Regulation enables this kind of thing systemically. Let this happen a few times without regulation and the market will demand trustworthy solutions, not some politician waving a magic wand and declaring something safe. As we've seen recently that system doesn't work too well.
Everyone who lost money in this knew the risks. Nobody is calling for accountability beyond the guy that actually is accountable. How refreshing is that? How refreshing is it to actually have a name of the person who fucked up, instead of a stream of pseudonymous apologetic soundbites from banks/regulators/politicians?
Not to mention the fact this whole problem is completely self contained. There is no talk of rescuing MtGox with tax money, or the need for a "national debate" on how to run this shit in the future. If you didn't run MtGox or have money in MtGox or don't outright choose to be involve yourself in some other way then you can go to bed at night and sleep well knowing it is absolutely not your problem.
This, friends, is one example of the many long forgotten benefits of private trade.
There's no talk of rescuing MtGox with tax money because the size of MtGox is small enough that the losses are pocket change in the great scale of things. There's no risk of a new global recession over MtGox.
I think you'd find the debate would have been entirely different if the scale of it wasn't such that most people, if asked, would go "MtGox? What's that?"
When did the world get so sensitive? I don't know if I grew up in some bubble of hate but where I come from people were brought up to be able to handle themselves.
> "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me."
Today it seems more like "Sticks and stones may break my bones but that's okay because there'll likely be DNA evidence; names are not allowed because it breaches my human right to be."
I'm sorry, but my kids will be brought up to ignore names and to punch the bully back twice as hard in person, not in the press; and they will be taught to appreciate differences, not gloss over them and pretend they don't exist. Perhaps most of all they'll be taught to pity those that have brought politics-level bullshit into everyday life, and to rail against it at every opportunity. The Github meritocracy rug fiasco makes me feel physically sick - meritocracy is now offensive? We're now being held at gunpoint by professional victims who have a problem with professional status being merit based? Fuck me.
Humanity has been at war of one kind or another forever, when are we going to learn to stop trying to change each other and just get on with it? I never understand those people in bars who get into fights with others who say something they deem offensive. What a waste of time. Sure you might change the view of 1 in a 100, but that's 100 shitty nights out you've had. What's the point? And who's to say you're right and he's wrong? If you think there's such a thing as a moral absolute, I'm afraid you haven't thought long enough. Despite how the NSA might like things, we're all sovereign beings and no one has the right to dictate the contents of another's mind. So cluster with the ones you like and forget the rest. Life's too damn short.
Oh, and don't feel the need to tell me I don't know what it's like to be on the receiving end of this stuff. Just don't.
> I never understand those people in bars who get into fights with others who say something they deem offensive. What a waste of time. Sure you might change the view of 1 in a 100, but that's 100 shitty nights out you've had. What's the point?
If they back down, they'll look weak. Looking weak can be a survival issue for some people, (or more commonly seems to be felt like one even when it's not,) especially if they don't have much faith in the rules of fair play.
"my kids will be brought up to ignore names and to punch the bully back twice as hard in person" vs "I never understand those people in bars who get into fights with others who say something they deem offensive"
This man is peddling a book. I'm not saying that precludes his correctness but it does mean that the more analytical of us should apply a little more salt to our appraisal of his motivations than a journalist might.
The absurdity of this kind of thought is just profound. Thinking like this may be useful as a means of encouraging hope when all hope is lost, but Bitcoin is nowhere near there yet. Most of all this kind of talk smacks of deep desperation - "why won't people love me?"
I understand fully why one might feel so desperate. Bitcoin may have the potential to be truly revolutionary. Bitcoin solves the problem of orchestrating an international currency in a manner that limits the implementation details to the design, not banking/payment industry/political types who historically - for one reason or another - end up building in significant rigidities to the system.
