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

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

#311

Post by ericmay »

idorosen wrote: post #304
ericmay wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They related these two points by saying that either it’s hackable, or there’s something weird going on under the hood, and that proof of stake alleviates these issues. Idk if I agree or disagree but it seemed straightforward and relevant what they were asserting.

There were three concepts being conflated in the comment I originally replied to: Sybil attacks, double spending prevention mechanisms like Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, and exactly-once delivery to members of a group (i.e. what a coin faucet does and the creepy biometric privacy destroying Orb thing TFA reacts to). TFA discusses an identification problem, and how this particular solution is creepy and privacy-de…

Just wanted to say I really appreciate this long and thoughtful response - and sure you are probably proving the OP wrong, I just don't think that what they wrote was inconsistent, even if it turned out to be wrong.

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

#312

Post by arcticbull »

wyager wrote: post #292
arcticbull wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

Sure. Net of assets minus liabilities. Book value.

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

They both change value with respect to eachother but neither is priced in the other. Goods in the US are priced in dollars. Goods in Europe are priced in Euros. Euros are not priced in dollars, and dollars are not priced in euros. They're independent and exchangeable at a market rate based on relative purchasing power and demand.

The price of a euro is not determined by the dollar - although a rate of exchange exists. The price of an apple in the US is determined by the dollar. The price of a dollar isn't determined by the euro. The price of an apple in the EU is determined by the euro. I'm sure there's a name for this.

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

I see what you mean, and yes the rate of exchange floats.

> I think you meant “1” since you didn’t disagree with scarcity.

It's not scarce, you can just build up. We impose artificial scarcity with zoning considerations, but it's not inherently scarce.

> Try bringing EUR to a US Apple store.

Why would I do that? I don't live in Europe, I don't participate in the European economy. I can exchange one for the other, or have Visa do it free of charge, as they participate in both. Currencies only apply within their boundaries of acceptance. The euro is not a currency in America which is kind of the point I'm making about acceptance. It's a currency somewhere but real estate is a currency nowhere like gold.

So given it carries few (or IMO very few) attributes of money and is not used as money anywhere and its price fluctuates with respect to a currency, it's not a monetary asset. It's not monetized. It's totally independent.

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

I don't really care why we got where we got - the result is better. FDR really took the US off the gold standard in 1933 - following the UK ending the gold standard in 1931 "abruptly and unilaterally." [1] Nixon simply killed off the last vestiges.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard

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

#313

Post by thruway516 »

dangirsh wrote: post #302
thruway516 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? They’re collecting and saving them, at least up to the point of confirming all new user accounts which happens sometime after they scan irises. I might have missed it but I don’t see anywhere in their docs where it says they discard the hashes even after they’ve minted a unique user account for the new user. They need to store the hashes at least until they’ve registered all possible users - how else will they c…

All iris hashes are publicly saved, but not linked to wallets. Details here: https://worldcoin.org/how-it-works#crypto (Account Privacy section)

I think it's the idea of collecting them in the first place that most people are uncomfortable with. It's still a lot of trust to put in the hands of a private company. It reminds of the whole brouhaha with Apple and their CSAM privacy measures.

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

#314

Post by idorosen »

ericmay wrote: post #311
idorosen wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were three concepts being conflated in the comment I originally replied to: Sybil attacks, double spending prevention mechanisms like Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, and exactly-once delivery to members of a group (i.e. what a coin faucet does and the creepy biometric privacy destroying Orb thing TFA reacts to). TFA discusses an identification problem, and how this particular solution is creepy and privacy-de…

Just wanted to say I really appreciate this long and thoughtful response - and sure you are probably proving the OP wrong, I just don't think that what they wrote was inconsistent, even if it turned out to be wrong.

In this case, there are 2 graphs/networks (3 if you count the "Orbs"), 3 different kinds of Sybil attacks, double spending, ECC signatures, and more. It's easy to lose track. I wrote it to check my own understanding.

https://xkcd.com/386/

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

#315

Post by wyager »

arcticbull wrote: post #312
wyager wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Sure. Net of assets minus liabilities. Book value. > EUR literally floats wrt USD. There is no coherent way to disagree with this. They both change value with respect to eachother but neither is priced in the other. Goods…

> Sure. Net of assets minus liabilities.

Uh huh… and how do you calculate the values of these subterms? You told me you could calculate a number, not an expression with free variables doing all the work.

> It's not scarce, you can just build up.

Building land is not cost effective. Economists say land has an “essentially fixed supply”, cf analysis of Georgism.

> It's a currency somewhere but real estate is a currency nowhere like gold.

Bitcoin is a currency in El Salvador. More to come.

> I don't really care why we got where we got - the result is better

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

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

#316

Post by ericmay »

idorosen wrote: post #314
ericmay wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wanted to say I really appreciate this long and thoughtful response - and sure you are probably proving the OP wrong, I just don't think that what they wrote was inconsistent, even if it turned out to be wrong.

In this case, there are 2 graphs/networks (3 if you count the "Orbs"), 3 different kinds of Sybil attacks, double spending, ECC signatures, and more. It's easy to lose track. I wrote it to check my own understanding. https://xkcd.com/386/

Great one!

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

#317

Post by vagab0nd »

> Fraud-resistance: The iris is difficult to physically modify and the biometric capture can be made hard to spoof.

I'm very doubtful about this. This process is either completely centralized (which means privacy is at risk), or not going to work properly.

My experience has been: the more you think about the Sybil problem, the harder it becomes.

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

#318

Post by helloworld11 »

lhh wrote: post #287

I really don't understand all the outrage in most of the comments here. Seems to me like they're just trying to launch a new cryptocurrency, they're trying to find a reasonably equitable way to distribute the initial tokens to bootstrap it, and iris-scanning is the best non-centralized, technically and logistically feasible way to identify new unique human entrants that they came up with. The principle of it sounds g…

The fundamental idea behind this of, "Here, take this shiny object that may or may not have some value at some point in exchange for enslaving your most personal data to us who want to work for 'your own good'" is just shitty and elitist regardless of how its pursued.

Also, >Trying to tear people down who pretty clearly seem to be making a good faith attempt to make the world a better place is reprehensible in my opinion.

Seriously? What an absurd notion. Oh hey, X attempt was in good faith! What a terrible person you are for criticizing it... Not to compare Altman with people like Lenin but I suppose that by this logic, one is bad for criticizing revolutionary demagogues because their hearts were always in the right place?

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