It looks like other blockchain technologies (altcoins) have been the victim of 51% attacks, so I'm going to read up on their repercussions. I wonder if they were carried out by bitcoiners who don't like competition?
It occurs to me that little can probably be done to stop attacks on distributed systems by large actors with non-monetary goals. If people are willing to throw a lot of resources into destroying a fledgling technology, they will probably succeed.
I do have an idea for a distributed public ledger in which attacks are possible but always negative-sum. I have little experience with cryptography so its probably rubbish. If it looks to not be terrible I will probably post it here for comment.
Thanks, I did not know about https://blockchain.info/pools.
On the 51% attacks, I was specifically thinking of state actors. However, mightn't any eventuality which leads to a lot of Bitcoiners who aren't enthusiasts or have ulterior motives (Bond villains?) be an issue? The current state of the BC community is probably mostly BC enthusiasts, i.e. people who aren't just in it for the money.
You're right that "wasted" was a poor term; "inefficient" would be better.
I'm a software dev who is considering becoming a bitcoiner, mostly to explore its possibilities. I think a currency free from the baggage of the modern financial systems will allow great things to be done. I see lots of other people are thinking the same way (there are numerous BC prediction markets, for example).
However, I don't want to invest time and money in a seriously flawed or doomed system.
BC appears to have at least one potentially-fatal flaw: the 51% attack. I'm unsure why it was assumed this would not be a problem? Profits from mining would seem to increase when on reaches over 50% of the world's mining power. This would seem... (read 164 more words →)
Why does anyone think BitCoin is going to work when its users aren't mostly BitCoin enthusiasts?
I'm specifically referring to incentives of 51% attacks. The returns on mining seem to increase as computing power eclipses 50%, creating an economy of scale in mining and incentivicing attacks.
The information in a science textbook is (or should be) considered scientific because of the processes used to vet it. Absent of this process its just conjecture.
I often wonder if this position is unpopular because of its implications for economics and climatology.
Macroeconomics? Sure, its highly politicized so in many cases I'll agree with that. But microeconomics is in many ways the study of how to rationally deal with scarcity. IMO, traditional micro assuming homo-economicus is actually more interesting (and useful, outside of politics) than the behavioral stuff for this reason.
Is there overwhelming evidence on the safety (not efficacy) of vaccines somewhere, and I've just missed it?
I used to just trust the word of the experts, because I am not an expert and had no incentive to become one. I didn't have a lot of faith in such a politicized science, but reasoned it was probably better than anything I could come up with. I trusted the IPCC reports, but after reading about Climategate thought they were exaggerated a bit as a means to gain political power.
Recently I've started to consider investing in alternative energy. Given that most alternative energy (especially with the fracking and shale oil revolutions) is based on AGW being a serious problem, I thought it deserved a real look.
I was appalled to see a... (read 362 more words →)
Agreed. Powerful people (especially politicians) seem to hold plenty of irrational beliefs. Of course we can't really tell the difference between lying about irrational beliefs and hypocrisy, if there's a meaningful difference for the outside observer at all.
The quote refers to the (end) market and users, not the internal workings of a software development firm.
I've also been following COVID-19 for investment reasons. Every study I've read of the disease indicates it is extremely contagious relative to the flu. This recent retrospective study indicates that prior to Feb 5th, R0 in China were between 4.7 and 6.6. Time to double was 2.4 days:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1.full.pdf
However since then China has made herculean efforts to stop the spread of the disease. R0 has certainly plummeted. So I'm not sure what to think. I would imagine officially reported numbers from any country are going to be limited by testing. How many people going to the doctor with flu-like symptoms get a COVID-2019 test? It sounds like no one except Korea and... (read more)