zedshaw being an asshole. I'm shocked, shocked!
Watching Bitcoin from a detached and neutral position is absolutely pure entertainment.
"Hey y'all, let's make a web page for transferring money and drugs!"
"But I'm not very good at programming."
"No worries, there's CRYPTO!!!!!"
"Oh excellent, we'll sure screw over our oppressive government now! Down with the rule of law!!"
<time passes>
"Uh boss, someone just untraceably and anonymously stole all of our untraceable and anonymous money!"
If you're not rolling on the floor laughing, you're missing out on life.
Being a a__h___ and being right aren't mutually exclusive. :)
Sidenote: BTW, now that we're talking, if you have a coworker at Google who can get this comment[1] removed from my channel, I'd appreciate it. I reported it as hate-speech like a month ago or something.
1. https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTDDR/discussion
For posterity's sake - http://i.imgur.com/6kpYvcM.png
I'm sure Google gets like a million of these a day. I'm probably in some queue somewhere.... and I've never dated a white girl. ;-)
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802268
It seems like you should be able to just delete the comment and block that asshole. If you've tried that and it doesn't work, I'll escalate.
For some reason, I'm only allowed to report it. =/
EDIT: I was able to block the user, but the comment remains it seems.
Being right and/or smart and/or recognized doesn't, and shouldn't, give one an excuse to be a dick.
It's not being an asshole to tell someone they're being stupid when they do something stupid. These guys just lost several million dollars via their illicit drug-trading website. They don't need a pat on the back from zedshaw.
I'd agree if he limited his mockery to those people, but his comments are full of broad generalizations and target also honest people with ideas different than zed's.
I don't even say I agree with those ideas, though I find the concept of crowdsourcing law worth serious exploring instead of dismissing outright (there are some serious people, like Robin Hanson, discussing this [0]). It's easy to laugh off things you don't understand.
To be honest, I'm yet to see a single case of a person who truly understands an idea and then proceeds to sneer. For me, seeing one laughing at other peoples' ideas is a clear sign that the person doesn't know shit.