> undertaken by the Czarist government

This is a very serious claim right here. Any concrete data on "Czarist government" undertaking pogroms?

The whole discourse right here reeks of 60's university left's "commies good, czars bad". This is when commies could murder the same number of people, off-war, on their not the most busy day, as the "Czarist government" during the whole early XX century.

I found it not wholly unsatisfactory, although a bit rough in spots - on the other hand, it both prefigures and subverts the Rapture of the Nerds avant la lettre, so I'd be willing to excuse quite a bit more than is actually required. Definitely worthwhile, especially if you also found the whole "Singularity" thing grating.

That's a lot of biological basis, which nevertheless is much less relevant today.

Tell us? Because around here, I saw a huge number of bank fraud basically unpunished. "Yes those guys duplicated your SIM and stole all your funds. Too bad for you since we're not going to even try to catch them."

Centralized systems might be efficient but the rule is, they don't care about you, so it's not your problems that they're going to solve. At least I can have some faith in the code, which is the final law.

On a personal level, there are good channels to get your money back where in a decentralized market, there's zero chance. It's better to have other humans keeping check on each other than code watching other code because it will not take into account the "spirit of contract".

"Spirit of contract" is usually taking money from less well-connected and awarding it to more well-connected. Have zero faith in it in XXI century.

Someone steals my credit card, and if I notice within 2 months, I can get everything back. Another advantage is that it doesn't take several hours (and huge amounts of wasted electricity) for a transaction to go through. My bank hasn't been siphoning my funds either. I wouldn't trust any cryptocurrency exchange with holding even 10% of my monthly salary.

Sure, governments can get my bank records. But my bank records aren't literally inscribed on a public ledger! I don't have to make a bunch of fake bank accounts to protect my privacy from the random data scientist with the blockchain, because if I use my main account and my identity gets leaked from some random service I used, then now everyone knows who I am.

It doesn't matter if they don't care about me. Nobody cares about me. But the incentives are partially aligned: systems with higher trust require less friction. And things like credit cards prove that you can build protections.

And "code is law" is not really extendable across society. We have contracts, of course. But almost all contracts include a "Use common sense"-style clause, which is the whole point lawyers and judges exist in the first place.

How can you build "force majeur" clauses into code without some third party arbitrator?

Of course, having a decentralized backbone is neat. A long time ago, anyone could make gold coins! It wasn't like some evil cabal was like "Oh, we shall unify all the currencies and CONTROL EVERYTHING!" Centralization happened because it was kinda useful.

Half of cryptocurrency stories are "techies discover why banks do the things they do". For example: I imagine more and more exchanges will partner up to do off-chain transactions. At one point, a lot of stuff will happen off-chain. Question: what do you think Visa does?

I do not see a decentralized currency ever becoming big enough to be a real fraction of economic transactions without it becoming what most of what we have. Competition is good! But I think some cryptocurrency enthusiasts are in for disappointment if they want critical mass

I would characterize the development of law and contracts as something meant to protect parties from common sense. If all we needed was common sense, every contract would just say (a la Raikoth)

>In all situations, the parties will take the normatively correct action.

...and nothing else. Law is essentially shaping common sense into something predictable and useful. So, why wouldn't it be possible to take something deterministic, and shape that into something predictable and useful? It doesn't need to be perfect - it just needs to be better than what already exists.

"It will only use 1% of the world's electricity consumption". We can only do that for 100 things. Does "decentralisation of currency" belong in the top 100 things to devote electricity generation to?

EDIT: do you have a link to a fuller explanation about transaction speeds? I do not understand how transfers can happen so quickly without introducing a risk of double spend

"Does "decentralisation of currency" belong in the top 100 things to devote electricity generation to?"

I think so. If (big if) Bitcoin ever becomes so successful that 1% of the energy is spent on it, think about the massive scale of positive social and economic changes it means it will have brought: freeing people from economic censorship and persecution, reducing international payment friction hence increasing economic trade, etc.

But I think neither you nor I can envision the scale of such potential social and economic changes. It is like asking a random person from the 1890s how much do they think automobiles will change the world, and almost nobody would have predicted automobiles are a major enabler of the economic expansion of the 20th century.

Transaction speeds: zero-conf txs are at risk of a double-spend, but in practice this happens extremely rarely.

"may" is much different than "are". I've had it happen 3 different times and didn't realize until many days later and was never asked to pay for any of it.

Guess how much you lose if someone steals $50,000 of bitcoin from you and you don't notice for 48 hours?

>Transactions will be confirmed and spendable by the recipient within 10min on average

Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes for the recipient to be able to spend it in the majority of credit card transactions.

>Finally transactions are considered irreversible/definitely non-fraudulent after 6 blocks or 60min on average (with CCs it takes 60 days since charge backs are possible for 60 days).

Worse for the consumer, better for the merchant. But again, nobody cares about the merchant in these cases. Merchants already hate credit cards so you don't need to convince them. You need to convince consumers, who drove the credit card adoption in the first place.

Which is why I corrected the poster who made it sound like credit cards "always" protect you, when it's not true. "Often" and "mostly", but not "always".

"Guess how much you lose if someone steals $50,000 of bitcoins"

Hardware wallets solve the theft problem. To date there have been no verifiable incidents of Bitcoins stolen from hardware wallets.

