Replying to Mindaugas

True, security and avoidance of trust is limiting compared to wide trust. But that is the way I live. Including, I understand bitcoin cryptography (not complex - several hours on youtube and rumble to gain knowledge), I can write software code, I cook my own food and verify suppliers of raw materials, I fly only those carriers and aircraft that I have studied statistics of and accept the risk, and I don't stand out from the crowd to make sure my presense does not impact the statistics. Most certainly, I ignore all public information.

Look at a cat - it is always running from cover to cover when not at home.
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mark tyler 2y ago

Is it possible you’re actually trusting a bit more than you think? Do you run a node? Do you know where the logic is that ensures the transactions your node verifies are in accordance with your desires and not someone else’s? Have you personally checked it? Is there any code on your computer than might cause it to be lying to you about what you see when you read that vs what it actually executes when validating blocks?

If you haven’t, checked these, then why?

I’m all for avoiding blind trust, I think that’s part of understanding the world. I also think it’s impossible. Devastatingly.

So we end up with some version of a trust oneself/masses/experts heuristic for a given situation.

If you haven’t read it, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes is excellent on this topic. #bookstr

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Mindaugas 2y ago

Thank you, I will check out the book. And I do run my own node :). I didn't write its code though. And did not review it. But it is open source. And that, yes, I do have a lot of trust in popular open source software. Not blindly, though. I know many programmers, and I see how motivated they are to find issues in open source libraries and report them. But you should not trust me because you do not know me, and therefore should not trust open source unless you did your own verification.

Sure some verifications are indirect. The level of verification depends on the level of risk I am willing to accept. And generally I have lowish risk tolerance.

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Mindaugas 2y ago

nostr:npub1nwhdqvfh6g2t86pnqkdf86m3ea89c6ejyhlhe5g9wk2lvpsgss6qed409r your bio is wrong. You have no right to force me anything regardless of anything. I'll have to think this through, but it feels like also term "legitimate" is evil in itself. I can't quickly think of any context where it would not be misleading.

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mark tyler 2y ago

What do you mean? By legitimate I just mean in a “real” way. I’m not completely convinced there is such a way of giving me that right, but I mostly mean to recognize here that if you were to “imply your consent” i would view it as definitely not consent.

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Mindaugas 2y ago

Glad you really have no intentions of forcing anybody. So just a friendly remark: for a stranger, non native english speaker, without context, like me, that sentence sounds like you would maybe consider oppressing others under some excuses. Maybe its just me.

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mark tyler 2y ago

I’m convinced, I’ll update it 🫂

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Mindaugas 2y ago

I am impressed. Hardly ever I meet people capable of agreeing on something while disagreeing on something else.

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mark tyler 2y ago

I aspire to knowing truth, which requires minimizing ideological inertia haha. It’s hard. Feel free to critique the update 🫂

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Mindaugas 2y ago

Aah, excellent update.