Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs' • Hacker News Board

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#291

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

censormenow wrote: post #290

dang wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of users criticize all those things without getting banned. You're banned for posting flamewar comments and otherwise breaking the site guidelines, as well as for creating a long string of accounts to troll HN with. That's not cool. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. We're always happy to unban peo…

I get it's not personal, but the comments I'm posting aren't flamewar. I'm simply telling people they are wrong, and they don't like it. But that's a huge benefit of forums like this I think, learning when you're wrong. And very often I am and I want to know why. Also, who is flagging the comments and rate limiting users? It's not you, you can't possibly be reading all this. It's users past a karma score, many having…

The problem is, you don't get to decide whether your comments are flamewar or not. That's actually a rather objective question: it's a function of the responses your comments lead to—or more precisely, likely lead to, given what we know about internet forum dynamics. You're responsible for that, and putting the blame on other people ("I'm simply telling people they are wrong, and they don't like it") is an evasion of that responsibility.

Here's an observation that may help. I've noticed that people tend greatly to underestimate the flaminess (aggressiveness, provocation) of their own comments, let's say by 10x. And they tend greatly to overestimate the amount of badness that other people do, let's say by 10x. Putting those numbers together yields a 100x distortion in how much responsibility we usually assign ourselves. That's basically the problem. Objects in the mirror are a lot closer than they appear!

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#292

Post by wyager » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #286

wyager wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 This doesn’t exist except in the imagination. It has no causal bearing on any economic process except through the influence it has on the person imagining it. > their prices float with respect to a currency So does EUR with respect to…

> This doesn’t exist except in the imagination. It has no causal bearing on any economic process except through the influence it has on the person imagining it. No, it exists in math, with addition and subtraction. Like I said, a publicly traded bank account like a SPAC has an intrinsic value equal to its cash on hand. This is the economic definition of intrinsic value, and you're trying to once again substitute your…

> No, it exists in math, with addition and subtraction.

I’m sure you can imagine a formula. If you’d like to share a particular formula that works for determining the “intrinsic value” of any arbitrary asset I can explain why it’s wrong or meaningless.

> This does not follow

EUR literally floats wrt USD. There is no coherent way to disagree with this.

> Currencies do not float with respect to other currencies because they are not priced in terms of each other.

Yes they are, any time someone does an FX trade.

> Ok let's talk about real estate.

Typo, meant 3.5/5. Durable - yes, it persists better over arbitrary timescales than the dollar, especially raw land. Scarce - yes. Fungible - 0.5. Liquid - long settlement times don’t mean illiquid (although I probably should apply a penalty here) - yes. Portable - 0. I think you meant “1” since you didn’t disagree with scarcity.

> Try bringing your deed to the Apple store to buy a MacBook… Try bringing a gold brick to the Apple store and see if you can buy an iPhone

Try bringing EUR to a US Apple store.

> we replaced it because it was bad at being money

Do you really think that’s why Nixon suspended gold convertibility? That’s a… very charitable explanation

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#293

Post by thruway516 » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

csee wrote: post #281

thruway516 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zk proofs have nothing to do with Snowden’s criticism. They’re collecting and storing iris hashes regardless of whether they’re using Zk proofs downstream in their tech stack.

Why is this problematic? The risks as I see it are authoritarian governments figuring out the tech and using it. Or compelling Worldcoin to do their bidding. Storing hashes in itself doesn't seem like it can be abused. Suppose Worldcoin has a database of a billion hashes, then an authoritarian government decides to compel Worldcoin for some nefarious purposes. What then? What bad stuff could happen?

"What then? What bad stuff could happen?" I leave that to your imagination. It comes down to individual preference and where you draw the line at privacy. I personally wouldn't trust my biometric data to any FAANG let alone some shit-coin startup that could potentially decide to monetize that data any which way at some point in the future.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#294

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

chriswarbo wrote: post #169

fleddr wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a stupid idea. It's the invention of digital scarcity. It is supposed to be real world costly. High energy use in itself is not the issue, it's CO2 emissions. Energy can be locally abundant, renewable, yet remote, hard to transport to civilization. That would be an idealistic example of sustainable mining. Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. Bitcoin is…

> Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. No it's not. These sorts of arguments fundamentally misunderstand the Sisyphean design of Bitcoin's proof-of-work algorithm: difficulty is scaled to absorb any changes in hash power, and expending hash power is rewarded with a chance of minting coins and/or collecting fees. Bitcoin could be made sustainable and clean today…

Difficulty cannot scale downwards to the level you describe because then it ceases to be Bitcoin. It's supposed to be extremely difficult, this is what secures digital scarcity.

It doesn't help to speak in simplistic absolutes. Miners can definitely become more green and rapidly so. The massive move from China to the US that took place over the last few months likely has dramatically changed the energy mix to mine Bitcoin, for the better. There's also a Bitcoin mining council to promote best practices in renewable mining. There can be additional incentive structures (CO2 tax) to further discourage dirty mining.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#295

Post by boring_twenties » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #213

matheusmoreira wrote: post #198

Earlier 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.…

> somehow

Monero has implemented just such a system already (the RandomX PoW algorithm).

