After watching Putin's first interview in two years, I naturally turned to Hacker News (HN) to gauge public opinion. However, to my surprise, I found no discussion whatsoever. Whether biased or not, this interview marks a significant event, yet it seems HN, typically a vibrant hub for diverse discussions, remains silent.
If I overlooked the conversation elsewhere, I'd appreciate being directed to it and apologize for any redundancy. However, if there truly isn't a discussion, it begs the question: has HN become so polarized that it shies away from engaging with viewpoints that challenge the status quo?
Before someone dismisses this as purely a tech community, let's remember that HN has historically delved into political matters, evidenced by the extensive discourse surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which garnered over 1800 comments. Yet, a mere mention of Putin's interview yields only two comments.
It's a disheartening observation, prompting reflection on the dynamics of online discourse and the potential erosion of open dialogue within communities like HN
The crypto/cloud equivalent is letting market makers connect directly to the exchange front end servers via AWS VPC peer or equivalent rather than going via the public load balancers.
Long story short, There's this hit song by Oliver Anthony called "Rich men North of Richmond" which sparked huge discussion and controversy
I stumbled upon this while listening to the all-in podcast and the discussions on this topic were quite interesting, especially Chamath's point of view.
Hence I thought I would bring this to the crowd of HN and spark another discussion where people can chime in their views and opinions
I skimmed through that podcast and it's interesting but I don't think Oliver's message will connect with a majority here. He has a great voice and puts a lot of emotion into his music, something sorely missing from most music of recent times, so people will resonate with the emotion but I think many will fail to connect. If anything the ratio of white to blue collar workers here would probably make it hard to have a serious discussion. I have found that many here are pro-high-taxation. I could be entirely wrong but I think it would spiral downhill fast and end up being flagged. That is just my opinion however.
Call me an old school but this is how I keep track of things. Everyday morning, I start my day with writing on a notebook ( yes, a hard paper notebook ) with the title “things to do” and write top 3-4 times I would like to finish it. Be it work or personal, don’t matter. All goes there.
At the end of the day, I check how many I have finished and repeat it again next day. No stats, no achievement feelings except the sense of satisfaction I get that I am doing things that needs to be done
After many years of using all systems in place, I use a mixed of several stats:
- every week, I print my calendar for the week
- I used a chat thread to myself for notes
- long term stuff goes into productivity apps (todos, cals, etc)
This means I most of my organization on the paper sheet, and only a few minutes on apps, to basically sort things out and put what's important back on paper.
It's more satisfying, it's faster, more flexible, and for some reason, manipulating something on paper commits me more than on screen.
It also don't run out of battery, can be read in the sun, and has no start up time, no clicks.
I am absolutely baffled by how much negative criticism the whole blockchain industry gets here and I would like to understand the reasoning behind it. Most of the arguments fall into these following buckets concluding to "IT MUST DIE"
1. The whole crypto is a get rich quick scheme with predatory practices everywhere. It's a wild wild west with no sort of regulations. Well, guess what, regulated industry is no different either. If people wants to commit crime, they will commit crime. The whole pyramid and MLM schemes have originated from traditional routes. it's nothing new. And regarding fraud, Did everyone actually forgot about Enron, Bernie Madoff and of course 2008 financial crisis where the almight SEC played a key role handing over billions and billions to these investment banks who knowingly committed fraud and pushed some of the pension funds into bankruptcy and pushed the whole world into recession. What's this fascination towards the old methods even though they repeatedly showed us that they are inadequate
2. I haven't seen a single use case of blockchain in the world yet. This is a valid critic and I do understand. Any decent distributed system engineer will understand that decentralisation is hard. consensus is hard. You know what was hard for almost 25 - 30 years and everyone's losing their shit right now and drinking the cool-aid? The good old AI. No one cared about neural networks until the compute caught upto speed.
Like it or not, we are entering a new phase in the technology where two things will definitely rise to prominence
1. Data is / will become the most essential commodity and I am terrified by the idea that few monopolies with their "don't be evil" facade will control them and become trillion dollar firms. We need to switch the model and reimagine how the internet should work. If anyone calls this paranoid,I am happy to place a bet that in ten years, if nothing is done, we will be living through orwellian future
2. A massive decoupling from US economy. I wonder what people call US economy if they call crypto pyramid scheme. Sitting on trillions and trillions of debt, printing money according to their will completely ignoring the effect of their childish actions on the global economy
When you think hard about 1&2 and come up with solutions, congratulations, you just reinvented the blockchain. If not, I am happy to hear how would you solve. In a nutshell, for god's sake , try to understand the reasoning and motivation behind why new ideas originate, gather a community and attract smart people to work on them
Blockchains are unnecessary in a world with trusted entities and functional legal frameworks. In places that require a blockchain, you're still going to be at the whim of whomever has a monopoly on force. Sure, your key passphrase may be in your head. You'll end up getting beat with a rubber hose. It was never your crypto so long as someone has the guns (wrt "Not your keys, not your crypto").
