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by mattdesl 1609 days ago
it goes both ways – "I used to be religious, now I am an atheist"

(I was also against crypto/blockchains when I first learned about them last year)

2 comments

It really doesn't go both ways.

It's "I didn't find any evidence for God, so I stopped believing." vs "I believe God is real but I can't prove it".

When somebody is telling me they think God is real, they're trying to sell me something, or they think it's important to tell me.

When I tell people I'm an atheist, I probably didn't want to have to tell anyone, and I genuinely don't care what you believe unless you're using it to hurt others.

it’s all relative, depends on your vantage point.

just look at the OP thread that led to these discussions: the author is vocally decrying blockchains. if you view anti-crypto as the atheists in this analogy then they sure do make a lot of noise on HN (these kinds of posts routinely make the front page).

> they sure do make a lot of noise

What, you mean like randomly, unprompted? For no reason? What are they trying to sell you?

basically: adherence to centralized systems of value transfer, rejection of decentralized alternatives.
> rejection of decentralized alternatives.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Show me a "decentralized alternative" that doesn't a) reek to high heaven of Ponzi scheme evangelism or b) burns resources like there's no tomorrow, and I'll be all ears.

But that's not what's being touted here. The current Crypto-"currency" fandango has quite enough downsides as is; notice that it's usually its proponents who claim that any arguments against it are about its "decentralized alternative"-ness.

there are many non-PoW chains and applications built on top of them that meet your criteria, and are already benefiting from the decentralization of these networks. I wrote about one case here:

https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/hicetnunc-and-the-merits-of-...

As usual, truth is somewhere in the middle.
Quite often, it isn't.