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Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

HN is extremely skeptical about everything, because being skeptical about unproven things is a pretty important part of being an engineer

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HNers are often skeptical of all new unproven technology, but have a begrudging acceptance of established and proven technology. The thing with cryptocurrency is that it has now been around for over a decade, and not delivered on any of its ever evolving promises in that time. As a result, most knowledgeable and impartial observers would say it has fundamental flaws that it will prevent it from ever being able to do so.

Speaking personally, I know I was really interested in some of the Bitcoin technology in the early days, and super excited about the idea of a "world computer" that could never be shut down with Ethereum. But the more I dug into the technology, the more I realised the gap between what was promised and what was possible was pretty much insurmountable. However, the more time I spent in tech meetups etc. and understood the human nature angle to it, the more I realised that the gap wasn't actually important - most cryptocurrency people weren't particularly interested in delivering a genuine functioning new financial system (albeit one lacking the basic consumer protections of the existing financial system) they were just interested in convincing enough people that it was possible for long enough to get rich quickly.

> they were just interested in convincing enough people that it was possible for long enough to get rich quickly.

A million times this. I used to be a huge bitcoin fan in the early days. It's become obvious that it's failed and will never be a usable currency. Now it's just destroying the environment as a get-rich-quick scheme for unscrupulous people.

I've had a lot of interesting debates in the comment section and I fully agree with the OP. He's calling it skeptical, but I'd say HN is an order of magnitude more skeptical about blockchain than any other topic. I'd pick a much harsher word.

As a blockchain / crypto enthusiast I'm actually unable to have a meaningful discussion on HN. It's gotten to the point where I can't even bother to share my views in the comments as it's not worth it. People are so dismissive and set that blockchain is a scam, that every debate becomes so heated with people reiterating the same position over and over.

So I fully agree with OP - a HN-like community, where people can discuss the non-price aspect of crypto and BC would be nice. I hate reddit and twitter as most of discussions seem price driven.

> People are so dismissive and set that blockchain is a scam

I have never heard/read anyone on HN saying blockchain is a scam. Blockchain is a mathematical construct. If anyone says blockchain is a scam, he/she/they may as well say addition is a scam, so is subtraction.

What IS scam, in my opinion, is the ability to exchange crypto currency for tangible and non abstract products that has a meaningful value in day to day life. Crypto is not backed by any real assets, hence my problem.

> Crypto is not backed by any real assets

As is fiat money.

Fiat money is backed by the fear of gratuitous violence from the military of its nation.

And legal system.

Laws are enforced by violence.

I’m no crypto fanatic or crypto hater, but I always found this “backed by real assets” besides the point and often dogmatic. To what extent is fiat or stock “backed by a real world asset”? What about collectibles or startup options? What about a tech company with nothing but a website and employees?

I don’t think you actually care if something is “backed by real world assets”, you’re concerned with downside risk. What is the likelihood bitcoin goes to zero within a decade? What level could it go to? It’s “fundamentals” are at least its level of intrigue with the population (much like Instagrams only fundamentals are its attention of the population).

Stock is backed by a company, fiat is backed by the govt, Instagram is backed by the attention it receives, Bitcoin as well. This is more a spectrum than a binary, and Bitcoin doesn’t seem that far off from most tech companies who’s only “real asset” is attention.

Blockchain is a scam.

This is one of those "guns don't kill people" arguments. Of course blockchain isn't a scam it's just a tool, but every instance of blockchain I've seen used has been inefficient and unnecessary and better performed by other existing technology. People trying to flog their banal products as something special because blockchain is the scam.

This is something I struggle with personally, because over the years I've trained my brain to look for weaknesses and reasons to say "no". It drives my wife nuts, because she sees it as being pessimistic about everything. To some extent it is, because I can very easily rattle off lists of "why that won't work" or "what's wrong with that", but it's a challenge for me to come up with lists of "why that would work".

So unsuprisingly, she's CEO of a growing and successful startup, while I still nitpick design and code reviews all day!

Personally, I try to be mindful of my kneejerk "pessimism" and skepticism, and try to balance it with optimism and acknowledging that it's a lot harder for me to identify opportunities than weaknesses.

