Aside from criminal behavior there isn’t a valid practical need for cryptocurrencies. As a result discussions around this subject tend to be incredibly boring and instead tend to focus on aspirations of nontechnical greed. Such low quality subjects tend to attract depraved comments, otherwise there would be nothing left to talk about.
Worse, people who should know better project all kinds of illusory aspirations upon cryptocurrency that either defy definition or amount to poorly formed illogical qualifiers. What quality of commentary should one expect from such quality subjects?
We are getting so many 'crypto=bad' basic articles (this one seems particularly devoid of relevant content) that I'm surprised the topic isn't auto-downweighed by now.
I believe it comes down to signal-to-noise ratio here. It seems to me that almost every post about crypto drowns in "crypto bad" comments which aren't useful and hinders any legit criticism that may be.
Even in crypto communities the level of discussion is low. Among proponents, it's mostly memes and proselytizing. I'm not sure when real money is on the line that objective, high-quality discussion is possible (or rather, the signal-to-noise ratio will always be low enough to be effectively zero)
The truth of this statement cannot be emphasized enough. I think one of the real weaknesses of the crypto world is the complete absence of a community where people whose mouths are not connected directly to their brainstems can talk and discuss issues related to crypto -- and I mean not just about investment (I'm not very interested in that) but about relevant technological and social issues. There is literally no place to have a sane discussion on any of this that I've found -- would _love_ to be corrected if someone knows better.
The cognitive dissonance here is amazing. Here is an actual application of crypto that is downvoted, while empty talking points around how crypto has zero use cases are always the top comments.
You have a clear motivated reasoning bias (crypto = bad and useless) paired without understanding the basics of how crypto works.
You don’t have conversations with people, you just ignore details that disagree with your pre-existing conclusion and focus on digressions you think prove your point (typically against a strawman argument I’m not making).
Your submissions betray this bias too. Crypto (and conversation) is more interesting when considering the nuanced bits even if it may disagree with “your side”.
Crypto haters will do anything to convince you that crypto bad, but other bad things are only bad, dometimes.
There is no logic other than haves and have nots.
So, there is a camp of people who think that cryptocurrencies are inherently bad. For these people the interesting discussions left are moot, because they do not address their main problems.
At the same time, nuanced discussion / curious discussion requires talking about downsides. Any mention of downsides also draws in the people who think its a bad idea. Moreover, it is my sense that a lot of discussions are filled with people trying to hype up their investment. These people will try to play down any downsides mentioned. The people who dislike cryptocurrency notice the people trying to downplay the downsides, and that overpowers any other discussion.
Edit: A point made by ThalesX also seems quite on point to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29295405
In summary, people are tired of the over-hype that existed. Making them suspicious of any new discussion.
Look at any forum discussing any cryptocurrency (including bitcoin). Everything is discussed through the filter of "will it pump the value and make us rich?" and there's hardly any in-depth technical discussion because most participants are here to become rich, not to learn about technology or economy.
It also means that any criticism of the technology will be immediately attacked as being "paid shills" with an ulterior motive. It's hard enough to have constructive discussions online, it's almost impossible when people have a financial incentive to defend their position to the bitter end.
Cryptocurrency is not a stock and lots of people make predictions and bold statements about other things like gold and silver.
Nothing here would be significant if the other side of the equation wasn't people soaking up the slightest drip of nonsense and turning it into a frenzy of something they don't understand.
Despite the relatively high level of education here, collectively the community can be extremely doctrinal or knee-jerky on a number of subjects. Most articles that mention crypto bring a cohort of « Ponzi scheme » and « destructive mining » posts, when you'd expect somebody writing a lengthy post on the economics of energy were it to follow the established conventions of the site.
I think the overly trashy environment of the crypto space made it an acceptable target for behaviour that's otherwise seen as childish and unacceptable when it comes to other subjects.
I think the larger problem is that most anyone talking about cryptocurrencies has a financial interest in them, and indeed, people without a financial interest are considered biased against them and not worth listening to.
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