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This is the only right answer. Pack it up. For real, every time I try to answer my I do crypto, often people just don't understand. They just don't. They just

This is the only right answer. Pack it up. For real, every time I try to answer my I do crypto, often people just don't understand. They just don't. They just don't understand why I don't trust entities. If you don't understand this, then you don't understand crypto. Period. There is no other debate necessary. Period. Full stop. We go on our own way. Full stop.

SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
The problem is that crypto doesn't really solve those problems either. As the article says far more eloquently. I understand that you are saying you were burned by a central authority. But the truth is that the only way to get everything to work is with a central authority. The article gives examples of crypto being fully reliant on central authorities, for instance. Everything being done by crypto today could be done better by trusted companies putting together a semi-open peering arrangement that both doesn't waste pointless electricity and that doesn't allow just any potentially hostile actor join the group of authorized peers.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  The question to me really is which central authorities you trust less... And for me it is at the moment the crypto side. I don't trust exchanges and I can't be bothered to do local transactions. So central government "approved" system is easier for my life.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    And this is the case for basically everyone. In fact, given that ownership is fundamentally a mutually agreed upon social norm, and not any sort of real truth - Even if you trust the central authority of your locality less, they are likely a much better resource regardless. I really think crypto advocates just don't actually understand how power works. Power is not the number in the ledger, it's the number of people who will step up to enforce it for you. It turns out that number is very, very tiny for crypto. Much, much larger for your local currency - even if it's not as large as you'd like it to be, or "fair" as you think it should be.
- dogman144 4y ago
  His example and your support is mixing up central authorities that matter for crypto. Crypto companies with legal exposure? Yes can be censored. Open source crypto protocols? As long as raspberry pi’s and digital comms exist, it’s akin to saying the govt can shut down Linux. This is the censorship resistance that matters. It’s not perfect (some ungodly amount of nodes are in AWS and the Trail of Bits report did a good write up as well). The central authority here is open source software. The author spent a lot of words demonstrating they didn’t know this at all.
  - SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
    Open source crypto protocols are completely irrelevant without connections to crypto companies. There's this fantasy that crypto can replace money, and that you would therefore never need to trade it for real dollars. That's not going to happen, for reasons outlined in the article and because no medium of exchange that's deflationary can ever be a currency. If it goes up in value over time, it's an investment and people won't spend it. Will the open source be free forever? Sure. Whatever. Can people run nodes that burn electricity? Yup. Does that matter? In no way that's relevant to the general public. Worse, even the crypto networks themselves are subject to issues with their authority: Enough bad actors who join can steal the value of a large percentage of the network. When we're looking at potential theft of billions of dollars, you better bet that someone will invest the hundreds of millions required to rewrite the chain and take control of a large number of coins. Then what? Then everyone will need to get together and act like a central authority to either rewrite the chain back to its state before the attack, in which case you do need to rely on a central authority, or you need to admit that _allowing untrusted nodes into a financial network is a Bad Idea._ "Censorship resistance" is irrelevant too, by the way.
    - dogman144 4y ago
      > Open source crypto protocols are completely irrelevant without connections to crypto companies Bitcoin, an open source crypto protocol, launched without the existence of crypto companies. Mt Gox, instead of helping btc, almost set it back years due to the hack. Bitcoin grew adoption and scale on tor/DNMs and localbitcoins, both of which had organic, non-exchange economic activity which kept accounting in pure crypto vs returning to fiat/needing an exchange. The attack you’re describing is a 51% attack, and it had yet to happen due to protocol design on the main chains. If it does, I suppose you’d be right. But I generally think you don’t understand how the tech works and what proof of concepts exist to disprove your opinions, or at least strongly counter your opinions. and without addressing why they’re wrong you have a weak argument.
permo-w 4y ago
I fail to see how a currency that a) requires internet access, and b) can fluctuate so massively over the course of a few months, is any kind of solution to instability in developing countries. crypto is also arguably as or even more at the whim of national governments. look at what happened when China banned it. they're not gonna be banning dollars or gold anytime soon. also, perhaps the cause of people not understanding you is not some kind of lack of mental faculties on their part, but your - what I would describe as - extremely obnoxious style of communication
horsawlarway 4y ago
Hey - I get it, I used crypto precisely because I wanted to avoid government regulation when buying black market goods back when the silk road was still a thing. But I think you're absolutely bonkers if you think that any crypto today is actually a real solution to your lack of trust. Here's my take: You think that by using crypto, you're avoiding trust in governmental and financial institutions - and in some (incredibly limited - aka drug/gun) markets you are, but the exchange that you are making (intentionally or not) is not trivial, and not acceptable for most people most of the time. What you are giving up is the power of the governmental institutions to enforce any sort of agreement or contract you make using crypto. Not their currency, not their problem. It's now your problem to resolve scams and fraud, and you have to do it using your limited powers. And to be clear - you have really, REALLY fucking limited powers here. Unless you are so wealthy that those "entities" that you so dislike are mere nuisances dealt with by the law firm you have on retainer, or you can fund your own black-ops team, you're living in lala land if you think you can personally enforce the contracts you make. You can't. You don't have the oomph. Full Fucking Stop. --- So I understand your lack of trust, but hate to break it to ya, bud - crypto is not solving your problem. Simple example: You hire a contractor to remodel your bathroom, and you pay him in crypto (and we'll ignore for a moment just how laughably absurd the chances of this actually happening are...). You agree to pay 20K for the remodel, with 10K up front. He runs off with your 10k. Now fucking what?
- zaphod12 4y ago
  in crypto land, you would never do that! You'd set up a smart contract to automatically move money from your wallet to his as milestones are hit in the project! It's beautiful! Maybe they could run off with your $1k upfront, but maybe your smart contract can even get that back if a milestone isn't hit in time. Now all you need is connected oracle that can judge completion percentage of a bathroom and communicate with the blockchain! /s
  - zaphar 4y ago
    Now flip the story and you are the contractor and hit the first milestone. The customer however refuses to acknowledge that milestone and holds on to the funds demanding some extra work not in the original contract. You are out the labor and materials with no payment and no recourse. It's not beautiful for the contractor why would he agree to this with no arbiter between the two of you. And as soon as you introduce an arbiter you are back to someone else enforcing the agreement not the blockchain. The blockchain adds nothing here that a standard court of arbitration doesn't.
imtringued 4y ago
Can you trust your local supermarket to accept Bitcoin if it is banned? The point of a currency is primarily to facilitate trade, everything on top of that is just there to make the process more efficient and lower transaction costs. I personally think Bitcoin is a terrible currency for non speculative trading due to scaling problems and it's volatility. Your own way is a deadend. There is nothing there. A currency is about relationships and trust. You can't own those things, you can at best only enforce them against people's will if they don't maintain them voluntarily.
UncleMeat 4y ago
Yet Monero isn't winning. It is very clear that this is not the dominant use case for cryptocurrencies and blockchains since we've got a system that is maximally resistant to interference and it is dwindling away.

