So believe it or not, I am a pretty politically opinionated bastard. I got to thinking, one thing really pisses me off: the drug war.

I really, truly believe if people could be made to understand just what has happened over the past few generations, I feel it would make them mad too. I have little skill in persuasive writing, I have no skill in video or art. I do have ideas and a few bitcoin that I could afford to spend. I am willing to put up 3 bitcoin, which I was thinking of breaking up 1.5 to the winner, and splitting the rest between two runners up. It seems to me that would be a decent prize for people who make videos on their own.

Anyway, I wanted to bounce some ideas off this forum and try to flesh out the details so I can get this rolling.

I am not entirely sure what parameters to put on the video. Suitable for wide distribution on sites like youtube, maybe 3ish to 5ish minutes. Something that informs, something that exposes, something that writes the narrative rather than accepting the one that has been pushed on us. Something that makes the case before the jury that the prohibitionists are the real criminals and the real threat to liberty and civility.

I feel a topic punch list should be provided to give some guidance, I am open to suggestions

The bigger question is logistics. I kind of like the idea of publishing a bitcoin address with the prize purse as a token for people to see and know I at least control as much coin as I claim (say by publishing the address before making the deposit) but also, in case anyone else sees this and thinks they might like to sweeten the pot. Hell, if it shows enough interest, maybe more of these contests could happen?

Of course, I know how crazy it would be for anyone to trust that, I would be wary. This sounds like something I should use an escrow service to handle just for the trust issues?

I would love to see this be a success and maybe pave the way to get more ideas out there; as there are more of us with opinions and coin than the ability to really express ourselves, and my personal stash will only go so far; but,  I am tired of just being mad and having people see that and think I am crazy, I want them to be shown what makes me so crazy. I want them to know whose policies so clearly lead to the result of giving half the people in burn units a financial reason to end up there....and put the blame where it belongs....with the people who started the violence and who drove the lucrative drug markets into the hands of psychopaths.

Is a 3 month deadline for submissions a good time horizon? Is it unrealistic to ask people to cite verifiable sources so that they can be fact checked to prevent choosing videos that misinform? Maybe a first round with public comment where videos might even be re-submittable for a period so factual issues could be ironed out and someone doesn't get disqualified over using something from one dubious source.

The goal is to both run a fair contest and produce a quality message that might turn some heads.  It is an idea I have been kicking around for a while; any suggestions? Things I should look out for?

Well if you are going to go that far.... why not just assume he still posts here under another name, pull all the word pairs out of his posts, and compare them against everyone else? Then do it against users of other, related, forums...

I have considered doing it for fun but, overall, feel its better to respect Satoshi's privacy. What will it really do for us to know who he really is? Real names and real faces map to real people with flaws. Why not let the community have its hero.

I bet you or he think this is a really original idea. I worked as an admin at a University, where some idiot tried to run "seti @home" on the main computational server. We caught him, and when he did it again, sent him in for disciplinary action. The lab computers are for everyones use and chewing up their resources will get noticed.

By the time he did it with Seti @Home, it wasn't original. I saw a friend of mine (dating myself here) get caught trying it with... deschall (http://www.interhack.net/projects/deschall/what.html) .

I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment but... this is the CIA we are talking about.

We are talking about the people that have done everything from setup secret brothels to study what happens when they slip people LSD 40 years ago, to helping run secret prisons and torture facilities, run guns, introduced crack into inner cities... and regularly murder people with remote controlled planes.

The CIA is, in my estimation, the enemy of all civilized human beings.

And I, on the other hand, just hope that you will not be corrupted by them, and will reform your ways and cut ties with them before they corrupt you too much. I doubt you can tell the CIA too much that they don't already know.... afterall... they can read all these messages.

The nice thing about bitcoin is that it has nothing to hide. The source code says all that needs to be said (as you pointed out in your Ignite! talk).

More important to find out what their attitude is. If they wanted to come after this community, its not like they would ask permission. They have demonstrated a willingness to lie, cheat, steal, and murder whenever it suits them.... if they wanted to disappear you it would be just that, you would be pushed into a black van and never heard from again. If they wanted to take over the network, they would be devious, and do it well, and we wouldn't figure it out until it was too late.

Best to get whatever info out of them we can, and to know that Big Brother is watching.

I will still be happy to buy your bitcoins for under $1 if you are looking to sell lol

The reality is, there is more than one issue here, and it all gets bundled up into one.

