NOTE: It's been noted by a couple authorities this article is rather incomprehensible. With that being said, take heart that the comments provide some relief and a good example of the quality of feedback Diana Coman is prepared to provide should she accept you as a Young Hand of hers.
If you find yourself weighing whether or not it's in your interest to contribute to TMSR OS, consider some points :
Your interest is derived from who you are, i.e. your identity, signature, name, word and actions.
A strong individual identity is unique and expensive to replicate which generates signatures that are expensive to forge. Strong signatures are essential for sound contracts which are a central pillar of commerce. TMSR employs (i) RSA for identifying individuals in the WoT because it's the strongest known identity scheme from a practical (ii) standpoint.
Having more effective tools available to employ for commerce increases your leverage and raises the probability for resourceful commerce.
The stronger your identity tools, the more incentive you have to use them to own and sign your work and the more incentive others have to provide you feedback to acknowledge the quality of your work and help you improve. The elite thinkers and capital allocators have the intellectual bearing to do in this world ; if you're one, you might as well own the bearing you do with a strong signature and a proper publishing platform.
By effectively contributing (iii) to TMSR OS, you not only strengthen yourself as noted above, you also help strengthen the system's implicit clients (iv).
On the money side of the ledger, you're well advised to factor in Gresham's Law into your expected value function and ask yourself if TMSR OS makes Bitcoin more or less peer to peer, more or less adamant :
mircea_popescu you familiar with gresham's law ?
herbijudlestoids yes
herbijudlestoids quite :)
mircea_popescu ok so. it doesn';t matter what people do or don't do. merely the preference to save strong currencies and to spend weak ones ensures the price differential. compared to anything else man made, bitcoin is adamantine.
herbijudlestoids i swear i mentioned something about global reserve asset earlier. preference to save is enforced by the marginal global saver
mircea_popescu so i mentioned something in 2011, what of it >D
herbijudlestoids what they save in is the store of value. you cant just call a currency the strong one for no reason. the use of a particular asset as a store of value by the marginal global saver(s) is what gives it that characteristic i.e. what are those entities converting their productive surplus into
mircea_popescu but i have an excellent statistical reasonv : that 10mn earliervi. no business in the history of business did anything like this. only currencies can, and only currencies do. basically in the 2010-2014 the entire world had a zimbabwe moment and didn't even know it (much like the actual peasants of zimbabwe, what do they know of finance).
jurov oh, they did notice ever fattening stacks of bills
mircea_popescu i guess. and obama is increasing the minimum wage, and more qe, and more bailouts, and so on and so forth.
herbijudlestoids im not really sure what any of the above has to do with greshams law lol
mircea_popescu it's a better model than the "marginal saver", in that it relies less on statistical artificery.vii other than the statistical reason (ie, bitcoin is the strong currency because of its history) there are actually legions of other reasons. bitcoin is fungible, unlike any other fiat (in that no court can order the de-fungibilisation of bitcoin). in any dispute of currency the more fungible wins, period.
Everyone knows weakness is strength in fiat land ; do you think the ~33% cut to the Federal Funds Rate in 2019 is a signal of more to come ? What'll that do you your purchasing power ? Why save with the weak, when you can hold the strong ?
Fine, fine, let's engage the point a little. Just the tip, okay ?
Here's one example. Do you understand what that means ? Do you see how the fact that you can make rounds of any size and call them coins therefore makes for a weaker currency than Bitcoin ?
Strength in the sense of stronger, fuller specification ; strength in the sense of stronger, fuller bindings on the future -- that's what strength is ; not the piddly nonsense you expect it to be, on the basis of all your experience clawing barefoot through the mood of your sad, limited past history. There can always be more of anything in nature -- but there will never be another number four. That is what real strength is.
And that's what we're aiming for here with this OS, a full specification because Bitcoin is an OS and Bitcoin is Sovereign.
There are more points and more details that could be expanded upon, but if "you" are operating on causes of this world of higher importance to you when compute expected value of an investment of your time than personal responsibility, strong individual identity, efficient and effective contracts and sound money (v), feel free to explain in the comments how those interests provide you leverage and ask how contributing to TMSR OS may further those causes.
