Hi,

> I don't know Dennet, but this looks like a good approximative technique
> to skim through texts and find such linguistic fulcra. However, once
> found, their existance doesn't confutes their validity, which has still
> to be challenged out of emphasis.

you're right.

> the network that makes value cirtulate is not, and cannot be ever,
> neutral: not even Bitcoin is, or the Internet itself,, while having the
> merit of aiming to be more neutral than other existing networks...

It is not neutral currently (because it's mainly used by speculators,
hackers, nerds and silk road users). The more neutral it gets the
better. And probably the side-effect will be putting more of our values
in the general public's heads. It's already happening. 15 years ago,
there was almost no talk that FED is evil (and it was as evil as it is
today). Now it's almost mainstream opinion (for those who know what
FED is at least).

> Value flows have been controlled for example by Wall Street, where broad
> access was given to certain values instead of others.

I bet Wall Street is capable of doing anything that's not approved or
endorsed by Washington. That's why I think the Occupy Wall Street thing
is bullshit - they were on the wrong street.

Wall Street does what everyone else does - what is best for them. The
deformations were done in Washington, London with "sacred approval" of
the voters who believe in democracy.

The more free the market is, more neutral it's becoming. Or rather than
"neutral" I would say it reflects the needs and wishes of it's users
more.

That's why I think Bitcoin has huge positive impact on this world - it
enables us to value things ourselves and trade whatever we want.

> It is not a
> coincidence that BRIC countries today are interested in starting their
> own stock market infrastructure, because the one in place and based on
> euro/dollars is biased for the advantage of former colonial empires.

I don't think the reason here is currency, the problem is regulation. Or
it's at least a larger problem than currency.

> however, the abstraction and approximation of my sentences here make me
> somehow uncomfortable, I'd rather discuss this in person over a coffee
> or beer.

I'm sure we can do that soon enough. Await me to come unexpected with
a lighted joint, which I'll happily share, but you are free to drink
coffee or beer if you want as well :).

> what I'm trying to state aided by broader geopolitical examples
> is that it does not exist an infrastructure of exchange that is open and
> purely constituted out of the equal sum of subjective perception and
> participation: this is a rather unrealistic utopia that omits the
> crucial question of network neutrality and ultimately power from the
> picture.

yes, this is for "in-person" talk, but the mistake as I see here
is "sum". The moment you start counting aggregates, averages, sums, you
are averaging away people's needs, perception of value, etc. And I think
that's the major fault in current traditional economy.

Economy should be value-neutral (i.e. it should not matter if you are
buying half a kilo of weed, a gun or aspirin) which I believe translates
to network neutral for Bitcoin.

Anyway, to talk about the question of miner, I said that we need
independent implementations and good, honest miners.

We do not need to switch reference implementation to something else
(that's too difficult, politically). We should do something else
instead. Let's make it easy for miners to switch implementations
and make sure they are not telling which one they use. Any protocol
change would need to be put into all major implementations (thus
removing "reference implementation"), because it would not matter
what Gavin commits into his little tree, even if it's labeled
reference, if miners refuse blocks it creates. They would need
to balance threats from world's powers and fear of fork. I believe
for Bitcoin, fear of forking is still higher.

It does not and should not matter what's on bitcoin.org domain, but
what people use (and that comes to miners). Miners have significant
investments in Bitcoin and that makes it even better.

> well put. yet I don't see how such a project can survive a backdoor
> inserted by the lead developer on behalf of a national espionage agency
> inside the main implementation of the tech.

Do you use the main implementation? I don't.

> Maybe the way out can be
> that other implementations become the central reference?

Or just the fact that we don't know what miners use, when they'll
upgrade, ...

>> I am also curious how will all of this proceed and I hope for the best,
>> but I don't think hacker culture is responsible for any narratives.
>
> but i disagree with this. from the most recent example of Wikileaks to
> other less globalized episodes in the past, hacker culture is a motor
> for narration.

My friends from Ztohoven have a nice phrase for this: "Media
sculpture". They try to say something, but that's just the basic stone
and it is sadly shaped into its final form by the media.

We can try and we should try, but I believe that who understands us
is probably a hacker anyway. And who does not gets most of information
from the media. We are not controlling the narrative, we are mainly
setting a theme. That's a start, but it can end up worse than it started
and we have no control about the result.

That does not mean we should not try.

I am happy to share other stories less globalized episodes to explain
what I mean later.

Good luck,

      Juraj.