[ruskerdax]

If I were a socialist who was politically opposed to the huge benefits of cryptocurrency gaining major adoption I would boil it down to "exploiting human greed" and pretend it's operating under the assumption that the energy expenditures are a "waste" and therefor detrimental to climate change.

If you can't understand the compound harm to the environment (for starters) of nations states existing and controlling currency, I feel bad for you. If you do understand it, you should know you're rightly fearful of this technology, because it's going to play a major factor in your future demise.

[kbenson]

> If you can't understand the compound harm to the environment (for starters) of nations states existing and controlling currency, I feel bad for you.

Show, don't tell. If you can't explain it adequately to an audience, then you don't know it well enough to to be stating it as fact.

[ruskerdax]

> Show, don't tell.

Sure. Should we start with the estimated 262 million counts of democide committed last century?

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Or perhaps you're one of those people who thinks mass murder of humanity is a good thing because it reduces the human impact on the environment?

> If you can't explain it adequately to an audience, then you don't know it well enough to to be stating it as fact.

Absolutely untrue. That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition, and that it hasn't been sufficiently biased against or indoctrinated against an opposing view. While I'm sure there is some correlation between familiarity with a given subject and one's ability to explain it, you would be making a gigantic leap in assuming this automatically means a given audience is going to adequately understand the argument.

That is also completely aside from the assumption that my comments were intended to make a compelling case on the matter outside of the person I was responding to. I'm not really convinced that wouldn't be a waste of time, but maybe I'll be surprised.

[titzer]

> Absolutely untrue. That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition

I downvoted this, but now I'm gonna reply to explain why. This is a veiled insult against your audience, and as such it's both a fallacy and a bad-faith argument. The rest of the sentence, too. Let's not do "I'm smarter than you all and you're all biased" here, please. It just makes the forum a shade uglier.

[ruskerdax]

I actually did not intend to specifically insult the audience in this case, but I can understand why it was interpreted that way. I'll make an effort to be more civil in my future replies.

[kbenson]

> That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition

Being able to explain a complex topic simply is the point. Knowing how to distill the concept to essential points is useful, and if you can't identify the essential points, you probably don't really understand it.

> and that it hasn't been sufficiently biased against or indoctrinated against an opposing view.

> you would be making a gigantic leap in assuming this automatically means a given audience is going to adequately understand the argument.

I didn't say convince, I said explain. Indoctrination is irrelevant. Assume your audience is willing to hear you out, as otherwise all you are doing is yelling at people rather than conversing with people, and that's not acting in good faith.

> the assumption that my comments were intended to make a compelling case on the matter outside of the person I was responding to.

Yes, the assumption is that you are trying to contribute with your comments, and not just tell someone they are wrong without explanation, as the site guidelines specifically disallow that.

> Or perhaps you're one of those people who thinks mass murder of humanity is a good thing because it reduces the human impact on the environment?

You seem to be working under the assumption I disagree with you. I don't recall doing anything other than asking you to explain your reasoning. Do you consider that an aggressive argument against your point?

[dang]

Can you please not do flamewars on HN? Such tedious tit-for-tat exchanges aren't of general interest, or even of individual interest once the heat dies down.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[kbenson]

I didn't consider what I was doing a flame war. I originally honestly asking for more information, and then considered it a conversation on the merits of explaining a topic to a general audience.

That genuinely interests me, which is why I've gotten into conversations on this topic a few times in the past. I understand that others may be uninterested in that or find it tedious, so I'll try to refrain in the future. My apologies.

[dang]

Thank you for the polite reply. I admit I didn't read it closely enough to suss out the subtleties. In our experience, when people starting arguing "I didn't say that, I said this" with each other, the conversation is close to informationless and tends only to produce more heat.

[ruskerdax]

Cool, you ignored half my comment to engage in dishonest bickering filled with more assumptions as to my motivations. Are you having fun?

[kbenson]

> you ignored half my comment

I originally ignored the portion that mistakenly assumed I had a position against your point that aggressively insinuated I believed mass murder was acceptable. I revised my comment right after posting it to append a clarification on that.

> to engage in dishonest bickering

Please do not accuse me of being dishonest without being sure backing up your words with some sort of reasoning. I'm not being dishonest. I think you are not engaging usefully, and attempted to rectify that by asking for more information, and then to explain my reasoning when it was called into question, exactly as I suggested you do originally.

> filled with more assumptions as to my motivations

I'm not sure I assumed a single thing about you. I couched all my statements generically on purpose.

I think you are stuck in a context where you are interpreting me as attacking you. if you truly think I'm being dishonest or attacking you, don't reply. If you think I'm wrong, explain how I'm wrong. If you have problems explaining why I'm wrong, perhaps reexamine the assertion that I am. I'm fully willing to entertain that I'm wrong, and admit it. It wouldn't be the first time I've done so.

[dang]

Can you please not do flamewars on HN? Incivility like this will get you banned here regardless of how provocative some other comment was.

Edit: I'm sorry to see that you've done this repeatedly before. If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here in the future, we'd appreciate it.

[ruskerdax]

You're right, I have clearly forgotten the spirit of the discussion here. I apologize for that.

[TeMPOraL]

We seem to have a difference in base assumptions. I'd like to preserve and further the technological civilization. You seem to want to shut it down.

