On anti-crypto toxicity • Hacker News Board

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#311

Post by gwbas1c » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

100% agree, and I must add:

Those are all political problems. Technology does not solve political problems. Politics solves political problems.

All cryptocurrency does is obfuscate the politics behind its monetary system. As flawed as our monetary system is, the politics behind it are visible and under control of a government. In my country, my government is elected, and I'm an active and informed voter.

Thus, I think the best way to solve those problems is to be an informed voter, vote, and encourage other countries to adopt democracies.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#312

Post by trutannus » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #296

trutannus wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is: 1. Bad laws got us into this place 2. There's a lot of inertia in government 3. There's a lot of stake holders in government who don't have citizen's interests at heart 4. It's illogical to think you can, in light of this, just pass a law and fix it. Yeah, we designed the law, and we know how it works. Sadly, we know also that the way it works is generally…

And crypto isn't dominated by the wealthy and being used to serve their ends? Open your eyes my friend. There is far more corruption and disfunction in the average cryptocurrency org than the average government.

Did I say that? I explicitly say in multiple places that I'm not advocating for crypto, just asking people to not put the blind trust into their government "just passing a law".

It always baffles me why someone can't say "I'm opposed to X" without another person coming along and saying "that means you're in favor of Y". Don't respond to what you think I said, respond to what I actually said.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#313

Post by raspberry1337 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

trutannus wrote: post #235

raspberry1337 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right, and I personally find 'modern' art unappealing and a scam (banan on wall 30k plz), but this is because it is being used a commodity in a rotten, oligarchic financial system where we bail out corrupt bankers at the cost of the people. With crypto, the pollution is built into the system. It's not only being used by the corruption, it is itself rotten. And neither does some of it look nice on wa…

> It's not only being used by the corruption, it is itself rotten. And neither does some of it look nice on walls. So is the contemporary art world. The contemporary art world is vastly polluting as well. How much GHG do you think is generated to run a museum, or warehouse, transport aircraft, ect, filled with bad contemporary art?

Well, I find it as bad as you seemingly do, but I cannot deny that apparently some people like that kind of art.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#314

Post by a_bonobo » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

nathanaldensr wrote: post #298

Get back to me when you've watched all of KiraTV's[1] excellent videos on various crypto scams and rug pulls. [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/KiraTV1

One should point out that OP's author is also behind 'Web3 is going just great', a time line/news feed of all the various rug pulls and scams

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#315

Post by kredd » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #275

Capira wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is a groundbreaking invention. All the "cryptos" and NFTs are just scams.

well, same could be said for Facebook. Only now, less than 20y later, we're all scrolling through endless feeds and digging comment section trenches of the latest culture wars

I wouldn’t say 20 years later. Facebook was the way of connecting with people you just met even after 10 years after its inception. I would even say, pretty much everyone I knew had a Facebook account in 2010, and it delivered on the claims it made. Whether we agree with their mission is a different topic, but it certainly had an impact on the real world.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#316

Post by JackC » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

For anyone who reads the comments before the article, note that the article explicitly agrees with this point. What it's arguing is that many of the people attracted to crypto are there because they're desperate for answers to those questions or for help with their own situations, and that approaching them with hostility will drive them further into the grift instead of back out.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#317

Post by giraffe_lady » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

c0mptonFP wrote: post #241

malthaus wrote: post #183

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How…

Quoted post unavailable.

nah you don't know how people spend their time. I'm very active in attempting to address all sorts of problems as I find them, it's my major activity other than working for survival. shitting on crypto is like 2% of my time and energy, it's very easy to fit it in alongside.

that said, given the ecological and economic costs of crypto and its failure to produce anything of value so far. sitting on your ass is more a service to society than getting involved in it is.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#318

Post by nikanj » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #46

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…

One of the claims has panned out: Plenty of people have gotten rich.

To be fair, they've gotten rich from selling their early-adopter cryptos to the next fool. But many people have won the lottery.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#319

Post by giraffe_lady » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

theamk wrote: post #261

c0mptonFP wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

"We must do something. This is something, so we must do this" There are costs and benefits to every action. If former are bigger than latter, we should be dismissed the action.

I really appreciate how like four of us simultaneously drilled into this one fractally bad take but I do think this is the most concise of all of them so far.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#320

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #300

koonsolo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> society won't be worse off in the end. That is most definitely a political question. I think the article has a strange reasoning about crypto trying to "save the world". For me it's pretty clear: individuals can now store and transfer value on the internet using a consensus algorithm. Plenty of you claim that it's enough to have a democracy that controls a central bank. That way you also have some kind of consensus…

> But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from. I believe it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control. That it won’t get slammed with the same laws and regulations applied to fiat currencies. Governments live on money. As alternatives gain traction, the governments take notice and start regulating.…

> it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control

Not sure what about crypto is outside government influence.

Crypto is regularly taxed, seized and landing people in jail. Countries that can't manage that wouldn't find an offshore bank account, as evidenced by their entire population of elites having one. "Government can't touch my crypto" is a founding myth.