aitrean

> DeFi on Ethereum is replicating the existing financial system, so by criticizing this, you're essentially also criticizing the legacy financial system.

Checkmate nOcOiNeRs. If you criticize my pyramid scheme network, you're actually criticizing the complex global financial system, because r/ethereum told me they're basically one in the same.

How many mortgages are settled at any level of the "financial stack" with DeFi? None.

How many bond payments have been paid out at any level of the "financial stack" with DeFi? None.

How many registered securities have been traded with DeFi handling any level of the "financial stack"? None.

If you want to use your "financial stack" metaphor, DeFi is like using a bluetooth smart dildo bootloader as the back end for a full stack web application. Sure, the stack you speak of exists, but there is nowhere that any programmer would ever seriously think to put that thing.

Stop arguing semantics and actually point to a legitimate use-case that someone outside the crypto space would have for DeFi (even if it is at a "lower level" of the fin stack).

This is true. I did write that hastily, and therefore mis-used ad-hominem.

> I'm genuinely surprised that the HN community thinks a toxic comment like this is upvote-worthy

Is this a̶d̶-̶h̶o̶m̶i̶n̶e̶m̶ [EDIT: attack] really necessary? I'm sharing a thought about the ridiculous nature of bay area hustle culture.

> Contrast this to what the author actually said: "Optimizing learning over money early in your career.

Contrast that to what she goes on to say in the article itself. She laments on how she missed out on Uber stock rising by not ditching Apple sooner. She then pulls a figure out of thin-air about how much net worth you're going to lose by "wasting" your career on any given year by not following her arbitrary framework for self-worth.

"Optimizing learning over money early in your career" would bear far more weight if she actually used an example like going into academia, or joining a tiny startup with low pay. Going from one 150k+ position to another 150k+ position with (gasp) lower performing stocks (!!) is hardly a sacrifice. Moreover, she speaks as if she already knew Uber stock was going to go down when she joined. Uber happened to tank Apple happened to rise. But she acts like she factored that into her decision before she left Apple.

I'm genuinely surprised some people still can't recognize how absolutely out-of-touch it sounds to lament over a "wasted" year of career at Apple, while most of the world is just trying to get by. Likewise, claiming you stopped finding opportunities to learn anything at Apple after only 6 months sounds like self-inflating bullshit.

So, I hope I have eased your surprise. It's toxic to tell people that they're wasting their career by valuing stability and work-life balance over weird learning frameworks, and net-worth. It's not toxic to call out such privileged fools for doing so.

Ugh. The mind of a narcissist on full display here.

Want to have a comfortable position with decent growth opportunities over time, and fair compensation? You must be some bottom-feeding moron who doesn't understand that [Unicorn Co]'s valuation just rose 4x YoY.

Think you can be happy at a company like Apple making six figures while unemployment is at record levels, and people are being bankrupted by hospital bills and shuttered businesses? clap emojis THINK ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL BRAND. This girl learned everything Apple had to teach her in 6 months. You can't possibly expect to just switch departments, or ask for more responsibilities to continue learning anything at a company like that!

It's incredible how insulated developers in the Bay Area can be. I would love to see how quickly all of this advice falls apart for an engineer in Portland, or Minneapolis, or just about any country besides the United States, where six-figure software jobs aren't so easy to come by.

Glad that moronic speculation is over with. On to the next one!

Well that was a pile of hot garbage.

"Blockchain groups now exist at every major university in the world and the number of people who own some kind of crypto digital asset continues to rise."

The same could be said about alt-right cliques or communist groups, both of which are growing too. Not such a great metric for progress.

“The idea of cryptoeconomics becoming embedded in the 5G video and voice-AI internet is sort of inevitable.”

Really? I've got friends doing research and development related to those fields and they seem to have a very different view.

“Cryptoeconomics must be tethered...”

lol.

"...to and converge with the key exponential technologies of the future: quantum computing, machine learning, the Voice-AI interface, 3D printing, Biotechnology and whatever other important changes to human life occur from the intersection of technologies."

The rest of your article seems to be spewing incessant buzzwords without actually outlining any coherent argument or model for how this would actually work.

