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Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

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Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#21

Post by ufo »

nostrademons wrote: post #20
thejohnconway wrote: post #5

Then why are we building it? To fleece people who are not as smart? All this just seems insane to me.

Why did we build nuclear weapons? Even knowing that they could potentially annihilate humanity - indeed, that was the point . Because if we didn't, Nazi Germany would've, and then we would've been the ones annihilated. History has a shape, and that shape is largely dictated by science, technology, and game theory. Whenever a technology gets discovered that gives its controllers a significant advantage over others, an…

So by the analogy, the reason to develop Ethereum is so that we can fleece people before the nazis can fleece them?

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#23

Post by maire »

dang wrote: post #14

Discussed at the time: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308588 - Aug 2020 (447 comments)

I hope your link is not correct!

The Aug 2020 article is about real estate transactions at the close of escrow. Does that mean people are accidentally using Ethereum? Yikes!

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#24

Post by nostrademons »

ufo wrote: post #21
nostrademons wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did we build nuclear weapons? Even knowing that they could potentially annihilate humanity - indeed, that was the point . Because if we didn't, Nazi Germany would've, and then we would've been the ones annihilated. History has a shape, and that shape is largely dictated by science, technology, and game theory. Whenever a technology gets discovered that gives its controllers a significant advantage over others, an…

So by the analogy, the reason to develop Ethereum is so that we can fleece people before the nazis can fleece them?

Pretty much. I was gonna say that Nazis might be a strong term for people who just wanna get rich in today's day and age, but a lot of the people who have gotten rich off crypto are literally being called Nazis by those who oppose them.

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#25

Post by emerged »

nefitty wrote: post #3

Is the benefit of Ethereum really larger than the value these intelligent people could be creating in non-crypto industries? I see the allure. They're super hard, super high-stakes problems. Is there really no other industry that provides this level of flow and excitement for these researchers?

I’d probably rather they keep flocking to the crypto honeypot instead of doing weird pseudo intellectual crap to my teams code base.

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#26

Post by urthor »

goatsi wrote: post #11
urthor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of the opposite. Highly intelligent people are most productive when they are tackling problems they enjoy. You cannot just order them around and tell them to go tackle climate change or whatever. As long as they enjoy tackling crypto shaped problems, they will keep jumping in until enough crypto shaped problems are solved that only really frustrating ones are left. If you want to change how things work, you…

You don't need to change the environment, you need to change the compensation. Do you think that for the last 15 years highly intelligent people have found the most enjoyment in developing advertising software? Or found the most enjoyment in investment banking in the years before that?

The compensation is not just financial is how I would put it.

The compensation for working in those fields is often that you're working alongside other smart people, in a situation where your work is highly valued.

The money is just a factor in the equation, money equals respect in a lot of different ways.

People want to work on projects where meaningfulness and respect flows to them. Money is one of the things you want to see flowing.

Crypto offers that money, and offers a lot of technical challenges because programming distributed systems that must be error free is tricky.

In terms of the ad tech, a lot of the work on ad tech happens because Facebook/Google/et all have cultivated environments that offer that kind of respect, and offer serious technical problems.

Advertisements per se are not so much a part of it.

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#27

Post by derivagral »

xmly wrote: post #16
smoldesu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this take, and I hear it a lot. What's the point of using a blockchain if you're going to abstract everything away to a centralized ledger? The whole "gas is expensive" shtick doesn't warrant centralizing your ledger and doing all of the important stuff off-chain. Am I missing something here, or are layer 2 protocols really that wishy-washy?

Blockchains are just tools. We should focus use cases to choose different types of blockchains. Layer1, Layer 2, sidechains, private chains can be combined together to solve the problem.

> What's the point of using a blockchain if you're going to abstract everything away to a centralized ledger?

I guess I'll echo GP and ask what is the problem that requires features specific to blockchain to solve some of these problems? I've followed eth since 2012 or so and I've only seen increased centralization in it and similar projects.

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#28

Post by nostrademons »

maire wrote: post #23
dang wrote: post #14

Discussed at the time: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308588 - Aug 2020 (447 comments)

I hope your link is not correct! The Aug 2020 article is about real estate transactions at the close of escrow. Does that mean people are accidentally using Ethereum? Yikes!

The discussion is about a common scam in real estate, no Ethereum involved. The point the poster was making is that scams occur whenever there's potentially large profit to be made, and they're as much a feature of the "real" financial system as the cryptocurrency world.

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#29

Post by nefitty »

emerged wrote: post #25
nefitty wrote: post #3

Is the benefit of Ethereum really larger than the value these intelligent people could be creating in non-crypto industries? I see the allure. They're super hard, super high-stakes problems. Is there really no other industry that provides this level of flow and excitement for these researchers?

I’d probably rather they keep flocking to the crypto honeypot instead of doing weird pseudo intellectual crap to my teams code base.

Excuse my useless comment but lol

Re: Ethereum is a dark forest (2020)

#30

Post by v0idzer0 »

aqme28 wrote: post #19
spicybright wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just contracts that are the issue. You need to be an expert in cyber security just to not to get robbed. The general recommendations I've heard go like this: - Have a dedicated machine just for transferring money - Only boot from a read only flash drive to interact with the network - Store credentials in a separate place, maybe on paper in a very hidden spot - Transfer a small amount of money before large tr…

> - Have a dedicated machine just for transferring money - Only boot from a read only flash drive to interact with the network - Store credentials in a separate place, maybe on paper in a very hidden spot You're overstating the problem. Companies like Ledger make "hardware" wallets as you're describing and they're not complicated to use. If you're using crypto in small amounts and not as long-term storage, I think a…

I think you’re understating the problem. Imagine having your entire life savings on a flash drive. It’s a disaster. Crypto has no chance of replacing fiat until that and many other issues are resolved.
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