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It's always so convenient that cryptocurrency/smart contract proponents "can't be bothered" to give actual arguments. Your comment here is a poster child of "I

It's always so convenient that cryptocurrency/smart contract proponents "can't be bothered" to give actual arguments. Your comment here is a poster child of "I don't have time to explain, so please take these baseless assertions that you are wrong. Sorry I have to go now, for unrelated reasons". It's a cliche at this point.

AlexCoventry 5y ago
It's not like pinboard made any actual arguments in his tweet storm, either, unless you count "we all know that cryptocurrency is a scam" as an argument.
- knorker 5y ago
  If this were in isolation then yes I'd agree. And twitter is not the best way to make points. But I'm pointing out that this is ALWAYS the argument pro-cryptocurrency. It's not this instance, but a pattern. Cryptocurrency people refute entire books and deep analysis (from actual experts) with "everything you just said is wrong, but I have to go now so can't say why". It's not this in isolation, but the fact that it's a cliche that's the thing.
fleddr 5y ago
You have thing upside down. Crypto, its fast-moving technology and implications on the financial system, economics, politics and the media is so vast that it costs thousands of hours to study. Your strategy is to say "you're wrong, prove me right". No, I won't be writing book-length comments here to convince some internet stranger whom is categorically against it. I have no burden of proof. I'm not even a proponent or opponent. All I said is that it's complicated and two-sided, to keep an open mind. I'm not here to explain you crypto.
- maxbond 5y ago
  If you don't have an argument to make, perhaps it's better to say nothing? When you come out and say, things are too complex to make an argument, it can read like FUD and whataboutism. As if you are attacking an idea that an argument _can_ be made. I'm sure you didn't set out to muddy the waters, but after having muddied them in the middle of a lively debate, I think this is the sort of response you should expect to receive. Coherent arguments against cryptocurrencies are readily available. The case for cryptocurrencies is shifting, contradictory, and often nonsensical. This means something. It matters.
- knorker 5y ago
  If this were in isolation then yes I'd agree. And twitter is not the best way to make points. But I'm pointing out that this is ALWAYS the argument pro-cryptocurrency. It's not this instance, but a pattern. Cryptocurrency people refute entire books and deep analysis (from actual experts) with "everything you just said is wrong, but I have to go now so can't say why". It's not this in isolation, but the fact that it's a cliche that's the thing. It's comical. I'm not sure, but it sounds like you're laying the ground work for waving your hand and saying "book? By the time it's published the technology has moved on, so it's not relevant, so let's just ignore the whole thing" when the main arguments against cryptocurrencies/smart contracts are not about the details of the tech. The arguments are mainly about the premises and the goals. What technical means get invented then becomes irrelevant.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    I get what you're saying. You think I'm the typical crypto "bro" fleeing the scene as soon as some evidence need to be produced. I'm not a crypto bro, so I don't need to defend the case for crypto. 6 months ago I was in exactly the same spot as most people here dismissing the industry as a whole. Admittedly, largely based on hear-say and the mainstream narrative. Not by actually knowing anything about it. After taking a deep dive I've changed my mind on some aspects, but not all. I would not agree with my past self, I was ignorant. Even if you do study it deeply and still conclude it's all garbage, it's an intellectually fascinating journey. You get to learn a lot about history, human psychology, our financial system, politics, trading...basically how the world works. Interesting stuff to debate, but this is not the place. Fine.
    - knorker 5y ago
      It's probably not the place. But I'd like to say still that my opinion is not based on ignorance. The more I read (and I mean books too, not just rando's blogs and tweetstorms) on this, listen to pro-coin as well as anti, and talk to actual lawyers and economists about what problems the space actually has, the more I see it's just a scam. Well, almost. Probably cryptocurrencies have more of a chance of actually succeeding in providing realistic microtransactions. Not BTC (PoW and way WAY too few tps, too slow, too high fees, etc...), but it's something traditional finance has failed to provide. (cryptocurrencies have, for a decade now, also failed though. So I'm not getting my hopes up)
22c 5y ago
>give actual arguments I'd say the reason is that many people have already made their mind up and no amount of "actual arguments" will convince them otherwise, but sure, here are some examples of things enabled by smart contracts. https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/amm-what-are-automated-market-makers https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/amm-what-are-automated-ma... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atomic-swaps.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atomic-swaps.asp https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2020/11/blockchain-for-invoice-reconciliation-and-dispute-resolution/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2020/11/blockchain-for-... Arguing with someone who is bearish on cryptocurrency is pissing in the wind, which is why people would rather leave for "unrelated reasons".
- srcreigh 5y ago
