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So many of the smartest people in the world work in the areas of getting people to click on ads, mining personal information, finance and crypto. Areas that at

by rapsey 6y ago

So many of the smartest people in the world work in the areas of getting people to click on ads, mining personal information, finance and crypto. Areas that at best have no social value. It is quite depressing.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
Crypto has no social value? I'm not in the space, but I think crypto has immense social value.
- reedjosh 6y ago
  Indeed. Like a decentralized social network driven not by ads, but likes that gen coins. PeakD.com Or a digital currency with the privacy and fungibility of cash. GetMonero.org Or an ad free streaming platform. Odysee.com
- hanniabu 6y ago
  Don't waste your breath dude, HN has become a safe haven for people that like to bury their head in the sand and shit talk crypto. Yeah, anybody that's actually knowledgeable in it know that what they're saying are the same old sad tropes that the news has been training people to repeat verbatim, but they've boxed themselves in and they'll die on this hill.
  - samvher 6y ago
    Where is a place to get a broader perspective on this? I've tried subreddits for some of the projects, the cryptocurrency subreddit, and google and youtube. I have a lot of difficulty cutting through the noise. (My sense is that projects like Ethereum could be extremely valuable but that its value is currently hurt by the speculation on Ether making transactions far too costly. I'd be very interested in getting exposed to the "quality" projects that are out there but it's hard to filter.)
    - reedjosh 6y ago
      I like https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/ https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/ It's ostensibly a BTC podcast, but it's _really_ about much more including second tier networks, altcoin tech, and individual autonomy. Otherwise, getting involved in the code itself does seem to be the only avenue I've found for real learning. There's an O'Reilly book that has you build a blockchain from scratch if you're interested. I'd welcome other suggestions. Oh, also Tezos has most of Ethereum's features, but is already Proof of Stake.
    - hanniabu 6y ago
      I've found r/ethereum to be pretty level-headed. > Ethereum could be extremely valuable but that its value is currently hurt by the speculation on Ether making transactions far too costly FYI the price of ETH does not affect the transaction costs. The fee market is independent. There's solutions to this in place and more being worked on though. The 3 biggest contributors will be EIP 1559 which is meant to level out the fees and make them more predictable, L2 rollups which scale through sidechains that have the each of their blocks confirmed on Ethereum's L1 with proofs, and sharding of L1. Ethereum is currently in a growing pains phase as these L2 options gain more traction/adoption, UX for them improves, and all activity migrates there. The end goal is for a majority of interaction to occur on L2 with L1 being used mainly for a settlement layer.
      - samvher 6y ago
        Huh, I totally thought transaction fees were set in Ether and that’s why the costs are so high (in fiat of course). If that’s not it, what makes the transactions so expensive? Lot of competition for limited throughout?
        TigeriusKirk 6y ago
        Yes, it's competition for limited throughput. Especially with the DeFi boom, fees have been bid higher and higher to be sure transactions are included in an immediate block. Incidentally, if you're looking to keep up with Ethereum in particular, the newsletter Week In Ethereum News is an excellent resource. It's a links-with-descriptve-blurbs kind of thing. It's still a bit of a firehose if you're catching up on the space, but just pick a few items that sound interesting every week. https://weekinethereum.substack.com/ https://weekinethereum.substack.com/
- rapsey 6y ago
  All the billions that went into it have what to show for? How has it improved anyones life besides making some early enthusiasts and lots of criminals rich? How is society better off? Lots of grand ideas that went nowhere because they are entirely unrealistic and divorced from reality.
  - twox2 6y ago
    Tell that to the Venezuelans that have been able to move money safely in and out of their country, or the many artists that went from struggling to be able to make a few bucks by selling NFTs.
bradmcgo 6y ago
I would strongly argue that crypto does present genuine value to the world...
AlexCoventry 6y ago
One perspective on money is that it's a resource-allocation system. I think more transparent, accountable, reliable resource allocation potentially has enormous social value.
- sktrdie 6y ago
  Not if you create a system where it's literally impossible to redistribute wealth. If majority of tokens in a crypto system are controlled under priv-keys owned by a small % of the population we'll literally lock ourselves under the control of those people. Scary thing is that we won't even be able to vote ourselves out of the potential mess because the private keys are mathematically secured. Capitalism is going to have a blast!
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Yes, it literally becomes the invisible hand that controlls the freemarket but it no longer free and no longer a market if nobody can get in. Ultimately the value we all get is exchange with eachother at a fair and stable price. The cryptospace could potentially solve this problem when the initial gold rush does some damage. In a way the attention is not bad because more people understand what it is, study it, become savy, vote legislature and deepen the field towards the problems that trully need a solution. What we want is to basically transfer work/resource tokens and make it resistant against depreciation. Lets add a simplistic example I help someone build a house and receive a fair token for that work. When I need to build a house 20 years later I pass that token, it retains the value such that someone accepts it to do the work I did 20 years prior. Because we’re mentally stuck into an outdated economic model that served ok prior to the digital age our imaginations aren’t creative enough move in the right direction. My thinking is that a direction will emerge, let’s hope it’s as far away from the possibility you talk about.
    - gverrilla 5y ago
      The way I see it the obvious route is Free, but it will take a while still.
    - 5y ago

by rapsey 6y ago

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

Crypto has no social value? I'm not in the space, but I think crypto has immense social value.

