[DonHopkins]

That NFT hype makes it look like yet another get-rich-quick pyramid scheme to me. Can you please clearly explain exactly what you're using NFTs for that you couldn't easily and less destructively implement some better way, without burning so much coal, causing cancer, and destroying the environment?

If your business can't grow and succeed without shilling NFTs, then you don't have anything of actual value. NFTs aren't magic pixie dust that make everyone rich. Unless you're running a money laundering operation.

[meowface]

It's odd to me that people focus so much on Ethereum NFTs' environmental impact. It's certainly not good, but it's currently nowhere close to Bitcoin's consumption, and within 1 - 3 years will likely be reduced to the cost of running something like the Tor network: https://ethereum.org/static/6b5219d652112f88202e9768e27f5db1.... (Especially since there's no specific marginal energy cost to minting or trading an NFT, so it can't be compared to something like choosing whether or not to drive a combustion engine car.)

To me the massive concern is all the financial fuckery. Anyone trying to shoehorn tokens (fungible, non-fungible, or semi-fungible) into something is almost always the reddest of flags.

For one, the proposed "token-gating" makes no sense. What's to prevent someone from buying one token and then sharing the private key with a million people? You can try to create a sophisticated token-sharing detection system with invasive fingerprinting and tracking and proxy/VPN detection and such, but it's endless whack-a-mole and it's barely feasible for the world's top companies, on top of being the antithesis of what cryptocurrency people stand for. This is why consensus algorithms like proof of work exist in the first place: you can never ensure one identifier (a private key, an IP, whatever) = one person. They have to sacrifice something fungible and scarce.

And "Your super-fans can collect NFTs of your published content." Just... what? Why? This strikes me as ridiculous and, frankly, cringe-inducing. It makes the whole thing feel gross.

[Ensorceled]

> It's odd to me that people focus so much on Ethereum NFTs' environmental impact. It's certainly not good, but it's currently nowhere close to Bitcoin's consumption ...

In a conversation about NFTs why is it odd to focus on NFT's environmental impact? Most people who hate NFTs also hate bitcoin, I assume they also hate racism, child labour, and COVID. Do you also find it odd that people don't mention their feelings about those issues when talking about NFTs?

[DonHopkins]

I totally agree with meowface that bigger problem with people shilling Bitcoin and ICOs and NFTs and other shams is that they're obviously snake oil salesmen pushing get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.

But when trying to deprogram cryptocurrency cult members, it's easier to focus of the more tangible irrefutable problems like the environmental and heath impacts, and ask them to justify why they don't give a shit about the environment and the health problems of burning coal.

Because simply explaining to them that they've been duped by scammers is a lot harder sell -- they've bought into the cult and are shilling it themselves, so they don't want to admit it.

The same way it's harder convince a Trump supporter that he's a con-man, and easier to get them to admit that they don't think injecting bleach and inserting an ultraviolet flashlight up their rectum is a good way of curing Covid-19.

If course there will always be a round of them parroting stock excuses like "Some day <insert name of scam here> will be environmentally friendly!!!" or "Only 79% of the energy is produced by burning coal!!!" or "Wasting as much non-renewable energy as possible will hasten the adoption of renewable power!!!" or "Proof of Stake!!!".

But those are all bullshit excuses that are easier to shoot down than convincing somebody they're not a member of a cult and they're not going to get rich quick if only they shill the cult's products a little harder.

(Because they're circular arguments, analogous to Trump's ongoing excuse that he was going to publish his wonderful health care plan any day now -- you just wait, and "Proof of Stake" is just Oligarchy on Steroids that certainly isn't going to help any starving artists, and any useful financial services end up being as centralized as Visa and PayPal anyway, but much less trustworthy and run by incompetent unregulated criminal scammers just like MtGox, with exactly the same exit strategy as Confido if they're not shut down by the Feds first).

https://www.mtgox.com/

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/confido-ico-exit-scam-founde...

[Ensorceled]

> I totally agree with meowface that bigger problem with people shilling Bitcoin and ICOs and NFTs and other shams is that they're obviously snake oil salesmen pushing get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.

Oh, yeah, they are definitely a ponzi scheme, MLM or, at best, Beanie Babies. At some point this will all come crashing down, either by regulation or lack of new patsies.

It's like the dotcom boom all over again; where co-workers, friends and family are all buying these crazy stocks at insane valuations.

I was just curious why the meowface was focusing on the "whataboutism" of Bitcoin vs. ETH.