  So I read all 3 of those articles, and it's still smoke and mirrors to me. Each of the articles falls into one of two traps. 1. Inconsequential. Ok, you built a fancy crypto system.. so what? 2. Misattribution (the IBM article). Ok, you improved a traditional finance system, why is crypto necessary for that (other than marketing purposes?)
  - 22c 5y ago
    I guess it really depends on if you think the idea of decentralized finance is inconsequential. If you're happy with the idea of centralized finance, then I guess most of those things would be inconsequential. The argument for decentralized finance is more philosophical, and perhaps that is where most people are at odds with each other. Regarding your second point, I understand what you're saying. I guess the benefit of doing that specifically in a blockchain/smart contract system instead if <insert your bespoke system + database of choice here> is you can take contracts that have been verified by others and deploy them on your blockchain and tweak the numbers and be confident on the output. Instead of blockchain, you could use any sort of "industry standard ledger/schema", but no industry standard ledger/schema exists and blockchains do exist. ImmuDB was posted here the other day, it's pretty young but could be promising for businesses who want the benefits of blockchain without needing to use a blockchain. https://github.com/codenotary/immudb https://github.com/codenotary/immudb
baby 5y ago
What are your arguments? I’ll be happy to argue in this thread.
- knorker 5y ago
  Where to start? It's not my book, but this book has a bunch of arguments: https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581 https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-e... I should have a cut-and-paste answer to this question. I actually do already, but under my real name and I don't want to dox myself. Search for my username here for some: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27210604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27210604 (some comments are "below the fold" (e.g. this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27219137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27219137). And here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944659 But I'll try to summarize: The core things that blockchain stuff tries to solve are not actually the hard problems. The hard part of online commerce is not that customers can reverse credit card transactions. The hard part of contract law is not automatic payments. The hard part about property law is not atomic transactions of money and deed transfers. So just off the bat, almost everything that is presented as a "solution" is not actually solving anything meaningful. But it doesn't stop there. It's actually making the actual hard problems worse. For cryptocurrencies, it makes courts all but impotent. A court can't compel you to pay child support, or return the money you stole. You can just say "no". It's not trivial to track money, but the stated goals of cryptocurrencies is to make it hard or impossible to trace, and to compel. It's not easy to find money laundering, or just criminal money being moved around. AML & KYC laws exist. They're not perfect. They can inconvenience legit people, and they can be gotten around. But they do help greatly. The explicit goals of cryptocurrencies is to get around AML & KYC laws. This is what Pintrest was talking about. So that's for "anonymous". We don't actually want someone to trivially move $1B anonymously. We as a society, as a people, don't even want people to be able to send money any way they want. E.g. we don't want people to be able to send money to ISIS. There's a "baby and bathwater" argument that can be made here, but since cryptocurrency people don't even WANT to prevent this use case, it's not what they're making, or selling. Like airline security, it's not effective because it's perfect, but because there's too much risk that one of the layers will catch you. And the cryptocurrency dream is to remove all those layers. Reversibility: People don't want this. One of the main reasons to use a credit card AT ALL is that people want reversibility. If that's all you wanted then you can probably just accept debit cards. And as for smart contracts: All smart contract systems need a way for a court to interpret the contract. The contract may not be legal, it may have been signed under duress, etc.. So all smart contract systems need this escape hatch. So how is it adding any value? And the hard part of contracts was never what's being solved here. The hard part is codifying your intention into legalese, and conflict resolution. The codifying is still there, but now it's computer code instead of legalese. But conflict resolution is removed? Why? The most ridiculous one is "land ownership registry". You know who ultimately decides who own a piece of land? The government of the country it's in. Do you think France will bow down to "math" if a French court orders a house to be sold, but the would-be seller is some anonymous "wallet" that refuses? France would just "fork the blockchain", and the authoritative fork is the one backed by police who will come remove anyone who claims ownership of something they don't own. In an extreme example, if the ownership of Mona Lisa was "on the blockchain", and a rogue employee sold it, do you think France would hand it over? Of course not. So it means nothing. I realize this comment is all over the place, and not diving deep into any one argument. It's more like a survey (though not complete) of various arguments, that can then be explored in more detail. This comment is long enough already. And note that all this is in addition to technical problems like PoW/PoS, electricity use, scalability, transaction speed, 51% attacks, etc... Even assuming all those are solved, the problem is the the very GOAL is a dystopia.