- Understanding the practical strength of RSA for identity keys and signature has been a long term strategic project of TMSR, since before I was born. [^]
- Euclid's GCD is the latest hightech in factoring large prime numbers. [^]
- Contribution isn't limited to vpatches to software, there's a lot to be done and TMSR OS is a piece of something much greater. So follow the links I lay and the links in the links and if you don't know, you can ask me and someone in your WoT to help clarify. [^]
- E.g. more of the right people reading the Bitcoin code and staking their name on signing it and deploying TRB on TMSR OS means over time a smaller, clearer and more comprehensible codebase and a more robust Bitcoin. [^]
- Time and how you spend it falls in there as well and is there a better way to make use of your time than to interact with people carrying meaning ? [^]
bridging in my conversation with Diana Coman in #o:
Comment by Robinson Dorion — December 29, 2019 @ 21:45
[...] but then couldn't recall where the reference had been needed. He noted some shortcomings in a TMSR-OS article by dorion; diana_coman was already on the [...]
Pingback by From the forum log, 27-29 December 2019 « Fixpoint — January 29, 2020 @ 00:36
Updated to add the note at the top. First, the full blown review as delivered in #o:
diana_coman: dorion: now, on version 1 :
diana_coman: you start with a statement that the reader's interest is derived from who they are (which is arguably obvious so fine) but then you qualify this with "ie your identity, signature, name, words and actions"
diana_coman: which is already one jump in itself
diana_coman: because you pick there a list and don't give any reason nor even indication as to how/why you picked those bits precisely
diana_coman: it is an enumeration in format but those things are not even the same sort really
dorion: diana_coman yeah, kind of a big jump too.
diana_coman: dorion: the next paragraph introduces all of a sudden the "strong individual identity"
diana_coman: so now the identity is proposed to be strong or weak but again - why and where did this come from?
diana_coman: from that "expensive to replicate" it would seem to me you actually moved from a mainstream notion of "identity" to the republican one, based on rsa but you never as much as hint at this or even at there being a difference at all
dorion: diana_coman I was going for who you are is what you do, and also how others perceive what you do, i.e. identify you.
dorion: diana_coman should I let you identify the gaps here and then reply one at a time ?
diana_coman: dorion: there you are touching then on yet another important bit that can't be just skimmed over - who you are is one thing; your own knowledge of who you are is however another thing; and your identity is a social construct
diana_coman: a whole forest in there
diana_coman: and you need to be aware of it quite explicitly so you choose a path rather than drop this or that as it comes
diana_coman: dorion: yes, let me go now through the list, apparently if I didn't write it up earlier, I'm doing it now anyway
diana_coman: next, from strong signatures (that you link at least to the strong identity, if not with much detail/argument, more of a statement of fact) you bring in yet another thing: "sound contracts" and those being pillar of commerce
diana_coman: which fine, they are but ...where did *those* come from in your text so far?
diana_coman: and why commerce all of a sudden when it wasn't even mentioned before; why not war, why not sex, those are after all quite important for identity too!
diana_coman: words and actions,lol
diana_coman: having dropped the contracts and commerce in, the paragraph then steps back with what tmsr uses for identification purposes apparently
diana_coman: I can see the thought there ie signatures hence rsa but ...it's not in the text, it's outside of it really
diana_coman: and moreover, if you drop those acronyms in there, it's *those* you want to link/footnote if you aim also for non-tmsr audience
diana_coman: moving on, the next paragraph/sentence talk of more effective tools being essentially good than (supposedly) less effective tools
diana_coman: point granted with a side of raised eyebrows as to the need for it here; the increased leverage uhm, isn't that "more effective", yes? and what is "resourceful commerce" ?
diana_coman: next paragraph circles back on using "identity tools" but it's the first time those are named as such (and yes, I can see which and why you mean but take pity on a poor reader without all the background - how are they supposed to have any idea what this new construct is now?)
diana_coman: and then the text takes apparently a publicity break to inform the reader that if effective in contribution then contribution is ...quite effective at strenghtening as apparently it has been noted above though it's the first time tmsr-os is mentioned other than in title + the first sentence
diana_coman: money comes in and at least it's likely to make all readers pay attention so good; but then: you are well advised, says the guide
diana_coman: and ...by whom? why? whaaaat?
