Shamir's derpage

To quote a recent vlog,

Shamir: I've been looking at the Bitcoin system and fundamentally the problem with this community is that they haven't made up their mind whether they want to be anarchist rebels or they want to be the establishment and to replace all the fiat currencies in the world. And they are torn between those two possibilities. A strong group within the bitcoin community resists any kind of a supervision or regulation and this result -- crime is very rife, prevalent -- there are lots of events you read about every day in the newspapers. I think it's not ready for primetime due to this dual personality. I think once they decide they seriously want to replace some of the world's currencies, they should change their behavior, they should agree to some kind of regulation, and then they'll buy future.

Diffie: Well that dichotomy of viewpoint of course is exemplified by the United States which hasn't been able to decide in a little bit over 200 years whether it was a revolutionary country bringing democracy to the world or a great imperial power like the powers of Europe. So, maybe they can resist.

I won't engage the idiocy directly, I don't have the patience. I will instead provide some contrasting material culled from today's log :

mircea_popescu By the way, lemme recount the fourth crusade for the benefit of the awareness-raising crowd-sourced crowd. So, I. a bunch of militarily powerful, intellectually naive Westerners made an army to go beat up the Muslims and take Jerusalem. II.a. Random Byzantine (militarily worthless, intellectually overpowering) entity convinces them to help him "recover" his "stolen" throne, as if the Byzantines ever did anything else or anyone had a valid claim, or the possibility of a valid claim even existed in their world. II.b. And further promised them the "pearls in heavens", a very classical device in Greek gay drama (since at least the days of Darius, this empty promises as a path to military glory. The Greeks invented "fake it till you make it".) III. They take Adrianople, and their presence alters "reality" as the Greeks perceive it. So their guy is named co-emperor. IV. the "crowdsource" revolts. This alters "reality" once more, their guy is promptly poisoned. V. They decide to conquer the fucking city. Because by now they've got an inkling of the pure filth the Greeks are. So they do, and burn it, and cauterize the place. Moral : Democracy is for the mentally ill ; The rewards of democracy are rape and arson, often enough delivered with the same stick. If Dandolo had any sense they'd have plowed and salted Constantinople, and sold all the women to the Turks.

ascii_field Promised them the "pearls in heavens"

Friday, 01 May, Year 7 d.Tr.