I’m so grateful for chrisfostertv having introducing this subject and to read the subsequent posts. I’m new to the MaidSafe forum and from day one I worried that contributors to it seemed oblivious of this very real risk. Back in the days when I was administrator of a small correspondence school teaching an alternative brand of economics and honing real political skills for the purpose of changing government we were mercilessly attacked. Our then defence was to research the techniques used by our opponents who turned out to be government agencies and NGOs and we published our findings in a two volume 1200 page tome titled Gangs, Counter-gangs and Other Political Crimes and we made it part of the essential reading material for our politics course. We exposed hundreds of these operatives over the past 100 years including most of those who we had innocently welcomed to join us.
In retrospect our reaction at the time was a micro version of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Interesting quote I found:
There is currently a controversial debate concerning whether unusual experiences are symptoms of a mental disorder, if mental disorders are a consequence of such experiences, or if people with mental disorders are especially susceptible to or even looking for these experiences. --Dr. Martina Belz-Merk
“…nothing is so alien to the human mind as the idea of randomness.” --John Cohen
The last bit is spot on, we are pattern seeking beings. I have wondered about others (and others about me probably). I have initially ascribed certain behaviours to bad intent, then wondered if it was a case of mental health issues (I have a good friend who’s bi-polar - it’s the bane of his life unfortunately, and some posts remind me of the huge amount of texts I get when he’s on a high. It’s a real shame and vicious circle - he needs his lithium to steady his moods, but always gets fed up feeling like his mind has been numbed and he can’t think or feel anything properly, so stops his meds then off we go again. Another issue is, when he’s high he has no desire to take something to dumb/numb him down -who would? It’s a massive shame and conundrum).
Tricky one this, though I believe Apophenia may well be being mistaken for ill intent and also that this same pattern seeking behaviour of ours may ironically itself display the apophenia, we are ascribing to others…if that makes sense…lol
Well said Russell
It’d be stupid for the gov’t to bother with MaidSafe. Sure, they regularly download source code to find out they can spy on certain users, but it’s futile to fight an open source project.
Who will be visiting often are folks from other projects who try to copy MaidSafe features (if only in names) and ideas. Politely speaking, they’ll come for “inspiration”.
This second group is the annoying one, but what can you do? That’s the idea of GPL-ish approaches to licensing.
I enjoyed reading this again. I won’t say why I had the motivation to find it and read again, but the relevance and foreshadowing of the OP is uncanny.
Forum capture. Sponsored consensus. Bribery is speech. Censorship and misinformation. Theft of attention. Conflict of interest based media. On and on and on. We can build systems that rule this stuff out. Thank you again to the OP, so important to recognize these things are wide pervasive. The are the best supports for backward power.
Surprised it’s been 5 years that this is bumped from
Powerful interests, corrupt.
There is I wonder a good output of Covid19, that it is challenging people to think about their normal and the assumptions they have set.
The motivation of those who disrupt others, tends to be misinformed and grounded in errors of judgement and short term thinking about what is better - small evils for the greater good fallacy, follow from the same. Still, reality kicks back at the nonsense, from time to time, and in ways that even the most conservative minds cannot deny!
Privacy; Security; and Freedom, are fundamental.
People each and collectively need to find the balance of those.
SAFE provides a platform to everyone, like the fresher air we breath atm… what follows as services can cater to everyone but perhaps will be less tolerant of those who are selfish and like to impose on others.
Me too! Feels like two at most. Where you @chrisfostertv these days? @Jabba I miss you! Wonder how the grump @janitor is . The good dope days, so many excellent conversations about the oh so many possibilities! Oh, can’t forget @alkafir@dymanaka (sp?) Would be good to see @whiteoutmashups love again too. We will get there one day man! To all the OG’s! Props to you all still here or not. I learnt and grew so much from all of you. Still a long ways to go . Big shout out to @happybeing for sticking to his guns always! Drove me so crazy sometimes
Edit; i dont feel like an og, there were prob so many before me on the goggle groups…
and I know people are probably wondering who is this guy… To that i say ahh the wonders of anon internet forums…(a very fitting comment for this very thread no? ).
You say that as if it’s worthy of note or perhaps just to illustrate the inept way that negatives are dropped by those with dead set against change.
Still, it is to be expected that curiousity would have been high around that time. The quick-win instant gratification crowd within crytogeneration, were looking for opportunities around then; along with those of us more serious about which projects to support.
The trouble with dull minds is that they lack perspective. If you take another example for perspective Bitshares - which is of a kind to avoid, that had the same peak in 2017. Same with Ethereum. ad nauseum…
Original Gangster/Gangsta—late 80’s/early 90’s term from hip hop culture that the crypto community has (IMO) oxymoronically appropriated to sound tough or signify they were there from the beginning. See: ice-t o.g. original gangster (1991) for historical reference.
Hip hop was better when it was closer to its funk and soul roots back in the 70s. Like jazz, hip hop has gone through many stages, and quickly descended into the pit the more commercial it became—devoid of its original meaning.
I disagree it descended into a pit. It has actually ascended to the level of an Andy Warhol soupcan. In the beginning it was just art for arts sake, and some would argue that’s the best, but I contend it is actually an improvement we started seeing a kinda meta game being played when Eminem and 50 cent were in their heyday. Now we have art that looks back at itself. I think that is a level up!
. The good dope days, so many excellent conversations about the oh so many possibilities! Oh, can’t forget 
).
