If not pessimism but realism then we should talk about relativism.

However, we can effectively summarize the moral fact greed; "excessive
desire for money, power or wealth".

I agree that it may be a natural act of survival. A strategy of the mind
to manipulate others and obtain resources, regardless of moral laws.
Although it could be treated as a disease of the mind. However, ethics
and moral thoughts warn; "It is not richer who has more, but who needs
less". Greediness cannot be rational...

Therefore, in addition to relativity, you will agree with me that all
depends on the prism through which you look. The greed displayed in an
electronic currency is just one of its sides. Perhaps it can counteract
with others such as solidarity.

Anyway, compare rational human being with an ant is not a scale, say,
acceptable. Unlike ants, humans can create tools using mind to not have
to use 'weak' body. But as a rational animal, you also can decide to do
or not what nature tells you to do. Therein lies the strength of the
species. You can refuse to do everything your genetic asks.

So if greed is natural, you can change that for example using
rationality. Because from rational thought any accumulation strategy has
its limits. For example in space parameters, maintenance, etc. And the
greedy people do not know or measure is not aware of its existence. Pure
madness. And that is not a question about Bitcoin.

Pablo:
> Not pessimistic at all, at most, realistic. Speculation and usury, while
> being disgusting for you, are just the rational version of greediness, a
> survival strategy found in many other organisms that is useful to maximise
> the organism's survival probability. In this regard I don't see how humans
> are particularly special or capable of 'evil' acts more than ants, for
> example. If you support bitcoin, ultimately you're supporting the
> impossibility of currency debasement and tax collection, effectively
> helping the capitalists to operate out of democratic control. Cryptography
> (and any system derived from it) is about privatising information and that
> is in direct conflict with the objective of socialism, which is to abolish
> private property. Don't be fooled by the fact that bitcoin uses a p2p
> network, that part was introduced only to make it byzantine fault tolerant,
> even if it did end up giving a false illusion of 'equality between peers'.
>
> 2016-01-26 13:55 GMT+01:00 psy <epsylon@???>:
>
>> I partially agree.
>>
>> Because I understand the pessimistic view of human hand representing the
>> Bitcoin (BTC).
>>
>> But I think we should not confundig the dilemma of the tool, with the
>> possibilities of it: A free tool can be managed by a closed community.
>> Or a community with questionable ethics. Ok. It is a community problem,
>> not the tool.
>>
>> The problem is that BTC allows two human disgusting acts occur: usury
>> and speculation. They are problems of human nature. In order to solve
>> them using the technology, techniques must write rules based on moral
>> standards.
>>
>> For example, the 'fee' for BTC can be used to spread the wealth.
>> Somehow, making the most equitable result. So maybe we should see the
>> BTC as a first prototype, a great idea to build something better. The
>> full protocol serves to create other infrastructure. And that alone
>> should be sufficiently positive to solve the problem of speculative
>> human behavior through technology itself.
>>
>> Pablo:
>>> Pessimistic for you. I wouldn't have joined in first place if I knew the
>>> protocol may be changed by popular vote. To me, the fact that the system
>>> can't scale is by far way less important than the fact that the protocol
>>> can be changed just through politics and brain washing. If "wealth
>>> redistribution" (the euphemism for taxes) was systematic and impossible
>> to
>>> avoid, I wonder then who will produce it in first place, before we all
>> end
>>> up being slaves of yet another totalitarian regime.
>>>
>>> 2016-01-25 20:22 GMT+01:00 Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@???>:
>>>
>>>> I think the real outlook is far more pessimistic than Hearn is.
>>>>
>>>> Bitcoin was never a 'transparent and open community'. Go look up any
>>>> discussion about altcoins or changing the money supply algorithm and
>>>> you'll find plenty of censorship and attacks on any perception or
>>>> discussion that might redistribute value from those that have hoarded
>>>> bitcoins to those that actually create value by using the currency.
>>>>
