For what it’s worth, the smartest Bitcoin people I know don’t think that the Newsweek story is correct. (I myself don’t know.) In fact, they didn’t think it was correct before Dorian S denied it later in the day. (Again, I myself don’t know.)
My view is that it doesn’t matter who Satoshi is. The ideas stand on their own, the math stands on its own, the code stands on its own.
In general, there is a growing CP Snow-style divide between people who trust math/science/tech and people who trust people/institutions. Bitcoin is a perfect flashpoint instance of the divide. All the smartest computer scientists I know don’t think Satoshi’s identity matters.
A challenge for the general press–and business press–is to hire/train more reporters who are on the math/science/tech side of the divide. It is going to get far harder to understand–or explain–the world from here for people who aren’t deep in math/science/tech.
Corollary: It is becoming much more important for math/science/tech people to be able to explain things to non-math/science/tech people.
Important: Within the technology community, libertarians are a small minority. The “typical” US Silicon Valley technologist is mostly a normal Democrat.The idea that most computer/Internet people now are raving anti-government libertarian anarchists is simply wrong. It’s a false caricature.
Source: Andreessen’s tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
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@pmarca Says 