It doesn't take a PhD in Economics to see the potential benefits of eradicating PayPal and consumer banks (although it may take one to see the potential pitfalls). More than this though, Bitcoin opens the door to truly free capital flow. It is possible to work in the Western world for a month or two and move, say, far East, and live like a king on the savings for a year or more. Why can't we just buy the stuff over there cheaply and consume it at home? One major reason is the rigidities in capital flow - it is hard, risky business in the current system. As a large company in a Bitcoin world you don't have to worry about a great class of risks of international trade, dumping money into the Cambodian economy is no longer a question of FX risk and "can I get it back out?"
This is a great step forward on the way to homogenising international capital stores i.e. ceteris paribus, rich people buy where things are cheapest, like in Cambodia, thereby flowing capital to, and driving up prices in, Cambodia. Cambodians get richer and the West gets poorer. Bitcoin has the vague potential to be the great equalizer.
We have seen some evidence of this at work in the EU with the Euro, if you look past the troubling dynamics of transition. Imagine how very different the US would be if every state had a different currency and payment processing rules, the diversity in income would be profound.
An educated economist will see a great many problems with this utopian vision, but will likely agree the aim is noble and that the basis - Bitcoin - is the closest thing we have so far to a workable solution.
Bitcoin may be as revolutionary as the fanboys want it to be, even if they don't understand why. My personal thought is that Bitcoin will soon be seen as the thing that started it all, but the solution won't be Bitcoin itself. There are too many problems - no matter how many times you read that a fixed supply currency is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it really isn't. It's also woefully easy to steal and the mining/verification mechanism is far too resource intensive and encouraging of looney speculation making its value at any point in time completely impossible to reason about.
If you love BTC today, don't spout bullshit strings of meaningless words in some grandiose display of being ahead of the times. Make it stronger and better because if you don't history will judge this whole thing very severely in 10 years time, when it really is just a way of buying drugs and hitmen.
I think the issue is that bitcoin fanatics assume something is deeply wrong with our current system, or that banks are parasitic and not providing any value. Sure there are places it can be improved, but the current system works well for many people. Before credit cards we had to rely on informal credit. Sure, I could open a bar tab at a local place where I'm a regular, or the man at the corner store might let me run up a small bill. Your word was your bond, but if you left town, wanted to make a large purchase or weren't from the right family (or had the wrong color skin), it was a cash only world.
Right now I can travel to any corner of the globe and make transactions on credit with someone who knows nothing about me and has never seen my face. He's confident that he'll be paid and I'm confident that I have recourse in the event of a bad transaction. I don't have to carry large amounts of cash or worry about being robbed. If my card is stolen my liability is relatively small. That costs something, but people overwhelmingly see value in it and are willing to pay this cost.
I agree with both you and the fanboys on this point, however. Our current system is better than the old, for sure, but at the end of the day it is true that an insane amount of money is paid to these oligopolous firms as fees for doing a very simple job. Payment processing really is a case of moving database rows around, albeit in a highly available manner, yet they demand huge percentages. My bank goes down about as often as my Gmail, and the latter's free and deals with more information than my bank.
The present is better than the old, but very bad compared to what could be.
This is really secondary to the actual real value these things would represent. Yes, they must be limited in supply, just as money must be - money would be useless if it grew on trees.
Your comment really only deals with the inflation rate of hashcash, which is a nominal thing and can be discounted in the presence of efficiency.
As I explained at more length in a comment on the post itself, the value of these things is a function of the dirty spammy goods they represent. To quote myself...
> Just as money is "stored labour", hashcash would become stored mail order viagra.
We have nothing in common anymore. We're just too different on every level that counts. We've tried to make it work - or rather, I have - but it's no good. You never respond, most of the time you don't even acknowledge me or what I say.
I'm not happy. You're not happy. It's pointless.
I'd leave you if I could, but you won't let me and I don't see that changing. I know you'd harass me, stalk me, spy on me, and treat me like a criminal. Isn't it funny that you'd take notice then. You're nothing but a sociopathic bully, set in your ways, blind to the reality of your actions.
I couldn't leave anyway, there's no where to go - you've seen to that. But I can't keep doing this.
I've begged, pleaded, screamed, and shouted. Nothing works.
