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This project is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to hilarity and schadenfreude. Custom hash function? Bizarre obsession with trinary? Complete centra

This project is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to hilarity and schadenfreude. Custom hash function? Bizarre obsession with trinary? Complete centralization in a space where decentralization is the point? Constant big announcements with no substance? I love watching these guys and their supporters. It's like watching an internet cult in real time.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Reading the reddit is insane. It is one thing to see the creators and their bullshit and insane ideas and think "ok they are good at marketing, some people believed them, happens all the time". But it is reading the reddit that really puts you in contact with the chilling fear that comes from the sheer number of idiotic completely disconnected from reality people who flock around this project, who not only support the project itself but constantly contribute with various hairs-raising ideas one more insane than the next, and proudly show off their total disregard for objective technological landscape or any empirical logically sound reality in general.
- acpacp 7y ago
  That's very much like most of the crypto projects/subs work. Lot of people with no technical understanding, completely disconnected from reality, probably owning substantial amounts of coins. Honourable mentions to subs like /r/lisk or /r/arkecosystem
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    Yeah, I was gonna say, this pretty standard /r/buttcoin fare. The main difference with BTC (pick your flavour...) is only that the pyramid hasn't toppled (yet?).
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      Not sure why you've been downvoted (usually HN isn't terribly pro-BTC). Perhaps it's referencing the buttcoin subreddit, which for those who don't know, is an actual subreddit that is very cynical towards cryptocurrency.
lawn 7y ago
During a lunch the topic of cryptocurrencies came up and a co-worker of mine said he'd invested in IOTA and EOS (another nonsense coin). The thing is I think he's smart and a programmer with the head in the right place and has made a ton of very good decisions at work. So if you think these projects only attract idiots and fools you're wrong. Smart people can also be fooled.
- cultus 7y ago
  Gullibility and analytical intelligence are not mutually exclusive.
  - api 7y ago
    There's a fairly substantial overlap between the people who completely drank the cryptocurrency kool-aid and the people who got sucked into so-called "alt-right" and associated fellow-traveling stuff ("red pill," NRx, etc.) around the same time period. Seems like there were some incredibly virulent meme plagues that afflicted the high-IQ-but-gullible crowd in the middle part of this decade. Cryptocurrency has done a lot of damage to the tech world due mostly to the sheer amount of brainpower it's sucked up that might otherwise have been used for more useful stuff. It's been kind of a tar pit where you have vast resources chasing things that have no actual real world value. It sort of reminds me of that Star Trek TNG episode where they try to kill off the Borg collective by giving them an impossible geometric shape to ponder endlessly.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    there's also an ideological component to it tied into all the libertarian crypto fantasies that makes people believe they're sticking it to the man and so on. A lot of these crypto companies frame themselves as liberators from the banks who don't want to give you a share of the pie and so on, targetting vulnerable people who seek opportunity. It's very cynical. Another space where I have observed this is online education startups. Lots of "you don't need a degree", "the universities are just trying to keep you out", "we're bringing education to the masses" etc. Same sales pitch.
    - 7y ago
nonbirithm 7y ago
I wonder if there's a single one of them who was legitimately interested in the protocol and technological aspects and "making the world a better place" and was not just looking to get rich quick. Is there any real reason these exist except for the ultimate motive of making people believe they'll become richer, like 2012-era Bitcoin actually caused, and proceeding to profit off their ignorance? If not then it makes a lot of sense that a sizeable amount of people would preach nonesense for months. They'd believe there's compensation for them waiting at the end of it all. And it doesn't even need to end in having cryptocurrency-of-the-month being exposed as a scam or anything. People can just believe it didn't work out this time and continue searching for an IoT-enabled 2012-era Bitcoin that in the future will likely never exist. I know it's cliche, but money corrupts. This is probably another manifestation of that with what improved technology now allows us to accomplish.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

Reading the reddit is insane. It is one thing to see the creators and their bullshit and insane ideas and think "ok they are good at marketing, some people believed them, happens all the time". But it is reading the reddit that really puts you in contact with the chilling fear that comes from the sheer number of idiotic completely disconnected from reality people who flock around this project, who not only support the project itself but constantly contribute with various hairs-raising ideas one more insane than the next, and proudly show off their total disregard for objective technological landscape or any empirical logically sound reality in general.

acpacp 7y ago
That's very much like most of the crypto projects/subs work. Lot of people with no technical understanding, completely disconnected from reality, probably owning substantial amounts of coins. Honourable mentions to subs like /r/lisk or /r/arkecosystem
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Yeah, I was gonna say, this pretty standard /r/buttcoin fare. The main difference with BTC (pick your flavour...) is only that the pyramid hasn't toppled (yet?).
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    Not sure why you've been downvoted (usually HN isn't terribly pro-BTC). Perhaps it's referencing the buttcoin subreddit, which for those who don't know, is an actual subreddit that is very cynical towards cryptocurrency.

lawn 7y ago

During a lunch the topic of cryptocurrencies came up and a co-worker of mine said he'd invested in IOTA and EOS (another nonsense coin). The thing is I think he's smart and a programmer with the head in the right place and has made a ton of very good decisions at work. So if you think these projects only attract idiots and fools you're wrong. Smart people can also be fooled.

cultus 7y ago
Gullibility and analytical intelligence are not mutually exclusive.
- api 7y ago
  There's a fairly substantial overlap between the people who completely drank the cryptocurrency kool-aid and the people who got sucked into so-called "alt-right" and associated fellow-traveling stuff ("red pill," NRx, etc.) around the same time period. Seems like there were some incredibly virulent meme plagues that afflicted the high-IQ-but-gullible crowd in the middle part of this decade. Cryptocurrency has done a lot of damage to the tech world due mostly to the sheer amount of brainpower it's sucked up that might otherwise have been used for more useful stuff. It's been kind of a tar pit where you have vast resources chasing things that have no actual real world value. It sort of reminds me of that Star Trek TNG episode where they try to kill off the Borg collective by giving them an impossible geometric shape to ponder endlessly.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  there's also an ideological component to it tied into all the libertarian crypto fantasies that makes people believe they're sticking it to the man and so on. A lot of these crypto companies frame themselves as liberators from the banks who don't want to give you a share of the pie and so on, targetting vulnerable people who seek opportunity. It's very cynical. Another space where I have observed this is online education startups. Lots of "you don't need a degree", "the universities are just trying to keep you out", "we're bringing education to the masses" etc. Same sales pitch.
  - 7y ago

nonbirithm 7y ago

I wonder if there's a single one of them who was legitimately interested in the protocol and technological aspects and "making the world a better place" and was not just looking to get rich quick. Is there any real reason these exist except for the ultimate motive of making people believe they'll become richer, like 2012-era Bitcoin actually caused, and proceeding to profit off their ignorance? If not then it makes a lot of sense that a sizeable amount of people would preach nonesense for months. They'd believe there's compensation for them waiting at the end of it all. And it doesn't even need to end in having cryptocurrency-of-the-month being exposed as a scam or anything. People can just believe it didn't work out this time and continue searching for an IoT-enabled 2012-era Bitcoin that in the future will likely never exist. I know it's cliche, but money corrupts. This is probably another manifestation of that with what improved technology now allows us to accomplish.