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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

Crypto and Covid are 2 great examples of how the less information people have, the more sure they are.

There are already 2 comments here that are 100% sure tether has zero dollars backing it. I am not saying it has a 100% backing, or any other value. I do not know. But that fact people are so sure they know and know exactly and at the very extreme of the possible range is very telling...

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Occam's Razor. If it was backed then they would have produced the evidence long ago instead of dancing around the issue for years and doing phony "audits".

That's different than saying they have zero dollars, like the sibling comment that the parent was probably alluding to. In fact, there have been ~$20 billion in withdrawals during the last few months as the market has turned bearish and the market is reacting to a likely collapse below market capitalization in Tether's non-dollar-backed assets [0]. Are they backed 100%? Probably not during bear markets because they seem to be doing discretionary trading with deposit money. But the options aren't limited to "they have $0" and being 100% backed.

[0] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/

Serious skeptics of Tether are not claiming they have $0. Just much less than they claim to have.

Sure, but the content that started this thread is explicitly complaining about people who do claim that Tether has $0 backing it - of which there are a few in this thread.

The OP was not complaining that people think Tether is not well enough backed, they were complaining that some are "certain" that it is not backed at all - the least informed being the most certain.

I dont get why people think the assurance reports they make are phoney.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/vyse88cgwfbl/2xJyKdUKicdRUWpC9b...

Its not like BDO are going to stick their neck out for tether here

That is fine, as long as it is your belief and you admit you might be wrong.

The issue is when you say Occam Razor is a form of proof and you are "certain"...

Occam's razor is an heuristic for proceeding in the absence of certainty. Anyone claiming otherwise doesn't understand it.

As for Tether I'm certain enough to advise anybody investing it or any currency supported by it to not invest money they can't afford to lose.

So you are certain, but you have no hard facts to base that on, just a heuristic you yourself say should NOT be used to claim certainty?

You see my point now?

You're just being pedantic now. We make decisions every day all on imperfect information. There are enough red flags around Tether that I wouldn't bet any real money on it or on the things its propping up.

The burden of proof is on Tether. They're the one making the claim they're fully backed.

I am fine with people making decisions on imperfect information. I am not saying Tether is fine. It almost certainly is not.

I am just confused why everyone seems to BOTH say they do NOT know AND then advise people and act like it's obvious and clear!?

The point is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence - in this case, rather strong evidence of absence. Without perfect information, of course nobody knows - but most people do in fact know with sufficient certainty to not bet on Tether (and to advise people similarly not to). Merely "not being certain" of something does not, in fact, mean that it's unclear what to do.

If I tell you that I am a Nigerian Prince and that I definitely have a billion dollars somewhere and that you need to just send me a small sum of 10k to release that money, would you not tell people that it's an obvious scam?

I mean you don't know for a fact that I am NOT a prince right? And if you ask me for any documents I'll just say they got lost or it's too difficult to produce them.

In this case the absence of information is the proof that you need to say that tether is a scam.

(Downvoted for apparently wilful failure of reading comprehension. "Certain enough to advise [caution]" obviously doesn't mean what you are using "certain" to mean.)

So "certain enough to advise" means "not certain"!?

… yes? I can be full enough that I don't want to eat any more rice, but not so full that I can't squeeze in some pudding. The word "enough" is right there in front of you, indicating that the adjective it modifies has a quantity. If I am full, I don't want any more food; if I am full enough not to want X, that doesn't mean there is no food I will eat.

cer·tain (sûr′tn) adj.

3. Established beyond doubt or question; indisputable: What is certain is that every effect must have a cause.

5. Having or showing confidence; assured:

When someone says, "I am certain .." they are are clearly using definition 5. and especially in this context. Your insistence that they are using definition 3. is unreasonable, especially since you KNOW they came to this opinion via Occam's Razor.

> There are already 2 comments here that are 100% sure tether has zero dollars backing it.

Yes, that's a silly claim. Pretending that's anything near the average criticism of Tether is also silly.

It's a common occurence on HN. My theory is that people make authoritative comments, even when they should know better, because those comments tend to attract more up votes. This is especially problematic on topics that can't be easily verified.

> Crypto and Covid are 2 great examples of how the less information people have, the more sure they are

Funny because this applies to people who are big time into crypto and those who bought completely into the Covid narrative. If those people did even a small amount of research they’d understand why skeptics are probably right to be skeptical. If they did their homework they wouldn’t lose all their money to scammers and they wouldn’t flush two years of their very short life down the toilet because some “expert” told them to freak out.

What is even the point of this comment? You say you have no clue what the truth is, but still twirl your mustache on the oh-so-very-nuanced stance that it's more likely a 50% scam than a 100% scam.

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