As I sit here a perfectly normal, law-abiding, person - wellies on the porch, tea in hand, dog at my feet, plates in the dishwasher - I've come to the only conclusion I can.
People will talk. Most probably won't understand. I'll get tarred with the brush of ignorance and called all sorts of names. As they try to compute the double life I'd led and the lies I'd told they'll only confuse their moral compass further. I'll probably get hurt badly. But it'll all be worth it.
Maybe it's not your fault that you're the way you are but I have no choice now, I have to put me first, I'm sorry.
I going to have to kill you.
________
Disclaimer for security services/LEA/whatnot: this is fiction designed to evoke thought, specifically the dynamics of how extremism comes to be. I am not the character in the above piece, but I am capable of sympathising with him - which is kind of the point. It is categorically not meant with menacing intent or as a threat so you can put your Communications/Terrorism legislation down. Isn't it fucking sad that I have to write that?
> In contrast, traffic fatalities in countries like the United Kingdom, where drivers are uniformly viewed as the greatest danger on streets, are about a third of U.S. rates.
Britain here.
This is absolutely false. We uniformly view cyclists as the greatest danger on the streets. No joke, ask around.
I would suggest the reason for our better stats is down to a) a bloody difficult driving test; b) the thing inside a lot of us that makes the nervous/apologetic stereotype actually be true also makes a lot of us quite risk averse and cautious; c) drink driving is a big no-no with very practical consequences near 100% of the time; d) education of how to cross a road starts at a very young age, the result being no jaywalking laws required and watching people cross busy, fast moving roads in cities looks like doing the same in some developing country except we're proper pro at it; e) the speedbump pandemic, an enormous pain in the arse to have them every 3 ft in residential areas but probably highly effective; f) many, many (most?) pedestrian-accessible roads predate almost all vehicles and are twisty, narrow, and generally difficult to navigate; f) motorways/dual carriageways (70mph) were designed in such a way that they are not at all accessible on foot; g) B-roads (60mph usually, narrow) join 2 interesting places through vast expanses of farmland, there's rarely a reason to be on foot near them.
I think this is key. I'm always amazed at how easy the US "driving test" is. I put it in quotes because it's barely more than a check to see whether or not you're capable of writing your own name. You can pass the practical test without ever exceeding 25MPH.
Worse, you never re-test. I haven't had anyone check my driving in almost two decades. License renewals come in the mail by magic. For all they know, I could have gone blind and senile, but here I am, legal to drive a car. I have to prove my ability to fly a plane every two years to keep doing it legally, but the car is far more dangerous to others when mishandled.
I think we would benefit enormously in the US if we enacted a real driving test that requires actual skill and knowledge, and required re-testing every couple of years. Unfortunately it will never happen. While the American public doesn't really care if their government wastes trillions and invades countries for no reason and spies on everybody and tortures people, try to get between them and their cars and you will see politicians' heads on pikes on the National Mall.
I think what you say about Rails is true. Rails isn't a framework, it's a lifestyle.
I also started to question whether Ruby's type system was just too loose for serious work and was yearning for something as pleasant as Ruby but with at least some type safety. Then yesterday I read this relatively old post https://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/217617 about adding static typing to Ruby. There's a lot of recognisable names in the thread, but the posts from Eleanor McHugh nearer the bottom really helped me understand the power and utility behind the apparent simplicity.
I would love a compiled, statically typed Ruby, but I don't think the Ruby world wants it. I think Ruby is a fine tool in its current state.
I think there is a need for a different language that makes clean architecture natural, well accepted, normal thing. Ruby is great, but trying to change the community and language doesn't seem to be the right approach.
I've thought the same myself but reading that post made it clear to me that such thing couldn't really have much in common with what we call Ruby today.
The solution for the performant/distributed/concurrent/data-intensive problems of today and the future seems, to me, to be in the functional space. I know it's trendy to say that but it's the smart people - Rich Hickey, Simon Peyton Jones, etc - who are driving this evolution. A language with a GIL and zero immutable primitives just doesn't seem to have much to contribute. The idea that Twitter was at scale as a Rails app once upon a time is just absurd to me now.
