Pretty much Twitter at this point for me. There's too much pessimism on HN when it comes to crypto. I appreciate criticism but Twitter has all the deep thinkers
Ah yes those 280 character tweets lend themselves extremely well to deep thought.
Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
21–30 of 85 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#22[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#23HN is the HN of cryptocurrency. ;-)
Okay how do I find some good old threads?
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#24HN is extremely skeptical about everything , because being skeptical about unproven things is a pretty important part of being an engineer
Is it though? Being a skeptic is fairly easy and not that valuable when it comes to doing stuff.
Skepticism does not mean inaction. It's about using the energy, time and resources you have to build useful things. While cryptocurrency has defiantly inspired the masses to forfeit their money, it still hasn't proven to be much more than an elaborate wealth consolidation device.
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#25a) I hand my friend a $1 coin/note. b) I socialise the transaction and have everyone try be the first to crack an algorithm that proves I've given my friend a cryptocoin worth $1 There's a community out there claiming one solves a bunch of problems the other had. You tell me...
Stone money is where (a) looks like (b). It has been used successfully in the past, spanning multiple human generations of transactions:
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#26HN is extremely skeptical about everything , because being skeptical about unproven things is a pretty important part of being an engineer
This is something I struggle with personally, because over the years I've trained my brain to look for weaknesses and reasons to say "no". It drives my wife nuts, because she sees it as being pessimistic about everything. To some extent it is, because I can very easily rattle off lists of "why that won't work" or "what's wrong with that", but it's a challenge for me to come up with lists of "why that would work".
So unsuprisingly, she's CEO of a growing and successful startup, while I still nitpick design and code reviews all day!
Personally, I try to be mindful of my kneejerk "pessimism" and skepticism, and try to balance it with optimism and acknowledging that it's a lot harder for me to identify opportunities than weaknesses.
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#27You stupid fuck.
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#28Pretty much Twitter at this point for me. There's too much pessimism on HN when it comes to crypto. I appreciate criticism but Twitter has all the deep thinkers
Yes. Twitter is honestly much better for most topics, as long as you do a good job of curating who you follow. Practially any deep topic on HN is 90% just people with no expertise making pronouncements or asking for it to be explained to them. It's still worth reading for the occasional insight from the minority, though.
As someone whose asked for some technical papers to be explained a little, I find the expert digests on papers to be one of my favorite things on HN as well as experts who help put things in context
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#29HN is extremely skeptical about everything , because being skeptical about unproven things is a pretty important part of being an engineer
Sorry but no. While every community that portrays itself as “rational” would like to think that it is unbiased and skeptical toward everything, the same basic human social dynamics still apply. HN is aggressively anti-crypto to the point where I don’t even bother reading comments on related links. It’s become a Pavlovian 2 minutes hate, every. Single. Time.
Re: Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
#30The most similar feed I've found is https://feed.rekt.news/day
But there isn't a website with comment threads that are high quality. Most of the quality crypto discussions happen in Telegram and Discord.
I've realized one of the reasons programmers dislike cryptocurrency is because they value efficiency more than they understand incentive systems. They complain that crypto is inefficient and unoptimized and miss that it's an entirely new incentive system.
There's a lot to be skeptical of in the cryptocurrency space, but a community centered around outsized gains through startups should remember that pessimists get to be right and optimists get to be rich.