Say 75% of mining power is gone tomorrow. That means blocks take 40 minutes on average, after a while difficulty goes down, and all goes back to normal. Nothing lost there!
I would more worry about China disconnecting the internet for a while. When it comes back online, they have the longest chain and all transactions confirmed outside of China in that time are gone.
I would more worry about China disconnecting the internet for a while. When it comes back online, they have the longest chain and all transactions confirmed outside of China in that time are gone.
Someone who understands Bitcoin 101 has thankfully arrived on the scene.
I think the rest of your comment is rather shortsighted (or careless?) though if you don't mind me saying. There is a very good reason why I personally like to "spell out" every point I try to put across. By limiting my audience to only a few "learned scholars" who would be able to understand abstract comments, I would be limiting my own scope and reach. It would be a little like in-breeding amongst snobs really 
By having everything "spelled out" in plain English, you'd be able to gather a lot more data, ideas and experiences from people with a variety of different backgrounds. More data/input means higher probability that you come across something unexpected that helps you expand your own sphere of knowledge. You're shortsighted if you think you can only learn from 'intelligent' people. Knowledge is devoid of bias.
I hope I don't come across as harsh. And this is certainly not a personal attack.
BTW I don't consider myself intelligent by any stretch of the word. I've failed way too many exams to even toy with the idea
By having everything "spelled out" in plain English, you'd be able to gather a lot more data, ideas and experiences from people with a variety of different backgrounds. More data/input means higher probability that you come across something unexpected that helps you expand your own sphere of knowledge. You're shortsighted if you think you can only learn from 'intelligent' people. Knowledge is devoid of bias.
I hope I don't come across as harsh. And this is certainly not a personal attack.
BTW I don't consider myself intelligent by any stretch of the word. I've failed way too many exams to even toy with the idea
What you don't understand is that no matter how much effort I put into explaining every last detail in layman's terms, I would end up with more misunderstanding and more verbiage. And it extends out into numerous threads when people comment or quote on something I wrote in a different thread. And then I get blamed for being confusing, when I am trying to have a conversation across 12 threads simultaneously. There is no end to the misunderstandings. I am 1 person. You are all are 1000 people. How can 1 person communicate effectively with 1000 people without having 1000 different genres of misunderstandings. Alas, I have to choose to write to those who can understand what I intend, and then hope some others can explain for the rest. If I wanted to explain to layman, I would pick only very simple topics that don't have many variables and thus can't be easily misunderstood.
Btw, on the IQ issue upthread, perhaps some of you remember Mencius Moldbug and he recently did an AMA:
Quote from: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1dc2nd
Amusingly, my "one offensive comment" was actually me repeating something my wife (not at all a "shitlady") learned in her MFA program at SF State (not at all a Hitler Youth academy). (This is the observation that the conquistadors began the slave trade with Africa because Native Americans didn't thrive as slaves, which is not at all controversial history.) I figured that this wasn't exactly the sort of thing I'd say, but coming from her it was probably okay.
Perhaps oddly, if anything I thought of this as a negative observation about Native Americans (I probably wouldn't do super well in the sugarcane fields either). Similarly, if I said that Greek Jews were more likely to survive in Auschwitz than Western European Jews (which is also true), this would strike me as a positive comment on the toughness of Greek Jews, not an opinion that they should be sent to the ovens first.
Somehow, which shouldn't have surprised me, this commonplace historical observation metamorphosed into "everyone of African descent is best suited to cutting sugarcane for the Noble White Man." I don't have a problem with "rescinding" that, since I never said it.
Perhaps oddly, if anything I thought of this as a negative observation about Native Americans (I probably wouldn't do super well in the sugarcane fields either). Similarly, if I said that Greek Jews were more likely to survive in Auschwitz than Western European Jews (which is also true), this would strike me as a positive comment on the toughness of Greek Jews, not an opinion that they should be sent to the ovens first.
Somehow, which shouldn't have surprised me, this commonplace historical observation metamorphosed into "everyone of African descent is best suited to cutting sugarcane for the Noble White Man." I don't have a problem with "rescinding" that, since I never said it.
Quote from: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1dlkjd
I said "character and intelligence." One thing that's hard for the 20th century to understand is that the ability to survive as an agricultural slave is a talent -- just like the ability to survive in Auschwitz. (Read Primo Levi.)
