Hacker News Reader

Comment by yrral | Hacker News Reader

What are the goals behind these people who spend time making sites and long blogposts about the failings of blockchains/web3, etc?

In real life, if I talk to people about crypto they are curious and open to learning about it and most just don't have the time to learn about it.

However, when I go online and see a post about NFTs or crypto, there somehow is always tremendous backlash, generally by people not involved in the space. I'm curious what about this space brings out the critics moreso than other hot-button issues. Especially since crypto adoption doesn't really impact these people's lives the way other issues such as abortion, vaccine/mask mandates, or drug policy does.

View on HN

When people think something is bad and keep encountering other people saying it is good, they respond. There's no reason why anyone should get "involved in the space" before expressing their opinion.

> There's no reason why anyone should get "involved in the space" before expressing their opinion.

I think this really depends on what you mean by involved in the space. Far too often, someone will start commenting on something based on nothing other than a 2nd hand understanding of the thing, and that commentary is often misleading or naive (or both) as a result.

I’d argue that expressing opinions prematurely is one of the fundamental problems with society today, and one that is amplified by tech.

And even thinking about this in terms of “good” and “bad” seems problematic, when it’s not inherently either, much like the majority of modern technology.

I’m not arguing against the creation of “here are some bad things about x” posts, but there is a subcategory that is not useful.

To add a data point to maybe explain the difference in sentiment between your in-person interactions and online interactions: Whenever I have conversations with colleagues who are bullish on crypto, I typically just smile and nod. Typically, those who are pro-crypto are emotionally and financially invested in it. I don't find it useful to have a candid debate about it in an in-person setting where one party is invested in their position like that. To draw a comparison, if someone was telling me about how they were passionate about their religion. I would rather have a pleasant in-person conversation where they get to share something that they are passionate about than to have a debate that probably won't go to place where either party is elevated from the conversation. Online discussions tend to be more open and useful place to debate the merits/flaws of the ideals and implementations behind web3/crypto.

The topic is divisive because of human nature. People need to believe in the foundations of their life and the decisions they make, there are a lot of people who don’t want to see the change that crypto could bring and fundamentally no one knows if crypto will change the world but if it does it will change everyone’s lives.

I try to reduce the flames by just talking about the technical or logical aspects with these types of topics.

Personally I think education systems gear us up for difficulties later in life through competitiveness - the drive to win, come first, be right. We should be learning that it’s ok not to come first and sometimes everybody is wrong. We can be wrong on our opinion of crypto as well.

People arguing about the merits of various technologies on the internet is not a new phenomenon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com