AlexCoventry 5y ago

It's not like pinboard made any actual arguments in his tweet storm, either, unless you count "we all know that cryptocurrency is a scam" as an argument.

knorker 5y ago
If this were in isolation then yes I'd agree. And twitter is not the best way to make points. But I'm pointing out that this is ALWAYS the argument pro-cryptocurrency. It's not this instance, but a pattern. Cryptocurrency people refute entire books and deep analysis (from actual experts) with "everything you just said is wrong, but I have to go now so can't say why". It's not this in isolation, but the fact that it's a cliche that's the thing.

fleddr 5y ago

You have thing upside down. Crypto, its fast-moving technology and implications on the financial system, economics, politics and the media is so vast that it costs thousands of hours to study. Your strategy is to say "you're wrong, prove me right". No, I won't be writing book-length comments here to convince some internet stranger whom is categorically against it. I have no burden of proof. I'm not even a proponent or opponent. All I said is that it's complicated and two-sided, to keep an open mind. I'm not here to explain you crypto.

maxbond 5y ago
If you don't have an argument to make, perhaps it's better to say nothing? When you come out and say, things are too complex to make an argument, it can read like FUD and whataboutism. As if you are attacking an idea that an argument _can_ be made. I'm sure you didn't set out to muddy the waters, but after having muddied them in the middle of a lively debate, I think this is the sort of response you should expect to receive. Coherent arguments against cryptocurrencies are readily available. The case for cryptocurrencies is shifting, contradictory, and often nonsensical. This means something. It matters.
knorker 5y ago
If this were in isolation then yes I'd agree. And twitter is not the best way to make points. But I'm pointing out that this is ALWAYS the argument pro-cryptocurrency. It's not this instance, but a pattern. Cryptocurrency people refute entire books and deep analysis (from actual experts) with "everything you just said is wrong, but I have to go now so can't say why". It's not this in isolation, but the fact that it's a cliche that's the thing. It's comical. I'm not sure, but it sounds like you're laying the ground work for waving your hand and saying "book? By the time it's published the technology has moved on, so it's not relevant, so let's just ignore the whole thing" when the main arguments against cryptocurrencies/smart contracts are not about the details of the tech. The arguments are mainly about the premises and the goals. What technical means get invented then becomes irrelevant.
- fleddr 5y ago
  I get what you're saying. You think I'm the typical crypto "bro" fleeing the scene as soon as some evidence need to be produced. I'm not a crypto bro, so I don't need to defend the case for crypto. 6 months ago I was in exactly the same spot as most people here dismissing the industry as a whole. Admittedly, largely based on hear-say and the mainstream narrative. Not by actually knowing anything about it. After taking a deep dive I've changed my mind on some aspects, but not all. I would not agree with my past self, I was ignorant. Even if you do study it deeply and still conclude it's all garbage, it's an intellectually fascinating journey. You get to learn a lot about history, human psychology, our financial system, politics, trading...basically how the world works. Interesting stuff to debate, but this is not the place. Fine.
  - knorker 5y ago
    It's probably not the place. But I'd like to say still that my opinion is not based on ignorance. The more I read (and I mean books too, not just rando's blogs and tweetstorms) on this, listen to pro-coin as well as anti, and talk to actual lawyers and economists about what problems the space actually has, the more I see it's just a scam. Well, almost. Probably cryptocurrencies have more of a chance of actually succeeding in providing realistic microtransactions. Not BTC (PoW and way WAY too few tps, too slow, too high fees, etc...), but it's something traditional finance has failed to provide. (cryptocurrencies have, for a decade now, also failed though. So I'm not getting my hopes up)

22c 5y ago

>give actual arguments I'd say the reason is that many people have already made their mind up and no amount of "actual arguments" will convince them otherwise, but sure, here are some examples of things enabled by smart contracts. https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/amm-what-are-automated-market-makers https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/amm-what-are-automated-ma... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atomic-swaps.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atomic-swaps.asp https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2020/11/blockchain-for-invoice-reconciliation-and-dispute-resolution/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2020/11/blockchain-for-... Arguing with someone who is bearish on cryptocurrency is pissing in the wind, which is why people would rather leave for "unrelated reasons".

