Svennek said it well, there is not much of interest left to discuss, the remaining ambiguities are up to taste, not novelty. The only interesting things are talking about whether decentralisation is a value in and off itself without e.g. equity and whether people actually inherently care about it. But those are charged topics, also because people who are all in on crypto have a material interest in pushing the idea that YES it is and YES they will. So you can't have that remaining interesting conversation in a detached manner. (In my analysis the no-coiners have much less to lose in this and so are able to have more detached conversation because if it turns out that people really go for decentralisation we can still hop on board, we won't get rich anymore but we won't drop much either - it is naive to assume that systems which wield material power and are intricately tied to the foundation for the private property rights crypto builds its use cases on would simply collapse. The same way we had banks and commodity billionaires before microsoft and google, we will have old wealth smoothly migrating into the new system - otherwise the old wealth wouldn't adopt it).
Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
51–60 of 278 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The environmental argument is a straw man, and not really related to crypto, but actually related to our energy mix. If crypto was mined only on renewables there is no environmental argument. Ergo, not related to crypto technology itself.
Energy is fungible, we don't have 100% green energy and won't for a very long time, we make up the difference with fossil. Even if crypto used green energy only, it means more fossil burned. To continue human civilization we need to stop fossil burning as much as possible, crypto is unnecessary and should therefore be stopped.
But that is solved with a price on carbon. That would make mining without renewables unprofitable.
How do you argue that something is unnecessary? Aluminum uses heaps of energy… we haven’t needed in for 1000s of years, is it neccersary?
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#53Because after ~13 years, mind boggling amount of money and development time, it is still just as useless in the real world as it ever was.
Actually no it is not useless in the real world! Using crypto makes it very easy to send and receive money very quickly, without the need to rely to the "system" of banks, governments etc. I can't think of a more useful application, for me it's more of a revolution!
I'd argue that's not a problem that cryptocurrencies somehow uniquely solve, and in fact even this is solved inefficiently by them. Enormous amounts of energy have to be expended to facilitate a fairly low number of transactions. There are zero technical reasons why non-crypto/non-blockchain technologies wouldn't allow instantaneous money transfer. And in many places of the world, they do. I can instantly transfer money from one bank account to another in Europe. The only reason this is not the case in many parts of the world is that the banking system still runs on archaic technical and procedural frameworks.
And finally: > without the need to rely to the "system" of banks, governments etc I consider this a severe bug. When hackers empty out your wallet, you'll wish there was a system of banks and governments that provide some sort of insurance - like most western banks and governments do.
The sole case that can be made for cryptos is that alongside enabling money laundering and tax dodging, their unregulated nature allows people in oppressive regimes to funnel out money. I'd say that may be a valuable tradeoff, but somehow it's not the one being discussed usually.
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#54I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…
There is a 3rd camp I count myself in that sits somewhere in the middle and stays out of most HN CC discussions because there seem to be almost only extremists discussing.
I actually belong more to camp three than the "no/scam" camp... But I do lean towards no real purpose, that cannot be better (i.e. more efficiently) done otherwise...
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#55[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The environmental argument is a straw man, and not really related to crypto, but actually related to our energy mix. If crypto was mined only on renewables there is no environmental argument. Ergo, not related to crypto technology itself.
I think the renewable energy is the real straw-man. What about the non-recycable waste after "renewable" energy. Windmills have steel coated by epoxy wings, those cannot be recycled. Solar panels is also ready for the trash-heap after 20 years, due to being a complex composite.. The only real energy source that would help would be nuclear, but even if we get that where have more efficient room-heaters and better use…
Solar panels aren’t complex composites. They are silicon with some coatings on it. You can definitely recycle them.
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#57There is no consensus on this topic because a lot of people just want to "get rich quick" ignoring the question of the source of richness.
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#58I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…
I think it goes a little deeper. The whole discussion basically mirrors real life politics. One camp want's more collective action to help the unfortunate, the other wants absolute freedom for the individual.
Further than that: one camp believes in collective action and the welfare of an extended population, encompassing the worthy AND the unworthy, and the other considers that there must be penalties for being unworthy or inferior, and rewards for being worthy or superior.
This is a genuine difference of ideology, authentically held. To insist on absolute freedom for the individual, including any penalty or consequence for any lack on any level (and any degree of reward for any superiority no matter how it's arrived at) means you do not care about the unfortunate any more than you'd care about the pile of chips produced whilst making a great sculpture. Not only is the sculpture the point, but it's actively harmful to insist on leaving the superfluous chips stuck on: some waste has to be disposed or you're just poisoning yourself/harming your sculpture.
This is a position often held by sculptures and people not often thought of as waste. People who get thought of as waste, frequently would like this assumption re-examined.
People who are garbage but occupy categories way beyond their inherent value really REALLY don't want that assumption re-examined…
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#59Because after ~13 years, mind boggling amount of money and development time, it is still just as useless in the real world as it ever was.
Actually no it is not useless in the real world! Using crypto makes it very easy to send and receive money very quickly, without the need to rely to the "system" of banks, governments etc. I can't think of a more useful application, for me it's more of a revolution!
We can say that when it will be easy to withdraw the transferred coins (convert them into real, offline currencies such as dollars, euros, and so on). Right now you need to confirm your identity, pass the KYC procedure - no difference in comparison to real banks.
Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it goes a little deeper. The whole discussion basically mirrors real life politics. One camp want's more collective action to help the unfortunate, the other wants absolute freedom for the individual.
How do you see bitcoin fit into that axis, i.e. how does bitcoin help the unfortunate (that is VERY late to the "game") ? That might disprove my "nothing interesting to discus.
Bitcoin is an unconfiscable, permissionless inflation hedge. It's a big deal for people that live in authoritarian countries that coincidentally always have huge inflation numbers.