Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 393 posts

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#131

Post by chairmanmow »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #24
jonwalch wrote: post #18

I find it strange that people keep promoting that YouTube documentary. Ignoring tone issues, there is a lot of cherry picking and other logical fallacies. For example, he talks about how terrible Tether is and then completely ignores USDC. He also claims that none of the popular blockchains can scale, but Solana is frequently in the top 5 most popular cryptocurrencies. It seems to me that people that do an hour of re…

> Many are using the technology to facilitate scams and overpromising, but that doesn't make the technology fundamentally useless or bad. True enough, but since I have yet to see a use for the technology that isn't pretty much just a means to scam people, I'm totally fine calling the entire space a giant scam.

Has it ever occurred to you that the scammers are just loudest voice in the room? They're not known for being passive.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#132

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

thisisbrians wrote: post #117

Your assessment of affairs is drenched in obvious bias. The downsides of these new technologies get plenty of airtime (your post included), but completely fail to acknowledge the genuine and useful innovations that are now possible (yes, there are many). Why was there no similar outcry from the technology community over the invention and proliferation of machine learning? It can be used for good or evil (there are pl…

> the genuine and useful innovations that are now possible (yes, there are many)

Not trying to troll, but can you explain some of them? Not in the abstract, but in end-user/product terms.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#133

Post by scott_s »

thisisbrians wrote: post #117

Your assessment of affairs is drenched in obvious bias. The downsides of these new technologies get plenty of airtime (your post included), but completely fail to acknowledge the genuine and useful innovations that are now possible (yes, there are many). Why was there no similar outcry from the technology community over the invention and proliferation of machine learning? It can be used for good or evil (there are pl…

BitCoin is 13 years old. The blockchain is not a new technology, and it is not extremely early days. We have over a decade of people trying to use blockchain and cryptocurrencies to solve real problems - and not just from startups, but also from large, international tech companies with research divisions. They have tried to use blockchain to solve real problems, and they have failed.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#134

Post by dnautics »

elmomle wrote: post #123
dnautics wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this statement trivially true for any sort of social system, where you can stand in social capital for Capital.

Capital has tended to trump social capital in the long term, particularly since sufficient capital can shape the public discourse.

Economic capital is interesting because 1) it's not a zero sum game. Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. These things are not necessarily true of other forms of social capital; you can definitely accrue political capital by killing people (or in a less dramatic sense, by being feared by people).

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#135

Post by dns_snek »

Labeling the entire sector as dangerous and fraudulent is incredibly short-sighted, dismissive, and at the end of the day, a lie. I don't buy into the crypto craze of Web 3.0 and NFTs (in terms of digital art), but I do think the technology already has applications that are useful to many, and many that still remain to be discovered.

I agree that we should inform people about the risks and scams that are currently common in the crypto space, but you're advocating for a lot more than that.

You can speak for yourself, but you shouldn't pretend that your opinion is shared by, or that you speak for, the majority of people working in IT.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#136

Post by tom-_- »

Blaming the technology for its misuses is always a dubious position to take.

The promoters of said technology (and it's misuses) will always argue that you could say the same about which allows to do this and are you saying this means we should ban this ??!

They would argue this and they would have a point. Also, in an open democratic/non-surveillance state, you can't really ban a technology like this. Instead you focus on regulating the marketing of its misuses or launching information campaigns (I guess that's what you're doing).

Like cigarettes, pink-sheet stocks, multi-level marketing and gambling or any other large revenue sources that are either zero-sum or have net negative social impact, you're better off convincing the public of its dangers than pointing the finger at the underlying technology.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#138

Post by tim333 »

mihvoi wrote: post #78

This crypto madness kept way too long. I say it from 2017: https://meaningofstuff.blogspot.com/2017/12/why-bitcoin-will...

That's probably amongst the 444 Bitcoin Obituaries on https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/ but I couldn't find it as all the terms - will fail - ponzi - etc are a bit generic.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#139

Post by omegaworks »

logicalmonster wrote: post #126
omegaworks wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a lot of research and development into blockchain technology by very smart people. That is precisely why this is such a societally detrimental technology. The communities that are forming around it are self-reinforcing and suck up both monetary and intellectual capital. All of this hype about crypto's "potential" is demolished in Dan's excellent work. >It's a lack of imagination to think that because crypto…

> Proof of work combined with the deflationary nature of these currencies is literally the antithesis of efficiency. 1) First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology? Your criticisms seem all over the place here. 2) Maybe talking negatively about the dangers of deflationary currencies while we're in a period of economic inflation and peoples' purchasing power is being deliberatel…

>First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology?

Blockchains require an incentive for members of their network to maintain a copy of the shared ledger. Modeling it after a deflationary currency creates a first-mover advantage that generates this momentum. We're not talking about "theoretical objections" or hypothetical better systems, the commonly implemented blockchain systems are creating problems that are manifesting themselves today, and every ounce of capital invested into them creates real inertia against changing how they fundamentally work.

>Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows?

We can not afford to be ambivalent about how this technology evolves.

Re: Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

#140

Post by valdiorn »

zozbot234 wrote: post #124
prox wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear that a decentralized web that can’t be moderated also creates a 4chan like culture with extra steps. People, when anonymous, seem to race to the bottom in terms of ethics and accountability. Trust comes from when I know who the other person is, not just his/her/its attributes. A good debate comes from strengthening the things that bind us in an open forum. Sofar blockchain seems to be about making money (and I…

People can be anonymous but still accountable. Require users to post a cryptocurrency bond to post, and let others lay bets against the user's future score in some sort of crowd-sourced karma system. This lets other users gain if they successfully predict that the user's post will be disapproved of (get paid for reporting, e.g. obvious spam!) while conversely rewarding the user for good content that others are malici…

Ok. Who is the arbitrator then? A centralised party? If not, then maybe people who stake the most? Because that way you can literally pay for the right to decide what is "truth".
Post reply on HN