Re: Replacing Bitcoin with something less wasteful (split from Is deepbit.com stealing coins?)
Once again, another post full of fancy words that say nothing. You still haven't explained how your superior version of a virtual, decentralized currency would work. I'm disappointed - I expected more for someone who came barging on to this forum blurting out about how awful Bitcoin is.
Yes, my comment on the economics of mining presumes rational behavior. What do you base your own forecasts and predictions on - irrational behavior? LOL.
No, real-world people won't always act rationally, but there are usually plenty of rational people around to correct for the irrational ones. Especially within a project with as many participants as Bitcoin has. And it would be downright foolish to base a business analysis like this on irrational behavior.Currently bitcoin is a toy, and will most likely remain one until more amusing toys come along to replace it. It is at a best a 1.0 effort that while internally consistent in its logic, didn't anticipate that opportunists would centralize its use and made no provision to prevent it from being turned into just another piece of script ( say that slowly and clearly ). I suppose you could say it is successful as a simulation game within its own limited definition.
The absence of public ownership for bitcoin's design is probably the best indication that its creator recognizes its limitations. If he doesn't at this point in time, one would sincerely hope he hooks up with some management who could make better use of his talents than he can working by himself. It's a shame that he evidently developed bitcoin to this point without partners or peers to give him reality checks along the way.
Your viewpoint that criticism that causes you cognitive dissonance must also come with something that relieves it or otherwise the critic is a bad actor is one of the most childish things about you. You see, your favorite toy can suck out loud and no one who says so is obligated to spare your feelings about it. Wearing your intellectual immaturity on your sleeve is merely your emotional deficiency, which I suspect is mostly a result of your inexperience and lack of education.
Sorry, no one has to fix bitcoin in order to point out areas where it could use improvement. It's funny that this even needs to be said but appropriate given your born-yesterday-and-likes-it-that-way attitude.
It's obvious you spent a lot of time thinking about behavioral economics before you LOL'd it. If you could ever get your head out of your own ass long enough to catch up with the rest of the world, you would already know how very simple-minded, quaint and parochial your insistence on rationalism is, that sort of thinking was already well on its way to becoming passé before you were born.
By the way, what are you a sargeant of? I was a captain by the time I left the U.S. military, the early 1970s was a nasty time to think about making a career of it, I'm very glad I didn't, notwithstanding it helped me grow up a lot in a hurry. Clearly you could benefit from challenging yourself by getting out of your comfort zone, not that I would suggest the military as a first choice.
I was attacking you only because you made claims that you couldn't support (and I knew you wouldn't be able to). Now that it is obvious to both of us that you no longer wish to make such claims, I rest my case.
Also, regarding the "architectural ownership" of Bitcoin - it's an open-source project. There are several developers working on maintaining and updating the Bitcoin client. Gavin is one of them, Philip is another. Sorry, you are wrong that no one has taken ownership of the project.
Wow, I guess you really showed me, monkeyboy. Obviously you are enjoying being a winner somewhere in your own mind, aren't you?
I *proposed* a portion of a solution based on work from another project. With one exception, it was very clear that not one person posting in reply was motivated to go research that project. You aren't all ears little girl, you are all mouth, and such a funny little monkey at that, one for whom everything is black and white and must be settled right now before you pee yourself in mortal angst
Doing source code maintenance is a long, long, long, long, long way from architectural ownership for the design of bitcoin. Source code maintenance is the stuff I've outsourced offshore many times while keeping the proprietary value of the creative engineering and design work close at hand. Of course you need not hear of firsthand experience in either of these areas since you already know everything about them anyway, don't you?
Nothing is settled here, nothing is closed, it doesn't have to be nor will it be any time soon. When this bitcoin thing blows over as it almost certainly will like so many other half-baked internet phenomena before it, use it as a learning experience.