Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fake Books

lcamtuf.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 371 posts

Re: Fake Books

#331

Post by Natsu »

crooked-v wrote: post #274
jerf wrote: post #223

One of the things that has kept me out of the cryptocurrency space is that when their advocates discuss value, they speak in pure nonsense. A big part of that problem is that value is very difficult to discuss. On the one hand you have the classic goldbug that insists that gold has "intrinsic value", which is some sort of platonic ideal thing that gold simply ambiently has and defies any attempt to nail down what it…

> It is completely possible to demolish entire massive argument edifices in 10-20 of the correct words, and the fact that the "other side" has deployed literally hundreds of thousands of words does not make them right if the foundation is rotten. See also the "Gish gallop" [1], a strategy that relies on spewing out a huge number of specious arguments and half-truths that are each individually time-consuming to refute…

I remember SCO accusing IBM of doing something similar and IBM responding that they did not, because they could not, refute them.

Refuting bad arguments scales better than some think because arguments can be referenced or copied when they come up again and again, whereas the alternative allows BS to stand unchallenged.

Speaking of which, I should copy this for the next time that comes up.

Re: Fake Books

#332

Post by andrewflnr »

coldtea wrote: post #102
moss2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there’s a good chance it was ghost written by a content farm for someone who wanted to publish a book in a popular category to make a quick buck. The article literally says > My first theory was that the writing must have been outsourced to a content farm, where multiple individuals worked on portions of the text without caring to understand the context. But the explanation had a flaw: there’s nothing you c…

> The article literally says Yes, and the parent literally generalizes this one-off observation, puts it in context, and gives examples and even a source with a deep dive on the issue.

Also that, but they still claim that that's what produced the book in OP, a possibility OP only brought up to pretty conclusively rebut. Which means they went on a tangent with their comment based on what they knew without actually finishing the paragraph it was based on.

Re: Fake Books

#333

Post by foobiekr »

jerf wrote: post #223

One of the things that has kept me out of the cryptocurrency space is that when their advocates discuss value, they speak in pure nonsense. A big part of that problem is that value is very difficult to discuss. On the one hand you have the classic goldbug that insists that gold has "intrinsic value", which is some sort of platonic ideal thing that gold simply ambiently has and defies any attempt to nail down what it…

They also don't understand the basic concept of losses. "It's only a loss if you sell" is alive and well in the Bitcoin space. They'll even argue this if you teach them the difference between realized and unrealized losses.

Re: Fake Books

#334

Post by randomswede »

Eisenstein wrote: post #322
amluto wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that holding Monero is of rather less clear value. Sure, the ability to take $100, turn it into Monero, and turn it back into almost $100 that cannot be trivially traced to the original $100 is of some value. But this value is there for people who have no particular interest in Monero-the—asset. They want Monero-the-mixer. If I put $100 into Monero and hold it, I’m betting that Monero is still worth something…

The whole point of currency is to use it. If you are buying a currency to hold on to it, then it is a terrible currency and there is a disincentive to use it as one, thus making it useful only for speculation. I know that there was a pivot when people realized Bitcoin and Ether are not practical for their purported use as currencies, where they are now claimed to 'hold value', but that is ridiculous. They were design…

ON the international currency market, one traditional role of the US dollar is exactly "store value". You trade your currencies on the FX market during your day, and comes close to "close of your trading", you exchange all your positions for US dollars, to keep in store for your quiet period. Comes the following day, you trade out your dollars for other currencies. Then the cycle continues.

Does this mean that the US dollar is a terrible currency? No. If another currency meets the same stability criterion, it can (and probably is) used as a short-to-medium term value store.

I don't really see any crypto-currency work well, they're thinly traded, so there's a lot of inherent volatility in the pricing. It is also getting increasingly harder to exchange crypto-currencies for more traditional currencies.

Re: Fake Books

#335

Post by Eisenstein »

randomswede wrote: post #334
Eisenstein wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of currency is to use it. If you are buying a currency to hold on to it, then it is a terrible currency and there is a disincentive to use it as one, thus making it useful only for speculation. I know that there was a pivot when people realized Bitcoin and Ether are not practical for their purported use as currencies, where they are now claimed to 'hold value', but that is ridiculous. They were design…

ON the international currency market, one traditional role of the US dollar is exactly "store value". You trade your currencies on the FX market during your day, and comes close to "close of your trading", you exchange all your positions for US dollars, to keep in store for your quiet period. Comes the following day, you trade out your dollars for other currencies. Then the cycle continues. Does this mean that the US…

> ON the international currency market, one traditional role of the US dollar is exactly "store value".

I do know that 'store of value' is the term I used, but it is in reference to the people who hold Bitcoins in expectation of rising price, and the fact that they would claim it 'stores value' while being extremely volitile is indicative of their lack of understanding or their lack of honesty in representing their motives.

People who shelter their dollars overnight are most likely not expecting a return on it.

