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Scams and bad actors haven't changed sadly. But zk-based really decentralized consensus now does 400 tps and it's extraordinary when you think about it and all

Scams and bad actors haven't changed sadly. But zk-based really decentralized consensus now does 400 tps and it's extraordinary when you think about it and all the safety and security properties it brings. And that's with proof-of-stake of course with decentralized sequencers for L2. But I get that people here prefer centralized databases, managed by admins and censorship-empowering platforms. Your bank stack looks like it's designed for fraud too. Manual operations and months-long audits with errors, but that is by design. Thanks everyone for all the downvotes.

dspillett 2y ago
> But I get that people here prefer For many of us it isn't that we think the status quo is the RightWay™ - we just aren't convinced that crypto as it currently is presents a better answer. It fixes some problems, but adds a number of its own that many of us don't think are currently worth the compromise for our needs. As you said yourself: > The crypto ecosystem is shady, I know, but the tech is great That but is not enough for me to want to take part. Yes the tech is useful, heck I use it for other things (blockchains existed as auditing mechanisms long before crypto-currencies), but I'm not going to encourage others to take part in an ecosystem that is as shady as crypto is. > Thanks everyone for all the downvotes. I don't think you are getting downvoted for supporting crypto, more likely because you basically said “you know that article you are all discussing?, well I think you'll want to know that I didn't bother to read it”, then without a hint of irony made assertions of “angst and negativity”. And if I might make a mental health suggestion: caring about online downvotes is seldom part of a path to happiness :)
- nottorp 2y ago
  The main problem with blockchain is identical to the one with LLMs. When snake oil salesmen try to apply the same solution to every problem, you stop wasting your time with those salesmen. Both can be useful now and then, but the legit uses are lost in the noise. And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency. But we've had decentralized currency before in the physical world. Until the past few hundred years. Then we abandoned it in favor of centralized currency for some reason. I don't know, reliability perhaps?
  - dspillett 2y ago
    > And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency. Cryptocurrencies were launched with that promise. They are but one use¹ of block-chains / merkle-trees, which existed long before them². ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree#Uses [2] 1982 for blockchains/trees as part of a distributed protocol as people generally mean when they use the words now³, hash chains/trees themselves go back at least as far as 1979 when Ralph Merkle patented the idea [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#History
    - nottorp 2y ago
      But if you put it that way neural networks were defined in the 70s too :)
      - dspillett 2y ago
        Very much so. Is there a problem with that? To what time period would attribute their creation? In fact it is only the 70s if you mean networks that learn via backprop & similar methods. Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s.
        nottorp 2y ago
        The point is whatever you said in defense of blockchain/crypto applies or does not apply to neural networks/LLMs in equal measure. I for one fail to see the difference between these two kinds of snake oil. > Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s. "The perceptron was invented in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. The first hardware implementation was Mark I Perceptron machine built in 1957"
        dspillett 2y ago
        > whatever you said in defense of blockchain/crypto You seem to be labouring under the impression that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are one in the same. The point you seem to be missing is that I'm saying they are not the same. Blockchains (usually actually trees like merkle trees) are a thing that has existed long before cryptocurrencies which are one application of technique. > I for one fail to see the difference between these two kinds of snake oil. The gaggle of quackish sales people with miracle cures based on LLMs is pretty much the same sort of quackish sales people that touted miracle cures based on crypto currencies, yes. But LLMs are one use of neural networks and crypto/proof-of-work is one use of blockchains. This all started with me correcting “And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency.” — which is the incorrect equivalency of blockchain/cryptocurrency writ large. > > Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s. > "The perceptron was invented in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. Exactly. You've just repeated my sentence with a little more detail. 40s: theory 50s: attempts at practical implementation early 70s: backprop methods (as we currently mean the term wrt neural networks, backpropagation as a more general concept existed before that) first published, starting that decades' big excitement over the potential for neural networks.
- throwme_123 2y ago
  > I don't think you are getting downvoted for supporting crypto Still, every of my post that is more or less supportive of crypto gets downvoted. And I am the first to tell the ecosystem is one of the worst in tech so that's always mild support. But yes, you're right it's probably sem web people overreacting to _my_ rant :)

