On anti-crypto toxicity • Hacker News Board

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#351

Post by sofixa » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

ulzeraj wrote: post #336

sofixa wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not vote for Putin and his party for decades? Go out in the streets when opposition leaders or dissidents were assasinated in broad daylight? Something ? Anything ? Because of them allowing Putin to get where he is, now innocent Ukrainians are suffering terrible atrocities. I know which population is more guilty and which deserving of compassion.

Something like the Belarusians who went to the streets to protest against a fraudulent election and got violently crushed by their police state? The same "evil complacent" Belarusians that are also being sanctioned now? When was the last time you've left the safety of your home to put your life on risk to protest against your government?

Of course now is too late, the police state is well too developed for such protests to not turn out very bloody. And yes, Belarus and Kazakhstan crushing their protestors is also partly the fault of the complacent apathetic Russians. Without Putin's support both would have probably succeeded.

> When was the last time you've left the safety of your home to put your life on risk to protest against your government?

Many times. Admittedly the risk of arbitrary incarceration or death has always been low in my case, but it's because the places I've lived in didn't allow things to get as bad as Lukashenko and Putin's regimes are.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#352

Post by Nevermark » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #226

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…

Bootstrapping a new cryptocurrency where 90% of the coins go to relatively few early adopters is the worst possible way to fix financial inequality. The crypto holders would love if the world switched to using the cryptocurrency they’re invested in because it would make them extraordinarily wealthy relative to the average person buying in late. I don’t understand how anyone can honestly suggest that a gradual changeo…

Are you distinguishing equality & inequity?

As I understand it, “equality” in a society refers to people’s equal access and treatment in some aspect of society (health, education, financial, legal, …)

Whereas “inequity” in a society refers to different outcomes for people (billionaires vs the indebted unemployed, for instance).

Outside of scams and fraudulent or deceptive launches, crypto seems to be very equality supportive to me.

That it has magnified inequity isn’t a reliable indicator of a lack of equality.

Equality enables everyone equally, it doesn’t provide equally for everyone.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#353

Post by the_only_law » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

aww_dang wrote: post #244

>Or the policymakers and governmental agencies who have failed to uphold their duty in regulating crypto and enforcing existing regulation that would protect people from rampant fraud. This is completely tone deaf. Crypto exists because markets are too regulated. Look at PayPal's fees and understand that they exist due to regulatory compliance. Want to pay users fractions of a cent for killing monsters in a game? Not…

> Look at PayPal's fees and understand that they exist due to regulatory compliance.

Look I’d be thrilled to be rid of paypal but until eBay let’s you accept payouts to a Bitcoin wallet, I’m stuck with the banks and companies built on their platforms.

Oh whoops eBay doesn’t even let you receive payouts through PayPal anymore it has to be done through an ACH transaction.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#354

Post by cool_dude85 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

The whole article seems like a cop-out. You could write it about any group or movement, good or bad: identify some legitimate grievances and then frame the group as just trying to solve those grievances. Hand wave away any disagreement by saying "well, I'm not saying they have a good solution..."

In this case it's set up as "they're asking the right questions". But everyone's "asking the right questions" as long as you don't look too deeply into whether they're actually asking those questions or not, or whether their proposals could even hypothetically answer those questions, or what other actions they take aside from answering those questions.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#355

Post by TomSwirly » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #230

logifail wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one corner we have types who want to send > arbitrarily large amounts of money and in the other corner we have the types who know about and enforce AML and KYC legislation. How is this possibly going to end well for the first group?

It turns out there are actually things that lawmakers don't really have the power to effectively ban, drugs and prostitution and gambling and cash transactions principally among them. A lot of people don't seem to integrate this fact. The practical power of a lawmaking body is not unlimited. There are certain things they simply cannot stop, no matter how many laws are passed. It won't "end" for either group, really.…

You're saying that the use case for cryptocurrencies is crime, which I agree with, and the world's police won't touch you because they can't, which I think is ridiculous.

If the EU and the US alone said, "In a month, we'll consider every crypto transaction to be criminal in nature, and we're going to enforce it," the market would collapse as everyone stampeded for the door at the same time.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#356

Post by zamalek » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #318

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.

> they've gotten rich from selling their early-adopter cryptos to the next fool.

And that's where it all falls apart. Crypto-fanatics assume that "good for me" translates to "good for us." As we know, the crypto-rich only exist because others (usually many others) became crypto-broke and/or fiat-broke.

At least, in general, people have no realistic expectation of winning the lottery. You also don't usually have people betting their entire life savings on the lottery. The analogy is only very loosely true.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#357

Post by eimrine » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #311

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 thin…

> Technology does not solve political problems.

Bitcoin has solved an international transaction of money which were political problem.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#358

Post by TomSwirly » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

Jach wrote: post #302

sneak wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out there are actually things that lawmakers don't really have the power to effectively ban, drugs and prostitution and gambling and cash transactions principally among them. A lot of people don't seem to integrate this fact. The practical power of a lawmaking body is not unlimited. There are certain things they simply cannot stop, no matter how many laws are passed. It won't "end" for either group, really.…

"The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." --Malcolm Turnbull, Australia Prime Minister (2015-2018) There are some people who see attitudes like that in the government and think how can [things backed by math] survive a coordinated government onslaught that'll happen any year now? And then those that just look at such statements as the unlettere…

And if no one else accepts my bank?

If selling things to US citizens for cryptocurrency is criminal, and enforced?

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#359

Post by rglullis » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

spiantino wrote: post #285

rglullis wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying that you dismissed the web after you saw the 100th clone of the million dollar home page.

Think about how much bullshit you can justify with this argument. if someone has to defend their tech by using analogy to the early web, it's probably bullshit

No one is "defending their tech". It's not even about the tech.

It's about how much of a strawman this is. People are literally using the worst possible example of a new class of applications to dismiss all of it. It's usually indicative they don't understand it or were fortunate enough to never having the need for anything like it.

To make an analogy with evolutionary theory: every single technological breakthrough results in mutation pressure and consequently a massive explosion of new species (products). Some of these products are good, fit well with the environment and thrive. Some of them are ill-conceived or mal-adaptive and do not last long.

Yeah, "NFT-as-art" is bullshit, and I would bet that it will go away sooner or later. But that does not discredit NFTs as whole, much less blockchain/crypto/web3/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#360

Post by trutannus » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #343

trutannus wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem pretty focused on this idea of "blind trust" of the government which nobody is advocating. So perhaps you should take your own advice? I didn't assume you supported crypto. I was pointing out that crypto has all the problems you specified as bad or worse.

I'm not sure how the advice of "just pass a law" is anything other than blind trust. If you didn't think I was advocating crypto, then what purpose does:

> And crypto isn't dominated by the wealthy and being used to serve their ends? Open your eyes my friend

serve? Why would you mention something completely unrelated to their point, then tell them to open their eyes? To me it sounds like you're retroactively recasting your argument.