Quote from: smooth on December 17, 2015, 08:04:13 PM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on December 17, 2015, 07:48:22 PM

Quote from: smooth on December 17, 2015, 06:51:40 PM

TPTB, satoshi's system is permissionless period, for two reasons, one being that control of <50% (or maybe some lower threshold with later analysis) is an axiom. The second being that permission isn't necessary to break someone's 50% monopoly (unless the monopoly controls 50% of the energy in the universe or something), similar to the above argument.

This may seem useless in the real world, but that's a different question from the mathematical properties of the system itself. We start with a clear description of the mathematical properties and then apply to the real world. In the process of doing the latter various additional assumptions are inevitably made.

That is not a definition of permissionless that applies to me when I am trying to get my transaction on a block chain that is controlled by 50% of the miners who are beholden to the State which has regulated that I must put KYC on my transaction and I refuse to. Or which has banned me from transacting because I refuse to sign the document that says Man-made Global Warming is a not a hoax (the status of which is stored in a database for my national id in the coming 1984). Or because I refused to show up for Putin's military parade last Sunday and the State's computer has decided to spank me. Or because Trump has banned Muslims from transacting and due to some glitch my national id confirms that I am Muslim who was born in Islambad.

You have moved the goalposts (constructed a strawman) based on moving the definition of permissionless. I don't find your variant of the definition of permissionless very relevant or useful in the threat scenario of a 50% attack. Because precisely that scenario is an asymmetry between the power of the individual and power of the collective (50% being the collective, e.g. one scenario is the masses being complacent against blacklisting which Satoshi's protocol doesn't prevent). Decentralization and end-to-end principle of networks is precisely removing the power of the collective (infrastructure) to dictate to the individual.

So sorry I must disagree even though you made a mathematical point worth reading and factoring into thoughts.

I've not moved the goalposts. The goalposts say very clearly that if one entity controls 50% then the system has largely failed (at least temporarily I suppose). I didn't say that, satoshi did. The premise in his design (whitepaper) is that it is not 50% controlled.

If you think that premise of satoshi's design is implausible, fair enough, but now you have deviated off into assumptions about world view, not the design or functioning of the system itself.

Those are his words: "As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network ..."

If they are, then all (or at least most) bets are off.

Yes I claim Satoshi pitted the collective against the individual whether he realized it or not. And I aim to correct that flaw in his design, because the correct idealism is about liberating the individual not subjecting us to the will of the majority (which turns out to be the complacency and natural corruption of the masses who are the majority).

I am challenging the fundamentals that Satoshi set up. I don't know if "Satoshi" intended that evil or just couldn't figure out how to improve the design.

I would trust "Satoshi" more had he admitted that issue instead of just claiming 50% is the barrier of correct functionality. In effect he pitted the individual against the collective as the long-term outcome. I doubt very much the group that was "Satoshi" didn't know that. This was a clever plot foisted on us. I am not undiscerning enough to be fooled.

Hiding the evil in the feigned idealism of "a better gold that has 21 million supply forever". Not to mention that means the supply will collapse to 0 over time. Roll Eyes

Satoshi was a clever marketer. That faux idealism of a better gold was put there very intentionally to blind men to the truth by their greed and love of stacking.

Lots of gullible geeks fell for it "hook, line, and sinker". Not me (links to the essay I wrote in 2013, Bitcoin : The Digital Kill Switch).