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The first Bitcoin post on HN

news.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 302 posts

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#61
post #8
post #4

>Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency. Hah!

There's faith among fans of the currency. Others are interested , but that's a long way from faith.

Exactly.

I was a bit taken aback that the tone of this submission was, "See! Bitcoing worked!"

Uh, no one outside of a few small circles has any idea what it is. And any currency as volatile as Bitcoin is broken.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#62

'always be naysaying' is the mantra of about 80% of HNers

Well, yeah, but more like 97,89%, from what I gather. From time to time I fancy this idea of toying with some NLP package to calculate percentage of the HN comments that go like "Yes, but no", "Cool, but meh" or "Sure, but no way".

Oh wait, what did I just do?

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#63
post #5
post #4

>Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency. Hah!

People should be required to place a monetary bet whenever they make a bold claim in public. I think we would see less comments like this one.

That's exactly what I did earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6754061

I actually expect I'd have lost the bet if they'd taken it, due to my way too generous terms but that's not the point.

The point was to try to illustrate that "oh it'll crash" is a nonsense prediction.

Be concrete, and put your money where your mouth is, or realise that you haven't actually thought it through.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#64
post #38

How many people had the slightest clue that books would be replaced by Kindles, CDs by iPODs, tablets selling as much as laptops. The comments show that people underestimated the impact bitcoin would make. I still believe its just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bitcoin.

Wow! Books surely have not been replaced by Kindles! Not by a long shot. 40% of readers still use only print books. Here's some random data to back that up. https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/en/blog/2013/03/25/print-b...

But telegraphs are virtually gone in the western world, X.25 has very few installations. Tech doesn't ever fully die out, since just when it is about to a subculture grows around keeping it alive.

The printed page is centuries if not millennia away from becoming a niche subculture.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#65
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to install propietary software to use it.

I use Dropbox as a glorified large email attachment distribution system, touching only the web interface. Edit: obviously not clear enough, I'll try again: Is it true that ' You need to install propietary software to use it '? No.

The web interface is proprietary too.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?

Not using capital letters for the first word of sentences ?

Possibly. Hacker news is a rough neighborhood if you use improper grammar, have bad spelling, or make typos.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#68
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically true, but we still have the governments to weigh in and try to crush this. Unless they can monetize from BitCoin, they will find a way to kill it - blaming it on funding organized crime and terrorism. "Real world" currency is just too important for them to loose control of it.

Yesterday's congressional hearing made me surer than ever that bitcoin is actually an FBI/ CIA/ NSA/ whoever -made honeypot. Think about it. Bitcoin is robust enough that it could have only been developed with the resources offered by a government, the currency records all transaction histories, and we still have absolutely no idea of who this Satoshi Nakamoto guy is, assuming he's not some government taskforce. Didn…

I think it makes perfect sense if the government types think they can apply all the existing laws to Bitcoin transactions. Money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, theft, etc. are all still illegal, even if you use Bitcoin to carry them out.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#69
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024

His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?

He is definitely Hellbanned. He made a poor-taste attempt at humor on a mental health post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407576) which was voted to oblivion, and every post since then is [dead]. Looks like it took him a few months to find it (I had to go back like 10 "more" clicks to get to his non-dead posts).
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