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Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

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Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#121

Post by easygenes »

hgsgm wrote: post #20
soiler wrote: post #7

This isn't about cryptocurrency at all. It's about the obviously bad idea of transferable digital in-game goods [sold for cryptocurrency]. You don't need the crypto part to see why it's not a good idea, although the model described here (selling loot to other players?) is not the extremely silly one I've heard more often (buy a CSGO skin and wear it in other games!).

Once you've crossed the line of purchasable in-game goods, transferable isn't silly.

The earliest popular instance of this model I’m aware of is Magic: Online, which went live in 2002 and worked entirely on physical analogy. You would buy virtual card packs just as you would physically, and could trade cards between players without restriction. This was seen as an evil ploy by many at the time, who balked at the idea of it not just being a subscription model with unlimited access to cards.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#122

Post by [deleted] »

nosianu wrote: post #80
badcppdev wrote: post #9

Anyone who has read Cryptonomicon should remember that the hero protagonists went to a lot of effort to secure a large mass of gold to 'back' the currency they wanted to create. The Baroque Trilogy is less clear as Isaac Newton mints new currency. Does that mean that perhaps Stephenson's opinions were always that currency needs to be backed by something whether it is gold or national borders.

As I understand money creation, at least the part created by commercial banks as described in "Bank of England: Money creation in the modern economy" -- https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... , that debt-based money is backed by something of value: The promise of the debtor to create something valuable which itself earns money, and more than was used to create it. . Here is a tiny story I onc…

[deleted]

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#123

Post by taeric »

hgsgm wrote: post #118
taeric wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, my point is that it seems Stephenson seemed to have originally felt that there was intrinsic value to something. And then starts asking why you and friends would care about the trinkets you can sell, when that is irrelevant. Typically, by definition, you sell things that someone will give you more currency for than you currently value it.

He says that buying stuff in games (which he considers achievements as the ovly valid stuff, disparaging cosmetic items) is gauche. People pay for a lot of bad things, and Stephenson opposes that. He thinks crypto is fine for buying things of value.

But that is just it, what are "things of value?" If I have a waterlogged copy of a book, it is worth less, even though the argument would be that the value of the book is the story in it. (I don't even have to get into books that have had their covers removed by sellers and then were not recycled properly. Clear evidence that the book has no intrinsic value.)

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#124

Post by hgsgm »

taeric wrote: post #93
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of paper money is in it's utility as a transaction aid. It has currency.

Right, I'm not really trying to get into an economics debate about currency. It is a far more nuanced topic than I care to discuss and is heavily "by definition" depending on when/where you are. (In particular, the easy "stupid" hypotheticals usually just boil down to strength of the one arguing.) My point here was largely that I don't get where Stephenson was trying to argue. Even some of the points made in the slid…

> It is also silly that people are willing to pay money for the items

That's his thesis. Crypto is useful, but not for game items, because there is nothing honorable worth buying with real money. Just like how no one should buy a certificate that says "I bought this certificate from someone who is really good at chess." Unless you are a patron of the art of playing the game, I guess, but that doesn't seem to be use case in practice.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#125

Post by taeric »

hgsgm wrote: post #120
taeric wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, again, I was not trying to make a defense of crypto. I'm more just not at all clear on what Stephenson was arguing. Trying to come up with intrinsic value reasons on things is doomed to failure. Somewhat obviously so.

That's exactly his point. He believes putting value on status signals is toxic. He doesn't want people buying fake valor. It's the "I fucking love science" of the art world, and he detests it.

Thanks! I'll try reading this again with that framing. I definitely missed that. I'm not entirely clear that changes my overall confusion. Other people are free to value things differently than I do. I'd be more worried about efforts to prevent that. (With some obvious caveats.)

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#126

Post by taeric »

hgsgm wrote: post #124
taeric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm not really trying to get into an economics debate about currency. It is a far more nuanced topic than I care to discuss and is heavily "by definition" depending on when/where you are. (In particular, the easy "stupid" hypotheticals usually just boil down to strength of the one arguing.) My point here was largely that I don't get where Stephenson was trying to argue. Even some of the points made in the slid…

> It is also silly that people are willing to pay money for the items That's his thesis. Crypto is useful, but not for game items, because there is nothing honorable worth buying with real money. Just like how no one should buy a certificate that says "I bought this certificate from someone who is really good at chess." Unless you are a patron of the art of playing the game, I guess, but that doesn't seem to be use c…

Your certificate example reminds of people buying "prescriptions" for alcohol and such as collectibles. Or really, any collectible.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#127

Post by quickthrowman »

leppr wrote: post #97
arcticbull wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 14 years, billions in investment and roughly speaking zero non-criminal usage and no real-world killer use cases. That's just fact. Time to move on.

If anything, crypto at least seems to indirectly put food on your table, articbull. I would find it hard to believe you don't get any compensation from religiously covering every HN comment sections about crypto with misinformation. Surely your motives can't simply be the fear of being out of a job if bigtech fades into irrelevance. AI would logically be a way bigger threat to your occupation. Here are some stats for…

> Here are some stats for any passerby who might be convinced to think crypto really has ~zero non-criminal usage [1]. Surely calling 5-25% of many countries' populations criminals (including the US), should be relegated to a fringe extremist view.

Simply owning digital tokens is not a real world usage of those tokens, full stop.

That being said, I can fully accept that 5-25% of a countries population is gullible enough to buy cryptocurrency.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#128

Post by deckard1 »

JohnFen wrote: post #70
Y_Y wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real Newton worked at the mint too, it may not necessarily represent Stephenson's views. Doesn't Snow Crash have hyperinflation followed by a plethora of private fiat currencies?

It does, yes. I think a lot of people haven't read the book or have forgotten that the world of Snow Crash is an extreme dystopia -- certainly not the sort of world most people want to live in. That's why I was so baffled as to why Facebook glommed on to the term "metaverse" with such fervor. The "metaverse" comes from that book, and is a major aspect of the dystopia. The term does not have positive connotations.

Meta has barely any spin on what they are trying to accomplish with the metaverse. It's out in the open that they want to create an all-encompassing privacy-destroying monopoly (sorry, platform) to suit their revenue and profit needs. Either Zuckerberg is so out of touch that he actually believes people have the same goals as Meta (possibly, considering how comically bad Meta's presentation was) or he doesn't care. They obviously see themselves as being the ones running the metaverse in Snow Crash, so I guess from their perspective it's a great time.

How many brilliant minds signed off on that metaverse presentation I wonder. I'm still shocked. That's a lot of either coercion or people that enjoy smelling their own farts. They spent billions on it. Did I mention I'm still shocked? Shocked! None of it makes sense.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#129

Post by senthil_rajasek »

taeric wrote: post #114
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My counter argument was only to your comparison to paper money.

Ah, but that counter assumes that there isn't some transaction aid that crypto currency also brings. I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games. If only so that trying a new game doesn't mean starting from zero for those that did build up a lot of stuff in another one.

>Ah, but that counter assumes that there isn't some transaction aid that crypto currency also brings.

Except it doesn't.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#130

Post by quickthrowman »

taeric wrote: post #114
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My counter argument was only to your comparison to paper money.

Ah, but that counter assumes that there isn't some transaction aid that crypto currency also brings. I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games. If only so that trying a new game doesn't mean starting from zero for those that did build up a lot of stuff in another one.

> I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games.

Why would any company use a decentralized token to let you purchase things when they could simply make their own store currency/points and sell that instead? Look at all the F2P games that have in-game purchases, they all use points that are sold by the publisher that are bought with dollars because they make more money that way. There is no incentive to allow a decentralized currency you don’t control for in-game purchases.

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