Satoshi revealed? The bitcoin mystery
October 8, 2024 10:06 PM Subscribe
HBO digs into the Satoshi Nakamoto mystery - Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery coming on the heels of Vitalik: An Ethereum Story. Did Bruce Sterling and others predict our current reality?
“Alex did not find it surprising that people like the Chinese Triads and the Corsican Black Hand were electronically minting their own cash. He simply accepted it: electronic, private cash, unbacked by any government, untraceable, completely anonymous, global in reach, lightning-like in speed, ubiquitous, fungible, and usually highly volatile.”
“Alex did not find it surprising that people like the Chinese Triads and the Corsican Black Hand were electronically minting their own cash. He simply accepted it: electronic, private cash, unbacked by any government, untraceable, completely anonymous, global in reach, lightning-like in speed, ubiquitous, fungible, and usually highly volatile.”
They have an "idea" did you read the article or watch the docu?
posted by specialk420 at 11:24 PM on October 8 [1 favorite]
posted by specialk420 at 11:24 PM on October 8 [1 favorite]
Regardless of the bait, I'm curious to know if HBO's parent company WB and some of its main shareholders have a vested interest in using the network and the company's media outlets to push crypscrip. Could be especially relevant in an election year, where there are crypscrip-heavy investors underwriting the Trump campaign and its PACs.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:46 PM on October 8 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:46 PM on October 8 [2 favorites]
I read the article and it's written by someone with a poor understanding of bitcoin.
The HBO documentary leans into the early bitcoin mining being clues about Satoshi's identity but it's total speculation as to whether those blocks were ever actually mined by Satoshi. Satoshi intentionally made the Genesis block unspendable and then subsequent blocks were mined days later after the software/protocol had already been published online.
The best thing Satoshi ever did was anonymously design bitcoin. The second best thing Satoshi did was to vanish completely leaving us with a truly decentralised finite monetary system.
posted by neonamber at 11:59 PM on October 8 [1 favorite]
The HBO documentary leans into the early bitcoin mining being clues about Satoshi's identity but it's total speculation as to whether those blocks were ever actually mined by Satoshi. Satoshi intentionally made the Genesis block unspendable and then subsequent blocks were mined days later after the software/protocol had already been published online.
The best thing Satoshi ever did was anonymously design bitcoin. The second best thing Satoshi did was to vanish completely leaving us with a truly decentralised finite monetary system.
posted by neonamber at 11:59 PM on October 8 [1 favorite]
In the meantime, as he sees it, more evidence has accumulated. Last year, a few A.I. researchers discovered that “petertodd” was a so-called glitch token in GPT-3; when included in a prompt, the A.I. seemed as though it had been engineered, apropos of nothing, to tell the user that Peter Todd was a Bitcoin developer.
This is evidence?
posted by atoxyl at 12:54 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
This is evidence?
posted by atoxyl at 12:54 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Are they suggesting that he engineered the odd GPT behavior? That string (which appears to be his GitHub username) probably just appears enough in some repo that it skews the data.
posted by atoxyl at 1:04 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 1:04 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
"We figured out who DB Cooper was, everybody! We dangled a pendulum over the site where the cash was buried, and..."
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:11 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:11 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
It's kind of lifting the veil to think of bitcoin as a religion and Satoshi its Jesus, Mammon its God: If the price of a bitcoin ever reaches a million dollars—as its maximalist supporters expect—he could become the world’s first trillionaire. The New Testament God’s sacrifice of His only son, with all due respect, pales in comparison.
posted by chavenet at 1:40 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 1:40 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
@neonamber "tldr: they still have no idea who Satoshi is, this is clickbait."
posted by rubatan at 3:07 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
[TLDR: Click for spoiler]
Peter Todd “I am Satoshi Nakamoto.”
maybe...posted by rubatan at 3:07 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
@rubatan
Don't trust, verify. If he can't prove it cryptographically he's just another Craig Wright.
posted by neonamber at 3:13 AM on October 9
Don't trust, verify. If he can't prove it cryptographically he's just another Craig Wright.
posted by neonamber at 3:13 AM on October 9
sorry, i thought the excess of my nested details would not be taken seriously
posted by rubatan at 3:23 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
posted by rubatan at 3:23 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
I will concede that the HBO documentary folk have managed to narrow the Satoshi search scope from 'not Craig Wright' all the way down to 'not Craig Wright or Peter Todd'.
posted by neonamber at 3:36 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
posted by neonamber at 3:36 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
The best thing Satoshi ever did was anonymously design bitcoin. The second best thing Satoshi did was to vanish completely leaving us with a truly decentralised finite monetary system.
If the best thing someone ever did was create a commodity that facilitates scamming true believers into losing their families savings and trade in child sexual abuse images, that is produced by wasting huge amounts of electricity and worsening climate change, that is a damning indictment indeed.
My personal pet theory is that cryptocurrency has its origin in the US government intelligence and cryptography agencies. It is a hell of a lot easier way to generate and launder an illegal slush fund than selling crack to poor communities.
posted by pattern juggler at 3:50 AM on October 9 [27 favorites]
If the best thing someone ever did was create a commodity that facilitates scamming true believers into losing their families savings and trade in child sexual abuse images, that is produced by wasting huge amounts of electricity and worsening climate change, that is a damning indictment indeed.
My personal pet theory is that cryptocurrency has its origin in the US government intelligence and cryptography agencies. It is a hell of a lot easier way to generate and launder an illegal slush fund than selling crack to poor communities.
posted by pattern juggler at 3:50 AM on October 9 [27 favorites]
untraceable, completely anonymous, global in reach, lightning-like in speed, ubiquitous, fungible
It’s none of these things, and at enormous environmental cost.
posted by mhoye at 4:31 AM on October 9 [30 favorites]
It’s none of these things, and at enormous environmental cost.
posted by mhoye at 4:31 AM on October 9 [30 favorites]
at enormous environmental cost
Thomas Midgley poisoned, sickened, and killed millions. He was perhaps lucky that he died being strangled by his own inventions — sadly, humanity was left to clean up after him.
