Remove Mike Hearn from Press List for Promoting Radical Ideas

[ghost]

Mike Hearn has promoted radical ideas possible detrimental to Bitcoin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD4L7xDNCmA&feature=player_embedded#t=1005s

At 16:45 he presents a slide with the title "Banking but no banks"

He said:
"Can we build a society that looks like the society we have today but is entirely free of banks? There is nothing wrong with banks. (applause) People like that idea. You know the people who work at banks they are usually good people and trying hard in many cases but they have privleged positions and are often abused do things we do not agree with. In general it would be better if we didn't need them."

[saivann]

NACK, I see nothing extreme in that. Not needing banks doesn't mean we want them to disappear. Just to allow people not to be forced to depend on them is nothing radical. Bitcoin is an alternative.

[gmaxwell]

Next thing you know he's going to be predicting the obsolescence of buggy and whip makers! :P

[ghost]

I am just trying to help out. I don't agree with the rules but I am just pointing out when the rules are broken.

I suggest you go around and ask people not that familiar with Bitcoin. ask them if they think Bitcoin should replace banks becuase the bankers have abused their privileged positions. Let me know the kind of responses you get.

@saivann Who is "we" in your comments? I also see you wrote "NACK." Is this part of some type of official voting? I can't find a help file that explains all this.

[saivann]

@millybitcoin : ACK is a simple way to say "I agree", NACK means "I disagree". Mike is saying that a future where we don't need banks would be good. "Not needing" is a lot different than "should replace". And there is no law that forces people to use or obey to banks, so it's not even close to promote anything illegal.

[ghost]

@saivann But are these NACKs and ACKs an official vote or just some comment? I am seeing comments that the system here is that the majority will not dictate to the minority. I don't see any kind of Standard Operating Procedure for this process so I just want to get it straight.

Also, it does not matter what people think who are already involved with Bitcoin because the issue is presenting this to the uninitiated. Have you asked other people? If you did, did you include that part abusing their position or did you cut that part out because it is too radical?

Finally, nobody said anything about promoting something illegal, I said radical. What exactly is the criteria again? I want to get this right because I am going through all these press vids and I want to make sure I am applying the correct criteria.

[mikegogulski]

"Can we build a society that looks like the society we have today but is entirely free of the state? There is nothing wrong with law and order. (applause) People like that idea. You know the people who work for the state are usually good people and trying hard in many cases but they have privileged positions and often abuse them do things we do not agree with. In general it would be better if we didn't need them."

[saivann]

@millybitcoin : As I said, I ( personally ) see nothing radical here. I think that Mike handled the subject in an appropriate way and stayed away from making Bitcoin "a politic battle against banks". And this is in the 2012 london conference, he's not even on any mass media. If he has been so "politically correct" here, then we can expect him to be perfect on television I guess. That's my personal opinion.

NACK and ACK are just easier to notice than "I agree". Votes are useful and have influence, they are just not the final arbiter or are not used to force something on others.

[mikegogulski]

"And there is no law that forces people to use or obey to banks, so it's not even close to promote anything illegal." -- @saivann

I live in Slovakia. Here, if you want a legal job, in almost all cases the employer will not write an employment contract without including a provision that your salary is to be paid monthly, in euros, to an account at a Slovak bank. I'm not sure if that's part of the Labor Code or if it's something companies do in order to avoid accusations of paying people under the table or to make it easier for their (state-mandated!) tax accounting, or whatever.

Now, you can say "there is no law that forces people to use banks" all you like, but the fact is that most people are forced into doing so by the artificially-restricted choices imposed by either primary or secondary effects of state action -- in concert with the well-known phenomenon called regulatory capture in which corporate interests invariably end up writing state law in their own favor.

Question for you, @saivann: In recent memory, chattel slavery was fully legal. At the same time, aiding escaped slaves was defined as a crime. Would you, during that period, have advocated adhering to the law, simply because it was the law?

Largely off-topic PS: If you're really like to blow a gasket, ponder this carefully: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

[ghost]

@saivann You guys never give a straightforward answer do you?

What type of influence do the ACK and NACK votes have? What is the final arbiter? You are saying votes cannot be used "to force something on others". What do you mean by that? What are the votes used for?

