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On anti-crypto toxicity

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Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#601

Post by JumpCrisscross »

reedjosh wrote: post #573
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> from what I'm seeing they're something like 1-2% interest. Inflation is > 8% right now per the government's own numbers

That's a real yield. TIPs "adjust in price (principal amount) in order to maintain their real value" when inflation rises [1].

So if you buy a TIP for 100 that pays 2%, and inflation is 8%, the face value is adjusted to 108 and you get a 2.16 coupon. (Super simplified, to the point of being technically incorrect, but framework-wise fine.)

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tips.asp

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#602

Post by G3rn0ti »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #564
przeor wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social Security at least in Poland, also is a Ponzi-like scheme. The difference is that to crypto you arent forced to participate in in opposit to govt backed schemes.

Err… can you explain in more detail how social security works in Poland, and how it is pyramidal, or at least multi-level?

Well, all redistributive social security systems have a strong pyramid like scheme inherent to them. Take the German retirement funds which - AFAIK — works similarly to „social security“ in the US:

Every employee in Germany is required to pay a share of about 20% of their income (1) into the retirement „fund“ — which isn’t one really as the money is not invested to gain interest but instead is immediately payed out to the current generation of retirees. On the other hand, employees are promised to receive a future pension based on the payments by the next generation of employees (i.e. their kids). In Germany, this is called „Generationenvertrag“ („contract between generations“).

This is almost like a Ponzi/pyramid scheme where obscene „profits“ are payed out purely based on the exponentially growing number of payees until the day the growth stops and the system collapses like a house of cards.

This breakdown has been happening for decades already albeit at a glacial rate in the German public pension system as the population has been shrinking and therefore the number of payees. It is artificially kept alive as the German federal government pumps 100 billions of tax money every year into it which is 30% of the whole federal budget …

Of course, a redistributive pension system can sustain itself as long as the population age distribution looks like a literal pyramid. But that’s not the case for most Western countries.

(1) Formally, the employee pays only 10% and the other 10% are taken from the employer. But, of course, the employer could as well pay his 10% share as salary instead. So, either way, it’s the employee paying everything.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#603

Post by ea550ff70a »

bertil wrote: post #25

The largest and easiest argument against crypto is the environmental impact. It’s completely ignored in that piece.

Environmental impact is only an issue if the energy source is dirty (which is becoming less of an issue as cost for renewables goes down and green energy mix in the grid increases) and or if you see no value in it. I agree with the former but at the same time I think the issue is not crypto in specific but ANYTHING whose energy source is dirty. The latter is obvi subjective and at the end of the day irrelevant as, like it or not, there are plenty of people that see value in it (2 trillion total market cap in cryptos right now).

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#604

Post by ea550ff70a »

Capira wrote: post #72

It took me quite a while to understand what Bitcoin is about. Of course, decentralised systems are exciting tech, but what's really interesting is that Bitcoin focuses attention onto fundamental questions of society: - How can we transport value through space at the speed of light? - How can we transport value through time? - How can we protect our life savings from inflation? - How can we develop a free market of cu…

I started as a hater and skeptic but the more curious I got about the technical details of it and the more I learned, the more it started to grow on me.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#605

Post by idiotsecant »

throwaway82652 wrote: post #570
rvz wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

>they're all built on the idea of creating a fake, unregulated private money out of nothing and then getting people to pay increasing prices for it.

As opposed to our current financial system which is built on the idea of creating real (except when we reeeeally want some extra money, in which case we just make some more), regulated (unless your regulated activity is conducted by an entity that is sufficiently rich or powerful) money and then control a global hegemony with it.