srcreigh 5y ago
So I read all 3 of those articles, and it's still smoke and mirrors to me. Each of the articles falls into one of two traps. 1. Inconsequential. Ok, you built a fancy crypto system.. so what? 2. Misattribution (the IBM article). Ok, you improved a traditional finance system, why is crypto necessary for that (other than marketing purposes?)
- 22c 5y ago
  I guess it really depends on if you think the idea of decentralized finance is inconsequential. If you're happy with the idea of centralized finance, then I guess most of those things would be inconsequential. The argument for decentralized finance is more philosophical, and perhaps that is where most people are at odds with each other. Regarding your second point, I understand what you're saying. I guess the benefit of doing that specifically in a blockchain/smart contract system instead if <insert your bespoke system + database of choice here> is you can take contracts that have been verified by others and deploy them on your blockchain and tweak the numbers and be confident on the output. Instead of blockchain, you could use any sort of "industry standard ledger/schema", but no industry standard ledger/schema exists and blockchains do exist. ImmuDB was posted here the other day, it's pretty young but could be promising for businesses who want the benefits of blockchain without needing to use a blockchain. https://github.com/codenotary/immudb https://github.com/codenotary/immudb

baby 5y ago

What are your arguments? I’ll be happy to argue in this thread.

knorker 5y ago
Where to start? It's not my book, but this book has a bunch of arguments: https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581 https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-e... I should have a cut-and-paste answer to this question. I actually do already, but under my real name and I don't want to dox myself. Search for my username here for some: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27210604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27210604 (some comments are "below the fold" (e.g. this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27219137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27219137). And here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944659 But I'll try to summarize: The core things that blockchain stuff tries to solve are not actually the hard problems. The hard part of online commerce is not that customers can reverse credit card transactions. The hard part of contract law is not automatic payments. The hard part about property law is not atomic transactions of money and deed transfers. So just off the bat, almost everything that is presented as a "solution" is not actually solving anything meaningful. But it doesn't stop there. It's actually making the actual hard problems worse. For cryptocurrencies, it makes courts all but impotent. A court can't compel you to pay child support, or return the money you stole. You can just say "no". It's not trivial to track money, but the stated goals of cryptocurrencies is to make it hard or impossible to trace, and to compel. It's not easy to find money laundering, or just criminal money being moved around. AML & KYC laws exist. They're not perfect. They can inconvenience legit people, and they can be gotten around. But they do help greatly. The explicit goals of cryptocurrencies is to get around AML & KYC laws. This is what Pintrest was talking about. So that's for "anonymous". We don't actually want someone to trivially move $1B anonymously. We as a society, as a people, don't even want people to be able to send money any way they want. E.g. we don't want people to be able to send money to ISIS. There's a "baby and bathwater" argument that can be made here, but since cryptocurrency people don't even WANT to prevent this use case, it's not what they're making, or selling. Like airline security, it's not effective because it's perfect, but because there's too much risk that one of the layers will catch you. And the cryptocurrency dream is to remove all those layers. Reversibility: People don't want this. One of the main reasons to use a credit card AT ALL is that people want reversibility. If that's all you wanted then you can probably just accept debit cards. And as for smart contracts: All smart contract systems need a way for a court to interpret the contract. The contract may not be legal, it may have been signed under duress, etc.. So all smart contract systems need this escape hatch. So how is it adding any value? And the hard part of contracts was never what's being solved here. The hard part is codifying your intention into legalese, and conflict resolution. The codifying is still there, but now it's computer code instead of legalese. But conflict resolution is removed? Why? The most ridiculous one is "land ownership registry". You know who ultimately decides who own a piece of land? The government of the country it's in. Do you think France will bow down to "math" if a French court orders a house to be sold, but the would-be seller is some anonymous "wallet" that refuses? France would just "fork the blockchain", and the authoritative fork is the one backed by police who will come remove anyone who claims ownership of something they don't own. In an extreme example, if the ownership of Mona Lisa was "on the blockchain", and a rogue employee sold it, do you think France would hand it over? Of course not. So it means nothing. I realize this comment is all over the place, and not diving deep into any one argument. It's more like a survey (though not complete) of various arguments, that can then be explored in more detail. This comment is long enough already. And note that all this is in addition to technical problems like PoW/PoS, electricity use, scalability, transaction speed, 51% attacks, etc... Even assuming all those are solved, the problem is the the very GOAL is a dystopia.