Message Channels a Smidge was: Re: Whites going ape for Blacks in America -- Re: Soros' BLM

[Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0]

On Thu, 6 Aug 2020 19:05:19 -0400
Karl <gmkarl at gmail.com> wrote:


> 
> I've been having the opposite.  I'm getting confirmation messages, but many
> threads haven't been showing up in the archives.  The last email I have
> from this thread in the archives was
> https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2020-August/081663.html :
> none of our bitcoin history emails are showing up for me, but I have
> acknowledgement emails for them.  


	I checked and my messages are on the archive. Yours are probably too. 



> >
> >
> >         Not sure what position you're referring to. You mean my
> > observation that US govcorp is pretending to be 'anti racist'?
> >
> 
> Kind of a merging and mutual learning between some fringe and right wing
> behaviors that started before trump was elected, and then accelerated with
> his election.
> 
> It's meaningful for me because some of the professors who spoke out against
> Trump's more oppressive policies experienced targeted bullying by misled
> people with some similarity to what I experienced after taking action
> against international energy pipelines and large banks.


	Still I'm not sure what connection you see between that and the fact that govcorp is pretending to be 'anti racist'. (just like google-nsa 'protects your privacy')



> Zcash has a messaging app, too.  Reference client is written in node, which
> can scare some hackers away if it isn't ported to another language yet.


	haha yes. More promotion of the javashit cancer. Exactly what we need...not. 



> >
> >
> >         is that something that works with BTC? do you have a reference?
> >
> 
> Yes, that works with most chain protocols including btc.  Apparently
> because the usual issue is fee related not content related, google says
> this technique is called "child pays for parent".  Here's an article on its
> use at coinbase, but I haven't read the article:
> https://blog.coinbase.com/improving-bitcoin-reliability-through-child-pays-for-parent-77e771bb04d6


	ah yes, that has nothing to do with circumventing censorship. "Replace by fee" and "child pays for parent" are two ways to increase the fee of transaction after it was broadcasted. 


> >
> >         I mean, we'll see how well cryptocurrencies fare when attacked by
> > govcorp. So far they have been tolerated or even encouraged.
> >
> 
> In USA they were severely discouraged and attacked for many years.  I was
> briefly in the development team of the blockchain qora before the dev team
> was dispersed after publishing a nonworking client.  This happened after I
> posted publically that the system made deletion of information impossible.


	Still, I don't see govcorp taking any concrete measures against bitcoin, ethereum or even monero. The only thing they did was 'regulate'(?) so called 'ipos' but I'm not sure what that meant in practice. People still can create any new cryptosystem they like, I believe. 



> >         Some developers may have made a mistake, while others are actually
> > happy with the current situation...
> >
> 
> A lot of overlap there.  We are all still learning that billionaires don't
> care about money.


	That's a somewhat cryptic remark...


> > Blockchains still show a single programmer can change the whole world,
> > > by stepping into the digital cultural spaces that people leave
> > > unaddressed, and automating them.
> > >
> >
> >         we'll see. Also automation isn't good per se.
> >
> 
> Yeah automation is deadly.  This list is mostly programmers.  I see that
> bitcoin already has changed the world, by trending financial distribution
> and economic discourse farther from government control.


	To varying degrees, yes. Bitcoin is also a seriously fucked up surveillance tool. 

> 

> >
> >
> >         Question is, was that a honest mistake, or part of the 'design'?
> >
> 
> Both.  We're referencing a political issue.  People raised in capitalism
> believe it to mean freedom.  Within it, it can be, which moves capitalist
> power around a lot. For people who don't value money and can influence
> that, there's a lot of space the people who do value it are not worrying
> about at all.


	You think the more idealistic programmers who don't care about money can influence things? Maybe, but I wouldn't underestimate the role played by the greedy amoral 'capitalists'. 



> 
> > > It takes a very long time for bitcoins to merge with amazon-nsa.  They
> > > don't like them: the dollar seems more predictable and familiar, and
> > > the dollar makes it much easier for them to keep secrets.
> >
> >         The fact that bitcoin's supply can't be manipulated makes it
> > unappealing to govcorp. However, other bitcoin features aren't as governmnt
> > unfriendly as that one. Bitcoin as a surveillance tool with unerasable
> > records is something that govcorp likes.
> >
> 
> I like how it surveils everyone equally in that permanent record.  Govcorp
> has a lot of secrets.

	Except, govcorp doesn't use bitcoin as payment system. They use it as a surveillance system. Not that 'equal surveillance' is any kind of virtue or valuable goal anyway. 


> 
> It is easy for a skilled developer to add privacy to blockchains comparable
> to other private systems if needed, see monero, zcash.
 

	Yeah, not that easy. Patching bitcoin is even harder. 


 
> > > >
> > > >         the protocol doesn't allow double spending, but it certainly
> > allows 'discrimination'.
> > >
> > > I don't know what you mean here.  Economic discrimination and miner
> > collusion?
> >
> >         yes, miners can even mine empty blocks if they want and sitll be
> > paid for it(block reward).
> >
> 
> Mmm it doesn't sound like you have a good handle of the protocol.  The
> design is such that nobody does that.  


	As a matter of fact miners have mined empty blocks a few times. 


> Block rewards shift exponentially
> towards being proportional to included transactions as years pass.  It
> takes a long time to mine a block.

	yes, miners are obviously 'incentivized' to include transactions because they get paid. Miners can easily be incentivized to censor transactions if the govt orders them to. The protocol allows miners to include/not include any transaction.



> > > Disruptive forking has already happened to bitcoin with bch, bsv, etc.
> > > It doesn't mean any information is lost, though: each one of those
> > > chains has the entire history prior to the fork.
> >
> >         True. But those forks were not really attacks but rather
> > competition.
> >
> 
> Aren't these exactly what you describe above, with people deciding on new
> rules without agreement as rational collective decisions reduce alongside
> negative media etc?


	The bch fork and the ethereum fork were done by 'factions' inside the 'cryptocurrency community' for 'legitimate' reasons. On the other hand, I'm thinking of a 'fork' that's forced by the government. Just like bitcoin can be forked by people who disagree about block size, it can be forked by a group of people who follow orders from govcorp. 




> >         I don't think any big exchange is run by anarchists. On the othre
> > hand, something like coinbase is run by literal US govt agents.
> >
> 
> I believe those two sets to overlap.

	Hm, the set of anarchists and govt agents does? =P


> 
> Cryptocurrencyophiles call themselves cryptoanarchists but they are
> generally pro-capitalism and pro-blockchain-businesses.  Many many
> cryptoanarchy business out there, see smart contracts, but often small
> yeah.  The first exchange, mtgox, was run by a guy from the Bitcoin
> community; I wasn't around much after that.

	I don't think karpeles was an anarchist, or close to it. His exchange wasn't as bad as coinbase, but at that time there was little to no 'regulation'. Also, he stole some 800k bitcoins or so...