• overflow
    link
    02 years ago

    some people like crypto to make big bucks

    some people like crypto because cool cryptography and decentralised solutions are interesting to figure out because they’re naturally inefficient

    some people like crypto because it’s really cheap to send money back home to Nigeria

    some people like crypto because government blocked them from the formal banking system

    some people think we will all use crypto

    some people think we won’t use all crypto but view it as another option to have if hyperinflation happens

    • @rysiek@szmer.info
      link
      fedilink
      1
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      And yet somehow they all refuse to deal with the scammers in their midst, and many seem to react to any suggestion that this might be a problem with denialism, name-calling, and whataboutism.

      • overflow
        link
        0
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        how can I and other ethical people possibly deal with all the scammers in the space? can you stop all criminals from using your national currency to do illegal acts?

        • @rysiek@szmer.info
          link
          fedilink
          12 years ago

          I can recognize this is a serious problem. I can push politicians to help regulate it. I can (and I have) work with NGOs and journalists to reveal corrupt banksters. I can then demand them being punished.

          Or, I could call people names and try to change the subject to problems in some other kind of system.

          One of these is ethical. The other is called “being an enabler”.

          • @rysiek@szmer.info
            link
            fedilink
            12 years ago

            Also, let’s make two more things clear:

            1. Technology is neither good nor bad, but it is also not neutral.
            2. The purpose of a system is what it does.

            How a piece of technology is designed influences what it’s good for. A butter knife and a butcher’s knife are different for a reason, and one of them is really hard to use to kill someone.

            And if a system keeps doing a thing, even if we close our eyes and insist it’s not supposed to, if for long enough this is not getting fixed, clearly it’s part of the system’s purpose.

            The whole crypto sphere has been designed very clearly with libertarian-right ideas at the base. So it perpetuates libertarian-right power structures (“rich get richer”, etc). This is not going to lead to any more “freedom” in the world, because it never meant to. It meant to allow some select lucky few get stupid rich and powerful without going through the current structures of power.

            At best, it’s a shake-up on top, not a revolution of the people. It’s sad so many idealistic people got caught in it.

            • overflow
              link
              0
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              how can something can be neither good or bad but not neutral.All knives can be used to harm someone. Majority of the rich people in the world have gotten rich because of their closeness to the government whether the US or Cuba, it’s how close you are the government that has made majority of the world’s rich where they are today and not any true entrepreneurial skill/their own private property.

                • overflow
                  link
                  0
                  edit-2
                  2 years ago

                  maybe one day I will, you should read about all anarchist societies that have ever existed/that still exist and all works published by authors who predicted the end of capitalism

                  • @rysiek@szmer.info
                    link
                    fedilink
                    22 years ago

                    Yeah, like Graeber. “Debt: First 5000 Years” is very much on-topic here. He goes deep into how pre-market societies worked and how capitalism came to be (and tears apart the founding myths of economy in the process). Fascinating read.

                    Problem is, cryptocurrencies are intrinsically capitalist. They support and perpetuate capitalist power structures. Consider this:

                    Our analysis reports that, despite the heavy emphasis on decentralization in cryptocurrencies, the wealth distribution remains in-line with the real-world economies, with the exception of Dash. We also report that 3 of the observed cryptocurrencies (Dogecoin, ZCash, and Ethereum Classic) violate the honest majority assumption with less than 100 participants controlling over 51% wealth in the ecosystem, potentially indicating a security threat. This suggests that the free-market fundamentalism doctrine may be inadequate in countering wealth inequality within a crypto-economic context: Algorithmically driven free-market implementation of these cryptocurrencies may eventually lead to wealth inequality similar to those observed in real-world economies.

          • overflow
            link
            02 years ago

            The banking system is fully regulated as you’ve pointed out but it’s full to the brim with criminals many of them with the formal blessing of the state so regulation wouldn’t solve anything. No one can force people to do the right thing over and over we tell newcomers to run your node, do due diligence on development teams, read the terms and conditions of the dapps you use, don’t store your keys on exchanges/in the cloud etc and people don’t listen just like how governments have warned people for centuries about drugs and people have ruined themselves and their families.

            • @rysiek@szmer.info
              link
              fedilink
              12 years ago

              You asked what can one do, I answered. I’ve been doing my part about the financial sector. Perhaps it’s time you do yours about the cryptoscams, instead of insisting nothing can be done.

              • overflow
                link
                02 years ago

                I can’t force developers to stop working on bad projects I can only withhold funding from them and encourage others to do the same it’s not my responsibility to ensure that no scams exist because that would be impossible I can only guide people to the information and the decision to use/not to use is up to them

                  • overflow
                    link
                    02 years ago

                    fuck off it with your claims about whataboutism i just said I don’t use/nor provide support to any of the applications/blockchains mentioned just like the traditional finance world there are risks are involved and it is your responsibility to avoid scams and the best sources of information on scams what a joke there are so many well written blogs, academic papers and podcasts etc that go into detail all about what’s wrong in the space from people who are actually knowledgeable about distributed systems and economics some of what is even there aren’t scams but just news about people not/accepting crypto, bug releases and user stupidity