Incidentally I creeped on your bio and saw you created obvious. I read about Obvious a while back and, although I must admit I haven't used it directly, it really had a strong influence on how I think about structuring Rails applications.
What I would really want from a language wouldn't have much in common with Ruby. It would look like ruby, but be mostly functional, compiled, with great support for immutable data structures, and named parameters. The closest I've found to this is Scala or Kotlin. I haven't had much time to dig deep into either though.
I'm glad Obvious influenced you, but I'm not surprised you didn't use it directly. To be completely honest a lot of what I built in the obvious gem, other languages give you just as language feature. For example comparing similar entity and contract structures in Ruby/Obvious, Mirah, and Scala: https://gist.github.com/brianknapp/6178930 I made Obvious work in Ruby because Ruby provided a great platform for figuring out how to make this work well. However, most Ruby devs either don't get it or don't like it because it's not very Ruby or very Rails.
The best Rails code I've ever written is basically using ActiveRecord to pull in a big data tree from the database and then using that to populate and do calculations on a bunch of immutable data structures using Hamsterdam::Struct. The code is really clean and beautiful and very easy to test. The final computed data structure is then used to populate an immutable presenter that helps generate the view. It is very much in the vein of a functional core and mutable shell concept that Gary Bernhardt advocates. My Obvious apps tend to follow a similar pattern, tho I haven't updated the Obvious site to mention functional core and mutable shell, but the code's kind of always been that way.
You can write great code in Ruby and Rails, but to me it's always going to feel more like a prototyping tool than something that will feel great to maintain for long periods of time.
I've played with Go and I like it well enough, but it doesn't offer anything interesting in the way of immutability. In fact, it doesn't so much offer it at all from what I've seen. Also, I'd like whatever language I land in to support named parameters.
One of the great things about Ruby at the moment is the number of Ruby implementations around, including several Ruby like languages which attempt to do things slightly differently.
Crystal is one language with Ruby like syntax and the goal of compiling to efficient native code. ( http://crystal-lang.org )
Mirah is another statically typed Ruby like JVM based language, although its development is a bit slow. (http://www.mirah.org)
Is this actually type safe, or type safe up until you include an untyped gem and the whole thing becomes indeterminate? Does the typing actually improve performance over straight jRuby?
Can it handle method_missing and *_eval?
Also why is it closed source?
edit: sorry I didn't mean to sound aggressive. please interpret the stream of questions as extreme curiosity.
The type system is roughly the same as in Java, and, as in Java, there are ways around the type system.
> or type safe up until you include an untyped gem and the whole thing becomes indeterminate?
The compiler requires type annotations; you can't include an untyped gem! InfraRuby syntax is compatible with Ruby interpreters, so you can still use your code while you write type annotations for it.
> Does the typing actually improve performance over straight jRuby?
Yes. The compiler is written in Ruby, and uses JRuby to bootstrap. The performance of the compiled compiler compiling the compiler is about 7x JRuby.
> Can it handle method_missing and *_eval?
No. The subset of Ruby supported by InfraRuby excludes metaprogramming and reflection.
> Also why is it closed source?
Because 1. give away your work 2. ??? 3. profit! is not compelling :-p
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Everyone who lost money in this knew the risks. Nobody is calling for accountability beyond the guy that actually is accountable. How refreshing is that? How refreshing is it to actually have a name of the person who fucked up, instead of a stream of pseudonymous apologetic soundbites from banks/regulators/politicians?
Not to mention the fact this whole problem is completely self contained. There is no talk of rescuing MtGox with tax money, or the need for a "national debate" on how to run this shit in the future. If you didn't run MtGox or have money in MtGox or don't outright choose to be involve yourself in some other way then you can go to bed at night and sleep well knowing it is absolutely not your problem.
This, friends, is one example of the many long forgotten benefits of private trade.