Porcfest XIV talks

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