[bogs_carut]

Seeing various media outlets attempt to portray Bitcoin as some kind of Randian fetish with criminal undercurrents is getting rather tiresome.

"computer money invented to buy drugs." -- come on.

I get that the New Yorker is middlebrow yuppie polemic, but they could at least put a modicum of effort into an attempt at satire.

[cromwellian]

The majority of the cypherpunks behind the development of the crypto in Bitcoin are libertarians, that's just the unavoidable fact. Hal Finny, Nick Szabo, you name any of the heavy hitters of the original cypherpunks list.

Then, if you move on to look at the Bitcoin Talk forums, you'll see they're infested not only by libertarians, but crazy right wing gold-bug types.

Maybe as bitcoin goes more mainstream, you can claim it outgrew these sensibilities, but you can't ignore the disproportionate number of rabid anti-government types who are the early adopters.

[bogs_carut]

Some of the community is like that, sure. But it doesn't follow that the technology as a whole was created as a political vehicle, nor does it follow that it will necessarily serve as one.

A technology cannot possess sensibilities.

But there are plenty of people willing to assert otherwise.

[cromwellian]

Are you aware of the history of cryptocurrencies and who is behind them? See http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/chapter4.html#1...

The core people who worked on the algorithmic components that form the basis of Bitcoin, are not only sympathetic to Libertarianism, but are sympathetic to anarcho-capitalism.

I used to be heavily involved in cypherpunks myself (search for "cromwell" in the cyphernomicon, see my Anonymous Remailer stuff http://marc.info/?l=cypherpunks&m=85281458701690&w=2 or search Cromwell here http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www... to see my note on the Decense Project, one of the very first anonymizing web proxies), and I used to be a rabid libertarian myself and I can tell you from personal experience it's not an exaggeration to say where the sympathies of the creators are.

I personally developed cryptotools for anonymous double blind mailing lists (neither the recipients of the list nor the list itself know each other's addresses), shamir sharing, and distributed publishing, on the basis I believed I was defeating government surveillance and censorship. At the time, there was a vague notion that untraceable anonymity, absolutely secure communication, and digital cash would permit the creation of an online world which was 100% free of government.

[bogs_carut]

That's lovely for you, but not terribly relevant to anything I've stated.

An appeal to personal experience does not constitute a refutation of the assertion that a technology cannot possess sensibilities. Nor does it provide evidence that the majority of the present Bitcoin community shares such beliefs -- asserting otherwise constitutes a fallacy of improper generalization.

It's quite possible that the views most frequently articulated on Bitcoin Talk, etc. are those of a vocal minority.

[cromwellian]

Unless you have a statistical survey of the bitcoin community, all we have is the anecdotal evidence. And the anecdotal evidence, both from my personal experience, as well as _objective sampling of the celebrities of the community_ is that libertarianism is disproportionately represented compared to the populace in general.

And since the early adopters and pioneers of a community often mirror the philosophy of their founders, it is highly probable that the bitcoin community is overrepresented with libertarians.

That this seems surprising to you or you're so defensive over it seems strange. It seems pretty self evident. As if you found a community of gun owners producing crypto-guns, and were shocked to find they were NRA members too.

[bogs_carut]

> Unless you have a statistical survey of the bitcoin community

I don't, and I don't think it's appropriate to make generalizations unless one has access to a sufficient body of empirical evidence. So I'm not making generalizations.

With that in mind, none of your opinions strike me as self-evident in an objective/empirical sense. Perhaps they're self-evident to you, but that doesn't make them the basis for sound argumentation.

It's unclear to me how I might have come across as defensive with respect to your comments; I merely don't find what you're saying to be convincing.

[mlieberman85]

I disagree that there is a disproportionate number of crazy ultra-libertarian members of the Bitcoin community and it seems more likely that the more fringe members of the community are also the most vocal and they tend to drown out the more reasonable and level headed members of the community.

[cromwellian]

Well, if you say "crazy ultra libertarian", it's hard to quibble, but if you say "more libertarian than Rand Paul or Ron Paul", I think that would be more accurate.