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Comment by mihaic | Hacker News Reader

HN seems to actively work on a cognitive dissonance: on the one hand producing inspirational stories of entrepreneurs changing the world and on the other abandoning all hope that technology/market forces can be controlled in any way.

I'm thinking now this is to justify away the collective guilt of bringing into the mainstream harmful products.

It seems to come from the same origins as "crypto can't be regulated", "government can't to anything", "it's ok because it's legal" and it's always worrying me to not really see any sort of moral stance being taken anymore.

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HN is full of a wide variety of people who have a wide variety of different beliefs and worldviews, and that's what you're seeing.

In my view, it's one of the things that makes HN great.

The old: Encryption is evil because it is used to hide information... let's ban encryption. Breaking encryption is evil because it can be used to steal information... let's incriminate breaking encryption.

Let's just get it over with... Technology is evil. Let's ban technology.

"crypto can't be [effectively] regulated" is more observable fact than ideology.

Funny that you picked on this specific example on a broader point.

Every time serious regulators have made a strong move, crypto markets and general population access to crypto products have actually been affected. I'm pretty sure if the US government would try to ban all crypto networks, most activity would stop, leaving only a few die-hard activists and some actual criminals.

Well for me, crypto is highly moral and should be developed to prevent artificial trading restrictions and eliminate borders. There are many people who consider individual freedom to be of highest importance, and who are willing to develop any technology promoting it.

You seem to be thinking ideologically-driven, while I'm more goal-driven. Is absolute freedom the end-all purpose? Shouldn't I be allowed to murder my enemies, if I'm willing to risk the vengeance of their group? I know it's an absurd question, but my point is that the social negotiation for where regulation and limits should come into effect has been abandoned by many.

Absolute freedom is impossible in a world where people interact with and affect each other. Me having absolute freedom means that the freedom of others must be limited.

The goal should be to maximize freedom for everyone. To accomplish this goal means that nobody can have absolute freedom.

Most crypto is controlled by a few key players with even less oversight and accountability than the governments.

The same for any other form of money.

No. Read up on central bank governance.

"Controlled" in your sentence doesn't mean the same as the one for the ordinary money.

You're right, the difference is even more stark.

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