Finally, as much as I don't want to use ad hominem, it seems fairly unlikely that a content writer has any kind of professional knowledge of economics or technology to actually make any accurate predictions about the future of either field. Predicting the future of either field is extremely difficult, even for experts. Hand waving and claiming things as "inevitable" does not put you on the same level as a thought leader, it puts you on the same level as a cult preacher.

I think you just have a lot of pot shots to take against Tesla (most of which seem to have no precedent??), and want to project them onto this situation. This story relates to an internal email Musk sent around, telling staff to speak up about suspicious behaviour. It's not like he brought this to a shareholders meeting.

And they shouldn't. News should not be determined by its shareholders. The idea that such privileges should be able to be purchased is so incomprehensibly stupid, I'm at a loss for words.

>That's not an argument against building something...

At which point did I argue building things is bad? I actually took a lot of time to learn Ethereum smart contract development just to get to the bottom of the whole blockchain ecosystem. Learning and building are almost never bad things.

I'm not bashing the idea of competition between blockchain and traditional centralized authorities either. I'm extremely pro-competition. I'm bashing the fact that all - yes, all - blockchain applications provide negative value compared to their traditional counterparts. The argument that blockchain enthusiasts use to justify their support for such low-quality infrastructure is this philosophy that having no centralized authority is, by itself, valuable. This is what I'm bashing.

There's a fair point to be made there. But then I would ask which solution is best: lobbying hard enough to democratize the organizational structure of ICANN, creating a competitive ecosystem, or resorting exclusively to a ledger of entries with no capacity to be modified according to legalities, attacks, or otherwise? What if someone spams the ledger with too many names? What if someone takes domains that should be illegal for them to possess? What if someone takes someone else's private key? What if an organization gets their private key stolen? The vectors for exploitation don't just disappear because you have a decentralized system. The exploitative behaviour just changes.

Even if blockchain DNS systems were production quality - which they're far from - why is a 'central authority' inherently bad? The entirety of cloud computing, and the modern internet, is based on the pretense of giving your entire infrastructure to a centralized authority. "Oh, but what if your centralized cloud provider is actually evil and incompetent", the free markets allow you to change providers until you have a provider with absolute highest quality.

Debit and credit are the only methods for commerce with almost any third party. Transferring and escrow payments require direct channels that Wells Fargo does not want to negotiate. Regardless of differences between debit and credit, debit is at least backed by direct account balances. Credit is not. Chargebacks would also be a nightmare for credit cards.

Even if it's deemed unacceptable to disallow over-risked services like credit cards to purchase cryptocurrency, then the beauty is that cryptocurrency purchasers can migrate their loans, and savings to another banking provider who will service the headache of credit-backed cryptocurrency investments.

Banks are doing this from a perspective of risk management. But I will bet any number of Bitcoin that crypto nerds will construe this as a narrative that the big banks are attacking them once again.

Open source contributions do not cover even scratch the surface of depth needed to be a software developer. Oh, you resolved that issue in a related repo? That's awesome. Now, for our repo we need you to design an entire system effectively, work well with our other developers, and meet whatever deadlines we prescribe. Of course, if you're someone that accomplishes all of that in the open source community, then your open source work definitely 'cuts through the bullshit'. But the people who meet those criteria are a small subset of even the active open source community. In general, someone's 50 line commit to an open source repo does not tell me much more than them knowing the technology, and being able to complete tasks within a time period of undefined length.

Design work is extremely different from developer work. Design work is usually publicly available, and each piece often stands on its own. Paid developer work is usually not publicly visible, and a lot of projects require working with teams. The type of work that goes on a Github profile, therefore, is usually unpaid work where you get to create your own project, and pick your own codebase. In this sense, you're comparing apples to oranges.

It's rank 726 on Alexa ranks. Somehow I find it hard to believe that of the 725 more popular websites than AskFM, only 9 are social networks.

So, while I usually agree blockchain/crypto ecosystem is the most degenerate thing since Vista, it's worth being a little objective here.

