Cryptocurrency will always be political • Hacker News Board

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#11

Post by remarkEon » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #7

remarkEon wrote: post #6

My friend sent me a meme today that illustrated a view (not his) of what hardcore Crypto evangelists believe. In full disclosure I am not one, but believe there is probably some utility in it, I own a decent amount of BTC (not enough to make me quit working...enough to make me think about buying a house in the near future, depending on taxes), and I understand what the community is trying to do. It was a meme of a sc…

That you won't have to sell your bitcoins doesn't imply the "whole economic system collapses". It just means you can buy all the goods and services you need directly in bitcoin.

That makes no sense whatsoever. If I can buy everything in BTC that demonstrates that something happened very wrong that makes USD untenable for basic, or any kind of, transaction.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#12

Post by StavrosK » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

KasianFranks wrote: post #3

cjbprime wrote: post #2

This cryptocurrency article misspells Bitcoin and Ethereum. o_O

Yes, lets dismiss it altogether. Crypto is adverse to the core culture of software engineering. Keep shunning it and it will go away. Lets not be disrupted.

This is only tangential, but I really hate everyone calling cryptocurrencies "crypto" (and Wikipedia "wiki"). These words had meaning before, you know, and it's really confusing if you start overwriting a term. "currency" was added to "crypto" to form "cryptocurrency" because the word meant something already.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#13

Post by StavrosK » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 10:36 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #11

jstanley wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you won't have to sell your bitcoins doesn't imply the "whole economic system collapses". It just means you can buy all the goods and services you need directly in bitcoin.

That makes no sense whatsoever. If I can buy everything in BTC that demonstrates that something happened very wrong that makes USD untenable for basic, or any kind of, transaction.

That's a very American-centric view. The fact that Amazon UK accepts orders in euros doesn't mean that the pound is untenable for any transaction. Similarly, Amazon accepting Bitcoin (thus meaning you can buy almost everything with BTC) doesn't make the dollar obsolete.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#14

Post by y4mi » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 12:06 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #12

KasianFranks wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lets dismiss it altogether. Crypto is adverse to the core culture of software engineering. Keep shunning it and it will go away. Lets not be disrupted.

This is only tangential, but I really hate everyone calling cryptocurrencies "crypto" (and Wikipedia "wiki"). These words had meaning before, you know, and it's really confusing if you start overwriting a term. "currency" was added to "crypto" to form "cryptocurrency" because the word meant something already.

urm, it did?

i thought it was just a shorthand for cryptography previously?

don't see a problem with shortening something else to the same string, as both are just terms you use because you're to lazy to actually spell it out.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#15

Post by travmatt » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 12:50 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #4

Apropos crypto + political : excellent must read by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist that I greatly admire (but not always 100% agree with), on "Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money": https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-da...

I probably say this every chance I get but the cleanest insult I’ve ever seen on the world stage was when, as Greek finance minister, he called eu austerity measures “fiscal waterboarding”.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#16

Post by icebraining » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 2:00 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #4

Apropos crypto + political : excellent must read by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist that I greatly admire (but not always 100% agree with), on "Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money": https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-da...

I like Varoufakis, and I don't hold Bitcoins, but I didn't find that article particularly insightful. It's just the old Keynesian fear of deflation - which invariably uses the Great Depression, since there's very little evidence of the supposed harms of deflation besides it - and a fair criticism of Bitcoin being currently more driven by speculators than regular users, but with no explanation why that's an insurmountable flaw in Bitcoin.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#17

Post by remarkEon » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 3:35 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #13

remarkEon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense whatsoever. If I can buy everything in BTC that demonstrates that something happened very wrong that makes USD untenable for basic, or any kind of, transaction.

That's a very American-centric view. The fact that Amazon UK accepts orders in euros doesn't mean that the pound is untenable for any transaction. Similarly, Amazon accepting Bitcoin (thus meaning you can buy almost everything with BTC) doesn't make the dollar obsolete.

Please. Normal Forex is not the same as a deflationary crypto currency being trusted enough for normal transactions. If in the future I indeed can buy everything with cryptocurrency then I stand by my feeling that something must’ve gone quite wrong.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#18

Post by s17n » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

Since currency is created by consensus, it's inherently political. Currently the political system underlying bitcoin - in which formally, decisions are made by voting with hashing power and informally, the bitcoin core developers and a handful of large miners / pool operators have enough power to call the shots - is a disaster.

However, even deeper than this social/political structure is a value system shared by bitcoin users - there are some changes to the system that would not be accepted by users no matter how much hash rate or which influential community members backed them.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#19

Post by Buttes » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #12

KasianFranks wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lets dismiss it altogether. Crypto is adverse to the core culture of software engineering. Keep shunning it and it will go away. Lets not be disrupted.

This is only tangential, but I really hate everyone calling cryptocurrencies "crypto" (and Wikipedia "wiki"). These words had meaning before, you know, and it's really confusing if you start overwriting a term. "currency" was added to "crypto" to form "cryptocurrency" because the word meant something already.

Crypto is the new cyber.

Re: Cryptocurrency will always be political

#20

Post by jstanley » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 11:14 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #17

StavrosK wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very American-centric view. The fact that Amazon UK accepts orders in euros doesn't mean that the pound is untenable for any transaction. Similarly, Amazon accepting Bitcoin (thus meaning you can buy almost everything with BTC) doesn't make the dollar obsolete.

Please. Normal Forex is not the same as a deflationary crypto currency being trusted enough for normal transactions. If in the future I indeed can buy everything with cryptocurrency then I stand by my feeling that something must’ve gone quite wrong.

Why is it not the same? It'll be fine.