reedjosh 6y ago
Indeed. Like a decentralized social network driven not by ads, but likes that gen coins. PeakD.com Or a digital currency with the privacy and fungibility of cash. GetMonero.org Or an ad free streaming platform. Odysee.com
hanniabu 6y ago
Don't waste your breath dude, HN has become a safe haven for people that like to bury their head in the sand and shit talk crypto. Yeah, anybody that's actually knowledgeable in it know that what they're saying are the same old sad tropes that the news has been training people to repeat verbatim, but they've boxed themselves in and they'll die on this hill.
- samvher 6y ago
  Where is a place to get a broader perspective on this? I've tried subreddits for some of the projects, the cryptocurrency subreddit, and google and youtube. I have a lot of difficulty cutting through the noise. (My sense is that projects like Ethereum could be extremely valuable but that its value is currently hurt by the speculation on Ether making transactions far too costly. I'd be very interested in getting exposed to the "quality" projects that are out there but it's hard to filter.)
  - reedjosh 6y ago
    I like https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/ https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/ It's ostensibly a BTC podcast, but it's _really_ about much more including second tier networks, altcoin tech, and individual autonomy. Otherwise, getting involved in the code itself does seem to be the only avenue I've found for real learning. There's an O'Reilly book that has you build a blockchain from scratch if you're interested. I'd welcome other suggestions. Oh, also Tezos has most of Ethereum's features, but is already Proof of Stake.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    I've found r/ethereum to be pretty level-headed. > Ethereum could be extremely valuable but that its value is currently hurt by the speculation on Ether making transactions far too costly FYI the price of ETH does not affect the transaction costs. The fee market is independent. There's solutions to this in place and more being worked on though. The 3 biggest contributors will be EIP 1559 which is meant to level out the fees and make them more predictable, L2 rollups which scale through sidechains that have the each of their blocks confirmed on Ethereum's L1 with proofs, and sharding of L1. Ethereum is currently in a growing pains phase as these L2 options gain more traction/adoption, UX for them improves, and all activity migrates there. The end goal is for a majority of interaction to occur on L2 with L1 being used mainly for a settlement layer.
    - samvher 6y ago
      Huh, I totally thought transaction fees were set in Ether and that’s why the costs are so high (in fiat of course). If that’s not it, what makes the transactions so expensive? Lot of competition for limited throughout?
      - TigeriusKirk 6y ago
        Yes, it's competition for limited throughput. Especially with the DeFi boom, fees have been bid higher and higher to be sure transactions are included in an immediate block. Incidentally, if you're looking to keep up with Ethereum in particular, the newsletter Week In Ethereum News is an excellent resource. It's a links-with-descriptve-blurbs kind of thing. It's still a bit of a firehose if you're catching up on the space, but just pick a few items that sound interesting every week. https://weekinethereum.substack.com/ https://weekinethereum.substack.com/
rapsey 6y ago
All the billions that went into it have what to show for? How has it improved anyones life besides making some early enthusiasts and lots of criminals rich? How is society better off? Lots of grand ideas that went nowhere because they are entirely unrealistic and divorced from reality.
- twox2 6y ago
  Tell that to the Venezuelans that have been able to move money safely in and out of their country, or the many artists that went from struggling to be able to make a few bucks by selling NFTs.

bradmcgo 6y ago

I would strongly argue that crypto does present genuine value to the world...

AlexCoventry 6y ago

One perspective on money is that it's a resource-allocation system. I think more transparent, accountable, reliable resource allocation potentially has enormous social value.

sktrdie 6y ago
Not if you create a system where it's literally impossible to redistribute wealth. If majority of tokens in a crypto system are controlled under priv-keys owned by a small % of the population we'll literally lock ourselves under the control of those people. Scary thing is that we won't even be able to vote ourselves out of the potential mess because the private keys are mathematically secured. Capitalism is going to have a blast!
- tartoran 6y ago
  Yes, it literally becomes the invisible hand that controlls the freemarket but it no longer free and no longer a market if nobody can get in. Ultimately the value we all get is exchange with eachother at a fair and stable price. The cryptospace could potentially solve this problem when the initial gold rush does some damage. In a way the attention is not bad because more people understand what it is, study it, become savy, vote legislature and deepen the field towards the problems that trully need a solution. What we want is to basically transfer work/resource tokens and make it resistant against depreciation. Lets add a simplistic example I help someone build a house and receive a fair token for that work. When I need to build a house 20 years later I pass that token, it retains the value such that someone accepts it to do the work I did 20 years prior. Because we’re mentally stuck into an outdated economic model that served ok prior to the digital age our imaginations aren’t creative enough move in the right direction. My thinking is that a direction will emerge, let’s hope it’s as far away from the possibility you talk about.
  - gverrilla 5y ago
    The way I see it the obvious route is Free, but it will take a while still.
  - 5y ago