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The Face Behind Bitcoin?

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Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#551

Post by npizzolato »

john_b wrote: post #471
npizzolato wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that there is in fact a public interest in learning more about the inventor of what is "arguably the largest financial innovation of the century". Learning more about his life and others involved in bitcoin can help us understand the motivations of the individuals that led to its creation. The fact that a man who worked in classified government projects for a long period of time went on to create bitcoi…

They could also simply be decent human beings and not post his address or a picture of his house at all, much less what kind of car he drives and its license plate. Right now there is nothing stopping any crook smart enough to set up a bitcoin wallet from breaking into his house and demanding Nakamoto transfer some or all of his bitcoins to it. Most wealthy people keep their wealth in banks, but the keys to Nakamoto'…

I agree the picture of the house with the car's license plate is pretty slimy, but I think we're just going to have to disagree about whether or not mentioning the city he lives in and the make of his car is unethical.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#552

Post by res0nat0r »

polymatter wrote: post #159
JabavuAdams wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not constructive, and extremely naive. Journalism exists in part to put the powerful under the microscope. They have many more resources to hide their activities and to defend their interests than average folks, and don't need to be protected from public scrutiny.

And if she is wrong? Maybe he doesn't have access to his million dollar fortune. Maybe he lost the keys. Maybe someone else used his name and he is the Satoshi but not the creator. He is certainly not living as someone with hundreds of millions in the bank. In what way did he lose any right to be protected from public scrutiny (assuming anyone does have that right - I'm not sure they do)?

> He is certainly not living as someone with hundreds of millions in the bank.

Thats because he doesn't have hundreds of millions in the bank. He has it in a random internet conceived currency. I'd seriously like to see him (or anyone for that matter) try and realize $1MM in Bitcoin in actual USD.

Good luck with getting your 1000 payouts of $1000 at a time spread over the course of 2 weeks per payout.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#554

Post by PaulAJ »

bane wrote: post #415
dragonwriter wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't that imply then that those bits that shouldn't have been shrunk are therefore not part of what they think is "the government"? No, what you are doing is demonstrating the fallacy of division. The proposition "we should shrink government " is not equivalent to, and does not imply, the proposition "we should shrink every individual component of government ". There is a legitimate case to be made that many peo…

Yeah, you are right. My thinking is a fallacy. Rationally, shrinking even a single program is "shrinking government". But practically "shrinking government" is used to mean "shrinking the civilian parts of government". > There is a legitimate case to be made that many people who would assert the need to shrink government in aggregate haven't actually considered things sufficiently and would not maintain that position…

This is standard political bull. Everyone is convinced the government wastes huge amounts of money, and therefore the solution to the problem is to cut this waste. Hence this "cut the fat" rhetoric goes over well.

However as soon as you actually identify a specific programme or department to be cut, you energize a constituency to oppose you. If you identify a couple of dozen things to cut you have a couple of dozen constituencies opposing you. Now they will hire consultants, do soundbites and pay for attack ads to try to take you down. So you don't do it.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#555

Post by argumentum »

bane wrote: post #101

Topic other than discussing the irresponsibility of "outing" a guy using the clever tricks of using his name and public records look ups. > A libertarian, Nakamoto encouraged his daughter to be independent, start her own business and "not be under the government's thumb," she says. "He was very wary of the government, taxes and people in charge." > What you don't know about him is that he's worked on classified stuff…

It's absolutely not bizarre, hypocritical, paradoxical or even ironic.

By your logic, every libertarian who disagrees with taxes (or the level of taxation) should break the law and face the consequences (of a miserable, tortuous life in prison).

It's one thing to have a political view, and argue for it. Democracies (and republics) wouldn't have a chance of working if citizens didn't take this much upon themselves.

At the same time, you also have one life to live. Some people want to be politicians or activists, others may want to be engineers, scientists or artists.

The latter don't want to spend their entire being on an idealistic crusade, but they still deserve the right to a political opinion like everyone else.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#556

Post by da_maire »

verroq wrote: post #2

HN can't decry censorship and keep flagging this article because it includes Satoshi's dox.

