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

Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

louwrentius.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#41

Post by StavrosK »

irishloop wrote: post #27
StavrosK wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, how much energy is spent producing reality TV shows? To me, those have less value than instant, trustless payments. That's not to say that I don't hope non-PoW cryptocurrencies become more popular, we should conserve energy when we can. I haven't looked very much into it, but Stellar seems interesting, and it's not PoW.

While I'm not a fan of reality TV, I know plenty of people who are, and whose lives are enriched because of reality television. There is no accounting for taste. I don't know how much people's lives are enriched by cryptocurrency. Other than the people directly involved in mining and speculating on it.

I, for one, enjoy watching all the speculator drama, much like watching a reality TV show. Plus, it lets me buy LSD online, which is something that I believe I should definitely be able to do but currently cannot.

Unjust laws change by disobeying them, and if you clamped down on that 100%, neither homosexuality nor cannabis would be legal now.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#42

Post by keymone »

louwrentius wrote: post #29
keymone wrote: post #22

Stopped reading after first two sentences. Bitcoin works because it provides a transaction platform that’s virtually impossible to censor or control and a monetary system that is virtually impossible to debase. Bitcoin provides those things through law of the universe - you can’t make energy out of nothing. If you figure out a different way to provide those things, feel free to make your alternative to Bitcoin, but d…

> Bitcoin works because it provides a transaction platform that’s virtually impossible to censor or control and a monetary system that is virtually impossible to debase. Why is this good? What tangible problem are we solving here?

It’s good because it solves problem for me. The problem it solves is absence of financial system that is impossible to censor or control and monetary system that is impossible to debase.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#43

Post by montenague »

drcode wrote: post #17

This post presents a very low effort argument. It's basically taking the argument "the only reason anyone would want privacy is if they have something to hide" and applying it to money "the only reason anyone would want financial privacy is because they are buying drugs".

Its also far too dependent on the ignorance of the primitive BTC proof of work protocol to move its simple minded argument forward.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#45

Post by bad_user »

epx wrote: post #8

If people didn't raise the "selling drugz" thing every time. Selling drugs should not be a crime anyway. I don't like crypto currencies (and coffee is my drug of choice), but saying "drugs are bad mmkay" and "how are we going to pay the generous pensions to our public servants [while most of us are never going to be able to retire]" is almost an incentive to try Bitcoin once again.

If drugs are illegal, then that's the law. Fair or not, that's beside the point. If you don't like the law, feel free to lobby for changing it, but in case you're selling drugs illegally, then you should go to jail.

In general people breaking the law should incur the associated costs, especially when they are doing so knowingly.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#46

Post by jariel »

Finnucane wrote: post #21

It's telling that the theoretical justifications the crypto folks use is mostly warmed over goldbuggery, and therefore concerns about the effects on society at large are discounted. The appeal is to people who have no fucks to give about society at large.

Most people support crypto for its novel technology, societal antagonism, and it's ostensible 'freedom'. Possibly also it's Ponzi scheme appeal.

But they tend to not have any grasp of currency, economics, finance and how things really work in this world.

Yes, it would be nice to rid ourselves of Visa and possibly even get rid of the Fed, but at least in the later, there are existential issues at hand.

Currency is a social contract it will always involve 'trust' of some kind.

There is absolutely no way around that.

There is no such thing as a 'trustless' currency or store of value.

Digital currency has a bright future, and maybe someday we'll get rid of Vias fees, but outside of that, we're not getting away from central banks.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#47

Post by UweSchmidt »

maxencecornet wrote: post #10

>Therefore, I would propose to shut them all down. OK the author clearly has no idea how a blockchain and a set of validators work I would gladly hear his plan to "shut them all down"

I wouldn't be so confident. Making things illegal works pretty well in discouraging usage, and shutting down the "exchanges" like coinbase would tank the value for crypto, as most normies would no longer transfer surplus cash into bitcoins.

Of course no one can take those long numbers from those cold wallets.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#48

Post by montenague »

lukifer wrote: post #25
snissn wrote: post #5

> Therefore, I would propose to shut them all down. How?

I'm pro-crypto; but Proof-of-Work mining is an ecological atrocity. If it's infeasible to outright ban mining at scale, a sufficiently onerous carbon tax to disincentivize might be enough. In either case, miners would recoup their losses by selling ASICs, certainly to those in countries with no such restrictions, and the mining would continue. Maybe a government buyback program, similar to what countries have done wi…

Take a look at what Compute North is doing - reframe what an energy producer is. Electric power plants will have the market cornered on computation cost, they will be the miners using surplus load, fluctuating with the market and generating tokenised wealth at the point of generation.

Tokens created at the point of value generation - not abstracted to a few interest rates and financial levers.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#49

Post by goblin89 »

Cryptocurrency can facilitate crime just like cash, but with scale come new and unknown implications. Same with information security, surveillance, and more: physical vulnerability in a door lock vs. remotely exploitable vulnerability in Wi-Fi router firmware; standalone CCTV vs. a connected network of cameras with centralized storage that allows tracking the movements of a given person throughout the day—the latter cases inevitably create potential for less obvious, more insidious exploitation not restricted by physical barriers.

Re: Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society

#50

Post by louwrentius »

keymone wrote: post #42
louwrentius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin works because it provides a transaction platform that’s virtually impossible to censor or control and a monetary system that is virtually impossible to debase. Why is this good? What tangible problem are we solving here?

It’s good because it solves problem for me. The problem it solves is absence of financial system that is impossible to censor or control and monetary system that is impossible to debase.

What do these words even mean in every day life?
Post reply on HN