SomeCallMeTim 4y ago

The problem is that crypto doesn't really solve those problems either. As the article says far more eloquently. I understand that you are saying you were burned by a central authority. But the truth is that the only way to get everything to work is with a central authority. The article gives examples of crypto being fully reliant on central authorities, for instance. Everything being done by crypto today could be done better by trusted companies putting together a semi-open peering arrangement that both doesn't waste pointless electricity and that doesn't allow just any potentially hostile actor join the group of authorized peers.

Ekaros 4y ago
The question to me really is which central authorities you trust less... And for me it is at the moment the crypto side. I don't trust exchanges and I can't be bothered to do local transactions. So central government "approved" system is easier for my life.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  And this is the case for basically everyone. In fact, given that ownership is fundamentally a mutually agreed upon social norm, and not any sort of real truth - Even if you trust the central authority of your locality less, they are likely a much better resource regardless. I really think crypto advocates just don't actually understand how power works. Power is not the number in the ledger, it's the number of people who will step up to enforce it for you. It turns out that number is very, very tiny for crypto. Much, much larger for your local currency - even if it's not as large as you'd like it to be, or "fair" as you think it should be.
dogman144 4y ago
His example and your support is mixing up central authorities that matter for crypto. Crypto companies with legal exposure? Yes can be censored. Open source crypto protocols? As long as raspberry pi’s and digital comms exist, it’s akin to saying the govt can shut down Linux. This is the censorship resistance that matters. It’s not perfect (some ungodly amount of nodes are in AWS and the Trail of Bits report did a good write up as well). The central authority here is open source software. The author spent a lot of words demonstrating they didn’t know this at all.
- SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
  Open source crypto protocols are completely irrelevant without connections to crypto companies. There's this fantasy that crypto can replace money, and that you would therefore never need to trade it for real dollars. That's not going to happen, for reasons outlined in the article and because no medium of exchange that's deflationary can ever be a currency. If it goes up in value over time, it's an investment and people won't spend it. Will the open source be free forever? Sure. Whatever. Can people run nodes that burn electricity? Yup. Does that matter? In no way that's relevant to the general public. Worse, even the crypto networks themselves are subject to issues with their authority: Enough bad actors who join can steal the value of a large percentage of the network. When we're looking at potential theft of billions of dollars, you better bet that someone will invest the hundreds of millions required to rewrite the chain and take control of a large number of coins. Then what? Then everyone will need to get together and act like a central authority to either rewrite the chain back to its state before the attack, in which case you do need to rely on a central authority, or you need to admit that _allowing untrusted nodes into a financial network is a Bad Idea._ "Censorship resistance" is irrelevant too, by the way.
  - dogman144 4y ago
    > Open source crypto protocols are completely irrelevant without connections to crypto companies Bitcoin, an open source crypto protocol, launched without the existence of crypto companies. Mt Gox, instead of helping btc, almost set it back years due to the hack. Bitcoin grew adoption and scale on tor/DNMs and localbitcoins, both of which had organic, non-exchange economic activity which kept accounting in pure crypto vs returning to fiat/needing an exchange. The attack you’re describing is a 51% attack, and it had yet to happen due to protocol design on the main chains. If it does, I suppose you’d be right. But I generally think you don’t understand how the tech works and what proof of concepts exist to disprove your opinions, or at least strongly counter your opinions. and without addressing why they’re wrong you have a weak argument.

