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Lammasu posted:So, I heard a story on the radio about how the Central African Republic has adopted BTC as legal tender. It was a BBC show and they had a representee for the African crypto exchange or whatever. He rambled a bit about how the France central bank is keeping the CAR poor but even he admitted that the change wouldn't immediately help people there. lol CAR walked that back in March too
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Jun 1, 2023 18:48
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is there anything blockchain (a technology invented in 1979) does better than a relational database? e:do any of the blockchain advocates even understand that the tech they worship is ridiculously old and outdated by modern computing standards? tango alpha delta fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 07:21
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tango alpha delta posted:is there anything blockchain (a technology invented in 1979) does better than a relational database? killing
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Jun 2, 2023 07:21
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Tnuctip posted:and saying inflation is just in our heads it’s not real. The president of Brazil managed to stop their hyperinflation by creating a fake new currency that nobody could actually use, posted prices of wages and goods and taxes in that currency for several months showing it didn't inflate (using the USD price of staples etc for reference), then, once people actually believed it was stable and fixed value, swapped everyone over to it. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil Tunicate fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 10:25
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tango alpha delta posted:e:do any of the blockchain advocates even understand that the tech they worship is ridiculously old and outdated by modern computing standards? Well tbf that's not really how algorithms work. Whole bunch of stuff in your computer is using stuff like Quicksort and binary trees and skip trees that are at least that old. If something works and nobody has any better ideas on how to do it, of course it's still going to get used. Edit: ''The idea that people knew a thing or two in the '70s is strange to a lot of young programmers." -- Donald Knuth.
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Jun 2, 2023 11:08
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tango alpha delta posted:is there anything blockchain (a technology invented in 1979) does better than a relational database? Obviously it needs to be explained more concisely for those who don't believe. Isn't that where seraph comes in to tell us how he's superior?
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Jun 2, 2023 11:42
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feedmegin posted:Well tbf that's not really how algorithms work. Whole bunch of stuff in your computer is using stuff like Quicksort and binary trees and skip trees that are at least that old. If something works and nobody has any better ideas on how to do it, of course it's still going to get used.
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Jun 2, 2023 12:31
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feedmegin posted:
Hell, they know a thing or two about programming in the 1870s.
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Jun 2, 2023 13:11
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Imagine having to pay gas fees to find your account and rent out a video at Blockbuster 30 years ago.
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Jun 2, 2023 13:18
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Technomancer posted:All true, but at the same time, those algorithms have been in constant use since then, because they are very efficient. Merkle trees were invented in the 70s-80s, but their usefulness was so low that they weren't widely used until Blockchain came along. And even then their low performance is certainly not adapted to the need of a global currency. But really you usually don't want your database to be completely tamper proof or else you give the janitors the keys to clean up and you're back to square one that your janitors remain the most powerful people in the organization. Which for the same outcome as more mundane security controls, comes with a whole let less of cutting edge key management in a world we have barely figured out passwords and encrypted communication.
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Jun 2, 2023 14:29
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tango alpha delta posted:is there anything blockchain (a technology invented in 1979) does better than a relational database? it depends what you mean by blockchain, because chaining encrypted blocks together has it's uses and is common. But blockchain as these people talk about? No. None. It's a way to maintain a database when all parties involved can't be trusted, it breaks down because the processing power needs are so astronomical that you'd have to off-load it anyways, which centralizes it. Which means you're trusting the central authority. And once you do that, you've broken the requirements for using a block chain.
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Jun 2, 2023 14:58
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As always, the problem of blockchain is that you're solving the wrong thing with the wrong methods. "What if I can't trust anyone???" is a social problem that you solve socially, not technologically.
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Jun 2, 2023 14:59
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happyhippy posted:Imagine having to pay gas fees to find your account post / new thread title combo
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Jun 2, 2023 16:40
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kw0134 posted:As always, the problem of blockchain is that you're solving the wrong thing with the wrong methods. "What if I can't trust anyone???" is a social problem that you solve socially, not technologically. It all comes down to the whole libertarian brain being a fundamentally unworkable worldview that relies on taking capitalism as inherent laws of physics.
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Jun 2, 2023 16:53
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HootTheOwl posted:it depends what you mean by blockchain, because chaining encrypted blocks together has it's uses and is common. But blockchain as these people talk about? No. None. I was gonna make a joke about a blockchain idiot thinking AES-CBC had something to do with Bitcoin but I think learning even the basics of surface level cryptography is giving them too much credit
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Jun 2, 2023 16:56
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A-E-S, Easy as one, two, three Ah, simple as C-B-C A-E-S, C-B-C, Bitcoin, you and me
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Jun 2, 2023 16:59
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its funny because at nearly every point bitcoin requires you to put your trust in someone
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Jun 2, 2023 17:05
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Poopy Palpy posted:Hell, they know a thing or two about programming in the 1870s. And i really mean a thing. Or two.
