Thanks for reply. I didn't quote it to keep the clutter down
Very courteous. I would like to reply to all who posted upthread, but my time priorities may or may not allow it. Others should feel free to also post replies to others. I launched and posted vigorously to give the thread value, but I might not be able to keep it going.
I think one thing is that the problems discussed in this thread highlight the need for alternative chains. One way to keep cryptocurrencies decentralized is to make sure there are many of them.
I believe the world is likely to settle on one fungible unit because widespread acceptance is more attractive and once the trust issues have been resolved, then why need another coin. And this is another reason I think we are running out of time to avoid enslavement.
And I mean I guess thats why we're all her in the altcoin thread... But the other aspect of this notion is that you can't waste your time developing these systems if you think you have something worthy of developing. The only solution that truly fails to solve a problem is the solution that's not implemented.
And the other aspect is that bitcoin maximalists are just vested idiots.
I agree to continue working if I have something to work on which is actually significantly and paradigmatically improving the permissionless commerce and also giving us sound instant and micro transactions (and hopefully which is also compatible with integration with Zerocash for perfected
anonymity[obfuscation of all transaction details]). If I can convince myself that I have a design which is sound and achieves those goals, I will continue to develop. But I want to be brutally frank with myself at this juncture. I've expended 3 years so far in crypto land research and development. No more half-ass delusion bullshit for me. I have to enumerate all the issues in a design and be very certain I am producing something more than just a dubious babystep that isn't really advancing the core dilemma, e.g. in my opinion Cryptonote/Monero doesn't really advance anonymity in terms of permissionless commerce against a global adversary such as the government (top-down society). And I was sad to come to that realization because I invested a lot of effort in June/July to invent Zero Knowledge Transactions combining Cryptonote with Compact Confidential Transactions (and even paid 4
BTC to the inventor of CCT for his collaboration with me). Hope everyone realizes I abandoned that invention only after serious reflection thus meaning I was forced by the reality of my analysis to abandon a major invention and effort. So therefor when I make that assertion about Cryptonote/Monero, I am also suffering for that assertion.
Edit: it might be the case that some would argue we don't want to create a crypto design which is resistant to top-down government (society) interference with the protocol, because we want mainstream adoption. For example, the Monero folks might argue that anonymity for businesses hiding data from snooping by competitors. But this logic falls apart because the data obtained by for example the NSA can be leaked or sold because again there are human employees inside these institutions (e.g. Edward Snowden). When the balance between decentralized and centralized power is lost, then the world falls apart and enters a Dark Age. This is not a joke. This has happened before in human history and we are at another very dangerous juncture given the digital landscape has now become ubiquitous.
His egregious myopia is that fault tolerance and throughput scaling depend on decentralized control!
At the post I quoted above, I summarized why PoS is less secure for sustaining decentralized control. If we just punt and say centralized control is coming any way, so let's accelerate it by choosing to replace Satoshi's attempt at decentralized consensus with the same political mess we are trying to fix by inventing Bitcoin in the first place, then we have entirely defeated our reasoning.
My aim is to try to improve on Satoshi's design to add more power to the ability to sustain decentralization. Or give up and quit.
Decentralization is the normal mode of society. It is when the normal oscillating balance between decentralization and top-down control entirely fails in one extreme direction that society enters a Dark Age for 600 years. Without a balance of decentralization and top-down control, nothing functions and everything collapses.
So I am trying to figure out how we construct a crypto coin so that there remains a tension or competition between decentralization and centralization ongoing. We don't want entirely decentralization and no centralization as that is just as bad as entirely centralization, e.g. see the
reply I made to ArticMine upthread and how 100% decentralized control over what goes in the block chain means a choice between unbounded spam or oligarchy control. Thus the problem is the lack of balance and Bitcoin flip flops either to too much decentralization forcing too much centralization (a Tragedy of the Commons). Credit CoinCube for making me aware of the applicable math on that point. Message him if you need the link to it (I don't have time to go find it).