I’m curious

I don’t believe that is accurate. Beside moons (which don’t orbit the sun), Pluto is the largest and closest dwarf planet.

If those are the only options, I am choosing juggalo

Chatgpt… please summarize the Gartner hype cycle for a 5 year old

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When you have commodity money, the value of the money is derived from the value of the commodity. You don’t get to assign arbitrarily higher values to the money because the market determines the value. But yes, all speculative assets typically have a higher extrinsic value compared with their intrinsic value but I don’t believe that has anything to do with it being a medium of exchange or not. That is just supply and demand.

Gold is a commodity and you can create a currency that is backed by a commodity so you aren’t actually trading the commodity itself.

That is not true, for the vast majority of the history of money it was based on a commodity that was valuable in its own sense. It is only in the last century that we have begun experimenting with currencies that are not pegged to the value of a commodity.

Cryptocurrencies derived their value from being a network of users (metcalfe’s law) so they are more like a commodity money. Thing about something like Meta, which has a valuation in the trillions despite its physical assets not be worth nearly that and its functionality as a website being easily replicated on an alternative platform. The users are what is valuable.

It’s called accelerationism and it is stupid

Hmmm anyone remember when Andrew Yang was running for president and said that data was the new oil and that people should own the content they put on social media?

And let’s be honest, for mainstream consumers, the Linux desktop and the Fediverse are failures.

My point is that just because something doesn’t achieve widespread adoption immediately does not mean it is a failure. I use both Linux desktop and the Fediverse and the fact that they are not in widespread use doesn’t rob them of virtue for the people that use them. Technology adoption is a complex thing and its incredibly reductionist to just say "crypto has been around for a decade and a half and you still can’t use it for anything therefore its a failure. Our legacy financial system is very entrenched and its not to going to unseated overnight. These things take time.

Ultimately I think it should come down to consumer choice, those that prefer centralized finance should use that and those that are OK with the added overheard of decentralized finance should be able to have that choice. That is why I make the analogy to these other systems. Linux desktop for a long time was harder to use but it was worth it for people whose values aligned with open source software. Crypto has a similar trajectory and faces similar uphill battles including negative attitudes from those using competing systems. But for those who value what it provides, it is worth it.

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What you are saying is inaccurate…

1. BTC has a performant layer 2 called lightning. And if layer 2s are not your jam, there are plenty of L1s that can handle 1000s of transactions per second

2. Crypto solves the problem of having a central bank control the money supply. Also having private organizations controlling digital payment rails. Provides options or underbanked people in countries with unstable financial systems. I could go on…

3. Blockchains do not use an enormous amount of energy. You are thinking of the consensus mechanism used by proof of work cryptocurrencies. There are alternative consensus mechanisms that use much less energy

Also the adoption rates are not a measure of utility. The Linux desktop has been around 30 years and has an adoption rate under 5 percent. Mastodon has not grown as fast as twitter did. Democracy is not used by the majority of governments and where it is, voter turnout is low.

Is it also your opinion that these things are bad products?

Decentralized systems just take longer to mature. It’s crazy to me that fediverse users don’t understand this.

I recently left a WFH only company. The environment was toxic and there was definitely some insecurity on the part of management regarding worker productivity. There was a much larger emphasis on constantly showing to management what you were working on and proving you were using your work day productively.

It was a culture shift I didn’t adapt well to and left.

Absolutely, companies are not going to just decide to implement NFTs in a way that gives more control to users unless it means more money for them. Does change the fact that the technology has that potential, even if it remain unutilized.

Except it’s not ownership, it is digital rights management. Right now DRM is handled by private corporations, not the state, and it generally is anti-consumer. NFTs could be used for DRM in a more pro consumer way.

Yeah crypto critics often gloss over the fact that the war on drugs is an example of repressive government policy and that darknet markets where a lifeline for folks using drugs. As an example, psychedelic have genuine therapeutic uses and on the street level, many “research chemicals” with horrible safety profiles are sold as things like LSD or MDMA.

With a darknet market you get access to a community that can help vet sellers through forums, comments and rating that help keep users safe.

Moreover what this shows is crypto can help organizations or people under repressive governments. Another example was a group in Nigeria who was protesting against the police group SARS. The Nigerian government froze their bank accounts but the group was still able to fundraise using BTC.

Why does every criticism of crypto always hinge on attacking the character of the industry is some ad hominem way. Oh the tech is no good because it’s “tech bros” running these companies.

Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum resolve the issue of high transaction fees and still be able to transact in ETH. I get there is hurdles compared with the simplicity of PayPal, but at least some of us prefer decentralized payment options where possible.