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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @arrivederci 5 Feb freebie \ parent \ on: Stacker Saloon
He was on the side of the biggest attack so far mounted against Bitcoin, which most of us here consider a world historic and immensely valuable technology project. So that's being pretty wrong and I wouldn't expect any of us here have been wrong in such a significant way.
Bitcoin has an immense power to expose character flaws in all people touched by it (I include myself) so if you choose to play on the main public stage with Bitcoin, as Jeff did, thinking he was up to it, you will be judged and possibly found greatly wanting. That's what happened with Jeff and also many others who have fallen from grace after being a major player in the space for some time (Gavin Andresen and Michael Hearn being other prominent players prior to Garzik who also suffered a great fall, and there are many, many more). That's why the 'stay humble' dictum is so key to healthy involvement with Bitcoin.
But as I said the quote is cool and yes, stands by itself. It was just surprising for me seeing Jeff Garzik's name again after quite a long time, and it took me back to that crazy (and highly stressful) year.
Well, I'm nobody, but fwiw, back then I thought the big blocker side was not only the right side, but obviously the right side. And, to be not-humble, I bet I could get in a public debate with 95% of bitcoiners and slaughter them on that issue now, taking the same big-blocker side, even though I no longer believe it [1]. Which I mention only to demonstrate that one needn't be a bad actor to have a divergent opinion on the topic.
And if you think that's a lot, you should see some of the other dumb shit I've believed and done over the years.
So anyway, maybe I'm stupider than most. But the attack framing is something I can't swallow, and think people should stop lobbing around for all the usual wolf-crying reasons.
[1] by 'slaughter' I mean in the standard debating framework: get a bunch of naiive people in the audience and get them to agree / change their opinions.
[2] Actually, since I continue to believe that we have yet to see a concerted attack, I suppose the problem of perspective will take care of itself, if I'm right.
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It was an attack; it was an attempted corporate takeover of Bitcoin that would have (eventually) killed Bitcoin's decentralisation.
And by criticising Garzik I wasn't intending to criticise ordinary ppl who sided with the Big Blockers back then. It was a confusing time. My criticism of Garzik was as a person who was a key player and who took it upon himself to change Bitcoin's core properties. He didn't have the wisdom and insight to make those changes and, it turned out, didn't even have the technical capability either. So he showed hubris, arrogance, disregard for the user base, and misjudgement of his own technical capability. Those are his flaws and not the flaws of ordinary ppl siding with him at the time.
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