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It's also surrounded by a ton of cargo cultism, poorly considered engineering, people who don't understand the math but claim to be gurus, and strange parasitic
by KirinDave 9y ago
It's also surrounded by a ton of cargo cultism, poorly considered engineering, people who don't understand the math but claim to be gurus, and strange parasitic political views.
It's a frustrating community to engage with because it has redefined a lot of longstanding terms to (in my opinion) make itself look better and smarter. It also is a constant roiling tempest of non-self-reliant-but-fantastically-dedicated-to-anarcho-capitalists-type folks, which can be terribly tedious to deal with.
For example, ask a btc engineer if they have byzantine fault tolerance. Then ask anyone else. Ask them if they have eventual consistency. Then ask anyone else.
- stcredzero 9y agoIt's also surrounded by a ton of cargo cultism, poorly considered engineering, people who don't understand the math but claim to be gurus, and strange parasitic political views. So it's just your typical programming sub-field? (Alan Kay would say: "Field.")
- KirinDave 9y agoPessimistically yes, but in my opinion its problems are magnified. In part because bitcoin is a technology that so many people ascribe political superpowers to. This brings in a lot of people that normally don't push deeply into a high-complexity tech field.
- stcredzero 9y agoSome would say that the "wisdom of the crowd" and startups are things that so many people ascribed special superpowers to, it brought in a lot of people that normally wouldn't push deeply into a high-complexity tech field.
- KirinDave 9y agoThat's cool, but how is it relevant?
- stcredzero 9y agoIt's relevant, in that the HN crowd should be reminded to be self skeptical about their own groupthink. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here.)