I think the idea to introduce WorldCoin now, using the method as described, during the current climate, basically sums up everything that is wrong with today's Tech, VC and Silicon Valley.
Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
261–270 of 318 posts
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is wrong. Any asset with monetary properties can (and will, in the right environments) be monetized. That is not the definition of a monetary asset. "A monetary item is an asset or liability carrying a value in dollars that will not change in the future. These items have a fixed numerical value in dollars, and a dollar is always worth a dollar. The numbers do not change even though the purchasing power of a do…
I used the phrase “monetary asset” once to mean “an asset which behaves and is treated like money”, but it would have been less ambiguous for me to use the phrase “monetized asset”. > citation needed Give me a minute to find a copy of the Official Rules of Economic Epistemology. If you’d like to put forward any particular theory that assigns “intrinsic value” to objects I could address it specifically.
> I used the phrase “monetary asset” once to mean “an asset which behaves and is treated like money”, but it would have been less ambiguous for me to use the phrase “monetized asset”.
Real estate is a productive asset and gold is a commodity. I'm not sure in what way they "behave like money" - their prices float with respect to a currency and have roughly zero of the attributes of money [1] - but monetization just means to find ways to make money off an unproductive asset, rather than transmuting it into something that's basically money.
> Give me a minute to find a copy of the Official Rules of Economic Epistemology.
I'll wait. If you're going to accuse someone of a "dysfunctional mental economic model" it's best to have a case made.
I'm referring to intrinsic value in the economic sense not in the epistemological sense. Economic intrinsic value is an independent mathematical derivation of the market value of an asset - based on its qualities and attributes - divorced from the price at which it trades.
For instance, the intrinsic value of a SPAC is the cash on hand, and its extrinsic value is whatever its trading at on the hopes of an acquisition.
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/economic-lowdown-podcas....
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but that doesn't give you the disproportional advantage bitcoin miners get with their specialized hardware. With two CPUs you get two votes. Bitcoin miners get god knows how many.
It really doesn't matter to the game theory of the system. If bitcoin somehow managed to create a system in which general CPUs were the only thing that can be used to mine, it would just mean that we'd have CPU shortages as the people with wealth and power would buy them all up. Or at least, they'd buy up all the best ones and the plebs would get the low clock speed units that can only hash at a fraction of the rate.…
Perhaps. It would still be a lot better compared to the current situation. Buying up all CPUs would not render existing ones useless due to order of magnitude advantages like what happened to specialized BTC miner hardware. People would still be able participate in the network.
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. Maybe the scanners have a key that only it's creators can derive from some master key. The hash could come signed and all the public verification has to do is match against a public key. You don't need a database of hashes and you don't need a centralized db of source scans. Each scan hash could even chain with a previous scan hash and you can limit the number of times a key is good for, hence limiti…
Which, as always, raises the question of why a blockchain is necessary. If the creators' master key can be trusted with the power to decide who gets new coins, why don't the creators just store everyone's account balance in a database, and get rid of the enormous performance and energy costs of a distributed ledger?
I don't know anything about Worldcoin specifically, but you could argue a case for an initial period of semi-centralized "fair" distribution, after which the protocol would (verifiably) cease to allow minting of new coins.
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#265As I understand it, the distribution mechanism of Worldcoin is not part of the protocol. The protocol does not know anything about eyes. So the distribution seems completely centralized. A central authority distributes the coins however they wish. Today they might use a process involving eye scans. Or maybe not. There is no way to check. Tomorrow they might change their approach however they like. And we would have n…
Wait so I can fake a retina and get coins?
Time for "This retina does not exist"?
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#266What a cancer. These guys are already ultra rich, but it’s never enough. Sociopathic greed. And of course they spin it as some benevolent humanitarian effort. Tax these shameless parasites back to reality. I love HN, but we need better.
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#267So if you have eye surgery or an eye injury you lose access to your coins?
I understand it so that you merely need a scan to create a wallet. After that, you no longer need to scan.
Still, there are so many ways this is bad, it's not even funny. Starting with the question of granting anyone without a retina access to the technology...
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really doesn't matter to the game theory of the system. If bitcoin somehow managed to create a system in which general CPUs were the only thing that can be used to mine, it would just mean that we'd have CPU shortages as the people with wealth and power would buy them all up. Or at least, they'd buy up all the best ones and the plebs would get the low clock speed units that can only hash at a fraction of the rate.…
Perhaps. It would still be a lot better compared to the current situation. Buying up all CPUs would not render existing ones useless due to order of magnitude advantages like what happened to specialized BTC miner hardware. People would still be able participate in the network.
People can and do still participate by buying ASICs.
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sadly, they're eventually likely to get it all. Not mine! But WTF, I'm just a paranoid weirdo.
Thing is, you don't matter. If I have access to the data of 95% of people in a society, I have enough to model and predict behavior, and maybe even the hooks to inject information and influence future behavior. The long tail of paranoid weirdos who spend all their time and energy fighting to maintain their privacy are irrelevant to the goal of societal domination.
Of course, you're right!
FWIW I don't spend a lot of energy; it's become habitual. I just don't hand out my PII simply because someone asked. And if people ask me for PII when I don't think they need it, I'll deal with the hassle of finding another way to solve my problem.
I know that my attitude is irrelevant to the behaviour of the snoopers. I'm not trying to train them.
Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll buy "undesirable", for the sake of the argument. But I'm really not clear why you think it is "impossible". We have had repeated instances throughout history of groups of people practicing common ownership, and they do seem to work reasonably well. (I completely grant they aren't super-popular, but, again, I'm not advocating change, I'm trying to understand why you think this qualifies as "impossible") What do y…
> We have had repeated instances throughout history of groups of people practicing common ownership We also have repeated instances throughout history of groups claiming to try to implement common ownership, and instead killing millions and installing tyrannical governments (see: most communist revolutions), of consistently larger scale (orders of magnitude) than the successes. Historically, it's far more probable th…
I certainly consider it very thoughtful, and appreciate the time it takes to craft a considered message.
I do hear the "scale" concern, and it's interesting to think about it. I.e. for me, it immediately pops the question "why is scale a problem for common ownership, but not for individual ownership". I suspect - without having any proof - that scale is the thing that makes the transition impossible, not that it's an inherent problem for community property itself. Practically, the outcome is indeed the same - if you can't safely transition, the end state is impossible, even if it itself would be a stable state.
This also raises the question of democracy & unequal ownership as a possible stable state - Plato was certainly concerned enough about it, and history has done nothing to discourage that belief since then. There are plenty of rather deadly examples of failed non-communist states.
If nothing else, your comment (and the subthread in general) has lead me to a rather interesting paper: "Social instability and redistribution of income", by Josef Falkinger. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01762... (Yeah, as usual, paywalled. Elsevier)
It's a deliberate attempt at modelling outcomes based on income distribution - which I think attempts to get to the heart of the "impossible" issue. It only tackles income, not wealth, but there's a rich set of references :)