> the compound harm to the environment (for starters) of nations states existing and controlling currency

Do you believe that nation states exist solely, or primarily, to control currency? Currency is the blood of the nation, yes, but nation states form organically, to further interests of groups of people. Whenever you have more than a dozen people in one place, you get hierarchical governance, and the more people you add, the more that hierarchy grows vertically to cope with the load. With millions of people, you arrive at some form of states; add couple wars into the mix, and you arrive at modern sovereign nation states.

Point being, if cryptocurrencies were to break states' control over money - and what I guess you hope for - destroy states entirely, after lots of blood unnecessarily shed, the states would be back in some form. It's doubtful though, that cryptocurrencies would survive the process. They need computing and Internet to work, and computers&Internet need stable global economy to exist. Break the economy, break the supply chains, and modern technology evaporates.

Along with 90% of urban population starving to death.

> you should know you're rightly fearful of this technology, because it's going to play a major factor in your future demise

Yes, I'm fearful, because this technology is tuned in with the markets just well enough that it may propagate, whether governments want it or not, and grow to the point of burning out most of our non-renewable energy sources, with little to show for it, before someone finally puts a stop to it.

--

I've painted a bleak worst-case scenario above, but I sincerely hope cryptocurrenicies as we know today will fizzle out and be remembered just as another scam, one with absurdly large ecological footprint. I'm not against distributed ledgers, distributed consensus, or even new designs for money. I'm just against stupidly inefficient solutions exacerbating the biggest problems humanity faces.

[darawk]

I agree with your assessments of governments, but your assessments of power issues are pretty misguided.

You seem to be arguing that demand for renewable power will...make there be less renewable power available? Which is not really how economics works. Creating lots of power demand isn't going to make us like, run out of sunlight. It's going to raise the price of power. It's going to compensate people for building more capacity. It's going to do all the things that we want.

In fact, by providing a constant demand for excess power generation which is currently hard to store, crypto-currencies can substantially improve the economic profile of building out lots of capacity that otherwise wouldn't make economic sense.

[ruskerdax]

> We seem to have a difference in base assumptions. I'd like to preserve and further the technological civilization. You seem to want to shut it down.

Not sure where you're getting that from. I do not want to "shut it down," quite the opposite.

> Do you believe that nation states exist solely, or primarily, to control currency?

No, but control of currency is a major factor in their sustained existence.

> Currency is the blood of the nation, yes, but nation states form organically, to further interests of groups of people. Whenever you have more than a dozen people in one place, you get hierarchical governance, and the more people you add, the more that hierarchy grows vertically to cope with the load.

Nation states are a symptom of obsolete social organization technology. They result in massive human suffering and hampering of technological growth. Their formation, whether "organically" or not, is irrelevant.

> With millions of people, you arrive at some form of states;

States neither require millions of people, nor are they a necessary result of millions of people existing.

> add couple wars into the mix, and you arrive at modern sovereign nation states.

Is this intended as an indictment?

> Point being, if cryptocurrencies were to break states' control over money - and what I guess you hope for

Yes.

> after lots of blood unnecessarily shed

"Unnecessarily" is a large assumption. And ideally it would happen with as little violence as possible, preferably none. When contrasted with the scale of the crimes of nation states, however, it seems difficult to make a case for their continued existence, even with massive short term casualty.

> the states would be back in some form.

What are you basing this assumption on? I think there is a strong case that social organizing technology is likely to result in nation states being made obsolete over time. The contradicting viewpoint is not substantiated by much, I suspect.

> It's doubtful though, that cryptocurrencies would survive the process. They need computing and Internet to work, and computers&Internet need stable global economy to exist. Break the economy, break the supply chains, and modern technology evaporates.

Computing and networking are not dependent on the existence of nation states. A stable global economy is especially not dependent on them -- in fact, nation states are quite probably the largest cause of global instability, economically and otherwise. Preferably, a transition away from nation states happens using technology itself. Cryptocurrency is likely to play a major role in this.

> Along with 90% of urban population starving to death.

A sudden overnight collapse of nation states might very well lead to large deaths, although probably not at this scale. This is not likely to happen, and certainly not likely to happen as a result of mass cryptocurrency adoption.

> Yes, I'm fearful, because this technology is tuned in with the markets just well enough that it may propagate

I'm glad you've admitted your remarks about cryptocurrency being wasteful and harmful to the environment are motivated by trying to suppress its existence.

> whether governments want it or not

As opposed to free people...

> and grow to the point of burning out most of our non-renewable energy sources

Ridiculous.

> with little to show for it, before someone finally puts a stop to it

Good luck.

> I've painted a bleak worst-case scenario above

You've spread fear-based propaganda based on an issue you clearly have made a lot of seemingly fear-based (as opposed to reasoned) assumptions about.

> I sincerely hope cryptocurrenicies as we know today will fizzle out and be remembered just as another scam

You fear the change that this technology brings, so you hope it is suppressed and remembered for being something you (possibly) understand it is not?

> I'm not against distributed ledgers, distributed consensus, or even new designs for money.

These are the potential benefits of cryptocurrency.

> I'm just against stupidly inefficient solutions exacerbating the biggest problems humanity faces.

Even a grossly less efficient method for mining cryptocurrency would be preferable to the problems caused by the continued existence of nation states, and probably by their control of currency alone, not even factoring in all of their other crimes.

The biggest problem humanity faces is the existence of nation states, and the resulting democide and destruction, as well as potential existential threats of nuclear annihilation or other destruction. In the pursuit of perpetuating themselves, nation states are also likely major limiting factors in technological advance, which is the single greatest factor in preventing human suffering.