[DonHopkins]

I was (first and primarily) focusing on the environmental impact for the reasons I explained above, but then (secondly) asking the NFT shills to explain exactly how NFTs solved any problems that couldn't be much more efficiently and less destructively solved, because I know they can't and won't answer. Their silence on the matter speaks volumes about their lack of integrity and competence.

Some people simply don't have working bullshit detectors, and those are the ones who need to be influenced emotionally instead of logically, because that's how they were influenced by scammers in the first place, and no amount of logic will change their minds.

When I wrote that, I hadn't even seen the ridiculously cringy part about "Your super-fans can collect NFTs of your published content" and the link to https://papyrusnft.io/ yet, but all I can say is "just wow".

You've REALLY got to be gullible to fall for that kind of unmitigated bullshit, but unfortunately a whole lot of people are. I mean, the background color and stock artwork and ad copy on papyrusnft.io is just mind-bogglingly tacky and ridiculous, but maybe it serves the same function as the frequent and obvious mis-spellings in Nigerian Prince scam emails.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-nigerian-scam-emails-are...

[meowface]

Sorry, maybe I worded my comment poorly. I'm not trying to say "why are you talking about Ethereum and not Bitcoin instead?", or something like that.

Here, it's a tiny bit like trying to link NFTs to racism because there's a certain subset of cryptocurrency enthusiasts who are Nazis. (And some do say this.) Not the best analogy, I know, but in this case Ethereum is commonly thought of as environmentally unfriendly basically due to guilt by association with Bitcoin.

Ethereum does have an excessive environmental impact, because proof of work is fundamentally environmentally unfriendly. But the point is it isn't a very big impact right now and probably won't ever be an impact because before it can reach that point there'll probably be a shift to an algorithm that reduces the energy cost to that of any other ordinary software. And even if it did pose such an impact right now, NFTs pose no direct marginal energy cost (though they do so indirectly by encouraging more use of the network, which raises the incentive to mine).

In my opinion, there are so many other good arguments against (most/nearly all) NFTs that when you pull this one out, it instantly causes the opposition to flag you as someone not worth listening to. Especially when it's couched in dramatic language, like that NFTs are "burning so much coal, causing cancer, and destroying the environment", as the previous commenter wrote.

[hiptobecubic]

"It's bad but it's fine because I'm sure that everyone will do something about it before it becomes a problem," isn't very satisfying.

[ahelwer]

Not an NFT guy but according to https://papyrusnft.io/ they're enabling non-Ethereum chains which will address the environmental concerns.

[meowface]

>https://papyrusnft.io

It's good they're trying to find less environmentally-costly alternatives, but the mere existence of this domain makes the whole enterprise feel much more sketchy and greasy to me, honestly. Not to mention the content on it.

[DonHopkins]

What makes it even sketchier and greasier is ahelwer's spurious claim that PapyrusNFT made any claims on that site that they're "enabling non-Ethereum chains which will address the environmental concerns".

And the bizarre, unfocused little Japanese company I found at the "Company" link at the bottom of the page doesn't inspire any confidence either.

Scammers assume that if they just toss out a URL and say it proves something, most people won't even bother to check, and just believe them. And unfortunately that trick usually works.

Even if the site actually did claim what ahelwer falsely claimed it claims, the claim that all the environmental problems will be solved "real soon now" is such a painfully tired cliché that shills and apologists make all the time, but never deliver on.

It worked for Trump shilling his "incredible" health care plan that he'd reveal "real soon now", so why not apply it to shilling NFTs to the same gullible suckers? Incredible, indeed.

If that's true, then why doesn't everybody just immediately stop minting NFTs and mining Proof of Work cryptocurrency and wasting so much energy and burning so much coal right now, and simply wait until the problem's solved, since the shills always claim that it will be solved "real soon now"?

Can't those money-laundering pump-and-dumping spoiled brats with $300,000 to burn wait another two weeks for the bragging rights to yet another computer generated monkey cartoon?

[DonHopkins]

Please provide links showing where exactly on https://papyrusnft.io/ it says anything at all about "enabling non-Ethereum chains" or "the environmental concerns".

I clicked on every link to see if there was anything about what you claim, and I can find absolutely no useful information about anything at all on that site, and certainly not the words you quoted.

I performed google searches for "site:papyrusnft.io ethereum" and "site:papyrusnft.io environmental" and that also turned up absolutely nothing (although the site is indexed by google).

I even used the tab key to enumerate through every link on the web site to make sure I was not missing any due to the manifestly horrendous web page design.

