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I don't think I have a great understanding of HN's audience. Is it one that trusts a few select governmental entities over zero-trust solutions? I'd think the

I don't think I have a great understanding of HN's audience. Is it one that trusts a few select governmental entities over zero-trust solutions? I'd think the latter but continuously get shown the former. Is it one that prefers to keep the same broken solutions over at least trying something new? Same thing. I don't know if it's an age thing, industry thing, or what, but the reaction to crypto on this site seems much more tainted by its branding, obvious scam projects, and perhaps by the idea of fundamental change, than by any of the actual fundamentals of Web3/Crypto itself.

twblalock 5y ago
Reaction to crypto is also informed by the knowledge that currency and trust are largely people problems, not technology problems: our societies have developed and refined institutions of trust, legal systems, banking systems, etc. over centuries. Those institutions work pretty well in general, and they work the way they do for good reasons. Utopian claims about crypto are a hard sell to people who understand that technology is not a magic bullet.
gonehome 5y ago
HN’s audience is massive, global, and all on one board. This is pretty unusual. It also means there’s a lot of variety of ideas and opinions, but generally a unifying thread of curiosity. Still, the median view is often lame or mediocre, especially on some topics. Unfortunately crypto is one of them. There’s still interesting stuff sometimes, but it’s often drowned out.
stormbrew 5y ago
I mean, my "issue" with it is right there in my top level reply: Making new kinds of scarcity is just a way to shift winners and losers around, it does nothing to really fix anything. And this: > zero-trust solutions vs. > obvious scam projects might be the source of cognitive dissonance people who are into this stuff might need to grapple with before they start throwing shade at people who are skeptical. And yes I'm aware that zero-trust here has a technical meaning that's not related to people scamming with it, but if you want to convince people that this is worth something your idea of trust needs to evolve beyond a dry technical reading. Also, if I need to prove any credentials back in the early-ish days I burnt out a radeon video card mining a bunch of currencies up to the first rollout of ethereum. I think there's some interesting ideas in the tech (demonstrating that zero-trust consensus protocols could exist at scale at all is super interesting), but what it's become is an environmental and financial disaster zone and I'm not interested in that anymore.

twblalock 5y ago

Reaction to crypto is also informed by the knowledge that currency and trust are largely people problems, not technology problems: our societies have developed and refined institutions of trust, legal systems, banking systems, etc. over centuries. Those institutions work pretty well in general, and they work the way they do for good reasons. Utopian claims about crypto are a hard sell to people who understand that technology is not a magic bullet.

gonehome 5y ago

HN’s audience is massive, global, and all on one board. This is pretty unusual. It also means there’s a lot of variety of ideas and opinions, but generally a unifying thread of curiosity. Still, the median view is often lame or mediocre, especially on some topics. Unfortunately crypto is one of them. There’s still interesting stuff sometimes, but it’s often drowned out.

stormbrew 5y ago

I mean, my "issue" with it is right there in my top level reply: Making new kinds of scarcity is just a way to shift winners and losers around, it does nothing to really fix anything. And this: > zero-trust solutions vs. > obvious scam projects might be the source of cognitive dissonance people who are into this stuff might need to grapple with before they start throwing shade at people who are skeptical. And yes I'm aware that zero-trust here has a technical meaning that's not related to people scamming with it, but if you want to convince people that this is worth something your idea of trust needs to evolve beyond a dry technical reading. Also, if I need to prove any credentials back in the early-ish days I burnt out a radeon video card mining a bunch of currencies up to the first rollout of ethereum. I think there's some interesting ideas in the tech (demonstrating that zero-trust consensus protocols could exist at scale at all is super interesting), but what it's become is an environmental and financial disaster zone and I'm not interested in that anymore.