I imagine that Satoshi, whomever he may turn out to be, will have left behind even more devastation, giving us one and another disaster to clean up as the environmental bill progressively comes due.
Buttcoin jokes are good for a laugh, but bitcoin and other crypscrip are poison and their promoters and developers should be put in prison, not given a fawning audience by politicians and media empires.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:49 AM on October 9 [11 favorites]
Thomas Midgley poisoned, sickened, and killed millions. He was perhaps lucky that he died being strangled by his own inventions — sadly, humanity was left to clean up after him.
I imagine that Satoshi, whomever he may turn out to be, will have left behind even more devastation, giving us one and another disaster to clean up as the environmental bill progressively comes due.
Buttcoin jokes are good for a laugh, but bitcoin and other crypscrip are poison and their promoters and developers should be put in prison, not given a fawning audience by politicians and media empires.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:49 AM on October 9 [11 favorites]
I wonder what is the number of crypto scammers that have to be traced, deanonymised and arrested for the "untraceable, completely anonymous" idea to die in the minds of crypto boosters. It's becoming a bit silly.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:25 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:25 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
I went from thinking BitCoin was a stupid fad, to mildly kicking myself for not buying a few when they wer a buck each, to horrified, and in 2021 I found myself nodding in agreement when Charles Stross said his preferred solution to BitCoin was to treaat it and all other cryptocurrencies like CSAM: mere possession is a felony.
We have to stamp that shit out.
Whoever Satoshi really is, if they have a functioning moral compass they, like Kalashnikov, will wish they'd invented something else.
posted by sotonohito at 6:12 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
We have to stamp that shit out.
Whoever Satoshi really is, if they have a functioning moral compass they, like Kalashnikov, will wish they'd invented something else.
posted by sotonohito at 6:12 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
I feel like the secret of Bitcoin’s creation doesn’t
Need
Such
A
complicated explanation.
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:23 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
Need
Such
A
complicated explanation.
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:23 AM on October 9 [8 favorites]
Last year, a few A.I. researchers discovered that “petertodd” was a so-called glitch token in GPT-3; when included in a prompt, the A.I. seemed as though it had been engineered, apropos of nothing, to tell the user that Peter Todd was a Bitcoin developer.
Remember how everyone and their cousin knew that 'JUSTIN BAILEY' violated Metroid's checksum verification and that must mean the password was deliberately hardcoded into the game? And remember how it didn't take much effort to completely debunk this assumption because it turns out that the name is just one of many random permutations that the game will accept?
Maybe these A.I. researchers should go back to writing childish things about video games.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:59 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Remember how everyone and their cousin knew that 'JUSTIN BAILEY' violated Metroid's checksum verification and that must mean the password was deliberately hardcoded into the game? And remember how it didn't take much effort to completely debunk this assumption because it turns out that the name is just one of many random permutations that the game will accept?
Maybe these A.I. researchers should go back to writing childish things about video games.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:59 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Satoshi being anonymous is mostly of use to Bitcoin because it adds to the air of mystery. Bitcoin only works as smoke and mirrors. In reality, it’s a pretty mundane sort of get-rich-quick scheme which leans on technical mysteriousness and novelty to mask the fact that it’s mostly used as way for large numbers of marks to feed actual money into the pockets of the already-wealthy and organized crime. It’s Pokémon Cards that also destroy the environment.
posted by chasing at 7:19 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
posted by chasing at 7:19 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Bitcoin is to blockchain as fake images of Trump wading through floodwaters are to AI - the worst possible use of what is actually valuable and useful technology.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:32 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:32 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Eh, I'm not convinced a write-only database is really that useful.
posted by aramaic at 7:32 AM on October 9 [13 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 7:32 AM on October 9 [13 favorites]
neonamberAs it happens, I do actually think that being able to reevaluate the thinking you had and come to different conclusions is healthy.
In the past I had a rather "fuck it, not my prolem, look at the cool shit" attitude about the way technology can make things worse or have unintended consiquences. I'm still easily distracted by shiny objects and cool pew pew lazors stuff though I work to stay aware of that and try to minimize that on my thinking.
Originally I thought BitCoin was stupid, but meh who gives a shit. When it started getting big I still thought it was stupid but had an idle thought that if I'd bought some when it was cheap then like Cabbage Patch dolls or whatever it would be nice to be able to sell it while the market is still hot.
Then as I learned more, matured a little, and started seeing and thinking through the implications of how BitCoin works, and what it's actually doing to the world, I realized that it's not like Beanie Babbies or Cabbage Patch Kids and just some stupid fad and was, in fact, dangerous and needed to be ended.
I don't see how it would be healthier if I'd kept my early and mid 20's unexamined internalization of Heinlein style libertarianism and general techbro anti-governmentism and thus kept my position on BitCoin unchanged?
I'm a different person from who I was back then, and thank all the non-existant gods for that, I was such a bigger asshole back then than I am today. If you think that's unhealthy I don't know what to say.
posted by sotonohito at 7:38 AM on October 9 [7 favorites]
In the past I had a rather "fuck it, not my prolem, look at the cool shit" attitude about the way technology can make things worse or have unintended consiquences. I'm still easily distracted by shiny objects and cool pew pew lazors stuff though I work to stay aware of that and try to minimize that on my thinking.
Originally I thought BitCoin was stupid, but meh who gives a shit. When it started getting big I still thought it was stupid but had an idle thought that if I'd bought some when it was cheap then like Cabbage Patch dolls or whatever it would be nice to be able to sell it while the market is still hot.
Then as I learned more, matured a little, and started seeing and thinking through the implications of how BitCoin works, and what it's actually doing to the world, I realized that it's not like Beanie Babbies or Cabbage Patch Kids and just some stupid fad and was, in fact, dangerous and needed to be ended.
