So, I know Im no expert. And really the only experience I have on this subject are the three pieces I am going to review and a talk I had with someone who was attempting to inform me of some things regarding the topic. I made these notes last night so I apologize if any of this seems as though they stand alone and/or out of context. But I will do my best to include the context so you can see why I made such a note. After I finished, as I thought about the material, I noticed the majority of issues I had with the notions within were from two main sources. I will include those sources and anyone who can, is welcome to comment on such sources to give a better understanding or explanation. Its very possible this reader misunderstood something within them. If they were not misunderstood then consider all of the comments made under the premises offered within these sources. Relative to the Economy is: The Last Economic Crash | Winter 2014 [NEW] [FULL] From: youtube/watch?v=AZyphXdY82Y The other Source, is a series of Four talks. One is three hours, the others are broken up into three and four hour long videos given that all three are 7-8 hours long. I will be putting links to only the first video of the two part series because you should be able to find the second video in the Youtube suggestions. You might find it to be redundant, but there are things unique to each presentation so they are all worth it, given the time. 1. Intro to Common Law; 2hr52min. youtube/watch?v=8NwXXRkpYEI 2. Sovereignty; 3hr52min. youtube/watch?v=_IuYWR9naPM 3. Common Law Motions and Procedure; 3hr59min. youtube/watch?v=PSHj9dE3I5w 4. Common Law Case Analysis; 4hr0min. youtube/watch?v=YTekVl8qKj0 Also, this has been used to find reference material: 1215.org/lawnotes/index.html So, I should say, It might seem a little overly critical but if this tone is found in my writing it is only because I feel there are some issues that are more pertinent and some issues that are more effective than what is offered as a solution from the inherent features within the operation of the Bitcoin (or similar cryptocurrency system) that gives the system its initial merit and desirability. The first piece I am going to comment on is: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer electronic cash system. Apparatnly by: Satoshi Nakamoto scribd/fullscreen/180614692?access_key=key-47leq6cf09rrc0wt10c&allow_share=true&escape=false&view_mode=scroll This paper uses sections formed by headings to break up the different topics covered within, so I will use the numbers corresponding to these headings for reference in my comments. My first comment is about Section 2. Transactions. And this is probably one of the more important aspects of the issue. This section seems to be written under a false premise, as it gives no explanation for this issue: That everyone has access to a digital online capacity. This would be the system that would act as interface for people attempting to utilize digital currencies. This might include things such as: electricity, computer/smart phone, network connection, physical memory products(memory sticks as wallets), physical tower and communications lines, power lines. Plus Im sure an expert could weigh in on whats more. I do not deny these things exist, or that they function, or that they would function without government. Lets act like for no other reason than this simple fact: these are links in a chain of capacity, if a link in a chain breaks or becomes inoperable then the capacity to use that system fails. But, I dont agree with the idea that any piece of evidence, hell, even a whole lot of evidence, equates to something that has no characterization as: outright fails. so, lets attempt to look at what would be the sum total effect of this fact. If you consider that people act in their own self interest. And you consider that a lot of people have been afforded the ability to gain some kind of technical knowledge; some kind of skill. It is very likely for one to imagine that if one of these links in the chain went out another private agent would quickly act to fill the gap. So in total, with a shutdown or incapacity of any kind, a link can be replaced with a new agent. The total effect becomes a time gap. That might mean, how long before you can find someone who could build you another computer if you broke or spilled something on yours, maybe you could get one right next door, maybe not. But it does depend doesnt it? Or, granted the electric companies would do their best to keep service continuing without interruption, what if they were unable to do so? How long would it be before someone can get service back up? maybe 15 minutes. In trading stock terms that, I believe, is an issue. But what if it was more severe, would you need to wait until someone helps you set up solar or wind or some alternative power, or re-dig and lay power lines that were damaged from something. Now, these are extreme of course. And in no way am I saying they will happen for everyone or even for a majority, but the fact that this could happen to someone might act to dissuade people from committing to the system in the first place. So, imagine, if this was replacing a currency like the dollar, there would be a system/chain of agents to rely on to make this digital stuff physically work. I would prefer a safer system overall. A tangible system, if any system at all. Why can we not use receipts? We could call them Receipt of delivery and Expectation of Payment Specified As: .... The only thing this does add is, a digital capacity that conventional money has never had before now. Section 4. Proof of Work. They claim the trust system is used currently Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. And that this will replace the trust system. But, dare me in my inexperience, should I mention his use of the phrase If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains. The entire rest of the paper is based on this presumption. Including the mathematics used to justify its rationality in this section. Im not claiming anything more than this being a presumption. If an expert shows me evidence indicating there is backing to this presumption, Im on board. I should note, I find section 3 and section 5 to be particularly clever and I certainly applaud the efforts illustrated therein. Section 6. Incentive. This is another section that is based on a False Premise: that there are no others incentives outside of Bitcoin. To think incentive would stand as the incentive to make this system work is in poor judgement. This incentive would stand against dishonest attackers who had stakes in Bitcoin. But this section does not entertain the mere fact that there will be major incentives by people who dont have a stake in Bitcoin, or only have a fake stake in Bitcoin. This only entertains the idea of a negative entity or actor in the system after having presumed all parties WANT BITCOIN TO EXIST AND CONTINUE. This is a major oversight!!! This can not be left unaddressed. Section 7: Reclaiming disk space. This section is also based on a false premise. This is tied heavily into that economy talk that I posted a link to earlier in this post. The false premise is: presumed a majority, if not 100%, of interactions in the market follow a static trend.