I'm skeptical that the government regulation will amount to much that addresses the main problems. Highly profitable industries have routinely engaged in regulatory capture, often for decades, before things are bad enough that the population as a whole demands change. Oil and gas companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc., all come to mind as current examples of "regulated" industries that do pretty much what they like. Before that we had examples like tobacco, asbestos, narcotics-laced health tonics, etc., that took decades before they were really impeded by regulations. Politicians, at least in the U.S., are coin-operated and will put a finger on the scale in whatever direction results in their maximum profit. 

Also, note that the examples above are pretty well-understood issues with little technical nuance. The examples of government regulation of technology are even worse; technology advances so much more quickly than legislation that the regulators are generally fighting the last war. I mean, I'm glad that the US Congress decided that it was OK for consumers to use Betamax recorders to tape TV shows and skip the commercials, but I'm not sure they're going to get any agreement on technical aspects of AI while those particular issues are still relevant.

Don't underestimate the value of a red-headed woman...

And we knew it is the plural form of "medium," which is isomorphic to the message.

This is a good presentation of the idea. However, I think there are a few important things missing from the discussion:

• Divisibility of goods for barter. You mention it briefly, but this seems like a big reason to pick an arbitrary accounting unit that can be subdivided at will.
• Portability. Theoretically, we could agree on grains of wheat as the accounting unit since they are sufficiently fine-grained(hah!) to avoid the divisibility problem. However, having to haul 100 tons of grain down to the auto dealer is pretty inconvenient.
• Time-shifting. Again, you touch on this near the end, but one of the reasons that gold and/or silver have been used is that they don't decay (and it's not possible to print more of it). If I want to ensure I have access to a slice of cherry pie every day next year, I can't exactly buy 45 pies today and put them in the cupboard. Being able to exchange my oranges today for silver and then the silver for a slice of pie next year is a win.

Given that it's been a while since @Kat Woods and @Emerson Spartz claimed they had "incontrovertible proof" that warranted a delay in publishing, I'm hoping it's coming out soon. If not, a simple "we goofed" response would seem appropriate.

The "give us a week" message appears either misleading or overly optimistic. Unless there have been replies from Nonlinear in a separate thread, I don't think they have explained anything beyond their initial explanation of getting food. Coupled with the fact that it's hard to imagine a valid context or explanation for some of the things they confirm to have happened (drug smuggling, driving without a license or much experience), I have to conclude that they're not likely to change my mind at this point. I realize that probably doesn't matter to them since I'm just a random person on the internet, but it's disappointing that they haven't made a better effort to explain or atone.

Thanks, @Ben Pace, for doing the initial work on this. I agree with your other message stating that you're done with this; you don't need to get sucked further down this hole than you already are.

I'm going to have to work the phrase "delusions of grandeur without the substance to back that up" into my repertoire. Sort of like Churchill's comment about Clement Atlee: "A modest man with much to be modest about."

I think it would be good to word this as "and intends to publish a detailed point-by-point response by September 15th," or whatever the correct date turns out to be.

So, I'm new here, and apparently, I've misunderstood something. My comment didn't seem all that controversial to me, but it's been down-voted by everybody who gave it a vote. Can somebody pass me a clue as to why there is strong disagreement with my statement? Thanks.