dspillett 2y ago

> But I get that people here prefer For many of us it isn't that we think the status quo is the RightWay™ - we just aren't convinced that crypto as it currently is presents a better answer. It fixes some problems, but adds a number of its own that many of us don't think are currently worth the compromise for our needs. As you said yourself: > The crypto ecosystem is shady, I know, but the tech is great That but is not enough for me to want to take part. Yes the tech is useful, heck I use it for other things (blockchains existed as auditing mechanisms long before crypto-currencies), but I'm not going to encourage others to take part in an ecosystem that is as shady as crypto is. > Thanks everyone for all the downvotes. I don't think you are getting downvoted for supporting crypto, more likely because you basically said “you know that article you are all discussing?, well I think you'll want to know that I didn't bother to read it”, then without a hint of irony made assertions of “angst and negativity”. And if I might make a mental health suggestion: caring about online downvotes is seldom part of a path to happiness :)

nottorp 2y ago
The main problem with blockchain is identical to the one with LLMs. When snake oil salesmen try to apply the same solution to every problem, you stop wasting your time with those salesmen. Both can be useful now and then, but the legit uses are lost in the noise. And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency. But we've had decentralized currency before in the physical world. Until the past few hundred years. Then we abandoned it in favor of centralized currency for some reason. I don't know, reliability perhaps?
- dspillett 2y ago
  > And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency. Cryptocurrencies were launched with that promise. They are but one use¹ of block-chains / merkle-trees, which existed long before them². ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree#Uses [2] 1982 for blockchains/trees as part of a distributed protocol as people generally mean when they use the words now³, hash chains/trees themselves go back at least as far as 1979 when Ralph Merkle patented the idea [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#History
  - nottorp 2y ago
    But if you put it that way neural networks were defined in the 70s too :)
    - dspillett 2y ago
      Very much so. Is there a problem with that? To what time period would attribute their creation? In fact it is only the 70s if you mean networks that learn via backprop & similar methods. Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s.
      - nottorp 2y ago
        The point is whatever you said in defense of blockchain/crypto applies or does not apply to neural networks/LLMs in equal measure. I for one fail to see the difference between these two kinds of snake oil. > Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s. "The perceptron was invented in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. The first hardware implementation was Mark I Perceptron machine built in 1957"
        dspillett 2y ago
        > whatever you said in defense of blockchain/crypto You seem to be labouring under the impression that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are one in the same. The point you seem to be missing is that I'm saying they are not the same. Blockchains (usually actually trees like merkle trees) are a thing that has existed long before cryptocurrencies which are one application of technique. > I for one fail to see the difference between these two kinds of snake oil. The gaggle of quackish sales people with miracle cures based on LLMs is pretty much the same sort of quackish sales people that touted miracle cures based on crypto currencies, yes. But LLMs are one use of neural networks and crypto/proof-of-work is one use of blockchains. This all started with me correcting “And for blockchain... it was launched with the promise of decentralized currency.” — which is the incorrect equivalency of blockchain/cryptocurrency writ large. > > Some theoretical work on artificial neurons was done in the 40s. > "The perceptron was invented in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. Exactly. You've just repeated my sentence with a little more detail. 40s: theory 50s: attempts at practical implementation early 70s: backprop methods (as we currently mean the term wrt neural networks, backpropagation as a more general concept existed before that) first published, starting that decades' big excitement over the potential for neural networks.
throwme_123 2y ago
> I don't think you are getting downvoted for supporting crypto Still, every of my post that is more or less supportive of crypto gets downvoted. And I am the first to tell the ecosystem is one of the worst in tech so that's always mild support. But yes, you're right it's probably sem web people overreacting to _my_ rant :)