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Genuinely wondering, why are so many people on HN allergic to any mention of decentralized solutions? It was precisely the opposite in 2014. Now, anything that

by EGreg 2y ago

Genuinely wondering, why are so many people on HN allergic to any mention of decentralized solutions? It was precisely the opposite in 2014. Now, anything that smells of BFT consensus, open decentralized protocols, smart contracts, distributed computing, gets lumped with “Web3” and downvoted to oblivion. I was surprised Freenet got through the other day without being associated with it, despite having WASM smart contracts and all of it. Shouldn’t “hackers” welcome building new, disruptive things, especially if they are open source and disrupt entrenched centralized solutions of the entseeking “establishment” cartels? I feel like an old grandpa on HN today, still embracing the “old” “Hacker Ethos” that was being promoted by YC when HN was in its early days. Has hacker ethos really today shifted to unironically supporting closed, centralized solutions, and attacking most disruptive technology by deriding it, downvoting people who speak about it in any terms other than dismissive, and trying to make sure it doesn’t take off? It feels a bit like the story of the political left and liberalism — once upon a time the goal of liberals was to make race a non-issue, for instance, but now that same attitude is considered racist by many on the left. Once hackers were anti-establishment in an “information wants to be free” way. To liberate “systems” from “the man” and bust them open. I remember it. It was still the case a mere 10-15 years ago. On today’s “Hacker” News, if you’d look across a large swath of reactions to projects which aim to do just that, you’d never know it…

tialaramex 2y ago
Where are you seeing a "decentralized solution"?
- EGreg 2y ago
  “Communities getting together and making their own broadband”? Big Telco Cartels using Big Government to shut it down? Why is this bad: https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Oh! Yes, “Communities getting together and making their own broadband” does sound like a decentralized approach and I agree that it's worth doing and certainly shouldn't be outlawed. I didn't see allergic reactions to that - but maybe I didn't look enough yet. This sub-thread seems to be about using StarLink, which I don't see as any sort of "decentralized" given it is literally global and in effect controlled by one billionaire so hence my question.
- iainnash 2y ago
  another decentralizedish community solution in nyc is https://nycmesh.net/ https://nycmesh.net/ which I used for years and volunteered on an install. biggest issue with nyc and why I can't use it anymore is you need line of sight to a hub node.
badgersnake 2y ago
Everything with a blockchain turns into a pump and dump grift. The only exception is things that started out as a pump and dump grift.
- EGreg 2y ago
  Everything is quite a claim. Can you prove that? Is that a reasonable thing to ask, or are we supposed to simply nod along and say “yes, your dogma is correct in 100% of cases”? For example tell us how these are a grift: FileCoin. UniSwap. Aave. DID and Sidetree protocol (used by bluesky sky). And decentralized systems go way past blockchains. Email. Heck even the Web itself. If anything I’d say they tend to centralize because of the “grift” which is capturing open protocols and doing rent extraction (eg GMail) or surveillance capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism That centralization and control over millioms and billions of people is worse than a grift. Why can’t we talk about disrupting THAT?
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    I dunno, blockchains have been around for over a decade or more, and the stuff you listed might be cool. I don't know, because blockchain itself is such a toxic brand that I automatically disregard anyone and anything related to it. It's like there's a swimming pool full of sewage, and sure there might be a new PS5 Pro floating in there, but I'm sure as hell not wading in to find out.

by EGreg 2y ago

tialaramex 2y ago

Where are you seeing a "decentralized solution"?

EGreg 2y ago
“Communities getting together and making their own broadband”? Big Telco Cartels using Big Government to shut it down? Why is this bad: https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Oh! Yes, “Communities getting together and making their own broadband” does sound like a decentralized approach and I agree that it's worth doing and certainly shouldn't be outlawed. I didn't see allergic reactions to that - but maybe I didn't look enough yet. This sub-thread seems to be about using StarLink, which I don't see as any sort of "decentralized" given it is literally global and in effect controlled by one billionaire so hence my question.
iainnash 2y ago
another decentralizedish community solution in nyc is https://nycmesh.net/ https://nycmesh.net/ which I used for years and volunteered on an install. biggest issue with nyc and why I can't use it anymore is you need line of sight to a hub node.

badgersnake 2y ago

Everything with a blockchain turns into a pump and dump grift. The only exception is things that started out as a pump and dump grift.

EGreg 2y ago
Everything is quite a claim. Can you prove that? Is that a reasonable thing to ask, or are we supposed to simply nod along and say “yes, your dogma is correct in 100% of cases”? For example tell us how these are a grift: FileCoin. UniSwap. Aave. DID and Sidetree protocol (used by bluesky sky). And decentralized systems go way past blockchains. Email. Heck even the Web itself. If anything I’d say they tend to centralize because of the “grift” which is capturing open protocols and doing rent extraction (eg GMail) or surveillance capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism That centralization and control over millioms and billions of people is worse than a grift. Why can’t we talk about disrupting THAT?
- mullingitover 2y ago
  I dunno, blockchains have been around for over a decade or more, and the stuff you listed might be cool. I don't know, because blockchain itself is such a toxic brand that I automatically disregard anyone and anything related to it. It's like there's a swimming pool full of sewage, and sure there might be a new PS5 Pro floating in there, but I'm sure as hell not wading in to find out.