[saivann]

"I live in Slovakia. Here, if you want a legal job, in almost all cases the employer will not write an employment contract without including a provision that your salary is to be paid monthly, in euros, to an account at a Slovak bank. I'm not sure if that's part of the Labor Code or if it's something companies do in order to avoid accusations of paying people under the table or to make it easier for their (state-mandated!) tax accounting, or whatever."

That doesn't make it radical or controversial. You and I are free to use banks or not, just like employers. Even though it is not necessary handy, it is not controversial.

"Question for you, @saivann: In recent memory, chattel slavery was fully legal. At the same time, aiding escaped slaves was defined as a crime. Would you, during that period, have advocated adhering to the law, simply because it was the law?"

I use to think about laws in a rational way. But civil disobediance is not something you do just for fun. And it's just not a clever PR practise to promote disobediance with Bitcoin in the case we are discussing right now.

[gmaxwell]

@millybitcoin “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

ACKs and NAK's aren't votes. They're a kind of heartbeat that indicates that something has been reviewed and gives a rough gauge of where a consensus is, and what blocks it and what further things need to be discussed (or some times the reason is already known and there is nothing more to discuss, the participants usually know this or clarify it if they don't).

[mikegogulski]

I might say "clever dodges, @saivann", but I suspect what's going on is more a matter of cognitive dissonance.

You did not address the core of either issue. If you live in Slovakia and have to work for a living, you are not free to not use banks. Employers (law-abiding ones, anyway) are also not free to not use banks.

And okay, it's off-topic, but I'll ask it again: If legalized chattel slavery were part and parcel of your societal context, would you advise friends who you discovered helping escaped slaves reach safety to not do it, because it's illegal, or even perhaps rat them out?

[ghost]

@gmaxwell I am not interested in what it is "kind of like". I want to exactly what it is and how is the final decision determined. These are fairly simple questions and you guys have been doing this for years so I don't understand why you won't answer simple procedural questions. I want to make sure I am conducting this process correctly and I want to able to explain it to others.

Also, what is done with the "rough gage" and how is it used in the final decision-making process?

[jgarzik]

That's because consensus is not an explicitly outlined voting procedure, but a more informal process.

[ghost]

@jgarzik Yes, I believe the technical term is "making stuff as we go along." Sort of like the FinCEN guidance.

I any case I have asked people this question about replacing banks and they think I am some kind of nut. Doesn't mean it is right or wrong as it is perception that matters more than facts. The notion that banks would no longer be needed is a radical concept and similar to a citation that caused someone else to be removed from the press list.

Maybe try asking the people that work at your local bank and let us know what they think?

[joecoin]

@millybitcoin "I any case I have asked people this question about replacing banks and they think I am some kind of nut."

Wow, that's interesting. Whenever I use the term 'Banking without banks' I get an immediate interest and curiousity from the people I talk to. They straight away go like "wait, what!?". They don't find that kind of nut but an idea worth looking into.

http://bitcoinkiez.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/bob_flyer_13_01.pdf

That reaches people, not when I talk about a new way of digital payment with only little fees.

And what catches them most is the radical changes this suggestion implies. You don't even have to mention anything more radical, noone with a brain needs more than a second to start understanding just how radical that idea is and about everybody thinks it's a good idea to try that out.

Noone contributing anything to Bitcoin is not radical. May they understand that or not.

Joe

[ghost]

@joecoin Right, you agree it is a radical idea. Radical ideas is part of the criteria being used to remove people from the press list. You say everyone in Bitcoin is radical in some way. I agree with that.

So you agree everyone should be removed from the press list, including Mike Hearn, because they are all radicals?

[joecoin]

Oh, what I actually wanted to say: NACK, let's not remove Mike from that list, even though he may be programming radical code and that has slipped out in human language at some point he is still a guy with the heart at the right spot and doing an impressing good job at bringing Bitcoin further.

You can not not be radical doing anything for Bitcoin.

Joe

[ghost]

Ok, so now the criteria is that you are allowed to be radical depending on where your heart is. Can someone compare the positions of Mike Hearn and Jon Matonis' hearts and explain the difference? Is there an MRI available at the Foundation?

[saivann]

We are becoming philosophers..

Ok, someone can involve in Bitcoin, which is a radical new technology, but not be a radical extremist. Right?

