hypeatei

GP probably meant mass surveillance. I don't think anyone's arguing that a cop with a radar gun watching one piece of road is harmful. It's harmful when it scales to hundreds of data points across different areas, is automated, and has almost no oversight or accountability baked into the system.

> If the project publishes a SHA-256 hash, use it. Non-negotiable on production machines.

They're pushing FUD around downloading a file but then suggest that we trust the same chain of complex things to display the right hash value? Integrity != authentication.

Machine guns are banned at the federal level, though, and it's been consistently upheld by the courts. I'm not sure I follow the argument anyway; the US constitution consists of negative rights (e.g. freedom to do something) rather than positive rights (e.g. entitlements)

They can't make it an explicit line item of "3% surcharge" or whatever. Instead, the business will raise prices across the board and offer a "cash discount" of 3%

If your argument is that Bitcoin is only good for illicit purchases, then I sort of agree with you but there are better alternatives like Monero. Regardless, you would agree that current valuations are insane given that's the only real use-case, right?

Also infrequent purchases != storing wealth in Bitcoin.

No, via direct deposit. I had a co-worker once who miskeyed his routing+account numbers and guess what? He still got his money a few days later and it wasn't lost to the void.

There is no blockchain, seed phrases, nor cold wallets required for this amazing feat of money transfer/remediation to take place.

> You, as a developer working on Bitcoin, need to take your time to understand your changes, document them clearly, and verify they do what you think.

Or, you could realize that using a financial technology which relies on no software bugs ever is probably flawed at its core. "Not your keys, not your coins" was (is?) the zeitgeist but even people who did the "right thing" and used a cold wallet still got screwed. I don't know why anyone would keep their wealth in something that requires so much technical excellence.

No, I don't participate in crypto nonsense. Especially such a speculative and volatile "asset" like Bitcoin.

Haha, so you can bribe the President? I hope this comment is satire.

The "masses" are well aware of crypto at this point and BTC is down 47% over this past year. It's just not that useful unless you're trying to skirt laws/regulations[1] or LARPing as a sovereign citizen.

1: Yes, I know, BTC is not even good pick for financial crimes either.

Bull markets are born out of skepticism. Everyone is fearful that there's a giant bubble so all eyes are on the fundamentals. When euphoria sets in, i.e. neighbors and co-workers start telling you how easy it is to make money on stocks, that's when you know you're at the top. We're not at the top and have seen multiple corrections/bear markets over the past 5-6 years.

Berkshire themselves have made investments into Google this year, a company at the center of this supposed "bubble"... make of it what you will but I think the market is setup to do pretty well in the near future.

Doing basic math makes someone a "spreadsheet head"? If the "actual world" wanted American-made gloves then this cash injection from the government would've resulted in a boom in glove manufacturing here, no?

I always see catastrophizing and autarkist-coded takes like this which imply the US is a house of cards because we don't manufacture everything under the sun at all times. You have to realize that preparing for a doomsday scenario like 50% fatality rate pandemic has a cost that someone foots the bill for. Even in 2020 with a buffoon running the country, we still reacted very quickly and developed multiple vaccines to combat a novel virus (yes, the response was bungled in other ways but I digress)... people, markets, etc. are adaptable and we will figure it out.

> And they are posed here as gospel

The same could be said for people who suggest regulation for every problem that comes up, even for problems that were caused by regulation. Maybe we have our blindspots, but the "regulate everything" crowd is much louder and more prevalent on HN than the free market absolutists.

Problems have been ongoing for a few hours already.