Hi Bytemaster,
 
I must preface this critique with my most sincere thanks for your ongoing work in securing liberty and property through the bitshares platform, I think you’re doing an excellent job.
 
I Recently came across your Golden Principle post on your blog and noticed that there is a mistake made with your logic which renders the argument invalid. You have fallen into the trap that most people tend to when dealing with principles – in particular the non-aggression principle(NAP), the application of a principle that defines an action that takes place in the physical world to a concept instead of something that exists in the physical world.
 
This is incredibly common, and this propensity for most people to not differentiate between concepts and physical objects when thinking critically is (in my humble opinion) one of the things that allows the inexorable slide into tyranny, recognizing abstract human conceived concepts for what they are and correct application of principles is the only way to ensure we arrive at a result that is accurate and repeatable over time and applicable to all individuals.

It is the same neuropathway that allows a quick fight or flight response that gives humans a propensity toward this – as we evolved we needed to be able to very quickly judge whether a physical object is dangerous or not, the fastest way for us to do this is to attribute intentions(as opposed to higher level logical reasoning) to it, whether it is a rock or a predator. This is also why young children are angry at rocks when they stub their toes, their brains haven’t outgrown this duality born out of Darwinian necessity. I think it is this phenomena that causes most people to make the mistake of applying principles to abstract concepts.
 
It is empirically and logically impossible that the NAP or any principle that relies on taking(or not taking) physical action to be applied to a concept, it must be applied to something physical if it is to be logically consistent and repeatable. In reality, me attacking the “government” is the intellectual equivalent of me trying to squash Christianity with a large bowl of porridge. Objectively what I would really be doing, would be violating the NAP against a group of individuals I have subjectively determined to be “the government”.
 
Any principle based on “doing” which must occur in the physical universe, cannot possibly provide universally consistent results if people allow it to be applied to abstract or subjective concepts, it is for this reason that your golden principle is flawed as it is based in subjectivity not objectivity and therefore allows more ambiguity than the NAP it should replace. I agree wholeheartedly that the principles we build society on must be universal, however without objectivity the result of your principle will change depending on the interpretation at an individual level. This subjectivity is what we must strive against as it is by this mechanism we allow the same descent into collective delusion and tyranny that we are currently striving to prevent.
 
For example, you may want to be Taxed because you think it is right and just, you may want to delegate your rights to others if you feel insecure in your ability to secure them, you may even want others to hurt you because it’s what you know and what you’re used to, You may even want to die…  These preferences are not at all uncommon, in fact these preferences(with the exception of masochism and the last tragic example) are considered normal in western society. This does not mean that any of these things should constitute an ethically and morally just viewpoint as it is just an individual’s opinion. If it is validated by the golden principle then to universalize some of these actions as morally valid is to commit atrocious acts of evil.
 
This is a fundamental failure of the principle to uphold the freedoms It is intended to protect.

edit: Grammar

Quote from: bytemaster on October 16, 2014, 10:59:25 pm

Quote from: merockstar on October 16, 2014, 05:43:18 pm

Some of you are saying we basically control our reality with how to we choose to look at things, right?

I don't think I agree.

Children are the ultimate optimists, not having been corrupted by negative influences already at work in the world. Terrible things happen to them all the time.

Also, that terrible things exist to begin with is evidence that we don't control things with our world view. If, in the beginning, people looked at the world as children and nothing but good, then how in human history did negativity get introduced to begin with? When did it start to spiral into the world we see today?

Maybe I'm just not understanding.

The children are not separate from you.  Only from your point of view have you labeled the things that happened to them terrible and presume they felt the same way.   If the children were fully enlightened they would not experience the terrible situation the same way you would.  Thus you are projecting your feelings on the situation on the children.

We control how we interpret things... and that makes all the difference.

We have influence on our beliefs, which have influence on our perceptions, which have influence on our beliefs, which have influence on our actions, which have influence on our beliefs........

If us and our children were not biological entities with relatively predictable behaviours when exposed to certain stimuli, then this would be a valid discussion. However there seems to be a disconnect between belief and biological evidence here... I don't mean this as criticism, but as an observation.

Although everyone here no doubt treasures the fruits of and would certainly not argue against the validity of the scientific method, it doesn't seem that anyone applies the same rigor of logical consistency and requirements of evidence to ethics. As a result, the majority here thinks that ethics are subjective and not objective, after reading the below book i'm now firmly in the objective camp... A highly recommended read if ethics and philosophy interests you

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/books/UPB/Universally_Preferable_Behaviour_UPB_by_Stefan_Molyneux_PDF.pdf

Quote from: AdamBLevine on August 19, 2014, 02:08:31 pm

Any exemption is an invitation to use that exemption, and it will get wider over time as the people who built the system stop being the ones who make these decisions and it becomes about "what are you going to give me right now" since there are people (and not too many) who have the power to do this stuff.

Exactly this. Again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and people over a long enough period are short sighted and opportunistic.

I agree, there are no hard and fast rules in a democratic system. Due to the very nature of democracy they're constantly changing over time... Given enough time there are no rules.

I guess the same can be said for consensus systems to a degree... When these systems become mainstream there's a distinct possibility that the majority could vote to burn or freeze a large stake because "inequality" when there are severe economic issues and the media paints a specific demographic, in this case the large stake that has been targeted as being responsible.

The Delegates will inevitably be public figures and if they want to maintain their status they'll do what the public wants or they'll be voted out and delegates who do will be elected.

This is one of the problems we're seeing with society now, Crowd wisdom is an oxymoron if i've ever heard one.

For the reasons  stated by Adam and Riverhead among many others, i'm going with no rollbacks ever. Allowing anything to be decided by majority consensus on a arbitrary and case by case basis puts the entire system at risk.

Insurance DAC sounds like an infinitely better solution. If people are worried about theft of funds, then get insurance.

Quote from: Myshadow on August 03, 2014, 11:31:51 pm

Is the 10TPS limit based on current processing limitations or is it due to block sizes and propagation times? ie: is it possible that DPOS can scale out past the 10,000 odd TPS that the visa network handles? Sorry if this has already been answered somewhere else.

There are no limits with DPOS.

Thanks for the prompt reply, is the blocksize dynamic with DPOS then?

Thats a good point. if delegates can only destroy shares and not create then running a 0% node is greedy!

Has there been any discussions re: delegates being allowed to create shares as well as destroying them? a somewhat elastic supply vs a deflationary supply might be a good thing?

Hi Gamey,

deleting the log made the balance show up, but the wallet wasn't scanning the blockchain properly(realised after creating another wallet on a seperate PC and transferring to my faulty wallet.) despite issuing console commands to rescan.

The following fixed my issues.

Cheers!

wallet_dump_private_key <address_or_public_key>
used public key for <address_or_public_key>(account name didn't work)copied private key and account name to a secure place.

Quit out of Bitshares X

Deleted entire default directory out of appdata\roaming\Bitshares X\wallets\ (BACKUP DEFAULT DIRECTORY JUST IN CASE!!!!!!)

loaded up bitshares X > accepted EULA > Input Secure Password to create new wallet > cancelled account creation and went to console.

wallet_import_private_key <wif_key> [account_name] true true
Where <wif_key> is the copied private key and [account_name] is the account name you copied previously. This got me a clean account back but i don't know whether it actually was rescanning the blockchain or not... coz no funds showed up. i also ran the following just to make sure(probably unneeded)

wallet_rescan_blockchain 1 90000   
funds showed up after 5 or 10 minutes.

Update... deleted the 0000XX.log file from the "wallets" directory and balance is restored