@millybitcoin : I see that you are searching for some hard rules. But really, there isn't hard rules. If there were, we would still constantly have different views. And hard rules would potentially blindly allow some legitimate opinions to be considered invalid. So the rules are : open discussion and common sense.

"Right, you agree it is a radical idea. Radical ideas is part of the criteria being used to remove people from the press list. You say everyone in Bitcoin is radical in some way. I agree with that. So you agree everyone should be removed from the press list, including Mike Hearn, because they are all radicals?"

There could not be a better example of why we don't need hard rules.

@mikegogulski Feel free to give me your email.

[joecoin]

@millybitcoin
No, look, this is only me talking and I am not making up any criteria for whatever here.

The criteria here are right now made up by only a few code contributors with all sorts of extremist views. Religion plays quite a part I have reason to believe. They are doing precisely what they want, which is actually nothing but anarchy in a not so sympathetic way, but hey. This dispute will turn out unimportant in the the long run because what matters here is content being produced that reaches people, not the likes or dislikes of people on github or whatever face is on that press page or not.

Gotta love them for the radical code they are writing, whichever fundamentalist corner they come from anyways:):

Joe

[joecoin]

@saivann
"Ok, someone can involve in Bitcoin, which is a radical new technology, but not be a radical extremist. Right?"

Yes, I agree, we should concentrate more on the less extreme radical people and content. Radical technologists, not technical extremists.

Joe

[ghost]

@saivann once again closed the pull request. I had not even had the opportunity to discuss this with others. I will never trust anything you ever say or do.

This thread shows this whole thing to remove people from the web site was witch hunt and nothing more and you guys just make stuff up as you go along.

[saivann]

@millybitcoin : We all have limited time and it is obvious that Mike is not a controversial interviewees (and you are actually re-opening a discussion that has been done, Mike has been already reviewed and pushed). So I politely left a day for people to comment just in case anyone reacted to your arguments, and closed the pull request.

Feel free to leave me your email address if you want to discuss about the pull request process (I don't promise that I will have time to discuss this endlessly). Pull requests are just not the right place for this.

[ghost]

@saivann The dishonesty is beyond belief. I was told time and time again to submit a pull request and now you say that is not the right place. Then you say you were polite in leaving the request open for a full 7 hours. I am not discussing anything with you via e-mail. In fact don't ever contact me again.

[mikehearn]

Wow, OK, a lot to read and comment on here.

A pull request is the right way to raise this issue (vs a forum thread or posting on reddit, etc). So Milly thank you for that. I appreciate it, at least.

I actually don't mind whether I'm on the page or not. I didn't ask to be there, I just appeared on the first version, I guess because I proposed the press center. If I was replaced by someone else who meets the criteria we laid out, then I'd be cool with that.

On voting/decision making. I actually don't like ACK vs NACK as terminology. It looks like voting but it's not (code reveiws are never votes in any project). Inside Google we obviously also do code reviews, but if you have some feedback you just say it, and when you think a change is ready to go you say "Looks good to me" or just LGTM for short. This is good, it makes it clear that all you've done is review the change and didn't see any mistakes or issues. It also means you can't just say "NACK" and then nothing else, which is worthless. I'd like Bitcoin to use the same terminology in code review threads, but have never thought it mattered much until now.

Milly, we're not deliberately trying to be antagonistic or hypocritical. I know you think we are, but at least my position on this has been consistent - we need people who will regardless of their own political views present Bitcoin in a neutral, accurate and mainstream light. It doesn't really matter what someone actually believes as long as they aren't going to project Bitcoin as fundamentally interlinked with those views. And the final decisions are ultimately made by the maintainer, like in any open source project, which in this case is Saivann although I happen to be an admin of this repository too (Saivann and I see eye to eye on many things so he added me).

That's not an unusual organisation. I've been involved with open source software for almost 15 years now. I've taken part in many different projects. Exactly zero of them used voting as a way to decide what to do, for a bunch of reasons.

Re: radicalism.

In my 2012 talk, at the start I said I was going to talk about the long term. So when I talked about replacing the need for banks, it was in the context of a highly theoretical and technical talk about the future. The idea of taking banks down a peg is very popular right now, at least in Europe ..... but Mike is totally correct. Many countries have laws that try to prevent people living entirely in the cash economy. For that reason I would NOT go on TV or say to a journalist that "Bitcoin is great because it lets you close your bank accounts and live off cash". Firstly because it's not true, you can't really live without a bank account in todays world. And secondly because right or wrong a lot of people, especially in government, would interpret that as encouraging tax evasion and the impression that "People use Bitcoin to evade tax" is hardly any better than "People use Bitcoin to buy drugs".

