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Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#91

Post by dagmx »

keiferski wrote: post #85
dagmx wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first comment is a very common crypto talking point that isn't really borne in reality IMHO. It takes decades to see the impact. It almost never takes a decade to see the use, and that's what people are deriding. Crypto doesn't really solve a problem that needed solving and it is often the wrong solution for many things it's used for. All at a very high cost. Cryptocurrency hasn't really brought much in the way…

> It almost never takes a decade to see the use, If you study the history of technology, its ultimate impact is never manifest within a decade. It took decades for the Gutenberg Printing Press to spread around Europe and centuries for the consequences to see be seen (Protestant Reformation, newspapers, birth of the modern media, on and on.) This is the case for pretty much every other invention. > Crypto doesn't real…

It took years for the printing press to spread around the world in a time when that was difficult for any physical object to spread around the world.

It did not take years for it to be seen as incredibly useful and it was clear fairly early what the use for it was.

Saying the problem isn't obvious yet is bizarre. The printing press's use case was apparent immediately, even if the extent of its impact wasn't.

You're conflating impact and problem space conveniently.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#92

Post by Nursie »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #10
Nursie wrote: post #7

> It seems if you want to do crypto things without burning the planet down, you can. Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic incentive for other people to burn the planet down? This is beyond a matter of personal choice, until and unless we all get our own personal planets.

It’s a good thing. Secure money is pretty much one of the most important thing we have invented in this age. The energy today is nothing to the energy can harness tomorrow. The planet burners ain’t the energy buyers // it’s the energy sellers. Fix production to be green and grow grow grow.

Just like that, “fix” production?

Wow, glad to know you have the global carbon emissions problem in hand!

Back in the real world, until we have actually got that problem in hand, PoW cryptocurrencies are a huge extra amount of consumption, where we already have more consumption than green energy producers can keep up with. And now crypto miners are bringing decommissioned fossil fuel plants back on line in some places, purely to service PoW.

The planet burners are the buyers. Sorry.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#93

Post by mathnmusic »

sneak wrote: post #58
grey-area wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popularity is not quality, usually the inverse.

If people are willing to pay for it, the people consuming it find it valuable, which is frequently a proxy for quality (in the eyes of those consumers - the ones who count in this equation). Quality of content is, of course, subjective. I have paid for Lady Gaga albums.

The quality problems often come from the poor proxy. Money being fungible means that the rich get higher weight in determining what's considered valuable. In this marketized system, who will value journalism - especially the kind that people in power need to hear, not what they want to hear. If the rich want to suppress a fact, they can buy fake news - and because price = value, the fake news becomes the new truth.

Quality of content is not quite "subjective" in general. Perhaps in entertainment.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#94

Post by dagmx »

WA wrote: post #88
keiferski wrote: post #77

I've been quietly following the development of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, although I only own a very small amount. Some thoughts I have: 1. If you study the history of technology, it becomes pretty clear that it often take decades or even centuries to see the full impact of an invention. Declaring the ultimate value of a technology barely a decade after it was invented is just ignorant. It's only been about 30…

Do you realize how tautological your argument is? The tech is interesting, but the full impact of the invention isn't yet discovered. Focussing on the scamminess of the loudest players in the current tech environment is unfair to the tech. But you can't critizise the current state and environment of said tech, because it's full potential hasn't been discovered yet.

Thank you, I was searching for the word to describe it and Tautological is exactly it.

The "we haven't found a use case yet but it'll happen so keep doing it till a use case is found" arguments are so common and nonsensical

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#95

Post by darawk »

astoor wrote: post #26

The author believes "a Twitter where your popular tweets earn you money" would be a good thing? Twitter is already full of people trying to shout the loudest - how can adding a financial incentive to shout even louder make things better rather than worse?

Because money is a different weighting scheme than costless engagement. Money weighted things behave differently than vote weighted things. Whether or not it will be better remains to be seen, but it should be interesting.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#96

Post by donkeyd »

jayd16 wrote: post #74
donkeyd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the idea of Web3/Crypto is that it's decentralized, so there's no Google or Facebook to take a cut or control a narrative.