(normally this would not be unreasonable, but given the evidence cited in the talk, I think a different time is coming before us all, and it will be worse than The Great Depression.) This paper was written in 2008, before any of these common market signs of collapse had been presented in 2009 up unto this year, 2014. Of these things that could be affected are: Production, cost, and value. These will all be skewed in the devaluation projected to take place, which includes the dollar. Section 8. Simplified payment verification. a. The solution presented in this section for the honest nodes issue, is an alert from the network nodes. I just wanted to ask a question. Is there any potential for abuse, similar in effect to a false lawsuit or witness lying to police? Again, even if this abuse was intended to simply cause skepticism and degrade the trust users had in the system, undermining its capacity to exist? b. Extra costs of doing business are implied in the need to Secure themselves. This also means that people of lesser means must rely on another link in the chain for such security. Section 9. Combining and Splitting Value. Ya know I honestly am not sure I understand this section. I am open and grateful for explanation. Section 10. Privacy. Some issues are mentioned here but not solved or even addressed. Summary in the last statement: The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner. Problem presented, no solution discussed. Section 11. Calculations. a. False premise: that attacks will only be in one form. Again, this does nothing to address sources of malice or negligence from parties who have vested interests outside of Bitcoin. Could anyone else see this system somehow being used to stage false flag operations? Again, I am no expert, but it seems this paper doesnt even address such a potentially devastating issue as outside attackers. b. All through the math there is another false premise, or presumption of fact. It can be illustrated by the inequality: p>q This is the same presumption cited in Section 4. Section 12. Conclusion. a. Assumes only 1 potential threat again. No consideration of anything else. b. The last sentence is the epitome of democracy: They vote with their CPU power expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them.****Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.**** If this monetary system had to replace the dollar, what difference does it make from the issues of today? Except that instead of it being the will and agenda of the very few, it will be the will and agenda of the ignorant oblivious dumbed down masses who have the ability to vote one way or another. I dont want democracy forced on me in my monetary system regardless of the source. In the End, I see this as trading a monarchy(or whatever you might call our current government) for thugs and gangs of the market place. The Second Piece I am going to comment on is: The Bitcoin Phenomenon. https://youtube/watch?v=6pWblf8COH4 After looking over my notes on this topic, for some reason I can not find the comments regarding this subject. If I find them I will keep you posted. The third Piece I am going to comment on is:Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin: Vice Podcast. https://youtube/watch?v=SNssKmeXrGs -This will only further destroy local communities -Assumption: When the desire for privacy is assumed, only then are 3rd parties necessary. I cant remember what this note meant but it was before 15 minutes in: -Complete failure: No government obligations only volunteer. -Probably meant something like what will happen in the event of a complete failure, if no government obligations. Everything must be on volunteer. But I dont know exactly what I was referring to. They claim gold is a faith based currency. But this is just not true in the strictest sense. A faith based currency would be something like monopoly money during the game. Where we all consciously hold the value of the notes in faith. But gold is different. Gold has a as long as we can remember standing for value in the monetary exchange system of transacting. Gold is always found to move through devaluations untouched. As soon as stability emerges, gold assumes the price it was before devaluation although this time it will be in another currency. So, the faith in gold is more based on the conditioning that comes from past evidence, not a conscious decision. Gold has been used for so long, there is no conscious utilized in observing its economic philosophy, only its market effect and potential. Bitcoin, in this respect, is far more a faith based currency than gold, or even more than the dollar is. But soon the dollar will be devalued and left worthless as a monetary exchange note. This may be a silly question, but I guess in my surprise, I thought I would ask sincerely: People still use credit cards? That is going to be something of the past during a depression, thats for sure. Same can be said for all of the spending that is expected to bolster the exchange community networking. But that is another presumption that now in 2014, seems a bit optimistic. I wonder what keeps people from wanting to be publicly known for buying a subway sandwich. Who really cares if you buy it so much that you would need to protect your privacy in such a transaction?