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

On anti-crypto toxicity

blog.mollywhite.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 734 posts

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#571

Post by koonsolo »

tablespoon wrote: post #321
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…

> Problem is that this democracy/central bank is not stable in every country. So crypto provides real "internet money", with all benefits and drawbacks. Except that, from a practical perspective, if you live in a country without a stable "democracy/central bank," using fiat from a stable country (e.g. dollars or euros) is a better solution than cryptocurrency in pretty much all cases. AFAIK, cryptocurrency isn't in p…

> using fiat from a stable country (e.g. dollars or euros) is a better solution than cryptocurrency

So how do you get your money out of the country when you are not allowed to get your money out of the country? Strap dollar bills on your chest, or just use crypto?

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#572

Post by oliwarner »

rvz wrote: post #520
______-_-______ wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Not sure why you are downvoted since here on HN, a bad egg soils the bunch. The logic with them is as follows with an example of a fallacy with cars and the environment: 'The majority of cars worldwide are not electric. They are all petrol and diesel cars. That means that ALL cars are bad for the environment and that will not change and thus should be all banned.' Not all cryptocurrency projects are scams, just like…

> I'll tell you that both extremes are incorrect.

Okay, I'll bite.

What's incorrect at the anti extreme? In other words, what crypto-currency isn't a) burning down our planet and b) disproportionately rewarding early adopters?

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#573

Post by reedjosh »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #522
reedjosh wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the point. In fact you're basically illustrating my point. Without taking risk, you will lose the value of your money. If you had some perfect asset (not gold since the volatility distracts you) that increased in dollars exactly as much as inflation, then you would still lose value to taxation even though you only gained as much as inflation. In the real world, yes, no perfect asset like that exists, so it…

> no perfect asset like that exists, so it's worse than that TIPs [1] come damn close. The interest is subject to federal tax, but you're still coming out ahead. [1] https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/annceresul...

> TIPs [1] come damn close

TBH I don't know too much about them, but from what I'm seeing they're something like 1-2% interest. Inflation is > 8% right now per the government's own numbers

https://www.bankrate.com/rates/interest-rates/treasury/

Am I mistaken? If so, I'd love to find a way to get guaranteed inflation beating returns.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#574

Post by koonsolo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #320
falcolas wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Keeping crypto without the government being able to know or touch it: no problem

Make crypto-crypto transfers: no problem.

Of course when government cracks it down, it will be hard to turn into fiat or buy/sell legal stuff.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#575

Post by reedjosh »

pjc50 wrote: post #531
reedjosh wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inherent inflation that forces you to speculate in order to preserve any “real value.” Wow, also this! Say inflation is 8.5%, and you're holding an ounce of gold, then that gold raises by 8.5% in kind, you are still losing value as now you have to pay taxes on the 8.5% gained even though you didn't really gain anything.

That's not usually how capital gains tax works.

Please elaborate.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#576

Post by koonsolo »

jfk13 wrote: post #301
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…

> it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control As a species, we have developed government control because in general, large-scale anarchy doesn't work well.

Yes, but North Korean control is also not really desirable.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#577

Post by vmception »

1270018080 wrote: post #569
vmception wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's ignorant by all four Oxford listed definitions of ignorant.

I would argue I have a less ignorant view of Scientology or cryptocurrency than someone who is indoctrinated. There isn't going to be any useful information to glean from an active cult member expressing their views on their cult. Who is really ignorant?

My example was about the accuracy of a statement, it seems the conversation should more often be about accuracy instead of deflection. Or if the accuracy was undermined by indoctrination then the conversation should be about why its not accurate and why that would be clouded by indoctrination.

And even in your Scientology analogy, I think there are limited similarities because you are talking about scientology often to scientologists? Do you get into those kind of conversations? If you're not getting into those kind of conversations than thats just an ad hominem attack which is a very poor form of argument and also meets one of the Oxford definitions of ignorant ( informal - discourteous or rude; west indies - angry or quick-tempered.) These are traits to avoid, pejoratives.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#578

Post by garbanz0 »

miohtama wrote: post #568
garbanz0 wrote: post #566

The crypto world is full of serious, borderline genius innovation as well as scammers and lies. I don't know why people can't accept that both can be true at the same time. What percentage of emails sent in the world are legitimate vs spam? I don't think in principle we care about the volume of BS, we only care about how easily we can filter it out from the genuine stuff. I think over time our ability to do that will…

As a related information nugget, HashCash that popularised proof-of-work concept before Bitcoin, was originally designed a email spam prevention tool. Goes far back as 1997. http://www.hashcash.org/

Maybe in some scifi future where energy is cheap and clean, we could use PoW for all kinds of things where PoS doesn't make sense.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#579

Post by adolph »

dmitriid wrote: post #507
adolph wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volatility!=Inflation

From the point of view of people who live with a volatile currency (aka highly inflationary) it doesn't really matter, does it?

Given Bitcoins overall direction compared to the dollar, it appears deflationary (worth more over time) rather than inflationary (worth less).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/326707/bitcoin-price-ind...

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#580

Post by reedjosh »

scottLobster wrote: post #546
reedjosh wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Enough voters/lobbyists will be convinced of its viability that political changes are made to accept it as currency (unlikely, given the traits of bitcoin) One can dream > 2. An epic tax-evasion crackdown that will make the conviction of Al Capone look like a Cub Scout picnic. Monero FTW. Your response to governments dictating who's a person: > Governments have always had the ability to dictate who is a citizen…

> Monero FTW. Monero makes things more difficult, not impossible. If the government decides to outlaw Monero then by definition it will only be used by outlaws, and so long as the majority of the population doesn't see trading in Monero as worth the risk, it will remain limited in scope. > You're saying a non-citizen isn't a person? I find all your viewpoints defeatist. Maybe that or you still side with governments w…

Mr. Lobster

I appreciate your well thought out response. Thanks for the discourse.

> All right, you define what a "person"

I was only originally using this to say that the government can't tell me what money is in the same way it can't say I'm not a person.

That said, you're correct the government will likely try to destroy private currency that is out of their control.

> Either way you need a solid plan for what comes after that accounts for the known variables

I agree. This is where I spend my time in the crypto-sphere.

Here's a fun resource on agorism:

https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/black-market-activism...

Maybe it's a bit over optimistic. Either way, crypto and agorism is my current plan, and you're probably right in that I should shore up this plan.

Bitcoin was actually the answer to the government having shut down all attempts at alternative digital money prior, but for sure it's not perfect.

Cheers,

reedjosh

Post reply on HN