Topic: The Amazing (And True!) Story of Bitcoin by Adrianne Jeffries - Video (Read 2973 times)

I appreciate her effort, but this will bring about more confusion than education. Poorly prepared, lots of important points missed or misrepresented.

phathash, I agree with you on most of your points, especially the ones explaining that bitcoin should be easy to use. However, I disagree on one point (at least at this point in time):


I've explained bitcoin to at least 2 "average joes" I know. They immediately suspected something was fishy and came up with the question of wether or not their bitcoins would be secure and actually asked how this was supposed to be defended against.

It was not sufficient to point out that the software was programmed by a genius and that I myself "analyzed" the "algorithm" and came to the conclusion that double-spending was impossible.

It took a while, but I had to explain proof of work and the block chain, mining, difficulty, asymmetric crypto... all that stuff.

Here's the change in attitude I've observed before and after the person "getting it" (the rough inner workings of the holy block-chain)

• before: "Meh, I might buy some just to shut you up and to insure against the rare event that this turns out to be a non-scam, so you can't say 'I told you so'"
  
• after: "Dude, I think this can totally work and screw over these banksters! This is like: "peoples money" Will you sell me some bitcoin, how can I start mining, quick, before everyone else realizes!"
  

I've experienced people buying bitcoin from me for exactly 2 resons:

• SR
• real understanding of bitcoin and the fact that we will need good money (basically what cyphedoc aims at) and that the private banksters are screwing us over

While it makes that dirty little bastard in me laugh his ass off and it feels very good from a laissez-faire free market perspective, I don't want people to get into bitcoin solely for buying gardening supplies from SR with. I'd ideally want them to get into bitcoin for the other reason, namely the insight that we need a good commodity money for a well-functioning free market economy.


I don't want average users to understand the intricacies of sha256 or the merkle root. I want them to have a basic understanding of the principles. The average bittorrent user has a pretty good understanding of the underlying principles, mainly that he's donwloading the file from a bunch of peers that already have it and that he is one of them and that his client sends part of the file to others himself.


yes, I think so. Before some sort of proxy trust can really take hold (I trust bitcoin because obviously 100 million others do so) and we're still in the "early adoption" stage, I really do think it's necessary for people to trust it on the functional level.


That's different. People do not trust facebook to keep their info safe. They trust facebook to distribute their info,... that's the idea. There is no need to trust facebook.

Except most of her talk got huge things wrong and made erroneous statements.

Hm not sure what to think of this, i get the impression she's making it look like toy money.
Also telling people it's hard to use and facebook credits are easier? Ehh? She working for facebook or something?
Maybe she's unaware of the mobile and desktop clients we have that allow us to use it with 2 clicks of a button...

when talking about Bitcoin or any other topic, you want to get the audience fired up and define the problem. and then you need to propose a solution.

what are most ppl worldwide (in the know) angry about these days?  the financial crisis and its perpetrators, the banks.  everyone realizes that we are facing a new age of financial repression forced upon us by those who have their fingers in the till and enforce moral hazard on the rest of us responsible folks.

feed that anger by talking about the crisis primarily and inserting Bitcoin solutions at strategic points in the talk.  we are way past the point where we want anyone who's willing to talk about Bitcoin up on stage.  we need passionate speakers with fire in their bellies who can speak to the crisis and outline exactly why Bitcoin is better.  one day we will get some of the excellent speakers from the gold bug crowd won over who may achieve these goals for us.

heres a few other pointers i came up with last summer:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.390703

I thought she was great.

Why should experts be the only people to give Bitcoin talks? Why does every talk need to go into great detail?

I can assure you, tell the average person that it is possible to "own" a unique chunk of ones & zeros on a USB stick, and they will believe you. They don't care about the double spending problem, or give a second thought towards distributed timestamp servers. They understand the analogy of a leather wallet and a USB stick. Even holding a USB stick may be too much. Users may prefer the MyBitcoin vault model, without caring about FinCEN complications.

Since when does the average BitTorrent user understand the finer aspects of distributed hash tables and fair file share schemes? BitTorrent + Pirate Bay = free movies and porn. It is useful.

Do users really need to trust the Bitcoin protocol and blockchain? A billion people on Facebook, but do users really trust it? Friends use Facebook. It is useful.

Technology should be simple to use. Users should be allowed to be ignorant if they so wish to. Of course, a premium should be paid for this ignorance.

Bitcoin is brilliant. It serves the "fringes of society" well. It also performs well as a reserve currency. Overlay technologies need to improve.

PayPal is simple. Users are phish in a big pond. Users enjoy the ability to chargeback once their computer is rooted. Credit card fees and higher merchant operating costs are the premium paid for this luxury.

I could imagine users might fear storing money in irrevocable Bitcoin. Adrianne lost her two coins. Good to see she has kept her chin up however.

I agree with cypherdoc,

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.767605

Now, if only you came out of the anonimity closet and did it...

good outline of a talk to motivate people on bitcoin.

I dont think I agree on the part where you stay away from the technicals. I really think it is necessary (if you want to see people trust the blockchain) to explain how the "public ledger" works and how you have a key that enables spending the outputs of transactions (Adrianna totally fails on this one and it was painful to see her agree on the host saying: "so it's just a string of character that can't be copied?"). I'd explain that there are some bitcoins that exist "only in my brain" (in the form of a electrum wallet seed). Put up the address and say: "you can send bitcoins to this address, which can then only be spent by using a key that exists only in my brain" (point to head with finger). Something like that. There's no simplifying this and it really isn't that complicated. What's so hard to understand about needing a key that enables spending money sent to an address linked to that key?

