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It is fine to say "Yeah, yeah, I've already heard all this skepticism" but it is ridiculous to then make the leap "and therefore all of you should stop saying t

It is fine to say "Yeah, yeah, I've already heard all this skepticism" but it is ridiculous to then make the leap "and therefore all of you should stop saying this stuff," which is what your comment reads like. Also, why are you singling out skepticism? Shilling is okay? Why was your comment not just "I can't believe people are still passionate about crypto, I am bored with it, you should be too."

benreesman 4y ago
I’ve made so many comments about why I wish we could go back to arguing about Rust vs C++ or whatever. This thing has been done to death, and the signal-to-noise ratio on it is one of the few instances where HN falls below the Reddit median. People have a real chip on their shoulder about not being rich from owning BTC. I can identify more than most, I personally know a lot of people who have poo that doesn’t stink from owning BTC. But it’s a deeper issue: people on here are wired up as hell over anyone who made serious cash. Which is super weird given that everyone’s all Ayn Rand. I’ve said it before, and I’ll (unfortunately) have to say it again: the only kind of getting rich on here that’s not some kind of sour grapes is via a YC company. Because no one wants a comment history that’s going to fuck up their YC app. And it’s so ironic because if you breathe a bad word about Ayn Rand you get downvoted to grey.
- notduncansmith 4y ago
  I don’t know how popular Alice (better known as Ayn) is around here. I disagree with a lot of her philosophy and am not charitable with my time to her fans, and I can’t say for certain I’m in a minority. The HN you get really depends on what threads you’re in, and it doesn’t surprise me that her fans show up in crypto threads; that said, I would expect (hope?) off-topic badmouthing of random people to attract downvotes in most threads.
  - benreesman 4y ago
    It’s always a pleasure to run into someone who isn’t playing to the crowd. The ceaseless running gang-tackle of people who haven’t read very much does get tiring at times. Good day to you.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > and I’ll (unfortunately) have to say it again No, really, you don't have to.
  - benreesman 4y ago
    Let me rephrase: I have a bit of a compulsive personality on a number of dimensions, one of which is “someone is wrong on the Internet!” in the XKCD sense. Anything to do with crypto on HN’s front page is going to be tripping over itself about whether it can be more flagrantly wrong about finance or distributed systems research. I’m not like a recognized expert in either thing, but, I’m north of intermediate in both, and this shit drives me up the wall.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      > whether it can be more flagrantly wrong about finance or distributed systems research It's funny, because cryptocurrency 'investors' often seem to occupy the intersection between those naive on economics and those naive about technology (particularly distributed systems and databases).
      - benreesman 4y ago
        I don’t own or trade cryptocurrency at all, I’m certainly not an investor in it. But aggressive ignorance does get my dander up, so I waste time on these kinds of pointless threads fighting a losing battle against people who are just mad at BitCoin or whatever.
        Nursie 4y ago
