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Comment by delabay | Hacker News Reader

In this life you can be selfish, stupid or a burden. Selfishness creates the most value in the world.

It's truly amazing how many people spend their entire lives pushing for higher salaries than they need and seeing the immense benefits of competing in the economy, but somehow fall back to the conclusion that greed (the only thing that has improved their life) is terrible.

The car you drive, the central AC you enjoy, the delivery food you'll eat this week? All of that is extreme luxury and unnecessary by someone else's standards.

Pushing for high salaries is doing work and getting paid for it. Grift? not so much. There's difference.

There's no shame in working super hard and making lots of money. but sadly, not all hard work is equal.

I agree there's certainly a difference, but what you might consider grifting someone else might consider quite legitimate. e.g. I think essential oils and energy crystals are grifting, but many people find a lot of value in those things and I would never want to suggest I know better what they should spend their own money. They probably would see the money I spend on things like tech toys equally as stupid (and they might not be wrong LOL).

Is ponzi a legitimate thing? Early backers definitely think so!

I guess this is what I'm alluding to.

Crypto is fun, but most things are obscure ponzis

Someone using something unethically does not make the thing being used unethical. Encrypted communication is a great example of this...how many people circumvent local laws with encrypted communication in order to reveal crimes against humanity? There have always been unethical laws somewhere in the world as long as governed societies have existed.

That's not even what i said. I said the other direction.

Ponzis are unethical, and wrong, and it always should be regardless of who is doing it and whether someone is benefiting from it.

I find crypto useful and innovative. I find making money through ponzis disguised as innovation wrong, they happen to be using crypto. That's what Luna was.

Such a bullshit

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