Bitcoin Is Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#671

Post by omginternets » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

perfect_kiss wrote: post #549

omginternets wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. I was poised to dismiss your comment as facetiousness, and then suddenly realized that you are exactly correct. Why indeed should we prefer cars over horses for most (but of course not all) applications? Aren't we as technologists always preaching the benefits of technological conservatism, minimalism and simplicity? Our environment has obviously changed in such a way that it's now difficult to re-intr…

In Europe, there are not much cities that were designed for automobiles. Most down town designs predate automobiles by several centuries. That is why traffic congestion, and related externalities, are very significant problem for Europe, much more than for US. During several last years, there had emerged a movement when large cities introduce anti-car rules, effectively banning traffic in the most affected areas. Som…

I am European as well :)

My point was that they have become adapted to a point where it is very difficult to re-adapt them to horses.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#672

Post by shoshino » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

f430 wrote: post #255

You mean bitcoin is a ticking time bomb kept afloat by an unbacked asset that is now the target of Federal agencies?

Tether's impact on the price of Bitcoin is grossly misreported and without basis.

The only "Federal agency" targeting Tether was the New York Attorney General's office, however the investigation was settled last month with with no admission of guilt from Tether.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#673

Post by pwm » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #243

gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

> The lightning network is incredibly buggy and won't actually solve the problems it's promising. it's actually worse than that - lightning only works in the context of centralized banking. It presumes there is some other entity with whom you can hold a channel open, who you do roughly equivalent amounts of deposits and withdrawals from. If that criterion is not met, then you have to keep closing channels and re-open…

This is incorrect and highly misleading. You don't have to open and close channels like that. Instead you keep them open and do circular rebalances when your channels are imbalanced. As an experiment I've been running an lnd node for the last 6 months. During this time I've routed 1445 transactions totalling 4.68249963 BTC (~223K USD currently) and only closed a handful of channels, using single digit sat/vB as it's not urgent. Lightning transaction fees in general are negligible at today's btc price. You transact with all your peers for free while you usually pay a fraction of a cent for sending transactions anywhere in the graph. Transactions are pretty much instant.

After running it for 6 months, I could certainly criticise various aspects of lnd but none of what you have written falls into the valid criticism category.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#674

Post by yazaddaruvala » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #489

matvore wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bitcoin causes the value of fiat currency to fall enough, the government will not be able to print money to fund wars. A war will require overtly billing the people for it or raising taxes. So it will be less likely the people will consent to start a war.

How does, exactly, the US government print money to fund wars?

Without commenting on the "funding wars" part. The US leverages inflation as a taxation strategy (and doesn't really admit it).

Most lay-persons don't understand it as a tax and therefore do not complain about it until they cannot afford things (housing, food, etc), and at which point the government distracts by bundling (hiding?) the inflation problem with the stagnant wage / income equality problem.

Eventually (every 2 decades) minimum wage in increased to catch up to inflation. Basically the inflationary tax strategy results in the US budget getting 2 decades of "extra taxes" (burdened by the lower middle class and the working classes[1]), then a reset, and then repeat.

[1] Note inflation as a tax strategy is actually a negative tax on low-interest debt holders like businesses, and home owners. It is also has a net-neutral effect on the investing class, because assets inflate proportionally. Meanwhile, credit card debt and other high-interest loans are not reduced as much (i.e. X% inflation of 19% credit card interest is a lot lower than, X% inflation of 2.5% mortgage interest).

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#675

Post by omginternets » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

hisham_hm wrote: post #650

omginternets wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. I was poised to dismiss your comment as facetiousness, and then suddenly realized that you are exactly correct. Why indeed should we prefer cars over horses for most (but of course not all) applications? Aren't we as technologists always preaching the benefits of technological conservatism, minimalism and simplicity? Our environment has obviously changed in such a way that it's now difficult to re-intr…

fredfoobar _was_ being facetious. By his comments such as [1] and [2] it's clear that he's trying to attack other things in the world that happen to be both useful and pollutant, and induce a parallel between them and bitcoin — his implicit argument being that bitcoin supposedly a net-positive beneficial thing in spite of the pollution it causes. Whenever someone counters that assumption, the mask falls off and he's…

Yes, and I was about to dismiss the comment until I realized there was some depth to it despite the facetiousness.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#676

Post by aeternum » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #369

aeternum wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It allows one to store a relatively liquid form of wealth using only one's mind

Which is not at all what the vast majority of Bitcoin users are using Bitcoin for.

Lots of people use the internet to watch cat videos, does that diminish its utility?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#677

Post by npongratz » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #645

SamPatt wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin exists because electronic banking requires trust in centralized financial institutions. When you see the entire stock market move because the Fed chairperson makes an offhand comment about when they'll start or stop doing xyz policy, you realize having such a highly centralized system is dangerous.

Dude... the stock market is not the same thing as the banking system. How your investment porfolio reacts to a change in monetary policy has nothing whatsoever to do with the utility of your checking account. Trust in centralized financial institutions is not a problem. In fact it's is the opposite of a problem, it's an enormous benefit. Centralized financial institutions with government backing ensure the availabili…

> Nobody has ever had their bank account drained in the US since the introduction of FDIC in 1933.

Plenty of people have had their bank accounts drained when they fell victim to "identification theft." That is quite a crafty euphemism -- banks fail to create secure systems, attackers steal funds from victims' bank accounts, and instead of owning up to their failure, banks blame the victims of the thefts by saying the victims' "identities" were "stolen."

I'll give the banks some credit, however: they'll prop up a seemingly empathetic customer service representative who will repeatedly say how "sorry" they are on behalf of their employer. If the victim is persistent enough, the customer service rep will eventually promise to initiate a lengthy investigation, after which the bank will perhaps reinstate the funds that were stolen from their system. Do they fix their broken, insecure system? Of course not. But at least the victim isn't clogging the customer service lines any more.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#678

Post by cyphertruck » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #327

cyphertruck wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, thank you for making fair criticisms. Unfortunately some of your information is old. You don’t need a bitcoin backed token, lightning does it. Transaction rates are not artificially kept low. In fact most the vast majority of the time bitcoin has excess capacity. Privacy- this is a legitimate concern but it is improving, slowly. Taoroot and Lightning are both privacy improvements. So your daily transaction…

"Online Only- I don’t think there is a solution to this criticism, but not sure what the issue is." The fact that I need to connect to some peer-to-peer network or third party service for every transaction is a limiting factor. It reduces the efficiency of the system and increases latency, and it adds additional points of failure. In fact it can be solved for electronic transactions and there is a mountain of publish…

I think you are not understanding how bitcoin works, and this exact problem of double spending was better solved by bitcoin. You dont need to trust a third oarty or “online service”, you can dimply run a bitcoin node. If it is that important a raspberry pi and SSD is cheaper than your average credit card terminal.

The credit card network, by the way, is much worse in this regard.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#679

Post by ssss11 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #373

boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

I love this!

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#680

Post by moralsupply » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

knodi wrote: post #24

Bitcoin has turned in a joke.

I'm certainly laughing with how much purchase power Bitcoin provided me so far.

I'll be laughing at your comment in 5 years time once a single Bitcoin will be valued above $1M USD while your fiat currency savings will have lost at least 50% of its current purchase power.

Screenshot this.