diana_coman: value function, bitcoin makes an appearance, peer to peer is mentioned though not introduced (in either form or function) and adamant is invited to give a speech in the middle of the text.
diana_coman: once the speech suffered through (without any clear reason as to the reason WHY should one go through it), the guide is back with... everybody knows
diana_coman: dorion: do not, ever, "everyone knows" in a text!
diana_coman: lolz
diana_coman: and off to fiat lands for the spell of one paragraph
diana_coman: (btw, you reader, still following and still keeping track of all those rabbits jumping about ?)
diana_coman: because we are close to the end, mercifully, as we find out that "that's what we're aiming for here with this OS" (because and because)
diana_coman: all of it in one sentence, since it's enough space to find out - be told! - that bitcoin is also an os (is this tmsr-os ? a different os? how different? why? is then bitcoin "this os" from the starting clause?)
diana_coman: and then the guide tells readers they are also not worth much more effort really: there's more he could say (DO believe it!) but he ...won't say it!
diana_coman: because... dunno, apparently they should do some work too in the comments or something
diana_coman: dorion: fin.
dorion: perhaps by that time I had exhausted myself out from all the gaps I'd been jumping over, but didn't take that as I sign that I should slam the brakes and ask for help.
diana_coman: sounds very possible indeed.
diana_coman: then again, you wouldn't have gotten a full blown review, so there.
diana_coman: dorion: does the above clarify the "what are the jumps" and how incomprehensible it is?
ossabot: Logged on 2019-12-20 16:01:19 dorion_road: diana_coman I think your summary does fit the text, I think I need more time to see just how incomprehensible the first section is.
dorion: diana_coman lol. yeah, for sure clarifies. I really appreciate the full blown review cause not sure I'd have pieced it together on my own steam. there's nothing I dispute in what you said, I think the best I can do at this point is to acknowledge the appreciation by making this a comment there and making a note at the top to apologize in advance to the reader and to take heart that the comments
dorion: provide relief.
dorion: and more than anything this article is a good example of the ossasepia in action, so come over to #o if you're stretching to grow.
diana_coman: dorion: you're very welcome :)
Comment by Robinson Dorion — February 6, 2020 @ 22:08
And now a preview of the process and direction of the second go from #o:
diana_coman: dorion: back and read your outline; do you know what's the role of scope when you decide to write something?
diana_coman fishes out the notes on prev version too, 1 sec
dorion: I'm thinking the role of scope is to prevent tangents from distracting the reader of the point you want them to take away.
diana_coman: dorion: the outline you pasted clearly tries to provide some structure but it runs rather unequally in several directions and mainly because you haven't fully decided on either scope or focus.
diana_coman: dorion: only in part and not even the main part; the role of scope is to clearly delineate (hence also help you at writing time choose and the reader at reading time evaluate) what the text covers and what is not covered.
dorion: diana_coman one thought that returned while making this one, which you also noted in previous comments, was to first start with an article focuses on the topic of one's interest.
diana_coman: if your scope is too wide, you'll end up writing 10 volumes; if it's too narrow, you'll not get to say much interesting to the user (at one extreme I suppose you could see copywriting as an extremely narrow scope thing)
diana_coman: the "user" is the reader above, ofc; ( /me shakes user loose from head)
diana_coman: dorion: re-reading your 1st article a bit earlier, it struck me that it really reads like you wrote it with some luggage, hm; let me extract this more clearly.
dorion: diana_coman makes sense re scope.
diana_coman: dorion: version 1 of your article sounds at times like a sales pitch (though you switch from one audience to another)
diana_coman: dorion: btw, what's with the soundbites reliance anyway?
diana_coman: is this due to the environment there or is it deliberate/do you realise you do it there or what?
diana_coman: dorion: say something.
dorion: diana_coman soundbites as in the blockquotes to reference ?
dorion: diana_coman luggage in the brain load sense ?
ossabot: (eulora) 2020-01-10 mircea_popescu: there;s this important factor nobody seems to realize, about brain load. if you're trying to work while loaded with articles you've not written, you take longer. much like if you try to drive a truck you didn't unload, you'll take longer.
