decorator

Was there a reason you decided to focus on a subset of consensus protocols? I.e, only blockchains v. blockchains, DAGs, hashgraphs, and any new protocols that may appear.

You're assuming with certainty that there was a causal relationship. Given that assumption you were comfortable in proclaiming the counterfactual to be true. You "knew" it was true because you "knew" the mechanics of the world, thus could predict the counterfactual truth-value.

Did you use something like Hill's criteria for causation[0]? To establish anything? Like in epidemiology? It's how they can make such statements.

I do take your point about how one can be somewhat certain of a counterfactual. You couldn't be though; because you've got no criteria by which to judge the causality.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria

> But that’s because of aggressive efforts to recruit women, as well as lawsuits, in the 1980s and 1990s, to counteract the long history of discrimination (the field as 95% men in the 1960s). If people back then hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be getting the “best person” today.

Is that not a counterfactual?

> Your comment may be factually correct, but doesn't make clear how it applies to its parent.

I didn't realise it wasn't clear. Maybe I should have defined the term & pointed out exactly where it was:

Counterfactual: 'Relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case.'.

Then again I expected people to be able to connect the two things together.

I guess my tone was because I'd expect someone who works in corporate law to know better. Maybe I should have outlined that as well. I could have explained that I was shocked. That's what I thought the tone conveyed. Surprise: Really?

Does that not convey surprise?

I guess it could be dismissive, but dismissing what? I'm asking a question.

I'm sorry if I was dismissive to the corporate lawyer regarding his use of a counterfactual (with the presumption that I'm correct). I probably could have pointed out I thought they were wrong in a nicer way.

You can't reason with ideologues. That's what makes them dangerous.

With an inability to entertain an opposing view there can be no course correction.

It seems counterfactuals can be known (according to the downvotes). It must be clear how truth-values can be obtained.

I must have missed the news about A/B testing reality. Silly me.

You can be sure of a counterfactual? Really.

I hadn't realised that people didn't know what type of data structure Ethereum used.

This may sound radical & all, but I think people may be investing in coins based on things which are other than 'rational'.

'I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men'.

If more professional investors get involved, that would likely change some.

I think most things can change chains. So I'm not condemning everything.

A blockchain?

That's probably because people think decentralised apps should be decentralised.

If it's on Ethereum, it's not decentralised. Their state is mutable -- as per the DAO.

> Criminal economic ecosystems have existed since long before cryptocurrency, as has AML law even in mere regional financial hubs like South Africa.

Even if South Africa shut them down, I'm sure others will find a way to run such payment processors. Where there's money, there's motive.

> The real question is to what extent is it beneficial for non-criminal businesses to invest in the capability to handle niche currencies like Monero used by hardly anybody and attractive primarily to money launders.

People who launder large sums of money would likely do it through the traditional financial system. How does one launder, say, a billion dollars through a Monero today? I don't think they could. That type of money is being laundered through the banking system[0].

> The real question is to what extent is it beneficial for non-criminal businesses to invest in the capability to handle niche currencies like Monero

If it's easy to implement & their niche likes to use them, then I would say it's probable.

Crypto can win bit by bit. Country by country. There are some jurisdictions that seem to be embracing the tech (like Japan & Switzerland).

That's some people using it. If it continues to grow & you know it's going to grow faster than any other asset it makes sense to do some speculation. Then with that speculation, you start to learn about crypto. It starts to spread as people become aware of returns, & it continues to grow, & so on.

It's resilient. I like resilient assets. I think a little bit of crypto can be a good investment. If anything it's fun. That's one of the reasons I think young people like it.

Do it for fun, spend it when people accept it. People even give discounts for buying in crypto.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe/hsbc-to-pay-1-...

> The traditional financial system carries out trillions of transactions which are not money laundering, yet is required to jump through enormous amounts of red tape to prove its customers are not money launderers, and companies still get into trouble with regulators if they're not satisfied with their AML policies.

I'd agree the traditional system would probably have less money laundering. It also has less freedom, & could have significantly less innovation in the future.

> marketing Lack-of-AML-as-a-Service is sort of thing that gets regulators interested in shutting you down

I think they're run from South Africa, so I'm not sure if regulators could shut them down. Crypto is global & crypto is on the internet. Wherever cryptocurrencies go, human minds will follow. People will create them with their computers (mining) & transact with those who accept them.

Coming down hard on crypto assets could create a parallel economy. Untaxed & no regulation. Then what do regulators do? Nothing, because they just lost their jobs & any control over anything.

I can't think of anything that is universally good other than God. & from what I've heard about the Old Testament that's not even true!

So we a situation where people can't even construct something from their imagination that is virtuous in all concerns. & people want financial technology to meet that bar? Seems unlikely to me.

Could there be some money laundering? Probably. Will there be attempts by the owners of the payment processor to stop such a thing? Probably. Will there be perfection? Probably not.

From what I understand, most money laundering occurs in the traditional financial system. Does it follow we should tear it down?

& besides, I thought crypto(assets) were a fad. A bubble. A figment of the imagination. A plaything for greater fools. If that's true, it's hardly worth worrying about.

There's also the GloBee[0] payment processor. It accepts Monero, so you're able to maintain your privacy whilst consuming like a capitalist zombie.

[0] https://globee.com/

George Church is using Crypto tech for a new company. You're going to be able to sell your genomic data to pharma companies[0].

Selling such data may seem like a terrible idea, except they're also using a second layer network (Enigma.co) for the data processing which maintains the secrecy of the underlying data.

That's a counter-example. I don't think George Church got FOMO! I agree with you generally.

[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610221/this-new-company-w...

Because being a dictator is such a safe job?

See the world for my retort.

No, it's about crypto.

> Despair not, never give up, and just keep practicing: there's always room for improvement

There's nought to improve. It wasn't poetry. & if you-all are suggesting my prose is poetic, then that's a compliment, not a zing.

Just looked up the Vogons. From Wikipedia:

> Vogon poetry is described as "the third worst poetry in the Universe"

That's quite a good insult, really. Well, if what I had done was poetry. So a good insult in a different situation.

Sure, super useful.

I heard someone use 'Nature' as untouched-by-humans. With the use of a capital. They didn't give any rationale.

Maybe once Nature has been corrupted by humans it ceases to be such.

Woe is human -- with our ontological flagellation. (We grant the existence of Nature only to turn it back on ourselves.)

The idea that death is ignoble is starting to propagate more widely. I actually think it's a more popular idea within younger cohorts. Counterintuitively.

(Disclaimer: I hold some Enigma).

I'm (self)-interested in learning about Enigma[0]. It's an off-chain solution for scalability & privacy with regards to systems of blockchains (blockchain agnostic).

It also has the capacity for its own dapps. The Enigma product isn't completed, yet there is a working product on top of the protocol called Catalyst[1] (I've not personally tried Catalyst, yet). Catalyst is a trading app for quants.

Enigma is supported by MIT, & has Alex Pentland as an advisor.

There's more to Enigma than what I've just outlined. 1) There's the data marketplace component. 2) It could also conceivably become a secure data processing layer for the Internet. I think it can be used with different protocols. I've yet to figure that out.

[0] https://www.enigma.co [1] https://enigmampc.github.io/catalyst/

Ethereum isn't decentralised to a large degree (see the DOA). Given such a thing, one may as well use a standard web stack.

Also, that makes any guides written for devs on the subject of negative utility. It wastes their time; since the premise, that the new paradigm derives its value from censorship resistance, is breached.

It takes some serious non-thinking to support Ethereum. The price is high, the value is low.