I don't see how it would be healthier if I'd kept my early and mid 20's unexamined internalization of Heinlein style libertarianism and general techbro anti-governmentism and thus kept my position on BitCoin unchanged?
I'm a different person from who I was back then, and thank all the non-existant gods for that, I was such a bigger asshole back then than I am today. If you think that's unhealthy I don't know what to say.
posted by sotonohito at 7:38 AM on October 9 [7 favorites]
Eh, I'm not convinced a write-only database is really that useful.
Then you are not in the compliance and auditing space. Inviolable records are critical for accountability and forensics.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:53 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Then you are not in the compliance and auditing space. Inviolable records are critical for accountability and forensics.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:53 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
> Eh, I'm not convinced a write-only database is really that useful.
I mean, it doesn't have to be *that* useful to be more useful than Bitcoin, which ... has been useful for money laundering/criminal extortion.
The other "useful" part of Bitcoin was the "successful" implementation of a distributed-program-as-contract. All the rules of Bitcoin come from multiple implementations of the Bitcoin protocol that agree about the rules, with a built-in prisoners dilemma like punishment for disagreeing with the rules.
posted by NotAYakk at 7:56 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
I mean, it doesn't have to be *that* useful to be more useful than Bitcoin, which ... has been useful for money laundering/criminal extortion.
The other "useful" part of Bitcoin was the "successful" implementation of a distributed-program-as-contract. All the rules of Bitcoin come from multiple implementations of the Bitcoin protocol that agree about the rules, with a built-in prisoners dilemma like punishment for disagreeing with the rules.
posted by NotAYakk at 7:56 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
> Eh, I'm not convinced a write-only database is really that useful.
I thought the ledger was better described as "write-once"; anyone can read and access it, right?
posted by achrise at 8:03 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
I thought the ledger was better described as "write-once"; anyone can read and access it, right?
posted by achrise at 8:03 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
>I'm a different person from who I was back then, and thank all the non-existant gods for that, I was such a bigger asshole back then than I am today. If you think that's unhealthy I don't know what to say.
I think it's unhealthy to advocate for imprisoning strangers based on 'unexamined internalization' of your youth. Bitcoin didn't have those politics, you did.
posted by neonamber at 8:11 AM on October 9
I think it's unhealthy to advocate for imprisoning strangers based on 'unexamined internalization' of your youth. Bitcoin didn't have those politics, you did.
posted by neonamber at 8:11 AM on October 9
Clearly my dude both Stross and I are talking about criminalizing possession with a grace period for people to get rid of it, not just immediately arresting all bitcoin owners.
posted by sotonohito at 8:19 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 8:19 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
Did DB Cooper invent bitcoin?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:29 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:29 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Inviolable records are critical for accountability and forensics.
IBM solved that back in the JCL days; the only thing the pseudo-distributed blockchain brings to the table is 7 transactions per second.
...instead of several hundred million transactions per second.
posted by aramaic at 8:50 AM on October 9 [9 favorites]
IBM solved that back in the JCL days; the only thing the pseudo-distributed blockchain brings to the table is 7 transactions per second.
...instead of several hundred million transactions per second.
posted by aramaic at 8:50 AM on October 9 [9 favorites]
> Clearly my dude both Stross and I are talking about criminalizing possession with a grace period for people to get rid of it, not just immediately arresting all bitcoin owners.
I happen to like Stross. Accelerando in particular helped convince me of the future potential for bitcoin. Not because he envisioned or predicted it but because I knew it would flourish in that world he imagined which also seemed to be converging with the here and now.
posted by neonamber at 8:54 AM on October 9
I happen to like Stross. Accelerando in particular helped convince me of the future potential for bitcoin. Not because he envisioned or predicted it but because I knew it would flourish in that world he imagined which also seemed to be converging with the here and now.
posted by neonamber at 8:54 AM on October 9
I think it's unhealthy to advocate for imprisoning strangers based on 'unexamined internalization' of your youth. Bitcoin didn't have those politics, you did.
I'm a prison abolitionist, but cryptocurrency absolutely needs to be wiped out and restitution made by the worst offenders.
posted by pattern juggler at 8:59 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
I'm a prison abolitionist, but cryptocurrency absolutely needs to be wiped out and restitution made by the worst offenders.
posted by pattern juggler at 8:59 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
Okay sure. we all get to fantasise. Weird priorities though.
posted by neonamber at 9:19 AM on October 9
posted by neonamber at 9:19 AM on October 9
I think prioritising ending the suffering of the victims of exploitation and financial scams and stopping the destruction of the environment are better priorities than pretending you are Hiro Protagonist, but what do I know?
posted by pattern juggler at 9:28 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
posted by pattern juggler at 9:28 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]
Christ. Here we go again on Bitcoin.
Can any Bitcoin advocate point to anyone, anywhere, that has achieved liberation through the technology? Or is it beyond the capability of the white male technocrats to understand that their favourite monopoly money requires always-on internet and overwhelming computer power that is inaccessible to most of this world's population?
Can I buy water with Bitcoin? Can I buy rice? Medicine? Tampons? A currency is not fungible if you can't find basic needs using it.
Graphics cards, porn, and fentanyl precursors aren't basic needs.
Cryptocurrency is a computationally expensive solution to the problem best described as "fuck you, I need to make my coke deals even more arduous, paranoid, and stupid".
posted by prismatic7 at 9:50 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
Can any Bitcoin advocate point to anyone, anywhere, that has achieved liberation through the technology? Or is it beyond the capability of the white male technocrats to understand that their favourite monopoly money requires always-on internet and overwhelming computer power that is inaccessible to most of this world's population?
Can I buy water with Bitcoin? Can I buy rice? Medicine? Tampons? A currency is not fungible if you can't find basic needs using it.