Crypto is not a solution to every problem and it definitely makes some new ones, but it sure would make for an interesting redistribution of power. I think there reaches a point where the levers of the modern currency system are much, much too attractive for human governments to be trusted with.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#606

Post by cuteboy19 »

Nevermark wrote: post #590
atchoo wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality leads to inequity. Inequity leads to inequality. For wealth inequality the hair-splitting difference between equity and equality is a matter of the time frame you are looking at. As for Crypto gains being an equal opportunity - no, not in the least - access to capital to invest in crypto schemes is not equal. Even if everyone had equal access to capital, we would still be talking about the equality of rest…

Some inequity is from chance, but of significant inequity comes from many other reasons People pursue very different paths in life. People dedicate themselves to the paths they do take with varying degrees of effort, thought, etc. Inequity is going to always be the result. Enforced equity has (so far) simply enabled enforcers to create inequity in there favor. I think it is a mistake to treat all inequity as “the” pr…

That's fine, but this is not a good reason why your specific MLM should be the one that takes over the world and not the other 9000.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#607

Post by mayankkaizen »

Traster wrote: post #468
smeea wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC was the only way I was able to pay for hosting/domain for my non-commercial pet-project (~1,5 years of almost daily after hours development) after sanctions raised against the country I live in. This is my anecdotal experience (and no, I don't invest in crypto), but that's enough for me to not consider cryptocurrencies "just scum". P.S. Also I pay for VPN with it, because this is also the only way at the moment,…

I'd be interested to hear who you bought the hosting from, I'm sure the US government would also like to hear who has been helping you evade sanctions. Sanctions are there for a reason.

I don't know why but I feel your comment is threatening to him.

Also, poor argument.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#608

Post by trutannus »

Tainnor wrote: post #295
trutannus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There's a weird cyclic optimism here that I don't think can really be supported by the facts. That's a pretty American, libertarian take. As somebody who grew up in Western Europe, I'm not disillusioned by "the state" per se, and I think that the facts rather support that privatisation doesn't always make things better (e.g. railways). None of us may be "right" (it always depends on your experiences), but it's wort…

> That's a pretty American, libertarian take.

I'm not American. This take tends to come out of countries where the government has strayed away from its objective of serving the people. There are plenty of governments I'd trust, and not hold a libertarian view towards. Funny enough, most of these are European governments, so your point is well taken. That said, using the state to solve this problem isn't universally going to work. I bet Nordic nations could pull it off, if they've not already.

In short: if the government doesn't work for the people, and is structurally broken, I hold a libertarian perspective. If I see a government that works for the people, I lean neoliberal.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#609

Post by throwaway82652 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #605
throwaway82652 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

>they're all built on the idea of creating a fake, unregulated private money out of nothing and then getting people to pay increasing prices for it. As opposed to our current financial system which is built on the idea of creating real (except when we reeeeally want some extra money, in which case we just make some more), regulated (unless your regulated activity is conducted by an entity that is sufficiently rich or…

>As opposed to our current financial system

No that's not what I was saying and this is one of the most terrible things about any cryptocurrency discussion. People can't seem to avoid viewing it as something "opposed" to any current financial system, when that's not true. Cryptocurrency at best is the same as the current financial system and that's a huge stretch if you can somehow avoid all the negative externalities created by the insistence on using blockchains. So I would really suggest you avoid this angle when talking about this. Yes, all money is technically "fake". The difference is that real currencies that function as currencies are backed by some kind of real productive human activity to sustain that thing. Cryptocurrency by definition is not this, and it never can be unless you discard the fundamental concepts of it.

>but it sure would make for an interesting redistribution of power.

No not really. If you define "interesting" as something unpredictable and dramatic, then it would be more interesting to have the government raise tax rates to 99% and then randomly redistribute the proceeds via lottery. But nobody wants to talk about that because it doesn't require any kind of tech solutionism like cryptocurrency does. And also it would just be awful for most people. But hey, if you just want to convince some rich people to voluntarily pool their money into a trust that then redistributes it via lottery, you might as skip straight to that and avoid all the cryptocurrency shenanigans.

Re: On anti-crypto toxicity

#610

Post by cuteboy19 »

reedjosh wrote: post #364
gwbas1c wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Politically working in sound money (no printer go brrrr) is governmentally forbidden. Bitcoin subverted the corrupt political process and has brought that choice back.

Remind me how many cryptocurrencies were brred into existence the last year? Bitcoin merely replaces corrupt politics with even more corrupt politics (El Presidente Nayib Bukele for example)
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