[automatic6131]

"Proof of Space-time"

Oooh, what a fancy, high-falutin word for... writing bingo tickets to your SSD. Could more accurately be called "proof of bingo card", and then it doesn't infringe on actually interesting concepts, like relativistic physics.

I remember when the new of Chia caused SSD prices to spike around the time I was buying, in the speculative fever for free money. At least it crashed, causing the Chia miners to become irrelevant in the market. Too late for me, sadly, I was stuck paying 400% of current market prices.

Fuck Chia, fuck crypto nonsense.

[seanw444]

I've always found it odd that people have such guttural reactions to cryptocurrency. It's a technology. Calm down. It's become like politics now. "Fuck Republicans, fuck conservative nonsense." is what I'd expect to hear, not getting pissed over an algorithm. Kinda brings me comedic relief.

[NikolaNovak]

But politics impact me and my family and the world we live in.

And some technologies do too!

So it's natural and probably good to have thoughts and perspectives and positions on politics and technologies that impact me and my family and the world we live in (rather than be apathetic).

Should we avoid polarization, and arguing by memes, absolutely!

But like perpetual motion machine and eugenics and racism and trickle down economy, there are things in life that a) We've discussed and read about sufficiently and b) We believe they impact us negatively enough that we have a fairly established position on; something would have to change quite radically to shift it.

For cryptocurrency, I find it either naive or disingenuous to call it "just a technology" or "an algorithm". Tables and B-trees and markov's chains and blockchain may be technologies. Cryptocurrencies are an implementation and usage and ideology, not an "algorithm". It's closer to a cult religion, from where I'm sitting, and I'm terrified that zealots will push it far enough that its current (flawed! Awful! Insane!) implementations become the norm and "too big to fail".

(Snarky add-on: And even for technologies... since when did any of us not have guttural reactions and strong opinions and religious wars on technologies? JavaScript, Oracle, Microsoft, Perl, Intel vs AMD, Linux vs Windows for Apple, Kubernettes, etc etc etc... guttural reactions and strong opinions are the norm, and those are not policy-changing, environment-draining, scam-filled financial schemes :)

FWIW :)

[soulofmischief]

In any case, I think we can all agree that one shouldn't compare cryptocurrency to a perpetual motion machine. It's a real technology, with real utility for the people whose problems it solves.

[NikolaNovak]

Sure, and it's also different than racism, which is a prejudice toward other human beings based on criteria they have no control over.

The list was heterogeneous analogies to illustrate a point, not equivalences. And that point was: there are concepts which are not obscure and no longer new and people have had some experience with, and its ok to have a negative reaction about them until and unless some pretty darn novel new evidence or argument comes up (yet there exists a set of people who still buy into it and don't understand the negativity). Like, I have a friend who's into crypto currency and I know a guy who's into racism and I have an uncle who's working on perpetual working machine... and they'll all get a "negative gutural reaction" from me.

[soulofmischief]

Okay, but the fundamental difference is that cryptocurrency works as intended and provides value for an entire economy of people even during this experimental phase where we are still working things out.

[noduerme]

Hear, hear! And while we're on the subject, fuck Markov chains. It's abundantly clear that cause and effect are at the root of all our problems.

[standardly]

baller comment. thank you

[mschuster91]

> I've always found it odd that people have such guttural reactions to cryptocurrency. It's a technology. Calm down.

Because the resource waste and scalping had real, measurable impact to a lot of completely unrelated people's life.

[squarefoot]

> I've always found it odd that people have such guttural reactions to cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency has been used for a huge number of scams, and generally to allow criminals launder their money and do more easily their job. All of this, and more, at a huge environmental expense. Technically the concept is great, but the implementation and use has been mostly harmful so far.

[WarOnPrivacy]

You could say much of the same about email. Especially given that more spam is sent than legit.

ref: https://dataprot.net/statistics/spam-statistics/

[soulofmischief]

It's only fair to then reflect on the almighty dollar and the scams, criminal deeds and atrocities which it has also enabled.

