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Comment by aww_dang | Hacker News Reader

There's knee-jerk generalization about cryptocurrency here. There are plenty of bad takes on Twitter and HN. That said, yes you can highlight things you do not value personally. That doesn't mean others are wrong to value them.

The above stands, even if you feel you have a superior understanding of technology. It doesn't mean you have license to generalize or an exclusive license to determine what is valuable. Others may value things differently, and that is fine.

Different strokes for different folks. Don't want to transact in cryptocurrency? You don't have to. Problem solved. Value it however you want to, but don't dismissively condemn it or generalize by calling it a scam. The claim is arrogant. Even more so when, "Because we understand tech better than..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value

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> Problem solved.

Sure, apart from all the energy use, and the predatory scammers and all the other bad effects on society this stuff seems to promote.

But sure, other than those things, problem solved!

If only we could live in a paternalistic, centrally planned society. Perhaps if social and economic issues functioned as a purely contained system where men could have absolute information. Yes, if society were a computer and we could feed it the program to execute...

Maybe under these circumstances we could dismiss the negative outcomes of regulation and central planning. Until then, we live in the real world, where utopian dreams are not within our reach.

Ironically enough, it is the regulation which you opine for which creates the value for cryptocurrency. Want to pay a user 0.00001 cents? Not with Paypal. The regulatory overhead is too high. Want to transact online with no ID? Not possible with banks or traditional instruments. Have a problem with government issued currency? Sorry, you cannot transact at all!

The comments here citing the technical problems of cryptocurrency miss these points. The generalizations about energy usage dismiss altcoins which have innovated beyond these issues.

The last resort of these arguments always backpedals to, "But that's not the popular usage of cryptocurrency"

The point stands, the generalization is inaccurate, presumptive and arrogant.

Nice set of straw men you got there.

> Maybe under these circumstances we could dismiss the negative outcomes of regulation and central planning.

Who did that? Not me. But neither do I knee-jerk believe that effective regulation is impossible, nor fall into the binary-thinking trap that it must either be 100% effective or it's worthless.

> Want to pay a user 0.00001 cents?

Nope.

> Want to transact online with no ID?

Nope, and there are great reasons that this sort of thing is generally not allowed.

> The generalizations about energy usage dismiss altcoins which have innovated beyond these issues.

But they haven't solved the issue of bitcoin burning the energy. That's like saying "shut up about cars polluting, we have tesla now!". Sure, and when every car is a tesla, that changes things. But every car is not a tesla, and every coin is not an altcoin which has solved the problem.

The post I responded too said "Don't want to transact in cryptocurrency? You don't have to. Problem solved."

But this problem is not solved by not transacting in it, and is not solved by "altcoins which have innovated beyond these issues", because it is ongoing despite these things.

So you can take your "inaccurate, presumptive and arrogant" and apply that to your own arguments. They don't address reality, and their superior tone is laughable when it goes alongside what is effectively handwaving.

>Nope.

Apply a little imagination here. "I don't want to send 0.00001 cent transactions" becomes, "I don't think anyone else should be able to"

It isn't hard to see where this paternalistic frame of understanding leads. "I know what is best for the larger society, my values are the only valid ones, everyone else must adhere and agree"

If you cannot see where this goes astray, there's very little to say here on the Internet. The authoritarian impulse is more dangerous in my view than any of the imagined cryptocurrency boogeymen.

>"altcoins which have innovated beyond these issues", because it is ongoing despite these things.

Then perhaps we shouldn't generalize about all cryptocurrencies?

Finally, let us consider that all of the horrible things you cite are valid. What is the practical alternative to transacting in cryptocurrency, if not central bank currencies?

Does holding USD or other central bank currencies not finance wars around the world? If climate doom is horrible and non-violent transactions threaten you, how bad is war in your opinion?

Again the argument presented is an appeal to utopia. Even if we accept that cryptocurrency is dangerous and horrible, the present alternative isn't great either. Apply the same standard of logic and sloppy generalizations to central bank currencies.

>According to Rummel, democide surpassed war as the leading cause of non-natural death in the 20th century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide#:~:text=democide%20su...

https://earth.org/us-military-pollution/

> Apply a little imagination here. "I don't want to send 0.00001 cent transactions" becomes, "I don't think anyone else should be able to"

Apply a little logic here, "I don't want to send 0.00001 cent transactions" becomes "I don't think cryptocurrencies are the only way to achieve this, or even a good way, given their other costs to society"

I'm not even going to bother engaging with the rest of your post, you're stuck in a binary mode of thinking in which any and all regulation is necessarily 'paternalistic' and evil, and from such a skewed viewpoint, your conclusions play out.

To summarise - my assertion is that the problems with cryptocurrencies are not solved by merely not taking part, which is what the OP of this thread argued. Your response has been a set of straw men and unfounded assumptions, and a bunch of pointing at other things to say they're worse. This is not really a counter-argument so much as a lot of noise.

Right there could be other ways to achieve that, but the regulations you are a fan of prevent it.

>> Want to transact online with no ID?

>Nope, and there are great reasons that this sort of thing is generally not allowed.

It is true that I generally dislike regulation, but the same regulations you advocate for are the same regulations preventing the functionality provided by crypto. You then try to make the largest possible exaggeration, by asserting that I am against all regulations, therefore you cannot engage in the discussion. Backpedal. Yet you are supporting these same regulations, in this same thread.

Binary thinking? Strawmen? You construct the premises which make it impossible, then call it a strawman. You set these premises and then call it black and white, all or nothing.

Perhaps a more reasoned argument would be outlining how you intend to reduce regulatory overhead so state backed debt instruments can compete with cryptocurrency on the merits.

As you are preoccupied with the moral ills (energy consumption, voluntary transactions) of specific cryptocurrencies, it would behoove you to explain how the incentives of central bank currencies can be changed. Ideally they wouldn't be used for morally perilous outcomes like war, or in your case, excessive energy use by the military.

Otherwise, what are you advocating for here? What are the practical alternatives to cryptocurrency? Engage in the discussion.

You completely forget why money exists in the first place. Those problems you state are outcomes of resolving problems that de-centralized and finite money supply can't resolve. You can't have the cake and and eat it too.

This take is too radical for HN, thinking for themselves. Here the people talk in absolutes and value their own opinions way above others. A simple echo chamber where "crypto bad because I said so," drowns everything else.

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