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It’s telling that every comment from obvious fans of cryptocurrency hasn’t the faintest idea who one of their best-argued, longest-term critics is. Look at all

It’s telling that every comment from obvious fans of cryptocurrency hasn’t the faintest idea who one of their best-argued, longest-term critics is. Look at all these comments. It’s like employees of Tesla discovering that David Einhorn has an opinion on them for the first time. Wisdom comes from not only knowing your domain but understanding its critics and their criticism. Ignoring all criticism to the extent that you haven’t a clue who the loudest voices are is closer to zealotry (which is a word already used here in the other direction, strangely).

deeviant 5y ago
I was just about to respond to one of the many "oh, the bias!" comments when I ran across your comment. I find it likely if one feels the article is biased, it is likely that person is biased in the other direction. The project was dumb, it was lambasted almost immediately by what felt like everybody, and it did utterly and completely fail. The worst part of crypto is that the only thing it truly excels at is speculation, and in order to be successful at that the hype has to remain at 1000%. This creates hordes of crypto cheerleaders who insist that crypto will do everything from free the poor oppressed masses to usher in a techno-libertarian utopia, while the only thing they truly care about is to see green numbers on their coin of choice. I think crypto is fun, it was super geeky and I got into and enjoyed it, profited from it quite handsomely in the past mainly due to my curiosity and being in the right place at the right time, but I am under no illusion whatsoever that is living up to the hype and promise of its founders.
TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
I know who the author is and I'm open to criticism. Bruno Le Maire provided specific reasons why they were first concerned about Libra, I thought they were valid and sparked interesting debate. The author of this post did the same thing then: summarized the actual article in a blog post, then called Libra "dumb" at the end. That doesn't add anything. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/09/12/france-shuns-facebooks-libra-how-was-libra-stupid-enough-to-end-up-here/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/09/12/france-shuns...
Bayart 5y ago
It's not exactly a uniform space. There are many different spheres, some intersecting more than others. You've got people involved in software development, people keeping track of financial analysis, people being cryptobros on Twitter, people versed in futurism and esoteric art, people who got into BTC early on and use it to justify giving their opinion on everything etc. I consider myself fairly well informed and I've never heard of this guy. He just looks like a professional pundit. The kind that found the right audience to keep playing the same one chord to. There's absolutely no chance at all I won't ever have crossed paths with this man's writing if it wasn't for HN's peculiar fixation on crypto.

deeviant 5y ago

I was just about to respond to one of the many "oh, the bias!" comments when I ran across your comment. I find it likely if one feels the article is biased, it is likely that person is biased in the other direction. The project was dumb, it was lambasted almost immediately by what felt like everybody, and it did utterly and completely fail. The worst part of crypto is that the only thing it truly excels at is speculation, and in order to be successful at that the hype has to remain at 1000%. This creates hordes of crypto cheerleaders who insist that crypto will do everything from free the poor oppressed masses to usher in a techno-libertarian utopia, while the only thing they truly care about is to see green numbers on their coin of choice. I think crypto is fun, it was super geeky and I got into and enjoyed it, profited from it quite handsomely in the past mainly due to my curiosity and being in the right place at the right time, but I am under no illusion whatsoever that is living up to the hype and promise of its founders.

TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago

I know who the author is and I'm open to criticism. Bruno Le Maire provided specific reasons why they were first concerned about Libra, I thought they were valid and sparked interesting debate. The author of this post did the same thing then: summarized the actual article in a blog post, then called Libra "dumb" at the end. That doesn't add anything. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/09/12/france-shuns-facebooks-libra-how-was-libra-stupid-enough-to-end-up-here/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/09/12/france-shuns...

Bayart 5y ago

It's not exactly a uniform space. There are many different spheres, some intersecting more than others. You've got people involved in software development, people keeping track of financial analysis, people being cryptobros on Twitter, people versed in futurism and esoteric art, people who got into BTC early on and use it to justify giving their opinion on everything etc. I consider myself fairly well informed and I've never heard of this guy. He just looks like a professional pundit. The kind that found the right audience to keep playing the same one chord to. There's absolutely no chance at all I won't ever have crossed paths with this man's writing if it wasn't for HN's peculiar fixation on crypto.