>>>> Bitcoin (and most altcoins) still follow the same 'vulture capital'
>>>> start-up model where the first 5 people end up with 95% of the wealth
>>>> and everyone else begs for scraps.
>>>>
>>>> So what do we need to do in order to have a real grass-roots movement
>>>> that recognizes that wealth can really only be sustainable generated
>>>> and held when there is a reasonable and transparent
>> wealth-redistribution
>>>> mechanism from those that have orders of magnitude more than they need
>>>> for food and shelter, and those that are dying for lack of the money
>>>> to buy food and shelter?
>>>>
>>>> The problem is very few of the wealthy seem to understand how big of
>>>> a problem they are creating by hoarding wealth. My experience is I've
>>>> seen the worst of this among the folks that get press and attention
>>>> around Bitcoin.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 07:15:27AM +0200, Margus w. Meigo wrote:
>>>>> Probably You have read Mike Hearn <https://medium.com/@octskyward>
>> last
>>>>> post by now, but here it is once more for fresh insight
>>>>>
>>>>> I would say he is slightly pessimistic
>>>>> But what is reply to my local LHV bank here who want to get updates on
>>>>> solid bitcoin future? ?
>>>>> As it is like last our country own bank, would not wanna let anyone
>> screw
>>>>> them over.
>>>>>
>>>>> How is the solutions and what he wrote is something that was told to be
>>>>> impossible (and on what, was people warned few years ago..)
>>>>>
>>>>> So what are hes most true points to worry about ?
>>>>> When we will have complete power to shut of anyone we want and hang
>> them
>>>>> who stops truth about what is needed to be done.. what Would You Do?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Here is picks from long post:*
>>>>>
>>>>
>> https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "In the span of only about eight months, Bitcoin has gone from being a
>>>>> transparent and open community to one that is dominated by rampant
>>>>> censorship and attacks on bitcoiners by other bitcoiners. This
>>>>> transformation is by far the most appalling thing I have ever seen, and
>>>> the
>>>>> result is that I no longer feel comfortable being associated with the
>>>>> Bitcoin community."
>>>>>
>>>>> "From the start, I’ve always said the same thing: Bitcoin is an
>>>> experiment
>>>>> and like all experiments, it can fail. So don’t invest what you can’t
>>>>> afford to lose. I’ve said this in interviews, on stage at conferences,
>>>> and
>>>>> over email. So have other well known developers like Gavin Andresen and
>>>>> Jeff Garzik."
>>>>>
>>>>> "Why has Bitcoin failed? It has failed because the community has
>> failed.
>>>>> What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked
>>>>> “systemically important institutions” and “too big to fail” has become
>>>>> something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful
>> of
>>>>> people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse.
>>>> The
>>>>> mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down,
>> and
>>>> as
>>>>> a result there’s no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be
>>>>> better than the existing financial system."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "In other cases, entire datacenters were disconnected from the internet
>>>>> until the single XT node inside them was stopped. About a third of the
>>>>> nodes were attacked and removed from the internet in this way.
>>>>> Worse, the mining pool that had been offering BIP101 was also attacked
>>>> and
>>>>> forced to stop. The message was clear: anyone who supported bigger
>>>> blocks,
>>>>> or even allowed other people to vote for them, would be assaulted.
>>>>> The attackers are still out there. When Coinbase, months after the
>>>> launch,
>>>>> announced they had finally lost patience with Core and would run XT,
>> they
>>>>> too were forced offline for a while."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "Bogus conferences
>>>>> Despite the DoS attacks and censorship, XT was gaining momentum. That
>>>> posed
>>>>> a threat to Core, so a few of its developers decided to organise a
>> series
>>>>> of conferences named “Scaling Bitcoin”: one in August and one in
>>>> December.
>>>>> The goal, it was claimed, was to reach “consensus” on what should be
>>>> done.
>>>>> Everyone likes a consensus of experts, don’t they?
>>>>> The fact that the first conference actually banned discussion of
>> concrete
>>>>> proposals didn’t help."
>>>>>