Graphics cards, porn, and fentanyl precursors aren't basic needs.
Cryptocurrency is a computationally expensive solution to the problem best described as "fuck you, I need to make my coke deals even more arduous, paranoid, and stupid".
posted by prismatic7 at 9:50 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
>but what do I know?
Oh please. Ending bitcoin would not make a detectable dent on exploitation or CSAM or tax evasion or scams or environmental emissions. The US dollar facilitates far more these things than bitcoin ever has. If that's where your priorities lay then media is setting your agenda.
posted by neonamber at 9:58 AM on October 9
Oh please. Ending bitcoin would not make a detectable dent on exploitation or CSAM or tax evasion or scams or environmental emissions. The US dollar facilitates far more these things than bitcoin ever has. If that's where your priorities lay then media is setting your agenda.
posted by neonamber at 9:58 AM on October 9
prismatic, what you're missing is that you can buy shitty jpgs of badly drawn monkeys to trade with your right wing nerd friends. Hope this helps.
posted by Justinian at 9:59 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 9:59 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
Bitcoin presented a genuinely new mechanism for human coördination. For the first time, a community of far-flung strangers could maintain a collective record of its interactions without the supervision of a third party.
That's great if your idea of "human coordination" is limited to "exchanging money"
That Douglas Adams bit about solutions involving the circulation of small, green pieces of paper is way overused on the Internet, but it sure does apply to crypto enthusiasts who talk really big about accomplishments and innovations that are, at best, only concerned with keeping track of who currently owns virtual analogues of those small green pieces of paper.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:15 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
That's great if your idea of "human coordination" is limited to "exchanging money"
That Douglas Adams bit about solutions involving the circulation of small, green pieces of paper is way overused on the Internet, but it sure does apply to crypto enthusiasts who talk really big about accomplishments and innovations that are, at best, only concerned with keeping track of who currently owns virtual analogues of those small green pieces of paper.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:15 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Ending bitcoin would not make a detectable dent on exploitation or CSAM or tax evasion or scams or environmental emissions. The US dollar facilitates far more these things than bitcoin ever has. If that's where your priorities lay then media is setting your agenda.
You keep talking about "priorities", as if people are criticizing cryptocurrency out of the blue because they hate it so much, rather than because it is the subject of this post. If the best defense of crypto is that it isn't the greatest threat to the world today, that's pretty wretched.
So first to the scams, crypto is actually very useful to scammers because it provides a way of avoiding normal banking protections. It is also a community of overconfident marks who believe themselves to be experts. But those are just regular scammers using crypto. Crypto itself is full of scams, from vanishing exchanges, to rug pulls on various new cryptocoins, to the endless price manipulation used to keep the bagholders compliant.
Crypto is an extremely popular was for paying for CSEM. There is a reason for that. CSEM was nearly stanped out until the internet made it viable again. Crypto allows it to function as a commercial venture. If it is possible for these abusers to use another means to secretly exchange money without legal interference, then doesn't that other mechanism fulfill all the possible functions of crypto as an untraceable, decentralized currency? But if they can't, how can you say crypto plays no significant role in funding child abuse?
And last, to the size of the "dent" Bitcoin's elimination would produce in carbon emissions, the answer is about . 2%. That is one five hundredth the total carbon emissions of the whole rest of the planet. About as much produced by the entire nation of Greece. And that is just Bitcoin, not other crypto, or the impact of the hardware consumed.
That isn't carbon emitted for people to get where they want to go, or produce food or medicine or art. It is so people can scam, speculate on get rich quick schemes, and pay for crimes.
If you want to play at beinga cyberpunk, at least don't pretend the rest of us aren't paying the price for your games.
posted by pattern juggler at 10:31 AM on October 9 [10 favorites]
You keep talking about "priorities", as if people are criticizing cryptocurrency out of the blue because they hate it so much, rather than because it is the subject of this post. If the best defense of crypto is that it isn't the greatest threat to the world today, that's pretty wretched.
So first to the scams, crypto is actually very useful to scammers because it provides a way of avoiding normal banking protections. It is also a community of overconfident marks who believe themselves to be experts. But those are just regular scammers using crypto. Crypto itself is full of scams, from vanishing exchanges, to rug pulls on various new cryptocoins, to the endless price manipulation used to keep the bagholders compliant.
Crypto is an extremely popular was for paying for CSEM. There is a reason for that. CSEM was nearly stanped out until the internet made it viable again. Crypto allows it to function as a commercial venture. If it is possible for these abusers to use another means to secretly exchange money without legal interference, then doesn't that other mechanism fulfill all the possible functions of crypto as an untraceable, decentralized currency? But if they can't, how can you say crypto plays no significant role in funding child abuse?
And last, to the size of the "dent" Bitcoin's elimination would produce in carbon emissions, the answer is about . 2%. That is one five hundredth the total carbon emissions of the whole rest of the planet. About as much produced by the entire nation of Greece. And that is just Bitcoin, not other crypto, or the impact of the hardware consumed.
That isn't carbon emitted for people to get where they want to go, or produce food or medicine or art. It is so people can scam, speculate on get rich quick schemes, and pay for crimes.
If you want to play at beinga cyberpunk, at least don't pretend the rest of us aren't paying the price for your games.
posted by pattern juggler at 10:31 AM on October 9 [10 favorites]
Oh please. Ending bitcoin would not make a detectable dent on [...] environmental emissions.
0.2% of all global emissions (likely only to have grown since then) is not undetectable.
posted by Dysk at 10:34 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
0.2% of all global emissions (likely only to have grown since then) is not undetectable.
posted by Dysk at 10:34 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]
Accelerando was satire.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:35 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:35 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Can any Bitcoin advocate point to anyone, anywhere, that has achieved liberation through the technology?
