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Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

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Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#151

Post by oblio »

teekert wrote: post #71
throw__away7391 wrote: post #46

Let's be real. The vast majority of pro-cryptocurrency arguments break down to something like this: "I have Bitcoin, I want it to become the currency of the future so that the price will go up an I will become rich. Here are $reasons why that should become true, which all my fellow Bitcoin hodlers agree are very good reasons". We are now many years past not only the creation of Bitcoin but also past it going "mainstr…

Let's be real, the anti-cryptocurrency arguments are something like this: It eats to much energy so we should ban it (just like gaming! Oh wait...) Meanwhile we suffer from a hugely incompetent global payment network that is horrible to deal with and makes some creators actually opt out of receiving donations because of the sheer annoyance and complexity of the system. Yeah, we all want it to use less energy and perh…

> Meanwhile we suffer from a hugely incompetent global payment network that is horrible to deal with and makes some creators actually opt out of receiving donations because of the sheer annoyance and complexity of the system.

Chesterton's fence. Have you ever wondered why the financial systems is the way it is?

All that regulation is because of fraud. People REALLY, REALLY want to steal money and they will get INCREDIBLY creative to do it.

So someone stole a coin one way, we added a rule to stop it. They stole a coin another way, we added another rule. Another coin, another rule. Repeat a million times.

What do you expect will happen with a shiny, pristine, tech system once it faces the real world??? It's going to suffer the same fate.

We need iterative improvements to existing systems, not burn-the-world-pseudo-solutions.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#152

Post by oblio »

mjdesa wrote: post #113
hiq wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been commenting a few times about this already, but you're just arguing for interoperability, and blockchains don't help in that regard.

Why has interoperability failed in the past? Why don’t we have it today?

Because the money and the interest is not in interoperability. It's in chunking everything in small bits and selling every small bit repeatedly.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#153

Post by oblio »

ricochet11 wrote: post #63
16012022 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbf, blockchain is the dark matter of technology. People are never allowed to criticize it without the same, repeated feedback “If that’s what you think blockchain is, then you don’t understand it.” Why doesn’t someone, then, who actually understands their almighty blockchain god, illuminate us, mere mortals, on the wonders of blockchain and how it can be good for society in the foreseeable future. You know what’s re…

> Having the promises of blockchain sold to us for years now without a single, useful purpose for it in sight other than, well, cryptobros. the issue is that we show the things being made and hn calls them all scams and ponzis and fraud. we show the rates adoption, and the growth in use and hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal. we point out that crypto is in many ways doing better than o…

I've worked for a crypto startup.

They were frank enough to tell me that their business could have done the same thing in a centralized fashion, but they wouldn't have gotten funding.

Cryptocurrencies don't have a "killer app". Something for the common person.

I suspect that even when they do, it will be incidental. Something that could have been developed as part of a centralized architecture, but built with cryptocurrencies because the financial support was there.

> permission-less loans and lending

What does this mean?

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#154

Post by oblio »

aww_dang wrote: post #87
ricochet11 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having the promises of blockchain sold to us for years now without a single, useful purpose for it in sight other than, well, cryptobros. the issue is that we show the things being made and hn calls them all scams and ponzis and fraud. we show the rates adoption, and the growth in use and hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal. we point out that crypto is in many ways doing better than o…

>... hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal. This is the part that confuses me. What is the theory of value here? If you don't like it don't buy it. If you're not interested, don't buy it. If you don't see the benefits, don't develop cryptocurrency applications. Nobody is compelling developers or users to use this technology. Meanwhile state run currencies are forced upon us. Walled garden…

> Nobody is compelling developers or users to use this technology.

Ummm.. have you seen the mountains of hype and cash poured from the cryptocurrency community onto regular folks?

> Isn't it enough to dislike something and avoid it entirely?

I would, but the cryptocurrency community isn't letting me do that.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#155

Post by defaultprimate »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #149
defaultprimate wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>blockchain on principle - as opposed to problematic elements within the contemporary blockchain space The problems are impossible to decouple from "blockchain on principle" because the problems are intrinsic to the data structure itself, not "contemporary" approaches to the data structure implementation. I am probably aligned with you politically (if not more radical in my libertarian sentiments), and I can sympathi…

>>The problems are impossible to decouple from "blockchain on principle" because the problems are intrinsic to the data structure itself, not "contemporary" approaches to the data structure implementation. If that is indeed the belief, then I concede that is an example of someone opposed to blockchains in principle, for a reason that is not an illiberal political agenda. In any case, I like to think I am pretty well…

>a solution that does not involve moving away from autonomous ledgers that use cryptoeconomics to maintain consensus.