diana_coman: dorion: luggage in the sense of unexamined habits/practices
diana_coman: the possible brain load would not show that directly in that it might slow you down, but it doesn't directly change the text.
dorion: diana_coman hm. for sure I expect I have unexamined habits and also habits I'm aware of to a degree that haven't been examined enough for me to replace.
diana_coman: dorion: re soundbites, it's a more general thing ie you tend to shorten your text more by importing constructions & terms known *in a certain environment* than by concise focus on some core idea; and when those accumulate also, it all sounds very copywriting style essentially.
dorion: diana_coman I see sales as talking with people to identify problems and help them determine if the problem is big enough for them to be motivated to solve.
dorion: diana_coman that makes sense. instead of doing the work of distilling into my own text, I import what someone else said.
diana_coman: dorion: sure; the problem is not sales per se, lol; if anything and after having read that .pdf from the crypto-something, I suspect what creeps in is that environment you have there.
diana_coman: dorion: exactly that, well said.
diana_coman: now, circling back to those notes of mine building on your version 1 + the previous discussion: 1. what is the full set of points from which you said last time you ended up selected only the top 2?
diana_coman: 2. you said part of the trouble was that you were trying to figure out some concepts at the same time as using them; did you list what those were and/or did you figure them out properly meanwhile?
diana_coman: dorion: re short & convincing, you can certainly aim for that too, but it will really work best as a 2nd step, *after* a well written article that really drills down into the details
dorion: diana_coman I need a couple minutes to gather the responses.
diana_coman: in no small part precisely because an article is meant to provide that sort of depth; and in part because your audience is basically more diverse than the usual you-have-5-minutes-to-make-your-pitch or similar.
diana_coman: dorion: take your time; fwiw, there's more too, so prepare yourself, lol.
dorion: diana_coman nice and prepared :)
dorion: re 1 : kernel with trng, de-uefizing modern hardware, Bitcoin (not in the money sense alone) re-institutes a functional hierarchy with steeper peaks - which makes humanities possible.
dorion: re 2. I don't think I have them fully worked out, but they are : a) what makes a functional identity, b) what constitutes one's interests, c) what is meant by EV.
diana_coman: ah, I see.
dorion: re a) what is an identity generally and what makes one strong in the modern world.
diana_coman: dorion: how do you know/decide when you have something "fully worked out" ? heh
dorion: diana_coman grasping the word by word meaning, which I typically explore the etymology to determine/clarify.
diana_coman: well, that risks the trouble with not seeing the woods for the trees among other things.
diana_coman: (which I'm even rather surprised at, coming from you, huh)
diana_coman: anyways, let's roll this back a bit so it gets where we were heading to start with (see, this is scope in action really)
diana_coman: dorion: in your outline, you qualify "subject" as the starting point; the subject of an article though is not at all "the starting point" but the central topic that you aim to talk about
dorion: diana_coman ah, ok re subject.
diana_coman: given one topic, you can choose all sorts of starting points really and they are not even all that fixed upfront ie you can re-write even the same thing, just starting from a different point.
diana_coman: the subject is however something you need to be very clear on upfront because it has to be the focus of everything really
diana_coman: so, first of all: what is your chosen subject for this article?
dorion: right now I'm unsure if I should go with one article or a series.
diana_coman: that is not a concern at this stage
diana_coman: don't worry about that just yet, you'll get plenty of time (and enough info) to decide on it later
diana_coman: first of all: what is your subject aka central topic
dorion: that contributing to and operating tmsr os is in a given individual's interest.
dorion: I wrote long term at first, but then removed.
diana_coman: dorion: if you aim it like that on a given individual's interest, you get the trouble of... individuals being individuals, heh; how about "the benefits of tmsr-os" as overall topic that can then branch easily into contributing and using it, if need be
diana_coman: basically to get clarity (and understanding really), you need to build and maintain trees, that's what it is; if you find yourself running around from one thing to another and lost in details, you need to abstract one level up; if you run out of abstractions/have nothing to say, you need to drill down
diana_coman: that long term for instance is exactly an example of lower down in the tree; each of the above branches can further have their own short-term and long-term respectively
diana_coman: dorion: the thing is also: whatever benefits there are, they will stem out of necessity from what tmsr-os is (which in turn means also the wider environment since nothing is in a vacuum, sure); but the individuals come into all this only afterwards and they do not drive the benefits really, regardless of what they'd like to think.