It probably did make buying drugs safer for a lot of people, for a while anyway. I think sometimes people think I’m joking when I say things like this as a positive but I’m not really, that’s the best application I’ve seen to date. I do mean this as faint praise, but I’m a lot more sympathetic to the environmental argument against than I am the “people do illegal things with it” argument, especially since the latter balances on a knife’s edge with “don’t these idiots know it’s not actually anonymous?”
posted by atoxyl at 11:02 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
It probably did make buying drugs safer for a lot of people, for a while anyway. I think sometimes people think I’m joking when I say things like this as a positive but I’m not really, that’s the best application I’ve seen to date. I do mean this as faint praise, but I’m a lot more sympathetic to the environmental argument against than I am the “people do illegal things with it” argument, especially since the latter balances on a knife’s edge with “don’t these idiots know it’s not actually anonymous?”
posted by atoxyl at 11:02 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Clearly my dude both Stross and I are talking about criminalizing possession
You know how much energy it takes to keep bitcoin in your wallet? Zero. No energy. Because you aren't storing anything. You just have some cryptographic tokens and a secret key. Those are basically just strings of text like 3W897HFIUES45F87GUYGF49GYU4FA987342OHWFO8W34G678923OIYGKJHDSKHV038973245786TOEG4, stored somewhere, just like your emails. The only time you use any energy is when you buy, sell or mine bitcoin. So criminalizing possession is missing the point entirely. Especially since it can be gifted without any energy use at all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:32 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
You know how much energy it takes to keep bitcoin in your wallet? Zero. No energy. Because you aren't storing anything. You just have some cryptographic tokens and a secret key. Those are basically just strings of text like 3W897HFIUES45F87GUYGF49GYU4FA987342OHWFO8W34G678923OIYGKJHDSKHV038973245786TOEG4, stored somewhere, just like your emails. The only time you use any energy is when you buy, sell or mine bitcoin. So criminalizing possession is missing the point entirely. Especially since it can be gifted without any energy use at all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:32 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
There are degrees of anonymity. If you make a sufficient stink, the resources can be extended to identify you. But small transactions that don't anger anyone with pull can remain anonymous for most purposes. Basically you can buy contraband (good or bad) but if the government wants your id, they can get it.
So it is good for small scale crime and money laundering, but useless for any genuinely revolutionary or disruptive action.
Right now crypto still benefits those with the power to break it more than it vexes them. If that changes, it will be gone very quickly.
posted by pattern juggler at 11:36 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
So it is good for small scale crime and money laundering, but useless for any genuinely revolutionary or disruptive action.
Right now crypto still benefits those with the power to break it more than it vexes them. If that changes, it will be gone very quickly.
posted by pattern juggler at 11:36 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
You know how much energy it takes to keep bitcoin in your wallet? Zero. No energy. Because you aren't storing anything. You just have some cryptographic tokens and a secret key. Those are basically just strings of text like [text string removed for formatting], stored somewhere, just like your emails. The only time you use any energy is when you buy, sell or mine bitcoin. So criminalizing possession is missing the point entirely. Especially since it can be gifted without any energy use at all.
I'm assuming this zero-energy gifting you're referring to is the ability to just give someone else those strings of text so that they have them in their possession, right?
But isn't the whole point of crypto to track all transactions with inviolable records in a distributed ledger? Not recording the transaction may not use any energy, but it also doesn't record the transaction and introduces ambiguity over who owns those tokens. At that point, why are you even gifting crypto? Why not give someone cash if your goal is not to use any energy?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:44 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I'm assuming this zero-energy gifting you're referring to is the ability to just give someone else those strings of text so that they have them in their possession, right?
But isn't the whole point of crypto to track all transactions with inviolable records in a distributed ledger? Not recording the transaction may not use any energy, but it also doesn't record the transaction and introduces ambiguity over who owns those tokens. At that point, why are you even gifting crypto? Why not give someone cash if your goal is not to use any energy?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:44 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Clearly my dude both Stross and I are talking about criminalizing possession
This is an insane policy suggestion and people should be embarrassed to treat it seriously. If you actually wanted to crack down you’d go after mining, since that’s the part that consumes the bulk of the energy (also making it hard to hide at scale) and it makes the whole thing work.
posted by atoxyl at 11:47 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
This is an insane policy suggestion and people should be embarrassed to treat it seriously. If you actually wanted to crack down you’d go after mining, since that’s the part that consumes the bulk of the energy (also making it hard to hide at scale) and it makes the whole thing work.
posted by atoxyl at 11:47 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
> pattern juggler
Oh, i'm not defending the use of black/gray market privacy focused crypto which the CSAM fucks are actually using for the bulk of their repulsive trade. Kill that all you want. I have never and will never touch that stuff.
If you killed bitcoin you would remove an avenue for these creeps to get caught when they make is mistake. Bitcoin is not the best in practice for criminals trying to evade laws and regulations these days. Increasing amounts of bitcoin exist in or have been linked to the KYC domain now.
This is why I question your priorities. Whether you like it or not, bitcoin and "crypto" are not interchangeable... unless you just want to rage against a strawman?
0.2% of human GHG emissions is a figure I agree upon but as the economic maxim goes, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You don't get an innovative new globally accessible monetary system for nothing. In a world where double digits % of GHG could be easily eliminated by people if they just stopped harming animals I am not going to get too concerned over 0.2% when it delivers actual utility to my and many others lives.
Humans GHG emissions are rising around 1% per year.
There is evidence that suggestions bitcoin could help support the global transition to renewable energy. This argument is not the black and white one you are making it out to be.
It is so people can scam, speculate on get rich quick schemes, and pay for crimes.
Bitcoin is my savings account. Most people who use bitcoin are using it for what amounts to inflation proof, get rich slowly, long term savings. This is not exciting. This does not generate headlines and clickbait. For some reason, people who don't like bitcoin rarely mention this.
