Re: [projectvrm] Blockchain /decentralisation ecosystem and movements.

[Kaliya Identity Woman < >]

On Apr 6, 2015, at 12:05 PM, John Light < " class=""> > wrote:

To summarize, there's a lot more to Bitcoin and the blockchain than can be gleaned from a 3 day conference or a conversation with a few opinionated people, myself included. It's a deep rabbit hole that gets deeper every day; I've been tumbling down it for over 3 years and I still haven't found the bottom yet.

This profound “unclarity” that you have after three years of trying to get it is profoundly disturbing. 

Internet protocols like TCP/IP and HTML were clear and easy to understand for those who dug in and tried to understand.  They were discernible. 

The level of confusion or obfuscation is very high. I would love to see you get to the white board and explain how you think it works. If we can’t understand it it IS NOT REAL and should not be trusted or bet on as a new technology nirvana. 

I also thought of another analogy. there was LOTS of “diversity” in financial instruments prior to the 1929 stock market crash.  It took out a lot of people and a lot of savings and a lot of value.  The reason we have the regulatory environment we have today in the financial sector is BECAUSE of the inability of these markets to actually function honestly and reduce risk for people instead they took down the whole economy. This continues to happen in our social-technical-cultural system. 

The Junk Bonds stuff from the 80’s. Subprime mortgage housing crisis. 

My impression of many schemes being put forward in bitcoin land feel like they could take people off these types of cliffs. 

A cryptograph expert in broader identity community (many of you know) who I have talked to about bitcoin have been clear they think it is a ponzi scheme.  

- Kaliya

- John

On Apr 5, 2015, at 10:32 PM, John Light < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:

On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 10:02 PM, Kaliya Identity Woman < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:

When you show me that the how me the women, Latino/as, African American’s and first Nations People actively leading and THEN you can say “diversity” do describe it.

Xapo is led by a Latino, Wences Casares. 

eSpend, a company I have previously done contracting work for, is led by a Latino, Brian Santos. 

BitPesa is led by a woman, Elizabeth Rossiello. 

Case Wallet is led by a woman, Melanie Shapiro. 

CoinX is led by two women, Megan Burton and Roseanne Lazer. 

BitGive, a charity focused on giving with bitcoin, is led by a woman, Connie Gallippi. Alakanani Itireleng is a woman from Botswana who works tirelessly to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to the people of her country.

Payu Harris is a member of the Oglala Lakota who has been working to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to his tribe through his efforts with the Kimitsu Group and Mazacoin. I could go on, but I hope these examples are sufficient to meet your criteria for "diversity" in bitcoin-land.

There's a meetup dedicated to supporting women in bitcoin in San Francisco called "Women in Bitcoin." Perhaps you could go some time and share your concerns, they would probably be very interested in hearing from you.


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On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 10:02 PM, Kaliya Identity Woman < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:

> On Apr 5, 2015, at 9:51 PM, Philip Browning < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:
>
> Kaliya,
>
> I am not endorsing anyone or anything.

Good so do your own inquiry and ask hard questions don’t just get excited by the so called "diversity and vibrancy” of the exhibition Adrian went to.

When you show me that the how me the women, Latino/as, African American’s and first Nations People actively leading and THEN you can say “diversity” do describe it.

> Like many I am seeking to understand what will work and what is not going to (and from whose perspective it might be said to work - is an interesting question).
>
> Sure there are elements of being able to see a repeating of past mistakes in some ways.

Great I look forward to seeing you proactively supporting communities of women and other people who have not traditionally had access to capital and leading the technology industry.

This means actually unpacking and understanding the default culture that is driving much of tech.

The Ellen Pao case is the tip of the ice-burg. The deep dysfunction of the industry will continue to be revealed.

