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I am truly and continually disappointed with the response to cryptocurrencies in this community. For a user-base that is so knowledgeable to be so pig-headed a

I am truly and continually disappointed with the response to cryptocurrencies in this community. For a user-base that is so knowledgeable to be so pig-headed about this topic is frightening.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
This comment seems to be par for the course of crypto level discussions. The comment is a series of ad-hominem attacks composed manipulatively. The rational response is to be careful of anyone attempting such manipulation.
- bmitc 5y ago
  This is something I've had a hard time understanding. Any question, even honest questions, posed to the crypto community get spit back as if a person could not be any more wrong or ignorant of something. There's this battle of either 0% or 100% committed to crypto and no in between. I have had a hard time finding genuinely honest and unbiased perspectives or even descriptions of things in crypto. Happy to know if anyone has any such sources. I'm still trying to honestly just learn about it more. Getting there bit by bit.
emerged 5y ago
Isn’t it possible… they are right?
- birracerveza 5y ago
  Not really. The vast majority of the HN community that keeps rejecting cryptocurrencies, blockchain and everything related to them does so on claims that are obsolete, shortsighted and completely ignorant of the progress that has been done in the last years, if not of the ecosystem as a whole, as their opinions comes not from experience but from shoddily written opinion pieces. You can see it in your daily HN frontpaged crypto hate bait thread, such as this one. Only a few handful of comments raise genuine concerns and put enough effort to allow a constructive discussion, the rest is just people venting about how bad crypto is, with no actual insight.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    You're saying people don't understand because they are not deeply involved. It's a disingenuous argument, akin to no true scotsman, and a way to pat yourself on the back. When you step back from the details and take a look at the big picture, you can understand crypto better than when you're too stuck in the reeds. From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, doesn't meet most of it's promises, squirms with new promises and redefinitions constantly, is much more complex than alternatives for the few things it does provide, and is rife absolutely rife with scammers. Sure amongst that morass there may be a few interesting ideas, who knows and who cares, there's interesting ideas in lots of areas and crypto is a distraction from real progress, and it's a destructive force in our world. What a waste of human potential, and limited resources.
    - ephbit 5y ago
      > From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, ... Crypto is certainly not destroying our planet. Yes, "Crypto" does have negative impact on ecosphere through its use of energy and other ressources. But ... just look ahead, look left and right ... and unless you're walking some trail between the fields looking up from HN on your smartphone .. you're quite likely to see something that humans made. And pretty much regardless of what it is, it'll have had a myriad of various ways of negative impact on the ecosphere. "Crypto" is far from being even near the top harmful technologies at the moment. Bitcoin is estimated at 0.29 % of global energy use according to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and_carbon_footprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and... Besides that, energy is only one of a many technological negative impacts on the ecosphere. Take the millions of destructive chemical compounds that get released through mostly non-Bitcoin technological human deeds. To counter a potential whataboutism accusation: in most instances where the term gets thrown at someone, is my impression, it is just a poor way of trying to prevent the following. When someone calls out some problem A and another person calls out problem B as a consequence, they are doing it to give some perspective, to have a reference for comparison. Which is absolutely reasonable and useful to do. Why? Because not all problems of the world can/should be solved at the same time. There's simply not enough capacity/ressources/attention to do all. Problems need to be prioritized, which is a political/societal process. To enable this prioritization, comparisons must be made between different issues and references brought up. Something that then gets decried as whataboutism. No, "Crypto" is certainly not "destroying" our planet in the sense that it should occupy all those people's attention who claim that they're worried about the planet and trying to save it. Those people should turn their heads to their consumption of most everyday items/products/services and other topics.
qiskit 5y ago
> For a user-base that is so knowledgeable I get the opposite impression here. The impression I get is that most aren't even tech people let alone hackers. They are here because they are not knowledgable and want to learn. This forum seems mostly media/business dominated than tech dominated.
UncleMeat 5y ago
If cryptocurrencies were just neat technologies then the conversation would be very different. They are cool tools and allow for new interesting things to be built. But it is very very very clear that cryptocurrencies are not and will never be a raw technological oddity that hackers can play with. Instead, they are things that fundamentally intend to change power structures and the relationships people have with other people or with organizations and institutions. That's not the domain of hacker expertise anymore. As such, discussion is more akin to discussing war or human rights or inequality. All of the "very cool technology" discussion is (rightly, in my mind) subsumed by the much larger discussion of "holy crap, look at the harm that this direction will do to humanity."
- hunterb123 5y ago
  That's just your moral crusade clouding your judgement so you can't appreciate the technology. You're crusading for the kings of Web2, so they don't lose control. Humanity will be fine, calm down.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    I don't think it is wrong to consider the impact on humanity above appreciating technology for technology's sake. The kings of Web3 are the same as the kings of Web2. Big money investors and capitalism more broadly. Web3 accelerates surveillance capitalism. It is all of the mess of Web2 on steroids.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      No, web3 allows the users to be operators, it takes power from corps. I'd suggest you research more. Continue to fight the tech tho, wonderful thing about web3 is you can't stop it, no matter who you are. You can certainly organize a public campaign against it though, you're being a useful idiot for them. Take a step back and ask yourself if that passion of hate is yours or someone else's.
      - UncleMeat 5y ago

