Re: <nettime> Ethereum: DAO - "The Attacker"

[Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>]

On Tue, 05 Jul 2016, Fenwick Mckelvey wrote:

>    Hi,
>    Just looking over Morlock's comments now and, Jaromil, I'm wondering if
>    you had any more comments or links about criticisms of Popper's book
>    about BitCoin. It comes up a lot as a reference and I'd appreciate some
>    more perspective.

That book is a sanitized history seen from the point of view of the
winners, paraphrasing his words in this one.

I have zero interest reading a book written like that.  so will just
disclose here our post-book exchange.  I believe his book is one of
many marketing operations to synthesize a different glorification of
Bitcoin. It boils down to the question: should writers come from
different contexts?

Bitcoin has already its collective process of writing, let it be not
perfect but at least a decent attempt, which is lead by Andreas
Antonopoulos.

about China: yes true OK and there is Russia and there is Poland, so
what? ze planet iz zpherical.

Bitcoin perfect? I doubt anything is.

But deception is bad taste.

I conversed in person with Nathaniel Popper.  We met on the 15 May
2014, he introduced himself as interested in doing Amir's biography
(which somehow did not surprise me, after Amir was listed on Fortune
100 and wonderful stuff like that). I did gave him historical digital
footage of Bitcoin Amir and colorful stories of the Bitcoin scene in
2009 and 2010. He did mention the result would be a bit fictional, but
now he negates that so its his word against mine.

I saw a newyorkeese Gustave Flaubert in front of me.

Ruined by hundreds of years of marketing schools of course.




May 24

Jaromil Rojo

 hi NAthaniel, just leaving a note about how deluded I am after
 helping you retrieve some materials to be completely excluded from
 your book acknowledgments. Will keep in mind for next time. bye

Nathaniel Popper

 hey jaromil -- thanks for the note. i wasn't able to get enough to
 write about amir in the book -- but i've looked back in my emails and
 you are right that you were a

May 25

Jaromil Rojo

 well, omitting Amir from the history of Bitcoin is a big mistake. He
 is as relevant if not even more than Gavin and his contributions are
 important in one of the best wallets (Electrum) and the
 libbitcoin. What comes to me in mind is that the exclusion is of
 political nature. I have not read your book yet.

 I'm just gathering notes on my own version of this stories and I'm
 open to hear your interpretation. You also admitted since the
 beginning that your work was partly fictional.

---
(here of course is my word against his. I recall clearly the episode)
---

Nathaniel Popper

 i did not admit that my work was partly fictional -- and it is not. i
 wanted to include amir, but unfortunately in explaining the rise of
 bitcoin his story diverged from that of bitcoin too many times and i
 ultimately determined that he didn't have much impact on the
 development of bitcoin, i think he's a fascinating guy -- and wanted
 to include him for that reason. but the decision to exclude him was
 not political.


Jaromil Rojo

 His contribution to the technical and social rise of Bitcoin was
 crucial to say the least, this is my independent
 assessment. Acknowledging you eliminate him and my contribution to
 your research I do believe your exclusion is political.

 I also clearly recall the day we met in the Rijksmuseum park in
 Amsterdam you introduced me your research for a book that would
 fictionalize aspects of Bitcoin. The history of Bitcoin is still
 unfolding and manipulations of it are fairly relevant to understand
 the placement of all actors. As of today and based on facts, I do
 consider your book a political manipulation of such history.

 I'm writing this directly to you because I'm not hypocritical and I
 don't like playing silly games, also to leave open a channel of
 communication. I will include the above assessment in the public and
 private documentation I produce.

May 30
Nathaniel Popper

 i certainly think amir is a fascinating and smart guy, and some of
 the points he made have been borne out in time (he was one of the
 early folks calling for multiple implementations of the core
 software, which would have potentially helped avert the current
 disagreement). but my research led me to the conclusion that his
 contribution was not crucial in determining the direction bitcoin
 ultimately took. my book was about how bitcoin got to where it ended
 up -- and that certainly meant that i focused more time on the
 "winners" in the various bitcoin debates. i don't think that was
 political. that was just how i approached the story. one thing i held
 from the beginning was that this would be a true story. i wouldn't
 have told you that i intended this to be fiction because i never
 wanted it to be that. in any case, happy to discuss more. thanks for
 returning to me with your questions.









Of the many materials which I've given to Nathaniel Popper that he
never published, my favorite I'll paste below, is a poem by Jamileh,
Amir's sister. They co-organized the first 2 Bitcoin conferences.

   A few similiar regimes
   6 billion different dreams
   Stored, scripted,
   dispersed ,encrypted
   my heart is 64 kilobytes
   dear .tmp it writes
   Bits of code come and go
   Dream amongst the data flow
   But God bless our ISP’s
   Sedate the Refresh rate
   Repository forgets to update
   The world crumples
   Enjoy your iplayer
   The internet gets greyer
   Speak in sigh
   Each will die
   Before the tv even blinks
   Suddenly, one catalyst node
   The world overflowed with code
   The dictionaries recant their definition of citizen x
   The axiom of transitivity forgets
   the world is irreducible to the core
   and complexity, has been, selected for.

ciao


-- 
~.,_   Denis Roio aka Jaromil    http://Dyne.org think &do tank
    "+.   CTO and co-founder      free/open source developers
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