If you still find utility in the dollar bill after such reflection, then the argument doesn't hold up to cryptocurrency.

[daemoens]

The difference is that crypto has only had a negative impact on my life. It's more of a mixed bag with the dollar.

[soulofmischief]

What is the negative impact?

[IOT_Apprentice]

Given the billions of dollars stolen by crypto creators, supposed trusted and secure “by blockchain”. It has become a sector full of scammers, self promotion and fraud. It is Bernie Madoff in digital form.

[loeg]

The technology of cryptocurrencies is incredibly boring; the scam and political aspects are simply more salient.

[PurpleRamen]

How is that odd? Technology can be bad, and most cryptocurrency is really bad on purpose. Also, people are more reacting to the abusive usage of this technology, and the mindset of people in that space, not so much to the technology itself.

[IntelMiner]

Except much like technology or politics it had real, measurable impacts on millions of people's lives, and not for the better

Hell the damage it's done to the planet alone should give most people pause

[kobalsky]

You will find that kind of response here due to the demographic. I know it's not everyone, but most people here are well off, educated and highly employable. The system works for them... and that's the kind people who can't easily see or benefit from what crypto brings to the table.

[NikolaNovak]

Is the argument here that poor uneducated unemployed people in developing countries are the ones profiting from Crypto? As, say, percentage of turnover or revenue?

[kobalsky]

> poor uneducated unemployed people in developing countries

I don't think poor uneducated unmployed people in developing countries have money to worry about.

> are the ones profiting from Crypto?

Profit is the wrong word.

In my country people are not looking for profit when they buy dollars. When even the official inflation numbers are above 120%, they are escaping state sponsored pillage.

Naturally it's illegal to buy dollars here, so the only way to do this is cash. Everyone who can save a penny will try to buy dollars, so by the strict definition, the country is pretty much filled with criminals.

Since having basic banking is something everyone wants, crypto becomes an attractive alternative for those who can sort out the technical barriers of entry.

[automatic6131]

Being on the other side of crypto's externalities (even if just for a hundred bucks or so) entitles me to this "guttural" reaction.

[grotorea]

Would you be happier if people were having their guttural reactions to the people involved in creating or using cryptocurrency instead of the technology itself? Would it make a difference?

[seanw444]

Yes. Be mad at the people using it to scam people. Not everyone is.

[grotorea]

Cryptocurrency has a lot more negatives than just scams. This thread started because of it increasing prices for drives. Do you think whoever created Chia, decided to attempt to profit by mining it, or attempted to profit by speculating on it is not responsible for those consequences?

[NegativeK]

Being mad at the creators of the tech isn't new to cryptocurrency, though.

Just as it's frustrating to have the tech dismissed as universally evil, it's also frustrating to see the technologists continue to create systems that fail to address the criminality and ecological concerns.

[malermeister]

Cryptocurrency is a political project, designed to take power from governments and give it to markets.

[flangola7]

Crypto has earned those reactions. I hope US regulators gut it.

[mouzogu]

> It's a technology.

cryptocurrency is hated because it turns every action into a transaction.

a system with mistrust as its core principle. where the enablement of scamming masquerades as freedom.

basically thousands of incompatible pay-to-play messaging protocols all imbued with some pretty dark zero-sum incentives and fancy jargon

[chrisco255]

> basically a technology for transferring and swapping tokens whose value is based on speculation.

So it's a market. Like double entry bookkeeping. Are you similarly triggered by NASDAQ or Quickbooks or point of sale systems that use Postgres instead of a blockchain?

> its basically a pay-to-play messaging protocol with fancy jargon.

It's a fee based messaging protocol with a demand based pricing mechanic for limited block space. All messaging protocols are pay-to-play. Someone is paying for it and whatever infrastructure it runs on, even if it's free for you (via ads, spyware, etc). Only difference with a blockchain is that the infrastructure costs and fees are transparent, and it avoids dependency on a central actor.

[mouzogu]

i'm not saying there's no merit in it.

just pointing out why I think people hate it and i think there are some valid reasons.