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Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

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Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#141

Post by ahelwer »

molly0x57 wrote: post #127
leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

"crossed swords" indeed: https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1513695569528692738 https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1516610542588284931

Personally I'm a fan of the one where in the middle of talking about how smart he is he mixes up Cartesian and Euclidean.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#142

Post by PretzelPirate »

themagician wrote: post #79
leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

The only "goal" of crypto is to make money. Anything else is just worn as a mask for promotion because, "Lie, cheat, steal" isn't a great set of principles for a new economic universal ledger. What crypto has become has showed just how wrong Satoshi was about people. Crypto COULD have been everything he hoped for. It could have been a system where everyone participated, with millions of nodes. Instead it became somet…

> The only "goal" of crypto is to make money. Anything else is just worn as a mask for promotion because, "Lie, cheat, steal" isn't a great set of principles for a new economic universal ledger.

This is exactly why generalizing doesn't work.

The most visible parts of the crypto space (exchanges, VC-funded blockchain, etc...) are there simply to make money. If you meet some of the longer-term devs, you'll see a completely different side of it.

How can someone think that Vitalik is in this space for money when he gives so much of it away and has been known to question whether the price matches the value of Ethereum (meaning that Eth was priced too high)? He can also walk away and retire at any time, but chooses to keep working on Ethereum and helping other chains when needed.

It's not just Vitalik either. There are many people in this space who value decentralization, personal freedom, financial inclusion, etc... but you dont read news articles about them because they aren't trying to get your attention or money, they're trying to make something that's meaningful to them that they think will make the world a better place.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#143

Post by EGreg »

drewbeck wrote: post #118
EGreg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, of course. I wanted to show that Molly White doesn’t seem to be open to a discussion about the broader issues, and her blog is certainly very one-sided, which I actually appreciate (I love one sided stuff, because it tends to go out of its way to find the best arguments for its side, as long as you balance it with the other side). We are in a unique position to share our experience with her. We spent years quie…

The issue I have here is that someone turning down a request to be on your podcast does not, actually, mean that "she refuses to engage on these topics"; it may seem like a major litmus test for you, but in fact people are busy and we have to make choices about how to spend our time all the time. I'm sure that if she said yes to every crypto-enthusiast who messaged her "debate me!" she'd have no time for her own proj…

Have you seen her on any discussion ever, engaging with the issues or opposing views? Has she come on someone else's show or something? You're being very generous in your interpretations, not even Molly offered such explanations, she just went silent. The typical interpretation is that there is a reason she'd rather not get into further. And I can guess what that reason is. Her "crowd" wouldn't like it if she appeared there. Many in Richard Heart's "Hexican" crowd were upset that he came on our show, especially because I went right into the issues with him.

Take it for what it is: a biased one-sided blog. As I said, I find those to be more valuable than middle-of-the-road ones, because they do more hard-hitting arguments and research. But you have to balance it out by reading other blogs, such as at least CoinDesk or CoinTelegraph or watching CoinBureau. And many people on HN don't. They're happy to be in a bubble.

PS: All those other people I mentioned are likely far more busy than Molly. Noam Chomsky is for sure, I know that. And he's been on my show multiple times:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/mqfbzk/noam_chomsk...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv5mI6ClPGc

http://davidharvey.org/2023/02/noam-chomsky-and-david-harvey...

In fact, if ANYONE on HN would like to come on our show and discuss why Web3 is not needed, full of scams and is stupid, email me (greg) at intercoin.org. I will make an episode with you and put it up on our YouTube channel.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#144

Post by bena »

munificent wrote: post #49
jahsome wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic rant: it seems (at least in hn circles) all the crypto buzz generation has found a new target in AI. Whereas prior to GPT-3 _every_ problem's solution according to a certain crowd was a hefty dose of web3/crypto, it seems now the consensus among a comparably sized crowd is that AI is actually the answer to all of humanity's pressing issues.

Time to trot out my pet theory that explains this and the last few decades of politics: By some combination of evolution and culture, many young men feel a strong compulsion to seek out high-risk, high-reward endeavors. Our culture encourages this with ideas like "making a name for yourself": is if you don't even exist until you've done something of significant value to the community. There's a drive to pioneer, seek…

> Because a world that is more chaotic and dangerous is a world better suited to their desires.

I would amend this to say "Because they believe a world..."

You kind of hit on it with your statements about doomsday preppers.

All of which I find hilarious. Apocalypse proponents, doomsday preppers, accelerationists, anarcho-anything, etc.

People are trying to prepare for an event that by its very definition is unimaginably catastrophic. We don't even know what that event will be. Or if survival is possible or even desirable.

People think that because they want a thing, that they're in a better position to exploit that thing. Sorry, Littlefingers, chaos is not a ladder. It's just chaos.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#145

Post by quickthrowman »

molly0x57 wrote: post #128
vvpan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think "crossing swords" is necessarily something aggressive, it could have been debate. I am quiet the blockchain-believer and follow and read Molly's twitter. Yet I do not think she should be unopposed in her views, on the contrary I want her to be challenged, it just comes with making a name for yourself as being anything-skeptic.

https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1513695569528692738 https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1516610542588284931

‘Possibly once in a generation levels of transformative intelligence’ (lol)

Here’s the genius of our time backpedaling, lying, and disappearing when he is clearly caught lying: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33878584

Keep fighting the good fight, Molly.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#146

Post by blowski »

rlt wrote: post #55
DannyBee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt most of tech would appreciate being lumped in with crypto, which should be the first sign that your take is a little off. IE if you think you are just "tech being tech" but lots and lots of tech is like "uh, no, we aren't like you at all, please don't lump us in with you", that should tell you something. Beyond that, your take seems so divorced from reality i'm not even sure where to begin. I don't agree at a…

Of course “tech” isn’t a monolith, and neither is “crypto”. Many people into Bitcoin or crypto don’t appreciate being lumped into the very long tail of scams that are an inherent byproduct of permissionless money. It would be a bit like pre-internet engineers dismissing the internet because it’s the world’s best porn distribution mechanism.

