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I'm very glad to see this is being recognized more and more. Technically strong people can see it, but there are legions of ethereum fans who cannot.

smokeyj 9y ago
Why does every crypto thread have these vacuous comments? Normally adding a "I agree" comment is met with "use the arrow". Maybe we could come up with a "HN law of crypto" that states all articles must be met with "paper money works just fine" or "just another tulip scheme". It seems asking for constructive criticism is out of the question due to the ideological motivations behind the criticisms.
- ge96 9y ago
  You think it's a tulip scheme? With the way technology is going it would seem everything would be connected to the web and this idea of decentralized apps that require crypto, I'd like to be in on that... the "millionaires" that came about from bitcoin, that's nice but are you saying the tulip scheme is going to be the end result of crypto? I'm asking because I don't know. I'm buying it solely for FOMO
- flexie 9y ago
  I think it's because it is both hard to understand and hard to explain cryptocurrencies at the moment. It's like discussing email or social networks based on papers and ideas without really ever having seen it in action. We tend to get a bit aggressive or impatient when we find it hard to explain something. Also, crypto skeptics realise that the crypto fans literally have money at stake so they are not unbiased. Maybe crypto skeptics are also a bit worried that perhaps there is something they didn't get. Perhaps they miss out on the next big thing.
  - doktrin 9y ago
    "Crypto" isn't binary. There's a gold nugget in there somewhere buried under a literal mountain of (occasionally willful) disinformation, flimsy whitepapers and opportunistic ICOs that can best be described as Ponzi schemes. Spend any amount of time on bitcointalk or any of the altcoin subreddits to see what I'm talking about. That - IMO - is what "crypto skeptics" are actually skeptical of.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      Bingo. 98% of "crypto" is, basically, Pets.com (or worse) right now. Cryptocurrency is really, really useful for some things, just as the web is. On the other hand, there's an awful lot that simply doesn't make any sense - even ignoring the fact that many crypto advocates seem to have no idea how people work or what the constraints of any given problem are[0], a lot of it is technically and economically unsound. [0] See also the "put voting on the blockchain and give everybody an identifying number to verify their vote" people who seem to have absolutely no idea why we have a secret ballot.
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      "The internet will never work because Pets.com is stupid" - would be a perfectly valid position to hold after the dot com bust. But those unable to separate HTTP from Pets.com are the real suckers. I guess that's why some people get rich and others sit on their hands and complain.
      - doktrin 9y ago
        > "The internet will never work because Pets.com is stupid" - would be a perfectly valid position to hold after the dot com bust. No it wouldn't > I guess that's why some people get rich and others sit on their hands and complain. I honestly don't know what your point is. There's a lot to criticize in the crypto space right now. There's also a lot of money to be made. Those aren't in any way mutually exclusive.
        smokeyj 9y ago
        > I honestly don't know what your point is I think you do. It was the sentence before the one you quoted
        doktrin 9y ago
        > But those unable to separate HTTP from Pets.com are the real suckers. Ok. That's a bit contrived but is easy enough to agree with. > I think you do. Are we aggressively agreeing?
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    > Maybe crypto skeptics are also a bit worried that perhaps there is something they didn't get. It's Econ 101 they don't get. It's the origin of money they don't get. With every tulip argument it becomes painfully obvious that "progressives" are economically illiterate. They talk about supply and demand they way conservatives talk about global warming being "only a theory". This Cryptophobia (let the record show I coined the term :P ) is not technologically rooted. The only thing I want is for productive conversation to occur - but from a technical aspect. Maybe there could be a tab where people argue from an ideological perspective. But the reason I'm frustrated is that literally every crypto thread has the same comments. Let's just all admit we're not going to convert anyone, and if you don't have constructive inputs to the technology then reconsider commenting.
- Uptrenda 9y ago
  Because in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space the hype is so intense that having people who can see through all of it to discuss the pros and cons of these systems is a breath of fresh air. This announcement is the perfect example. People in the Ethereum community blindly celebrate everything that those in the limelight put out without really understanding it. I.e. most scalability proposals have trade-offs between security, flexibility, and a range of other factors. It so happens that the Plasma proposal has negative security trade-offs -- what a surprise. The main utility of a blockchain comes from the extremely inefficient means that it imposes costs on its participants to improve security and social scalability. It is trivial to produce a scheme that will improve a blockchains scalability at the expense of security but most people in the Ethereum community have no deeper understanding of the issue than "YAY, GO VITALIK!! AWESOMEEEE GOOD TO SEE SOMEONE SCALING HERPA DERP, PLASMA SOUNDS WAY COOOL!!!" Hang around in the Ethereum space long enough and you'll also notice the tendency for Ethereum startups to self-cite each other like some kind of recursive circle-jerk of ignorance. Seriously, a lot of these white papers have no basis in reality. I've read white papers that even fail to understand the most basic aspects of economics. A lot of these papers are absolute jokes clearly written by people with no experience solving any of the problems they aim to solve yet only those with technical knowledge can see this. It would require whole books just to point out the myriad of flaws with these designs. And you know what - in the end it wouldn't matter because no one cares about how these systems work. The average person is only in it to make money which means that anyone who tries to point out a flaw is attacked by investors who probably don't even know what a blockchain is. The space is actually a really toxic place if you want to discuss any of its negative qualities.

