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Part of it has been the tribalism of him going against the obvious weasels that ousted the original Bitcoin team to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees

Part of it has been the tribalism of him going against the obvious weasels that ousted the original Bitcoin team to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees high and get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin' Some of the people who hated those weasels decided that Craig Wright must be great since he says he is against the same people. Instead of everyone rolling their eyes and fighting an OBVIOUS con man interested in VC funding and patents some people thought everyone calling him a con man must be on the 'other side'. Edit: If you think something is off, use your words. I can back up everything I've said here.

jnbiche 7y ago
> Some of the people who hated those weasels decided that Craig Wright must be great since he says he is against the same people. Instead of everyone rolling their eyes and fighting an OBVIOUS con man interested in VC funding and patents some people thought everyone calling him a con man must be on the 'other side'. That's an interesting summary of the situation, with parallels again to our current political situation.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  As 'Eliezer summed it up perfectly: "Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there’s a Blue or Green position on an issue." From: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i....
keymone 7y ago
lets see how much you can really back up > him going against the obvious weasels A weasel is a mammal of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. Bitcoin Core team afaik consists of humans. > ousted the original Bitcoin team satoshi handed over maintenance to gavin, gavin handed over maintenance to wladimir, wladimir is a contributor since 2011 and still is the maintainer of the project. plenty of contributors from early days are still active or support bitcoin core team. very few agree with nonsense claimed by CSW. so who exactly do you mean when you say "original Bitcoin team"? > to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees high you're claiming conspiracy with specific intention - do you have any proof or evidence of such conspiracy? what power over bitcoin network and specifically miners (who are free to mine on any bitcoin fork they consider "the real bitcoin") did they have? > and get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin' you've decided to arbitrarily link two events for no good reason. this is something conspiracists often do. there were plenty of companies getting funded by VCs in cryptocurrency space during that time, why specifically that company matters more than others? what power over bitcoin do they have? few devs are contributors - so what? there are other companies that also have devs contributing to bitcoin core.
sct202 7y ago
Some of his supporters might just find him convenient for now. Like at work, sometimes I back people up who I don't really like or trust because at this moment they are doing something that is aligned with me, and it really isn't worth the effort to try to tear them down versus just going with it and dealing with them later if I have to.
ChainOfFools 7y ago
is this the purportedly decentralized group that refers to itself, with no sense of irony, as Bitcoin Core?
- RustyRussell 7y ago
  To clarify: the bitcoin open source project was renamed "Bitcoin Core" to avoid confusion with Bitcoin the currency and protocol (it didn't help). It does seem to follow Open Source best practice: but I'm not even sure what "decentralized" development would look like?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Bitcoin Core is the name of the software that was originally released by Satoshi Nakamoto and has been continuously been developed ever since. It is the most widely used software to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, which makes sense, since at the beginning it was the only client and essentially the reference implementation. The confusion stems from the fact that it was renamed at one point to make it clear that "Bitcoin Core" refers to this specific software whereas "Bitcoin" refers to the protocol and blockchain more generally. This distinction wasn't originally needed, as there were no other clients.
RustyRussell 7y ago
> Part of it has been the tribalism of him going against the obvious weasels that ousted the original Bitcoin team to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees high and get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin' There are solid technical reasons to keep the block size low. The current developers were active almost from the beginning, you should take a look. And while Blockstream was founded by Bitcoin developers and sponsors development, it's a small part of the total development effort. As an early Blockstream employee, I'd love to see some source to your claim that we "get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin'"

jnbiche 7y ago

> Some of the people who hated those weasels decided that Craig Wright must be great since he says he is against the same people. Instead of everyone rolling their eyes and fighting an OBVIOUS con man interested in VC funding and patents some people thought everyone calling him a con man must be on the 'other side'. That's an interesting summary of the situation, with parallels again to our current political situation.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
As 'Eliezer summed it up perfectly: "Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there’s a Blue or Green position on an issue." From: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i....

keymone 7y ago

lets see how much you can really back up > him going against the obvious weasels A weasel is a mammal of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. Bitcoin Core team afaik consists of humans. > ousted the original Bitcoin team satoshi handed over maintenance to gavin, gavin handed over maintenance to wladimir, wladimir is a contributor since 2011 and still is the maintainer of the project. plenty of contributors from early days are still active or support bitcoin core team. very few agree with nonsense claimed by CSW. so who exactly do you mean when you say "original Bitcoin team"? > to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees high you're claiming conspiracy with specific intention - do you have any proof or evidence of such conspiracy? what power over bitcoin network and specifically miners (who are free to mine on any bitcoin fork they consider "the real bitcoin") did they have? > and get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin' you've decided to arbitrarily link two events for no good reason. this is something conspiracists often do. there were plenty of companies getting funded by VCs in cryptocurrency space during that time, why specifically that company matters more than others? what power over bitcoin do they have? few devs are contributors - so what? there are other companies that also have devs contributing to bitcoin core.

sct202 7y ago

Some of his supporters might just find him convenient for now. Like at work, sometimes I back people up who I don't really like or trust because at this moment they are doing something that is aligned with me, and it really isn't worth the effort to try to tear them down versus just going with it and dealing with them later if I have to.

ChainOfFools 7y ago

is this the purportedly decentralized group that refers to itself, with no sense of irony, as Bitcoin Core?

RustyRussell 7y ago
To clarify: the bitcoin open source project was renamed "Bitcoin Core" to avoid confusion with Bitcoin the currency and protocol (it didn't help). It does seem to follow Open Source best practice: but I'm not even sure what "decentralized" development would look like?
CydeWeys 7y ago
Bitcoin Core is the name of the software that was originally released by Satoshi Nakamoto and has been continuously been developed ever since. It is the most widely used software to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, which makes sense, since at the beginning it was the only client and essentially the reference implementation. The confusion stems from the fact that it was renamed at one point to make it clear that "Bitcoin Core" refers to this specific software whereas "Bitcoin" refers to the protocol and blockchain more generally. This distinction wasn't originally needed, as there were no other clients.

RustyRussell 7y ago

> Part of it has been the tribalism of him going against the obvious weasels that ousted the original Bitcoin team to keep the blocksize low, the transaction fees high and get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin' There are solid technical reasons to keep the block size low. The current developers were active almost from the beginning, you should take a look. And while Blockstream was founded by Bitcoin developers and sponsors development, it's a small part of the total development effort. As an early Blockstream employee, I'd love to see some source to your claim that we "get VC funding for their company that they would market by saying it was the 'people that were in charge of bitcoin'"