Good idea or not, SOMEBODY will try to mess up the network (or co-opt it for their own use) sooner or later.  They'll either hack the existing code or write their own version, and will be a menace to the network.

I admire the flexibility of the scripts-in-a-transaction scheme, but my evil little mind immediately starts to think of ways I might abuse it.  I could encode all sorts of interesting information in the TxOut script, and if non-hacked clients validated-and-then-ignored those transactions it would be a useful covert broadcast communication channel.

That's a cool feature until it gets popular and somebody decides it would be fun to flood the payment network with millions of transactions to transfer the latest Lady Gaga video to all their friends...

Since yesterday's recap of the sad track record of the USG, the toomim clown received some bad news, with which he coped in the usual manner : by having a rather amusing public meltdown under the influence. Meanwhile the poopaganda machine came out in force with a pathetic chorus bemoaning "Bitcoin's death".

Whatever. For once we do agree : it's time to move on. Please do.

Bitcoin was never for you. Bitcoin was never for the poor ; Bitcoin was never for the voluble if worthless "social media" tramp ; Bitcoin was never for the soi-dissant "activist" aka scammer. Bitcoin was not for you.

And since we're doing this, let's proceed to dispell some myths.

I. It is false that Bitcoin has to be used by you for it to be valuable.

You believe man to be the measure of all things. This is a purely religious belief, exactly identical, and directly reducible, to the notion that there's a magical teapot spinning in the sky.

You believe that you are man, in the strict and strictly laughable sense that everything is equal to everything else and thus therefore you see yourself as not merely a uniquely bent spoon, vaguely related to various other better implementations of an ideal spoon and thus twice removed from that ideal but instead fully and completely, in and by yourself, equal and idempotent to everything man is, ever was or ever could be. This is also a religious belief, I suppose, although more indicative of psychopathology than what usually is called religion - on the continuum between the buddhist chanting and the fanatic beheading this sort of nonsense is certainly past the fanatic, hapilly floating in a schizoid sea towards waxy flexibility.

You put these two together and what comes out is the directly falsifiable notion that in order for Bitcoin to be valuable, it has to be usable by you. This is obviously not so : cars your whole bloodline could never, no matter what, ever afford are still cars, and valuable and enjoyed by those of your betters that can actually buy one. That nobody in your family ever wore shoes does not imply that shoes are now worthless, or "not usable". It certainly does not imply that shoes should be doing things differently. Learn a trade, marry well, do something with your life so that you too might enjoy the glory of footwear, perhaps, however briefly, however distantly in the future.

II. It is false that Bitcoin has to "do good" in order to continue to exist.

Bitcoin can kill all your friends, and all the people you respect, and every other kitten. It can poop in your drink and insult your friendship and rape your pets for all the difference it makes. If lightning strikes where you sit, whether you feel a warm cozy sort of love for it or the most burning hatred imaginable is strictly irrelevant - electricity stays. If tomorrow your house burns down you'll be advised to take more care - blaming the victim as it were. Nobody's ever going to try change the fire. More generally : the world is not built on emotions, whether you "love" world peace or "hate" world peace or both or neither makes exactly not one grain of difference to world peace.

Bitcoin is not a product, like a belt that's tied too tight and so you can adjust to be less tight, or like an engine that runs too hot and so you can adjust to run a little cooler. Bitcoin is a rule, and if you're not happy with how it works you have to change, just like if you're unhappy with the effects gravitation has on your planned plane, you must change the plan. You can't attempt to change gravitation.

And there is no such thing as voting rules. The things you vote upon are laws, not rules. They really don't matter one bit.

There are other silly things ESLi muppets believe, such as that they are creative (they're not, and I don't mean that they aren't the most creative - I mean they're below average, and markedly so) and that they're "civilised" (god help you), and that the only way they've ever seen things done is necessarily the best possible way (do read Voltaire when you have a moment) and on it goesii. But let's keep things simple and sweet, in step with the comprehension and attention span of five year olds captive in seemingly adult bodies : it's time to move on. Please do.

Bitcoin really is not for you.

mircea_popescu: ben_vulpes if one block's large and the other small, all i need a tx that's included in the large block but not the small one. then doublespend it on the small one, which will be rejected necessarily by the large block blockchain

mircea_popescu: now i have bitcoin separated in two addresses, one for each chain.

mircea_popescu: the attempt may fail, but the cost to me of this failure is not significant, so i can keep on trying until it succeeds.

mircea_popescu: the only way to guard against it is, obviously,for the ."large" chain to maintain 1:1 identity with the "small" one. because you don't just fork bitcoin.,

ben_vulpes: i still fail to see how you're going to make a txn that gets included in the large block chain and not the small block chain.

artifexd: ben_vulpes: You don't. You keep sending money to yourself until it happens.

mircea_popescu: ben_vulpes what do you mean ? it necessarily will occur.

mircea_popescu: since one contains more txn than the other by definition.

mircea_popescu: suppose i make 50k 1btc txn. they don't fit in a 1mn block. they do fit in a 10mb block. what now ?

It just emphasizes how desperate he is about his govcoin.

Multibit used multibit classic for its first version, after which it released multibit hd. I always think of a classic version of any software as the oldest version that it began with. I probably picked it up from the term classic cars which people use to describe old cars. It doesn't seem right using classic to describe a new version/fork of a wallet.

More gavineries:




Sweet irony.