on the topic of Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures:

There unusually a lot of btc discussion on the list lately: technical (the fork), philosophical and practical. 

On the philosophical/political side: btc is great, I like it, I use it, but, come on, we all know that by design (increasing difficulty of the chain and proof-of-work system) btc is determined to be a space race. Before you can maintain the network with simple hardware, and get btc for it, now you have to be a mining rig. We know that btc is good for P2P financial transactions, but the first important question now is:
How do you earn bitcoin? (as an individual, you can't mine, if you are not a programmer or a designer, how do you earn btc?)
It becomes less and less of a question how do you spend btc, but still, unless I mined a lot in the past or bought it for cash, where do I get it? 

Secondly, the rhetoric we hear often in the mainstream btc discussion is "it is a solution for banking the Unbanked" This talk is obviously dodgy -
lets say "the unbanked wants to be banked" if you have an account with nothing in it, and no way of filling it in, there is no point.
The only good thing about btc walled vs bank account when its empty is that there is no one is proposing you to get an overdraft or a loan. But still, empty btc wallet is pretty useless. 

Rather decent response to poitical btc frenzy I found in this post - https://blog.caseykuhlman.com/entries/2014/bitcoin-somaliland.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=%24feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+underWater+desert+Blogging

Another mainstream talk is: its not about bitcooin, it is all about blockchain technology. Thats correct, it can be useful for some stuff. But what drives me up the walll is a hype around it mixed with vagueness. "We can build all this amazing socio-technical systems with it" and very rarely, amongst general public (not blockchain devs) you come across concrete ideas of a design. What exactly does this weird data structure does in a very specific social context? What are exact detailed functions it has, how does it integrates with other layers - software and hardware. 
So the talk "some devs will write cryptographically verifiable scripts for us which interact on the blockchain and it will give the world some cool ways of interaction" is just dangerous. Similar rhetoric brought humanity things such as Facebook. 
The only thing which i consider right in the blockchain discussion that "ok, it allows adding some features to a system that can be useful in some particular cases"

On the technical side: fork, xt-code etc - I would like to organise and stream a panel discussion on WCN channel soon-ish. I dont want to turn cypherpunk list into a Bitcoin Talk :) but will ping a link here and the time we will schedule it. 


On 8 July 2015 at 01:22, <cypherpunks-request@cpunks.org> wrote:
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Today's Topics:

   1. Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (grarpamp)
   2. "Google is to surveillance capitalism what GM was to
      managerial capitalism" (Razer)
   3. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Juan)
   4. Re: Hacking Team has been hacked (hard) (Razer)
   5. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Sean Lynch)
   6. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Lodewijk andré de la porte)
   7. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Sean Lynch)
   8. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Lodewijk andré de la porte)
   9. Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
      [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc] (Juan)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:21:50 -0400
From: grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com>
To: Cpunks List <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID:
        <CAD2Ti28Tw7Kz+RoW3DYqEPbB4KfS=TiTSwbtneL7ps1QsKvzvw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

> Then again maybe I am missing the key reasoning for this fork.

People often miss the fundamental reasons Bitcoin exists,
the various conjoined ethos behind its creation. This is to be
expected, it's so far ouside any thinking or life process they've
ever had to do or been exposed to. It's also partly why figuring
out what to do or code or adopt, is hard. And certainly not made
any easier by the long term need and the current value at stake.

Creating a system in which a Botswanan can give a few bits
of their impoverished wages to their friend in Mumbai without
it being gated, permitted, hierarchied, middlemanned, taxed,
tracked, stolen and feed-upon until pointless... this simply
doesn't compute for these people. Their school of thought is
centralization, profit, control and oppression. So of course they
see txrate ramming up against an artificial wall as perfectly fine,
it enables and perpetuates their legacy ways.

Regardless of whichever technical way the various walls are torn down,
what's important is that they are. And that those who are thinking
outside the box do, and continue to, take time to school these
legacy people such that they might someday become enlightened
and join the ethos.

Otherwise might as well work for ICBC, JPMC, HSBC, BNP, MUFG
and your favorite government. Probably not as much fun though.


