Nostr Web Client

Replying to

Séimí Mac Síomón

Had he merely stabbed you in the back, that would be one thing.

But he made eloquent speeches about freedom.

He did the tours.

He kissed the babies.

Then he stabbed you in the back.

What manner of person does that?

Michael Saylor is a Judas, make no mistake.

Meridian 1y ago

I think this is being overblown.

Saylor has been speaking publically about solving the issue of bots / spam for a long time now. [Having an 'orange check'].

I think what makes a digital identity system dangerous is centralisation, and the extent to which you are compelled to use it.

I haven't read his product spec yet, but so far I don't get the impression that he has betrayed either of those aspects.

[Happy to change my mind on this...]

If we accept that we're going to have to prove our age, to get in to a bar, or identify ourselves to cross a border, I'd rather do so using a zero knowledge cryptographic proof, vs whatever centralised monstrosity our local Governments carve out...

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Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Couple this with the blocking of funds to devs. How much smoke does there need to be before somebody yells fire?

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Why does this need to be done on Bitcoin? Why are we experiencing this dilution of Bitcoins original usecase?

Meridian 1y ago

I don't think the future is a binary outcome. ie total freedom or total slavery.

People will build many forms of digital identity systems, as despite their drawbacks, they do offer benefits.

To the extent that we have to have one (proving age to get into a bar, crossing borders, etc,), would we not rather use one that offers us maximum privacy and control, by making use of advanced cryptography?

Vs being compelled to use the one that centralises all of our data, and hands control over to WEF, et al ?

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

You're argument about decentralisation is a sound one, but IS Saylor sound? Are we to take it on faith that this man, who has been banging the drum about Bitcoins usecase as freedom money, but whose projects don't speak to that usecase, who is only around the corner from CIA headquarters (you may say it's coincidental, but these things are cumulative), who is blocking funds to developers and acting as a gatekeeper, has the best interests of Bitcoin in mind?

I would rather question his every move and motive from this point forth, and be embarrassingly wrong about everything than to continue to give this man a free pass because he is memeable and has incorporated himself into the Bitcoin 'brand'.

Meridian 1y ago

I can't prove it, but there was a large anonymouse donation made to support some of the recent legal battles bitcoiners were facing. I had a suspicion that Saylor might have had a hand in that...

That said, it shouldn't really matter.

It's on us not to put people on a pedestal. And it's on Bitcoin to stand resiliant, in the face of those who seek to profit from it, whether their motives are benevolent or otherwise.

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

That is precisely true, but perhaps there may have been attack vectors unforseen up unil now. We are entering a very

delicate phase of Bitcoins trajectory.

Is it not wise to be vigilant?

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Without the details, it could be entirely self motivated.

Bill Gates and the Carnegies are renowned for their 'philanthropy'.

Meridian 1y ago

The lack of clarity around the details is the issue.

If Saylor approached this with purity of heart, he could actually end up gifting humanity something on a parr with Bitcoin itself...

i.e. the most robust, self soverign way of managing identity in a digital context.

It will be interesting to see which path he chooses, and the extent to which he can pull it off...

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

I choose to be resolutely sceptical, and therefore, am in the perfect position to be pleasantly surprised.

Meridian 1y ago

Seems like a reasonable position.

One positive is that it looks like he's pushing his work to GitHub.

If he maintains the open-source nature of the product, at least we'll be able to vet and verify it, for ourselves, much in the same way we do with Bitcoin.

Unlike other centralised, black box approaches to digital identity, if he aims to shaft folks, at least we'll know about it, and the extent to which he's able to do it...

jamw 1y ago

Yep, the concept of decentralised identities has been around for a while now. Also the focus of nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m company TBD and the driving idea behind “Web5”. Our identities are already spread around numerous centralised databases run by third-parties, which when you consider it, is an absolute privacy nightmare and a complete loss of control on an individual level. Our identities are something we should control and we should be able to decide which services we access and prevent them from sharing our data. And equally be able to deny those services access later.

https://developer.tbd.website/projects/web5/

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Why solve it with Bitcoin?

jamw 1y ago

Mainly because it is the most secure censorship-resistant, open and decentralised blockchain to anchor DIDs too. A “timechain” that records our identity changes in an immutable fashion that will likely outlive any centralised company or newly created blockchain starting from scratch. That all said, the NOSTR model could probably be used too.

jamw 1y ago

BTW, I’m in no way saying it’s the right thing to do.

Jeff 1y ago

Bitcoin is a neutral and open protocol for anyone to do whatever they want. It may not be what some may want but it needs to be able to work for anything that the protocol allows otherwise it’ll fail

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

That is exactly true, I know that. But we don't have to accept everything that it is used for as being 'good' for Bitcoin, do we?

Meridian 1y ago

No. Absolutely not. Ordinals are a prime example.

When Saylor announced his product, one of my first thoughts was to consider the possiblity of nodes filtering out his DID peg transactions.... 👀

Not suggesting I would do it, without more detail, but I think it's closer to how node runners should be thinking about these sorts of things...

If it doesn't align with your values, don't tolerate it on your node.

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

This brings into question the issue mining centralisation, and the role of nodes as a sort of immune system that will reject improper usecases and forks and so on.

Jeff 1y ago

No, we don’t need to think it’s good for bitcoin. We need to get a point where we don’t care

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Bitcoin is becoming increasingly inaccessible to the rest of the world because blockspace is being used for everything and anything other than transactions. I'm aware that competition for blockspace is a free market, but the more people are priced out of sending a transaction then how the fuck is Bitcoin 'freedom' money at all.

People say things like, oh, there's layer-2, but now we see that custodial layer 2 is getting shut down.

The people that need Bitcoin the most aren't going to be able to run a self custodial lightning node, and now there is the possibility that they won't be able to use Bitcoin in any meaningful way due to blockspace congestion because bitcoin is being used as a fucking database for every fucking shitcoin in town.

Sorry man, I'm wound up af.

Meridian 1y ago

I would need to read the product spec to be sure on this, however in the absence of the details, I would expect he would do something similar to Peter Todds Open Time Stamps project. ie use a single on-chain transaction to consolidate many multiples of DID information. A bit like transaction batching.

In that way, the layer-1 footprint of the project would be very insignificant.

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

That may be so, but why is he attempting to solve this problem using Bitcoin? Everyday now, I see Bitcoin being used for something other than it's original usecase.

Now I'm a layperson, not a coder, so forgive me if the subtle nuances escape me, but this begs the question : 'Is Bitcoin deviating from it's original mission?'

Meridian 1y ago

It's the ownly truly decentralised digital infastructure that we have.

If he was to build it on Ethereum and claim that it was decentralised, he would have been just as well to have Klaus Schwab code him something up, instead.

I think there's a paralell here with the argument around Bitcoins energy use...

Most bitcoiners make the case that using all of the electricity is worth it, because of the benefits truely hard money confers on society.

Equally, most bitcoiners make the case that 1 decentralised blockchain is enough.

By the same token, if the world is to have decentralised identity [and we can debate this, as a seperate issue], then perhaps the cost of a transaction or two, per block, is worth it....

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

What does this thing do that pgp doesn't?

I'll admit that I don't fully understand it.

Meridian 1y ago

I'm not sure.

Another thought I had was, why not just use Nostr public keys...

🤷‍♂️

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

🤔

Séimí Mac Síomón 1y ago

Appreciate your insight btw, just to be explicitly amicable.