These were not four crypto nerds travelling with a Sherpa, it was a team of four experienced alpinists, accompanied by three Sherpas. The expedition was not planned by AskFM, they only decided to sponsor the expedition in exchange for the potential to make it into dumb promotional material. In all likelihood, the alpinists were going to make the trek with or without the sponsorship, but the sponsorship from AskFM did help cover financial costs. This is no different than Red Bull sponsoring dangerous stunts all the time. For what it's worth, the team apparently rescued a climber from a different expedition along the way down, who most certainly would have died otherwise.

That said, the CEO did not handle the situation well. On being accused of this, he called the whole thing a rumour. Later, he conceded how fucked up the whole thing was, but AskFM still hasn't removed the tasteless promotion.

>IBM controlled powerful segments of the market, and would defend or compete by buying technology.

Right, but IBM used to comprise almost the entire hardware and software market. Over time, they failed to consistently deliver the best experiences to consumers and clients, so they definitely declined from their glory days. I understand your comparison about real estate developers, but I don't think it applies here. IBM can buy competitors, but if they can't make sure their acquisitions remain the best in the market, then the acquisition loses profitability, or even becomes a writeoff.

As an anecdote, I used to work on one of their analytics products, which they acquired in one of their biggest acquisitions ever. Nevertheless, we were competing for clients with smaller, leaner, and sometimes better teams in the same field. We had no inherent advantage in development over our competitors either. Sure, IBM could always buy them, but then they'd have another x billion dollar investment to turn around, and still no way to stop new competitors from taking the clients, other than creating the best product - which would be net beneficial for society anyway. In many cases though, IBM's attempts to exert control by acquiring other companies backfired because they failed to provide client value, and the company has had to write off a lot of losses by trying.

Although it doesn't relate to the acquisitions, I'd definitely agree, that's anti-competitive behaviour. Was not aware of that policy.

Woops. Yep. It's hard to keep track of all these billion dollar Facebook acquisitions.

I understand their strategy of neutralizing threats through acquisition. However, for this strategy to be effective, the companies have to consistently turn a profit on their acquisitions. Although it seems absurd for Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram), failing to keep Instagram popular amongst consumers will turn it into a 19 billion dollar writeoff as some Instragram clone captures consumer attention. IBM has a long record of acquiring competitive or smaller companies, but they're doing relatively poorly in the markets as of late. So while it seems clear that these companies might make life a nightmare for a lot of silicon valley entrepreneurs, they're still creating the best net value for society, no?

I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence, and perhaps ignorant about anti-competitive behaviour in tech. These companies are winning over marketplaces by providing the highest quality, and lowest price services to consumers? Hypothetically, where they slip up in providing the best services, startups could thrive? Or are there elements I'm neglecting as to how large company domination negatively impacts innovation?

I don't really know what about it conveys clickbait. Gates and Buffett have gone on the record numerous times saying that they bet Bitcoin will fail long term. That said, HN does love to hate on Bitcoin. I find there's something cathartic about these weekly Bitcoin bashing threads.

That's not what he meant. Gold's value as a material is pennies on the dollar for gold as an investment. When people talk about 'value' of gold, they're referring to its use as a 'store of value'.

Ha! You're right. But at the same time, The Little Dutch Boy is looked up to with reverence because he made a significant impact. As far as leadership goes, I'd argue that the skill is polarizing in terms of reputation because of your responsibility. Good decision makers contribute highly to society, but bad, or even mediocre decision makers are seen with disdain. Middle management is hated because it's associated with barely-experienced decision makers. So I'd say that the net sentiment towards leadership isn't that high (once you factor out those noisy MBA's and middle managers on LinkedIn who obviously have a bias, that is).

The brand of leadership which gains actual reverence in society seems to be top performers. And top performance in any role is revered. Brain surgeons, athletes, "rockstar programmers", investment bankers, etc. all possess a certain 'aura' about them that makes people idolize them, perhaps disproportionately or unfairly in some cases. But I would say your "Steve Ballmer" brand of CEO does not get much reverence in society whatsoever.

People organize themselves into hierarchies. I'd say this isn't because of any biological predisposition, but because hierarchies are the most efficient power structure for decision making among large groups of people. This is only because the alternative of weighing everybody's opinion equally is chaotic, and prone to poor decision making due to lack of education and experience among an entire set of people. Look at any election, and the consequences of letting everybody have a voice become evident (that said, there are other tremendously good qualities of elections that make us keep them around).

