It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#611

Post by mthoms » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:19 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #566

mthoms wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to cease to engage for several reasons: 1) You just flatly contradicted yourself without even realizing it. The top level comment said "The reality is that the internet was immediately extremely interesting (either useful or fun) for practically everyone who got access.". When challenged, you moved the bar to "Well, it eventually became useful to everyone!". 2) You're condescending "I can see how people in…

I don’t know what you mean by point 1. The qualifier I used was “everyone who got access”, and I stand by that. Initially only nerds had access and they couldn’t get enough. When access expanded to the general public, they couldn’t get enough either. “You’ve Got Mail” is a 1998 movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The internet was completely mainstream just 16 years after the military decided to standardize on IPv4…

> The qualifier I used was “everyone who got access”, and I stand by that. Initially only nerds had access and they couldn’t get enough. When access expanded to the general public, they couldn’t get enough either.

My whole family had access. And the families of all my friends. They hated it. It was boring and complex. If you mean "everyone who sought access" then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy isn't it? You're either misremembering or engaging in disingenuous word play.

>The internet was completely mainstream just 16 years after the military decided to standardize on IPv4.

So 16 years is the benchmark? Seems arbitrary (because it is). Bitcoin is 12 years old. When the Internet was about 12, what did Newsweek say?

>If there will be a 2024 Hollywood blockbuster called “You’ve Got Bitcoin”, it’s going to be a dark parody of speculation and greed, not a heartwarming tale of how much cryptocurrency helped average people connect with each other.

The discussion wasn't whether Crypto is a more important technology than the internet. It was about how clunky and shitty it was at the beginning. Nothing more. Stop trying to "slam dunk" on people.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#612

Post by amusedcyclist » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:19 AM UTC

coolspot wrote: post #262

0x0 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "only gives them the utility of the land itself" "only"? I'd say the "utility of the land" IS the only value of "having" land.

Obviously you’re missing that most of any land’s value comes from the fact that it can be wrapped as NFT. It is well known historic fact that Romans fought for new land knowing that the time will come when you could wrap it into NFT to make finally useful! Same story with Columbus and his ICO (Initial Columbus Odyssey).

No better bear case for crypto than articles and comments in its defense

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#613

Post by TheSmiddy » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #538

DennisP wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bitcoin" is a subset of "blockchain." Some blockchains have a lot of stuff to do, even if Bitcoin doesn't.

Which ones?

There's heaps. Hypothetical blockchains, imaginary blockchains, future blockchains, theoretical blockchains, unconfirmed blockchains, academic blockchains; the list is endless!

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#614

Post by pontus » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

Well, crypto is either going to be a huge success or a big flop. Whichever it is, whoever was espousing that side of the story will feel vindicated and talk about how it was obvious all along. Sadly(?) I belong to neither camp. I definitely see how clever the underlying technical/mathematical ideas are, but I also have a feeling in my gut that this is just smoke and mirrors (although, I have similar feelings for other assets like the USD and gold).

Are there others out there who are also not sure? It seems like every time I see this debate, I just see hardcore people on one side yelling at the hardcore people on the other side telling them how stupid they are (in very eloquent ways, of course).

Is it really that obvious that this is a good/bad idea?

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#615

Post by jedberg » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #512

jedberg wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiat currency is backed by courts and regulation, which is backed by a literal army, and the threats of violence that army brings. If someone steals your fiat USD, there will eventually be someone with guns removing you from society if you don't return them. Cryptocurrency has no such backing.

> If someone steals your fiat USD, there will eventually be someone with guns removing you from society if you don't return them. That's true for any type of property, including cryptocurrency. US police have returned stolen cryptocurrency to its rightful owner.[1] The wrinkle is that police can only recover property if they know where it went. Cryptocurrency makes that harder in some ways (pseudonymity/anonymity, mi…

USD is fungible. They don't have to recover your stolen dollars. They just have to get you an equal amount. And that's why it's far more useful than cryptocurrency. The government has lots of ways of giving you equal amounts, including simply creating it out of thin air.

Cryptocurrency is by definition non-fungible, and as you rightly pointed out, harder to recover.

But more importantly, if you are a US citizen you can use the services of the US government to recover your stolen cryptocurrency, but if you aren't a US citizen, you can't.