>>>>> "Think about it. If you had never heard about Bitcoin before, would you
>>>>> care about a payments network that:
>>>>>     Couldn’t move your existing money
>>>>>     Had wildly unpredictable fees that were high and rising fast
>>>>>     Allowed buyers to take back payments they’d made after walking out
>> of
>>>>> shops, by simply pressing a button (if you aren’t aware of this
>> “feature”
>>>>> that’s because Bitcoin was only just changed to allow it)
>>>>>     Is suffering large backlogs and flaky payments
>>>>>     … which is controlled by China
>>>>>     … and in which the companies and people building it were in open
>>>> civil
>>>>> war?
>>>>> I’m going to hazard a guess that the answer is no."

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "In case you haven’t been keeping up with Bitcoin, here is how the
>>>> network
>>>>> looks as of January 2016.
>>>>> The block chain is full. You may wonder how it is possible for what is
>>>>> essentially a series of files to be “full”. The answer is that an
>>>> entirely
>>>>> artificial capacity cap of one megabyte per block, put in place as a
>>>>> temporary kludge a long time ago, has not been removed and as a result
>>>> the
>>>>> network’s capacity is now almost completely exhausted."
>>>>>
>>>>> "You may have read that the limit is 7 payments per second. That’s an
>> old
>>>>> figure from 2011 and Bitcoin transactions got a lot more complex since
>>>>> then, so the true figure is a lot lower."
>>>>>
>>>>> "At a stroke, this makes using Bitcoin useless for actually buying
>>>> things,
>>>>> as you’d have to wait for a buyer’s transaction to appear in the block
>>>>> chain … which from now on can take hours rather than minutes, due to
>> the
>>>>> congestion.
>>>>> Core’s reasoning for why this is OK goes like this: it’s no big loss
>>>>> because if you hadn’t been waiting for a block before, there was a
>>>>> theoretical risk of payment fraud, which means you weren’t using
>> Bitcoin
>>>>> properly. Thus, making that risk a 100% certainty doesn’t really change
>>>>> anything.
>>>>> In other words, they don’t recognise that risk management exists and so
>>>>> perceive this change as zero cost"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "If that didn’t convince you Bitcoin has serious problems, nothing
>> will.
>>>>> How many people would think bitcoins are worth hundreds of dollars each
>>>>> when you soon won’t be able to use them in actual shops?"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "Conclusions
>>>>> Bitcoin has entered exceptionally dangerous waters. Previous crises,
>> like
>>>>> the bankruptcy of Mt Gox, were all to do with the services and
>> companies
>>>>> that sprung up around the ecosystem. But this one is different: it is a
>>>>> crisis of the core system, the block chain itself.
>>>>> More fundamentally, it is a crisis that reflects deep philosophical
>>>>> differences in how people view the world: either as one that should be
>>>>> ruled by a “consensus of experts”, or through ordinary people picking
>>>>> whatever policies make sense to them.
>>>>> Even if a new team was built to replace Bitcoin Core, the problem of
>>>> mining
>>>>> power being concentrated behind the Great Firewall would remain.
>> Bitcoin
>>>>> has no future whilst it’s controlled by fewer than 10 people. And
>> there’s
>>>>> no solution in sight for this problem: nobody even has any suggestions.
>>>> For
>>>>> a community that has always worried about the block chain being taken
>>>> over
>>>>> by an oppressive government, it is a rich irony."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In article the links also, and rest of it..
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 4:36 AM, odinn <
>> odinn.cyberguerrilla@???>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Mike Hearn
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Armastusega,
>>>>> Margus
>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>>>>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>>

>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Troy Benjegerdes                 'da hozer'
>>>> hozer@???
>>>> 7 elements      earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul
>>>> grid.coop

>>>>

>>>>       Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,
>>>>          nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash

>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>>>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>