The ridiculous clip-art icons over the bullshitty captions "What you feel", "Your decision", "Words for posterity", "Future projections" aren't even links, they're just decorations, like lipstick on a pig.

And the only actual link with any more information that I found was to their twitter feed, which was mostly in Japanese, but made some typically scammy claims in English like:

https://twitter.com/PapyrusNFT

>You can also use Papyrus to make your words NFTs, and then sell those NFTs on Opensea.

>"I can't make art" "I'm not interested in art" so "I can't be an NFT creator.", Is that true? Why not write your thoughts on a blockchain and make it an NFT?

>NFT can make any digital data unique, and NFT art is only a small part of it.

Can anybody please explain exactly how NFT can make any digital data unique? What does that even mean?

There's also a link to some shady little Japanese "Lifestyle Change" / "Blockchain Technology" / "Creative Solution" / "System Development" / "Ethereum staking agency business" company called Moblo. Who are they, anyway, and what is their actual focus, credentials, reputation, and qualification to be in this business?

https://moblo.jp/company/

Those silly tweets, plus that shallow landing page of glossy hype devoid of meaningful content, not to mention that bizarrely unfocused and unqualified "Lifestyle Changing" Japanese company, all make it pretty obvious this is a scam that is targeting gullible suckers, and they have no idea what they're talking about.

Your unsubstantiated claim that PapyrusNFT is making an also unsubstantiated claim that "they're enabling non-Ethereum chains which will address the environmental concerns" sounds about as believable as Trump's repeatedly broken promises to roll out his wonderful health care plan any day now, which he never did.

So I'm simply asking you to prove what you claimed, and if you can't, then explain why you claimed it.

Why are you making false excuses for these scammers by quoting words that aren't even on the web page, if you're not an NFT guy? What kind of guy are you then?

[ahelwer]

Look on the bottom right of that webpage:

> Scheduled to launch Q1 2022: "You can choose a chain from multiple chains to write to"

I ain't reading the rest of your comment.

[DonHopkins]

That's certainly not what you claimed it said! You said, and I quote:

>"they're enabling non-Ethereum chains which will address the environmental concerns"

That's quite a leap from "You can choose a chain from multiple chains to write to" to "they're enabling non-Ethereum chains which will address the environmental concerns".

Name which chains they are they enabling, and tell us exactly how each of those chains "address the environmental concerns", and how long we have to wait until they do that, and also explain how you know that even though it doesn't say it on the web site.

I asked for specifics, not handwaving and optimistic guesses and links to totally unrelated web sites.

Are you affiliated with that https://papyrusnft.io/ web site you're shilling, or the Japanese company "Moblo", and is that how you get your insider information that they don't publicly reveal on their web site, or did you just make up the convenient details about "environmental concerns", and also fabricate the connection between papyrus.so and papyrusnft.io?

Either way, you're shilling if you're making up stories or refusing to reveal your affiliation.

So please explain the relationship between https://papyrusnft.io/ , which you were the first person in this discussion to shill, and https://papyrus.so/ , which is what this discussion is actually about.

There are no links or references from papyrus.so to papyrusnft.io, or the other way, so how do you know that they even have anything to do with each other? Why are you saying they're related and doing business together?

Did you really expect people not to check your claims?

And honestly, after reading the web page you linked to, and their tweets, how can you actually believe they're not scammers? Are you really that gullible?

I think you need to replace your bullshit detector if you can't see something as obvious as that, and if you think it's a good idea to shill https://papyrusnft.io/ by making up stories about how they're addressing the environmental issues that they don't even claim themselves.

[ahelwer]

Ethereum is the only major smart contract chain that uses proof of work. Any other chain would use proof of stake, which doesn't have the environmental concerns you laid out. If you're passionate enough to take the time to write giant posts on this topic maybe take the time to learn something about it.

I have no relation to either of those places and found that website via an internet search for the terms "papyrus NFT". Your tone is weird and erratic so this will be my last interaction with you on this thread.

[DonHopkins]

It's completely understandable why you don't want to continue the conversation or admit to having read something that refutes your false claims, since you posted weird erratic misinformation in the first place, and don't want to answer any questions clarifying why or correct your mistakes. Please don't shill and make up apologetic lies and lame excuses for sketchy scammers in the future, and try not to fall for such blatantly deceptive scams again, or "hodl" your breath until those scammers whose water you're carrying actually "address the environmental concerns".

But who knows, maybe Trump will finally roll our his "incredible" health care plan and build his wall, once he gets reinstated as President in two weeks!