Quote from: Luckybit on January 13, 2014, 02:08:49 AM

Quote from: Gavin Andresen on January 12, 2014, 10:12:24 PM

I've accepted an invitation to do a question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC on Thursday, February 6, 2014.

I've been told anything related to the Council on Foreign Relations tickle's peoples Grand Conspiracy buttons, so I thought it would be best to be open about exactly what will happen. I hope it doesn't spark as long a thread as my visit to the CIA, but Bitcoin is a lot bigger than when I visited the CIA...

Anyway, here's the invitation I received:

Quote

On behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), I write to invite you to speak to our Washington-based members as part of our Voices of the Next Generation series. This program seeks to bring together our members with fresh, young voices in the nations foreign policy discourse. Given your work with BitCoin, you would be an important addition to the series. In the past, the Voices of the Next Generation series has featured Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel professor of poverty alleviation and development economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ayman Mohyeldin, Middle East correspondent, Al-Jazeera English, and Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director, Code for America.

CFR is a nonpartisan national membership organization and think tank, as well as the publisher of Foreign Affairs. Among our members are many past and present U.S. presidents, secretaries of state, defense, and treasury, as well as other senior U.S. government officials, renowned scholars, and major leaders of American business, media, and nongovernmental groups.

The format of the event will be a 90-minute question&answer session, moderated by somebody yet-to-be-determined. It will be "on the record," meaning press could be invited to attend and recordings and/or transcripts may be posted on CFR's website.

The audience will be CFR members and invited guests (and maybe press); it is not open to the public. I am not getting paid by the CFR.

I actually think it's cool. It's actually a sign of respect for the community that they'd want to meet with Gavin. If they were totally hostile there would be no meetings.

We have to get on from the conspiracy theories. Let us be realistic, if someone has to meet with these groups it should probably be Gavin. I view this development as excessively positive for the future of Bitcoin.

Quote from: coinrevo on January 12, 2014, 11:13:05 PM

One of the greatest intellectuals of the United States, Noam Chomsky, has some interesting things to say how forums such as the CFR operate: "The Council on Foreign Relations is essentially the business input to foreign policy plainning." [1] As far as I can tell inside the US Chomsky is seen as a conspiracy theorist or left-wing nut (which would be certainly the view inside of circles such as the CFR). But the view outside of the US is quite different. What I would like to see is the cryptocurrency system becoming more international. The foundation claims that bitcoin is "non-political online money", which is really absurd if one thinks about it.

[1] http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm

One interesting fact about the politics of the US. The more you represent the actual politics of the US in your speech the more you will be presented as a lunatic. That does not mean that you're not representing a certain political demographic, it just means that the political views in the US are all presented as crazy by the media. It's not a left or right thing, it's inclusion or exclusion.

arent you a crappy lil poster