        But you yourself are parroting pro-bitcoin ignorance, in the form of your points about bank transfer and other things. This is something that gets my dander up. Your assertions like "there will be one or two real things that will make it." There might be, or it might all turn out to have been a giant waste of time and resources. International remittances are not problematic because we don't have the tech and we're all crying out for a blockchain and a volatile intermediate asset, but (where they even are still problematic at all) because of bureaucracy. Your point about energy might be the worst - for a start Bitcoin is actually becoming dirtier, as large portions of mining moved from China to Kazakhstan last year, and are relying on the local coal infrastructure. And the second point, that it somehow drives adoption of renewables - the world as a whole is trying to switch to cleaner energy. We already have massive pressure and demand in the entire energy market as countries try to switch away from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, fossil fuel power plants are either getting life extensions or just plain being brought back online to service the mining market - https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-life-to-old-fossil-fuel-power-plants-11621594803 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-l... So, you wanna talk about aggressive ignorance, maybe address the log in your own eye?
- s5300 4y ago
  Huh. Surely there’s not that many angry Ayn Randers on here. I presume most who are are teens without much life experience.
  - benreesman 4y ago
    That’s quite a fair point, I tend to use Ayn Rand as a bit of a shorthand for folks who are wildly free-market but only in very specific verticals. She’s probably the most effective lobbyist against social welfare who wrote her missives literally on the dole. My reflex to her as an example is only reinforced by her close association with Alan Greenspan who so successfully dismantled all the business-cycle shock absorbers that it’s been a real rollercoaster ever since, and who had the gall to play word games with Congress on television when questioned in that infamous testimony about the complete and utter empirical disproof of basically every policy decision he and Summers ever cornered in a dark all off K street over. Really quite an unpleasant scene.
- twiceaday 4y ago
  Those conversations still happen, under those posts. They might even happen more often now. I also vastly prefer those. I'm on here a bunch and I don't see what you mean with the ad hominems. Why guess at peoples motives anyways? Even if they are indeed just jealous, I'm not sure skepticism becomes invalidated when a bad motive is established. "You almost had me convinced I was wrong but then I realized you were simply jealous." Surely we live in a world where lots of good and true things can be attributed to shit motives. That also applies to skepticism.
  - benreesman 4y ago
    I think you’ve made a fair criticism: my argument is sort of “two-wrongs-not-making-a-right” at worst and badly under-contextualized at best. There’s been a shift in tone on here over a period of time I couldn’t precisely identify, years at least. The technical debates always got, uh, quite spirited at times, but there was a sort of “hey, so-and-so did well, good for them. With a little luck it’ll be my turn before long.” A kind of recognition that while a little envy is only human, it’s still in the best interest of everyone to build rungs on the ladder rather than kick them out. And that’s not completely gone, but there is this creeping zero-sum kind of sentiment that just seems to be growing over time. This kind of narrowing of all bad feelings onto lucrative/prosperous people and ventures. There are some godawful industries in the world: finance, pharma, health insurance, big agribusiness, lobbyism, the friggin Sackler family, whatever Blackwater/Xe is calling themselves now. But that stuff is discussed quite rationally. OTOH recommender systems, internet ads, crypto-money: people get really, really heated up about that stuff. I’m open to alternative theories than the one I’ve presented, but the way I see it mass murder via OxyContin is a way bigger deal than cryptocurrency and FB ads put together.
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  > People have a real chip on their shoulder about not being rich from owning BTC. That is a pretty bad read of the situation. As far as I can tell, most criticism here is from the perspective of "thank goodness I didn't _lose_ money on something so risky. I don't doubt that there are people like that on here, but you definitely seem like you're projecting.