Is that really what's holding this idea back, though? Seems doubtful. I could maybe buy the idea that we'll move to an internet where every site nickel and dimes us. But is it more likely for the world to adopt crypto or is it more likely for our Google and Facebook OAuth accounts to support a non-chain wallet api? The crypto cut seems like it will always be more expensive as well.

> Is that really what's holding this idea back, though?

I personally don't believe it is, but some people seem convinced. Also, there's a lot of money to be made for the early entrants who are promoting this idea.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#97

Post by Cthulhu_ »

I've just read the intro, but imo the PRIMARY reason for the hype is simply money. People got rich off of crypto. Rich people that want to get richer simply pay people to hype up crypto (and stonks). And like the 2016 elections, this hype ended up having a snowball effect with people who do not get paid for it hopping onto the hype train to generate more hype.

I'm not saying crypto is some fad or whatever, I'm just not convinced there's anyone into it that doesn't just want to get rich.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#98

Post by keiferski »

dagmx wrote: post #91
keiferski wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It almost never takes a decade to see the use, If you study the history of technology, its ultimate impact is never manifest within a decade. It took decades for the Gutenberg Printing Press to spread around Europe and centuries for the consequences to see be seen (Protestant Reformation, newspapers, birth of the modern media, on and on.) This is the case for pretty much every other invention. > Crypto doesn't real…

It took years for the printing press to spread around the world in a time when that was difficult for any physical object to spread around the world. It did not take years for it to be seen as incredibly useful and it was clear fairly early what the use for it was. Saying the problem isn't obvious yet is bizarre. The printing press's use case was apparent immediately, even if the extent of its impact wasn't. You're c…

Again, if you had made any declarations on the printing press a decade after it was invented, you'd have missed pretty much its entire impact.

There are clear use cases for blockchain which have been laid out ad infinitum by other people. There are also downsides. This makes it pretty much the same as any other technology, e.g. the combustion engine.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#99

Post by Nursie »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #25
Nursie wrote: post #7

> It seems if you want to do crypto things without burning the planet down, you can. Right, but what if you consider it a bad thing to introduce an economic incentive for other people to burn the planet down? This is beyond a matter of personal choice, until and unless we all get our own personal planets.

Why do you consider the energy usage from GPUs mining cryptocurrency worse than energy usage from GPUs used for playing video games or rendering CGI graphics? Or porn? TV commercials? Why is it considered OK to generate massive amounts of pollution and expend tremendous energy flying beef from Japan to New York for people's consumption, when there are perfectly edible cuts of beef which require at most a short train…

We’ll, firstly the largest contributor, BTC, doesn’t use GPUs.

Secondly, many of us don’t think that beef example is really “OK” either.

Third, the idea that Bitcoin or crypto in general runs predominantly on green power is bullshit.

Fourth, BTC now consumes more power and has more associated carbon output than many mid sized countries, it is not some piddling little thing that we can safely ignore.

Fifth, and last - My point that you replied to was about the article writing the problem off as personal choice. While we only have one planet it is not just personal choice.

Re: Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

#100

Post by ethbr0 »

rland wrote: post #83

I've gotten this feeling, ever since about 2008 or so, that the map that is asset prices is slowly, inexorably becoming uncoupled from the territory of the physical world. This economy-scale decoupling is the dual of each and every one of our very own psychological uncoupling from our own physical worlds, which has occurred because of the computerization of work, socialization, and life itself (the shimmering neurali…

The irony is that much of the criticism against the missing physical link / utility of crypto was surely levelled against the idea of money in its earliest days.

"Coins? Why would I want those instead of food? I can't eat coins."

To which the killer adoption feature was governments saying "Well, you have to pay taxes in coins, so you need some" to bootstrap & put a floor in under the system's value.

Crypto doesn't appear to have had a "tax" moment yet.

Is there anything I can only do with Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc? Which is to say, if the value of both absolutely collapse (to some fraction of a cent), who would still be buying, and to do what?

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