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Happy to see you’re taking this approach now Dang. It’s really killed a lot of threads and I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses rath

by exdsq 5y ago

Happy to see you’re taking this approach now Dang. It’s really killed a lot of threads and I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses rather than generic ‘ponzi scheme’ claims.

colesantiago 5y ago
This technology does not work as designed, advertised and towards the environment. And this announcement is an endorsement of the entire space which is full of scams, is this what you are also endorsing?
- dang 5y ago
  I'm not endorsing anything except good threads on Hacker News.
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    I don't understand how a big company endorsing crypto scams is a good thread for HN.
    - dang 5y ago
      Any thread where commenters fulminate about the same thing over and over is a bad thread for HN.
- exdsq 5y ago
  I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm focusing on effective altruism and food security. Anyway, I've been aware or involved with the crypto space since 2014 when I used to play a drinking game involving the Bitcoin ATM at Google Campus in London (guessing if the price would go up or down when it updated every minute or so, around the $300 mark if I remember correctly). In that time I've worked for several different startups in the space and not once have I worked with anyone who's trying to scam people. Yes scams exist. No, most projects are not scams. Bad ideas? Sure, maybe! Bad execution? Yep, that happens! Quickly obsolete tech? It's a fast moving scene! But when a startup is trying to build a product such as a financial account for developing countries without banking infrastructure to allow people to build a credit score, or trying to reduce international banking fees impact on remittence payments in countries like Nepal, or trying to allow people to have options in countries where their own national currency is going down the drain, I find it offensive that people on HackerNews who on the whole are smart well-experienced people default to this idea that it's all one big scam. This is in fact one of the reasons I left Crypto - because of relentless attacks on peoples character and how toxic it can be. I'm very happy if this style of conversation disappears from HN forever because 1) saying it's a scam doesn't change anyones opinions 2) the arguments have been repeated literally for years 3) it goes against HN T&Cs anyway. I hope we're at the point where we can focus on individual projects (which may well be absolutely useless products) than judging the entire space as a whole.
dang 5y ago
We've been taking this approach for a long time - it's just hard to get the word out.
- Shadonototra 5y ago
  slippery slope dang, HN soon the place to be for promoting NFT's about tech oh it is already, does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC"? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe It should be tagged as such More transparency dang, please
  - dang 5y ago
    > does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC" Neither Stripe nor any other YC startup. It's the other way around actually: we moderate less, not more, when a YC startup is the story. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for many years' worth of explanations.
giantrobot 5y ago
> I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses Most if not all of the "technical uses" rely on rent extraction so it's really hard to talk about the technical uses without focusing on that major sticking point. Cryptocurrencies/dApps et al only work because of a network of miners on top of existing Internet infrastructure. They all add some extra cost onto every transaction. This in addition to the fantastic number of hucksters and scammers that need suckers to buy into the system so they can cash out. The whole subject of crytocurrencies cannot be separated from the implementation details. Talking about "technical uses" as if the economic considerations didn't exist is pointless.
- exdsq 5y ago
  Yes I understand how blockchains work. Having that extra layer allows for these projects so, as an end user, we should shift the focus on things like the costs of using an app rather than the implementation (except maybe for PoS v PoW for environmental reasons). Instead of technical uses maybe I should have said projects and products.

by exdsq 5y ago

colesantiago 5y ago

This technology does not work as designed, advertised and towards the environment. And this announcement is an endorsement of the entire space which is full of scams, is this what you are also endorsing?

dang 5y ago
I'm not endorsing anything except good threads on Hacker News.
- colesantiago 5y ago
  I don't understand how a big company endorsing crypto scams is a good thread for HN.
  - dang 5y ago
    Any thread where commenters fulminate about the same thing over and over is a bad thread for HN.
exdsq 5y ago
I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm focusing on effective altruism and food security. Anyway, I've been aware or involved with the crypto space since 2014 when I used to play a drinking game involving the Bitcoin ATM at Google Campus in London (guessing if the price would go up or down when it updated every minute or so, around the $300 mark if I remember correctly). In that time I've worked for several different startups in the space and not once have I worked with anyone who's trying to scam people. Yes scams exist. No, most projects are not scams. Bad ideas? Sure, maybe! Bad execution? Yep, that happens! Quickly obsolete tech? It's a fast moving scene! But when a startup is trying to build a product such as a financial account for developing countries without banking infrastructure to allow people to build a credit score, or trying to reduce international banking fees impact on remittence payments in countries like Nepal, or trying to allow people to have options in countries where their own national currency is going down the drain, I find it offensive that people on HackerNews who on the whole are smart well-experienced people default to this idea that it's all one big scam. This is in fact one of the reasons I left Crypto - because of relentless attacks on peoples character and how toxic it can be. I'm very happy if this style of conversation disappears from HN forever because 1) saying it's a scam doesn't change anyones opinions 2) the arguments have been repeated literally for years 3) it goes against HN T&Cs anyway. I hope we're at the point where we can focus on individual projects (which may well be absolutely useless products) than judging the entire space as a whole.

dang 5y ago

We've been taking this approach for a long time - it's just hard to get the word out.

Shadonototra 5y ago
slippery slope dang, HN soon the place to be for promoting NFT's about tech oh it is already, does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC"? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe It should be tagged as such More transparency dang, please
- dang 5y ago
  > does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC" Neither Stripe nor any other YC startup. It's the other way around actually: we moderate less, not more, when a YC startup is the story. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for many years' worth of explanations.

giantrobot 5y ago

> I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses Most if not all of the "technical uses" rely on rent extraction so it's really hard to talk about the technical uses without focusing on that major sticking point. Cryptocurrencies/dApps et al only work because of a network of miners on top of existing Internet infrastructure. They all add some extra cost onto every transaction. This in addition to the fantastic number of hucksters and scammers that need suckers to buy into the system so they can cash out. The whole subject of crytocurrencies cannot be separated from the implementation details. Talking about "technical uses" as if the economic considerations didn't exist is pointless.

exdsq 5y ago
Yes I understand how blockchains work. Having that extra layer allows for these projects so, as an end user, we should shift the focus on things like the costs of using an app rather than the implementation (except maybe for PoS v PoW for environmental reasons). Instead of technical uses maybe I should have said projects and products.