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 13:32:35 -0700
From: Razer <Rayzer@riseup.net>
To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Subject: "Google is to surveillance capitalism what GM was to
        managerial capitalism"
Message-ID: <559C3763.1000205@riseup.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"


> Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information
> Civilization
>
> Shoshana Zuboff, Berkman Center for Internet & Society; Harvard
> Business School
>
> April 4, 2015
>
> Abstract:
> This article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the
> networked sphere, ‘surveillance capitalism,’ and considers its
> implications for ‘information civilization.’ Google is to surveillance
> capitalism what General Motors was to managerial capitalism. Therefore
> the institutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google
> Inc. are the primary lens for this analysis as they are rendered in
> two recent articles authored by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian.
>
> Varian asserts four uses that follow from computer-mediated
> transactions: ‘data extraction and analysis,’ ‘new contractual forms
> due to better monitoring,’ ‘personalization and customization,’ and
> ‘continuous experiments.’
>
> An examination of the nature and consequences of these uses sheds
> light on the implicit logic of surveillance capitalism and the global
> architecture of computer mediation upon which it depends. This
> architecture produces a distributed and largely uncontested new
> expression of power that I christen: ‘Big Other.’ It is constituted by
> unexpected and often illegible mechanisms of extraction,
> commodification, and control that effectively exile persons from their
> own behavior while producing new markets of behavioral prediction and
> modification. Surveillance capitalism challenges democratic norms and
> departs in key ways from the centuries long evolution of market
> capitalism.
>
> Number of Pages in PDF File: 15
>
> Keywords: surveillance capitalism, big data, Google, information
> society, privacy, internet of everything

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2594754

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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 18:57:16 -0300
From: Juan <juan.g71@gmail.com>
To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID: <559c4b24.d6a48c0a.a6394.0140@mx.google.com>
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On Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:21:50 -0400
grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:


> Creating a system in which a Botswanan can give a few bits
> of their impoverished wages to their friend in Mumbai


        What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
        especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked
        pretty well.

        Bitcoin hasn't led to any meaningful political/economic
        change yet, apart from possibly triggering the demise of
        government cash, which would be a complete disaster. Talk about
        'unintended consequences' (unintended?)

        A likely scenario exists in which there wouldn't be any
        independent crypto-currency. There would be fully 'traceable'
        electronic currencies controlled as always by the state and the
        banking mafia.



> without
> it being gated, permitted, hierarchied, middlemanned, taxed,
> tracked, stolen and feed-upon until pointless... this simply
> doesn't compute for these people. Their school of thought is
> centralization, profit, control and oppression. So of course they
> see txrate ramming up against an artificial wall as perfectly fine,
> it enables and perpetuates their legacy ways.
>
> Regardless of whichever technical way the various walls are torn down,
> what's important is that they are. And that those who are thinking
> outside the box do, and continue to, take time to school these
> legacy people such that they might someday become enlightened
> and join the ethos.
>
> Otherwise might as well work for ICBC, JPMC, HSBC, BNP, MUFG
> and your favorite government. Probably not as much fun though.



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:11:20 -0700
From: Razer <Rayzer@riseup.net>
To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Subject: Re: Hacking Team has been hacked (hard)
Message-ID: <559C4E88.4050506@riseup.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"



On 07/05/2015 08:31 PM, Christian Gagneraud wrote:
> As nobody has reported it yet, here we go:
> https://twitter.com/hackingteam
>

Ahhh! Here we go...

>  (In Solidarity with:) “everyone in Gaza, Israeli
> conscientious-objectors, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond, Peter Sunde,
> anakata, and all other imprisoned hackers, dissidents, and criminals!”

By the hacker who doxxed Hacking Team:

>                | | | | __ _  ___| | __ | __ )  __ _  ___| | _| |
>                | |_| |/ _` |/ __| |/ / |  _ \ / _` |/ __| |/ / |
>                |  _  | (_| | (__|   <  | |_) | (_| | (__|   <|_|
>                |_| |_|\__,_|\___|_|\_\ |____/ \__,_|\___|_|\_(_)
>
>      A DIY Guide for those without the patience to wait for whistleblowers
>
>
> --[ 1 ]-- Introduction
>
> I'm not writing this to brag about what an 31337 h4x0r I am and what m4d sk1llz
> it took to 0wn Gamma. I'm writing this to demystify hacking, to show how simple
> it is, and to hopefully inform and inspire you to go out and hack shit. If you
> have no experience with programming or hacking, some of the text below might
> look like a foreign language. Check the resources section at the end to help you
> get started. And trust me, once you've learned the basics you'll realize this
> really is easier than filing a FOIA request.
>
>
> --[ 2 ]-- Staying Safe
>
> This is illegal, so you'll need to take same basic precautions:

http://0x27.me/HackBack/0x00.txt (wget this file if paranoid)

Via Morgan Mayhem

https://twitter.com/headhntr/status/618513829282975744

Mirrored @ my tumblr

http://auntieimperial.tumblr.com/post/123489352994


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------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:27:01 +0000
From: Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>
To: Juan <juan.g71@gmail.com>, cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID:
        <CAHKdp-kqaytz2DJqz-a_wynZNKpi147yNWXMpUfBQWmuLuZu-w@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 3:02 PM Juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:21:50 -0400
> grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Creating a system in which a Botswanan can give a few bits
> > of their impoverished wages to their friend in Mumbai
>
>
>         What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
>         especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked
>         pretty well.
>

Really? What rich person has gotten richer through Bitcoin so far?
Remittances seem like the biggest use of Bitcoin at the moment. Sure,
there's plenty of speculation, but your claim that Bitcoin's purpose is to
make the rich richer is also speculation. And FUD.


