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Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#211

Post by blue_dinner »

clemensley wrote: post #24
hypron wrote: post #21

So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.

I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?

Because right now, the exchanges are run by people that have no business running it in the first place (huge hacks every month and people losing thousands of dollars), the average consumer will have no idea how to keep it secure (my parents would probably lose all of their money), and it seems the inflation rate can still easily be manipulated (the value has crashed multiple times in the last few years).

Until these things are fixed, I don't think I will ever use or invest in Bitcoin.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#213

Post by solotronics »

kbenzle wrote: post #161
echelon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no stake or interest in Bitcoin, and I wrote it off some years ago. I find it kind of annoying when there are stories about it or altcoins in my news feed (in lieu of other things). It's noise in my signal. This is just my own personal feeling; I wouldn't go as far as to describe my feeling towards Bitcoin as hate. I can't explain the feelings or motivations of those who actively detract from the technology. I…

I saw Bitcoin as another Second Life, great for smart young programmers to have a new sandbox to play in, but not actually useful for working adults. I was similarly "annoyed" by all the Second Life media hype happening after I had written it off.

People made these same comments about the internet when it was young.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#214

Post by lsadam0 »

pjc50 wrote: post #181
lsadam0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I leave cash on the street should I expect it to be safe? Is that a deep security issue? You implied there were deep fundamental flaws in BTC security, but your response shows nothing of the sort. Your 'deep flaw' is 'you have to protect your private keys'. You are describing a UX flaw, and I would agree with that. Objectively, you have exposed no 'deep security issues'.

The deep security issues are that transactions are, by design , untraceable and irreversible. That means that any security breach is catastrophic. Whereas the routine security breaches of credit and debit cards, and online banking systems, are not catastrophic. Physical cash is of course not subject to instant theft from anywhere in the world - the theif has to be in the same place as the cash. Whereas it's basically…

> by design, untraceable

This is simply incorrect. I fail to understand why so many people believe bitcoin transactions are untraceable, we are talking about a public ledger.

I understand the gap between how supporters and non-supporters discuss bitcoin. It's just that if you give all your USD to a scammer, we don't say there is a fundamental flaw with the USD.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#215

Post by draw_down »

stegosaurus wrote: post #141

I find the vitriol towards Bitcoin kind of odd. If I posted an article about Linux 4.1 or something, I wouldn't expect to see comments saying 'meanwhile, I used Windows yesterday, and played GTA5, and it was good'. What gives? Are there forums in which people have this sort of reaction to, I dunno, HTML5? From some of the posts here you would think that it's IED control software.

I dunno about vitriol, it just seems like a really silly and pointless thing to me.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#216

Post by pjc50 »

lsadam0 wrote: post #214
pjc50 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deep security issues are that transactions are, by design , untraceable and irreversible. That means that any security breach is catastrophic. Whereas the routine security breaches of credit and debit cards, and online banking systems, are not catastrophic. Physical cash is of course not subject to instant theft from anywhere in the world - the theif has to be in the same place as the cash. Whereas it's basically…

> by design, untraceable This is simply incorrect. I fail to understand why so many people believe bitcoin transactions are untraceable, we are talking about a public ledger. I understand the gap between how supporters and non-supporters discuss bitcoin. It's just that if you give all your USD to a scammer, we don't say there is a fundamental flaw with the USD.

The ledger records bitcoin addresses, which are not readily traceable to a person unless that person deals directly with one of the exchanges which implement KYC/AML.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#217

Post by gnaritas »

pjc50 wrote: post #188
stegosaurus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I posted further down - most of the issues here seem to stem from people having this idea that in the extreme long term Bitcoin takes over the world and 'their' (as if this is some sort of holy war?) green bits of paper become firewood or something. That isn't a realistic model for how the world works and is really just an odd way of thinking. I can play Quake 3 and have fun with it, and post blogs about it, witho…

In the pre-Gox days of the Bitcoin subreddit you could find plenty of people advocating exactly that - that Bitcoin would make not just 'fiat' money obsolete but government itself. Any idea, good or bad, is vulnerable to being discredited by its most annoying public advocates. Bitcoin 'hate' is mostly a reaction by people who encountered this and got fed up with it. Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-envi…

> Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-environmentalist: it's built on vast amounts of wasted electricity.

That like saying Tesla's are anti-environmentalist, it's built to waste vast amounts electricity.

It's quite literally non-sense. Point at any other nations currency that consumes less energy than Bitcoin; you think printing bills and minting coins doesn't use energy? You think moving giants piles of cash around in big trucks between banks doesn't use energy? You think banks and guards and trucking don't use energy?

Bitcoin is the pro-environmentalist approach, it uses far less energy than a typical currency does.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#218

Post by balls187 »

stegosaurus wrote: post #210
echelon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no stake or interest in Bitcoin, and I wrote it off some years ago. I find it kind of annoying when there are stories about it or altcoins in my news feed (in lieu of other things). It's noise in my signal. This is just my own personal feeling; I wouldn't go as far as to describe my feeling towards Bitcoin as hate. I can't explain the feelings or motivations of those who actively detract from the technology. I…

I find Apple 'hate' far more understandable because of their market share. Bitcoin makes up a tiny portion of the market and is completely optional. I mean, it barely even exists. Apple's activities (notably 'tivoization'), threaten general purpose computing. Regardless I still try to come to peace with it (i think it's very important to have a positive mindset). As long as I can still buy my ARM SoC boards, x86 mach…

Apple hate existed long before Apple had dominant market share.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#219

Post by brownbat »

stegosaurus wrote: post #157
jerf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'd suggest you do sometimes see people saying that about Linux, especially when Linux "on the desktop" comes up. And the reason is that neither project is simply a neutral software development project, but are politically charged. Linux at this point really just has a political "tinge" to it with the free software stuff, but Bitcoin is drenched in politics. So people are responding with their political bra…

I think you're spot on with this. The general quality of discourse on any thread seems to drop hugely whenever politics comes up. We seem to be able to leave each other alone when it comes to using vi vs. emacs - the odd joke comes up, but that's about it. But politics? There seems to be this attitude of conversion, missionaries, convincing, it's kind of frustrating. I think it's healthy to question one's views somet…

> The general quality of discourse on any thread seems to drop hugely whenever politics comes up.

Yeah, politics is the mindkiller.[0]

Dan Kahan's research could lead to some interesting suggestions about why this might be.[1] There are many questions we answer dispassionately about facts, but then there's this other series of questions about the world, where we really don't answer with reference to specific knowledge. They seem primarily to serve as litmus tests for measuring group identity.

As it happens, contradicting someone who is really just talking about their identity just makes everyone upset.

Certainly conversations can change some people's minds on some political topics[2]. I've had a few rare 'conversion' experiences when talking with friends. But it's usually in really specific situations with certain approaches to open discussion that are just really hard, sometimes it takes multiple discussions, none of which seem that monumental, but have a cumulative effect. Both conversants have to rely on a lot of care and patience. All of that is made much more difficult by the impersonal and ephemeral nature of conversations on the internet.

[0] http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

[1] http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/4/23/what-you-bel...

[2] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/584/f...

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