HN may be user-driven, but it's heavily moderated, privately run and those operating it have a long established policy of banning and deleting content (or sometimes entire sources, e.g all of Gawker Media) at will for any reason they see fit. Same applies to discussion and the 'ghosting' of specific users with poor reputations. There's no guidelines for what's 'allowed' and 'disallowed' (at least none they've committed to) so bans are completely arbitrary and usually carried out with no official explanation or notification. This is actually standard operating procedure for any moderated discussion board and HN's particularly aggressive stance has contributed to it's success - higher quality content, higher quality discussion. Slashdot operated under similar rules and enjoyed success for at least a full decade despite the same complaints of 'censorship' coming up constantly. Slashdot eventually fell apart for unrelated reasons (shrinking/aging audience, failed attempts at modernization) but it's still a proven model with plenty of precedence. If you're concerned that you're being intentionally kept from reading about something, get your technology-related news from multiple sources. There's plenty of sites with looser guidelines to choose from.

One thing that annoys me about HN though is that I read it primarily through Feedly, and content often gets pushed to HN's feed prior to deletion, so I end up with a lot of annoying dead links to HN in Feedly.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#557

Post by argumentum »

masmullin wrote: post #543
georgemcbay wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about good old Occam's Razor? Seems pretty obvious to me that if the details in this article are true (and they likely are) this is indeed "the" Satoshi.

Occam's Razor tells us to go to the simplest of arguments. Given that the details of the article are circumstantial, it's pretty simple that the journalist is wrong and this Satoshi is acting vague for personal gain. However, I give you Hanlon's Razor on this. It's more likely that this Satoshi flubbed his words when speaking about bitcoin rather than intentionally mislead the journalist.

> Satoshi is acting vague for personal gain.

Exactly this.

Everyone here assumes that there are only negative consequences of being identified (or misidentified) as Satoshi. That may even be true, but Icarus didn't know the Sun (fame in this case) would burn him.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#558

Post by kaonashi »

bane wrote: post #366
omegaham wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god yes. I'm currently a relatively junior flunky in the Marine Corps, and the GS civilians who work here are hilarious. "We need to cut the fat!" We work at a minor airbase in the middle of nowhere... oh. Oops. Whatever we are, it sure as hell ain't muscle. "Government spending is out of control" while talking about how they exploit the DTS system to get as much per diem as possible. "Those lazy people who expect…

One of the things I find curious is the dichotomy between rhetoric and intent. "We need to shrink the government!" Sequestration happens "Well not those specific things I like!" Doesn't that imply then that those bits that shouldn't have been shrunk are therefore not part of what they think is "the government"? Considering that the list of things that usually people who want to shrink the government think should be e…

Well, the Republicans did their homework: railing against spending in the abstract is very popular, railing against specific sending is not. So they do as much as they can of the former, none of the latter.

That the people who listen to their media outlets parrot the talking points shows how effective the strategy is.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#559

Post by pseut »

rosser wrote: post #477
prostoalex wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same with the bank deposits - would you expect do get exact same dollar bills with serial numbers you've deposited every time you use an ATM? Are you then looting somebody every time you make a cash withdrawal?

No, in fact, it's not the same with bank deposits. Of course you don't get back the same dollar bills; frankly, that's an offensively specious false analogy. But when you deposit money into a bank account, you still own that money ; if you were to close your bank account tomorrow, you'd get a cheque for the balance. Social Security, on the other hand, is a "pay as you go" program. When you contribute money into the S…

I hope you enjoyed the irony of invoking the FDIC to justify why people "own" money that they've deposited in checking accounts as much as I enjoyed reading it. Banks used to shut down all the mfing time without making their depositors whole. The reason that's more or less stopped (in the US) is not because of some moral awakening that somehow missed the social security administration. It's because we regulate banks better.

PS: congress is just as capable of shutting down the FDIC as the SSA

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#560

Post by john_b »

npizzolato wrote: post #551
john_b wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also simply be decent human beings and not post his address or a picture of his house at all, much less what kind of car he drives and its license plate. Right now there is nothing stopping any crook smart enough to set up a bitcoin wallet from breaking into his house and demanding Nakamoto transfer some or all of his bitcoins to it. Most wealthy people keep their wealth in banks, but the keys to Nakamoto'…

I agree the picture of the house with the car's license plate is pretty slimy, but I think we're just going to have to disagree about whether or not mentioning the city he lives in and the make of his car is unethical.

I agree with you there. If that was all they included, it would offer the reader a meaningful context of his life without compromising his privacy and possibly safety.
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