diana_coman: so that's why your subject as such is tmsr-os with the scope already getting some shape from focusing the discussion on benefits rather than everything else
dorion: diana_coman ok on "the benefits of tmsr-os". the point about individuals is that the fiat system is not sustainable, but as I write it occurs that some are dying everyday who've lived off that system and avoided the short term pain of change for long term gain.
diana_coman: dorion: you can still bring in that point but notice that is one point aka one leaf in your tree and we're still just clarifying the root, lol
diana_coman: and yeah, need some branches to get there
dorion: diana_coman ok, right. and the above makes sense.
diana_coman: so now, from the benefits of tmsr-os, do you want to focus on contributors only, on users only or branch on this so you have both?
diana_coman: (and you see, at each branch, if it ends up too much, you can always decide to make a different article; but that's a decision for when you know "this is such a big branch that it could be its own article)
diana_coman: btw, if you are into visual thinking, that's probably where those mindmap things can be useful.
dorion: diana_coman both I think because it seems natural that potential contributors would use prior to contributing. so then establish the use case first, then expand to contributing.
dorion: thanks for the tip, but I always found those mindmap softwares too cumbersome to use. I'll stick with vim.
diana_coman: well, for that matter you can cut it differently and focus it all instead on the very rationale for the project to start with, having then benefits of users/contributors as consequences of this (and thus getting less space in it)
diana_coman: I didn't even mean mindmap software, can be hand-written if it's any use; fwiw no, I never found them useful either but I know people who work better with them so whatever works for one at the end of the day.
dorion: yeah, the rationale is even more to the root. so "why tmsr-os came to be" rather than "the benefits of tmsr-os"
diana_coman: dorion: exactly.
dorion: diana_coman cool, thanks a lot!
diana_coman: heh, you're not done, lol
diana_coman: that why tmsr-os came to be needs to be split and scoped too or you'll end up talking of how bitcoin came to be as well
diana_coman: dorion: does the above exercise give you at least some idea re the process on this sort of thing?
dorion can see it, rebuckles seatbelt.
dorion: diana_coman it's a good example, will probably take re-reads and practice to sink in, but let's try in realtime.
diana_coman: dorion: so then, from the "why tmsr-os came to be" node, which branches do you see and which ones are you going to follow and why them?
dorion: my first thought is tmsr-os came to be because of V, which came to be because of Bitcoin.
diana_coman: mmm, V gives the shape, not the rationale though
diana_coman: dorion: how about those steps: aim first for a minimal tree with the root tmsr-os itself, see what you get on that, include branches on environment as much as you consider relevant
diana_coman: not right now, obv, take some time, do that, come with it.
dorion: one branch of the rationale is that point on meaning being established through authority. another, perhaps related, is trust being implicit in the modern computing environment given the sprawl of complexity.
diana_coman: dorion: I can see it in there but you will need to bridge it in
diana_coman: dorion: you still fresh enough to go through a closer highlight of the jumps and troubles in your version 1 article?
dorion: diana_coman the first there or the second ? it occured the first (meaning flowing from authority, i.e. sovereignty) may be the root. and as a consequence, nothing is upstream of tmsr-os.
dorion: diana_coman i'm fresh.
diana_coman: dorion: meaning being established through authority can be one root indeed and certainly ancestor of anything you want to bring in re implicit trust in current environment
diana_coman: anyways, give this a go and come back with what comes out of it
ossabot: Logged on 2020-02-02 17:13:46 diana_coman: dorion: how about those steps: aim first for a minimal tree with the root tmsr-os itself, see what you get on that, include branches on environment as much as you consider relevant
Comment by Robinson Dorion — February 6, 2020 @ 22:15
[...] of the month, Diana Coman provided me valuable feedback and conversation on the 2nd attempt at the Why it's +ev to contribute to TMSR OS which resulted in deciding to move back up a node and write about why TMSR OS came to be. I didn't [...]
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