What are your proposed solutions to identified problems then?

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#156

Post by oblio »

RugnirViking wrote: post #105

Criteria for a currency I would like to use: - Accepted by my government to pay taxes in - Accepted by all the places I would like to buy things - Stable price - Easy to use - My job pays me in this currency - Easy to transfer Every single one is already satisfied by current currencies. Cryptocurrencies bring nothing, "except anonymity" which isn't true (the blockchain is literally a public leger of all transactions,…

I don't understand the argument about anonymity.

How do I have recourse in case of a fraud, as a buyer, for example, if I don't know who you are?

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#157

Post by goesnowhere »

meheleventyone wrote: post #148
goesnowhere wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI and M-Pesa have had far reaching effects to this regard. This narritive that crypto helps the unbanked is not true. If I'm wrong about crypto helping the unbanked, please provide any context or numbers to back up this claim. P.S. Let the poor countries solve their own problems, if you want to help donate money directly.

Yes that's what I was saying I fully agree other tech has had way more impact on the unbanked. :)

Well then I appreciate you and respect you. Much love.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#158

Post by oblio »

ddtaylor wrote: post #116
at_ wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicked for me when I realised HN is compromised of the few for whom web2 has served quite nicely, so it's unsurprising that talk of web3 is received about as well as a brick through the Google bus window

Yeah it kind of makes sense why so many on HN hate it. Most of them are heavily entrenched in existing structures where friction for finance or regulatory capture are "working" well for them.

I don't hate it for that.

I hate it because from everything I see it's 1% useful idiots/fellow travelers (otherwise very smart folks, just like the original fellow travelers were!) swamped by 99% crooks that want to con simple people.

But hey, I hope they prove me wrong. I could use better financial tech, that's for sure.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#159

Post by bko »

goesnowhere wrote: post #147
bko wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fiat currencies are used in literally every country on the planet and have been through the largest economic booms in history. Limited/hard currencies on the other hand, have a 100% failure rate with one ongoing experiment happening right now in El Salvador. Which would I rather bet on? Something has existed for tens of thousands of years and in the last 50 years has been supplanted by something else. Which would I…

Ill deal with the factually incorrect parts of your statement to start. 1. The earliest known currency was the shekel and it was more of a accounting instrument and it was used ~5000 years ago. 2. Fiat was invented in the 7th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money#China Regarding your claim that hard money is good. We are talking about a system that completely floundered under pressure from economic expansi…

1. I never claimed hard money was the earliest form of money. Read my original post more carefully. Gold has been used as a currency for at least 3,000 years. Likely earlier.

2. I never claimed fiat was invested 50 years ago. I stated that the global monetary system switched over from predominately hard money with fiat

> We are talking about a system that completely floundered under pressure from economic expansion (hard money) vs a system that has been presiding over the largest economic booms in history and is currently adopted by every government in the world (fiat) and your argument is "well look which is older".

It floundered because it was routinely debased and not adhered to. That was my whole point. I would also say that fiat has failed a lot. You google list of hyperinflation to get a sense of how bad it has been over time. Even today you have people living in countries in which they have to watch their wealth disintegrate every year by double digit amounts

Civilization didn't begin with Bretton Woods...

[0] https://bebusinessed.com/history/the-history-of-gold/

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#160

Post by bodge5000 »

cannabis_sam wrote: post #143

Yeah, as if perpetually rising housing prices, subsidized petrol, shoving the cost of climate change over onto poor countries and responding to migration crises by interning and torturing people is a great vision for the future.. I have never made a single penny of off crypto, but I wholeheartedly appreciate it as a transactional currency in a country with extremely draconian drug laws, the highest overdose numbers a…

I dont think anyone is saying that crypto is a bigger problem than those things. Just that its also not the solution to those things that we keep being promised it is (or will be).

Maybe in time, crypto will die out as a fad and come back again, and then it might stand a chance. I highly doubt it'll fix all those problems, but it could be a legitimate decentralised currency (for good or for bad, thats up to you to decide). But right now, its seen pretty much seen as a vehicle for investment, a get-rich-quick scheme, which is completely at odds with its use as a legitimate currency

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