VarFarYonder

Seems like basic supply and demand rather than something nefarious?

But I guess if we accepted that, nobody would be to blame.

Doug Stanhope did a good bit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgXwc-Gy19E

You can find the printout he refers to during the lecture here: https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/7046/files/20...

This lecture contains the best advice I've come across for academic writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM

> In fact, a system where you can lose your life savings if you forget your key or download a piece of malware is not particularly trustworthy. No amount of explaining how SHA-256 works to prevent double-spending will fix that.

A second-layer solution, built on top of bitcoin, that would allow transactions to be reversed by a central authority, if a person decided to place their trust in that authority, could fix that, though.

This is the problem with the article: it doesn't take into account bitcoin's ability to change. It's like Schneier is saying the internet will never work because dial-up modems are slow and hog your phone line.

He's assuming no further innovation will occur. And like the early internet, it's practically impossible to predict what cryptocurrencies will look like in a few decades.

Strip it back to basics.

What is worry? It is when you're compelled to react to a thought with more thoughts. The response is habitual. You cannot let the thoughts sail by without commenting on them.

So the real question is not how to stop worrying, but how to weaken the habit of reacting to specific thoughts.

I think takes time to find an approach that works -- to discover how to both weaken the habit and how to not strengthen it. It's a lifestyle change. Some trial and error is probably necessary.

I don't think there is a magic solution. Try various things, learn how your current mental life causes you to worry. You'll try something, and your worries might increase. So try something else. And when you notice that some change, after some time, has caused you to worry slightly less, stick with it.

> The open questions for philosophy are a function of our present limitations, and as those limitations are overcome, the space for philosophy shrinks. I don’t think it says much that’s good about a field of study for which the major criteria is untestability and immunity from definitive critique.

I'd agree that there are sections of the philsophic community that rely on that immunity. But other parts of the philosophy community perform an important role of teaching the philosophic foundations on which things like the scientific method are built. This is an important fight on which the effective practice of science itself depends.

Corporations and governments increasingly try to manipulate the scientific community for their own ends, giving rise to scientism. Consider stories like this: http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4737

Furthermore, philosophy teaches people how to think critically and how to express themselves accurately and unambiguously, to challenge the prevailing beliefs around them. I think philosophy is far from a pointless old field that needs to shut up shop. In fact, I think societies would benefit if more people studied philosophy and at a younger age.

> Are you saying that you believe Richard Feynman didn’t have a working grasp of the issues at hand? Or are you saying that “philosophers of science” don’t know anything about the science they philosophize about?

I'm saying that understanding things like what the scientific method can and can't do is useful to a scientist because, if they don't understand the distinction, they might try to use the scientific method to prove something it cannot.

> As for science, it’s a method, and it can be applied to anything. What it says may often be, “don’t know” which imo is better than 100 pages saying “don’t know, but I’ll give it a go anyway, because no one can prove me wrong yet.”

While you might try to apply the scientific method to anything, that doesn't mean it is useful for everything. For example, if something isn't replicable, then the scientific method cannot help you. You cannot scientifically prove what effect the Battle of Hastings had on Britain.

> Unfortunately instead of sticking to ethics, morality, and other hazy constructs, too often philosophers think they have something useful to say about everything.

They do have something useful to say about people who, due to not having studied philosophy of science, think science has something useful to say about everything. Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape is one notable recent example.

> The core ideas in philosophy could be summarized on one page with little information loss. This probably seems horribly arrogant, but that's just how I honestly see things.

I think academic philosphy aims to be more rigourous, so while such a summary might capture the broad points, it will miss the nuance.

A comparison could be made with a game of Chess. On the surface, you could describe a game in terms of the moves played, but to understand why those moves were played, you need to know about the potential moves that weren't played.

I can understand why some people criticise academic philosophy for exploring seemingly pointless details extensively, but such exploration always gives someone a richer understanding, and sometimes uncovers flaws in things that previously seemed unquestionable. I think this is what people don't appreciate: understanding the moves played doesn't mean you understand why those moves were played, the ocean of possiblities underneath. No one page summary will do that, for Chess or philosophy.

> Researchers at Curtin University in Australia observed 20 participants working at standing desks for two hours.

> Now compare this to online banking and seriously tell me that this is easier.

It's not. But compared to storing large amounts of dollars, pounds, or euros, it is easier.

> Yes, you can set up a system that is very resistant to failure. But my grandma doesn't understand the difference between minimizing a window and deleting her facebook account. I'm not excited about explaining SSS to her.

Your grandma won't need to know about any of that, because she'll probably continue to trust an organisation to look after her money for her.

Just because cryptocurrencies make it feasible for people to not trust other entities with their money doesn't mean that everyone will.

> I meant individuals rarely keep gold as a store of value.

I think individuals with an actual portfolio of investments will hold gold or have some exposure to gold.

Also, you wouldn't expect gold to be widely held when you consider things like Executive Order 6102: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

Basically, the US government forced everyone to sell their gold in 1933. US citizens only regained the right to hold gold in 1974.

Governments are going to find it much harder to enforce such an order when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

> Hardly anyone uses gold as a storage of value

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve#Officially_report...

It's irrelevant whether exchanges accept privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, because people could always use atomic swaps: https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/what-are-atomic-s...

I don't think they're going to be able to ban atomic swaps.

Here is a graph showing the number of lightning network payment channels on the bitcoin mainnet: https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1

I've looked for it previously and not found anything. I'm hoping that MS are working on it in secret, but seems unlikely.

James Mickens gave a great talk about how we could build a better browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI

> If I had a large holding in Bitcoin now I would be cashing out or I'd be nervous. I'm not saying it won't go higher, I'm saying that at some point its demise is inevitable. Might be quick, might be slow, but it'll happen because Bitcoin is not the technically best solution in this incredibly exciting field. It's not even close.

My guess is that this is less of factor than you think. I don't think that HTML/CSS/JS is the best technical solution for creating websites, and yet that is what all browsers use and there are few signs that that is changing anytime soon.

Fungibility is something other cryptocurrencies have and that could be added to bitcoin via a hard fork.

That's one of the strengths of cryptocurrencies: they can adapt. And, in my opinion, which version is most valuable is decided by the community -- not the miners, but the people who are buying and selling.

> Bitcoin is global at this point. No one jurisdiction is going to shut it down.

Especially as countries like Japan are embracing cryptocurrencies. That must make other countries wonder whether trying to attack cryptocurrencies will end up leaving them at a competitive disadvantage.

James Mickens gave an interesting talk on what we could do to build a better browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI

I'm hoping that WebAssembly might be a route towards allowing something like this to happen. If an alternative to HTML/CSS/JS could be developed in WebAssembly, then we could have a situation where HTML has competition, rather than being the only way to build a website. And browsers can become simpler as the rendering duties are moved out of the browser and to the website itself.

It could be argued that cryptocurrencies' value is their ability to store value and to act as a medium of exchange.

> There have been a few attempts at a Software Minimalism movement, but they seemingly haven't gained much traction.

For those interested in exploring a minimalist approach, it's worth checking out http://suckless.org/philosophy and https://handmade.network/manifesto

If worked at Google and thought the evidence suggests that due to natural difference in the sexes, women are less likely to seek a job in tech -- that's not an ethical opinion on whether that is as it should be, but an opinion (whether right or wrong) on how things are -- then I'd be more scared than ever of voicing that opinion.

It's not about the guy. It's about what he said. And what he said is highly polarizing.