> A massive decoupling from US economy. I wonder what people call US economy if they call crypto pyramid scheme. Sitting on trillions and trillions of debt, printing money according to their will completely ignoring the effect of their childish actions on the global economy
US Treasuries would like a word (they are the safest financial asset in the world, "full faith and credit"). There is no safer capital market than the US. Sure, there will be some de-dollarization, but that won't fix a rapidly aging China, a "teetering near the cliff" Russia, a Central and South America that is slow steady state, etc. And Africa? Very young still but a hard sell for investing.
> Sitting on trillions and trillions of debt, printing money according to their will completely ignoring the effect of their childish actions on the global economy
Debt backed by future productivity, but also debt that can also always take a haircut during legal proceedings. Laws and courts > smart contracts, broadly speaking.
> Blockchains are unnecessary in a world with trusted entities and functional legal frameworks.
This is also an argument against end-to-end encryption and against federated protocols. The reality is that we, in fact, do not have and have never managed to maintain trusted entities and functional legal frameworks for much else... why do you think this is so different?
> Blockchains are unnecessary in a world with trusted entities and functional legal frameworks.
This is such bullshit. In practice the banking system is a messed up piece of old crap.
Let me illustrate my point from my experience a few weeks ago: Had to transfer 20 euro's from my account to my sons account, same European bank. In fact, my sons account is also under my supervision. It was on a Saturday, so guess what: no transfers in the weekend! Had to wait until Monday for the money to go through. Yeah, if Monday was a Holiday, we had to wait until Tuesday.
Is that the efficiency your "trusted entities" can come up with? Don't get me started on "instant cross border transfers". If a well known bank can't handle 20 euro's from one account to another, then what do you expect cross-bank, cross-border does?
In contrast, look at the Nano cryptocurrency: 0 fees, sub second transfers, any amount, anywhere in the world.
Your theory of "trusted entities" all sounds nice, but in practice it's old bureaucratic bullshit. Thanks to blockchain the technology has a solution. Only now is still proper adoption.
Filecoin is probably one of the best examples of a decentralized storage rewarded via crypto. There's also several Defi lending platforms that have helped students paying off debt, although I don't know enough about which networks are the best there.
No. If people are seeding a file that you care about on bittorent today, there's really no mechanism to ensure that it will be available tomorrow besides seeding it yourself.
> 1. ... Well, guess what, regulated industry is no different either.
I disagree, I think the systematic failures and fraud in the crypto industry is much more common than the regulated industry. Madoff is an outlier, not an expectation, and the majority of funds were retrieved. How's that looking for crypto?
As for 2008, my bet is that if crypto was being widely used for mortgage lending at that time, it would have been just as bad as banks. I don't see anything about crypto that would be making safer mortgage loan. In fact, what I see in crypto is very risky loans.
> 2. ... Use case..
I still don't see a convincing use case there.
> 1. Data ... essential commodity ... We need to switch the model and reimagine how the internet should work... bet that in ten years, if nothing is done, we will be living through orwellian future
I don't think banks/brokers are big controllers of data. I am more optimistic and would prefer to use Fidelity or Schwab than defi.
> 2. I wonder what people call US economy if they call crypto pyramid scheme.
I'm not really going to address this deeply, this is really a political view -- that I don't agree with. For decades folks have said the US will implode. When I look around, the US is where I want to put my investments.
Crypto solves a very specific problem; how to have a public ledger when none of the participants can trust each other and dishonest behavior is naturally incentivized.
But every defense is about how crypto will purchase this moral good of decentralization or freedom from the US economy, in some unclear and unspecified fashion.
There also seems to be an unresolve-able tension between the premise of an immutable ledger and human nature as seen through the various mechanisms to undo mistakes (ie regaining access to an account, reversing charges for a variety of reasona). That capability sort of requires trust and centralization.
> When you think hard about 1&2 and come up with solutions, congratulations, you just reinvented the blockchain. If not, I am happy to hear how would you solve.
Well, I've been thinking about it some, and I don't see how blockchain is even a solution to #1 in the first place, much less presumably the only solution. For data collection concerns, the most natural solution is of course to simply see that data is never collected in the first place, and this can happen via legal means (e.g., GDPR) or technological means (don't include unnecessary sensors).