There was a great article about CP laws a while back, I wish I had a ref to it. Basic upshot was, the laws made sense when they were made. In the 60s/70s when child porn laws came on the books, it was an industry. Yes, an industry. You and I didn't have professional recording equipment. A camera that took pictures good enough to produce good porn was expensive.... you had adults being paid to rape children. It was a bad scene.

Now... CP has changed. Every fucking 8 year old has a cell phone with a camera. There are a FUCKTON of pictures of naked kids...taken by kids! In fact, some piece of shit prosecutor was actually threatening kids with CP charges because of pictures they took of themselves!

In my state, its legal to have sex with a 16 year old... which is much better than some other states where they seem to think a 16 year old is a child. However, if she took a picture of herself, and sent it to you...thats CP.

Its horrible what is done in the name of protecting children. It really makes me wonder how many "sex offenders" are actually molsters and rapists, and how many are just people caught by a technicality of the law.

But of course... the "number of sex offenders" is then used to justify more laws... and more punishments... truth really is stranger than fiction... it would be hard to write a situation this stupid. Hell, I could have been charged for getting drunk and taking a piss by the side of the road. WTF! 

I mean seriously... I can piss my pants, which is totally socially unacceptable, yet walk around in public with no problem. Pull up to the same tree or bush that people have been urinating on for a million years, and now you are a sex offender.

Well... once its fixed, its no longer random. It is a definite number, and the same every time. It is only "random" to someone who is trying to guess what it is. Future hashes in the block are random, once they are published in the chain, they are fixed.

So I could see gambling or gaming scenarios where some random element depended on the next or some future block hash (or even the transaction hashes concatenated). Though, you would be limited in how fast you can use it, as some like to point out, block chains can rarely temporarily fork, leading to a potential change a few down the line, a possibility which goes down for any given block, with every block added.

Essentially, this is no different than illegal lottery games. My grandmother was telling me that when she was MUCH younger, she was a bookie (and still wont name names, even though they are all long since dead) and that is basically the game worked by people placing bets with her, then, the numbers were derived from numbers published in the newspaper.... so everyone could check and see if they won easily.

Thinking about Hal's comment, I don't think that is a real problem. He chooses nonces to make hashes. So yes, he can throw out any hash that he finds which is even or odd, but, it only matters if they are under the target. So a miner who was trying to cheat his bet would have to find a good block, giving him its tx fees and income, and then throw it all away, and keep searching.

That is for an even/odd bet though. Sure maybe with the right betting structure like that you can afford to mine and throw out half of the possible blocks, but... what if you implemented keno? I think putting together a betting scheme that would not be worth cheating in these circumstances could be done easily.

The real winners are always we who hate sports. Every time the fan of any team opens their mouth, we win by getting to look down on them. Personally, I am a huge fan of disliking watching other people play sports. Going to a bar during a baseball game is like.... hanging out in a room full of people who collectively have seizure every few minutes.

I mean, I would be happy to throw a ball around, or PLAY a game, but, I can imagine few things more dull than watching one on TV (its like regular TV but with an even more repetitive plot).

That's the main problem ALL lenders face.

I have been on both sides of that equation, in various capacities. In reality, I think everyone has their thresholds. Most people, most of the time, have every intention of paying, and even doing so on time. However, everyone has a threshold at which point they need to make a decision, pay the loan, or pay for something else. There is also a ceiling where its not a decision, and they just can't pay (at least, on time). Sometimes the threshold is above the ceiling.

Some people, have very low thresholds, others, have just have very low ceilings. As a lender, these people are pretty similar in their effects. Certainly, its much easier to feel sorry for people who get laid off, have deaths in the family, or other events that leave them unable to pay than say, someone who blows it partying and doesn't put the time and effort in to even find a job. However, the end result is the same whether they have a good song and dance or not.

Anyway here is my thought. A credit union is usually also a bank. So, registering an account, and keeping that account open, moving balances in and out, all that, adds up to a certain credibility in and of itself. What if, instead of just being a normal bank that's borrowing from peter to lend to Paul, what if you allowed depositors to be investors in the loans to spread the risk and profit.... and only lend to other customers who have been doing business there for at least say... 6 months to a year.

It only helps so much.... when a business dies, it dies, when income goes away, it goes away, and sometimes these are unpredictable to the person it happens to, never mind to his creditors. However, it does at least establish some history and credibility to weed out some scammers and some of those who are just too desperate to be making promises at repayment.

