NC Renegades

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

If I happen to be near Jay’s bar on a Tuesday afternoon, I try to stop in. That’s when my friends from the cypherpunk days are likely to be there. We always had meetings in Jay’s back room at 6:30 on Tuesdays (though most of us got their earlier). We had Ethernet cables, good Internet connections (for the time), and a private place to talk.

Last Tuesday, I stopped by and sat at the bar to talk to Jay. I don’t actually drink very much, so I ordered my usual, a tonic and lime. Jay’s getting older and slower these days, but he’s still grumpy and kind-hearted at the same time. It’s an odd but endearing mix.

Anyway, as Jay and I discussed our families, I saw a guy from the old days walk in. And honestly, I rather dreaded seeing him. This guy, James, was all-complaint, all the time. After a while, I avoided him. He was smart and very well read, but he always talked about what other people were doing wrong.

But, it had been a lot of years, so I walked over and said hello. I soon found out that James hadn’t really changed.

Instead of running networks and living in an old, dark apartment, he was now working in a finance company and living in the suburbs. He had actually been married for a year or two, but that didn’t work out.

I offered my condolences on the marriage and tried to move toward happy subjects, but I got no farther than mentioning how excited I was about Bitcoin. Before I could start a second sentence, he was telling me about attacks that could be made on Bitcoin, flaws with the mining process and how Satoshi (the original architect) should have written the program.

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