[baby]

I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world.

If you don't believe such projects should exist, you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction.

I will write more about the things I work on and why I think these are good things on my blog www.cryptologie.net

Hope we can have some civilized discussions :)

[snarf21]

It could be but it is not and won't be. Net positive would require actual decentralization and no PoS (rich get richer). There are other ways to solve consensus and I don't mean PoW. Net positive would be to not require AML or KYC. Net positive would be no transaction fees. The foundation members will still profit on the float on fiat. Also, this project already exists. Isn't this the whole reason Ripple was created? Why not adopt Ripple as the crypto? Oh, because it is all about control.

How is FB printing fake digital dollars any better than the US government printing fake digital dollars? Except this way, everyone gets to rent seek and take from the people they purport to want to help. Rent seeking less than Western Union doesn't count. How about a project that is actually about helping the unbanked and underrepresented without exploiting them? I'll believe that anyone on this project actually thinks it is net positive for the world when they donate their salary and RSU to a non-profit that is actually helping people.

[_bxg1]

> you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction.

Sorry, what? What gives a random person a reason to think you're someone who will "influence them in the right direction"?

[literallycancer]

Probably because he's at least willing to have a discussion about it? Instead of going "fuck you, you are just jealous of my lambo collection"?

[_bxg1]

Okay, but he's also clearly absorbed Zuckerberg's savior complex. Politeness may help a conversation but it doesn't qualify him to make world-shaking ethical decisions.

[umadon]

"I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world."

Well, you're wrong. You believe this because you're getting paid a lot of money to.

[twic]

A bit of cyberstalking suggests that the commenter here has a background in crypto stuff, so i suspect that the belief predates the being paid a lot of money.

A lot of people genuinely believe that crypto bobbins is inherently positive, and might well believe that crypto bobbins with a big serious alliance backing it is more likely to succeed, and so even more positive.

And, if projects like this are going to happen, i would certianly rather that they had optimistic true believers involved!

[ficklepickle]

The optimistic true believers are being exploited by dishonest business folks above them in the org chart.

They have flexible morals, they think honesty===naivety and they will tell the optimistic believer whatever he/she needs to hear in order to do what they want.

This is just another step towards corporate dystopia. How big of a step remains to be seen.

[fsociety]

It's not that these projects shouldn't exist, it is that THIS project shouldn't exist. Facebook and co have already proved they can damage society in devastating ways - continuing on this line of thought with currency and expecting it to go any other way is naive thinking. I say this as someone who would happily work at FB (just not on this).

[pier25]

> FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world.

I'm sure most Facebook employees have a similar opinion on their jobs.

[lostsock]

Ignore all the haters, you're building something cool that has the power to transform peoples lives. The fact that you're even thinking about your impact on the world puts you above what most people would do. Keep up the good work.

[kadendogthing]

I largely agree with the OP. I think these technologies can only be viewed in an optimistic way through a techno-libertarian lens; a perspective I don't think has any practical grounding in reality at best and at worst actively ignores why current systems exist (throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak). And with that lens, I think it's foolish it believe that an engineer will actually be able to steer this machine once it's out in the wild. Systems without power structures still have power structures, they just not may be immediately obvious.

But I do appreciate your constructive attitude towards his comments and I'll be checking your blog a good bit to inform myself as best as I can going forward :). I would ask that you have some kind of "apologetic"/philosophical tag on the type of posts that people like me can filter for so we can read up on that kind of perspective.

I think these systems deserve more social/civic conversation and less technical ones. The tech is cool, but these technologies have the potential to have severe civic ramifications. These technologies are largely out pacing our national and global conversations around how we should use them, their pro's and con's, and the systems they're designed to replace/circumvent... and it's not a good thing.

Thanks for the link!

[zaro]

> I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world.

Everybody does so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxUgei-WKfY

[pastor_elm]

> they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction.

what influence do you have? Can you tell Zuck not to steal my personal info?

Also, how much of your salary is getting paid out in Zuck Bucks? Or are you going to wait until some third world citizens with no other options test out the utility of this before you dip your toe in?

[anoncake]

> If you don't believe such projects should exist, you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction.

Unless you sabotaged the project, no. It would be a better thing if people like you refused to work for Facebook so it would have to hire someone less competent or at least someone more expensive,