I am truly and continually disappointed with the response to cryptocurrencies in this community. For a user-base that is so knowledgeable to be so pig-headed about this topic is frightening.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago

This comment seems to be par for the course of crypto level discussions. The comment is a series of ad-hominem attacks composed manipulatively. The rational response is to be careful of anyone attempting such manipulation.

bmitc 5y ago
This is something I've had a hard time understanding. Any question, even honest questions, posed to the crypto community get spit back as if a person could not be any more wrong or ignorant of something. There's this battle of either 0% or 100% committed to crypto and no in between. I have had a hard time finding genuinely honest and unbiased perspectives or even descriptions of things in crypto. Happy to know if anyone has any such sources. I'm still trying to honestly just learn about it more. Getting there bit by bit.

emerged 5y ago

Isn’t it possible… they are right?

birracerveza 5y ago
Not really. The vast majority of the HN community that keeps rejecting cryptocurrencies, blockchain and everything related to them does so on claims that are obsolete, shortsighted and completely ignorant of the progress that has been done in the last years, if not of the ecosystem as a whole, as their opinions comes not from experience but from shoddily written opinion pieces. You can see it in your daily HN frontpaged crypto hate bait thread, such as this one. Only a few handful of comments raise genuine concerns and put enough effort to allow a constructive discussion, the rest is just people venting about how bad crypto is, with no actual insight.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  You're saying people don't understand because they are not deeply involved. It's a disingenuous argument, akin to no true scotsman, and a way to pat yourself on the back. When you step back from the details and take a look at the big picture, you can understand crypto better than when you're too stuck in the reeds. From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, doesn't meet most of it's promises, squirms with new promises and redefinitions constantly, is much more complex than alternatives for the few things it does provide, and is rife absolutely rife with scammers. Sure amongst that morass there may be a few interesting ideas, who knows and who cares, there's interesting ideas in lots of areas and crypto is a distraction from real progress, and it's a destructive force in our world. What a waste of human potential, and limited resources.
  - ephbit 5y ago
    > From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, ... Crypto is certainly not destroying our planet. Yes, "Crypto" does have negative impact on ecosphere through its use of energy and other ressources. But ... just look ahead, look left and right ... and unless you're walking some trail between the fields looking up from HN on your smartphone .. you're quite likely to see something that humans made. And pretty much regardless of what it is, it'll have had a myriad of various ways of negative impact on the ecosphere. "Crypto" is far from being even near the top harmful technologies at the moment. Bitcoin is estimated at 0.29 % of global energy use according to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and_carbon_footprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and... Besides that, energy is only one of a many technological negative impacts on the ecosphere. Take the millions of destructive chemical compounds that get released through mostly non-Bitcoin technological human deeds. To counter a potential whataboutism accusation: in most instances where the term gets thrown at someone, is my impression, it is just a poor way of trying to prevent the following. When someone calls out some problem A and another person calls out problem B as a consequence, they are doing it to give some perspective, to have a reference for comparison. Which is absolutely reasonable and useful to do. Why? Because not all problems of the world can/should be solved at the same time. There's simply not enough capacity/ressources/attention to do all. Problems need to be prioritized, which is a political/societal process. To enable this prioritization, comparisons must be made between different issues and references brought up. Something that then gets decried as whataboutism. No, "Crypto" is certainly not "destroying" our planet in the sense that it should occupy all those people's attention who claim that they're worried about the planet and trying to save it. Those people should turn their heads to their consumption of most everyday items/products/services and other topics.

qiskit 5y ago

> For a user-base that is so knowledgeable I get the opposite impression here. The impression I get is that most aren't even tech people let alone hackers. They are here because they are not knowledgable and want to learn. This forum seems mostly media/business dominated than tech dominated.

UncleMeat 5y ago

If cryptocurrencies were just neat technologies then the conversation would be very different. They are cool tools and allow for new interesting things to be built. But it is very very very clear that cryptocurrencies are not and will never be a raw technological oddity that hackers can play with. Instead, they are things that fundamentally intend to change power structures and the relationships people have with other people or with organizations and institutions. That's not the domain of hacker expertise anymore. As such, discussion is more akin to discussing war or human rights or inequality. All of the "very cool technology" discussion is (rightly, in my mind) subsumed by the much larger discussion of "holy crap, look at the harm that this direction will do to humanity."

hunterb123 5y ago
That's just your moral crusade clouding your judgement so you can't appreciate the technology. You're crusading for the kings of Web2, so they don't lose control. Humanity will be fine, calm down.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  I don't think it is wrong to consider the impact on humanity above appreciating technology for technology's sake. The kings of Web3 are the same as the kings of Web2. Big money investors and capitalism more broadly. Web3 accelerates surveillance capitalism. It is all of the mess of Web2 on steroids.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    No, web3 allows the users to be operators, it takes power from corps. I'd suggest you research more. Continue to fight the tech tho, wonderful thing about web3 is you can't stop it, no matter who you are. You can certainly organize a public campaign against it though, you're being a useful idiot for them. Take a step back and ask yourself if that passion of hate is yours or someone else's.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago