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The fact that it is a Molly White project means take it with a basketball sized grain of salt. She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the da

by mike_d 2y ago

The fact that it is a Molly White project means take it with a basketball sized grain of salt. She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the data supports them. I'm not sure the data supports crypto spending more than other industries in lobbying, I think they are just doing it via a single PAC rather than spinning up dozens of targeted PACs for each race.

sph 2y ago
Yes, this and her previous projects have started to look more of a crusade to me, than a critique of "cryptocurrency", whatever that is, bundling them all together rather than analysing the merits and faults of each. Mind you, given the deep bias HN has against cryptocurrencies of any shape or form, I feel here she has her ideal audience here and we're the ones swimming against the current.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  Where is the "crusade"? This just shows political donations. Is the FEC engaging in a "crusade" by publishing details on PACs? There are constantly HN commenters on a crusade to extol and defend the alleged virtues of various "crypto" projects. We could accuse these folks of having a "bias against government-backed currency". Perhaps HN has a bias _for_ true stories of fraud, corruption and crime rather than a bias _against_ all crypto projects.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    Perhaps. HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. Whenever a devastating hack occurs directly on an end user, its a discussion of the browser and tools that can be improved to thwart it. Crypto sector has many libraries that power it too with extremely active discussions in other tech forums, and thats totally missing from HN in favor of discussion of random mismanaged businesses and phishing attacks as representative of the entire concept of crypto. When that’s further from reality, as the tooling has improved a lot and is constantly evolving. There are many best practices that are actively discussed and worked on, elsewhere. While the crowd on HN peculiarly acts completely segregated from that with a blissful ignorance filled with glee over frauds in the crypto sector, an extremely strange and impossibly different standard then how everything else is discussed.
    - Zanfa 2y ago
      > HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. The major difference seems to be that there doesn’t seem to be anything in the entire crypto industry that isn’t fraud or crime. And a lot of vague promises that typically turn out to be just more fraud in a year or two. It’s not prejudice if it’s true.
      - yieldcrv 2y ago
        the libraries don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises the governance proposals don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises the software standards don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises same for nodes, consensus mechanisms, package management, type safety, languages, operator instructions, smart contract auditing space, financial auditing and transparency space, block and transaction indexing, legislation that leverages the technology to reduce redundancy, and the list goes on its an approach and what I would expect to see on HN more often regarding the crypto asset space
        Zanfa 2y ago
        Almost every “Show HN” that’s about a library has someone ask what the library actually does and why is it useful. If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud, I can’t imagine why people aren’t more excited. I think vague promises is exactly how you could sum up most crypto-related libraries as well. There’s supposedly some useful usecase, but right now it only contributes to North Korean nuclear program.
        yieldcrv 2y ago
        so, your main supposition about crypto being all fraud is inaccurate, and the standards you present apply to fields you respect as well. for example, north korean expropriation and fraud is happening across the entire tech space, even a bunch of remote roles in the US are and were filled with north koreans, hence supporting the nuclear program [1] this is a common theme I’ve seen that reinforced my perspective: the criticism applies to things the critic respects and the critic saying it doesn't seem to know that, and they also don’t seem to even be aware of other benign things in the crypto space that are working fine and fit the social contract of all participants. I don't know if thats you, but it is applicable to the responses you chose so that observation, in combination with how so many intelligent researchers and programmers take a different approach ultimately towards improving the crypto space due to its malleability, keeps me interested and confused by the unsubstantive and reductive nature of HN consensus on this one topic https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/north-korea-it-workers-us-hiring https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/north-korea-it-workers-us-h...
  - sph 2y ago
    Commenting sporadically on a forum in favour of cryptocurrencies is not being a crusader. On the other hand, building and paying for (in resources and time) two websites against crypto, buulding your entire social media persona around it and being recognizable by name for that effort, you will have to agree is a couple orders of magnitude more effort and "involvement" in a cause, compared to a disinterested anonymous coward like me.
acdha 2y ago
> She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the data supports them. That’s a big claim, but it’s presented without evidence. Do you have any examples? On that note: > I'm not sure the data supports crypto spending more than other industries in lobbying What data are you using to support this belief? Do you have additional data that she left out? That would be a good way to support the allegation of cherry-picking.
- dvt 2y ago
  > That’s a big claim, but it’s presented without evidence. Do you have any examples? What do you mean? Her entire persona and relevance revolves around being anti-crypto. Of course she's heavily biased; this isn't even a remotely controversial claim. > That would be a good way to support the allegation of cherry-picking. The real story here is how much power individuals have over our political landscape. George Soros, for example, has injected more than $125M into the midterm race in 2022[1]. To be clear, this is not a partisan issue; the Kochs raised over $70M last year[2]. If you want to be critical of super PACs, crypto spending is literally a drop in the bucket and completely missing the forest for the trees. There is a story here, but crypto ain't it. The more boring reality is that (like every nascent industry) crypto is going through some growing pains, so it makes sense a16z/Coinbase/etc. need to heavily lobby DC for favorable SEC rulings & legislation. This is, quite literally, business as usual. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2022/01/31/george-soros-pumped-125-million-into-his-super-pac-heres-whos-getting-the-money/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2022/01/31/georg... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/koch-network-trump-2024.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/koch-network-...
  - noch 2y ago
    > Her entire persona and relevance revolves around being anti-crypto. Of course she's heavily biased; this isn't even a remotely controversial claim. As a generation, we really need to learn how to say: "I don't like this person and I believe they are biased and I hate their politics/tone/demeanour/ethos but that doesn't mean they are wrong about the facts." The ability to make use of information and ideas from people we disagree with, and even agree with the correct findings or conclusions of people we dislike, is a skill we urgently need to learn.
molly0x57 2y ago
The project uses public data from the FEC, and the code is all open source. I'd invite you to verify for yourself that I am not cherrypicking data.
- mike_d 2y ago
  Posting something to github does not shift the burden of proof for fantastic claims onto the community. You also completely failed to address my larger point, which is that the data or code is not flawed, your assumptions are.
  - molly0x57 2y ago
    "[She] keeps cherry picking until the data supports them" certainly sounds a lot like you saying the data and/or code is flawed. What "fantastic claim" am I making that you don't think I'm addressing?
nutshell89 2y ago
I kind of wish Molly White spent more time researching and disseminating information on CBDCs — the PACs to me are emergent behavior due to popularity and rise of crypto ETFs so there's not much of a story there. ETFs aren't really financial instruments that the mainstream public will likely interact with or directly invest in, but CBDCs will probably proliferate wildly throughout the global economy in a matter of years so it's a bit of a missed chance for the public to weigh in on them.

