In fact, many of the problems that he describes are in fact features and NOT bugs
Since you are a holder and speculator, of course we disagree on that. In my view, you are one of bitcoin's problems.
Little bit disingenuous of you to participate in a thread to judge others who are investing into something and to call them "problems" because they are investing. What are you investing in? naysaying the activities of others?
a claim that there needs to be a built in approximate 2% inflation (or devaluation) is preposterous because it supposedly addresses a non-existing problem, at least at this time.
so make it a bad investment?
Bitcoin was created to be a currency, not another speculative asset- and dividend-free investment fund (or pyramid scheme, its more honest name). There is no shortage of the latter, and (as I wrote earlier) that use of bitcoin will not make the world better, create new wealth, or render some useful service; it will just move wealth from some people to other people.
You are full of shit!!!! Bitcoin was created for a variety of purposes, including the currency aspect. You seem to be oversimplifying matters in order to create strawmen arguments. and mislead others by oversimplification.
Economists have know for 500 years that a currency must have some inflation, otherwise people will hoard it and it will not be available for use as a currency.
Yeah.. appeal to authority... 500 years OMG... you really are saying something here........ NOT. You are just making up facts out of your ass.
The use of bitcoin for investment and speculation had two other bad consequences. First, it lifted the price to 100 times what it should have been, given its current level of usage. The price is floating in the air, high up, anchored to itself through the hopes of traders and holders. It could crash from there at any moment. No company in its right mind would want to hold it, even temporarily. Imagine a manager accepting a payment of 1000 BTC today, and the price crashing tomorrow, before he can spend or sell those coins. How could he explain that to the company owners? (You can find out there an audio of Overstock's CEO trying to explain something like that to the other shareholders; but AFAIK he is the majority holder, so he won't get fired for that...)
YES.... what if, what if... You know better than that. if you are using bitcoin as a payment system, then you have the option to cash out right away or to hold them for a specific cash out time. With anything new, there may be a learning curve concerning decisions regarding when to cash out, if cashing out is part of the plan.
Second, but tied to the first: bitcoin's use as instrument of speculative trade made its price extremely volatile. Even in times of "stability", like the past 7 months, the price has changed by ±10% in a few hours, several times. Volatility is bad for a currency: the user who buys BTC to pay for something will lose money if the BTC price drops between the two actions, and will not really win if it goes up -- because he will be left with a small amount of BTC that he may not find a good use for.
That is why a good cryptocurrency must be designed to NOT be a good investment.
Yes, if an asset is volatile, then that needs to be taken into account, but that volatility does NOT mean that it is a bad thing because, as I already mentioned, BTC is much more than a currency. You again are attempting to frame facts in an incomplete way in order to engage in scare tactics....
All of these months in bitcoin, and you still have NOT learned how to be more comprehensive in your analysis rather than simplified and selective extrapolations?
his suggestion that Satoshi would agree... 
Wat da fuck?
Wat da fuck?From what I have read, I am satisfied that Satoshi intended bitcoin to be what he wrote in the whitepaper: a system for peer to peer payments through the internet that did not require a trusted third party. He believed that the world needed such a thing, but no one knew how to build it, and thought that he had found a way. That seems to have been his motivation to design the bitcoin protocol; and he then implemented it to see whether the idea worked out in practice.
But Satoshi was a computer scientist, not an economist. He thought that it would be nice if the currency had no inflation. For "everybody" knows that inflation is bad, right? I thought so too.
His he pleased about what bitcoin turned out to be? Well, on one hand it is always satisfying to do something big, even if it is a big nuclear accident or the sinking of the Titanic. But I doubt that he is happy about what his creature has become...
Your further explanation supports that you are engaged in a BIG ASS guessing game regarding what Satoshi thought or what he would think. It does little to no good for you to engage in this kind of speculation to go back to "original intent" or to attempt to attribute the direction of bitcoin to the "founder," because in fact, Satoshi either removed himself or fell out of the bitcoin scene.... Accordingly, bitcoin became a dynamic phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of players (rather than by any one player). in other words, bitcoin has become a sort of community asset, and there is some freedom for anyone to buy into it or to refrain from such. Even though you are fairly informed about bitcoin, you seem to be someone who has knowingly chosen NOT to financially invest into bitcoin, but instead chosen to invest into denigrating bitcoin.... I'm fairly certain that some anti-bitcoin entities would be willing to pay you to continue in such supposedly voluntary and unpaid conduct. So, are you being paid for all of the time that you spend in the various bitcoin forums? You must be receiving some payments for your work and/or your publications and/or your attempts to build your reputation as some kind of anti-bitcoin "expert."
Sorry to some of you for using the term "expert" in the same sentence in which I am referring to Stolfi.....
Why so much agro and upset about Jorge's posts? He's not threatening you (or perhaps he is somehow?). He has a view and he expresses and articulates that view pretty well. I don't agree with much of what he says either but I appreciate that his posts are coherent, quite well written and free from personal attacks or vitriol. In fact, he's very gracious in his responses to many of you that get all so incensed that he's expressing the views that he is; and this is indicative that some of what he's saying has seriously hooked your innards and is tearing at you in some manner. That you're responding in such an affronted way says to me you're not 100% sure and his line of thought on this stuff causes internal conflict.
If you don't agree with his take on Bitcoin (and crypto in general), just point out calmly and unemotionally where his logic, assumptions or beliefs are flawed. I think it's very good to have someone like him putting the ideas up he does as it makes for interesting consideration of his views versus alternatives.
Isn't this what a thread like this is about?
I think that my various responses had the right tone. I have been reading his posts for at least a year and a half.
There is NO personal attack contained within my responses... a little colorful language and to suggest that someone is simplifying and misleading is NOT a personal attack, it is an attack on his generally disingenuous presentation and he should know better regarding a variety of his points, that he is full of shit... and that is NOT a personal attack..
