100 years of whatever this will be • Hacker News Board

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#201

Post by anon9001 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #151

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

This DeFi thing is big, large, involves money, teh future; is probably bubbly. There's not a lot to understand IMO. It's a wave of emotions wrapped into "tech". It's wise to treat it like a ~thing and see how it evolves.

Is it possible that DeFi is not a wave of emotions wrapped into tech?

I think the more likely explanation is that it's a way for people who own crypto to borrow and lend.

It's probably one of the first things to be built because there's a lot of people with crypto and banks don't want to accept it as collateral.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#202

Post by _9omd » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #157

_9omd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point about software development in general, but I don't think it applies to things as fundamentally revolutionary as crypto. Sometimes system _do_ have to be completely re-thought from the ground up. I don't believe it's possible for our current financial systems to morph into an open network for storing and transmitting value (the internet of money as some call crypto).

Let’s assume (and that’s a big if) that crypto is a fundamentally better foundation to base finance on. Even if it is, we cannot presently know that it is, and we cannot predict what its unique failure scenarios will be and how to counter them. Therefore for me arguing a headlong dive into crypto is indeed like a junior developer arguing for the big rewrite. I also fail to see the fundamental difference between crypt…

I agree that gold and Bitcoin have some very key similarities, but gold and crypto in general are quite different. With regards to Bitcoin, yes they're both stores of value, but Bitcoin has the added ability to transact globally and be much more divisible. Bitcoin seems to have settled into two roles within the greater crypto ecosystem; store of value and reserve currency for the entire crypto economy. Now there are also things happening in the Bitcoin payments space using lightening, but I don't think there will ever be a large appetite for payments using a deflationary currency (It's your savings account, not your checking account).

But outside of Bitcoin there is a ton of cool stuff happening in the DeFi space which could have big implications for our financial systems. One example is stablecoins which has a much better chance of being used in payment systems than a store of value like Bitcoin. In general I don't see this stuff replacing the financial system so much as finance companies slowly adopting crypto on the backend. Just like companies adopted internet technology as it allowed them to run more efficiently.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#203

Post by germinalphrase » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #171

germinalphrase wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He clearly indicated that he believes it leads to societal instability, violence, and collapse.

Basically that people cannot be expected to accept their own fates with dignity? I would make the case that overwhelming violence is an appropriate consequence for violating the peace. Good policing techniques are very effective in maintaining social order, in spite of economic inequality - see Japan.

Is the history of revolutions/social collapse really marked by despots, dictators and royalty not using overwhelming force?

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#204

Post by icehawk » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

_9omd wrote: post #92

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

You make a good point about software development in general, but I don't think it applies to things as fundamentally revolutionary as crypto. Sometimes system _do_ have to be completely re-thought from the ground up. I don't believe it's possible for our current financial systems to morph into an open network for storing and transmitting value (the internet of money as some call crypto).

The point makes sense since a lot of the complexity of the current financial system isn't because of the money, it's because of the /people./

The complexity comes from the rules enacted to shield people from bad actors, and that's just going to be re-applied to crypto in some way shape or form.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#205

Post by dmitriid » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

api wrote: post #16

dash2 wrote: post #2

I think most sensible people had figured this out already. The people that don't and honestly believe everything will be fixed by a DAO or whatever... they're beyond reason.

They're trying really hard to solve a problem that hasn't been solved yet, which requires placing oneself beyond the "reason" of skeptics. https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/neverwrk.htm Their solutions may not and perhaps probably will not work because it's a hard problem. The payoff for solving this problem is civilization without single points of failure. No more wheel of rising and falling empires that take all…

> Proof of work sort of kind of solves it, but not really, and at tremendous cost. Nevertheless the fact that it gets close is maybe suggestive

It doesn't solve it, and it will never be close. If you ant just one reason, it's easy: enforcement. You smart contracts mean zilch if you can't enter a house some scammer just sold you.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#206

Post by whakim » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #136

>Centrally planning a whole society clearly does not work (demonstrated, bloodily, several times). I really, really hate this argument. If it's true, why does the CIA feel the need to destabilize countries with centrally planned markets? Why has China been so successful despite what is widely believed to be a failed premise? Central planning works as well as unplanned markets work: That is, sometimes they work, somet…

The author is mostly talking about Soviet Communism, China pre-1976, etc. in which the government owns everything there is to own. The China of today isn't "centrally planning a whole society". It's a society in which the government owns a much larger amount of assets, than, say, the United States (as measured as a percentage of the country's national income). On that metric, it's just further along the scale compared to Northern European social democracies (where the government also owns many more assets than in the United States). I think it's a great mistake to assume that just because the government owning everything doesn't work, the government owning anything is also bad.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#207

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #171

germinalphrase wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He clearly indicated that he believes it leads to societal instability, violence, and collapse.

Basically that people cannot be expected to accept their own fates with dignity? I would make the case that overwhelming violence is an appropriate consequence for violating the peace. Good policing techniques are very effective in maintaining social order, in spite of economic inequality - see Japan.

Why do you think the only weak people that deserve protection are the wealthy? The idea that the only legitimate function of government is to protect the status quo is strange, and in a world where everything is assigned an owner is a maxarchism not a minarchism.

In a real Darwinian world, rich people wouldn't be able to walk the streets without a huge amount of security, and eventually that security force would kill them, take what they have, and pass it to their children. The idea that the people who own everything are the intellectual and physical champions of the world is a version of the efficient market hypothesis within a idealized police state whose only duty is to keep these people from falling to their level. It's really just a neofeudalism that will result in neohapsburg lips in 100 years and infant kings.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#208

Post by Gravityloss » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

I was recently on sick leave and had some time to concentrate. I read William Gibson's Neuromancer finally. Glad that we aren't in that dystopic future.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#209

Post by circlefavshape » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

Yes, yes, and yes again. This goes for every "revolutionary" thing, from a new codebase to DeFi to an actual revolution.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#210

Post by danans » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #62

nomdep wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average, middle class and below lives longer and more confortable than in the previous thousands of years.

When you go back thousands of years, it's pretty easy assertion to make. How about the last 40? Are we really better off in totality or just different? I can think of some things that are better, but I can think of a bunch of things that are much worse.

> How about the last 40? Are we really better off in totality or just different?

IMO in the last 40 years it has become harder (more expensive) for those who have had it a bit better off to separate themselves both physically and culturally from those who are a lot worse off (regardless of why they are worse off).

All the while the cost and accessibility of erstwhile public goods that temper that desire for that separation, like safety and education, have skyrocketed.

That separation and the inequality behind it has doubtlessly been enabled by a heap of injustices. The effects of this are seen in situations spanning from police brutality to current refugee migration crises.

We haven't been able to as effectively outsource pain and chaos to others (whether in our own backyard or the other side of the planet) while shielding ourselves from the blowback like we once did.

Therefore people feel worse off, not because they are necessarily worse off, but because they fear that the nearing chaos will make them permanently worse off.

The richest <1% don't have to directly deal this problem, since they can easily still pay for that separation.