- Kaliya

>
> Regards, Philip.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kaliya Identity Woman [mailto: " target="_blank" class=""> ]
> Sent: Monday, 6 April 2015 2:29 PM
> To: Philip Browning
> Cc: Phillip Windley; ProjectVRM list
> Subject: [projectvrm] Re: Blockchain /decentralisation ecosystem and movements.
>
> Hi Phil,
>
>> On Apr 5, 2015, at 7:18 PM, Philip Browning < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:
>>
>> Thank you Phil, this articulates my disconnect with what Kaliya is describing.
>>
>> I have spent some considerable time reading and viewing much of the materials around Blockchain in recent months. I am no technical expert,
>
> I am technically competent. I have learned all I know asking technical people to explain their technology. I spent a good deal of time this week in conversations with two different blockchain technology folks - Swarm.Fund and Ethereum.
>
> The swarm conversation was about 3 hours with 20 people and by the end there was a bunch of ahha’s relative to what they were actually doing.  With the Ethereum  I got out a piece of paper and started asking questions getting explanations and getting more clarity based on going deeper into parts I didn’t understand.
>
> It was very clear at the end of this discussion that they young men who work on Ethereum said out loud that bitcoin block chain technology is building one centralized computer distributed across many servers - where all transactions are visible .  It was also clear there was no privacy in this system.
>
> So you can “believe” all the bamboozling you want from the young men who obfuscate the technology with words like crypto.
>
>> The stuff that actually emerges and survives will have to pass the collective bullshit detectors of many that are increasingly distrustful of the institutions of the status quo.
>
> So if we don’t want the status quo then why trust people who are deeply embedded within the status quo of the existing tech world.
>
> When women are leading the development technology then we can talk about “outside the status quo” until then … its the same old same old default culture and assumptions about libertarian individualism.
>
>> Hence those that profess decentralisation and transparency and who don’t live it out BOTH in code/architecture AND their actual personal integrity as a human being will ultimately be their own worst enemies (And fail).
>
> I think we need to as a culture talk about how the systems that underly things actually run and make choices about how to balance the needed trade offs. To work to balance the polarities.  Hence my work and efforts to engage with and learn from the dialogue and deliberation world including my long time association with the Co-intelligence Institute.  We have to be smart about this …and not just “believe” some alpha geeks who say things without actually understanding HOW it actually works.
>
>> If there are wise owls on this list, well time to step up and guide/mentor /critique so as to ensure there is not the repeat of past mistakes.
>>
>
> BitCOIN/blockchain is repeating a bunch of old patterns for how technology is developed.
>
> I suggest you actually get those young men you admire to explain how it actually WORKS like I did this last week before you readily endorse it.
>
> Warm Regards,
> - Kaliya
>
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Phil Windley [mailto: " target="_blank" class=""> ] On Behalf Of Phillip Windley
>> Sent: Monday, 6 April 2015 11:44 AM
>> To: Kaliya Identity Woman; ProjectVRM list
>> Subject: Re: [projectvrm] Moral Proxies as Intent, Autonomous Tech and VRM
>>
>> I think there’s a terminology problem here.
>>
>> You keep saying
>>
>> "There is blockchain technology - sure can be used for all kinds of different uses - it fundamentally is creating a centralized ledger across a lot of different computers.”
>>
>> It’s not centralized. It does create a *single* ledger. But it is not centralized. There is no single point of failure. There is no single entity in charge of it.
>>
>> If you say “single” then I agree (and believe that’s a feature). If you say “centralized” then I think you’re not understanding what centralized means.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/5/15, 7:18 PM, "Kaliya Identity Woman" < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> On Apr 4, 2015, at 5:30 PM, Brian Behlendorf < " target="_blank" class=""> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> This is no more centralized than other fiat currencies, or many other power structures.  It just feels less transparent and accountable, ironically enough.
>>>
>>> Exactly it is not some new decentralized “nirvana”.
>>> I look at it as exchange mechanism basically between fiat currency.
>>>
>>> I suggest reading The end of Money and the Future of Civilizaiton by Tom Grecco if we want to have a good basis of conversation about fiat currency (the money he suggest should end) and the difference between it and mutual credit clearing systems. These could possibly built building blockchain technology - in part because of their ultra transparent ledger.
>>>
>>> TCP/IP is a protocol that supports a fine balance between centralization (addresses are findable in a tree) and then a connection protocol that once to addresses are connected they send information to one another . It is not recorded anywhere. I suggest a great book to understand this and other protocols - Protocol: how Control exists after decentralization.
>>>
>>> There is blockchain technology - sure can be used for all kinds of different uses - it fundamentally is creating a centralized ledger across a lot of different computers.
>>>
>>> Then there is BitCoin and it’s ideological adherents are not explaining it well, the power structures and systems that surround it that Brian alluded to AND the fact it makes all the transactions that flow through IT public.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 4 Apr 2015, Kaliya Identity Woman wrote:
>>>>> Ok and this does what?
>>>>> Makes every transaction seeable and therefore makes us all very vulnerable to entities with more power and money then us.
>>>>
>>>> There are some applications that are more progressive.  There are many developing countries, for example, with very poorly maintained (or non-existing) property title databases of the kind our local governments keep, tracking who owns what parcels of land and what the boundaries are and encroachments and the like.  The lack of these is a serious impediment to economic development and fighting corruption.  In a distributed ledger that is mathematically guaranteed to be consistant, you could track this efficiently and incorruptibly without depending on any single entity to maintain perfect and honest records.  Property could change hands, or be divided, or have a lein recorded against it, etc, in a completely public and verifiable way.
>>>>
>>>> Others are thinking of using blockchains to track greenhouse gas emissions (CFCs in particular, where you can more easily certify who's making them and who's destroying them than, say, CO2).  Another is looking at it as a way to publicly audit supply chains and sourcing, so you could have much greater confidence in the source of the cotton and ink and rubber in those tennis shoes. I'm sure there are other applications.
>>>>
>>>>> Bitcoin builds one super-uber CENTRALIZED computer. it happens to be distributed around many machines but it is super concentrated power in one thing.
>>>>
>>>> One thing that BTC proponents may not even realize the sensitiviy of is the outsized power held by the core development team.  They are the ones who, for instance, set the rates for payouts (how much compute power to generate a new BTC), but they also control the evolution of the protocol. I've had one Bitcoin company pitch us "we have hired many of the core dev team, and so if we need enhancements made to suit our application, we know we can get them made."  That's offensive enough when we're talking about open source projects; there, at least, there's a right to fork.  While the Bitcoin software and protocol are open source licensed, truly forking would be much more difficult, as there's a momentum built up in the global hash engine that would thus need to spin off and join whatever rogue effort is undertaken.  We do see them - look at all the other alt-currencies with different ideas, good for them - but there's still a huge perception of a gap between the interests of those who control BTC and the rest of us.  And that perception is at least as bad as any reality of it may be.
>>>>
>>>> This is no more centralized than other fiat currencies, or many other power structures.  It just feels less transparent and accountable, ironically enough.  It would be helped quite a bit if the BTC community organizations were competent:
>>>>
>>>> https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/1284-the-truth-about-the-bitcoin-foundation/
>>>>
>>>> Brian
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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