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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.
  - birracerveza 5y ago
    From the big picture I see that crypto is phasing out PoW, is currently in development, constantly finds new applications, although it still has a bit of a learning curve and is still not as user friendly as the traditional web, and yeah, it has a lot of scams going on. Doesn't invalidate the technology though.
- defterGoose 5y ago
  Not really. The vast majority of the HN community that keeps promoting cryptocurrencies, blockchain and everything related to them does so on claims that are unsubstantiated, rose-tinted and completely ignorant of the environmental harm that has been done in the last years, as their opinions comes not from experience but from shoddily written opinion pieces. You can see it in your daily HN frontpaged crypto bait thread, such as this one. Only a few handful of comments raise genuine benefits and put enough effort to allow a constructive discussion, the rest is just people gushing about how great crypto is, with no actual insight. I think mine is more accurate.

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.
- birracerveza 5y ago
  From the big picture I see that crypto is phasing out PoW, is currently in development, constantly finds new applications, although it still has a bit of a learning curve and is still not as user friendly as the traditional web, and yeah, it has a lot of scams going on. Doesn't invalidate the technology though.
defterGoose 5y ago
Not really. The vast majority of the HN community that keeps promoting cryptocurrencies, blockchain and everything related to them does so on claims that are unsubstantiated, rose-tinted and completely ignorant of the environmental harm that has been done in the last years, as their opinions comes not from experience but from shoddily written opinion pieces. You can see it in your daily HN frontpaged crypto bait thread, such as this one. Only a few handful of comments raise genuine benefits and put enough effort to allow a constructive discussion, the rest is just people gushing about how great crypto is, with no actual insight. I think mine is more accurate.