SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed • Hacker News Board

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#151

Post by Bilal_io » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

envolt wrote: post #130

Never read a better summary before - > These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments which take advantage of people who are suffering from economic hardship and growing global wealth inequality. Few to no legitimate use-cases for this technology have been found; instead it is mostly used for fraudulent “get rich quick” schemes and to facilitate criminal activity, such as r…

> > and sanctions evasion.

Yeah, most people in sanctioned countries are victims of their own governments. Please punish them more by not allowing them to send and receive money that their lives could depend on. Cryptocurrency helps remove at least a little bit of that pain for many families around the world.

> I'm going to send this to everyone who I know is involved in crypto/blockchain.

I bet you've complained about people trying to talk you into cryptocurrency, and you didn't like it. It's annoying and you'd be doing the same.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#152

Post by tossl568 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #135

tossl568 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it takes away power from a grid that is then replaced by non-renewable energy." This idea/delusion that energy that is used for mining should and could have been used for something else. It's just not the case.

You shouldn’t refer to other commenters as deluded. It’s pretty clear the GP means a demand curve: cryptocurrencies induce demand for energy sources that would otherwise be uneconomical to operate. This doesn’t require fungibility.

And that's only a problem if those energy sources are fossil fuels. Demand for renewables is a fantastic thing. Bitcoin is a pioneer species, it will use that energy when there's literally no other economically viable use.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#153

Post by zeroclip » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #143

zeroclip wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems extremely arbitrary. Would ENS get a pass? What about Ethereum itself?

Both projects would not be permitted under this policy.

Lol, hilarious. I guess Endaoment and any EVM-based project would also not be permitted, then. Now I wonder what would pass this nebulous Drew-review.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#154

Post by tossl568 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

exo762 wrote: post #141

tossl568 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is money, digital scarcity only needed to be invented once. Shitcoins are scams. LN is growing fast on a solid hard money layer 1 foundation.

You haven't addressed anything I've said. What they are working on? Definitely not privacy nor smart-contracts.

Privacy on the base layer means the supply isn't auditable. Lightning network has sender privacy and improvements are being made to receiver privacy. I did smart contracts stuff on Rootstock yesterday. I don't need my base layer doing that thanks. I just need it to be money.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#155

Post by woodruffw » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

tossl568 wrote: post #152

woodruffw wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn’t refer to other commenters as deluded. It’s pretty clear the GP means a demand curve: cryptocurrencies induce demand for energy sources that would otherwise be uneconomical to operate. This doesn’t require fungibility.

And that's only a problem if those energy sources are fossil fuels. Demand for renewables is a fantastic thing. Bitcoin is a pioneer species, it will use that energy when there's literally no other economically viable use.

> And that's only a problem if those energy sources are fossil fuels

Okay, but the 'if' there is true. Bitcoin is currently inducing demand for coal and gas plants, which is very bad. It's unclear when it'll stop doing that, if it'll stop, and a hypothetical future in which Bitcoin starts incentivizing the good thing instead of the bad thing doesn't change the truth value of the current bad thing.

(We've also fixated on coal burning, when there are oodles of other great reasons to not like Bitcoin. A small handful of them have been listed elsewhere in this thread.)

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#156

Post by ddevault » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

Bilal_io wrote: post #151

envolt wrote: post #130

Never read a better summary before - > These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments which take advantage of people who are suffering from economic hardship and growing global wealth inequality. Few to no legitimate use-cases for this technology have been found; instead it is mostly used for fraudulent “get rich quick” schemes and to facilitate criminal activity, such as r…

> > and sanctions evasion. Yeah, most people in sanctioned countries are victims of their own governments. Please punish them more by not allowing them to send and receive money that their lives could depend on. Cryptocurrency helps remove at least a little bit of that pain for many families around the world. > I'm going to send this to everyone who I know is involved in crypto/blockchain. I bet you've complained abo…

Iranians trying to get cash so they can buy groceries are not the problem. North Korea using ransomware to get lots of cryptocurrency they can use to fund their nuclear weapons program is the problem.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#157

Post by bastawhiz » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #139

woodruffw wrote: post #69

A lot of the comments so far have been negative, so I’ll add a positive one: I think this was the right move, and I’m content (as an actual paying member) with it. Kudos particularly for the well-laid-out position statement. Drew and I have extensive differences in opinion when it comes to software, but his sincerity and willingness to put his money where his mouth is are apparent in cases like this.

You can cheer for your ideology, but what if your business was the one being purged because the owners profess to be the moral guardians of humanity?

I would accept that another person has chosen not to do business with me and take my money to a vendor who would choose to do business with me. Or host my own source control. Anyone is free to choose not to take my money because they disagree with the business I choose to conduct.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#158

Post by zeroclip » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

Herbstluft wrote: post #140

rvz wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Put yourself in the maintainers' shoes — would you be happy to idly stand by when you know your service is being used to actively harm others' lives? [^1] Perhaps you would, and if so, I would be interested in hearing your view. Yeah, just like Tor, which is also heavily associated and almost exclusively used for illicit and illegal activities; especially by fraudsters, criminals, scammers, tax / sanctions evasion…

The difference is that projects like Tor were certainly not created with any devious purpose in mind. Arguments and use cases for anonymity are very easy to come up with. Blockchain related projects cause damage on two fronts: - They are commonly created with the explicit goal to scam most people while making very few people rich. - The tech around blockchains ( almost ) qualifies as snakeoil. The use cases are nonex…

"Lots of stuff is bad and so all of it must be bad" is a weak argument. Look at email: 85% of mail is spam and scam.

If you read beyond the hype the use cases are very clear, even if they are very narrow: disintermediation, decentralization, and making permissionless payments and contracts.

Blockchains like Monero and zcash are pretty good ways to handle anonymous payments across the world, compared to sending cash in an envelope or trusting a third-party with your privacy. If Tor would be allowed on SourceHut even with its negatives, so should Monero and zcash. Monero and zcash were not built with the explicit goal to scam people, and they do provide features that were not easily achievable prior to this technology.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#159

Post by lostmsu » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

anxiously wrote: post #101

I was recently considering moving to Sourcehut or Github after self hosting using gitrc for over a year. I have been going back and forth over self hosting versus leveraging an existing service, but this news and fumblings over Gitea last week have pretty much put me right back into self hosting..

How does this affect GitHub?

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#160

Post by tossl568 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #155

tossl568 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's only a problem if those energy sources are fossil fuels. Demand for renewables is a fantastic thing. Bitcoin is a pioneer species, it will use that energy when there's literally no other economically viable use.

> And that's only a problem if those energy sources are fossil fuels Okay, but the 'if' there is true. Bitcoin is currently inducing demand for coal and gas plants, which is very bad. It's unclear when it'll stop doing that, if it'll stop, and a hypothetical future in which Bitcoin starts incentivizing the good thing instead of the bad thing doesn't change the truth value of the current bad thing. (We've also fixated…

Bitcoin isn't going away. More people are putting their trust in it as their monetary standard every day, not less. Bitcoin, the asset and network are neutral. Scams on top of it, shitcoin affinity scams, or whatever "oodles of other great reasons" don't change that. The majority of Bitcoin mining is already renewable, it already incentivises renewables this isn't a hypothetical future.

If somebody proposed a law tomorrow that bans coal plants being reopened to mine Bitcoin I wouldn't be against it, and Bitcoin would carry on happily regardless.

BUt you're then getting into the dangerous territory of telling people what and what isn't an acceptable use of compute power. Bitcoin is a valid and useful consumer of energy.