Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#521

Post by dgzl » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

moosey wrote: post #233

If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't understand. Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", but this tool is part…

> If you don't believe that this is already happening, hang out with some teenagers.

Ever since I moved away for college (2009) I had started becoming curious how the lives of today's American youth were interacting, and how that was different from my own experience.

Unfortunately it's not easy getting close to that age group without raising flags for being creepy.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#522

Post by zamfi » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

moosey wrote: post #233

If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't understand. Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", but this tool is part…

> Every bit of data we give away for free is a massive mistake.

I'm not sure you need "for free" in this sentence.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#523

Post by uoaei » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #310

> Facebook says its “stablecoin,” will empower billions and underpin a stunningly ambitious global economy, without selling your data. I wonder how many millions of people were drinking their favorite beverage while reading this and spat it out on whatever/whoever was in front of them! It’s astonishing that after all these years and all the scandals, they’re deluded enough to write such lines with a straight face. Th…

We're not selling your data, you are!

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#524

Post by loceng » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

bradenb wrote: post #202

loceng wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if an army of HODLers develops who buy into this Facebook coin think they can make profit off of holding it - then there will be a growing body who promote it and speak positively of it, and not care about Facebook's other wrongdoings because money. Those big name brands also already buying into it means quite the global powerhouse of marketing ability to onboard people into something that is relatively unknown…

Libra is a stablecoin, holding it isn't going to make you rich.

It's not necessarily that straight-forward - and people shouldn't blindly trust Facebook and the other unelected global brands with 'voting rights' to make decisions related to the function of such a monetary system.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#525

Post by yayr » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

How are the exact payout rules for the investment tokens?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#526

Post by layoutIfNeeded » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

otakucode wrote: post #474

yumraj wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even more terrifying is that this is being done by Facebook which has a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who has again and again shown that he has no moral compass and has complete disregard for people privacy rights and by extension other rights, as its dictator, with no real board oversight due to how stocks are structured.

I would not say Zuckerberg has no moral compass. He definitely has one. Hell, he started only eating meat that he personally killed. What I would say is that his moral compass points in a VERY different direction than the vast majority of society is familiar with. He's a kook, basically. His views on privacy are not that he 'doesn't care'. He made it clear early on what his viewpoint was. He sees privacy as an antiqu…

Interesting... I wonder whether he holds the same views about his own privacy?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#527

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

Ripple has an extremely flawed design, do your research before investing.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#528

Post by daodedickinson » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

swordsmith wrote: post #402

avoutthere wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen I'm pretty sure that this type of data collection tool is in use today by the Chinese government.

> I'm pretty sure that this type of data collection tool is in use today by the Chinese government. Yeah US is a bit slow to that party. Alipay and Wechat-pay has roughly a billion users (conservative estimate) in China. It's widely socially accepted. Makes more sense in the case of China, which never had wide adoption of credit cards. In Libra's case...why should I ever use it instead of sticking with credit cards?

In the US, you already lose your credit card if you speak out politically.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#529

Post by School-Cotton » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

cowpig wrote: post #462

la_barba wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design. You can already kind of do that with other crypto currencies. For e.g. > 70% of bitcoin mining happens inside China, and the currency is susceptible to a 51% attack (in theory anyway). This site calculates the cost of executing such an attack. https://www.crypto51.app/

I think there's an argument to be made that Bitcoin is oligarchical, but saying that 70+% of mining happens in China doesn't support the statement. Nor is susceptibility to a 51% attack relevant to that point.

> saying that 70+% of mining happens in China doesn't support the statement

I think the implication is that since China does not have meaningful rule of law, that 70% of mining could in practice controlled by one entity: the Chinese state.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#530

Post by JaRail » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

loblollyboy wrote: post #299

LambdaComplex wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they don't actually say it's "not centralized." They say it "will not be issued by a central party," which it won't--it will be issued by 28 central parties.

The Cryptoviet Union

Brilliant.