smokeyj 9y ago

Why does every crypto thread have these vacuous comments? Normally adding a "I agree" comment is met with "use the arrow". Maybe we could come up with a "HN law of crypto" that states all articles must be met with "paper money works just fine" or "just another tulip scheme". It seems asking for constructive criticism is out of the question due to the ideological motivations behind the criticisms.

ge96 9y ago
You think it's a tulip scheme? With the way technology is going it would seem everything would be connected to the web and this idea of decentralized apps that require crypto, I'd like to be in on that... the "millionaires" that came about from bitcoin, that's nice but are you saying the tulip scheme is going to be the end result of crypto? I'm asking because I don't know. I'm buying it solely for FOMO
flexie 9y ago
I think it's because it is both hard to understand and hard to explain cryptocurrencies at the moment. It's like discussing email or social networks based on papers and ideas without really ever having seen it in action. We tend to get a bit aggressive or impatient when we find it hard to explain something. Also, crypto skeptics realise that the crypto fans literally have money at stake so they are not unbiased. Maybe crypto skeptics are also a bit worried that perhaps there is something they didn't get. Perhaps they miss out on the next big thing.
- doktrin 9y ago
  "Crypto" isn't binary. There's a gold nugget in there somewhere buried under a literal mountain of (occasionally willful) disinformation, flimsy whitepapers and opportunistic ICOs that can best be described as Ponzi schemes. Spend any amount of time on bitcointalk or any of the altcoin subreddits to see what I'm talking about. That - IMO - is what "crypto skeptics" are actually skeptical of.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    Bingo. 98% of "crypto" is, basically, Pets.com (or worse) right now. Cryptocurrency is really, really useful for some things, just as the web is. On the other hand, there's an awful lot that simply doesn't make any sense - even ignoring the fact that many crypto advocates seem to have no idea how people work or what the constraints of any given problem are[0], a lot of it is technically and economically unsound. [0] See also the "put voting on the blockchain and give everybody an identifying number to verify their vote" people who seem to have absolutely no idea why we have a secret ballot.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    "The internet will never work because Pets.com is stupid" - would be a perfectly valid position to hold after the dot com bust. But those unable to separate HTTP from Pets.com are the real suckers. I guess that's why some people get rich and others sit on their hands and complain.
    - doktrin 9y ago
      > "The internet will never work because Pets.com is stupid" - would be a perfectly valid position to hold after the dot com bust. No it wouldn't > I guess that's why some people get rich and others sit on their hands and complain. I honestly don't know what your point is. There's a lot to criticize in the crypto space right now. There's also a lot of money to be made. Those aren't in any way mutually exclusive.
      - smokeyj 9y ago
        > I honestly don't know what your point is I think you do. It was the sentence before the one you quoted
        doktrin 9y ago
        > But those unable to separate HTTP from Pets.com are the real suckers. Ok. That's a bit contrived but is easy enough to agree with. > I think you do. Are we aggressively agreeing?
- smokeyj 9y ago
  > Maybe crypto skeptics are also a bit worried that perhaps there is something they didn't get. It's Econ 101 they don't get. It's the origin of money they don't get. With every tulip argument it becomes painfully obvious that "progressives" are economically illiterate. They talk about supply and demand they way conservatives talk about global warming being "only a theory". This Cryptophobia (let the record show I coined the term :P ) is not technologically rooted. The only thing I want is for productive conversation to occur - but from a technical aspect. Maybe there could be a tab where people argue from an ideological perspective. But the reason I'm frustrated is that literally every crypto thread has the same comments. Let's just all admit we're not going to convert anyone, and if you don't have constructive inputs to the technology then reconsider commenting.
Uptrenda 9y ago
Because in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space the hype is so intense that having people who can see through all of it to discuss the pros and cons of these systems is a breath of fresh air. This announcement is the perfect example. People in the Ethereum community blindly celebrate everything that those in the limelight put out without really understanding it. I.e. most scalability proposals have trade-offs between security, flexibility, and a range of other factors. It so happens that the Plasma proposal has negative security trade-offs -- what a surprise. The main utility of a blockchain comes from the extremely inefficient means that it imposes costs on its participants to improve security and social scalability. It is trivial to produce a scheme that will improve a blockchains scalability at the expense of security but most people in the Ethereum community have no deeper understanding of the issue than "YAY, GO VITALIK!! AWESOMEEEE GOOD TO SEE SOMEONE SCALING HERPA DERP, PLASMA SOUNDS WAY COOOL!!!" Hang around in the Ethereum space long enough and you'll also notice the tendency for Ethereum startups to self-cite each other like some kind of recursive circle-jerk of ignorance. Seriously, a lot of these white papers have no basis in reality. I've read white papers that even fail to understand the most basic aspects of economics. A lot of these papers are absolute jokes clearly written by people with no experience solving any of the problems they aim to solve yet only those with technical knowledge can see this. It would require whole books just to point out the myriad of flaws with these designs. And you know what - in the end it wouldn't matter because no one cares about how these systems work. The average person is only in it to make money which means that anyone who tries to point out a flaw is attacked by investors who probably don't even know what a blockchain is. The space is actually a really toxic place if you want to discuss any of its negative qualities.