>         Bitcoin hasn't led to any meaningful political/economic
>         change yet, apart from possibly triggering the demise of
>         government cash, which would be a complete disaster. Talk about
>         'unintended consequences' (unintended?)
>

I can't imagine you've read a single thing written by the people who
influenced the creation of Bitcoin if you think that the collapse of fiat
currencies is an unintended consequence. Any fiat currency that is so bad
that its users prefer to use Bitcoin deserves to collapse. Of course, so
far, while Bitcoin has become popular in places like Argentina and
Venezuela, the US dollar remains by far the more popular alternative
currency in those places. And if Greece exits the Euro and starts printing
Drachmas there, they will have to worry about people trading their Drachmas
for Euros, not for Bitcoin.


>         A likely scenario exists in which there wouldn't be any
>         independent crypto-currency. There would be fully 'traceable'
>         electronic currencies controlled as always by the state and the
>         banking mafia.
>

 By what evidence do you estimate that this is a "likely" scenario? You may
be right that many nation-states and banks will be loathe to accept an
untraceable and uncontrollable crypto-currency, but that's the whole point;
they're not going to have a choice. Cryptocurrencies don't have to be legal
to be disruptive. The main problem that they've run up against before now
is the lack of healthy underground markets to take advantage of them. Given
time, governments' and banks' opinions and policies about cryptocurrencies
will become irrelevant.
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2015 07:50:04 +0900
From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl>
To: Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>
Cc: "cypherpunks@cpunks.org" <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID:
        <CAHWD2rLq2QpL+LM8NvS5yhiAEm7zUDKFqXrbrAsabLWzV7XmdA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

2015-07-08 7:27 GMT+09:00 Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>:

>         What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
>>         especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked
>>         pretty well.
>>
>
> Really? What rich person has gotten richer through Bitcoin so far?
> Remittances seem like the biggest use of Bitcoin at the moment. Sure,
> there's plenty of speculation, but your claim that Bitcoin's purpose is to
> make the rich richer is also speculation. And FUD.
>

Yours would the Uncertainty and Doubt, I see.

Bitcoin is cold hard money - therefore benefiting those that can exploit it
best. The most capital you have, the better you can exploit it. Therefore,
the wealthy stand more to benefit from Bitcoin than anyone else. Any other
effect would indicate softness of Bitcoin or some human issue. It does
prevent (certain forms of) suppression; it's very hard to censor financial
transactions on the Bitcoin network. It also provides a great deal of
financial and administrative utility to all in similar quantity, it levels
the playing field of the poor/rich somewhat.
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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:53:36 +0000
From: Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>
To: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl>
Cc: "cypherpunks@cpunks.org" <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID:
        <CAHKdp-mssc5=Urb7SnLtbJcJJiNg6BDt3eg=DWWPs-hkkYPwFg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 3:50 PM Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl>
wrote:

> 2015-07-08 7:27 GMT+09:00 Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>:
>
>>         What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
>>>         especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked
>>>         pretty well.
>>>
>>
>> Really? What rich person has gotten richer through Bitcoin so far?
>> Remittances seem like the biggest use of Bitcoin at the moment. Sure,
>> there's plenty of speculation, but your claim that Bitcoin's purpose is to
>> make the rich richer is also speculation. And FUD.
>>
>
> Yours would the Uncertainty and Doubt, I see.
>
> Bitcoin is cold hard money - therefore benefiting those that can exploit
> it best. The most capital you have, the better you can exploit it.
> Therefore, the wealthy stand more to benefit from Bitcoin than anyone else.
> Any other effect would indicate softness of Bitcoin or some human issue. It
> does prevent (certain forms of) suppression; it's very hard to censor
> financial transactions on the Bitcoin network. It also provides a great
> deal of financial and administrative utility to all in similar quantity, it
> levels the playing field of the poor/rich somewhat.
>

