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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

> What about the people losing money?

try not to, as with everything else.

> Also, that statement implies that these are all honest efforts, not scams.

it doesn't imply that at all. it implies that its an individual discernment issue. anybody can still go blow it all on a casino or Reg CF securities offerings, unless they are richer, then they have a few additional choices to blow it all.

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> anybody can still go blow it all on a casino or Reg CF securities offerings, unless they are richer, then they have a few additional choices to blow it all.

That implies all risk is the same, which is a way to normalize scams, negligence, and irresponsibility. Casinos and regular security offerings are generally honest about what they offer and are regulated.

which changes nothing about the user experience where some massive fraud decades ago resulted in an extra paragraph in the 30 pages of disclaimers and some regulator smugly sitting at their corner desk thinking "ah, in this moment, I am euphoric, consumers are protected"

Yes, fewer scams and less negligence dramatically changes user experience.

They think that they flaws of the incumbent system justify any flaws in the new one, without realizing the burden is on them to prove the new system doesn't posses _all_ of the problems (and more) of the original.

I think "whataboutism" describes the situation well. See it a lot with the crypto crowd. Clearly a lot of cognitive dissonance going on there.

if "they" is referring to "me", I don't feel that the new one doesn't inherit or replicate other incumbent system problems. I like that its easy to try out, compared to attempting to try in the incumbent systems. for better, or for worse. its up to the all users to be just as discerning and pragmatic about participating or not. its great that many users are pragmatic supporters that accept things can go wrong and that they become a case study. less discerning users should also be like that, or not participate at all.

cool well unfortunately you're not in charge, a bunch of venture capitalists are. It's great to appeal to ideals but the reality of the situation is that people who don't possess the skills to judge this for themselves are being told to buy in by Matt Damon.

This seems to still be echoing what another responder said “which is a way to normalize scams, negligence, and irresponsibility.”

I'd argue that UST / Anchor is more transparent tbh. Anyone can read the source code, or (more accessibly) the docs and get a pretty good understanding of how it works.

For example: UST [0] - anyone can mint UST by burning $1 worth of LUNA, or mint LUNA by burning $1 worth of UST. With a bit of deductive reasoning, it's pretty clear that in a "race for the exits" scenario, infinite LUNA will be minted, driving the price of UST to zero.

[0] https://docs.terra.money/docs/learn/protocol.html

> Anyone can read the source code, or (more accessibly) the docs and get a pretty good understanding of how it works.

I really hope this argument is made in court.

'Members of the jury, anyone can read the source code ...'

Haha, I totally get where you're coming from. From my perspective, I will say that compared to other "investments", I really felt like I could understand the risks with UST. I had money invested, but because I understood the mechanisms I understood how it could fail, and had an idea of the probability.

I wish it was possible to replicate this visibility for other investments - the lengthy "disclosures" are no where near as useful as full visibilty into market mechanisms, and real time data on assets / liabilities.

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