Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdormit | Hacker News Reader

Is there a reason that almost every blog post/platform/organization I've seen that involves some sort of block chain tech invariably starts spouting hyperbolic, overblown rhetoric about overthrowing the social order? Block chains are a really promising technology, but these types of manifestos really hurt the community's credibility.

View on HN

Many people get excited and interested in blockchains because they want to radically alter the existing social order and they see blockchains as the most effective path to bring this about.

Thus, when these people make progress they cast it in those terms (radical social change). This becomes a feedback loop which attracts more radicals to the blockchain space and also amplifies the current radicals belief that they really can make a difference. This has both negative and positive effects:

* the negative effects are hype, the desire for ideological purity, expectations which can't be met, and irrational optimism,

* the positive effects are large numbers of smart motivated people who are willing to think big and irrational optimism.

I think spaceX and the startup world in general operates under a similar feedback loop (see "making the world a better place").

Irrational optimism is a positive effect?

From the perspective of those who aren't irrationally optimistic, I think sometimes.

Self-defeating example: betting on red in roulette is a bad idea. Having your friend bet on red is a better but still bad idea. Having a stranger bet on red, and buy you a drink if he wins... It's free money.

Applied example: starting an electric car company (at least looked like) a bad idea.... trying 1,000 different approaches to a light bulb, especially after 500 failures (at least looked like) a bad idea... etc.

People chasing long shots under a delusion can sometimes be profitable for someone else, but if a movement is built on irrational exuberance surely there's a cost to be paid sooner or later.

>if a movement is built on irrational exuberance surely there's a cost to be paid sooner or later.

I worry about a Blockchain winter, then again AI has made fantastic progress despite the AI winters[0].

Would fusion as a power generating technology be further along or further behind if it had followed the AI model (progress -> hype -> winter -> progress)?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

"starts spouting hyperbolic, overblown rhetoric about overthrowing the social order"

Because bitcoin is attractive to antagonists.

Just take it all with a grain of salt.

The 'Articles' of the statement I think are also objective - they're making what they think is a 'politically neutral, all inclusive' statement, when really they're not - their pushing a specific kind of ideal.

I think that technology can enable democracy, but that the two don't need to be really tightly bound.

The articles are from the UN declaration of human rights. I don't know whether they only selected a few for brevity or because they didn't agree with all of them.

The missing right to life felt like a fairly glaring omission to me, but as you say it might just have been left out for brevity.

the manifesto in the README is from 1996, a classic cryptonarchist text. that said: the main thing you want to battle in politics is corruption, and we had plenty of experience facing that when we started the Partido de la Red. In that respect, blockchains can play a huge role enabling not only more transparent administration of organizations but also, opening up new institutional arrangements only possible on the internet itself.

> Block chains are a really promising technology, but these types of manifestos really hurt the community's credibility.

True, but I wouldn't be surprised if the early days of the printing press saw more pages of crudely drawn penises sporting moustaches and bowler hats than actual manifestos, so we're possibly making progress.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com