Re: Fake Books

#336

Post by st1ck »

guerrilla wrote: post #268
jcynix wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you put that in quotes? Because the "energy crisis" is actually a political crisis, i.e. the failure of governments to build enough alternate generators, like solar and wind power during the last decade or two. > You sure they couldn't be talking about a heat pump [...] I'm really sure, because the videos show people unpacking a small electrical heater after telling you that "a student" or "an engineer" deve…

> Because the "energy crisis" is actually a political crisis, i.e. the failure of governments to build enough alternate generators, like solar and wind power during the last decade or two. Aha, I see. A bit late for that now though, so now it's an energy crisis. I wish it were seen as a political crisis but pretty much everyone here just blames Russia and there aren't many (if any in some countries) consequences... >…

Certainly energy crisis is of political nature, but let's say Germany invested massively in the renewables. It's just not the best source of energy in most places in terms of return on investment. Not to mention the intermittency problem. If they just didn't close their nuclear reactors, Germany would be in much better position to weather off the crisis.

Re: Fake Books

#337

Post by roenxi »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #315
hackernudes wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make up what people say and then argue with them it's pretty easy to win. The "classic goldbug" insists that gold has properties that are good for a currency (does not degrade, can be divided, does not rely on a trusted third party, has scarcity) and it has been used as currency for a long time in civilisation. I take "intrinsic value" for commodities to mean "has use aside from being a currency", for example…

It's not just a few goldbugs thinking the intrinsic value is all of the value, it's tons of them that think the intrinsic value provides a solid floor. At this point the currency/speculative/prestige value is almost all of the value of gold. If you had a pile of gold and it dropped down to its intrinsic value, it'd be almost the same as a drop to zero.

> At this point the currency/speculative/prestige value is almost all of the value of gold

It isn't a currency, it has no obvious potential to be a currency and if you own it you are either a government or insulted. At best, only speculative value could be a factor of these 3, and I don't think the serious money that sets the price is speculating - and gold is a terrible market to speculate in, so they probably aren't setting the price as much as going broke.

The value of gold is set by how hard/easy it is to mine.

Re: Fake Books

#338

Post by bawolff »

_pgln wrote: post #203
bawolff wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was precisely the author's point.

No its not. Scarcity in economics refers to when the demand for a resource is greater than the supply of that resource. The kids doodles aren't scarce because there is little demand for them. On the other hand there is demand for NFT's (whether you think there should be or not). The comparison doesn't make any sense and just makes the author look dumb.

The author wasn't responding to economists who were using the word in that sense, he was responding to bitcoin evangelists who often claim that the value in bitcoin comes from its limitted issue (without reference to demand).

I have certainly heard bitcoin evangelists make such claims, so i really dont think it is a strawman argument.

If you want to take the metaphor further, there is really no barrier to entry for starting a cryptocurrency and supply of cryptocurrencies in general far outstrip demand. So it is very similar to a kids doodle.

Re: Fake Books

#339

Post by jcynix »

st1ck wrote: post #336
guerrilla wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the "energy crisis" is actually a political crisis, i.e. the failure of governments to build enough alternate generators, like solar and wind power during the last decade or two. Aha, I see. A bit late for that now though, so now it's an energy crisis. I wish it were seen as a political crisis but pretty much everyone here just blames Russia and there aren't many (if any in some countries) consequences... >…

Certainly energy crisis is of political nature, but let's say Germany invested massively in the renewables. It's just not the best source of energy in most places in terms of return on investment. Not to mention the intermittency problem. If they just didn't close their nuclear reactors, Germany would be in much better position to weather off the crisis.

France and Germany recently agreed to help each other over the winter. While France will provide gas to Germany, Germany will provide electricity to France (the country with all these nuclear reactors ;-0)

https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/fran...

Regarding the "return on investment" nuclear power is way more expensive than other forms of energy, if you add the (hidden) cost of storage and disposal of nuclear waste. Which could have been known for a long time, cf.

The Hidden Costs of Nuclear Power (RICHARD W. ENGLAND, 1979) https://www.jstor.org/stable/40719811

The High and Hidden Costs of Nuclear Power -- An industry hooked on subsidies from governments (Henry Sokolski, 2010) https://www.hoover.org/research/high-and-hidden-costs-nuclea...

Re: Fake Books

#340

Post by Ekaros »

foobiekr wrote: post #333
jerf wrote: post #223

One of the things that has kept me out of the cryptocurrency space is that when their advocates discuss value, they speak in pure nonsense. A big part of that problem is that value is very difficult to discuss. On the one hand you have the classic goldbug that insists that gold has "intrinsic value", which is some sort of platonic ideal thing that gold simply ambiently has and defies any attempt to nail down what it…

They also don't understand the basic concept of losses. "It's only a loss if you sell" is alive and well in the Bitcoin space. They'll even argue this if you teach them the difference between realized and unrealized losses.

On the other side of the same coin there is realised and unrealised gains. You only gained something if you sold it at profit.

In general any speculation have been in very weird headspace recent years. Have to see if it continues, but moving forward things might be different.

Post reply on HN