What kind of insane culture embraces toxicity?
993 sats \ 22 comments \ @Scoresby 12 Oct 2022 bitcoin
The best kind.
I read @polarpunklabs 2K words on how repugnant bitcoin maxis are and was surprised to see it conclude: "decentralization and censorship resistance. These remain our red lines. And bitcoin remains the gold standard in both cases."
Where does he think it comes from?
Censorship resistance means anyone, anywhere can use it and no one can stop them. It's the only thing that makes Bitcoin and Crypto different from the money we already have. But it's not magic.
Just like having a gym membership != being in shape. Having a blockchain != censorship resistance. You have to work at it. It's not free.
Magic-Flying-Pumpkin-Coin with a billion transactions/second and only 12 nodes run by companies based in the US says it's decentralized and makes people think running a node, self-custody, and consensus mechanisms don't matter.
When projects like these grow, they endanger all our chances for a future of money that is open to everyone--no matter who you are or how you want to use it.
If such a centralized project gets big enough and has a lot of people/money in it, it is far more likely to bow to censorship pressure.
The recent TornadoCash situation shows exactly this: a US regulator updates a blog post and transactions from a specific smart contract are widely censored.
Bitcoin maximalists know that blockchains aren't magical.
It's about running a node and using it to broadcast and verify transactions.
It's about self-custody of your private keys.
It's about a decentralized consensus mechanism (PoW).
Centralization pressures are real and powerful. Bitcoin maximalists fight back by being toxic. As far as I've experienced it, Bitcoin maximalism really only cares about one thing: censorship resistance.
You make the red lines clear with laser eyes.
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121 sats \ 8 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
People who say
decentralization and censorship resistance
as arguments for Bitcoin are not real Bitcoiners. Or at least have not understood the real Bitcoiner mindset yet.
The aspect of Bitcoin they are looking for is "permissionless" which is one of the very fundamentals of Bitcoin. If anyone can enter the ecosystem in a permissionless way, the censorship resistance is a side effect - and that's by design.
People who come to Bitcoin because of "censorship resistance" are just political Edgelords. Thy are not here because of Bitcoin and they will go when it's not in the political discussion anymore. They are not on our side. They are not loyal. Don't trust them.
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0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Scoresby OP 12 Oct 2022
How do you measure permissionless-ness?
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6 sats \ 6 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
It's not measurable since it's binary - either anyone can participate or not.
What you probably mean is not the Bitcoin-world itself but the access to that world. That can be tricky to measure and I have no answer to that question. If you have access to physical fiat cash and can exchange it for Bitcoin on a Bitcoiner-meetup or via cash by mail ... than your access is pretty good.
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Scoresby OP 12 Oct 2022
I mean the Bitcoin-world itself.
If someone can stop you from making a valid transaction, it is not permissionless.
Another way to say it is presence of censorship means its not permissionless.
Therefore, goal of censorship resistance is key, it's how you get permissionless-ness.
If you use permissionless only to refer to onramp into system, it's not relevant to this convo.
Permissionless also must mean you can get any valid transaction included in a block.
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6 sats \ 4 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
If someone can stop you from making a valid transaction, it is not permissionless.
You're confusing permissionlessness with censorship resistance again.
Being permissionless means that anyone could make a new asymmetric key pair and as soon as they found somebody that is willing to transfer money to that address without anybody else knowing he can make a transaction. No kyc, no asking permission, no nothing.
Every miner processes their transactions by default - because it is in their own self interest to do so (incentivization). But it is their fcking right to mine whatever the fck they want - it's just not in their own self interest.
That's being permissionless. It's more natural, more meta and better that "censorship resistance". It's like on a medival market place.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 12 Oct 2022
I think where we disagree is that I don't believe the code/protocol is innately permissionless. It requires people using it in a certain way to achieve that. This is why I think censorship resistance is a more fruitful name for what we want to focus on. I disagree with the idea that Bitcoin is inevitable.
