481–490 of 561 posts
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Sure, but at what cost? Maybe you made $10, by doing so did you enable musk to do $9 of harm to you, or was it $11?
Almost certainly less than $1. What kind of harm do you have in mind here?
It is really striking how technologists keep disregarding any aspect of ethics, philosophy, proper usage, etc. and just focus entirely on the technology itself. Cryptocurrency, AI, social media, on and on. I used to think it was merely an innocent ignorance, just a soft subject that technologists weren’t familiar with. But anymore it seems like actively hostile to me, a kind of blind belief in the idea that technolog…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/09/03/ai-st...
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Can you describe a "society collapse" where your cold wallet _can_ get you out of trouble, and why that particular situation isn't subject to "I will shoot your corgi." coercion? If you're dealing with a peer you can't trust (like the US government) that will ask for your passphrase and then not torture you for it if you refuse, I'd suggest you're not really in a situation where society has broken down.
You've created a strawman. In no point a said "society collapse". I am talking about failing institutions. You can find on this very same comment section a handful of people who live in places where cryptocurrency enables people to work around failing institutions and/or protect their wealth from systemic corruption.
Now, perhaps what you're suggesting is "I've got millions of units of money that I've acquired through locally illegal means and I want to transport that money someplace else and I don't feel like renting a private airplane and diamonds up my prison wallet are uncomfortable and I don't want to pay taxes or otherwise explain why I have a brand new S class I paid cash for." then yes, I'll accept that there is some grey area where crypto has a place (to explicitly work around legal regimes I dislike, would like to degrade further, and don't feel like dealing with).
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This is a "vice" thing. Vices are things which match this pattern like alcohol or drugs: - many people don't indulge at all - many people indulge occasionally to no real harm - some people indulge in a way that makes a short term recoverable mess - a few people get addicted and are unable to stop. May or may not also be harmed at this point, but this tends to lead to cumulative harm - a few people really mess up trag…
We have a socially acceptable, predatory, regulated vice: credit cards with 30%. These ruin many lives. I'm finally almost out and I'm 45. Nobody taught me in school not to use them as they are harmful. Nobody taught me how much money they will actually charge me and how much money I will lose because of them. Whereas if I had just saved my money and bought the thing out right I wouldn't have to pay any extra money.…
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Wise demands a massive fee through bid-offer spread, they're more expensive than many regular retail banks for FX conversion. They're basically running a deceptive advertising campaign due to customers not knowing about bid offer spread. Wise is even worse than "zero-fee" stock trading platforms like Robin hood who do payment for order flow. At least PFOF is more competitive and regulated and you're only getting a fe…
From my own comparisons, when converting, say, $1000 USD with Wise the spread+fee is about half of any of the banks that I have accounts with. Where Wise takes a huge cut is if you convert $10 at a time.
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That last example postdates Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin entering public consciousness (in 2011), so why bring it up ?
Bitcoin was not much in the public consciousness by then. It was trading at ~$10, mainly on MTGOX. It's likely its transaction volume was much lower than other non-crypto digital assets (and MTG cards) at the time.
And the nerds at Valve would have been *in particular* aware of it. So causality is more likely to be reversed in that example.
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We have a socially acceptable, predatory, regulated vice: credit cards with 30%. These ruin many lives. I'm finally almost out and I'm 45. Nobody taught me in school not to use them as they are harmful. Nobody taught me how much money they will actually charge me and how much money I will lose because of them. Whereas if I had just saved my money and bought the thing out right I wouldn't have to pay any extra money.…
At what point should a person be responsible for their own life? I wasn't taught a lot of things; I learned them with some basic googling. You can figure out how a credit card works with a few minutes of critical thinking followed by "I should look this up". Something I would expect a 30-40yo to be able to do, no?
It is predatory. Especially to hook teenagers on them at a young age.
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At what point should a person be responsible for their own life? I wasn't taught a lot of things; I learned them with some basic googling. You can figure out how a credit card works with a few minutes of critical thinking followed by "I should look this up". Something I would expect a 30-40yo to be able to do, no?
Once you realize what is happening it can take 20 years to get out... It is predatory. Especially to hook teenagers on them at a young age.