by mike_d 2y ago

sph 2y ago

Yes, this and her previous projects have started to look more of a crusade to me, than a critique of "cryptocurrency", whatever that is, bundling them all together rather than analysing the merits and faults of each. Mind you, given the deep bias HN has against cryptocurrencies of any shape or form, I feel here she has her ideal audience here and we're the ones swimming against the current.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
Where is the "crusade"? This just shows political donations. Is the FEC engaging in a "crusade" by publishing details on PACs? There are constantly HN commenters on a crusade to extol and defend the alleged virtues of various "crypto" projects. We could accuse these folks of having a "bias against government-backed currency". Perhaps HN has a bias _for_ true stories of fraud, corruption and crime rather than a bias _against_ all crypto projects.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  Perhaps. HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. Whenever a devastating hack occurs directly on an end user, its a discussion of the browser and tools that can be improved to thwart it. Crypto sector has many libraries that power it too with extremely active discussions in other tech forums, and thats totally missing from HN in favor of discussion of random mismanaged businesses and phishing attacks as representative of the entire concept of crypto. When that’s further from reality, as the tooling has improved a lot and is constantly evolving. There are many best practices that are actively discussed and worked on, elsewhere. While the crowd on HN peculiarly acts completely segregated from that with a blissful ignorance filled with glee over frauds in the crypto sector, an extremely strange and impossibly different standard then how everything else is discussed.
  - Zanfa 2y ago
    > HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. The major difference seems to be that there doesn’t seem to be anything in the entire crypto industry that isn’t fraud or crime. And a lot of vague promises that typically turn out to be just more fraud in a year or two. It’s not prejudice if it’s true.
    - yieldcrv 2y ago
      the libraries don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises the governance proposals don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises the software standards don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises same for nodes, consensus mechanisms, package management, type safety, languages, operator instructions, smart contract auditing space, financial auditing and transparency space, block and transaction indexing, legislation that leverages the technology to reduce redundancy, and the list goes on its an approach and what I would expect to see on HN more often regarding the crypto asset space
      - Zanfa 2y ago
        Almost every “Show HN” that’s about a library has someone ask what the library actually does and why is it useful. If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud, I can’t imagine why people aren’t more excited. I think vague promises is exactly how you could sum up most crypto-related libraries as well. There’s supposedly some useful usecase, but right now it only contributes to North Korean nuclear program.
        yieldcrv 2y ago
        so, your main supposition about crypto being all fraud is inaccurate, and the standards you present apply to fields you respect as well. for example, north korean expropriation and fraud is happening across the entire tech space, even a bunch of remote roles in the US are and were filled with north koreans, hence supporting the nuclear program [1] this is a common theme I’ve seen that reinforced my perspective: the criticism applies to things the critic respects and the critic saying it doesn't seem to know that, and they also don’t seem to even be aware of other benign things in the crypto space that are working fine and fit the social contract of all participants. I don't know if thats you, but it is applicable to the responses you chose so that observation, in combination with how so many intelligent researchers and programmers take a different approach ultimately towards improving the crypto space due to its malleability, keeps me interested and confused by the unsubstantive and reductive nature of HN consensus on this one topic https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/north-korea-it-workers-us-hiring https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/north-korea-it-workers-us-h...
- sph 2y ago
  Commenting sporadically on a forum in favour of cryptocurrencies is not being a crusader. On the other hand, building and paying for (in resources and time) two websites against crypto, buulding your entire social media persona around it and being recognizable by name for that effort, you will have to agree is a couple orders of magnitude more effort and "involvement" in a cause, compared to a disinterested anonymous coward like me.