If we get to a place where only companies run nodes or where most BTC is held by third party custodians or where mining is more centralized among large publicly-traded companies, I don't think it's given that Bitcoin continues to be useful.
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3 sats \ 2 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
Okay, let me put it in other words:
Censorship resistance also means that you have to force somebody to process everything - no matter if they want or not. Bitcoin is better - in Bitcoin you can do whatever you want - you could censor random people, you could play with 42 million Bitcoins instead of 21 million Bitcoins, you could encode blocks different, whatever. It would just be dumb and against your own self interest since nobody would play by your rules or you'd loose opportunity cost.
The Bitcoin protocol incentivizes to play permissionless via a hard, decentralized money instead of enforcing it . Incentivization is better than forcing people to do something.
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9 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 12 Oct 2022
Okay, first of all: you said that very well. Thank you. I agree, and I like how you think about it.
But in this permissionless world, where anyone can do whatever they want (and this truly is one of the most beautiful things about Bitcoin), it is possible that a large group of people could work against their own incentives to achieve some external goal (eg. governments don't like a world with permissionless money).
Bitcoin should not have rules against this, but Bitcoiners could have traditions or a culture that lessens the damage such an actor could cause, because they could cause damage, no?
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
(honestly, I wrote all the above, and I was thinking, but if a thing can't survive by the strength of its incentives alone, can it survive at all? Because I think I'm implying that Bitcoin need or is somehow better if there is an external culture that supports it. Thoughts on this?)
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 12 Oct 2022
Without Bitcoin Toxic Maxis, Bitcoin will be ded. All those against this, can suck it.
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3 sats \ 2 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
You're just insecure about you're conviction and use this as a defense mechanism.
Bitcoin doesn't need you, Bitcoin doesn't need me. WE need Bitcoin.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 12 Oct 2022
As I said: you can suck it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
Suck what?
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10 sats \ 4 replies \ @faithandcredit 12 Oct 2022
If you dont embrace toxicity, what are you doing? Its not like its going to go away.
Men have figured out how to deal with the toxicity but its being taken away from them. And its a sort of tough love, and dark humor and satire. This is frowned upon more, but whats the goal? You think toxicity will just go away? No, it will fester more and harder. You are creating a bigger problem than you realize by silencing "hate speech" and "toxicity"
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15 sats \ 3 replies \ @tomlaies 12 Oct 2022
Toxic maximalists are not in the final stage of maximalism yet.
Being toxic means being an insecure whiny b*tch. If you're not insecure anymore and have understood that Bitcoin is inevitable you can stop being toxic. Just relax.
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10 sats \ 2 replies \ @rolator 14 Oct 2022
whow "insecure whiny b*tch" ... that's pretty toxic :0
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15 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies 14 Oct 2022
I am toxic about not being toxic to newbies and everyone new to Bitcoin
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rolator 14 Oct 2022
i can get behind that
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @sommerfeld 13 Oct 2022
Shitcoiners don't understand that the fact that the ability to be toxic is just a sign of freedom allowed to us by a permissionless network.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Wil 12 Oct 2022
Bitcoin can be toxic bc I don't have to trust or appease my peers
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @thrown 12 Oct 2022
The idea that nobody should be censored is kinda insane.
Everyone alive chooses who to listen to. And they choose who to avoid.
People should be censored for everyone’s own sanity.
The question is who decides who should be censored. According to fans of decentralized tech, that should be each individual or whoever they choose to delegate that power to.
Not anti-censorship, but censorship choice.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 12 Oct 2022
In this specific context I'm referring to bitcoin transactions.
I'm saying the Bitcoin protocol is censored if someone can prevent another person's valid transaction included in the blockchain.
Censorship resistance means trying to ensure that all valid transactions (including the rules around a market for fee-rates) get included in the blockchain, and that valid transactions cannot be excluded because of other external criteria (who owns the UTXO or who it is presumed to be going to).
Not really concerned about other forms of censorship here.
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