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Just more ad hominems and false equivalence. We all immediately understood the benefits of the early internet. I was dying to get on it as soon as possible. I

Just more ad hominems and false equivalence. We all immediately understood the benefits of the early internet. I was dying to get on it as soon as possible. I know that early internet story is such a trope, I’ve seen it many times before, it’s telling that you fall for it. Your story about the government is just another case of whataboutism, deflecting the critical gaze to other things. And that last paragraph reads almost like a religious argument. You don’t have any actual evidence for yourself that this crypto stuff means anything, I read a lot of bias, wishful thinking and emotional investment.

rglullis 6y ago
I wrote the things that make it more than meaningful to work on it or to want to have it these tools available to myself and others. You dismissed those on the grounds on not being important to you. You come with the comment of "Blockchain does not solve trust" like you're the only one who has figured that out. Not only it is a laughable notion [0], you make it sound like people should abandon everything and lose all hope. What do you want people to say: "Oh, Mr. Louwrentius said that all this work is kind of foolish and not important, so let's pack our stuff and go work at Big Co?" or "Yeah, tech itself is not going to solve social problems, but those societies that want to operate in certain ways will need to have specific technology to support them?"[1] You point out a known and largely acknowledged issue with the current implementation, to which I respond "Yes, it is known and a lot of people are working on solutions to overcome that, and if you want you can take a look at how the progress at Proof-of-Stake is going." Your only answer is "Oh, 12 years and they haven't delivered anything of value yet." Do you see how non-sensical it is? Bias, "emotional investment"? Yes, of course there is! Anyone working on something based on some form of idealism will keep their biases and will be emotionally invested on their work. But as long as this work is not violating any moral or ethical values, what is the problem? I'd rather have more people working on things they are also invested in, where they have more skin in the game than anyone else and that they can actually defend what they do for their work. The alternative is to spend your professional life as a corporate drone and perhaps (if they feel guilty about it) try to make it up by the occasional virtue-signaling hobby. Trying to discredit people working on blockchain due to "bias" or "emotional investment" is a terrible mistake. First because you think that the "emotional investment" is all there is to it. It's not. You would be fully right to argue if it was "a lot of wishful thinking" if the people were only talking about it and never implementing anything, or if the people never stopped to learn the lessons of failed projects, or if you saw those leading projects making promises but never delivering. It's easy to dismiss things when you are only pointing to the scammers and the crackpots, but if you actually bothered to listen to the people that are working on it, perhaps you'd find people way more grounded in reality than you are. Second, it's a mistake to discredit their work because you are not giving any alternative. When you say "none of these issues you pointed out are really worthy", you are displaying your bias for the status quo. [0]: https://twitter.com/rlullis/status/1307420668372430848 https://twitter.com/rlullis/status/1307420668372430848 [1]: https://hub20.io https://hub20.io and https://hub20.io/architecture/ https://hub20.io/architecture/
- louwrentius 6y ago
  I can perfectly discredit work and not provide any alternative, I don’t think this reasoning makes sense. The sad truth is - to me - that blockchain and crypto currencies don’t matter because they don’t solve a real problem people have. https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...

rglullis 6y ago

I wrote the things that make it more than meaningful to work on it or to want to have it these tools available to myself and others. You dismissed those on the grounds on not being important to you. You come with the comment of "Blockchain does not solve trust" like you're the only one who has figured that out. Not only it is a laughable notion [0], you make it sound like people should abandon everything and lose all hope. What do you want people to say: "Oh, Mr. Louwrentius said that all this work is kind of foolish and not important, so let's pack our stuff and go work at Big Co?" or "Yeah, tech itself is not going to solve social problems, but those societies that want to operate in certain ways will need to have specific technology to support them?"[1] You point out a known and largely acknowledged issue with the current implementation, to which I respond "Yes, it is known and a lot of people are working on solutions to overcome that, and if you want you can take a look at how the progress at Proof-of-Stake is going." Your only answer is "Oh, 12 years and they haven't delivered anything of value yet." Do you see how non-sensical it is? Bias, "emotional investment"? Yes, of course there is! Anyone working on something based on some form of idealism will keep their biases and will be emotionally invested on their work. But as long as this work is not violating any moral or ethical values, what is the problem? I'd rather have more people working on things they are also invested in, where they have more skin in the game than anyone else and that they can actually defend what they do for their work. The alternative is to spend your professional life as a corporate drone and perhaps (if they feel guilty about it) try to make it up by the occasional virtue-signaling hobby. Trying to discredit people working on blockchain due to "bias" or "emotional investment" is a terrible mistake. First because you think that the "emotional investment" is all there is to it. It's not. You would be fully right to argue if it was "a lot of wishful thinking" if the people were only talking about it and never implementing anything, or if the people never stopped to learn the lessons of failed projects, or if you saw those leading projects making promises but never delivering. It's easy to dismiss things when you are only pointing to the scammers and the crackpots, but if you actually bothered to listen to the people that are working on it, perhaps you'd find people way more grounded in reality than you are. Second, it's a mistake to discredit their work because you are not giving any alternative. When you say "none of these issues you pointed out are really worthy", you are displaying your bias for the status quo. [0]: https://twitter.com/rlullis/status/1307420668372430848 https://twitter.com/rlullis/status/1307420668372430848 [1]: https://hub20.io https://hub20.io and https://hub20.io/architecture/ https://hub20.io/architecture/

louwrentius 6y ago
I can perfectly discredit work and not provide any alternative, I don’t think this reasoning makes sense. The sad truth is - to me - that blockchain and crypto currencies don’t matter because they don’t solve a real problem people have. https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...