Credit cards as they are implemented will NEVER solve the theft problem without constant anti-fraud efforts. Bitcoin uses cryptography to authorize a specific transaction. Credit cards rely blindly on the merchant's good will and security to charge for the right amount and to prevent the CC info from being stolen. The more you transact the more merchants the CC info circulate through, and the higher the risk of fraud. Which is why CC fraud has been rising and rising for many years.

"Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes"

Listen, I was just pointing out people who say "CCs transactions are quicker than Bitcoin transactions" are wrong. Accepting a zero-conf Bitcoin transaction is similar ("as risky as") accepting a CC transaction after swiping/chip-and-pin. Therefore that's what should be compared, and both Bitcoin and CC transactions are just as fast as each other (seconds).

I actually agree that the immutability of a Bitcoin transaction is a negative for the consumer. (But I don't think it is a cons big enough to seriously hamper Bitcoin's adoption.)

This is a distinction irrelevant in the real world where the status quo (at least in the US) is that companies protect you. Bitcoin has to compete with what exists, not a potential strawman based on what the laws say.

>Hardware wallets solve the theft problem. To date there have been no verifiable incidents of Bitcoins stolen from hardware wallets.

Can hardware wallets be stolen? If so, you just lost $50k regardless of the attacker gaining access to it. If not, it means you have keys backed up somewhere that can be stolen.

>>"Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes"

>Listen, I was just pointing out people who say "CCs transactions are quicker than Bitcoin transactions" are wrong.

Don't quote out of context. The rest of my sentence clearly shows I'm referring to the speed for the consumer. From a consumer perspective, the transaction is done right when the credit card machine returns (a.k.a within seconds).

>Accepting a zero-conf Bitcoin transaction is similar ("as risky as") accepting a CC transaction after swiping/chip-and-pin.

No it's not. A zero-conf transaction someone can double-spend against and the merchant has no recourse and the consumer has no risk. Merchants will be forced to wait for confirmation unless they have other leverage against the consumer to use on bad behavior.

In CC transactions, the risk to the merchant is a chargeback. A consumer can only lie about these a few times in their life before they get caught by a combination of the credit card company and a merchant and they will be arrested for credit card fraud.

Until the government steps in and writes laws making double-spending fraud, CC will be safe than zero-conf transactions.

Credit cards are peculiar in this regard.

Though this is not worse from your cryptocurrency. If they get a hold of your private keys, you lose everything. At least in the classical banking system you have some legal recourse.

[0]: I might just be thinking of this comedy sketch though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E

Hardware wallets solve this (Trezor, Keepkey, etc.) This makes Bitcoin more secure than cash. Most people accept the (imperfect) level of security of cash, so they would be OK with the higher level of security of hw wallets.

Is it Point-To-Point or Broadcast or both? Can you subscribe to a class of messages even if they aren't sent to you explicitly?

What's with auth and encryption? Something cryptographically sound?

Sorry for not diving into the docs because that's what I would like to see on that page. And please, no video.

Who you also consider "non-citizens"[1], but not in the sense that they're citizens of some other state, you just refuse part of country's population of some citizen rights (like voting) as if it was Apartheid all over again.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizens_(Latvia)

It's a long-lasting grievance that could perhaps be eased by some diplomacy, but is instead being used by all aggrieved parties to further antagonist, and nationalistically protectionist agendas. There is little practical incentive for either Latvia or Russia to soften first, for reasons more than just national pride: this is a power play like any other. In truth, the status, while somewhat derogatory, is not particularly horrific, and impacts people's daily prosperity or international mobility little.

It's disingenuous to try to frame it as a human rights violation; it's most certainly not, but it is a festering issue that doesn't make reconciliation any more likely or easier.

> There is little practical incentive for either Latvia or Russia to soften first

Let me try to understand. Latvia calls some of its citizens "non-citizens" and somehow Russia (a different country) has the option of "softening first". By doing what exactly?

What are the issues that Russia should go soft on in order for Latvia to stop considering a fraction of its population "non-citizens"? And why it was an issue in the 90's where the Russia was famous "The Coma State"?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hemovanadin&actio...

I would rather trek for five hours than one hour of "exercise". However, I have no idea what to do with my arms. Not much useful applications to muscular strength in modern world.

It's a disgrace that workout is not automated yet, and there's no signs to it. Make some box or some pill that will keep my body in the shape without me noticing. We solved transportation, why can't we do something here?

So for me, I have to find motivation. I walk as a primary means of transportation, even to the grocery store.

I can keep up on short-length yoga stretches since I notice a difference in the way my body feels and I can find uses for flexibility. Since it isn't any more time than a shower, it isn't so bad.

And the same thing with arms: Do some pushups daily. Commit to this for about 5-6 weeks. It isn't much time per day, after all. Then see if you notice some differences. Maybe that case of water doesn't seem so heavy or you carry more in one spurt. Maybe a usually stubborn package is easier to open. And if there isn't a difference, don't worry so much so long as you've adequate strength. Or set a goal that will require the strength, like rock climbing, cave exploring, or so on.

You could try going up a steep mountain or a rock, might be more fun.