Crypto may not be a monolith, but the vast majority of it is combinations of bullshit, snake-oil, and techno-utopian dreams.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#147

Post by p4bl0 »

quickthrowman wrote: post #131
DannyBee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt most of tech would appreciate being lumped in with crypto, which should be the first sign that your take is a little off. IE if you think you are just "tech being tech" but lots and lots of tech is like "uh, no, we aren't like you at all, please don't lump us in with you", that should tell you something. Beyond that, your take seems so divorced from reality i'm not even sure where to begin. I don't agree at a…

You are responding to someone who is attempting to replace existing land ownership recording systems with a blockchain based replacement, you aren’t going to persuade them as they are financially and emotionally invested in the success of cryptocurrency. Here is the thread where they talk about it and reject every single problem that others bring up with their blockchain title system. They also lie extensively about…

I really don't get how people can believe a single second that this kind of projects can make any sense. What is the purpose of a blockchain for this? You cannot get rid of a central authority, because the transmission of land or really anything that exists outside of the blockchain you're planning to use cannot be transferred by simply writing something on the said blockchain. That only works for crypto-tokens because writing a transaction on their blockchain is performative (the transfer happens because it is written, the writing defines the truth, because those only exist has writing). However, writing anything else than a crypto-tokens transaction on a given blockchain can only guarantee that this something else is written on this given blockchain, and that's it. If you don't have any external authority that can make what you've written true (for example, the justice system to which you can go if the person to whom you have paid for a piece of land do not deliver) it has absolutely no value. That means you're not in a decentralized situation where you cannot trust anyone, which in turn means you don't need a blockchain. You just need a database. You might want that database to be publicly available and auditable and immutable, but even then you don't need a blockchain for that (since there is no need for a consensus mechanism), just a merkle tree structure (just use Git, Git works great).

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#148

Post by EGreg »

EamonnMR wrote: post #133
EGreg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, of course. I wanted to show that Molly White doesn’t seem to be open to a discussion about the broader issues, and her blog is certainly very one-sided, which I actually appreciate (I love one sided stuff, because it tends to go out of its way to find the best arguments for its side, as long as you balance it with the other side). We are in a unique position to share our experience with her. We spent years quie…

> relying on centralized entities which clearly is a problem More or less of a problem than out and out scams? > Web5 Did I miss web4? Overall your complaint would be similar to if I complained that Bryan Krebs was one-sided in his coverage of cybercrime, in that he's never pro-crime.

We used to call it Web4, in fact.

Jack Dorsey was the reason we went back and renamed everything to Web5. I was always thinking how 2 + 3 = 4, but then Dorsey went full 5 and we wanted to make sure when people google "Web5" they find us. Our soft goal is to have Intercoin rank higher than Bluesky for "Web5".

> relying on centralized entities which clearly is a problem >More or less of a problem than out and out scams?

Probably more. The societal impact and problems from centralized social networks are documented in many places, including the Social Dilemma documentary, the breakdown of society, record levels of sadness in teenagers, having social network addiction be classified as a disease in many countries including China and now USA, states like Utah trying to protect children from it, and much more more.

I have been documenting just the loneliness part here for a decade: https://qbix.com/investors/articles

https://rational.app goes further into the breakdown of society due to these centralized, closed-source Big Tech oligopolies

I guess you like having public forums being privately owned by tiny groups of people, but the world needs open, decentralized alternatives. Sorry if HN doesn't think so anymore, but they should embrace the "hacker ethos" instead of stockholm syndrome shilling for the corporate VC world.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#149

Post by mattdesl »

colesantiago wrote: post #5

And too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody. I only wish crypto died sooner and that nobody uses it. We have other systems that are more robust than crypto that is used in the order of hundreds of millions such as UPI, PIX, Wise, Mpesa, S…

All of these proposed alternatives are centrally owned either by a private company or state central bank, and only work in and between specific countries.

Crypto lies in stark contrast as a shared and open source protocol across the globe, that is not as easily centrally owned. Whether that is worth the pains of self custody, throughput and volatility is going to depend on who you ask.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#150

Post by IntelMiner »

htormey wrote: post #96
chasing wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Web hit the scene in 1991. By 2003 how we shopped, worked, consumed media, communicated with friends and family, and interacted with information was in the process of changing radically. A million "little ambitions" to replace catalogue shopping and how hotel reservations were made were transforming how the world worked. Bitcoin hit the scene in 2011. By 2023 crypto's mostly a failed get-rich-quick scheme with a…

I don’t think comparing the timelines of vastly different technologies like this is helpful. Prior to the web, in the 1960s/1970s we had packet-switching networks, such as ARPANET which were the basis of modern computer networking. The original ARPANET (precursor to the internet)was just used to connect computers at research institutions. I.e it wasn’t used by that many people relatively speaking. It took another 20…

So if Bitcoin was the "ARPANET" what's that make NFT's? The most utterly useless offshoot of "blockchain" I've seen yet
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