illustriousbear

While Cardano is interesting, I believe IOTA's implementation of a ledger using a directed acyclic graph is much more interesting/scalable.

In addition IOTA's focus on micro-transactions / the machine economy seems like a no brainer and something that cryptocurrencies generally neglect..

This is the classic advertising doesn't work on me mentality.

Whether you realise it or not, the algorithms behind these services are having a subtle impact on you and show you things for various shady reasons. For me, that was enough just to ditch those services.

It's good to see that you're limiting your exposure to them though.

Fair point.

That is a situation where I'd move bank, use an iPhone or just allow GServices on my device.

There is certainly a point where you just need to be pragmatic above all else. Otherwise, you can still reduce your interactions with their other services as much as possible.

To me they are close enough to not mind.

Especially when considering the unethical nature of these businesses and how they abuse their power.

That ties into the quality of the platform and it is alarming that some people will tolerate it for some comfort.

I understand that.

I still maintain it's sad that removing Facebook/Google can have any significant drop in your quality of life. And by significant, I mean one where you're willing to debate about it.

I like to keep my happiness as far as possible from the services that some soulless multinational provides.

Sure but there are plenty of perfectly acceptable alternatives to those services.

I think this is a fair point.

That said I think we're more a corporate oligarchy that is behaving like a feudal system.

We essentially seem to have corporate lords who are trying to appease the king government. Whether it be via censorship or other tools.

What people and authorities?

I stopped using these services and told people to contact me via sms or signal. No problems so far.

The people who won't make that extra step aren't worth my time because clearly I'm not worth their time.

It's sad that your quality of life depends on Google or Facebook services.

I quit Facebook along with most Google services, I feel much happier and more well adjusted than when I was using them. Meeting with family and friends is also much more interesting because I don't have a constant stream detailing their life.

Good luck petitioning the government to act on it... this goes double for US businesses and people who live outside the US.

Another low effort blog post that Hackernews readers have upvoted because it says obvious things that they agree with.

Quality on blog posts and articles is taking a bit of a dip lately.

Perhaps but bartering grain and fruit at the local market is probably more efficient than traditional banking too.

Traditional banks are not accountable for all the electricity their services consume. One example alone is considering all the clients, pos and other systems that operate.

Banks are also a very different model with different overheads compared to Bitcoin. I'd argue that banking infrastructure is quite wasteful with their physical skyscrapers and vaults. Executives at banks would argue otherwise.

Bitcoin aims to disrupt financial services to some extent. A significant electricity cost shouldn't be a surprise. Does that mean it should be outlawed? I think not.

If we banned every costly disruptive idea that emerged, we wouldn't get anywhere.

Nevermind traditional banks with their towering office buildings full of air conditioning/appliances, employees commuting to work, remote branches, sophisticated vaults and online infrastructure.

I can never take the bitcoin climate change hysteria seriously. I wonder why the people who write these articles aren't calling out traditional banks? hmm.

You should care.

Many countries exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction laws and go after people who break them, this includes the US. If they can reach you, they will prosecute you if they want.

Normally this applies to the states own citizens but they will target foreign citizens who have hurt the state (see Assange).

Spying, poaching, abuse of children and war crimes are where some of these extraterritorial laws are exercised.

So what?

Is there some assumption that traditional banking don't consume a significant amount of energy? I think we're all familiar with towering bank buildings full of employees using computers, air conditioners and a range of appliances (alongside their daily commute).

This is without even thinking about banking tech and system infrastructure.

So what?

Is there some assumption that traditional banking don't consume a significant amount of energy? I think we're all familiar with towering bank buildings full of employees using computers, air conditioners and a range of appliances (alongside their daily commute).

This is without even thinking about banking tech and system infrastructure.

I find it funny that many people are onboard with social media companies banning speech that they dislike. This comes from both the left and right with numerous benign/extreme examples.