Now eventually if some of the ideas I proposed in my talk become real and take off, then countries would have to adjust their laws to take into account the new ways their citizens are working, and the issue of how to raise taxes in a decentralised way would have to be tackled. This is all a long way out - years at best, but more likely decades.

When Joerg or I have talked about this, we usually try to phrase it as in a way that is non-threatening to as many people as possible, not "woo let's crash the financial system fuck the system!!" but rather "Bitcoin is a path to reducing the power of banks that became too big to fail, and making our society more open and decentralised". Hardly a controversial idea - heck, governments have been trying to do the same thing. And it's not the same as completely eliminating banks. Even the ideas I proposed in my talk would really just change the nature of banks, not eliminate them entirely (regardless of how I pitched it to make the talk more exciting). You still need people to assess creditworthiness and risk, after all. If they organise themselves into a company, in a sense that company might be considered some kind of investment bank.

Anyway, if somebody was unhappy at some quote in the press that was attributed to me because they thought it was encouraging illegal activity or making Bitcoin look bad, I'd take that feedback very seriously!

[saivann]

@millybitcoin : I am very sorry that you take it this way. Maybe that I failed to give you a good introduction so that you actually understand how it works correctly. But it was actually pretty hard in the circumstances. I've taken numerous days to manage conflicts on which you did participate actively.

What I'm saying is that a pull request is not the right place to discuss "how pull requests work". I noticed that you were constantly asking questions, which is why I invited you to contact me directly. Your pull request was actually fine.

@mikehearn : Your advices are always appreciated. LGTM indeed seems better.

[ghost]

I have been involved in policy development on and off for about 20 years. I have participation in numerous such process with the US Federal trade Commission, FCC, Dept. of commerce, ICANN, etc. and I lived in Washington, DC for 9 years. I sometimes personally attended these meetings and I testified twice at public hearings at the FTC. This process you have here is so far outside of reality it is not even worth discussing.

As for closing the thread after 7 hours I am so angry about that I cannot put into words. Any policy issue should be left open for at least 30 days to allow the thousands and thousands of bitcoin users the opportunity to participate. Closing these thread is just dishonesty, pure and simple.

You had people on here initiate having someone removed and they, themselves, were put on the list. They should have recused themselves from this. Again, dishonesty.

As for dealing with the media, I am no expert but I have been mentioned in at least 100 publications. I have appeared on CNN and CNN business at least 5 for 6 times and a few other local and national broadcasts. I know enough to see the developers do not know what they are doing (Jeff Garzik readily admits that in his talk) and it is also clear that Mr. Matonis is an expert in that area.

I don't think there should be any press. But there is one. I think Mik Hearns comments are somewhat radical but I do not think he should be removed from the list based on my personal opinion. However, you guys set the criteria when you removed Matonis. Using that criteria, which you guys set yourself, then Hearn and Mayer should be removed.

The dishonesty exhibited in this process makes Bitcoin look bad. Maybe you guys have been around scammers so long you think this normal?

[saivann]

@millybitcoin : Indeed, the way bitcoin.org works does not match what you seems to consider to be the right approach. Actually, it seems like you've assumed many things. As jgarzik said, many decision processes in open-source projects are informal, but there is still a structure. Just probably not a structure you are used to.

Given your experience, I hardly see why you participated in a self-destructive conflict instead of asking for a direct civilized dialog. And I also wonder why your own website is not using the same approach that you consider to be the good one for bitcoin.org (I hope to be wrong on this one). How do you plan to prevent your website to be another "bottleneck since it is owned by some third party and subject to their whims"? There will always be disagreement in a community if you start to do something that is becoming serious.

Personally, I won't tell you that your expertise is worth nothing. The fact that you are apparently not inclined to do the same leaves be puzzled about your intentions.

[ghost]

@saivann I don't know what you are talking about. You guys took over the site and you are going to do what you want with it irrespective of what anyone says so there is not point in wasting time discussing it. I learned how you guys operate so at least I learned something from this.

[gmaxwell]

"You guys took over the site" huh?