The real mundane truth is that bitcoin is mostly just a boring global bank which authorities can peer into and effectively regulate via the control of exit and on ramps that couple it to the wider financial world.
posted by neonamber at 11:48 AM on October 9
Oh, i'm not defending the use of black/gray market privacy focused crypto which the CSAM fucks are actually using for the bulk of their repulsive trade. Kill that all you want. I have never and will never touch that stuff.
If you killed bitcoin you would remove an avenue for these creeps to get caught when they make is mistake. Bitcoin is not the best in practice for criminals trying to evade laws and regulations these days. Increasing amounts of bitcoin exist in or have been linked to the KYC domain now.
This is why I question your priorities. Whether you like it or not, bitcoin and "crypto" are not interchangeable... unless you just want to rage against a strawman?
0.2% of human GHG emissions is a figure I agree upon but as the economic maxim goes, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You don't get an innovative new globally accessible monetary system for nothing. In a world where double digits % of GHG could be easily eliminated by people if they just stopped harming animals I am not going to get too concerned over 0.2% when it delivers actual utility to my and many others lives.
Humans GHG emissions are rising around 1% per year.
There is evidence that suggestions bitcoin could help support the global transition to renewable energy. This argument is not the black and white one you are making it out to be.
It is so people can scam, speculate on get rich quick schemes, and pay for crimes.
Bitcoin is my savings account. Most people who use bitcoin are using it for what amounts to inflation proof, get rich slowly, long term savings. This is not exciting. This does not generate headlines and clickbait. For some reason, people who don't like bitcoin rarely mention this.
The real mundane truth is that bitcoin is mostly just a boring global bank which authorities can peer into and effectively regulate via the control of exit and on ramps that couple it to the wider financial world.
posted by neonamber at 11:48 AM on October 9
So it is good for small scale crime and money laundering, but useless for any genuinely revolutionary or disruptive action.
Well, sure, but this could just as easily be framed as “if you’re buying a gram of molly you’re probably safe but if you’re running a large criminal operation you’re not” which to me starts to sound like a defense. It’s just one of those things where people seem to want to argue simultaneously that a thing is useless and that its uses are unacceptably dangerous and come on, you’ve got to pick one. I’m team “it’s not that useful and the externalities via energy consumption are bad” but I’m not going to be tricked into arguing implicitly that online privacy tools should be outlawed just because I don’t like crypto people.
posted by atoxyl at 11:57 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Well, sure, but this could just as easily be framed as “if you’re buying a gram of molly you’re probably safe but if you’re running a large criminal operation you’re not” which to me starts to sound like a defense. It’s just one of those things where people seem to want to argue simultaneously that a thing is useless and that its uses are unacceptably dangerous and come on, you’ve got to pick one. I’m team “it’s not that useful and the externalities via energy consumption are bad” but I’m not going to be tricked into arguing implicitly that online privacy tools should be outlawed just because I don’t like crypto people.
posted by atoxyl at 11:57 AM on October 9 [2 favorites]
There is evidence that suggestions bitcoin could help support the global transition to renewable energy. This argument is not the black and white one you are making it out to be.
But what about reducing that gap and making sure renewable projects have connections to the grid before they come online? Why are these projects sitting around idly generating electricity that has nowhere to go in the first place?
[This is speculation, but I'm guessing a big part of it probably has something to do with the fact that the paper identifies Texas as a place that has the most to gain because it's renewables are taking the longest to integrate with the grid--I wonder why!]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:00 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
A new study led by Cornell researchers investigated planned renewable energy projects across the U.S. and calculated each project’s potential to profit from bitcoin mining during the precommercial development phase, when a wind or solar farm is generating electricity, but has not yet been integrated into the grid.So basically the paper proposes that powering bitcoin mining could be a way to make money selling power that couldn't otherwise be sold because there's a gap between when renewables come online and when they're connected to the grid.
But what about reducing that gap and making sure renewable projects have connections to the grid before they come online? Why are these projects sitting around idly generating electricity that has nowhere to go in the first place?
[This is speculation, but I'm guessing a big part of it probably has something to do with the fact that the paper identifies Texas as a place that has the most to gain because it's renewables are taking the longest to integrate with the grid--I wonder why!]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:00 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
inflation proof
I'm sorry, but did you type that with a straight face? Bitcoin's phenomenally more volatile than regular money.
posted by grubi at 12:07 PM on October 9 [8 favorites]
I'm sorry, but did you type that with a straight face? Bitcoin's phenomenally more volatile than regular money.
posted by grubi at 12:07 PM on October 9 [8 favorites]
It’s inflation proof in the sense that it’s deflationary by design (this is not actually a good feature)
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
The business case for a renewable energy investment can be bolstered by the presence of a reliable profitable load in the local market.
Long term investments in renewable energy infrastructure are looking to make an return in the future. You aim where the target will be, not where it is now. This means potentially building ahead of wider grid connectivity or ahead of customer demand.
When you have a hyper mobile and reliably profitable interim load on last resort you can potentially be more confident about an investment, knowing a customer can easily be conjured to bridge the gap.
This isn't rocket surgery but your intuition that bitcoin MUST be bad because it uses power is missing the point. It can potentially accelerate renewables roll by virtue of the particular kind of load it represents economically.
posted by neonamber at 12:19 PM on October 9
Long term investments in renewable energy infrastructure are looking to make an return in the future. You aim where the target will be, not where it is now. This means potentially building ahead of wider grid connectivity or ahead of customer demand.
When you have a hyper mobile and reliably profitable interim load on last resort you can potentially be more confident about an investment, knowing a customer can easily be conjured to bridge the gap.
This isn't rocket surgery but your intuition that bitcoin MUST be bad because it uses power is missing the point. It can potentially accelerate renewables roll by virtue of the particular kind of load it represents economically.
posted by neonamber at 12:19 PM on October 9
0.2% of human GHG emissions is a figure I agree upon but as the economic maxim goes, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You don't get an innovative new globally accessible monetary system for nothing.