permo-w 4y ago

I fail to see how a currency that a) requires internet access, and b) can fluctuate so massively over the course of a few months, is any kind of solution to instability in developing countries. crypto is also arguably as or even more at the whim of national governments. look at what happened when China banned it. they're not gonna be banning dollars or gold anytime soon. also, perhaps the cause of people not understanding you is not some kind of lack of mental faculties on their part, but your - what I would describe as - extremely obnoxious style of communication

horsawlarway 4y ago

Hey - I get it, I used crypto precisely because I wanted to avoid government regulation when buying black market goods back when the silk road was still a thing. But I think you're absolutely bonkers if you think that any crypto today is actually a real solution to your lack of trust. Here's my take: You think that by using crypto, you're avoiding trust in governmental and financial institutions - and in some (incredibly limited - aka drug/gun) markets you are, but the exchange that you are making (intentionally or not) is not trivial, and not acceptable for most people most of the time. What you are giving up is the power of the governmental institutions to enforce any sort of agreement or contract you make using crypto. Not their currency, not their problem. It's now your problem to resolve scams and fraud, and you have to do it using your limited powers. And to be clear - you have really, REALLY fucking limited powers here. Unless you are so wealthy that those "entities" that you so dislike are mere nuisances dealt with by the law firm you have on retainer, or you can fund your own black-ops team, you're living in lala land if you think you can personally enforce the contracts you make. You can't. You don't have the oomph. Full Fucking Stop. --- So I understand your lack of trust, but hate to break it to ya, bud - crypto is not solving your problem. Simple example: You hire a contractor to remodel your bathroom, and you pay him in crypto (and we'll ignore for a moment just how laughably absurd the chances of this actually happening are...). You agree to pay 20K for the remodel, with 10K up front. He runs off with your 10k. Now fucking what?

zaphod12 4y ago
in crypto land, you would never do that! You'd set up a smart contract to automatically move money from your wallet to his as milestones are hit in the project! It's beautiful! Maybe they could run off with your $1k upfront, but maybe your smart contract can even get that back if a milestone isn't hit in time. Now all you need is connected oracle that can judge completion percentage of a bathroom and communicate with the blockchain! /s
- zaphar 4y ago
  Now flip the story and you are the contractor and hit the first milestone. The customer however refuses to acknowledge that milestone and holds on to the funds demanding some extra work not in the original contract. You are out the labor and materials with no payment and no recourse. It's not beautiful for the contractor why would he agree to this with no arbiter between the two of you. And as soon as you introduce an arbiter you are back to someone else enforcing the agreement not the blockchain. The blockchain adds nothing here that a standard court of arbitration doesn't.

imtringued 4y ago

Can you trust your local supermarket to accept Bitcoin if it is banned? The point of a currency is primarily to facilitate trade, everything on top of that is just there to make the process more efficient and lower transaction costs. I personally think Bitcoin is a terrible currency for non speculative trading due to scaling problems and it's volatility. Your own way is a deadend. There is nothing there. A currency is about relationships and trust. You can't own those things, you can at best only enforce them against people's will if they don't maintain them voluntarily.

UncleMeat 4y ago

Yet Monero isn't winning. It is very clear that this is not the dominant use case for cryptocurrencies and blockchains since we've got a system that is maximally resistant to interference and it is dwindling away.