasn't serious, changed his mind, or didn't understand the implications of what he did)
2) all the bullshit about decentralisation and the importance of a large P2P network of full nodes that don't mine, as propagated by the Core people.