Mastodawn

God, this bubble burst is going to be so brutal

Justin Derrick Jun 20

@zenhob I cashed out all my tech stocks back in January. I suspect this will be the dot-bomb v2.0, where everyone finally figures out that LLMs and the hundreds of billions of dollars invested would have been better off getting tossed into a dumpster and just lit on fire.

They're impressive chatbots, but not useful for anything of consequence. They can't do math, they can't play games, they get basic facts wrong, they can be manipulated into being complicit in crimes, etc.

@JustinDerrick @zenhob "The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Crypto is still going strong; been around for ~16 years. Tesla's stock is still higher than this same time last year.

Justin Derrick Jun 20

@1337 @zenhob Yup, but I've made money on my tech stocks over the past 8 to 10 years. I watched with pleasure when the tech ETFs dropped nearly 30% earlier this year, but I thought it still had more to go. Having said that, it's still not back to mid-January/mid-February highs. It was still a good move.

I'm happy to have cashed out and moved it elsewhere while I wait for the AI / LLM bubble to burst.

Stel Clementine Jun 20

@1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob Crypto is a bit of a special case IMO because it's a *purely* abstract asset that's not even pretending to be tied to any physical function. I think about it as a decentralized ponzi scheme that only requires a bit of "get rich quick!" marketing, electricity, and hardware. Until one of those things goes away, the crypto scam will continue.

Justin Derrick Jun 20

@stelclementine @1337 @zenhob As an IT guy, blockchain and crypto seems interesting, possibly revolutionary -- taking money out of the hands of politicians and bankers, and making it a hard asset like gold, but instantly portable and nearly infinitely divisible -- all made possible and enforced by code.

As someone who breathes, and is consequently concerned about the environment, it's a trainwreck.

Only time will tell what happens to it.

@JustinDerrick if it worked like the early adopter libertarians envisioned (I.e., not grifters), Bitcoin would be a deflationary currency; the rich could just horde it, not "putting it to use," with investment or loans, and they would gain value just sitting on it. Though, a long time ago I remember seeing "Freicoin" or something like that based on ideas by some obscure economist that was designed to be inflationary. The idea went something like, currency represents resources, like corn, and resources degrade, so currency should too.

ShadSterling Jun 21

@JustinDerrick @stelclementine @1337 @zenhob I thought Bitcoin was interesting when it was new, but it very quickly demonstrated that it was not a viable currency. Maybe the worst problem is the transaction rate limit. The energy use is way too high, unless every node is also doubling as a space heater. Anyone who owns enough computing power can manipulate the entire network. And now that it’s securitized it’s not even independent.

Tom Morris Jun 21

@JustinDerrick @stelclementine @1337 @zenhob they’ve taken money out of the hands of imperfectly regulated bankers and given it to wholly unregulated dipshits who keep doing endless scams.

@JustinDerrick @stelclementine @1337 @zenhob It's a good idea only if you think that the problem is with who controls the money, and not with the whole concept of money.

Aziroshin Jun 23

@JustinDerrick @stelclementine @1337 @zenhob Politicians and bankers have long moved into crypto. There are no technological solutions to the natural tendency of markets to facilitate centralization.

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen Jun 21

@stelclementine @1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob Yes but there was a time - not many months mind you - where too many tech enthusiasts insisted that you should put your stuff on the blockchain, until they realized it is a slow, expensive, pseudononymous, world readable database with very little payload size full of bugs and exploits. So they stopped insisting on it.

The new machine lying fad even has governments singing its praises.

⁂iwein⁂Jun 21

@toriver
Is there a better distributed database?

@stelclementine @1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen Jun 21

Single-purpose? Probably not. Nor is there one that is slower or more energy-consuming. And with no transactional rollback where you «fix» errors by forking. And it’s not really one, there are multiple, with some bridging going on.

@stelclementine @1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob

@iwein DHT, OrbitDB, or any Byzantine fault tolerant scheme. Even Postgres can be made to work in a quorum-type distributed system. Crypto like Bitcoin just tries to "solve" the Sybil problem by indirection (PoW) and clever (social/financial) incentives. I'm guessing one of the FAANGs could take complete control over the network with their AI datacenters if they wanted to. The question is if a *permissionless* system like Bitcoin's is needed for a use-case, and not just a centralized or federated system. Trust is eventually needed somewhere in an exchange.

@1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob
Cryptocurrency found a usecase where it's really useful: Drug deals, scams, ransom money and similar things that need to move money on the black market.

That's real value keeping it afloat. Criminal but still real.

Justin Derrick Jun 21

@leeloo @1337 @zenhob All of those things exist in the traditional finance system as well. That’s not a condemnation of crypto, just an unfortunate reality.

@JustinDerrick @1337 @zenhob
That's not what I was arguing.

AI, NFT, etc are/were bubbles, full of hot air, no actual value.

Drugs and other crimes - worth billions. Not a bubble, people just need to be aware of what they are really investing in.

@1337 @JustinDerrick @zenhob that's the argument against shorting something overvalued though isn't it?

Cashing out before the pop is a different thing.

Justin Derrick Jun 22

@davey_cakes @1337 @zenhob It's still 'timing the market', which is generally bad (see: day trading) but sometimes it seems obvious that a correction is overdue (see: TXF.TO or XIT.TO 2023-2025).

I actually held my tech stocks through the 2022-2023 slump, because it felt like there was no real reason to jump -- no structural issue, no obvious over-valuation or bad direction -- and more importantly, no where else to go and put the money that looked way better.