Basic summaries of ones I attended
How To Solve Blockchain's Scalability Problem
Chris Pacia, Open Bazaar dev
Most interesting was a proposal where a miner would then sign all transactions until the next block. (This approach bothers a friend who's afraid it'll introduce some manipulation, but I can't think of any.) He also mentioned sharding the blockchain, but I didn't understand that one. There's a threat of multiple forks in August. He's hoping they'll be finished with the Segwit2X even before August 1. I highly recommend Chris: smart guy and well spoken.
How to Become a Perpetual Traveler with Bitcoin
Joby Weeks
Joby gave us no helpful information: he merely explained his MLM company's technology and said to join it and refer your friends. I wouldn't recommend him to anyone.
Mesh networking
Video: https://www.patreon.com/posts/11946580
Ryan Taylor, Brian Sovryn, Paige Peterson
The possibilities are exciting but important technologies are still forming. European countries have many mesh networks operating, but the US doesn't have many. Things to research: Battle Mesh, Libre Mesh
Hearts and Minds
Robert Leustek
Made friends and allies locally by being cordial and serving the community (eg. clock restoration project) and is now on the city council.
Dale Brown
Personal Threat Management: Urban Survival Tactics
Dale is always worth a listen. If you haven't heard him talk then go do so. Now. His approach has evolved from aggressive confrontation to active caring for all actors; in this talk he also gave salient advice for self-protection. His defense training is on my bucket list.
Agorism
Vin Armani
This was mostly philosophical. Sorry, Vin, I kept dozing off.
Private Ownership Of Public Space In Post-State Cities
Tim Brochu
architect
Very thorough, detailed analysis of recovering and managing common spaces.
LBRY 101
Jeremy Kaffman
I didn't get many details, but it was a high-level intro to their goals of rewarding content creators on a decentralized system.
Understanding Liquid Democracy
Andrew Warshaver
Basic intro to delegated representation. Most interesting takeaway for me is how caucuses used to be (and should be) for education and local debate rather than just voting for others.
Reclaiming Privacy In A Mobile World
Brian Sovryn
Basically a warninig that you're always being watched. Pay attention to mobile encryption tools like Signal and OpenKeychain.
Debate: Open Borders
Phil Boncer
George Lambert
Fascinating: the audience was very polarized, with about half voting for each side and commenting passionately against the other. (Afterward, the poll showed that the more-open side gained a few votes.)
Tuttle Twins
Connor Boyak
Books to teach kids economics, from the libertarian POV, of course. His kids make great advertisements! Watch at least 10 seconds:
How To Make A Terrorist
Goshe King
I only caught a few minutes of how badly Iraq has been decimated, and how ISIS now has sway because they are helping build, but also how 300,000 people just held an anti-war rally there. I want to hear more of his experiences.
First Before, First Again
Carla Gericke
Neal Conner
Great discussion on how nullification is gaining traction in many issues, from both ends of the right vs left political spectrum. As it catches on in specific states, there's gonna be a cascade once the first one tries (though nobody wants to be first!).
Keynote
Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com CEO
Fascinating, rambling jaunt through the history of governments, up to now where we've progressed past "regulatory capture" where moneyed interests have undue influence with regulators and legislators to "deep capture" of journalism, universities, and popular culture. http://www.deepcapture.com/category/3-regulatory-capture-the-sec/
Also yoga by Yuri Polozov: Thanks, Yuri! Challenging sessions with a good leader.
Also "approval voting", another voting method that I learned about from a guy in a tent. Pick all the candidates you like (not just 1) and person with highest number of votes still wins. Simple to understand and implement. Another small step of complexity: you give every candidate 0-5 stars, as many as you like for each person. Read "The Probability Approach" by L Neal Smith
Good stuff
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit