[KirinDave]

It's also surrounded by a ton of cargo cultism, poorly considered engineering, people who don't understand the math but claim to be gurus, and strange parasitic political views.

It's a frustrating community to engage with because it has redefined a lot of longstanding terms to (in my opinion) make itself look better and smarter. It also is a constant roiling tempest of non-self-reliant-but-fantastically-dedicated-to-anarcho-capitalists-type folks, which can be terribly tedious to deal with.

For example, ask a btc engineer if they have byzantine fault tolerance. Then ask anyone else. Ask them if they have eventual consistency. Then ask anyone else.

[stcredzero]

It's also surrounded by a ton of cargo cultism, poorly considered engineering, people who don't understand the math but claim to be gurus, and strange parasitic political views.

So it's just your typical programming sub-field? (Alan Kay would say: "Field.")

[KirinDave]

Pessimistically yes, but in my opinion its problems are magnified.

In part because bitcoin is a technology that so many people ascribe political superpowers to. This brings in a lot of people that normally don't push deeply into a high-complexity tech field.

[stcredzero]

Some would say that the "wisdom of the crowd" and startups are things that so many people ascribed special superpowers to, it brought in a lot of people that normally wouldn't push deeply into a high-complexity tech field.

[KirinDave]

That's cool, but how is it relevant?

[stcredzero]

It's relevant, in that the HN crowd should be reminded to be self skeptical about their own groupthink. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here.)