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The section titles are pretty funny. It's almost as if they were chosen to specifically disappoint cypherpunks. > A New Private Social Platform Cypherpunk: Si

The section titles are pretty funny. It's almost as if they were chosen to specifically disappoint cypherpunks. > A New Private Social Platform Cypherpunk: Signal! Tor! Riot! Mark: Small groups of people who know each other. > Decentralizing Opportunity Cypherpunk: Bitcoin! Peertube! IPFS! Mastadon! Namecoin! Scuttlebutt! Mark: Products for small businesses. > The Next Computing Platform Cypherpunk: Ethereum! Urbit! Homomorphic encryption! RISC-V! Solid! Dfinity! Blockstack! Mark: Augmented reality.

wavefunction 7y ago
Mark's definitely on his own augmented reality. Unfortunately the rest of us get to enjoy the Coriolis effects of it via his monetization of dishonesty.
- ainiriand 7y ago
  I particularly like this comment. I have nothing else to add, keep moving.
__float 7y ago
You give a lot of weight to cryptocurrency/blockchain/similar tech, and there's a lot more out there than that. I'm still waiting to see one reasonably decent application of a blockchain, and remarkably few of the things you mentioned provide much more than opportunities for scams and speculation.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  While I do have a certain interest in some of those technologies, the character "Cypherpunk" was not autobiographical. Yeah, a lot of blockchain stuff seems quite impractical and motivated by pump-and-dump opportunities. But if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine a reality where the blockchain tech is useful and widespread.
superboum 7y ago
IMHO this choice of word is not neutral. Facebook is not the cool thing anymore, it faces many contestations. Assimilating its adversaries vocabulary after rendering it meaningless can be a way to fight them, to prevent any change. Non-expert will be a bit more lost because the same words will now mean two different things. Now, we will have to explain the difference between Fediverse decentralized and Facebook decentralized for example. Until they ""steal"" another word :P
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> cypherpunks That's not what you think it means. The crowds behind the names you dropped are very different and have very little overlap.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  I agree somewhat. I was having a hard time thinking of a good term, but cypherpunk was the best I could come up with (better than crypto-anarchist, crypto-utopian, hacker, geek, nerd, cryptographer, crypto-enthusiast). I did intentionally include variety even though I know it weakens the overlap. There were a bunch of things I could have included instead that would have been more similar, but I thought that was a bit boring. The Wikipedia page for cypherpunk mentions Tor, Bitcoin, and Signal. So some of them are definitely cypherpunk. The 2 things I think are the least similar are RISC-V and homomorphic encryption. Both of those are mentioned in at least a couple threads on cpunks.org . In fact everything listed is mentioned on cpunks.org except Riot, Peertube, Dfinity, and Blockstack (although a different thing called Blockstack is mentioned). Riot is mentioned in /r/cypherpunk . There are articles linking Blockstack[1] and Dfinity[2] to cypherpunks. I guess the only one that really stands out then is Peertube. It has a slight link due to a cypherpunk-themed instance[3] and the @cypherpunk@mastodon.social account boosting toots about Peertube. There is one place where all those things are discussed: Hacker News. So I could have said "Hacker News user", but HN users have a reputation of being cynical, whereas I wanted a more optimistic term, and thought cypherpunk fit that. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/cypherpunk-dream-blockstream-developer-departs-build-bitcoin-web https://www.coindesk.com/cypherpunk-dream-blockstream-develo... [2] https://fortune.com/2018/10/23/dfinity-blockchain-assassination-market/ https://fortune.com/2018/10/23/dfinity-blockchain-assassinat... [3] https://watching.cypherpunk.observer https://watching.cypherpunk.observer

wavefunction 7y ago

Mark's definitely on his own augmented reality. Unfortunately the rest of us get to enjoy the Coriolis effects of it via his monetization of dishonesty.

ainiriand 7y ago
I particularly like this comment. I have nothing else to add, keep moving.

__float 7y ago

You give a lot of weight to cryptocurrency/blockchain/similar tech, and there's a lot more out there than that. I'm still waiting to see one reasonably decent application of a blockchain, and remarkably few of the things you mentioned provide much more than opportunities for scams and speculation.

Thorrez 7y ago
While I do have a certain interest in some of those technologies, the character "Cypherpunk" was not autobiographical. Yeah, a lot of blockchain stuff seems quite impractical and motivated by pump-and-dump opportunities. But if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine a reality where the blockchain tech is useful and widespread.

superboum 7y ago

IMHO this choice of word is not neutral. Facebook is not the cool thing anymore, it faces many contestations. Assimilating its adversaries vocabulary after rendering it meaningless can be a way to fight them, to prevent any change. Non-expert will be a bit more lost because the same words will now mean two different things. Now, we will have to explain the difference between Fediverse decentralized and Facebook decentralized for example. Until they ""steal"" another word :P

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

> cypherpunks That's not what you think it means. The crowds behind the names you dropped are very different and have very little overlap.

Thorrez 7y ago
I agree somewhat. I was having a hard time thinking of a good term, but cypherpunk was the best I could come up with (better than crypto-anarchist, crypto-utopian, hacker, geek, nerd, cryptographer, crypto-enthusiast). I did intentionally include variety even though I know it weakens the overlap. There were a bunch of things I could have included instead that would have been more similar, but I thought that was a bit boring. The Wikipedia page for cypherpunk mentions Tor, Bitcoin, and Signal. So some of them are definitely cypherpunk. The 2 things I think are the least similar are RISC-V and homomorphic encryption. Both of those are mentioned in at least a couple threads on cpunks.org . In fact everything listed is mentioned on cpunks.org except Riot, Peertube, Dfinity, and Blockstack (although a different thing called Blockstack is mentioned). Riot is mentioned in /r/cypherpunk . There are articles linking Blockstack[1] and Dfinity[2] to cypherpunks. I guess the only one that really stands out then is Peertube. It has a slight link due to a cypherpunk-themed instance[3] and the @cypherpunk@mastodon.social account boosting toots about Peertube. There is one place where all those things are discussed: Hacker News. So I could have said "Hacker News user", but HN users have a reputation of being cynical, whereas I wanted a more optimistic term, and thought cypherpunk fit that. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/cypherpunk-dream-blockstream-developer-departs-build-bitcoin-web https://www.coindesk.com/cypherpunk-dream-blockstream-develo... [2] https://fortune.com/2018/10/23/dfinity-blockchain-assassination-market/ https://fortune.com/2018/10/23/dfinity-blockchain-assassinat... [3] https://watching.cypherpunk.observer https://watching.cypherpunk.observer