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Your argument ignores whether or not the technology makes the crime significantly more likely. Technology comes with negative externalities. The cryptocurren
by albntomat0 5y ago
Your argument ignores whether or not the technology makes the crime significantly more likely.
Technology comes with negative externalities.
The cryptocurrency world needs to accept that it does have negative externalities, and show that the benefits outweigh them, rather than pretending that they don't exist.
- celticninja 5y agoBy that reasoning computers make ransomware possible, cryptocurrency just makes it economically viable.
- albntomat0 5y agoYes, and it's pretty clear that computing as a whole comes with a huge amount of downsides (hacking, revenge porn, video game addiction, etc). It's also pretty clear that the overall benefits outweigh the downsides. I'm personally not convinced that the upsides of cryptocurrencies outweigh the downsides.
- suifbwish 5y agoI was surprised it wasn’t classified as some kind of counterfeiting scam tbh. When you mine crypto you are pretty much printing money. Sure yeah it takes proof of work/storage/stake ect but so does counterfeiting. The philosophical differences are kind of vague.
- yunesj 5y agoMining BTC is as much like counterfeiting USD as mining gold is like counterfeiting USD, which is to say, not alike at all.
- suifbwish 5y agoExcept gold exists as a material/commodity. Cryptocurrency was invented.
- chayleaf 5y agoWhen thr government prints money, it isn't counterfeited. When you mine crypto, it isn't counterfeited, because everyone is crypto's "government"
- thebean11 5y agoCrypto does not pretend to be dollars, so no it's not counterfeiting any more than the X foreign government printing Y non-USD currency is counterfeiting.
- Pfhreak 5y agoYes? That's precisely the argument the parent poster was making -- technology (both computing and cryptocurrency and everything else) comes with both upsides and downsides. In the case of general purpose computing, the upsides are obvious and massive. Whereas it's much, much less clear that the upsides of cryptocurrencies outweigh their downsides.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kemonocode 5y agoSure, you could say the onus is on the people who use cryptocurrency for more than just crime or speculation to give proof about these uses, but for most detractors it'll never be enough, and for these users the benefits outweigh these negatives (or else they wouldn't be using crypto to begin with) so it's all an exercise in futility except maybe to convince any neutral bystanders one way or the other. If I say cash and banks get used by the vast majority of organized crime I'd be factually correct, but I'd also be accused of whataboutism. In a world without crypto I'd be seriously hampered by an unfair economic system, so to me personally the pros outweigh the cons, but it'd be anecdotal evidence. Hope you see what I'm trying to get at.
- albntomat0 5y agoI definitely understand what you're saying. Whether or not a technology's pros outweigh its cons is some appropriately weighted average across all the people that it affects. The person who gets hit by crypto-enabled ransomware likely feels differently from you. I also think there is some moral weight to particular benefits. Dealing with unfair economic systems is definitely a "better" benefit (for some definition of good) than those people whose benefits are currency speculation or ransomware.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- matheusmoreira 5y ago> show that the benefits outweigh them Governments and banks can't touch your money or see what you're doing unless they get your keys. What other reasons do you need? We don't need anyone's permission or blessing either. We want our freedom back and society's gonna have to accept this. If that means more crime, energy consumption or whatever -- so be it.