It was not necessarily the best, the worst, the smartest or the dumbest who survived in Auschwitz. Auschwitz selected for a very different set of talents than the normal, sane world, in which being nice and smart is better than being mean and dumb. Similarly, early American slavery selected for talents that Africans had and Indians lacked.
(It's not militarily hard to enslave people in their native land when you're as ruthless as a medieval Spaniard -- guerrilla war in Latin America is a postcolonial phenomenon, not a colonial one) As I understood and understand the matter, the complaint of the conquistadors about their Indian captives was that they too easily refused to work and eat, and essentially just died. This is similar to the fate of the last of the Tasmanians. Hunter-gatherer peoples don't do well when forced into inactivity/drudgery. Intellectuals also don't do well with drudgery, although we're just fine with inactivity. So the conquistadors imported agricultural peoples to do agricultural labor.
I would make a terrible agricultural laborer and an awful agricultural slave. (I am also not very good at being a master, though for different reasons.) Am I praising myself for this lack of talent?
Yes, it may have something to do with my high intelligence. (It also has something to do with my poor character.) Intelligence can be a liability. You don't have to be an agricultural slave to realize this -- all you need to do is go to an American high school.
What I learned in an American high school was that intelligence does not make me special or better. I agree that if I thought smarter people were better people, given the fact that no magic process has distributed the smarts equally, I would be a racist in the classic sense. (I also don't agree that the talent to be a master, or the talent to be a slave, makes a person better or worse.)
It's hard, especially for smart people, to give up the idea that smart people are better than stupid people. The ancient Greeks lent similar prestige to athletics; they believed a fast runner was spiritually better than a slow runner. They fought a lot of wars, so athletics mattered a lot to them; we write a lot of code, so problem-solving ability matters a lot to us. But one is a muscular talent, the other is a neurological talent. Neither has any mystical significance.
Once you stop believing in the mystical importance of intelligence, I think it's very easy to accept that it's unequally distributed (as athletic talent certainly is). I understand that this is very hard for our society, and especially for people like me who grew up believing that good grades were holy and professors were gods.
All I can say is: they're not. Or at least, so I believe. I hope this helps you understand the context of my remarks a little better.
It was not necessarily the best, the worst, the smartest or the dumbest who survived in Auschwitz. Auschwitz selected for a very different set of talents than the normal, sane world, in which being nice and smart is better than being mean and dumb. Similarly, early American slavery selected for talents that Africans had and Indians lacked.
(It's not militarily hard to enslave people in their native land when you're as ruthless as a medieval Spaniard -- guerrilla war in Latin America is a postcolonial phenomenon, not a colonial one) As I understood and understand the matter, the complaint of the conquistadors about their Indian captives was that they too easily refused to work and eat, and essentially just died. This is similar to the fate of the last of the Tasmanians. Hunter-gatherer peoples don't do well when forced into inactivity/drudgery. Intellectuals also don't do well with drudgery, although we're just fine with inactivity. So the conquistadors imported agricultural peoples to do agricultural labor.
I would make a terrible agricultural laborer and an awful agricultural slave. (I am also not very good at being a master, though for different reasons.) Am I praising myself for this lack of talent?
Yes, it may have something to do with my high intelligence. (It also has something to do with my poor character.) Intelligence can be a liability. You don't have to be an agricultural slave to realize this -- all you need to do is go to an American high school.
What I learned in an American high school was that intelligence does not make me special or better. I agree that if I thought smarter people were better people, given the fact that no magic process has distributed the smarts equally, I would be a racist in the classic sense. (I also don't agree that the talent to be a master, or the talent to be a slave, makes a person better or worse.)
It's hard, especially for smart people, to give up the idea that smart people are better than stupid people. The ancient Greeks lent similar prestige to athletics; they believed a fast runner was spiritually better than a slow runner. They fought a lot of wars, so athletics mattered a lot to them; we write a lot of code, so problem-solving ability matters a lot to us. But one is a muscular talent, the other is a neurological talent. Neither has any mystical significance.
Once you stop believing in the mystical importance of intelligence, I think it's very easy to accept that it's unequally distributed (as athletic talent certainly is). I understand that this is very hard for our society, and especially for people like me who grew up believing that good grades were holy and professors were gods.
All I can say is: they're not. Or at least, so I believe. I hope this helps you understand the context of my remarks a little better.