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Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

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Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#141

Post by lukifer »

machinelabo wrote: post #3

We need to fix the loop holes. Money is also an amazing instrument that keeps us motivated. Without the lure of money and its power, we wouldn’t do anything. Startups? Why bother when there is no money involved. I really think if there was one thing we got right - that’s money as a civilization. What we need to do is fix the loop holes. That includes taxes, corporation as persons, the whole 2011 movement of Occupy Wa…

People are motivated by a variety of things, only one being wealth accumulation; and there is an inherent tension between the qualitative and the quantitative (for instance, one would be insulted if one's dinner guest offered to pay the bill for a home-cooked meal).

There's a lot to be said for the social technology of markets and the extrinsic motivations of money. But from FOSS to mutual aid to gift economies [0], currency-denominated markets should only be one tool in our political-economy toolbox.

[0] https://sacred-economics.com/

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#142

Post by stunt »

vesinisa wrote: post #127

It's really sad that his story got flagged. I think it's a reasonable and well-argued opinion piece, and I can only assume it got flagged because some users vigorously disagree with the opinion. @mods any input?

+1 for what you said. I also think it's a reasonable opinion piece worth to be discussed. But, I think it may got flagged simply because it's (or part of it) kind of off-topic for HN.

What is more bizarre is that some comments here got down voted without answers even though they are relevant to the post. It's becoming a bit harder to talk about Bitcoin while we need to discuss it more than before. And these fanatic energies from Bitcoin lovers and haters don't help.

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#143

Post by david927 »

ffggvv wrote: post #104
david927 wrote: post #5

I think the author needs to integrate into these arguments the Nixon Shock of 1971 and what’s happening with inflation in the US since 2008. There’s a reason the Dow just hit a record high and it’s not because the fundamentals of those firms are strong. I’m not a Bitcoin holder but the correct finger pointing here is at monetary policy.

i agree if you mean the unlimited liquidity and fiscal has pumped up asset speculation to historic proportions i disagree if you mean people are somehow buying it as a hedge to the dollar

Those are the same thing

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#144

Post by dastx »

dandanua wrote: post #130
dastx wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly misunderstanding what bitcoin is about. No trust is put into crypto exchanges. Trust is put into cryptography, which miners help with. This kind of puts the trust in miners, but in order to do anything as a miner, you'd need to either break sha256, or you'd need 51% of the computing power. The latter is more likely, but it would make bitcoin useless because people will lose trust in the system, thus an…

You are not required to trust exchanges. But in reality, it's them who rule the Bitcoin's world. And they are much worse than governments and banks.

What makes you say exchanges rule Bitcoin's world? If exchanges are the equivalent of banks, miners are the equivalent of governments. So if anyone "rules" "the" Bitcoin's world, then it would be miners. Not exchanges.

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#146

Post by wbobeirne »

Priem19 wrote: post #132
wbobeirne wrote: post #71

This article has some substance to it that is worth discussion, but I feel it's value is greatly diminished by the sheer amount of ad hominem in it. Don't buy Bitcoin because Michael Saylor and Elon Musk also own some? That's terrible advice. The USD is also owned by terrible people, and is used to fund terrible things. I agree with the author that many people rationalize or fall into some of the standard Bitcoin bel…

>“This article has some substance to it that is worth discussion” Thank you, I appreciate that. >“sheer amount of ad hominem in it.” I wouldn't say sheer, but admittedly yes, I couldn't help myself since that's part of the reason I opted out. I just don't like to invest in things associated with shady people. And if calling Saylor shady is an ad hominem, then I'll live with that. Rebuke accepted. >“The USD is also ow…

The whataboutism you mentioned in your article was around the energy discussion, and I agree that's a really weak argument for Bitcoin's energy usage, especially when there are many other better arguments. But I don't think it's fair to apply that to what I said about USD. I'm not saying that because the USD is used for / the US government does bad things, that we should excuse both it and Bitcoin and that it's a wash. I'm saying that making a choice about what to put your value in based on who else uses it, or who works on it isn't the best way to judge the usefulness of it.

On the smartest engineer front, I'll grant you that it's an overused platitude, but I'd consider any engineer I know who's in the 80th percentile to be "one of the smartest engineers I know", which to be fair is going to be quite a few people. But my point there wasn't to give Bitcoin credit by association, but more to demonstrate that I have no doubt that those people are smart enough to land lucrative jobs at big tech companies. So if they're just in it for the money, why haven't they?

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#147

Post by Priem19 »

Aunche wrote: post #90

I agree with most of this article except the part about fractional reserve banking. All fractional reserve banking means is that banks are allowed to loan out their customer's money. People have known this to be more economically efficient since the Middle Ages. If you're not using your money, it's better in the hands of someone actively using it to conduct a commercial transaction. Without a central bank to print ou…

I added a paragraph clarifying my stance on fractional reserve banking. That section could've indeed been easily misinterpreted. Thank you.

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#148

Post by pdimitar »

wbobeirne wrote: post #146
Priem19 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“This article has some substance to it that is worth discussion” Thank you, I appreciate that. >“sheer amount of ad hominem in it.” I wouldn't say sheer, but admittedly yes, I couldn't help myself since that's part of the reason I opted out. I just don't like to invest in things associated with shady people. And if calling Saylor shady is an ad hominem, then I'll live with that. Rebuke accepted. >“The USD is also ow…

The whataboutism you mentioned in your article was around the energy discussion, and I agree that's a really weak argument for Bitcoin's energy usage, especially when there are many other better arguments. But I don't think it's fair to apply that to what I said about USD. I'm not saying that because the USD is used for / the US government does bad things, that we should excuse both it and Bitcoin and that it's a was…

To answer your last, people working on something out of passion and/or belief in its future carries zero correlation about how exciting (or good) the thing is.

I've known my fair share of programmers that make me look like a blabbering cretin. I still don't think what they worked on was something special though.

So this line of argumentation IMO leads to nowhere [productive]. Sure there are extremely smart people working on BTC. But the same could be said in literally any area, right?

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#149

Post by bingbong70 »

ufo wrote: post #82
drcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> constantly changes Suggested correction: "is constantly being expanded and added to"

The bitcoin community often removes things from the list. I remember the days when bitcoin was supposed to be a revolutionary platform for microtransactions...

The person behind strike built an application that allows him to stream money (a payment every second) to his programmer in Europe with 0 fees using the LN... If you don't keep up with the tech, you shouldnt make these proclamations.

Re: Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely

#150

Post by webinvest »

peter422 wrote: post #17

I have thought about this with Bitcoin: if the protocol and potential capabilities are so interesting, why is 99% of the conversation related to Bitcoin about the current price. It does make me believe that greed is the predominant driver of most Bitcoin holders, which to me makes the whole concept a lot less principled than people pretend it is.

Look at the message in the Genesis block of Bitcoin and you will understand it’s intended purpose. It is a speculative asset intended to be held for investment, speculative, or hedging purposes. It was released in response to central bank money printing that the creator Satoshi Nakamoto viewed to be excessive. If I remember correctly, if you held 1% of your portfolio in bitcoin in 2017 and 99% of your investment portfolio in a S&P500 index ETF, your investment portfolio would’ve doubled the performance of the S&P500 index without any work or effort on your part.

If you’re looking for cryptocurrency technology aspects that don’t include money or greed, look at cryptocurrencies outside of the top 10 or top 20 by market cap. The ones around rank 30 or more are less about the price and more about the technology and fun of it.

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