Comment by throwaway71271 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway71271 | Hacker News Reader

Any technology that we built is used for both good and evil. For example, assembly was used to get people on the moon, but also to navigate missiles to kill millions of people. Perl was used to sequence the genome, but also it was the main language that script kiddies used in the 2000s to deface millions of websites. Almost any library written is dual use, from openssl to left-pad. The web itself is used to enable world wide education and giving everybody access to all the knowledge in the world, and is also responsible for the fall of democracy. Torrents and peer to peer tech is also with interesting ratio.

Of course the good:evil ratio is different for any technology, but this also changes with time.

It feels weird to me to draw the line at crypto. A good example for the debate would be 'why dont you remove the torrrent projects as well, given that torrents are almost exclusively used for "illegal" activities'

PS: I really hate cryptocurrencies :) but just got interested in: why do you draw the line there?

It's subjective. For us, it's a question of social impact. Sure, torrenting copyrighted material is illegal, but what's the actual social consequence of it? Little to none. Bittorrent also has a wealth of legitimate use-cases. For cryptocurrency, this is not the case: the social impact is grave, and there are few to no legitimate use-cases for it.

I find it ironic that you're moving from the US to reduce impact of state overreach (compliance), yet want to overimpose on your users.

Cryptocurrency developers are free to exercise the same rights and move their projects to somewhere else. But I agree it's very stupid. I paid for a year of sourcehut for my account that I never used just to help the project. I'll just delete it at this point.

We're moving from the US for many reasons; I don't think we ever mentioned reducing the impact of state overreach.

In many minds Europe is the epitomy of state overreach, the home of pro-consumer anti-business regulation. The truth is of course more nuanced, but this appears to be a move consistent with an owner who believes in consumer protection regulation.

If you view compliance as overreach then I find it odd you think the EU has less of it. Strong consumer laws such as GRPC are in the EU and not in the US. Even in terms of corporate finance there's a reason everyone like Delaware corporations and it's not due to them wanting more compliance. The US has other things that could be seen as overreach but compliance is usually not one that people think of.

It is, indeed, a subjective thing. I personally have given up on cryptocurrency, but I seem to recall (and the absolute worthless rag called Reuters seems to corroborate: https://www.reuters.com/technology/venezuelas-economy-regres...) that Venezuelans found a recourse in crypto after the Venezuelan economy imploded. However that is just one data point, and the utter lack of any real wins aside from that would seem to agree with your statement that there are few legitimate use-cases.

No, Venezuelians were forced into cryptocurrency by a completely incompetent leader that thought that making your country based solely around gas was a sensible idea, and despite buying millions upon millions in various cryptocurrencies, has lost over 50% of their investment.

The bolivar is still hyperinflated, the Petro is still useless.

I think you're conflating Venezuela with El Salvador?

To take an extreme example, it’s probably true that CSAM has some value (there’s people willing to pay for it) and you could in theory traffic in it for “good reasons” but for most it would be repulsive.

Would they choose to die rather than do it? Hopefully nobody would be put to the test.

That something found a good use doesn’t mean it’s a good (or bad) thing. Society is all about trying to navigate the trade offs.

> it’s probably true that CSAM has some value

I think you're conflating financial value and social value (CSAM may have some financial value, but highly negative social value). I really struggle to see how you could (even theoretically) traffic CSAM for "good reasons".

I appreciate you taking a stance like this.

>The social impact is grave

It also has a positive impact.

To make just one example, millions of people make use of cryptocurrencies for remittances to send money back home. By using cryptocurrencies they can circumvent the obnoxious fees and delays they would get if they use traditional payment services.

Worth noting too that SourceHut is offering an escape hatch for exceptions so it’s not quite a blanket ban:

> We will exercise discretion when applying this rule. If you believe that your use-case for cryptocurrency or blockchain is not plagued by these social problems, you may ask for permission to host it on SourceHut, or appeal its removal, by contacting support.

>Why do you draw the line there?

A more interesting question would be "Where does the line move to in the future?". Its unpredictable because its clearly a decision made based on personal views of a single person or a small group.

> clearly a decision made based on personal views of a single person or a small group.

At the same time there are many other git repo hosting sites that are not run and written pretty much almost entirely by a single person or small group...

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