benreesman 4y ago

I’ve made so many comments about why I wish we could go back to arguing about Rust vs C++ or whatever. This thing has been done to death, and the signal-to-noise ratio on it is one of the few instances where HN falls below the Reddit median. People have a real chip on their shoulder about not being rich from owning BTC. I can identify more than most, I personally know a lot of people who have poo that doesn’t stink from owning BTC. But it’s a deeper issue: people on here are wired up as hell over anyone who made serious cash. Which is super weird given that everyone’s all Ayn Rand. I’ve said it before, and I’ll (unfortunately) have to say it again: the only kind of getting rich on here that’s not some kind of sour grapes is via a YC company. Because no one wants a comment history that’s going to fuck up their YC app. And it’s so ironic because if you breathe a bad word about Ayn Rand you get downvoted to grey.

notduncansmith 4y ago
I don’t know how popular Alice (better known as Ayn) is around here. I disagree with a lot of her philosophy and am not charitable with my time to her fans, and I can’t say for certain I’m in a minority. The HN you get really depends on what threads you’re in, and it doesn’t surprise me that her fans show up in crypto threads; that said, I would expect (hope?) off-topic badmouthing of random people to attract downvotes in most threads.
- benreesman 4y ago
  It’s always a pleasure to run into someone who isn’t playing to the crowd. The ceaseless running gang-tackle of people who haven’t read very much does get tiring at times. Good day to you.
listenallyall 4y ago
> and I’ll (unfortunately) have to say it again No, really, you don't have to.
- benreesman 4y ago
  Let me rephrase: I have a bit of a compulsive personality on a number of dimensions, one of which is “someone is wrong on the Internet!” in the XKCD sense. Anything to do with crypto on HN’s front page is going to be tripping over itself about whether it can be more flagrantly wrong about finance or distributed systems research. I’m not like a recognized expert in either thing, but, I’m north of intermediate in both, and this shit drives me up the wall.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    > whether it can be more flagrantly wrong about finance or distributed systems research It's funny, because cryptocurrency 'investors' often seem to occupy the intersection between those naive on economics and those naive about technology (particularly distributed systems and databases).
    - benreesman 4y ago
      I don’t own or trade cryptocurrency at all, I’m certainly not an investor in it. But aggressive ignorance does get my dander up, so I waste time on these kinds of pointless threads fighting a losing battle against people who are just mad at BitCoin or whatever.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        But you yourself are parroting pro-bitcoin ignorance, in the form of your points about bank transfer and other things. This is something that gets my dander up. Your assertions like "there will be one or two real things that will make it." There might be, or it might all turn out to have been a giant waste of time and resources. International remittances are not problematic because we don't have the tech and we're all crying out for a blockchain and a volatile intermediate asset, but (where they even are still problematic at all) because of bureaucracy. Your point about energy might be the worst - for a start Bitcoin is actually becoming dirtier, as large portions of mining moved from China to Kazakhstan last year, and are relying on the local coal infrastructure. And the second point, that it somehow drives adoption of renewables - the world as a whole is trying to switch to cleaner energy. We already have massive pressure and demand in the entire energy market as countries try to switch away from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, fossil fuel power plants are either getting life extensions or just plain being brought back online to service the mining market - https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-life-to-old-fossil-fuel-power-plants-11621594803 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-l... So, you wanna talk about aggressive ignorance, maybe address the log in your own eye?
s5300 4y ago
Huh. Surely there’s not that many angry Ayn Randers on here. I presume most who are are teens without much life experience.
- benreesman 4y ago
  That’s quite a fair point, I tend to use Ayn Rand as a bit of a shorthand for folks who are wildly free-market but only in very specific verticals. She’s probably the most effective lobbyist against social welfare who wrote her missives literally on the dole. My reflex to her as an example is only reinforced by her close association with Alan Greenspan who so successfully dismantled all the business-cycle shock absorbers that it’s been a real rollercoaster ever since, and who had the gall to play word games with Congress on television when questioned in that infamous testimony about the complete and utter empirical disproof of basically every policy decision he and Summers ever cornered in a dark all off K street over. Really quite an unpleasant scene.
twiceaday 4y ago
Those conversations still happen, under those posts. They might even happen more often now. I also vastly prefer those. I'm on here a bunch and I don't see what you mean with the ad hominems. Why guess at peoples motives anyways? Even if they are indeed just jealous, I'm not sure skepticism becomes invalidated when a bad motive is established. "You almost had me convinced I was wrong but then I realized you were simply jealous." Surely we live in a world where lots of good and true things can be attributed to shit motives. That also applies to skepticism.
- benreesman 4y ago
  I think you’ve made a fair criticism: my argument is sort of “two-wrongs-not-making-a-right” at worst and badly under-contextualized at best. There’s been a shift in tone on here over a period of time I couldn’t precisely identify, years at least. The technical debates always got, uh, quite spirited at times, but there was a sort of “hey, so-and-so did well, good for them. With a little luck it’ll be my turn before long.” A kind of recognition that while a little envy is only human, it’s still in the best interest of everyone to build rungs on the ladder rather than kick them out. And that’s not completely gone, but there is this creeping zero-sum kind of sentiment that just seems to be growing over time. This kind of narrowing of all bad feelings onto lucrative/prosperous people and ventures. There are some godawful industries in the world: finance, pharma, health insurance, big agribusiness, lobbyism, the friggin Sackler family, whatever Blackwater/Xe is calling themselves now. But that stuff is discussed quite rationally. OTOH recommender systems, internet ads, crypto-money: people get really, really heated up about that stuff. I’m open to alternative theories than the one I’ve presented, but the way I see it mass murder via OxyContin is a way bigger deal than cryptocurrency and FB ads put together.
ShamelessC 4y ago
> People have a real chip on their shoulder about not being rich from owning BTC. That is a pretty bad read of the situation. As far as I can tell, most criticism here is from the perspective of "thank goodness I didn't _lose_ money on something so risky. I don't doubt that there are people like that on here, but you definitely seem like you're projecting.