Ninjastic
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Board Speculation
Re: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.
by
cypherdoc
on 19/11/2014, 05:17:46 UTC
Quote from: cbeast on November 19, 2014, 04:56:20 AM
Quote from: cypherdoc on November 19, 2014, 03:46:12 AM
Quote from: cbeast on November 19, 2014, 03:35:39 AM
I really don't see what the big stink is about Side Chains. So they change the Bitcoin protocol a little, big deal. As long as it doesn't break the current technology and only changes the human incentives, then there is no problem. If the new incentives don't work, then they will be rejected. If the new incentives do work, then Bitcoin grows stronger. The change to the protocol may also inspire new possibilities. Whether you call it money or a trading platform is meaningless because they are both sociological terms. Sociological variables change with the weather. You create tools that function and let the humans decide how to use them.

Examples:
    1. An anonymous side chain is developed. Suddenly millions of people are kidnapped. You stop using the Side Chain or your wife will leave you or you learn empathy.
    2. A Side Chain creates and markets MeowMeowBeenz that uses merge mining and saps hashes from Bitcoin. The next day WoofWoofBeenz replaces it because marketing. Bitcoin stays golden because it needs no marketing.
    3. A Side Chain becomes so popular that most bitcoins get locked into it in 140 years. A single satoshi is still enough to run the rest of the global economy after moving the decimal point. There will still never be one global money because we are not like the others.
    4. Bitcoin breaks and the Side Chains can not be saved by the patch. That's the sociologists problem for approving the Side Chains.
What am I missing?

you're missing the other half of this argument.

that being, the ppl proposing the spvp happen to compose 40% of core dev + 3 of the top committers, all of whom have gotten together and raised $21M in cash to form a for-profit company called Blockstream.  these ppl have a strong incentive to make money, not only for themselves but for their investors.  to do this, they need to construct and sell as many of these speculative SC's that offer all manner of speculative assets, none of which are likely to be related to sound money.  in fact, they discourage sound money by encouraging speculation. crucial to their success is inserting a spvp into the source code specifically to facilitate their business model.  now, when you try to explain what Bitcoin is, you can no longer say that Bitcoin is a form of digital cash.  you'll have to say it's a trading platform that offers stocks, bonds, insurance, contracts, and oh currency.  kinda like WoW.  but maybe not quite as good. Blockstream will want to see these SC's become successful as a happy customer is a happy payor and thus becomes a profit center which can refer more and more clients to build more SC's.  this is their job.  they will make $millions/billions.
Sorry, I don't see a problem as long as the Bitcoin protocol still works. If they eventually abandon Bitcoin for their own altcoin, then competition may overtake them. Maybe they will succeed, but crying won't stop them. If they are smart enough to be innovative, then they will be smart enough to not shoot themselves in the foot by trying to reinvent the wheel. All the stuff about using Bitcoin for trading is a good thing. Rich people usually listen to smart people. Proof of Work will survive on its own merit.

no one's crying.  it's about having enough self awareness as a community to understand that letting a bunch of insiders who control a disproportionate amount of access to the source code shouldn't be proposing a source code change that specifically is designed to benefit themselves and their for profit company they have been found to set up last February.  no wonder there hasn't been any progress on the Bitcoin code.  how do you think all those other companies or altcoins feel that have spent millions in money and time designing processes to compete head to head with Bitcoin w/o the insider advantage of Blockstream?  how do you think the outside financial world will look at this?  the Blockstream ppl don't even have the sense of self awareness that it might be a fair thing for them to step down given what they're doing.  i for one, think they have the possibility to abuse this retained position to block other promising innovations that come along in the future that might obsolete SC's.  if they really believe in their product  they should have no problem stepping down.  or if they want to stick around, reorg as a non profit.  i think it's the right thing to do.  and then we as a community don't have to worry about this ethical conflict.

Bitcoin has evolved to that of a public good.  if we want ppls of all nations and social strata to buy in we cannot afford to let Bitcoin appear to have any improprieties or be subject to any vested interests like Blockstream.  we don't need or want a Redhat for Bitcoin as Money.