I find myself wanting to agree with the people who say it could, or is even likely to fail. I don't have that much in bitcoin right now, but I am young and have a normal income so, putting a small investment into a long shot risky bet is not something I am adverse to... so even saying its a risk and even a likely one, I am still comfortable using it and keeping some amount of quantity of it.... maybe even getting more...

That said, the idea that anything COULD fail is true. However, bitcoin only fails if we all stop using it. Even if there is a massive run, everyone runs on it, and the market crashes to .01 usd/btc... the majority of miners stop running it...total crash.

Even if/when that day comes, as long as one person, like yourself, keeps his miners running, the difficulty adjusts and, you keep getting these now worth less coins.... but... the whole thing can bootstrap from that all over again.

Of course, with decreasing generation, if nobody is passing transactions, it eventually means not even a worthless btc income, making trying to carry the system through a major crash a rather thankless job (unless you ended up with such a large hoard that it was worth reviving the system)

I guess all this is true of any currency but, the open and independent nature of bitcoin makes it seem like, it really does stand the best chance of still "being around", no matter what ends up happening to the value and current markets.

I agree. Personally my thought on leaving the code in there, perhaps as an option through the CLI/RPC is that others are right about other block chains but, also, a reference implementation of mining is not a bad idea to keep around.

I was thinking, the client has the current difficulty, and it knows how many hashes/s its generating, why not have it tell you how long it is likely to be between blocks on average for you?

That should be unambiguous. Then add a little warning popup that has a link to some contrived forum post or even a FAQ about mining and CPU vs GPU and that there are other clients out there for mining etc.

Neat idea but, in the end, it doesn't matter how you implement it, what matters is what the end properties are. In this case, as I understand it, you are proposing that an escrow transaction specify a number of "voters" who will arbitrate any dispute by voting for or against either side.

The incentive to vote with all the other voters is a bit of a perverse incentive, since, its not so much an agreement to do right, but to do what others do. There is actually a penalty for voting your conscience if you believe that that vote will be a losing vote. Whats the value in that?

Now it just comes down to he said vs she said. Bob can't prove that he gave Alice a laptop. He can show serial numbers, he can prove he bought one, he can even show video of him putting it in a box, putting her address on the box, and dropping it off at a shipping store front. Any of that could be faked, and none of it proves the full end to end transaction. For most transactions, this is simply not possible.

What I find nice about this 2 party escrow is the more level playing field. It puts the seller at a slight disadvantage, but, without putting the buyer at an advantage since they still have to spend the coins in the first place.

I wonder if a two way escrow makes sense... where one party escrows both to the seller and back to themselves, both of which can be verified, but you would have to have the second "insurance" escrow be at the seller's command to confirm.

Of course, that just opens up for the seller to scam, and pressure his victim to release the funds in order to cut his losses and at least get his secondary escrow returned.... but in the end, I don't think there is a true technological solution to the problem of cheats.

Actually.... the more I read discussions of this, the more I think I like permainflation. Not for bitcoin, of course, but in general for currency. The thing is, I have started to see bitcoin as more commodity than currency. Much like gold, its a good way to hold value, better than gold in that its far easier to transfer but....

It seems like you really want multiple vehicles for various purposes. Bitcoin, gold etc is great for holding value, even going up in value over time. It encourages hoarding, or "saving" to use a more positive term.

On the other hand, something that has a value that floats and encourages hoarding is less desireable for a store. When buying and selling goods etc, you really don't need or even particualarly need something like that. I think its more something whose value stays relatively constant with that of the goods that its used for.... it doesn't matter whether its inflation or deflation, you can't re-price an entire supermarket every few hours.

That said, bitcoin has some obvious gaps, 10 mins per block, etc. Seems to me that it would almost make sense for an inflationary currencty (not that I am sure what sort of formula it would want to use or would even make sense) to compliment bitcoin. Something that you know is going to inflate so rather than keep it, you get small amounts to use as needed.

Much like someone who keeps a hoard of gold still needs to trade small amounts of that gold for dollars to go shopping, but, doesn't use cash as a savings instrument (since its not very good at that).

Just my thoughts now, my thinking on this changes every day or two so take it with a grain of salt.

Actually, it took a while with no downlines, but, I did make half again my investment back.
Though the one guy I know who does run a small buisiness selling stuff online, and a couple who are thinking about it, are all interested in accepting bitcoins.

So once they have a few, i bet I can convince em to invest lol

Though, is it really a ponzi scheme if it doesn't try to convince people that there is some sort of real economic activity going on to support it? The randomizer is pretty unapologetic about what it does.

Your thinking is way too rigid here.

