Quote from: btcseller2b on September 18, 2014, 03:10:14 AM

Quote from: niteglider on September 17, 2014, 07:58:24 PM

So, to carry the idea into practical terms, you are saying that engineers who use calculus to solve
problems shouldn't be trusted because they haven't created their owns mathematical tools for solving
engineering problems, right?

If Calculus properly solves a problem then it should be used.

The tool being used by gnosis is not appropriate to the 'problem'he is working on.

In broader terms my point was that he is basically doing the job of a mechanic. Almost anyone with some knowledge of math and coding could do it.

A proper solution will come from someone in the field of math who does not necessarily understand the mechanics, then they would hand the project to a mechanic like gnosis.

For example. And I am not a coder or a mathematician, this is an example of the process.
A mathematician looks generally at a coin and says 'The nature of the private keys lets you generate transactions with varying degrees of uncertainty. That would allow each wallet to have two balances, a real balance and a possible balance. Wallet A has 10 coins for sure and it might have 5 more. The pool of people who agree to have 'possible balances' could be used to create anonymity in both sending and receiving for just them.' etc
The mathematics person then tells the mechanic, the coder "get to work, no food til your done" or however they do it.

In the case of zerocoin you have bypassed the first step and thus necessitate copying material desperately to find a bunch of things that can be jumblefucked into seeming to work.

The whole zerocoin thing is halfassed. I won't even get into some very serious red flags that suggest worse.

People should do what they want but my advice is be cautious. Anc is a good solid coin. Still fairly cheap. Meeh and k117er and the others seems sincere if also naive. The price might run up if zc is completed but it will be on a speculative bubble, not because of any cryptographic step with zerocoin.

The problem with metaphors is they don't address any specific issues, rather they just amplify fears that understandably exist for all new systems. I suggest metaphor is a poor tool for your argument.

People should do what they want but some additional advice you might offer is to be cautious of people (such as yourself) who are obviously not newbies writing criticisms on one coin page under newbie accounts.

Fair?