(If you answered: you wouldnt,) then why does he seem to assume that privacy is a necessity of any and all transaction? Could there not be two systems, one private, one not? Then you dont have force necessities on people they did not apply to. Also, I am kind of confused but, am rest assured that I am missing something. Can someone explain to me, why you buy a subway sandwich online anyways? Does it come in the mail? Am I wrong in assuming it is just a payment, and then the sandwich can be inspected upon physical pick up at the store, no? Then what is the need for insurance companies to insure the monetary transaction during these types of transactions? It seems to me, they convinced us that because we bought an iPod or laptop online once and the insurance protected us against this or that, that we actually need all of that insurance and protection for each and every transaction, even run of the mill transactions like a sandwich. Does this seem right? What am I missing? I really am frustrated by this speakers tone as to the 9% and 5% transaction fees(specifically he was talking about western union). There should be no malice about this percentage. As I see it, before western Union offered this service, where did you hear or get that idea of sending money far distances, from? Such that now, you feel you are entitled to such a service without conditions? There is no historical precedent for this entitlement. Everyone knows that if you dont like something in the market, get into business to make that change you want to see in the market. Dont hate others for using the market how they saw fit. In my opinion, to do so is socialist in nature! We should not condone socialism! I condone the notion of extending the help, but do I say let government be the agent and issuer of help, hell no! Let the peoples, untaxed, unregulated and free help those less fortunate! From this point in this source it is clear that two main ego-centrisms cause the entire rest of this video to be silly(with exception of the last ten minutes I will comment on in the end.) This portion is something akin to, comment on the economy if you thought Monopoly the game is how it worked. That has about the same validity here. The reason is simple. Government can claim no authority over the peoples of the United States. They only have jurisdiction over citizens. Now, do I deny that there is a spectrum of practicality to this claim, absolutely not!! But I have seen this defeat the system in Los Angeles and am convinced that many other places do not come anywhere near the battle those people faced in LA. The only thing that makes this spectrum of Practicality have bearing or relevance is the lack of legal and lawful standing in form, us inexperienced people have when we go to court. We have the substance(which is enough to win), but we need to learn the form(the actual in-paper and in-person procedure of court) so that the substance is presented in its undeniable form. Because the speaker sees the government as something you need to obey, he produces a false dichotomy: charged after the fact or prevent the fact. The fact being transaction. Effectively, to a sovereign: Policy Makers = Suggestion Makers. They can and will charge all they want. But they will never have jurisdiction over a people in a court of record. To go on from there, it seems to me this little world where the dollar is not collapsing and government regulation being relative, all make this section of the video silly and useless like monopoly game economy explanation. Such could be better utilized by putting together a counterclaim that could fight the government in court, and Ill ask the experts for more suggestions on what to do considering the economy issue, but to deny the dollars devaluation or potential collapse, and its effects is asinine to me.. He claims some things that people want: two things I can remember are regulation to make it feel safe and online wallet services. But I find all of his comments in this part of the video come across to me as more socialism, and I wholeheartedly do not agree with what he claims people want! Maybe a socialist wants these things, but not me. All of this stuff at this point leads me to confirm there is no way Bitcoin or a currency of the like, will, replace the type of currency used like the dollar is used today. As I mentioned before, people are not going to be buying the same in the future as they buy today. I wonder how much of the transactions that need to take place in order to keep the system going will be necessary at the loss of buyers and sellers(who are really wholesale buyers) from the buyers side of the transactions using Bitcoin. Seems like a substantial portion of users are going to be buying beyond their affluence if they kept this trend up in years to come. I do think its cool. Since people have a skewed image of the system the result is the belief in the need to get away from the government. In doing so I find it cool that precedents for a lack of need for public identity in the digital marketplace as well as private agents coming to the call of dispute resolution mediation have been found set here. Very neat precedents that should be flaunted to the peoples community! During the 40-50mins section, he pretty much, in my opinion, destroys the case for Bitcoin being problem-less. He mentions so many things that seem inherent issues. One quote I made note of was: Built in network affects will keep Bitcoin from replacing the dollar. This and many other statements expressing issues that had yet to be solved made me question this: If the dollar is collapsing or devaluing, and Bitcoin can not replace the dollar, and there are many issues yet to be fixed in the system; Wherein then, lies the deciding factor to even work on this? If its not needed, and its extra work, and its work that wont even replace the system we have. How is a counterclaim not more important at this point? How is, putting back stores of food, water, and other tradeable goods like soap, water purification, heaters, propane/fuels, wood, ammunition and guns for hunting meat etc. equate to something less important than the Bitcoin project? Im sure you can see the idea behind the devaluation of the dollar and the need to protect against that devaluation, while still having a liquid enough value base that you can still survive in the hard times to come. As a note to the last ten minutes of this video, I would say: Wow, this technology sure is going to change things in the market place! I see its entirely novel condition and do see the potential for major market based revolutions of all sorts. I think it will be particularly fascinating to stay apprise, while although, I think in the event of a depression less and less will this be relevant and less and less will people care. I imagine food and water allocation will be paramount to so many individuals who currently use the dollar that notions of this affluent kind are going to be lost to countries with a better domestic economy. Thanks for your patience and listening! Andrew Hinkle Aaron Jay Hinkle Caoimhe McNeil Dunn
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:43:21 +0000
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