For those that haven't looked at crypto lately and still think there are few uses, take a look at this: https://thevalueprop.io/
Cryptocurrency is a bad term, they actually make for terrible currencies, but many think they only have value when you can buy coffee with them because of the name.
What they are good at is making finance, ownership, and coordination, especially internationally, much more efficient. Which is far more niche and why the actual usage is rarely covered in mainstream media.
Growing up in the southern rural part of India, where traditions are deeply rooted, and now living in a progressive Western society, I have been reflecting on a pressing issue that continues to plague our society: dowry. While poverty, lack of education, and gender inequality contribute to this problem, the most terrifying aspect is that society has normalized and accepted it as the status quo. Even among the brightest minds I encountered at a national university, seven out of ten of my acquaintances personally admitted to accepting dowry during their marriages. This stark reality left me feeling a mixture of sadness and disappointment, as it demonstrated that even individuals with progressive thoughts and ideologies on paper still engage in this archaic practice.
The article I read regarding dowry failed to address a crucial point – it presented the issue in binary terms. For women who grow up in rural areas and get married within their local communities, the crux of the problem lies in the gray area. While cases of physical torture inflicted by husbands or their families for dowry exist, they represent a minority compared to the emotional torture women endure if they fail to meet expectations.
Let me share an example involving a close relative of mine. Her daughter was married into a local community, and before the wedding, an agreement was made to provide a dowry of 10,000 euros along with covering the wedding expenses. For my relatives, this was a significant sum, and they managed to gather around 70% of the agreed amount, which they handed over to the groom's family. Unfortunately, their efforts were met with disappointment. The real problems for the girl began a month after the wedding. She was not treated with respect or equality in her new home. Her husband never supported her and constantly criticized everything she did, as did her mother and father-in-law. While they never resorted to physical abuse, the emotional abuse she endured was indescribable. Constant pestering, undermining her upbringing, and calling her unfit for everything took a severe toll on her mental health. She even contemplated suicide multiple times.
Now, at this point, many of you might feel sympathetic and wish to offer advice, which I'm sure can be categorized into the following three options:
Why can't she divorce him and pursue a happier life? It may seem easy for us to suggest, as we are not the ones who have to face the consequences. Unfortunately, in India, especially in rural areas, divorce still remains a taboo, and mental health concerns are often disregarded. She believes that enduring emotional suffering is a better option than going through a divorce. She has resigned herself to her fate, feeling that she cannot change it and must work with what she has. This sad reality is further compounded if she has children, amplifying her sense of entrapment.
Why not report the family to the police and hold them accountable? Let's consider the scenario in which she lodges a complaint. What is likely to happen? The police may issue a warning to the family, given the absence of physical abuse. However, this would only widen the divide between her and her husband's family. The alternative, as we have already discussed, is divorce.
Consequently, she finds herself trapped in an endless loop of suffering, seeking solace and happiness through her children. As a child, I remember her as a beautiful and vibrant charismatic woman. However, when I see her now, all I see is the profound sorrow buried within her eyes. Yet, she still wears a smile for her children and clings to a tiny glimmer of optimism that tomorrow will be better.
Sitting on the sidelines, It makes us feel superior to criticise and derive intellectual pleasure out of that but I haven't seen a lot of people who actually step into the ring and try to fix what's broken. I was one of them.
We can all agree that the current traditional and digital finance systems are broken but I don't see any solutions being provided as an alternative.
In every industry which involves innovation, there will be speculation and definitely people who like to profit off that which results in ponzi schemes but in the end, there are some genuinely hard working people who truly believe in the mission they signed up for 10 years ago and still continue to work. I would suggest you to take a look around and dig deeper into some of the blockchain projects and you will understand how much blood, sweat and bits have been poured into this.
I wonder if it occurs to people who "try to fix what's broken" that things are as they are for a reason, and it might be a good reason, a series of compromises and hacks necessary to create a system that is far from perfect, but that more-or-less works.
There are no doubt many things wrong with our financial systems, but I suspect they'll be fixed by gradual evolution that maintains what works, and not by a revolution that seeks to replace what we have with something that sounds good from a naive perspective, but is in reality much worse.
Well, the whole point of innovation is to question that "more-or-less works". Without that, we would still be hunter gatherers
And we won't be replacing anything overnight. That would be disastrous to the whole economy. But I really doubt that people who benefit from keeping things the way they are will actually work towards fixing any of them. You are actually asking them give up their incentives for the betterment and I don't think there are enough altruistic people who wanna do that.
