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> From: Robert Hettinga <[email protected]> > Subject: [Cryptography] Get offa my lawn. (was Re: BitCoin bug reported) > Date: February 17, 2014 at 2:01:13 PM AST > To: Cryptography List <[email protected]> > Cc: cpunks <[email protected]>, Robert Hettinga <[email protected]> > > > On Feb 16, 2014, at 10:40 PM, Lucky Green <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I say, let them and all of Bitcoin burn to dust. > > Dang kids. Get offa my lawn. > > > It’s been interesting, I’ll say that much. I have people on their honeymoon > here in .ai asking to see me, buy me and Mrs. RAH $30 hamburgers at Viceroy, > etc. > > Or “prove”, “stylometrically", on various Bitcoin fora, that I'm Satoshi. > Heh. I’ll never get tired of braggin’ about *that* one. :-) I expect others > here know where the stylistic clues came from, but I think Grigg has the > right approach to that question. Leave well enough alone. > > > Being, even now, generally optimistic about the future, if not my own in > particular, I can’t help thinking there’s a pony in there somewhere. I *do* > find it annoying that the only time people wanna talk to me about this stuff > is at the top of a bubble. I expect that it may be a hint from the Almighty I > should pay attention to. > > > At the moment, PayPal, which we all looked down the nose at back then, is > still, um, printing money, and a cypherpunk gave me some BTC a little while > ago, a kind of eating-the-dog food exercise for old time’s sake. Or > something. The price has since fallen 40%, but it’s bouncing back, and will > probably be fine. “You have to be *this* tall to take this ride”, as another > friend said about Bitcoin prices last week. Meanwhile I can’t think of > anything I want to spend it on anyway. > > Even in its current form, Bitcoin makes rather short work of those speed > bumps Mr. May used to tell us about, which *may* be the real point to the > exercise. > > Having to file several kinds of forms to get paid for a small consulting job > as US citizen outside the US was enough to make me foreswear getting paid for > much of anything anymore, anything small at least, and BTC solves several > problems there quite handily, push ever came to shove. Besides, my passport > is stamped “Employment Prohibited”, which, apparently, I’m evidently honoring > even in the breach. > > > So, I think BTC, or something like it, would make a nice numeraire, temporary > or otherwise, having gnawed at the edges of *that* problem when most of the > Bitcoinners were, as Marc notes, in short-pants. Yes, even in its current > volatile state. And contrary to the opinions of people who know better than I > do about these things. > > > It wasn't quite what Dr. Fama got the Nobel for, but New Monetary Economics > might be as good once as it ever was, and Bitcoin might be the camel’s nose > under that particular tent, and given that it is the ultimate fiat currency > that’s quite an assertion. > > As someone whose stated goal, back in the day, was to securitize > *everything*, debt, equity, cash, services, title to assets in storage, > transit, or just sitting there with a house on it, cats, dogs, mass hysteria > -- and all derivatives thereof -- using bearer-transaction financial > cryptography protocols on a ubiquitous geodesic public internetwork, Bitcoin > *is* a bit, oh, please let me say it, self-referent as a solution. I saw it > blow by here on this list, said, “meh”, shortly had the magic smoke go out of > most of my internet presence by a power-spike in a hurricane, and never got > around to paying attention to either Bitcoin, or the internet, very much at > all until various people frog-marched my attention back into focus recently > with me muttering variously about being too old for this shit anymore... > > > So, Bitcoin, if it survives, makes a *nice* hack, by solving, what Barnes, > and ultimately everyone else, called the “loading problem”. And, so far at > least, it solves the “and then you go to jail” part of the book-entry > transaction error-handler, something Barnes was also noted for saying. That, > too, only if Bitcoin survives. > > "...any [network] architecture that can survive a nuclear attack can survive > withdrawal of government subsidy...” Godwin said on Cyberia, long ago. I’ve > jokingly called it his Second Law. I suppose the Strong Form of that > hypothesis, speaking of Dr. Fama, is surviving not mere withdrawal of the > implicit subsidy of monopolistic contract enforcement, and all > transfer-priced assets and “externalities” appertaining thereto, but also > active attack from the ostensible contract enforcer itself. > > > I hear of others, well, gnawing around the edges, actually, of securitizing > other stuff with variants of the Bitcoin protocol, but, like predicting the > end of the world, expanding the blockchain to other assets "has not been > found agreeable to experience.” So far as I can see. > > Meanwhile, Chris Odom, aka, “Fellow Traveller”, aka, “Lovedrop” (yes, *that* > “Lovedrop”), is banging away on something called Open Transactions, which > inserts an actual transaction protocol, among other much more interesting > things, into the works to glue Bitcoin and other stuff onto, for starters, > Wagner Blinding, using, for starters, Ben Laurie’s lucre code. I haven’t seen > a code-stoke like the one I see Chris with, well, since the old days. Which > is nice. Very nice. Big grins all around, down here in the elbow of the > Caribbean. Apparently, like me, he noticed that he was delivering > instantly-usable product now, and getting paid later, too much later usually. > I discovered cypherpunks in late spring of 1994 looking for a solution to > something Barnes (again) called the “latency” problem. Chriss bumped into the > gold-silver-crypto list, I think, about 10 years later. > > Mr. Odom has been been kind enough to involve me in testing OT a bit, and, > ultimately, I’ve more-or-less bailed on iterative break-it-and-fix-it. Mostly > because I don’t have the patience for testing — much less writing — code, if > I ever really did. > > But here’s the rub, I also I have no *idea* what I, personally, would do with > Open Transactions these days even if I could get it running in production. > > I have lots of ideas in *general*, you understand, but they’re mostly of the > “let’s you and him fight” variety. > > Many more people than *I* would have to be involved, they, and I, would risk > much more than money, and, ultimately, I’m not sure any of it would work. > It’s a drag to think that most of what I’m interested in doing requires the > dissolution, or at least dissipation, of The World’s Only Remaining > Superpower to happen. As someone who still, barely, calls himself mostly an > anarcho-capitalist but still a patriot, that’s about the only thing worse > than only being interesting to other people during the top of a bubble. Yup. > A Mass of Contradictions, as usual. > > > "Let’s you and him fight" is only two or three steps removed from Mr. > Briceno’s original observation, I figure. > > Hell, even “set here next to the rockin' chair, sonny, and I’ll tell ya a > story”, is, ultimately, not much more help than “get off my lawn”, when you > get right down to it... > > Cheers, > RAH > > > > _______________________________________________ > The cryptography mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
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