acdha 2y ago

> She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the data supports them. That’s a big claim, but it’s presented without evidence. Do you have any examples? On that note: > I'm not sure the data supports crypto spending more than other industries in lobbying What data are you using to support this belief? Do you have additional data that she left out? That would be a good way to support the allegation of cherry-picking.

dvt 2y ago
> That’s a big claim, but it’s presented without evidence. Do you have any examples? What do you mean? Her entire persona and relevance revolves around being anti-crypto. Of course she's heavily biased; this isn't even a remotely controversial claim. > That would be a good way to support the allegation of cherry-picking. The real story here is how much power individuals have over our political landscape. George Soros, for example, has injected more than $125M into the midterm race in 2022[1]. To be clear, this is not a partisan issue; the Kochs raised over $70M last year[2]. If you want to be critical of super PACs, crypto spending is literally a drop in the bucket and completely missing the forest for the trees. There is a story here, but crypto ain't it. The more boring reality is that (like every nascent industry) crypto is going through some growing pains, so it makes sense a16z/Coinbase/etc. need to heavily lobby DC for favorable SEC rulings & legislation. This is, quite literally, business as usual. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2022/01/31/george-soros-pumped-125-million-into-his-super-pac-heres-whos-getting-the-money/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2022/01/31/georg... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/koch-network-trump-2024.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/koch-network-...
- noch 2y ago
  > Her entire persona and relevance revolves around being anti-crypto. Of course she's heavily biased; this isn't even a remotely controversial claim. As a generation, we really need to learn how to say: "I don't like this person and I believe they are biased and I hate their politics/tone/demeanour/ethos but that doesn't mean they are wrong about the facts." The ability to make use of information and ideas from people we disagree with, and even agree with the correct findings or conclusions of people we dislike, is a skill we urgently need to learn.

molly0x57 2y ago

The project uses public data from the FEC, and the code is all open source. I'd invite you to verify for yourself that I am not cherrypicking data.

mike_d 2y ago
Posting something to github does not shift the burden of proof for fantastic claims onto the community. You also completely failed to address my larger point, which is that the data or code is not flawed, your assumptions are.
- molly0x57 2y ago
  "[She] keeps cherry picking until the data supports them" certainly sounds a lot like you saying the data and/or code is flawed. What "fantastic claim" am I making that you don't think I'm addressing?

nutshell89 2y ago

I kind of wish Molly White spent more time researching and disseminating information on CBDCs — the PACs to me are emergent behavior due to popularity and rise of crypto ETFs so there's not much of a story there. ETFs aren't really financial instruments that the mainstream public will likely interact with or directly invest in, but CBDCs will probably proliferate wildly throughout the global economy in a matter of years so it's a bit of a missed chance for the public to weigh in on them.