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unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

by asdev 6y ago

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Is it? Would it be crazy how anti-homeopathy a medical forum could be? Perhaps a tech savvy community is more aware of the flaws of BTC, and therefore more bearish on it's prospects.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sidlls 6y ago
What about being a tech community suggests it should not be anti-crypto/blockchain?
rchaud 6y ago
It may be because cryptocurrencies in their present state represent little other than a electricity-hungry 'store of value' rather than its considerably loftier original goals.
- 177tcca 6y ago
  "Represent" in the public and media mind share. What the technology actually is capable of, and is doing today, these are different things.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    Sure, but we are not commenting on a story about crypto-related applications. The story is about a centralized exchange going public. Coinbase doesn't care what dApps will be created on Ethereum or whatever, in the same that my broker doesn't care about how my GME purchase will strike a blow for the little guy. They're both just there to pick up their cut.
    - 177tcca 6y ago
      Just a few days ago, I saw their promotions on their page offering a bit of new coins to learn more about their specific utility and technology behind them. I dunno.
dmitriid 6y ago
Because, and bear with me for a moment, the tech community understands how worthless this technology is?
matvore 6y ago
Cryptocurrency promotion implies to some extent that central control of money is a bad thing. So it is somewhat political. I think most HN folks are against it for political reasons to a certain extent. Even if they say they aren't, they are getting their information from and socializing in a bubble with a political bias. There are some news topics on HN that i will never read the comments of because of how motivated and biased the reasoning is behind them. Bitcoin comments I will still read though, since it's fun to see everyone's tone and reasoning evolve as Bitcoin slowly gets more traction and rises in price over time.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  There's nothing political in the simple fact that Bitcoin (and blockchains in general) is a bad technology for any of the uses that it's advertised for: https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100 https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-c... (and the second part, linked directly from that article)
  - matvore 6y ago
    I agreed with the part of the first paragraph that says that most uses of blockchain are deadends or solutions looking for problems. I'm coming from "Bitcoin blockchain + POW is a store of value," and "LN is the fast, convenient transaction mechanism" that sits on top. Dabbling in other cryptocurrencies with comparable POW's and blockchains to Bitcoin is basically speculation and gambling. I don't think they have very compelling use cases that Bitcoin+LN doesn't solve already. I assume non-BTC cryptocurrencies will survive in the long run, but who knows which ones, and eventually the LN will make swapping and conversion of currencies trivial and/or automatic.
tiku 6y ago
We can't even begin to imagine all the new tech that will use blockchain (related) tech yet. The money making is just the "nasty" part of it now. A recent development is that of NFT's for example. And the smart contracts thing is just understandable for us tech nerds, but if all our customers and entrepeneurs get wind of it.. brace yourself.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > We can't even begin to imagine all the new tech that will use blockchain (related) tech yet. Perhaps because it doesn't, and can't produce any "new tech"? > And the smart contracts thing is just understandable for us tech nerds, but if all our customers and entrepeneurs get wind of it.. brace yourself. No one will brace themselves. Smart contracts have innumerable problems that cannot be solved, and are inherent in the fact that it's just a piece of technology, and technology by itself can't do anything. 1. They are digital only. And can only govern things that can be programatically checked. So, anything that can't be checked (for example, delivery of physical goods) is out of the question. If you say "but yes, those things can be provided by people", you're back to being no better than regular contracts (which also have a bunch of laws and regulations around them protecting all the parties in the contract). 2. They require all involved parties to understand, vet and audit programs written in any number of esotheric programming languages. Yeah, good luck with getting customers and entrepreneurs getting wind of it.
betterunix2 6y ago
What's crazy about that? There are strong technical arguments against Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is an environmental disaster that uses as much energy as a large country to process a tiny number of transactions. The security of Bitcoin is backwards, requiring honest parties to do more work than attackers. Ultimately Bitcoin was not even designed to solve any specific technical problems, just a vague, open-ended goal of "decentralization;" it was more of a political statement than anything else...
- hertzrat 6y ago
  And with the main goal being decentralization, almost the entire blockchain is controlled by a few groups of miners and hoarders. It’s as or more centralized than ordinary currency
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Except that "decentralization" is not a specific goal; it is vague and open-ended. Bitcoin has always relied on central authorities of some sort -- for a long time the peer-to-peer bootstrapping strategy was highly centralized (in an IRC channel), and everyone takes for granted the role of IANA and RIRs in making all Internet applications possible. So why should we complain about miners, hoarders, and exchanges? When you never specifically define your goals, it is easy to ignore inconvenient "problems."
totalZero 6y ago
If bitcoin has technical weaknesses you'd expect the dissent to come from the technologists first, no?

