Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Sorry I can't continue this. I have work to do.

For later, then (P.S. I started writing this earlier in the day, had to get to some bitcoin related work, by the time I got back it was 1am, and I'm sleepy and not entirely lucid. So, apologies if I don't make too much sense here)

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote

Is it in the best interest of a mining pool or conglomerate to have 51% of the hashing power? (Y/N)

If you are the government then yes. Government is a monopoly on force (a well accepted definition by most academics). Without that monopoly, they lose their reason to exist.

If you are the government, unless you are a totalitarian dictatorship, or want to deliberately destroy bitcoin, then the answer is "not necessarily." If you gaining 51% puts your voter's money in jeopardy, and gets your politicians voted out, or worse, ruins the wealth of the senators already in power, it may be something that governments will avoid. Don't forget that people who run the place and make all the decisions are wealthy as hell, too. Also, as in the selfish miner countermeasure, if a government or some pool threatens to take over with a 51% attack, and is considered malicious, some pools can band together and create a "Bitcoin" fork that would split from the new "Govcoin." Though that will likely result in massive forking, chaos, and general collapse of the monetary system. And subsequent beheadings of government officials...
Personally, I think governments will lose the funding to support their monopoly on force before they realize what is happening...

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote from: Rassah on November 13, 2013, 10:13:15 PM

Are threats such as deliberately mining blocks with zero transactions a legitimate concern? (Y/N)

No. But you miss the point. The cartel will put all the transactions in their blocks and withhold those transactions from the other miners, thus starving the other miners of income to pay electricity for PoW.

All transactions get propagated through the entire network of bitcoin users, with miners eventually also hearing them. So if you suggest that a mining cartel can somehow keep transactions from being broadcast, and keep other competing miners from hearing about them and mining them too, you are mistaken.
What I was asking about was the attack where a 51% cartel mines blocks that include only the transactions they wish to include, or includes no transactions at all, effectively stopping all transactions and freezing bitcoin. The simple solution to this problem is just to modify all clients to only accept blocks that have the most amount of transactions included, which can, and likely will, be done way before that becomes a problem.

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote from: Rassah on November 13, 2013, 10:13:15 PM

Do miners have majority control over which blocks are considered valid? (Y/N)

I have no idea what you mean or what is your point?

I mean, can miners screw with Bitcoin by implementing arbitrary rules, such as increasing the total number of bitcoins, or creating nonstandard transactions, and forcing everyone else to eat them. I think the answer is no, since their blocks simply would not propagate. Point is that it is the clients that largely control the blockchain, not the miners. So if there are fixes, such as to accept blocks with the most transactions, already implemented into the clients, then the 51% attacker won't be able to do all that much harm.

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote from: Rassah on November 13, 2013, 10:13:15 PM

Are people in general altruistic, being ok with seeing their wealth diminish if it goes to "the greater good," if allowed to make that choice in private without coersion? (Y/N)

What greater good? You mean Bitcoin is a greater good? No it is a certain monopoly for cartels and thus the government.

Greater good as in social programs. Or greater good as in seeing their bitcoin wealth slowly diminished, for the benefit of a government mining operation taking bitcoins to use for social programs or whatever.

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote from: Rassah on November 13, 2013, 10:13:15 PM

Are people stupid apathetic sheep who don't care about what happens as long as it doesn't affect them directly?(Y/N)

Mostly yes. Self-interest is very powerful and myopia is extensive, even you fail to see what I see. Yet I think you will finally realize it with my comment on #2 above.

Obviously there will be a battle between people's self interest as bitcoin owners, and government's self interest as an authoritative body. I think people are too apathetic to care now, but may not be as more and more responsibility is put on them by bitcoin itself.

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

Quote from: Rassah on November 13, 2013, 10:13:15 PM

threat of 51% attacks may force people to rethink democracy and majority control. If that happens, the first thing will become a big N, as will the idea of "democracy" and minarchy.

You don't understand how human action works. It isn't a group consciousness where we act rationally as a group. It is the individualized motivations that yield the domino effects that cause the group wave effect.

To analyze the game theory, you have to analyze those individual incentives.

The incentive that I think individuals will have will mostly be "mine" and "gimme." These are the incentives that drive file sharing, to the detriment of the ultra-authoritative RIAA, Silk road users (and drug users in general) to the detriment of the DEA, soon 3D printed gun makers to the detriment of the ATF, and likely sooner bitcoin users to the detriment of the IRS. The simple incentive with bitcoin is "My bitcoins woth more = good, my bitcoins worth less = bad." That incentive can lead to "group wave effect" (?) of believing 51% power over mining, and possibly eventually everything, as bad, since that will make individual's wealth decrease

Quote from: AnonyMint on November 13, 2013, 11:26:35 PM

This is precisely why democracy is failure, because the individuals are motivated to receive benefits from the collective:

Oh yes, not arguing that point. The major change between past and future is that a big mob of people used to be able to wield enough power to take the funds needed to support the benefits, and soon enough that will not be an option any more. Well, to a point. They can still take possession and control of physical property.