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Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#251

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

jakupovic wrote: post #215
eulenteufel wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hard for me to understand. I'd take 'crucial to the enconomy' to mean 'positively coupled to the rest of the economy' or 'the rest of the economy would be worse off/less efficient if this financial instrument were to be outlawed. Why does this follow from 'makes a lot of money'? That seems like a very complicated question to me.

I was trying to say that these are equivalent, crucial to economy and way to make money. To me they are equivalent because capitalism will find the shortest and most efficient path, if it doesn't make money it will not exist. Hence, crucial means survives by making money.

Most relationships in capitalism are symbiotic, yes, but just like the natural world, predatory and even parasitic relationships abound as well.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#252

Post by whoknew1122 »

I work for AWS. I sometimes find that my values don't align with the company for which I work. Especially when it comes to the treatment of warehouse ('fulfillment center') workers and union busting.

But I also didn't agree with all the positions taken by previous employers dating back to when I was working at a grocery store after high school. That employer shipped most of our managers out to California as scabs to break a union strike for a time, and kept yo-yoing me between 25 and over 40 hours so they never had to classify me as a full-time employee.

Both inside and outside of tech, I found that you are very rarely going to work at a place which aligns completely with your values. Where you draw that line is ultimately up to you. I quit the grocery store over its bullshit. But at AWS, I'm ultimately helping companies safeguard the data of millions and millions of regular people.

Where you draw the line between your personal values and corporate reality is ultimately up to you. Do you think your work ultimately benefits the greater good? If not, I'd look at a different job.

Don't worry about not being employable in the future. Doing good work is doing good work. I have a very disreputable company on my resume (or, rather, I did). I got hired despite that. Did people ask me uncomfortable questions in interviews? Yeah. Did it stop me from being employable and getting a higher-paying job? No. And once I had more experience on my resume, I quietly dropped the company from my resume. I haven't found anyone who really cares what I did in 2013.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#253

Post by neals »

igorkraw wrote: post #228
neals wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of ways to make money, actually. You just have to let go of the idea that you need to create value 'on chain' in some kind of fancy economic model, like DeFi, where you are on top of some pyramid. DLT to us, is about trust. Not about the technical solution. It's an endless discussion between 'it could just as well be a database', yes it could. But to get competing parties to cooperate in a meaningful and…

Right, but that's very abstract. So what value do you manage to add? Should I assume you develop custom/bespoke Software where two slightly distrustful parties have to share write/read access and use DLT to make it easier for parties to agree?

Well yes, but you asked about possible monitization and how they seemed scarse, but there's actually lots of value in creating these kinds of systems. You even came up with one of your own now :)

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#254

Post by [deleted] »

csomar wrote: post #209
bko wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then I started to recognize that its predatory and actually not benign or harmless. It is taking advantage of people. Can't this be applied for most jobs in social media, advertising, lending and discretionary spending?

A fairer comparison will be gambling, sports games and drugs.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#255

Post by notahacker »

latchkey wrote: post #235
notahacker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Vietnam is also where people earn the equivalent of $30 a month and can't afford to HODL until the next price spike, as well as not having many crypto on/off ramps for the unbanked. Frankly, the enthusiasm some wealthy Westerners have for dumping newly printed gambling tokens on some of the world's poorest people is part of the cause of the anti-crypto backlash the OP describes.

They are already gambling on gold.

Sure, but for all its flaws, gold is a 5000 year old store of wealth with some use in dentistry that doesnt lose most of its value on a regular basis, not a pump and dump scheme whose wealthy foreign speculators need bagholders who havent bored of hearing about its future as global currency to bail out their artificial asset's latest collapse.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#257

Post by moneywoes »

drdrek wrote: post #175

Working in an industry that is considered shady can harm you in the long run. I have worked at one point in a gambling (So called "Gaming") company and 80% of the people there only move to other gambling companies (or even shadier places) because there is a bias against them in "regular" companies. I would also add that the longer they stay in the space the harder it is to leave it without a significant pay cut / pos…

Az16

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#258

Post by rglullis »

chillacy wrote: post #242
rglullis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "evil" things done by Big Tech are possible because of the people working there. No matter how "well-intentioned" they are, if their cushy jobs with high compensation salaries are only possible because of the lucrative "evil" things done by the company, they deserve as much scorn as their bosses.

By extension what do you think about people living comfortably in the United States and benefiting economically (and indirectly helping prop) the military industrial complex?

Do you choose where you live (and where to pay taxes) like you choose where/how you work?

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#259

Post by bko »

wild-eep wrote: post #231
bko wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I guess since they're voluntary. Much harder to opt out of big social media or ad agencies. But that makes my point even stronger since no one is forcing cryptocurrencies down your throat.

But, isn’t the key distinction that this is an unregulated space, which is heavily manipulated. Crypto investors cannot make proper informed decisions, because they are being mislead or outright lied to, and cheated, at a near constant rate. It’s optional for them to be sure, but they are being tricked.

You put a lot of faith in regulations. Take lottery for instance. It's almost entirely controlled by states in the US and they prey on the most vulnerable. They even have state gambling apps now so there's virtually no restriction when and how much you play.

I don't know how much sports gambling is regulated but I doubt its meaningful. Gambling is dangerous because a certain personality cannot control themselves. What can regulation do? Put a little warning? Make sure the house advantage is no more than X? That's not what makes gambling dangerous.

Drugs are same story. Heavily regulated to their detriment. At least with illegal drugs you know it's dangerous and could be abused. But when a doctor prescribes you heavy pain killers for a simple injury, it's not obvious how dangerous they are.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#260

Post by granddemolisher »

roflyear wrote: post #221
latchkey wrote: post #63

I've been in crypto since 2014. I just had the California Franchise Tax Board literally steal money out of a bank account of mine without any warning or notice. They left $0.01 in there and charged a $125 fee. I found out today they are claiming I owe taxes from when I wasn't even living in the country (and I was paying taxes then too!). In 2021/2022, I paid more taxes than I ever have in my life. I even over paid ju…

Yah bc when you get scammed in crypto no one can get your money back! Lmao.

Use an escrow? It's pretty simple to build reversible transactions for an erc 20 token on EVM.

Obviously you would introduce a centralized arbitrator. It's a solved problem in crypto except nobody uses it.

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