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

by asdev 6y ago

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

Is it? Would it be crazy how anti-homeopathy a medical forum could be? Perhaps a tech savvy community is more aware of the flaws of BTC, and therefore more bearish on it's prospects.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

sidlls 6y ago

What about being a tech community suggests it should not be anti-crypto/blockchain?

rchaud 6y ago

It may be because cryptocurrencies in their present state represent little other than a electricity-hungry 'store of value' rather than its considerably loftier original goals.

177tcca 6y ago
"Represent" in the public and media mind share. What the technology actually is capable of, and is doing today, these are different things.
- rchaud 6y ago
  Sure, but we are not commenting on a story about crypto-related applications. The story is about a centralized exchange going public. Coinbase doesn't care what dApps will be created on Ethereum or whatever, in the same that my broker doesn't care about how my GME purchase will strike a blow for the little guy. They're both just there to pick up their cut.
  - 177tcca 6y ago
    Just a few days ago, I saw their promotions on their page offering a bit of new coins to learn more about their specific utility and technology behind them. I dunno.

dmitriid 6y ago

Because, and bear with me for a moment, the tech community understands how worthless this technology is?

matvore 6y ago

Cryptocurrency promotion implies to some extent that central control of money is a bad thing. So it is somewhat political. I think most HN folks are against it for political reasons to a certain extent. Even if they say they aren't, they are getting their information from and socializing in a bubble with a political bias. There are some news topics on HN that i will never read the comments of because of how motivated and biased the reasoning is behind them. Bitcoin comments I will still read though, since it's fun to see everyone's tone and reasoning evolve as Bitcoin slowly gets more traction and rises in price over time.

dmitriid 6y ago
There's nothing political in the simple fact that Bitcoin (and blockchains in general) is a bad technology for any of the uses that it's advertised for: https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100 https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-c... (and the second part, linked directly from that article)
- matvore 6y ago
  I agreed with the part of the first paragraph that says that most uses of blockchain are deadends or solutions looking for problems. I'm coming from "Bitcoin blockchain + POW is a store of value," and "LN is the fast, convenient transaction mechanism" that sits on top. Dabbling in other cryptocurrencies with comparable POW's and blockchains to Bitcoin is basically speculation and gambling. I don't think they have very compelling use cases that Bitcoin+LN doesn't solve already. I assume non-BTC cryptocurrencies will survive in the long run, but who knows which ones, and eventually the LN will make swapping and conversion of currencies trivial and/or automatic.

tiku 6y ago

We can't even begin to imagine all the new tech that will use blockchain (related) tech yet. The money making is just the "nasty" part of it now. A recent development is that of NFT's for example. And the smart contracts thing is just understandable for us tech nerds, but if all our customers and entrepeneurs get wind of it.. brace yourself.

dmitriid 6y ago
> We can't even begin to imagine all the new tech that will use blockchain (related) tech yet. Perhaps because it doesn't, and can't produce any "new tech"? > And the smart contracts thing is just understandable for us tech nerds, but if all our customers and entrepeneurs get wind of it.. brace yourself. No one will brace themselves. Smart contracts have innumerable problems that cannot be solved, and are inherent in the fact that it's just a piece of technology, and technology by itself can't do anything. 1. They are digital only. And can only govern things that can be programatically checked. So, anything that can't be checked (for example, delivery of physical goods) is out of the question. If you say "but yes, those things can be provided by people", you're back to being no better than regular contracts (which also have a bunch of laws and regulations around them protecting all the parties in the contract). 2. They require all involved parties to understand, vet and audit programs written in any number of esotheric programming languages. Yeah, good luck with getting customers and entrepreneurs getting wind of it.

betterunix2 6y ago

What's crazy about that? There are strong technical arguments against Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is an environmental disaster that uses as much energy as a large country to process a tiny number of transactions. The security of Bitcoin is backwards, requiring honest parties to do more work than attackers. Ultimately Bitcoin was not even designed to solve any specific technical problems, just a vague, open-ended goal of "decentralization;" it was more of a political statement than anything else...

hertzrat 6y ago
And with the main goal being decentralization, almost the entire blockchain is controlled by a few groups of miners and hoarders. It’s as or more centralized than ordinary currency
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Except that "decentralization" is not a specific goal; it is vague and open-ended. Bitcoin has always relied on central authorities of some sort -- for a long time the peer-to-peer bootstrapping strategy was highly centralized (in an IRC channel), and everyone takes for granted the role of IANA and RIRs in making all Internet applications possible. So why should we complain about miners, hoarders, and exchanges? When you never specifically define your goals, it is easy to ignore inconvenient "problems."

totalZero 6y ago

If bitcoin has technical weaknesses you'd expect the dissent to come from the technologists first, no?