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Jun 2, 2023 17:07
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Boxturret posted:its funny because at nearly every point bitcoin requires you to put your trust in someone
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Jun 2, 2023 17:22
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kw0134 posted:As always, the problem of blockchain is that you're solving the wrong thing with the wrong methods. "What if I can't trust anyone???" is a social problem that you solve socially, not technologically. These are the people who invented the term social engineering for the world's second oldest profession. What's soft skills precious?
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Jun 2, 2023 17:37
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feedmegin posted:Edit: ''The idea that people knew a thing or two in the '70s is strange to a lot of young programmers." -- Donald Knuth. Considering how people in the 1970s dressed...
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Jun 2, 2023 17:48
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Boxturret posted:its funny because at nearly every point bitcoin requires you to put your trust in someone Not just someone, someone's work-product
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Jun 2, 2023 17:59
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No need to trust people when you can audit code. Now what does include mean again?
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Jun 2, 2023 18:00
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Boxturret posted:its funny because at nearly every point bitcoin requires you to put your trust in someone Exactly, and without the infrastructure we have in reality for mistakes or issues when this trust is misused. If you overcharge me in Bitcoin I have to accept. In real life you call me up and I change the number
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Jun 2, 2023 18:08
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Boxturret posted:killing in the $NAME
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Jun 3, 2023 15:49
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The debate over the usefulness of blockchain technology for cryptocurrency is only really relevant if cryptocurrency and real money were equal enough in terms of how widely they're accepted. BTC is at roughly the same place it was over a decade ago in terms of acceptance, and businesses sure as hell aren't lining up to take Dogecoin or foreskinbux in exchange for goods and services. Even the vast majority of big businesses who claim to accept crypto are just converting it to real money at the point of sale, so any of the supposed benefits of the blockchain aren't even applicable. And even if they were equally accepted, I don't think there's much use to using a decentralized, append-only ledger that's exclusively enforced by the technology used to facilitate the exchange in order to prove ownership
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Jun 3, 2023 16:17
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Agents are GO! posted:Considering how people in the 1970s dressed... We're talking about computer nerds. Trust me, not much has improved.
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Jun 3, 2023 16:25
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Fish Appreciator posted:The debate over the usefulness of blockchain technology for cryptocurrency is only really relevant if cryptocurrency and real money were equal enough in terms of how widely they're accepted. BTC is at roughly the same place it was over a decade ago in terms of acceptance, and businesses sure as hell aren't lining up to take Dogecoin or foreskinbux in exchange for goods and services. Even the vast majority of big businesses who claim to accept crypto are just converting it to real money at the point of sale, so any of the supposed benefits of the blockchain aren't even applicable. Isn't Bitcoin less accepted and useful as a currency now than it was 5 to 10 years ago? Valve stopped taking bitcoin on Steam in 2017 (after introducing it in 2016), the food trucks and restaurants that were taking bitcoin in 2013 in Seattle stopped years ago, too.
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Jun 4, 2023 00:34
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Bitcoin fans tried trumpeting the "use it to actually buy stuff!" thing at the start for sure. But that line of thinking has been essentially dropped. All crypto is now is speculative non-fungible stocks. That's it. Everything people were trying to sell others on with crypto has long been ignored, and now it's simply "put money in here, get more money out here" and it's been that for longer than it was projected as something useful. Crypto is just imaginary stocks for idiot nerds. No one even pretends it will actually accomplish anything except "make me rich" and that's about all you need to know for why to avoid it.
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Jun 4, 2023 00:40
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bitcoin is dave and busters bucks, but way way worse and less useful.
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Jun 4, 2023 00:43
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Chainclaw posted:Isn't Bitcoin less accepted and useful as a currency now than it was 5 to 10 years ago? Valve stopped taking bitcoin on Steam in 2017 (after introducing it in 2016), the food trucks and restaurants that were taking bitcoin in 2013 in Seattle stopped years ago, too. It has always had a specific use case: finding the next greater fool.
