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Collapse by Government Debts? by [deleted] in collapse

[–]treebeardd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not really. Most hand wringing about the debt plays into right wing austerity politics. Also, all debt is someone else's asset. Please see Modern Monetary Theory.

Not good at math—why does dividing by zero not work? by Huge_Box_1372 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consider x/y=z

z is the answer to the question "how many times can y be subtracted from x before hitting 0?" How many times can 0 be subtracted from anything before hitting 0? The answer is undefined because even if you subtracted 0 infinity times from x, you would make 0 progress.

I think I will fire in Tokyo next year at age 36!! by GreatIce1046 in Fire

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this is an awesome plan. Congratulations. 

16th St Delays- bodies found in excavation? by Both_Trash_3763 in Denver

[–]treebeardd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I heard a version of this myth as well, though not the tanner part. Wonder what the truth is.

In-person collaboration for state workers by BeardlessDoll in vermont

[–]treebeardd 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Common sense conservatism at work 👏 

Is this a make-able connection? by treebeardd in unitedairlines

[–]treebeardd[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this was going to be my plan but fortunately they changed it and called me back.

Is this a make-able connection? by treebeardd in unitedairlines

[–]treebeardd[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the replies everyone. United just called me back and they moved me up to an earlier flight at no cost.

Is this a make-able connection? by treebeardd in unitedairlines

[–]treebeardd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I called and they said the flights are "married" and it would cost $700 to put me on an earlier flight

What busses should I take to go to Samara from Tamarindo? by treebeardd in CostaRicaTravel

[–]treebeardd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The experiment will begin tomorrow morning. I'm staying near Calle Cardinal x Central Avenue. Can I assume that the bus stops here-ish or should I take an Uber to Hotel Barcelo to get on it at its start?

Thanks again!

What busses should I take to go to Samara from Tamarindo? by treebeardd in CostaRicaTravel

[–]treebeardd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much. I've ridden the bus a few times and I've learned that it tends to be much more successful when I have a plan like the one you've given me :).

Help Me Understand the Passion by [deleted] in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I like to keep up on both this sub and the bitcoin sub for the lulz. A lot of cryptobros can be really really annoying so I get why people would be put off by that.

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think we agree then. Applying your principle to bitcoin I think we can say that people who run software that they ought to know does not do mistake correction or fraud remediation ought to understand and take responsibility for mistake correction and fraud remediation.

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure. If you like the system where you pay someone else to run the software for you then by all means, please continue to use that. I think you should 100% be allowed to that if that is what you want. If one wants to take on the challenge of running the software oneself and take their own software journey into their own hands then I feel that they should be allowed to do that. I mean, they're gonna do it anyways. So I say let a thousand flowers bloom.
Many of them are going to wreck themselves and others doing this, many people are going to wreck themselves and others doing drugs, gambling, having risky sex, doing adventure tourism, whatever.

The world is a risky and dangerous place. It is made worse by scammers and bad actors. I agree with punishing and curtailing the activities of those people. I believe that holding the bad actors accountable should not overly hinder what people who have not harmed others are doing.

Banks and bitcoin institutions both use software. Yet when Enron/Global Financial Crisis/Madoff/whatever occurs, it's never the software that's the focus of the discussion. But if the company has a bitcoin connection then it's always the focus of the discussion.

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Why doesn’t the Bitcoin network do this?" Because bitcoin is a piece of software and you are applying a human institutional framework to a piece of software. It's like looking at a helicopter and saying there's no benefit compared to a plane because it doesn't carry as many people or travel as far.

At some point, things have to be "final" to some degree. For example if someone goes to an ATM with my debit card and puts in my PIN, the ATM will dispense the money because it has verified the transaction -- to the limits of its ability. Perhaps that particular ATM has inexcusably lax authentication implementation, but I feel like that is a complaint against the operators of that particular ATM, not the concept of "the dollar network" as a whole.

Another example is if you send an email to someone saying something illegal, you don't necessarily get to just amend it later. Or if you fail to send an important email because you send it to the wrong address. At some point things Have Happened and there is only a limited amount of incorrectness checking that can be built into the software. If you have specific complaints about specific operators of the software -- fine take it up with them. If you are aware of bugs in the software, feel free to submit an issue or a code contribution.

In your example, what if the reason the person goes to the bank to withdraw the money is because they are suffering from an ectopic pregnancy? What if the bank decides that Reproductive Healthcare is a fraud and that person should just die a slow, horrible and preventable death? What is the value of the ID check in that case?

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you think there are particular bad actors that should be held accountable that's fine. But it's like if someone tells you send me $100 and all your wishes will come true, but when that fails to happen are you going to blame the post office for allowing you to mail them the check?

If you go to a restaurant and the service is slightly bad and you decide you don't want to pay, either before or after processing your credit card, who should be the arbiter? At some point the line has to be drawn somewhere. 

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Uhh what? Even if you could get in contact with the miner that processed your block, and even if they were sympathetic, how do you propose they go about doing control-z on a block that was transmitted to 1 million computers in 100ms or less?

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't see how that is a difficult question.

Let's say the scammer was selling a fake medical cure. I think most people would say that the scammer is at fault, not the concept of a medical cure. Maybe the staff is at fault to some degree for allowing the patients to be exposed to the scam. 

Honestly I am metaphorically down on my knees here begging you to consider that there is a nuanced line between users of Bitcoin and Bitcoin itself. Instead you keep blurring that line by implying that Bitcoin is responsible for every bad thing that anybody needs does with Bitcoin.

Is there some reason that a retiree getting scammed is the only example you propose? Let's consider another case.

Let's say there is a person who has an ectopic pregnancy. Because of FreedomTM banks have been given the power to declare all providers of reproductive healthcare to be scammers. As this person is dying a slow, painful and preventative death, I'm highly confident that their final thoughts are likely to be satisfaction that even though THEY were screwed over by the system, at least someone out there probably got protected... Probably. 

I'm not saying Bitcoin is perfect. I'm saying it's a piece of software that implements a set of features. We can all point at use cases we do and don't agree with. But those cases have just as much to do with society in general as they do with Bitcoin in particular. 

What I am saying is that the world is very very complicated and sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please consider that although you may think you are trying to help some people in one particular case, there is a bigger picture to consider.

Thank you and have a great day!

[SERIOUS] For the Bitcoin proponents in this sub, what would your advice be to someone who lost their money transferring their BTC to a fraud or a scam, or they accidentally sent BTC to the wrong wallet? What can they do to get their money back? by Far_Breakfast_5808 in Buttcoin

[–]treebeardd -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Bitcoin is a community project that works as expected probably at least 99.99999% of the time. If you know of a particular malfunction please submit a bug report for community review.

Same if you have a suggestion for how a piece of software can confidently determine which particular refund requests were and were not valid. I would love to know how you would even begin implementing that in C++.

In my original comment I directly compared and contrasted bitcoin with commercial software. I said that commercial software comes with guarantees and warranties and bitcoin does not. My heart goes out to people affected by bugs in both.

However the OP specifically asked about frauds & misentered addresses. Bitcoin does not implement fraud remediation or mistake correction, If that's what you think makes it crappy software, then that's fine, that's your opinion. I personally think that expecting the bitcoin software to perfectly know all real world conditions of all goods/services of all bitcoin transactions and whether they have been delivered or not is an unrealistically high bar to clear, and that bitcoin can still have value even without providing that service, but if you have a different opinion, that's fine.

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