Meanwhile the same people supporting social media bans will scream about how traditional news (murdoch as a private example) promote speech that they don't like. Those people will also complain about the speech not allowed/censored from traditional news platforms.

So which is it? Are we talking about the rights of private companies? or are we genuinely talking about free speech? How can you have it one way for social media and another way for traditional news?

I don't think social media or traditional news monopolies should be dictating the voices we hear.

Once I’m unable to live in my home, I wish to die.

I don’t want to see my home and inheritance taken by a nursing home business.

I’ll gladly trade some of the least pleasant years of my life so my children can have my inheritance.

The EFF giving a nothing statement that sides with corporate monopoly censorship.

This is how you become irrelevant as an activist organisation, what sane person would donate to them now?

Yeah I just used a more extreme example to make the point.

Twitter is US based but they purposefully operate in a multi-national manner serving users across the world, so it's easy to argue that there is some responsibility.

If Twitter wants to play arbitrator and set that expectation to the international community, what happens when they don't remove "misinformation" in other countries?

My only problem with this is who determines what is election misinformation?

If Russian authorities call another dubious election in favor of Putin, do we just accept that now and ban any dissenting opinions?

I mean after all their authorities have set the official narrative, isn't anything else misinformation now?

I agree 100%.

Social media also needs to be completely reformed so moderation policy and enforcement isn't up to a small collection of individuals living in the United States.

I agree mate, I've deleted all my social media and it has been great since day one.

My consumption of information is so much better now that I have had to seek out reliable sources.

Those are certainly fair points but I think getting bogged down in the ToS and details is side stepping the real issue here.

At the end of the day Twitter moderates its own service, which is just their managers and random team members. Twitter sets the rules and can find any justification to ban whoever they want. Do you really think Twitter constrains themselves by their rules? I don't, they will change those rules if they want.

As a major source of information, is that what you want? Is getting bogged down in ToS details really the important issue here?

If we yell at Twitter and demand them to ban certain content, they are also going to exercise that power when it serves their interests too. You can't have it both ways.

Sci-hub by its own admission is a service that breaks the law by providing unauthorised access to copyright materials.

I don't know whether Sci-hub has violated Twitter ToS (on the platform) but it doesn't surprise me that Twitter would want to distance itself from an organization that is committed to breaking the law. A more dramatic/extreme example would be whether we would think it is ok for other illegal organisations/services (e.g terrorists) to be on Twitter if they weren't breaking ToS on the platform, I suspect many would say no.

On Trump, it wouldn't surprise me if he broke Twitter ToS on the platform but you would have to admit that his ban would involve greyer interpretation of his tweets than a black-white ban of a service that aims to break the law.

And I say this as a big support of sci-hub too.

Generally speaking delete Facebook/Twitter/etc, I did and it has been a big improvement to my life.

On one hand Trump and his team deserve to lose this case.

On the other hand, I hope it doesn’t silence future complaints.

Protecting against defamation is important but it is more important that those who think they have genuine complaints about an election process aren’t scared into silence.

Hackernews comments were generally onboard with Twitter banning Trump for controversial tweets that can be considered as incitement.

As much as I like Sci-Hub, it is clearly a service that disregards and breaches copyright.

If you advocate for Twitter exercising a heavy hand on greyer areas (Trump), you shouldn’t be surprised when they do the same for clear breaches of their TOS/Laws (SciHub).

It scares me that these big tech companies are becoming arbitrators for what many people see. The worst part is that it is allowing the US oligarchy to further influence the rest of the world too.

Thats fair, it just crossed my mind as a possibility given the current climate.

Perhaps this is linked to the China and US trade war?

Maybe US customs have been instructed to be harsher on Chinese company imports?

Not saying it is necessarily unethical considering that China is no doubt doing similar.

People in the security industry have told me that this sort of thing often comes down to ego and self-importance.

In Intelligence, people have been caught selling state secrets for 10-20k a pop. The kind of secrets that can land you decades in jail. It makes no sense from a monetary standpoint.