Perhaps my response was a bit hyperbolic, but that is a very different
claim than "Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
especially the US can become even richer."
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2015 08:21:48 +0900
From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl>
To: Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>
Cc: "cypherpunks@cpunks.org" <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID:
        <CAHWD2rKv90K_dWs2KQTw=robaiGKmAQFUiczCppoMF0S=bz0hQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

2015-07-08 7:53 GMT+09:00 Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org>:
>
> Perhaps my response was a bit hyperbolic, but that is a very different
> claim than "Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries
> especially the US can become even richer."
>

Put on your Juanglasses and the difference is hardly perceptible ;)

Still not sure what to make of the guy's constant rant-mode. It just seems
to cause defensive and less constructive argumentation.
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 20:22:32 -0300
From: Juan <juan.g71@gmail.com>
To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Subject: Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in
        [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]
Message-ID: <559c5f23.c328370a.7776d.1c71@mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:27:01 +0000
Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 3:02 PM Juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:21:50 -0400
> > grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Creating a system in which a Botswanan can give a few bits
> > > of their impoverished wages to their friend in Mumbai
> >
> >
> >         What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western
> > countries especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked
> >         pretty well.
> >
>
> Really? What rich person has gotten richer through Bitcoin so far?


        It seems kinda obvious that virtually all bitcoin developers
        and users *in the west* are richer than people in Africa and
        India.

        That's what I was getting at. Bitcoin devs  - *already
        rich by 'third world' standards* - are richer now. Millionaires
        even (notice that grarpamp was talking about impoverished
        wages...and people)



> Remittances seem like the biggest use of Bitcoin at the moment. Sure,
> there's plenty of speculation, but your claim that Bitcoin's purpose
> is to make the rich richer is also speculation. And FUD.


        So what amount of btc is being used to make payments between
        Botswana and Mumbai?

        What amount of btc is being used to speculate/gamble in a few
        big, centralized and fully NSA-AML-monitored exchanges?


>
>
> >         Bitcoin hasn't led to any meaningful political/economic
> >         change yet, apart from possibly triggering the demise of
> >         government cash, which would be a complete disaster. Talk
> > about 'unintended consequences' (unintended?)
> >
>
> I can't imagine you've read a single thing written by the people who
> influenced the creation of Bitcoin if you think that the collapse of
> fiat currencies is an unintended consequence.


        But I said *cash* not fiat.  And the collapse of relatively
        untraceable *cash* is *bad*.

        What we may end up with is FIAT currencies and  NO CASH
        option* for those fiat currencies. Bad. Pretty bad.


        *aka credit cards.


> Any fiat currency that
> is so bad that its users prefer to use Bitcoin deserves to collapse.
> Of course, so far, while Bitcoin has become popular in places like
> Argentina

        Do you know where I live? Of course you don't have to know
        where I live. But you'll know it in a second anyway. I live in
        argentina - and let me tell you, bitcoin isnt exactly 'popular'
        here.


> and Venezuela, the US dollar remains by far the more
> popular alternative currency in those places.

        Yep, that's quite correct as far as argentina goes. I suspect
        it's true regarding venezuela as well.



> And if Greece exits the
> Euro and starts printing Drachmas there, they will have to worry
> about people trading their Drachmas for Euros, not for Bitcoin.




>
>
> >         A likely scenario exists in which there wouldn't be any
> >         independent crypto-currency. There would be fully
> > 'traceable' electronic currencies controlled as always by the state
> > and the banking mafia.
> >
>
>  By what evidence do you estimate that this is a "likely" scenario?


        The evidence is called 'history'. That, and the nature of
        government and its business 'partners' - or accomplices.


> You may be right that many nation-states and banks will be loathe to
> accept an untraceable and uncontrollable crypto-currency, but that's
> the whole point;

        You seem to be assuming that an uncontrollable and untraceable
        crypto-currency exist? I'm not seeing anything of the sort.


> they're not going to have a choice. Cryptocurrencies
> don't have to be legal to be disruptive.

        And yet there seems to be a fair amount of people in the bitcoin
        'community' who are quite eager (or desperate) to have bitcoin
        'regulated' so that it becomes 'respectable', 'legal'...and
        usable.

        Of course, this isn't a shortcoming that only affects btc.
        Anything that the government 'outlaws' becomes harder to
        transact.



> The main problem that
> they've run up against before now is the lack of healthy underground
> markets to take advantage of them. Given time, governments' and
> banks' opinions and policies about cryptocurrencies will become
> irrelevant.


        I do wish that was actually the case, but I think that view
        doesn't fully take into account the capabilities of the
        'enemy'.



J.





------------------------------

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