So what is the benefit of bitcoin mining that we should permit this to happen? It's innovative! Who cares? It's decentralized! So what? These things produce no value in themselves. Why should we permit these people to get rich at the expense of the survivability of the planet?
CO2 is turning the oceans to acid and making storms like the one threatening actual people alive today worse and more common and will continue to do so. Miners are producing tens of millions of tons of it to try to make a buck while producing nothing but pollution. Crypto isn't the only thing we need to destroy to reach a sustainable level of production, but it is damned well on the list.
If you killed bitcoin you would remove an avenue for these creeps to get caught when they make is mistake. Bitcoin is not the best in practice for criminals trying to evade laws and regulations these days.
So it is untraceable if they don't make a mistake. But they will and this gets them caught. This doesn't work well as a defense. If it is so unreliable it can't be used secretly, then its whole revolutionary value as an untraceable, decentralized currency is bunk and useless for selling drugs, the only positive value it might have.. If it can, it is still plenty useful for funding bad crimes. But transactions involving material goods online don't work nearly as well as ones moving data.
Amazon is beset by scammers, despite having access to actual law enforcement and the ability for banks and credit card companies to do chargebacks. A black market where you have to provide a shipping address to have materials sent to you, and where any violation of security on the sellers end leaves you exposed is very difficult to make work. And as soon as you have enough reliability to form a stable market, you are moving enough cash to make you worth netting, and your customers and vendors are screwed. There is a reason the Silk Road never came back.
Moving data is much more reliable and secure. And there aren't too many bits of black market data any decent person wants to be sellable. It is somewhat useful allowing online sex workers to operate around the restrictions of credit card and payment processing companies, but it seems like a law might be a more effective way to do that without creating a currency for CSEM or requiring sex workers to use an unstable and difficult to process junk currency as a work around. Again Bitcoin fails at the desirable use cases but exceeds at the horrible ones.
There is evidence that suggestions bitcoin could help support the global transition to renewable energy. This argument is not the black and white one you are making it out to be.
No, there isn't, and yes it is.
Bitcoin is my savings account. Most people who use bitcoin are using it for what amounts to inflation proof, get rich slowly, long term savings.
This is incredibly unwise, and I sincerely hope you don't get fleeced like so many others have. Bitcoin adds no value to the world. It just lets bad people suck up more of what is already there.
Well, sure, but this could just as easily be framed as “if you’re buying a gram of molly you’re probably safe but if you’re running a large criminal operation you’re not” which to me starts to sound like a defense.
Except it is really hard to buy safe drugs online with cryptocurrency these days. A genuinely reliable black market might justify a lot of other harms, but crypto can't produce that, because as soon as it exists, you've graduated to big enough fish.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:25 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
So what is the benefit of bitcoin mining that we should permit this to happen? It's innovative! Who cares? It's decentralized! So what? These things produce no value in themselves. Why should we permit these people to get rich at the expense of the survivability of the planet?
CO2 is turning the oceans to acid and making storms like the one threatening actual people alive today worse and more common and will continue to do so. Miners are producing tens of millions of tons of it to try to make a buck while producing nothing but pollution. Crypto isn't the only thing we need to destroy to reach a sustainable level of production, but it is damned well on the list.
If you killed bitcoin you would remove an avenue for these creeps to get caught when they make is mistake. Bitcoin is not the best in practice for criminals trying to evade laws and regulations these days.
So it is untraceable if they don't make a mistake. But they will and this gets them caught. This doesn't work well as a defense. If it is so unreliable it can't be used secretly, then its whole revolutionary value as an untraceable, decentralized currency is bunk and useless for selling drugs, the only positive value it might have.. If it can, it is still plenty useful for funding bad crimes. But transactions involving material goods online don't work nearly as well as ones moving data.
Amazon is beset by scammers, despite having access to actual law enforcement and the ability for banks and credit card companies to do chargebacks. A black market where you have to provide a shipping address to have materials sent to you, and where any violation of security on the sellers end leaves you exposed is very difficult to make work. And as soon as you have enough reliability to form a stable market, you are moving enough cash to make you worth netting, and your customers and vendors are screwed. There is a reason the Silk Road never came back.
Moving data is much more reliable and secure. And there aren't too many bits of black market data any decent person wants to be sellable. It is somewhat useful allowing online sex workers to operate around the restrictions of credit card and payment processing companies, but it seems like a law might be a more effective way to do that without creating a currency for CSEM or requiring sex workers to use an unstable and difficult to process junk currency as a work around. Again Bitcoin fails at the desirable use cases but exceeds at the horrible ones.
There is evidence that suggestions bitcoin could help support the global transition to renewable energy. This argument is not the black and white one you are making it out to be.
No, there isn't, and yes it is.
Bitcoin is my savings account. Most people who use bitcoin are using it for what amounts to inflation proof, get rich slowly, long term savings.
This is incredibly unwise, and I sincerely hope you don't get fleeced like so many others have. Bitcoin adds no value to the world. It just lets bad people suck up more of what is already there.
Well, sure, but this could just as easily be framed as “if you’re buying a gram of molly you’re probably safe but if you’re running a large criminal operation you’re not” which to me starts to sound like a defense.
Except it is really hard to buy safe drugs online with cryptocurrency these days. A genuinely reliable black market might justify a lot of other harms, but crypto can't produce that, because as soon as it exists, you've graduated to big enough fish.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:25 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
> So it is untraceable if they don't make a mistake.
No! Bitcoin is not untraceable. Bitcoin has never been untraceable. Bitcoin is an open ledger that every man and his dog can download and peer into Every Single Base Layer Transaction Since It's Inception. If you are under the impression that untraceability bitcoin is one of bitcoins selling points then you are woefully ignorant.
This idea that bitcoin is popular because it's anonymous or untraceable is one produced by sampling bias and click/rage bait media.
