Satoshi came out of retirement in March 2014 to state that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, in the wake of a Newsweek article that falsely fingered the latter as Satoshi:
I still think it was Hal Finney, who was in similar cypherpunk circles, created the first PoW system, received the first Bitcoin transaction, lived in the same town as Dorian Nakamoto for 10 years, was diagnosed with ALS about a year before Satoshi disappeared from Bitcoin development, died in August 2014, and was cryopreserved.
Because Satoshi's identity and whether or not they were a singular individual or a group of individuals is unknown. It is entirely acceptable, and more often than not probabilistically and politically correct, to use they/them here. I doubt anyone would be upset at people using he/him when referring to Satoshi, but also along those same lines, it seems strange to be upset at they/them usage for an unknown entity.
I think the author of the article already assumes Satoshi is a single person. The name is simply a Japanese male name. So it is obviously wrong to call him "they". This kind of stupidity only works in Woke English. Translate it to most other languages will make the readers deeply confused: what's wrong with the writer? What's going on in his mind?
There is nothing woke about this. Trust me I am not a fan of useless woke constructs that exist to signal virtue. I’m sure we agree on that. This is not one of those things. When you are referring to some entity with unknown gender, you use “they” and “their” so as not to lead the reader or the person you're speaking towards any assumptions and just because it’s the clearly correct way to convey the state of affairs to your audience (this matters to pedantic people). To someone who practices this in their own communication, it conveys a real signal that others pick up on. Pseudonyms generally aren’t referred to by the gender of the chosen name/handle but rather act as a proxy for the person who uses them, therefore you wouldn't refer to Satoshi as “he/him” but as the gender of the user of the pseudonym which is unknown, hence they/them. The author, while making the case that Len may be Satoshi, never asserts as much to be true. So I also read the usage of they/them as a reminder that they are presenting an argument/case not declaring fact.
Because Satoshi's identity and whether or not they were a singular individual or a group of individuals is unknown. It is entirely acceptable, and more often than not probabilistically and politically correct, to use they/them here. I doubt anyone would be upset at people using he/him when referring to Satoshi, but also along those same lines, it seems strange to be upset at they/them usage for an unknown entity.
I think the author of the article already assumes Satoshi is a single person. The name is simply a Japanese male name. So it is obviously wrong to call him "they". This kind of stupidity only works in Woke English. Translate it to most other languages will make the readers deeply confused: what's wrong with the writer? What's going on in his mind?
An author on the internet has adopted a writing style that you're clearly uncomfortable with, it's not grounds for disparaging the author.
Your individual politics don't matter here, it is a technology article that happens to use a pronoun for an unknown entity which is entirely acceptable in common parlance. No one is clamoring that he/him is unacceptable, but to disparage people for their choice of expression in writing feels awfully similar to what the anti-woke crowd claim the woke do.
Additionally, plenty of languages use non-gendered pronouns.
While I didn't know Len, I've talked to a fair number of people who knew him well (including the person who put that ascii art portrait of him into the blockchain), and none of them have expressed strong agreement with this theory. All we know for sure about Satoshi is that s/he isn't Craig Wright.
> the person who put that ascii art portrait of him into the blockchain
For what it’s worth, I had a pretty long conversation with this person after Len’s wake. The possibility that Len was behind Bitcoin never came up.
Because Satoshi's identity and whether or not they were a singular individual or a group of individuals is unknown. It is entirely acceptable, and more often than not probabilistically and politically correct, to use they/them here. I doubt anyone would be upset at people using he/him when referring to Satoshi, but also along those same lines, it seems strange to be upset at they/them usage for an unknown entity.
I think the author of the article already assumes Satoshi is a single person. The name is simply a Japanese male name. So it is obviously wrong to call him "they". This kind of stupidity only works in Woke English. Translate it to most other languages will make the readers deeply confused: what's wrong with the writer? What's going on in his mind?
No, it is not “obviously wrong”. “They” can refer to a single person of any or undetermined gender.
Replies to that article mention Len's tweets about Bitcoin don't necessarily seem like those of its creator, if he was tweeting earnestly. That, and his wife not believing he was Satoshi (while not claiming it was impossible) are the biggest counterpoints I've come across. Still, I find it a very compelling case. Sassaman as part of a Satoshi collective also seems possible. https://twitter.com/search?q=(Bitcoin)%20(f…
Also that Len was a Unix-style C++ whereas original Bitcoin was definitely a Windows programmer
My money is on Paul Le Roux.. most hackers are too uppity to write windows software. Le Roux was a pragmatist with a real practical need to move dirty money without banks.
Has anyone done a rigorous analysis of his writing style to find a human match?
Yes. If you Google “satoshi Stylometry” you’ll find a ton. IMO not very fruitful, there is other evidence that is more compelling. If you look around enough it’s easily to get a _pretty good_ idea of who it was, based on things like early interactions with satoshi, neighbors with unusual surnames, etc. but no way to know for sure.
Do you have a particular link? Because simply googling the term, I find a few things that don't even mention Sassaman. But it also seems like they may be preselecting the candidates and applying the analysis to only their works. For whatever reason, Sassaman hasn't been spoken of much as a candidate, and is unclear whether his writings (of which there are many) would have been included.
Replies to that article mention Len's tweets about Bitcoin don't necessarily seem like those of its creator, if he was tweeting earnestly. That, and his wife not believing he was Satoshi (while not claiming it was impossible) are the biggest counterpoints I've come across. Still, I find it a very compelling case. Sassaman as part of a Satoshi collective also seems possible. https://twitter.com/search?q=(Bitcoin)%20(f…
Also that Len was a Unix-style C++ whereas original Bitcoin was definitely a Windows programmer
I mean this sounds like some of the best evidence to me.
Satoshi came out of retirement in March 2014 to state that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, in the wake of a Newsweek article that falsely fingered the latter as Satoshi: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/satoshi-dorian/ I still think it was Hal Finney, who was in similar cypherpunk circles, created the first PoW system, received the first Bitcoin transaction, lived in the same town as Dorian Nakamoto for 10 years, was di…
Finney must be considered a candidate, but considering that Sassaman took his own life after declining health, it's possible he may have put in place a succession plan for the ability to speak as Satoshi. Which could be separate from a succession plan for the Satoshi bitcoin hoard.