Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

threadreaderapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 272 posts

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#71

Post by [deleted] »

stillbourne wrote: post #47
erulabs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the _world_ has intrinsic value. Obviously, this an opinion, but I do believe it has strong epistemological backing. An easy overview of the opinion by wired: https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-n... , a 1970s era discussion by a historian economist: https://fee.org/articles/the-fallacy-of-intrinsic-value/ , and a deep dive the theory itself: https://mises.org/library/introduction-va…

Labor is the principal value of a currency. I'm guessing you are a libertarian. Maybe you should learn about how commerce, financial instruments, and debt work before saying money has no intrinsic value. Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it? Maybe we should go be communists. As Labor is the principal value of currency, so is debt the obligations of its members. When you get a loan you are n…

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#72

Post by vitaliksghost »

stillbourne wrote: post #64
hackernudes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have to show at the end of the day is a digital currency that has no central authority and yet still prevents double spending. The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency. Banks and governments use immense resources to secure fiat currency.

>The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency. But why though? Is the USD that insecure? Is fraud so prevalent that its debasing the value of currency? Do we literally need to spend 70TWh per year, and that's just in its current state as a semi novelty currency/commodity, to secure the concept of money? Can you imagine how much it would cost to run bitcoin if it was the primary reserve currency of the w…

Flippant asshat, you are.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#73

Post by nostrademons »

xiphias2 wrote: post #59
nostrademons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience with geth on an m5.large EC2 instance and 500G SSD. The SSD vs. hard disk distinction is key. I ran into the "it will literally never complete" issue trying to sync to an external HD on my home MBP - I ran it for about a week and it didn't work. Tried parity as well, same result. Once I decided I'd just rent a big SSD from Amazon I had no problem.

Were you passing --gcmode=archive --syncmode=full flags? If not, then it's just a light node. Here's an example: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/issues/16237 ,,Seems like it does indeed proceed but very slowly. After 12 days on the 96gig ram machine I am finally at block 4732597... I will report back how long it takes to finish.''

No, I was doing a fast sync (but not a light sync, which is different). I wanted and got the transaction history & full code for each smart contract on the chain, but didn't care about verification of each transaction in the chain.

You can run a full node that verifies everything on an ongoing basis without doing a full sync from the genesis block - just start it in fast sync, let the chain catch up, and then run it again in full mode. Unless you believe the Ethereum blockchain has already been compromised, there's no reason why your personal node has to verify everything from the genesis block.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#74

Post by stillbourne »

sparkie wrote: post #63
stillbourne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lets create a scarcity of all of our burned matches! If my calculations are correct, at 21m bitcoin would be the equivalent of 15,405,810,000,000 used matches. That's a great idea. Sadly, you'll just have to wait 24h for my antique wire transfer.

The key distinction between a burned match and a some bitcoin is that you can't forge the latter. Anyone can forge a match, and it would be extremely difficult to create an "authentic" match, which the receiver of in a transaction could verify to be such. Anything could technically be used as currency. Historically people have always used something that is difficult to forge, because forgery results in inflation, mea…

>Anything could technically be used as currency. Historically people have always used something that is difficult to forge.

It's estimated that $70 million dollars in counterfeit money is in circulation in the US. At an estimate of $0.12 per kWh of electrical use Bitcoin uses approximately 70 tWh of power a year. Lets see that comes out to about $120m. At what point is the cure worse than the disease? Again this is just for Bitcoin in its current state as a semi-novelty currency/commodity. How much would it cost to operate the grid for bitcoin if it was the worlds primary reserve currency?

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#75

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

nonbel wrote: post #48
toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the price of Good N is Value of N+x where x is a markup to cover the costs you’re talking about, that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same. Except of course that I can get cash back on my card, but not with cash (or bitcoin). So, credit card or not, the cost is there, even if I pay with bitcoin or ether. Except of course for the benefits of…

>" that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same." If people start charging less when paid via methods that have less chargeback risk will you reassess?

