191–200 of 734 posts
IMHO the problem with crypto is the very thing that its proponents cite as one of its key benefits, its decentralised nature. We are told that crypto is supposedly a way to "stick it to the man", to fight those "evil banks/governments". The trouble is that unlike fiat currency, there is no fundamental means of valuation. Crypto is worth what its worth on the day based largely or exclusively on entirely non-economic v…
You cannot solve contract/legal problems and wrong transactions through decentralization. You can't also make a democratic system act on every conflict. You assign a central authority to act on them and you select that authority through a democratic process, which is what we already have. - I want to have a beer! - ok, scan this QR, and accept the transaction - there you go! - thank you, here are your 5 beers - oh, d…
Updated that script for you: - I want to have a beer! - ok, scan this QR, and accept the transaction - there you go! - thank you, here are your 5 beers - oh, did I just pay for 5? I wanted 1! can you refund me and take these back? - sure! can I see your QR code? - there you go! - thank you, here is your 1 beer and refund Note that I'm totally burnt on bitcoin for practical reasons, but your example is just silly.
It's just a conflict to make the point stand, we are not discussing my creative writing here, so don't hurt my feelings for no reason please! :)
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Ah yes. So that must mean everyone supporting it is ‘right wing’ then? It only is just a ‘libertarian’ creation. I don’t know why one can try to assign a left/right political affiliation to a technology that is on neither side and can be used by anyone. Everyone knows she is hilariously incorrect on that one.
I think that the widespread implementation of crypto would immediately make the world more complex and thus less susceptible to centralizing forces. This means that in order to get things done, society will have to rely more on self-organizing small groups of individuals. In my view, less centralization is the at the bottom what libertarianism strives for, so it makes sense crypto is seeing as supporting it.
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>It has been a decade of dumb claims and ridiculous assertions from the pro-crypto crowd. Agreed. For me it was the NFT'ing of a fart that was the jumping the shark moment that drove me from being merely a crypto skeptic to being vociferously anti-crypto and advocating against it at every turn.
Right, anyone can generate NFTs though. How does this differ from saying something like "the artist who called an empty room art is the jumping the shark moment, now I'm advocating against art at every turn"?
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Use the state to fix failures of the state? There's a weird cyclic optimism here that I don't think can really be supported by the facts. After all, those who write a law can just as easily add addendum to that law, or remove it all together. Even with equal banking laws, there's always going to be an individual who the state deems as less equal than others. That's just how it's always been. Its bizarre that this is…
> Use the state to fix failures of the state? Yup, that's how it works in democracies...
"How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services?" The same as national health insurance. You make a law that everyone must be served by the banks. Easy.
Use the state to fix failures of the state? There's a weird cyclic optimism here that I don't think can really be supported by the facts. After all, those who write a law can just as easily add addendum to that law, or remove it all together. Even with equal banking laws, there's always going to be an individual who the state deems as less equal than others. That's just how it's always been. Its bizarre that this is…
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Bitcoin being deflationary helps us move away from the mentality of a throw-away society. You can use the Lightning Network to use Bitcoin as a currency. It's almost instant and free.
> Bitcoin being deflationary helps us move away from the mentality of a throw-away society. No, it does not. How could it? It does nothing but encourage hoarding. Not only that, but also a economy where everything is more scare tomorrow than today, is a economy in perpetual decline. >You can use the Lightning Network to use Bitcoin as a currency. It's almost instant and free. That does not side step the proof-of-wast…
Bitcoin mining accelerates the transition to renewables. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/can-bitcoin-mining-sa...
I think toxicity from the anti-crypto crowd is basically inevitable at this point. It has been a decade of dumb claims and ridiculous assertions from the pro-crypto crowd. None of their claims have materially panned out. There's some promise in some places - mainly in the most nerdy corners of ETH, but it's still only promises. Meanwhile, this long protracted failure has been accompanied by a massive increase in stup…
Well, I can send arbitrarily large amounts of money across the planet, to any country with internet access, for tiny sums, safely, irreversibly, to anyone.
Many people have sent many millions to Ukraine, for example. Transnational, permissionless internet money is quite handy.
That wasn't possible before, and that's pretty useful, so I think the basic claim (that cryptocurrency is useful) is holding up fine.
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Right, anyone can generate NFTs though. How does this differ from saying something like "the artist who called an empty room art is the jumping the shark moment, now I'm advocating against art at every turn"?
Because artists haven't generally backed themselves by weaponized ASICs and a very unhealthy social scene of greed and deception (not to mention pollution)
Except they absolutely have. The contemporary art market is exactly what you describe. There's sharks sitting in tanks of embalming fluid being sold for tens of millions of dollars just to be put in storage, and people laundering their money in art investment schemes. The contemporary art market is absolutely an unhealthy social scene of greed and deception.
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> Use the state to fix failures of the state? Yup, that's how it works in democracies...
You have to accept though that just saying "ah, the government will fix it" when historically governments have been a major contributor to wealth inequality, is somewhat glib. There's a reason NGOs and private charity exist. I think this approach is just as wrong as saying "crypto is the answer".