I like your spin on elaborating on the current (and historical) problems with FIAT currency and maybe the inevitable revival of market-based commodity money (I specifically include bitcoin here, of course), because frankly, this is what sold bitcoin to me. Remember the first time you grasped satoshis idea (blockchain, proof of work) and the implications this could have? I was clearly in some sort of a heightened state for days, even weeks, rambling on about this revolutionary idea that would change the world to my friends. An ideal talk about bitcoin would instill exactly that in people and I think your idea of emphasizing the problems bitcoin solves is good.

Let's see (hopefully) how Bill Barhydt does with his "TED2012 Full Spectrum" talk on bitcoin

I've been on stage over a thousand times, but I was comfortable because I knew the subject matter. Some day soon I'll be doing it again with Bitcoin as my subject. Wait till you see my Nike a la Max Keiser shoes !

~Cackling Bear~

I thought it was a fairly good bit from a media type, but that she wasn't particularly well versed in public speaking.  She said, "um" too much for the stage.

As to her journalistic POV, she has not demonstrated any understanding of how and why Bitcoin works. I have read some of her pieces and they were nothing profound. Generally when speaking, you have a structure to the presentation. All she did was give the media version of the history of Bitcoin, FUD and all. She doesn't seem to be anti-Bitcoin, but without any understanding of crypto-currencies, she regurgitates the same skeptical treatment as every other anti-Bitcoin media. She claims to be an expert on Bitcoin, but really she seems more interested in only reporting newsworthy events and not any real investigatory journalism.
BTW, I have produced nationally sold video training films, but I look better in writing =)

video, crude but outlined the problems I personally have in converting sheeple to the faith.!.  In the community we have sort of resolved (nearly) the security issues the price having remained stable through the last hack of an online wallet storage -so with multi-sig we are nearly there. How confident she was though in the power of the us government ($14.5 trillion) in debt to just shut down BTC if it threatened the $? The two methods discussed at length are a 51% attack and a shut down or censorship(control) of the net! Both those arguments quickly become so technical you can see the eyes glaze over and you have lost your convert. Why- because we know China is already doing it! In the UK police have recently trawled millions of phone call records and e-mails(stored for the last 5 years) to prosecute journalists in phone hacking cases.So people say whats to stop the authorities just blocking every BTC users IP? How can I answer that in non tech talk? They are not impressed with there will be work arounds! Although we know there are in china (if you are a computer buff) and there will be here but what we have is a confidence problem. In that in the last 6000 years no one has fought and won against an overwhelming authoritarian regieme. However I believe BTC is the first hope of restoring individual autonomy and will fight for it-even against those overwhelming odds.  reg

i really would like to but am trying to maintain a low profile.

i have to say i see it quite differently.

i think it was a very poor talk.  all she did was give a superficial historical review with a heavy slant towards the negative events over the last year including her own mishap with MyBitcoin.  she showed no understanding of the economics behind why Bitcoin was created or how it fits into the financial crisis of the last 4 years.  she even had the gall to say she understood Bitcoin better than most ppl in a previous video interview with that other supposed financial expert who's name escapes me.  David Birch.

its high time we get someone who is articulate and has a deep understanding of the corrupt financial world into which Bitcoin is trying to insert a viable solution.  

if i were to give a talk on Bitcoin i would spend 75% of the talk emphasizing the mess we're in with central banks printing money all over the world in an attempt to stop the debt deleveraging deflationary spiral.  i would throw up pictures of M2 and debt/GDP ratio and how they started their upward parabolic moves in the 1970's when we went off the gold standard.  i would then throw up a graph of the asymptotic Bitcoin issuance curve contrasting their shapes.  i would talk about how gold has always been real money backing fiat paper and how Bitcoin is digital gold.  i would put up a 100 yr graph of the declining value of the USD and overlay that on top of the Dow and debt levels.  i would throw up a non log graph of the last 100 yrs in the Dow and show how we have peaked and are in a frightening massive head and shoulders formation over the last 12 years with a projected line straight down the shoot over the next decade.  i would throw up a graph showing how Obama has doubled the national debt in just 3 yrs.  i would throw up a graph of declining housing prices and how this correlates with decreasing household wealth.  i would go over the 2007-08 crisis and how it began and why.  i would explain how Geithner, Bernanke and Hank Paulson broke the rule of law and bailed out crony banking institutions and AIG.  i would emphasize that not one banker who caused this whole mess has gone to prison.  i would explain that 0.01% of the US population owns a counterfeiting ring that only they can tap into and every USD they print devalues the other 99.99% of the populations's USD's.  i would throw up a graph showing why this very phenomenon has resulted in the tremendous wealth disparity of these ppl to the rest of us.  i would go over the European sovereign debt issue and explain that banks all over the world dumped their bad debts onto gov'ts and are pushing them into default as we speak.  

for the rest of the 25% talk i would only insert the basics of Bitcoin into key selected points staying away from the technical side and showing just why Bitcoin would solve a particular problem.

this is just off the top of my head.  sorry for the rant but listening to her made me puke.

I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned that she's short (compared to the host when she walked on stage)--as in a midget--with nice short legs.

Seriously, Andrianne gave a very good talk which I enjoyed immensely.

~Cackling Bear~

Yeah don't be a douche. Maybe she was "chosen" to speak about Bitcoin because she's been the most dedicated professional journalist on the subject in the entire world (save perhaps for Matonis who also kicks ass). Adrianne didn't just write up one piece when the topic was hot, or some hack occurred, or copied some AP piece. She's been writing quality journalism on Bitcoin since last summer. What was the last video-recorded professional presentation you gave on the topic cbeast? Again, go back to the first sentence  

ROFL

Think about what an idiot you are. She is clearly better than you. So shut the fuck up.

I still can't get over the "mybitcoin" as in his/her bitcoins.