It would have to be savings in excess of what I’d get through rewards or cash back, and I’d have to trust the, utmyes id reasses.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#76

Post by sparkie »

stillbourne wrote: post #58
cyphar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue (though this is getting more philosophical) that time is what has intrinsic value (or rather, time saved ), since we all have a limited amount of time. Labour is how time gets saved -- one person spends their time doing something so that another person doesn't need to spend their time on it, and thus the person spending the time gets some money as a token for the time they spent. (But I agree with your…

I disagree, if time were the intrinsic value then all workers would receive the same disbursement amounts. As Labor also requires Skill and Proficiency those combine to adjust the value of the Labor.

People with more skill and proficiency don't need to sacrifice as much of their time to provide the basic sustenance they need to live. They can sacrifice a bit more of their time to earn a bit more and improve their standard of living though. The most skilled have the leisure to work when they want and for who they want, because those skills are in high demand and people are willing to pay more for them.

Time is the sacrifice. If everybody could have a high standard of living and not work, most would chose not to work and spend that time with their families instead. Obviously, there are some who find meaning or purpose in a lifestyle of work, and chose to do so even if they don't need the compensation which comes out of it. Each to his own.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#77

Post by stillbourne »

seibelj wrote: post #67
stillbourne wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor is the principal value of a currency. I'm guessing you are a libertarian. Maybe you should learn about how commerce, financial instruments, and debt work before saying money has no intrinsic value. Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it? Maybe we should go be communists. As Labor is the principal value of currency, so is debt the obligations of its members. When you get a loan you are n…

You are speaking as if your philosophical viewpoints are settled facts. Your opinions on the nature of money are not facts and cannot be proven. We can propose theories about why something has value, such as a currency, but ultimately it comes down to philosophy when you are trying to understand why dollars / gold / bitcoin is worth something. At the end of the day, something has value because two people agree it doe…

>At the end of the day, something has value because two people agree it does.

I guess commerce should never exceed two people. Got it. I'll go tell Amazon they need to close shop.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#79

Post by stillbourne »

vitaliksghost wrote: post #72
stillbourne wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency. But why though? Is the USD that insecure? Is fraud so prevalent that its debasing the value of currency? Do we literally need to spend 70TWh per year, and that's just in its current state as a semi novelty currency/commodity, to secure the concept of money? Can you imagine how much it would cost to run bitcoin if it was the primary reserve currency of the w…

Flippant asshat, you are.

It's ok, if you believe hard enough and know that your heart is pure then the Emperor's New Currency will have value. I'm just the guy asking why.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#80

Post by sparkie »

stillbourne wrote: post #74
sparkie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction between a burned match and a some bitcoin is that you can't forge the latter. Anyone can forge a match, and it would be extremely difficult to create an "authentic" match, which the receiver of in a transaction could verify to be such. Anything could technically be used as currency. Historically people have always used something that is difficult to forge, because forgery results in inflation, mea…

>Anything could technically be used as currency. Historically people have always used something that is difficult to forge. It's estimated that $70 million dollars in counterfeit money is in circulation in the US. At an estimate of $0.12 per kWh of electrical use Bitcoin uses approximately 70 tWh of power a year. Lets see that comes out to about $120m. At what point is the cure worse than the disease? Again this is j…

You're missing the "extra dollars" that the central bank prints to fund the government's overspending. They call it "inflation" and tell you it is necessary and good for the economy.

Before your government can create its next spending budget, it needs to pay off its debts with interest. A big chunk of every dollar of tax you pay is taken before the government can even think about what it is going to spend the rest on. This is a viscous cycle because the government can't meet public demand with the remaining money it has and needs to borrow more again!

Each time they print, it devalues the dollar in your pocket by a few cents. This means when the government needs to pay back its debt with the interest, the money it is using to pay back is not worth as much as when they borrowed it. Ooops.

The cost to operate the Bitcoin grid is unimportant, because it is voluntary, and not taken from the public purse. You can chose not to participate directly if you don't want to put in resources, and rely on some other industry much in the same way you seem keen to rely on a government to do things for you.

Post reply on HN