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I agree that Brave's thing is not a scam. Nevertheless, "all crypto is a scam" is a good rule of thumb that would do most people more good than harm. Generall

I agree that Brave's thing is not a scam. Nevertheless, "all crypto is a scam" is a good rule of thumb that would do most people more good than harm. Generally speaking, I think people should be encouraged to think of all cryptocurrencies as scams. That's the advice I give to my family and any friends who ask.

rglullis 4y ago
> I think people should be encouraged to think of all cryptocurrencies as scams. You are encouraging people to "think" something that you personally know not to be true. IOW, you are not encouraging them to "think" anything. You are just feeding them a conclusion, and you are spreading a lie. You might believe that is a white lie, but it's a lie nonetheless. Worse still, it's the type of lie that, if repeated often enough, damages all the reputation from honest people and destroys all chance of good work coming from the space. The lie becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can do better than that. I am not telling you to do a 180 in your opinion, or to support any crypto project in particular. But at the very least, stop feeding people with the conclusion and actually state the principles behind your reasoning. Heuristics and "rules of thumb" help when there is uncertainty and when there is risk associated with a decision, but before applying an heuristic you can and should remove as much uncertainty as possible.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > You are encouraging people to "think" something that you personally know not to be true. I am encouraging people to think something I believe to be true 99.99% of the time. It's called a generalization, and it's normal. "Leave snakes alone." Most snakes aren't venomous, but some of them are. Just leave them all alone and you don't have to worry about which is which. Most snakes aren't venomous, but most cryptocurrencies are. Cryptocurrencies are much worse than snakes.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    > It's called a generalization, and it's normal. There is another word for it: prejudice. > Most snakes aren't venomous, but most cryptocurrencies are. Non-venomous snakes are not going to benefit from people touching them. There is no downside for the non-venomous snake if it is considered dangerous. It's actually an upside: lots of non-venomous snakes evolved to look like the dangerous ones because that gives them protection without forcing them to spend energy producing venom. This is not true for people working in cryptocurrencies. Honest people need to be recognized as honest. If they are lumped together with scammers, they can not do their job. It's bad for them, and it's bad for those could've benefited from their work, but were (wrongly) scared due to prejudice. You are not harming a snake by making a bad judgment call regarding its danger. You are harming honest people by making a bad judgment call over their work and their nature.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      At the same time, if Brave wants to market a browser while simultaneously promoting a technology that a huge amount of the populous dislikes, maybe they ought to review their priorities?
      - rglullis 4y ago
        You don't win by listening your haters. You win by serving those who are aligned with your product. And it is working. 50M MAU and 100% YoY growth is nothing to sneeze at.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        I've already blown my nose and moved on. Brave is a nothingburger, and if you disagree then you're welcome to spend the next 20 years of your life explaining to people what a Brave Browser is and why they need/don't need to enable advertisements so they can get paid fake monopoly money that they can turn into real money if they find someone else to buy it at a reasonable price. Oh, and then Firefox works just fine, too. Worst it has is... a builtin bookmark service? Oh, the humanity!

rglullis 4y ago

> I think people should be encouraged to think of all cryptocurrencies as scams. You are encouraging people to "think" something that you personally know not to be true. IOW, you are not encouraging them to "think" anything. You are just feeding them a conclusion, and you are spreading a lie. You might believe that is a white lie, but it's a lie nonetheless. Worse still, it's the type of lie that, if repeated often enough, damages all the reputation from honest people and destroys all chance of good work coming from the space. The lie becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can do better than that. I am not telling you to do a 180 in your opinion, or to support any crypto project in particular. But at the very least, stop feeding people with the conclusion and actually state the principles behind your reasoning. Heuristics and "rules of thumb" help when there is uncertainty and when there is risk associated with a decision, but before applying an heuristic you can and should remove as much uncertainty as possible.

robonerd 4y ago
> You are encouraging people to "think" something that you personally know not to be true. I am encouraging people to think something I believe to be true 99.99% of the time. It's called a generalization, and it's normal. "Leave snakes alone." Most snakes aren't venomous, but some of them are. Just leave them all alone and you don't have to worry about which is which. Most snakes aren't venomous, but most cryptocurrencies are. Cryptocurrencies are much worse than snakes.
- rglullis 4y ago
  > It's called a generalization, and it's normal. There is another word for it: prejudice. > Most snakes aren't venomous, but most cryptocurrencies are. Non-venomous snakes are not going to benefit from people touching them. There is no downside for the non-venomous snake if it is considered dangerous. It's actually an upside: lots of non-venomous snakes evolved to look like the dangerous ones because that gives them protection without forcing them to spend energy producing venom. This is not true for people working in cryptocurrencies. Honest people need to be recognized as honest. If they are lumped together with scammers, they can not do their job. It's bad for them, and it's bad for those could've benefited from their work, but were (wrongly) scared due to prejudice. You are not harming a snake by making a bad judgment call regarding its danger. You are harming honest people by making a bad judgment call over their work and their nature.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    At the same time, if Brave wants to market a browser while simultaneously promoting a technology that a huge amount of the populous dislikes, maybe they ought to review their priorities?
    - rglullis 4y ago
      You don't win by listening your haters. You win by serving those who are aligned with your product. And it is working. 50M MAU and 100% YoY growth is nothing to sneeze at.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        I've already blown my nose and moved on. Brave is a nothingburger, and if you disagree then you're welcome to spend the next 20 years of your life explaining to people what a Brave Browser is and why they need/don't need to enable advertisements so they can get paid fake monopoly money that they can turn into real money if they find someone else to buy it at a reasonable price. Oh, and then Firefox works just fine, too. Worst it has is... a builtin bookmark service? Oh, the humanity!