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Jun 4, 2023 00:52
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Chainclaw posted:Isn't Bitcoin less accepted and useful as a currency now than it was 5 to 10 years ago? Valve stopped taking bitcoin on Steam in 2017 (after introducing it in 2016), the food trucks and restaurants that were taking bitcoin in 2013 in Seattle stopped years ago, too. I think the main change is that a lot more people are aware of Bitcoin and what a loving scam it is now. Back in the early days, you could absolutely have flim-flammed a lot more people with it potentially being the currency of the future or just an experiment in liberating currency from THE MAN, etc. On a technical level, Bitcoin was also notably less of a pile of fuckery to deal with when there was less trading frequency happening.
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Jun 4, 2023 01:23
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Chainclaw posted:Isn't Bitcoin less accepted and useful as a currency now than it was 5 to 10 years ago? Valve stopped taking bitcoin on Steam in 2017 (after introducing it in 2016), the food trucks and restaurants that were taking bitcoin in 2013 in Seattle stopped years ago, too. Companies realized it wasn't worth it. If you are selling something for $20, you would want to get $20 in the end. With butts, $20 worth could end up being worth $19 or $2 within minutes, all due to some assholes that had nothing to do with your company (Elon farting out a tweet for example). Now times that $20 a few hundred thousand times like a Summer Sale in Valve. Then you have the problem of converting it to $ to pay your employees, rent, electricity, etc, having to pay to just get it loving converted over instantly with random gas fees. And with Bitcoin you have probably 90%+ of it being hoarded by complete idiots who think they will be instant billionaires if they just do nothing with it and wait for Elon to buy up the rest, other companies are extremely wary of it.
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Jun 4, 2023 01:26
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Companies remembered that they already transact in an established currency and the people they would be attracting by accepting crypto were an astronomically small group and not worth the bother.
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Jun 4, 2023 01:36
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PurpleXVI posted:I think the main change is that a lot more people are aware of Bitcoin and what a loving scam it is now. Back in the early days, you could absolutely have flim-flammed a lot more people with it potentially being the currency of the future or just an experiment in liberating currency from THE MAN, etc. You did have your hardcore believers at the start. That it was going to change the world. RON PAUL! Trying to get others to use it, trying to get their local bars/coffee shops/etc to use it and install ATMs to 'help' get bitcoin. Even tipping others for posts they liked online, actually giving others bitcoin to help spread its usage. Something you wouldn't get today. But this failed as no one was using them, so bitcoin had a little death back then originally and the price tanked. Then the full on grind farms started with the progress of mobile and GPU tech, and the 'To the moon' bazinga bros became the main group of users. The ones that don't want to use their own bitcoin, as holding onto it will make them billionaires one day, but want everyone else to use theirs to increase the price. The 'hahahahaha someone once bought a pizza with 1 bitcoin don't cha know, I used our kids cancer money for mine and once Elon buys more I will get a lambo!' smart people. The scams started, Elon saw a way to exploit rubes for a few hundred million and got a cult from it, and its spiralled into the flaming, rug pulling, back door exploiting, poo poo pile it is today.
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Jun 4, 2023 01:39
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Also the issue of latency, when you use your credit card, the merchant knows they're getting their money by close of day when the transactions are batched. With Bitcoin you get it ??? And the price changes the whole time because when using Bitcoin the point is to get it back to local currency
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Jun 4, 2023 01:43
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happyhippy posted:You did have your hardcore believers at the start. That it was going to change the world. RON PAUL! I asked him what "backed by math" actually meant and he didn't have an answer.
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Jun 4, 2023 01:47
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Technomancer posted:All true, but at the same time, those algorithms have been in constant use since then, because they are very efficient. Merkle trees were invented in the 70s-80s, but their usefulness was so low that they weren't widely used until Blockchain came along. And even then their low performance is certainly not adapted to the need of a global currency. They're not at all related to the dumb proof-of-work / "hash random data until you find something sort of close to a target value" way blockchain links blocks together.
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Jun 4, 2023 02:57
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:I asked him what "backed by math" actually meant and he didn't have an answer. Ponzi schemes are backed by maths! I mean math that only works for the people that their designed to work for but the math checks out perfectly. Casino's as well!
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Jun 4, 2023 03:05
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Foxfire_ posted:Merkle trees are used in lots of useful stuff (many filesystems, git, parts of https, ...) and have been for many years. They're a computationally efficient way to answer "Is this piece of data a valid part of a bigger set?" without having to have the entire set available. Bitcoin also uses them for establishing the content inside some individual block. this sounds more stupid and more accurate than the classic thread explanation "burn the rain forest solving Sudokus " youre explaining it more right??
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Jun 4, 2023 03:12
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