Not that I am saying that crypto is any better but we need a strong counter party which questions fundamentals of any belief system (in this case, our current financial system) we have such that they will be forced to innovate otherwise they will go extinct
> Well, the whole point of innovation is to question that "more-or-less works". Without that, we would still be hunter gatherers
Do you really believe that it was one person or group of people that said 'hunting and gathering sucks, let's plant seeds and make forges and smelt iron'?
Or was it 'hey, I dropped some seeds and now they are growing, lets put some in dirt and see what happens', i++, goto 1?
To put it another way, how many times has 'let's scrap this working system that has some flaws and start over using an ideology as a back-end' worked out?
Not the original commenter, but: In certain countries transactions take about 2 days to be reflected. In most digital payments, the payment networks (visa/mastercard/amex) take a cut of 1-2.5% of the total payment value which is a large percentage of profit for a small establishment. The bank APIs are inconsistent are a huge mess to manage so including the regulatory barriers, if a new payment solution wants to come up , it's a lot of money , time and work. On top of that , different countries have different API standards.
There's value to be had in payment solutions and banking solutions being decoupled . Banks should more deal with lending and deposits , injecting cash flows into the economy , insuring deposits, etc. Payments should be , well, payments similar to from a wallet, with less regulation overall.
This is evolving slowly but surely - take a look at ISO20022 [1] and its adoption by SEPA network [2] in Europe (more slowly - adoption by most other banks throughout the world).
ISO isn't perfect but most things are just a minor XML adjustment, and the schema is well structured.
Europe/SEPA has free non-urgent transfers up to a certain amount. [3]
How do you increase adoption for this except to get involved politically and lobby? Unless you plan on rolling your own - in which case good luck.
Oh, I'm all for innovation here, I just don't see building the financial system back from the ground up as an effective way to innovate.
All the issues you've mentioned aren't issues core to our financial system, they can all be solved through iterative innovation - many countries are solving this, like Poland (which I use as an example cause I live here), which has free instantaneous cashless transactions both for payments and p2p use that work with all banks here (blik, slowly trying to expand to more countries).
Similar systems are in place in many other countries. Open banking standardized APIs have already spread across Europe, etc.
So tldr, no need to redesign the financial system to fix these, just disrupt it a little bit.
Bailing out Too-Big-To-Fail banks which privatise profits and socialise losses on increasingly abstract / difficult to understand financial instruments springs to mind.
If you're talking about the recent bank failures, that was in fact covered by other banks, no? It was not paid for by tax payers.
While the recent losses were in big part because of bonds and currency rate risk, so not a particularly abstract or difficult to understand instrument.
Not that being hard to understand is a bad thing. Something can be complex and still valuable.
How about - "current finance systems are broken for a lot of people across the world". And they manifest in terms of crazy inflation (Venezuela, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Pakistan), currency controls (China and many other places), despotic regimes (Russia, Iran, Taliban) etc. I see Bitcoin doing a lot more[1] for those people than traditional financial systems, either local or western.
We're also privileged to be closer to understanding the systems and solutions. That makes it easier for us to view the massive amount of issues with the ecosystem as not the core of the cryptocurrency "craze".
Now imagine you're not a techie, that has no idea what's what? The propaganda concept of "rotten herring", that mars the whole, will take effect on the whole cryptocurrency concept.
For laypeople cryptocurrency is as much a mystery with it's own gatekeepers, as fiat money systems. Engineers becoming the gatekeepers, are definitely more open an excited about it... but to others swapping a banker to an anonymous engineer is not much of an upgrade.
So many gatekeepers have failed in providing essential protections that old gatekeepers still provide.
Crypto made fraud and mismanagement obvious and grandiose, even though the exact same happens with traditional financial system.
Technology can't catch on just because "there are some great projects"
By association. What do you think FTX is associated with? (It wasn't associated with traditional banking...)
By volume traditional banking had more fraud and mismanagement, but it hasn't had literally years of massive headlines. (See "rotten herring") And in the end it doesn't build any confidence, because all of our money is literally based in trust. Even the value of gold is plain trust in it's value(see Mansa Musa's gold devaluation "pre fiat currency").
I don't remember a single year, without some massive cryptocurrency related headline... Even SVB and CreditSuisse failures were managed out better, than FTX.
If I overlooked the conversation elsewhere, I'd appreciate being directed to it and apologize for any redundancy. However, if there truly isn't a discussion, it begs the question: has HN become so polarized that it shies away from engaging with viewpoints that challenge the status quo?
Before someone dismisses this as purely a tech community, let's remember that HN has historically delved into political matters, evidenced by the extensive discourse surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which garnered over 1800 comments. Yet, a mere mention of Putin's interview yields only two comments.
It's a disheartening observation, prompting reflection on the dynamics of online discourse and the potential erosion of open dialogue within communities like HN