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> Whether you’re here as a missionary or a mercenary, you’ll find that one of the primary unifying forces behind this movement is the belief that decentralized

> Whether you’re here as a missionary or a mercenary, you’ll find that one of the primary unifying forces behind this movement is the belief that decentralized technologies with embedded financial incentives (a good shorthand for Web3) offer a compelling, often lucrative, alternative to our decaying legacy institutions The only reason people are interested in these "lucrative" alternatives is because our "decaying legacy institutions" have incentivised wealth. I've yet to read a compelling argument as to why making a bunch of nerds (like myself) rich is not just a continuation of capitalism. An alternative to capitalism is something that removes financial incentives from life.

timdaub 5y ago
> I've yet to read a compelling argument as to why making a bunch of nerds (like myself) rich is not just a continuation of capitalism. Yes, crypto is a continuation of capitalism.
- screye 5y ago
  If anything, crypto is about explicitly enabling and exploiting the best of what capitalism has to offer. Open access and competition at every step is when capitalism is at its best. It tries to structurally avoid the emergent problem of institutional capture that we're all too familiar with in the US. Finance is probably the best example of institutional capture. So, I see the value of an alternate system. It reminds me of the development of ML. ML has allowed statisticians, supply chain folks and industrial engineers to market themselves as AI people and implement much needed solutions that existed before the AI boom, but never had the clout or funding needed to push ot through. Crypto is the Trojan horse. Inside are important traditional solutions whose only shortcoming was lack of a cool factor. So they've hopped on the crypto bandwagon to attract talent and resources needed to make these academic solutions a reality.
  - cryptown 5y ago
    but is "capitalism at its best" the same as "humanity at its best" or even "humanity at its pretty goodest"? Does the average person without capital want capital, or do they want... to live a happy, stress-free life? right now, obtaining capital is a way to achieve that _because_ capital is so unevenly distributed, but it's not the end game of humanity. caveat: I'm not an academic so I could be missing a very obvious piece of nuance in what "capitalism" means in the context of this discussion.
    - screye 5y ago
      I grew up in country that spent 40 years ravaged by socialism, so capitalism certainly feels like an upgrade. We as a society, have yet to figure out how to work around human greed and a need for status. Capitalism offers transparent and relatively productive ways of pursuing them. I often talk about systems for persons and systems for people. Capitalism is a good system for people. Individual persons should find individual goals separate from the capitalistic system at large. If not capitalism, then what....is a common retort, but it makes sense. Capitalism is the current of the river. While it incentivizes you to row downstream, you are also free to row where you see fit. Albeit with varying levels of difficulty.

timdaub 5y ago

> I've yet to read a compelling argument as to why making a bunch of nerds (like myself) rich is not just a continuation of capitalism. Yes, crypto is a continuation of capitalism.

screye 5y ago
If anything, crypto is about explicitly enabling and exploiting the best of what capitalism has to offer. Open access and competition at every step is when capitalism is at its best. It tries to structurally avoid the emergent problem of institutional capture that we're all too familiar with in the US. Finance is probably the best example of institutional capture. So, I see the value of an alternate system. It reminds me of the development of ML. ML has allowed statisticians, supply chain folks and industrial engineers to market themselves as AI people and implement much needed solutions that existed before the AI boom, but never had the clout or funding needed to push ot through. Crypto is the Trojan horse. Inside are important traditional solutions whose only shortcoming was lack of a cool factor. So they've hopped on the crypto bandwagon to attract talent and resources needed to make these academic solutions a reality.
- cryptown 5y ago
  but is "capitalism at its best" the same as "humanity at its best" or even "humanity at its pretty goodest"? Does the average person without capital want capital, or do they want... to live a happy, stress-free life? right now, obtaining capital is a way to achieve that _because_ capital is so unevenly distributed, but it's not the end game of humanity. caveat: I'm not an academic so I could be missing a very obvious piece of nuance in what "capitalism" means in the context of this discussion.
  - screye 5y ago
    I grew up in country that spent 40 years ravaged by socialism, so capitalism certainly feels like an upgrade. We as a society, have yet to figure out how to work around human greed and a need for status. Capitalism offers transparent and relatively productive ways of pursuing them. I often talk about systems for persons and systems for people. Capitalism is a good system for people. Individual persons should find individual goals separate from the capitalistic system at large. If not capitalism, then what....is a common retort, but it makes sense. Capitalism is the current of the river. While it incentivizes you to row downstream, you are also free to row where you see fit. Albeit with varying levels of difficulty.