> I can very easily rattle off lists of "why that won't work" or "what's wrong with that", but it's a challenge for me to come up with lists of "why that would work"

A framework I have found to temper this instinct involves shifting from predicting whether something will or won’t work to finding the smallest, most-plausible set of assumptions which need to be true (or false) for the idea to work. You’re still identifying potential weaknesses. But instead of resolving the question around that weakness with flippant dismissal or a gut-feel guess , you’re considering how to solve it and being explicit about the boundaries between what you know, what you could learn, and what you cannot know.

Well said. I had much the same problem, and all it took to appear more positive, was to distill the message down to "This is how it will work", rather than "This won't work no way, no how".

(I cringe inside, but my paycheck thanks me)

On the plus side, if you ever move to France, you'll fit right in!

To be fair, I remember HN being initially pretty positive on Bitcoin and blockchains. That’s when crypto discussions were mostly centered around the potential of the tech. But once Bitcoin became a speculative trading darling, the distance between the hype (remember when everyone wanted to use blockchain for everything?) and the reality of what the tech could do grew bigger and bigger. I think that’s when opinions soured and you started seeing more skepticism on HN.

So yes, the HN crowd as a group aren’t cheerleaders for crypto, but IMHO it’s for good reason.

Sorry but no. While every community that portrays itself as “rational” would like to think that it is unbiased and skeptical toward everything, the same basic human social dynamics still apply. HN is aggressively anti-crypto to the point where I don’t even bother reading comments on related links. It’s become a Pavlovian 2 minutes hate, every. Single. Time.

I don't understand. How have you determined the anti crypto sentiment is due to pavlovian hate and not rational disagreement?

Because literally every single topic is filled with puerile “Haha, Idiots!” comments immediately. Every single time.

I have not had the same experience. You admit that you don't read them anymore, maybe they have changed?

It was a figure of speech. I still click on the links and scan the comments. The recent links about Ethereum and the large hack were prime examples. There is an extreme undercurrent of skepticism that only gets somewhat masked by HN’s culture of writing critical comments in a roundabout intellectual way. There are also a huge number of low effort hostile ones that seem like Reddit overflow.

I should add that this is hilarious considering the name of this website.

I'm not sure what you mean about the Etherium news, without the specific post it's hard to discuss it.

Either way, I find crypto to be difficult to discuss online, in general. Mostly because there seems to be fanatics on both sides. You seem to notice more the ones on the "anti" side, I see plenty on the "pro" side. Not to mention the wrinkle where many people who were early adopters believed in it as an actual currency. Today, many of the "pro" comments I read seem to view it as an investment (i.e. phrases like "hodl").

Look at the comments on the topic of hack (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28151538) and you'll find comments like:

- this was not a hack

- nobody stole anything, it's code LOL

- it's just shitcoins

- nothing is backed with real money

- good riddance, it's all a scam

...

well if you think about it, there aren't very many people who are fully on-board with any given cryptocurrency, conceptually, who don't also have literally vested interests in said cryptocurrency. when you have literally vested interests in something, you're going to be defensive about your investment, possibly to the point of emotional irrationality. this makes conversation between the invested and the skeptics pretty useless most of the time—if a skeptic were to convince an investor that their cryptocurrency is bad, then they would pull out of investing in it. if an investor were to convince a skeptic that their cryptocurrency is good, then they would likely also become an investor.

put another way, there are broadly four possible types of people who would discuss cryptocurrencies on a website like this:

A) crypto fans who have invested in crypto

B) crypto fans who have not invested in crypto

C) crypto skeptics who have invested in crypto

D) crypto skeptics who have not invested in crypto

for obvious reasons, you aren't going to find many—if any—people in categories B and C, so that leaves categories A and D arguing with each other, and largely unlikely to change each others' minds—especially category A, because, again, they are literally invested in the thing they're a fan of.

Is it though? Being a skeptic is fairly easy and not that valuable when it comes to doing stuff.

That's the idea

No, it's not!

On the other hand being overly optimistic about ideas that are clearly silly/inefficient/worse than every other option is how you waste millions of dollars on things like solar roadways or the Dodger stadium dugout loop.

Skepticism does not mean inaction. It's about using the energy, time and resources you have to build useful things. While cryptocurrency has defiantly inspired the masses to forfeit their money, it still hasn't proven to be much more than an elaborate wealth consolidation device.

I agree. I see HN as a kind of "peer review" of submitted links and information.

I always like to look back at the "Show HN: Dropbox" thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) and look at the comments like "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account" :)

I think most engineers try to think more critically than the general population.

More likely that engineers are more likely to think that they are more critical than the general population and that basic human social facts somehow don’t apply to them.

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