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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

Programmable money is just not that interesting, despite that you think it should be. That's before accounting for the loud portion crowd that hangs around the space, that over hype and are annoying.

There are more interesting and world benefiting things to work on. Less about hate, more about opportunity cost. Everyone who pitches me on working in crypto talks about how rich you'll get. Is that a major selling point in any other job interview? Does it seem off when that is the main selling point for working in a field?

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"In my opinion" and you seem jaded. I keep a more open mind to things, especially when people are so against them.

It sounds like you should talk to better people cause I don't think I've ever encountered someone pitching me like that and I've been deep into this business for many years now.

I hold crypto, it's why I don't work full time.

I've interviewed with crypto and worked in the space.

Not jaded, disappointed in how things have progressed. It was better in the beginning. To jump to that conclusion just shows you are part of the attitude problem in the crypto space

> There are more interesting and world benefiting things to work on.

Like providing people across the world with access to a financial system thet can't be denied from?

> Less about hate, more about opportunity cost.

As in you want to know the opportunity cost of not being involved in blockchain/crypto?

> Does it seem off when that is the main selling point for working in a field?

It's only the main selling point for those that aren't tech savvy enough to understand the rest, and I think that's fine. It being a new and growing sector that's quickly appreciating and making people money doesn't take away from what's creating that value and all the innovation happening.

With the birth of the internet people were excited about all the information they were able to access. With the birth of programmable money it makes sense that the same theme would follow with money.

Like developing AI for hospitals that is saving lives. Like working on an interesting language like Cuelang.

The selling point is made by every tech recruiter I have spoken with who is trying to get me to work for them.

Blockchain is incremental tech, not world changing. The same power structures remain and shall. You Gail to understand that social structures are more important than tech

Blockchain enables new social structures to be formed via DAOs.

No, they won't, our existing patterns will be mapped onto them. These structures exist already and the variations DAOs espouse are less information and resource efficient. The tech will not change this, there are no new structures.

Also, you can have a DAO without a blockchain. But when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

> Like providing people across the world with access to a financial system thet can't be denied from?

And what a lot of people seem to realize is that there are reasons for this, the controls exist for a reason. Allowing everyone access is not necessarily a good thing across the board. That realization will at some point be forced though, which leads into regulation in some form, which will takes us full circle again...

> Allowing everyone access is not necessarily a good thing across the board.

Why not? Spare us the hard realization and explain to us why it is a good idea to deny access to complex financial arrangements to people.

And let's not get moralistic about it. I didn't ask "why should Mitumba in Nairobi be denied access to lending?" because I don't want to be moralistic, so I expect a response aside from "do you want to enable Osama Bin Laden to launder money?" We all know the obvious examples to support both arguments, so let's stick to more run of the mill, less extreme examples. Why should the average Joe be artificially restricted from access to financial services of his choosing?

> Is that a major selling point in any other job interview?

Isn't that the main selling point in any job interview?

I'm not arguing whether programmable money is interesting or not, but this is a space unfortunately that talks about doing interesting things and then goes to work for Facebook. The vast majority of us here are working on significantly less interesting things. Software development and programming is a world full of hype and "change the world" rhetoric and people doing things for the money. Why does cryptocurrency get an outsized amount of criticism for being a part of it?

Because it is where all the Snake Oil Salesmen are currently hanging out. The industry which dominates their employment usually gets the bad rap.

There is certainly a difference between offering salary and literally telling someone that they will get rich working for you. I've only encountered the latter while talking with the crypto crowd. The first and primary talking point is always about how much money you will make. The change the world attitude has waned as the realization has set in that there are many issues when bridging with meat space and all that is really left is finance applications.

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