Jesus christ, if you're going to be so rabidly against something do your bloody homework on it before ranting about arresting people.
posted by neonamber at 12:45 PM on October 9
No! Bitcoin is not untraceable. Bitcoin has never been untraceable. Bitcoin is an open ledger that every man and his dog can download and peer into Every Single Base Layer Transaction Since It's Inception. If you are under the impression that untraceability bitcoin is one of bitcoins selling points then you are woefully ignorant.
This idea that bitcoin is popular because it's anonymous or untraceable is one produced by sampling bias and click/rage bait media.
Jesus christ, if you're going to be so rabidly against something do your bloody homework on it before ranting about arresting people.
posted by neonamber at 12:45 PM on October 9
neoamber, the paper you linked to is not evidence. Evidence must be evident, something measurable in the real world that folks have taken a great deal of trouble to make sure was measured without bias. Using models to predict what *could* happen does not produce evidence.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:47 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:47 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
This idea that bitcoin is popular because it's anonymous or untraceable is one produced by sampling bias and click/rage bait media.
Anonymity is definitely a major reason it is popular. It just isn't especially accurate.
It is "untraceable" only in that there is no immediate way to identify a single person with a transaction if they are being fairly careful about their identity and the people with the resources to find them any way don't bother.
My point was that you argument for bitcoin, that it lets purchasers of CSEM be caught when they make a mistake is a bad defense of Bitcoin. It is secure enough to make such a market possible, but not to protect anyone doing anything that seriously threatens any kind of government hegemony.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:56 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Anonymity is definitely a major reason it is popular. It just isn't especially accurate.
It is "untraceable" only in that there is no immediate way to identify a single person with a transaction if they are being fairly careful about their identity and the people with the resources to find them any way don't bother.
My point was that you argument for bitcoin, that it lets purchasers of CSEM be caught when they make a mistake is a bad defense of Bitcoin. It is secure enough to make such a market possible, but not to protect anyone doing anything that seriously threatens any kind of government hegemony.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:56 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
When you have a hyper mobile and reliably profitable interim load on last resort you can potentially be more confident about an investment, knowing a customer can easily be conjured to bridge the gap.
Why bother connecting to the grid at all if there's a tulip farm next door who will reliably buy up enough of your energy?
You're also assuming the bitcoin load truly is mobile and not a demand that's induced by the availability of cheap power. It's great if the load represented by bitcoin is being taken off the grid elsewhere, but uh, that's probably not what's going to happen.
This isn't rocket surgery but your intuition that bitcoin MUST be bad because it uses power is missing the point. It can potentially accelerate renewables roll by virtue of the particular kind of load it represents economically.
But that load doesn't have to exist in the first place because Bitcoin isn't really contributing anythig worthwhile. It's like spending money to make money, or Bart Simpson promising to take up smoking so he can save money by giving up cigarettes.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:03 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]
You don't get an innovative new globally accessible monetary system for nothing.
You also don't get that by supporting seven transactions per second, unless you are prepared to create a global system in which everyone gets to make one to three transactions in their entire lifespan.
...go ahead, "spend" one thousand sats, and have that transaction complete and written on the blockchain within the next thirty seconds. I dare you.
I can do that with the access point to the existing banking system that's sitting in my pocket. I can also do it using the printed tokens which are sitting in my other pocket. In fact, I'm gonna do exactly that when I go buy beer at the 7-11 in a few minutes.
posted by aramaic at 1:09 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]
You also don't get that by supporting seven transactions per second, unless you are prepared to create a global system in which everyone gets to make one to three transactions in their entire lifespan.
...go ahead, "spend" one thousand sats, and have that transaction complete and written on the blockchain within the next thirty seconds. I dare you.
I can do that with the access point to the existing banking system that's sitting in my pocket. I can also do it using the printed tokens which are sitting in my other pocket. In fact, I'm gonna do exactly that when I go buy beer at the 7-11 in a few minutes.
posted by aramaic at 1:09 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]
I confess: I am Satushi Nakamuti.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:39 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 1:39 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Except it is really hard to buy safe drugs online with cryptocurrency these days.
I don’t think that’s true - at least I don’t think it’s any worse than buying anywhere else.
posted by atoxyl at 1:54 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I don’t think that’s true - at least I don’t think it’s any worse than buying anywhere else.
posted by atoxyl at 1:54 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I think one could attempt to put together an argument that Bitcoin bears some responsibility for the rise of fentanyl by enabling the online black market during the period of time in which it became a popular product, if one views this as a path-dependent outcome of an intersection of the (preexisting) online grey market/RC culture with globalized supply chains and booming demand. But one could also view it as an inevitable outcome of globalized supply chains and booming demand!
posted by atoxyl at 2:01 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 2:01 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
You may be right. I am going on second hand accounts, because I am old and square.
posted by pattern juggler at 2:01 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by pattern juggler at 2:01 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I am also well past having anything to do with this kind of thing but back in the day online was good for quality (because fewer middlemen) and I don’t think there’s a reason it would be worse than the street now. Some things are just much less safe all around now, though.
posted by atoxyl at 2:06 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 2:06 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Bitcoin is my savings account. Most people who use bitcoin are using it for what amounts to inflation proof, get rich slowly, long term savings.
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:00 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:00 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
North Korea loves cryptocurrency. Perhaps they were Satoshi.
posted by funkaspuck at 3:41 PM on October 9
posted by funkaspuck at 3:41 PM on October 9
star gentle uterus,
Can
I
Ask
what your simple explanation is?
posted by turbowombat at 3:50 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Can
I
Ask
what your simple explanation is?
posted by turbowombat at 3:50 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Strong arguing-with-precocious-but-wrong-teenager vibes in this thread. Woof.
posted by klanawa at 9:17 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by klanawa at 9:17 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
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posted by neonamber at 10:58 PM on October 8 [16 favorites]