Leadership is the ability to make decisions on behalf of the group under you that are good. It's seen as being altruistic because it can enhance, or detract from the quality of work, and the quality of life of everybody beneath you. The effect of good decision making is multiplicative based on how great the scope of your 'leadership' is. A good decision maker in charge of 100,000 people will therefore bring a lot more productivity and positivity to society than a good decision maker in charge of only 100 people.

Moving forward by replacing 'leadership' with the term 'decision making' - which is really what it is - there are a lot of individuals who have consistent history of good decision making. These individuals exemplify good decision making far too often for it to be a function of luck or random chance. Of course, there are definitely some people who got lucky and were mistakenly labeled as 'good decision makers' (lest we forget November 2016). I'd also say that because we don't live in anything remotely close to a meritocracy, some people achieve leadership and management only because they come from a position of privilege in society. Nevertheless, the concept of good decision makers bearing great importance in society should not be dismissed, because historically the human race has excelled, or completely grinded to a halt based on how, and who we let make decisions.

Completely agree with this. I was raised on the 'follow your dreams', 'hustle every day' flavour of kool aid that defines being an ambitious, young developer right now. Slowly I phased out weekends, sex, friends, conversation, stories, and almost everything that is supposed to mark your early twenties. Once the early stage startup I was with failed, I realized how one-dimensional I'd become, and how unhappy I had been during my 'dream job'. Sure, if you become a multi-millionaire, then it all seems worthwhile in retrospect. However, when most startups fail, you need deeper motivation than just a sliver of a chance at wealth and fame. I couldn't find that motivation.

In a way, choosing to be an entrepreneur made me appreciate the stability and cadence of a 'normal' life. This over-glamourized blood bath of startup culture makes people commit years of their life to being unhappy - for the chance to make their 'dream' come true, assuming that their dream will even make them happy once they achieve it. It's a little fucked up, to be honest.

There are plenty of great examples of modern day leaders versus poor ones. I would argue that tech has the best, and most clearly defined spectrum of leadership. This ranges from the moronic, buzzword-driven MBA's to the CEO's cultivating trillion dollar companies. Even a changing of hands for CEO at Microsoft has shown clear, well-defined improvements for the company over the past few years.

That said, I'd definitely agree with you about people being a species driven by dominance hierarchies more than capacity or will to lead. Achieving management status is a reward, not a role that requires its own skill sets and ambitions. Which is probably where much of the white collar work place suffering comes from.

What's so righteous about the status quo? I'll put it to you as succinctly as possible:

I can hold money in a checking account and have the same amount of money next week, or next month

Inflation is largely predictable, and pretty much non-existant compared to crypto volatility

Fraud, phishing, and hacking will not cause me to lose my life savings. My mother is not technologically savvy at all. I would be terrified to let her keep any significant portion of her savings in a system where a hash with a typo will cost you you everything.

For as much as cryptocurrency supporters will harp about the evils of Wall Street; the explicit scams, pump and dumps, and market manipulation by 0.001% of crypto holders make Goldman Sachs look like a company of boy scouts. 2008 Financial recession? Ha, wait until you see what happens when Chinese mining pools decide it's time to weed out the small fish (ie, every other month or so). Sure, lecture me all you want about how the Federal Reserve is evil - but at least they don't prey on investors with explicit pump and dumps, useless ICOs, or that shit circus Tether.

Although there are certainly smart people working in the blockchain space - most cryptocurrency/blockchain supporters are needlessly confrontational, smug, have a limited understanding of economics or financial engineering, and use ad hominems when they're confronted by arguments they can't debate against.

From an economics and engineering perspective, there are a lot of holes in blockchain and crypto as a technology. This is reflected in the fact that there are currently no useful innovations built on blockchain, other than money laundering, and cryptocurrency (which has no inherent value itself).

Not sure what "figured out" means. However, just to deflect another crypto-fueled ad hominem, I'd like to point out that Elon Musk was also a CEO of PayPal, and lasted only around a year in the position before he too was forced out.