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#296

Post by boring_twenties » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #268

matheusmoreira wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where can one buy a Bitcoin mining ASIC that isn't already obsolete?

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#297

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #208

fleddr wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a stupid idea. It's the invention of digital scarcity. It is supposed to be real world costly. High energy use in itself is not the issue, it's CO2 emissions. Energy can be locally abundant, renewable, yet remote, hard to transport to civilization. That would be an idealistic example of sustainable mining. Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. Bitcoin is…

Everything everyone else said plus e-waste. My lord, Bitcoin produces as much e-waste as the entirety of the Netherlands to scribble a few bytes into a ledger once every 10 minutes lol. 97% of all mining devices will never successfully mine a single block. Each transaction produces as much e-waste as throwing out an iPad. That's on top of the power demand. You cannot make that sustainable. It's grey goo.

The thing is, the discussion really isn't about Bitcoin's footprint. As a society, we don't care at all about high energy usage, CO2 output or waste.

We've ignored the issue for decades and fully embraced ACs, huge cars, big TVs, high-end gaming PCs, cheap products from China, air travel and the excessive eating of meat.

Even in these times of peak awareness, the typical consumer continues to add more electrical devices to their homes, install jacuzzis in their garden and get ever bigger cars.

Nobody is outraged about any of this behavior. We deserve these toys and justify them.

Bitcoin simply stands out as an easy scapegoat. It's not that people actually care about sustainability, they simply see something they don't understand or need, hence let's ban it. Compare it to the outrage regarding very large trucks, and people calling for a ban.

The trouble is, there's only a few of such trucks, so it does nothing. It would be much more fruitful to ban or heavily tax big TVs, as there's many more of them. And just like that, nobody's interested in sustainability anymore. Not when it personally hurts. So it's all optics, not outcomes.

I see no value in high-end gaming PCs and think they should be banned. They have no meaningful societal value to justify their energy use. You see no value in Bitcoin and think it should be banned.

Neither of us has the moral high ground. We're all a bunch of hypocrites that hand pick whatever we consider of personal value, and to disregard anything else that others may consider of value.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#298

Post by 28uwedj » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

rolandog wrote: post #91

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you see the retina mining camps they set up in China.

Or... What if you had an AI randomly generate unique irises, you then print them on adhesive paper, and paste the cut-outs on the eyes of one of those robo-faces? Unlimited money!

easier to just monitor the network traffic, check the hash, generate your own and post.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#299

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #186

fleddr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computing power, or capital to buy the coins. But I don't think this level of "fairness" is productive to discuss. Every human being on the planet having the exact same amount of wealth is an impossibility.

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…

There's a few reasons as to why I believe it to be practically impossible to implement.

If everybody has the exact same amount of wealth, it means you've decoupled wealth from anything that is variable, most importantly human individual qualities like risk taking, hard work, talent, brilliance, persistence.

In a world where you can't better yourself economically, most incentives to innovate or produce would cease to exist. To still get a functioning society, a deeply oppressive regime is the only likely answer. After all, why would anybody work?

I suppose you're right that it's not impossible in the short term, just not sustainable in the long term. If nothing matters at all and is pointless, societies' output will degrade over time until the point it is unbearable.

That said, this is current thinking. It's possible to imagine a different equal wealth world that is futuristic. If we get so advanced as to achieve technical abundance, any citizen on the planet would have a high living standard, say upper middle class. Which satisfies almost everybody. And the standard is guaranteed over time, there's no insecurity to it. And those wanting even more things, have everything at their finger tips. Usage based, not owning things.

In such a world, money becomes meaningless. It's no longer a way to reflect scarcity, a way to secure your personal future, or a differentiator of status. Everybody is materially equal at a high and lasting standard. Differentiation might then be found intellectually or in social status. But probably the robots have taken over by then.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#300

Post by fleddr » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

ThaJay wrote: post #185

fleddr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, but that does not mean its unfair. It just means being late, in the same way that I didn't buy early Apple stock. Nothing prevented me from buying that stock, the opportunity was equal at the time. Whilst anybody is forgiven for not knowing about the very start of BTC at some obscure mailing list, since then there has been a decade of mainstream media exposure, a huge amount of time to acquire BTC. Failing t…

The oppurtunity was never equal. It's directly related to net worth which is one of the most unequal things we have.

Of course that is true, but that's true of anything of value in society, it is unequally distributed. Surely nobody expects a software protocol to equalize any and all capital in the world?

What I mean by equal opportunity is that Bitcoin treats every wallet owner the same and does not favor any elite or closed group in any way. There's not been a "hidden" period where insiders could jump in, whilst others could not.

That's much different from almost any other crypto, where the development team pre-mines supply and rewards them to themselves before opening sales of their tokens.

Likewise, owning lots of Bitcoin does not reward additional Bitcoin. This rich get richer effect is simply not there. Although rich people do tend to get richer in other ways, but that's not Bitcoin's fault.

This too is different from PoS crypto, where owning lots of crypto rewards you even more of the token.