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Many of the arguments made here (not all, but that's a separate argument: "but this other argument would still stand" is not a valid defense of a poor argument
by saurik 4y ago
Many of the arguments made here (not all, but that's a separate argument: "but this other argument would still stand" is not a valid defense of a poor argument and it is important to whittle the set down to the ones that are actually strong) are the same arguments people make against private communication technology.
So, yes: it is more efficient to not have to encrypt everything, and yes: it is more difficult to deal with spam when everything is encrypted, and yes: building a system that is decentralized is hard, and yes: anything you build that is decentralized can be built more easily and maybe even more "safely"--for even an actually-reasonable definition of "safe"--by some centralized entity, and yes: a fully decentralized and private communication platform would absolutely be used by at least some terrible actors to accomplish terrible things that might be made more difficult if that platform did not exist...
...but, no: just because something is more expensive or more difficult to pull off doesn't mean it isn't worth the cost, and no: just because some terrible actors use a platform that doesn't justify taking it away from all users, and no: just because previous attempts at something have failed it should be illegal to attempt to pursue the technology.
If you make an argument that implies a kind of centralized control over things being good because privacy (which this article claims cryptocurrency provides--and it can, just not using Bitcoin--so if you want to quibble about that you are actually arguing against the authors of the article, not me, as many of their points seem to rely on this privacy at least mostly working) is an inherently dangerous thing to offer people, and when I call my bank there 100% should be a person there looking at my billing history getting to judge me for the things I buy and the places I shop and what those things imply about my sexual orientation (maybe you see me going to a specific bar a lot) or the medical conditions I have (based on the medications I am buying or the clinics I visit)...
...well, I would then want you to look in a mirror and really ask yourself is that's the kind of person you want to be, as I am going to claim that privacy is a thing we need to be offering all users even if there are costs and to the extent to which the current banking system and financial system fails to operate if people are granted such privacy, that's on them, not on us. You can't sit around and claim that people should get to have end-to-end encrypted secure blinded "communication" with their physician and then simply refuse to blind all of the financial transactions that leak a lot of that same secret information.
- colesantiago 4y agoWe should ban crypto anyway. It was a nice grift but it needs to stop. We are almost edging to 16+ years and there is no legitimate use case at all, except only the worst kind, (Speculation, Ransomware Enablement, Funding North Korea, etc..) And before you mention the 3rd world needs crypto as a "usecase", India, Brazil and other countries have real time payment systems such as UPI, Pix, PayNow that work and are used in the hundreds of millions, almost infinitely way more than crypto is. Crypto is a alleged 'solution' eternally searching for a problem. Some recommended reading: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3.lifeitself.org/guide https://web3.lifeitself.org/guide
- saurik 4y agoSo, I want to be very clear about this, as I don't think you should get to just sidestep this point as if it doesn't matter, and this is where the rubber hits the morality for me: are you seriously saying you believe that private money should simply not exist and that "when I call my bank there 100% should be a person there looking at my billing history getting to judge me for the things I buy and the places I shop and what those things imply about my sexual orientation (maybe you see me going to a specific bar a lot) or the medical conditions I have (based on the medications I am buying or the clinics I visit)"? As it stands, your comment seems to come off as the kind of authoritarian viewpoint that the narrative of the first world supposedly bristles against (even as it then pushes ridiculous agendas to build out the surveillance state... which I guess is you, huh ;P).
- colesantiago 4y agoAs long as crypto gets regulated out of existence, Yes. As long as the crypto exchanges collapses, Yes. As long as we are building better alternatives that are actually in use such as UPI, Pix and the like, Yes. As long as we as a society reject the crypto pyramid schemes and stop allowing more people to join it and in turn losing their life savings completely, Yes. As long as long as crypto dies and withers out of interest, then YES. We have tried private money before in the US and other countries and it completely failed. You mention 'first world narratives' I don't see India complaining about payment issues or surveillance. See for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/business/india-digital-payments-upi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/business/india-digital-pa... Not a single mention of crypto, decentralisation, web3 or any useless crypto technobabble at all. Just damn well engineered real time payments that 300M+ people are using in the real world. https://navendu.me/posts/upi-vs-crypto/ https://navendu.me/posts/upi-vs-crypto/ This is where the future is headed, not crypto.