Wei_Dai comments on AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Will_Newsome 12 January 2014 02:18AM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 15 March 2014 03:30:08AM *  14 points [-]

I've been getting an increasing number of interview requests from reporters and book writers (stemming from my connection with Bitcoin). In the interest of being lazy, instead of doing more private interviews I figure I'd create an entry here and let them ask questions publicly, so I can avoid having to answer redundant questions. I'm also open to answering any other questions of LW interest here.

In preparation for this AMA, I've updated my script for retrieving and sorting all comments and posts of a given LW user, to also allow filtering by keyword or regex. So you can go to http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/lesswrong_user.php, enter my username "Wei_Dai", then (when the page finishes loading) enter "bitcoin" in the "filter by" box to see all of my comments/posts that mention Bitcoin.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 January 2016 03:12:42AM *  0 points [-]

Comment author: Wei_Dai 15 January 2016 10:38:24PM 1 point [-]

I don't follow Bitcoin development very closely, basically just reading about it if a story shows up on New York Times or Wired. If you're curious as to why, see this post and this thread.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 January 2016 11:27:52PM *  0 points [-]

Comment author: Wei_Dai 05 February 2016 09:12:50PM 1 point [-]

Does your link to the first thread imply that you believe securing one's bitcoin (and realizing its unique benefits) is ultimately a futile venture, especially in the presence of an adversary of advanced intelligence?

Yes, that looks likely to be the case.

To the second link, I guess you mean to imply the monetary policy of Bitcoin is ultimately flawed due to its deflationary nature?

That's part of it. If decentralized cryptocurrency is ultimately good for the world, then Bitcoin may be bad because its flawed monetary policy prevents or delays widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. But another part is that cryptocurrency and other cypherpunk/cryptoanarchist ideas may ultimately be harmful even if they are successful in their goals. For example they tend to make it harder for governments to regulate economic activity, but we may need such regulation to reduce existential risk from AI, nanotech, and other future technologies.

If one wants to push the future in a positive direction, it seems to me that there are better things to work on than Bitcoin.

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