But no matter what country you are a citizen of, you can use the US government to recover your USD.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#616

Post by floatboth » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

pa7x1 wrote: post #367

idlewords wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hash tree with a vape cloud around it, not quantum chromodynamics. I think most people on this technical forum understand it just fine.

The hard part is not the data structure behind it (Merkle tree) but the economics. An entirely new branch of economics has spun of it and it's far from trivial.

> entirely new branch of economics

More like, everything old is new again. Nicholas Weaver called it "speedrunning 500 years of bad economic history".

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#617

Post by 22c » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

knorker wrote: post #530

fleddr wrote: post #264

I could waste a huge amount of time refuting the author's points, but will make it more of a meta comment. Crypto is vast, complex, and inherently not suitable for binary thinking. I've studied the space for months and have come to the conclusion that crypto is two-sided in almost every aspect. Many/most coins are speculative, which you can associate with words like "greed" and "casino". Yet also provide wealth savin…

It's always so convenient that cryptocurrency/smart contract proponents "can't be bothered" to give actual arguments. Your comment here is a poster child of "I don't have time to explain, so please take these baseless assertions that you are wrong. Sorry I have to go now, for unrelated reasons". It's a cliche at this point.

>give actual arguments

I'd say the reason is that many people have already made their mind up and no amount of "actual arguments" will convince them otherwise, but sure, here are some examples of things enabled by smart contracts.

https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/amm-what-are-automated-ma...

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atomic-swaps.asp

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2020/11/blockchain-for-...

Arguing with someone who is bearish on cryptocurrency is pissing in the wind, which is why people would rather leave for "unrelated reasons".

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#618

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

hmrtn wrote: post #462

I think it's time for us in the tech world to speak out and make it clear the emperor has no clothes here. _Gold_ is sustained by a mix of money laundering, human slavery, fraud, ransom, gambling, and delusion. It has no social benefit except helping end first dates fast. What we especially need to stress to regulators is that there's no relationship between the claims of _gold_ and our now thousands of years of expe…

This is exactly right. Cryptocurrencies are digital gold. That's what makes crypto so scary. When gold was made too central a part of the monetary/financial system in the 1920s and 1930s, it caused the Great Depression and quite possibly WWII.

Deflationary tokens, if they get too enmeshed with the financial system, tend to be hoarded to a point where they displace productive investment on an economy wide scale, putting a huge gridlock in the economy.

Even Douglas Adams tried to warn us: https://benoitessiambre.com/specter.html

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#619

Post by maxbond » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #595

knorker wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always so convenient that cryptocurrency/smart contract proponents "can't be bothered" to give actual arguments. Your comment here is a poster child of "I don't have time to explain, so please take these baseless assertions that you are wrong. Sorry I have to go now, for unrelated reasons". It's a cliche at this point.

You have thing upside down. Crypto, its fast-moving technology and implications on the financial system, economics, politics and the media is so vast that it costs thousands of hours to study. Your strategy is to say "you're wrong, prove me right". No, I won't be writing book-length comments here to convince some internet stranger whom is categorically against it. I have no burden of proof. I'm not even a proponent o…

If you don't have an argument to make, perhaps it's better to say nothing?

When you come out and say, things are too complex to make an argument, it can read like FUD and whataboutism. As if you are attacking an idea that an argument _can_ be made.

I'm sure you didn't set out to muddy the waters, but after having muddied them in the middle of a lively debate, I think this is the sort of response you should expect to receive.

Coherent arguments against cryptocurrencies are readily available. The case for cryptocurrencies is shifting, contradictory, and often nonsensical. This means something. It matters.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#620

Post by joepie91_ » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:28 AM UTC

lottin wrote: post #293

joepie91_ wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're actually almost right. While Bitcoin was launched with lofty goals, it was pretty quickly overtaken by capitalist vultures who saw a low-regulation industry to extract money from people. Importantly though, it's not an either/or. Capitalism is problematic and cryptocurrency is problematic. Both can be true at the same time.

Bitcoin inventors were anarcho-capitalists, an ideology that promotes an extreme version of capitalism where there are no governments and corporations have unlimited power.

The early adopters were considerably more varied than just "anarcho"-capitalists.