Bitcoins can be subdivided to 8 decimal places without any changes except to the client to allow you to use them. The number 1 is just an arbitrary value. Think of it this way.... a common wage used to be in cents per day. Could you imagine being paid even 30 cents per day? There was a time when that wasn't bad money! Hell the US used to mint "mils", which were fractions of a penny!

Think of gold. Its sold in grams right? Well 1 gram of gold is over $300 last I looked (a long time ago). Of course, gold is also divisable. If you only need half that, I can sell you half a gram of gold, you can then spend 1/4 that if you need $75. Makes sense right? All these values are relative, they all float against eachother.

Right now, btc sell for around 70-80 cents each. Clearly 21 million 80 cent pieces, even infinitely divisable ones, are not going to run a whole economy. All that means is that a growing economy should drive up btc values... until they can be subdivided enough to provide enough value to run the economy.

Does it really matter what 1 btc is worth? If 1 btc is worth $100 usd, then, we will trade for $1 values in .01 btc

Though, realize if "bitcoincop" is a real "cop" then he may be thinking that is easy. Once you find one of those users, you question him, and when he tells you that he uses mybitcoin, then you go to mybitcoin and try to get them to release their records, afterall, they should be able to make the connection with the account that they were deposited into.

That said, if mybitcoin can be convinced (or compelled) to help, then this should be a trivial step. Of course, since you can access them as a location hidden service, and they require no real information to sign up, it could easily be a dead end too.... and that is before we even consider other possibilities.... like coin tumbler (or similar). Unless the thief was the only person using it at the time, and not particularly clever about it, simply going from one service like mybitcoin or mtgox to another, through coin tumbler with multiple addresses well... I hope you get the picture.

hell, I recall even seeing someone on Silk Road who was offering pre-laundered bitcoins for sale. They claim to do some sort of escrow, so its not even like that person could cheat and send back the same coins (not that it would be hard to determine, but as a scam, i bet would work most of the time) and wouldn't even know the buyers real name.... though, I guess if you were sure that he did it, again, its no better or worst than mybitcoin in terms of, you could at least ask him to help you pick the trail back up. (assuming that he keeps records)

Though, how you convince an anonymous people, running services intended to gaurd your anonymity, to voluntarily cooperate in compromising someones anonymity, even in an indeterminate way like this, is an open question. I guess its possible that accusations of thievery may sway them to help, but, they may want you to prove it before they are willing to help.

Afterall, its not like you can pull them into an interrogation room and get out the rubber hoses. That is, unless you can compromise their identities first.

I, for one, welcome our new anti-deflationary overlord.

Now what are you planning to do with those drones? I would like to see them used to help the Libyan uprising. Will you be acting in concert with the UN resolutions.... or perhaps going after the tyrant personally?

I have mostly been trying to skip the whole "how it works" since well...  I am one of those geeks where the first thing I did to understand it was go and read the spec. It still took me a while to get all the details straight. Its very easy to look at bitcoin and think "ok so I need to mine coins".... and I think thats actually a hinderance once people see how hard that actually is.

That said, it seems to be a split between people who really, truely don't care, and people who go "hell yes! Fuck the fed! I need to get into this". Not an even split, but a split. Most people don't care, or worry about "how do you get the money back out".

Course, I can't imagine wanting to buy dollars with my precious bitcoins. Why regress?

I believe that is only one of the issues with forking the chain.

Consider this, if you were to fork the chain at some time point, you would also need to change the transaction format going forward, or else, your spend in one chain could be replicated to the other too.

Think of the confusion it would cause if you could post an address and have it a usable address in both chains? Best you could do, I think, would be to allow addresses from the previous chain only as inputs to transactions, and use a whole new address format going forward... to prevent each system from validating eachother's coins.

Not to say that it can't happen, or it wont ever be tried (hell I know a guy who had $500 and needed $1k tomorrow so he figured his best bet was to buy scratch tickets), but I can't see it turning out well, or being useful for very much.

Maybe as a game currency or something where you just want to give people an incentive to play. Of course, to "play" they would need the private key info from their real bitcoin wallets to sign transactions... which would be pretty safe if you used a new format that differed from real transactions but.... your game idea had better be damned good if you think many people are just going to let it grab the private keys from their wallets for in game use.

Really, if someone wants to change the rules, its best to start a whole new parallel block chain (or implement some of what was talked about with bitdns of using related block chain that can be simultaneously mined)

I go back and forth on whether I like the fixed total money supply of bitcoin but, thats what bitcoin is, change that and you really do have a different beast.