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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I don’t think you know what a ponzi scheme is. A ponzi scheme is a situation where a business pays it’s previous investors with the money from it’s new investors… In a fairly launched crypto currency there is no business or other central entity distributing the coins so there is nothing to invest in and no one to pay you back. The only think you can “invest” in is the network itself and the only thing you can “invest” is the work of your computer to secure the network for which you will be rewarded with some coins. Every other good store of value in the world works the same. In order to obtain gold or silver you have to pointlessly dig in the ground searching for some useless metal whose only worth comes from it’s scarcity and being difficult to obtain. In that sense if crypto currencies are a ponzi scheme then so are silver, gold, diamonds, €/$/£ (paper or digital), stocks and everything else whose value doesn’t come from it’s intrinsic qualities.

    If you don’t want to dig in the ground/use your computers work you can pay someone else to do it or just buy the metal/coin from them if they already acquired it. But if it’s so useless why would anyone spend their time, effort or intrinsically valuable things (like food, fuel, tools etc.) to acquire it? Because while it’s basic qualities don’t make it a good source of energy, food, heat, light, shelter, security, comfort, entertainment… non of the things we as humans value, they do make it an ideal candidate for a store of value a unit of account and a medium of exchange. That’s why people valued this metals for millennia and continue to do so. They don’t have value on their own, but in the context of the societal system we live in their intrinsic qualities make them invaluable. The value of gold, cash etc. came from it’s place in that system, crypto currencies are in many aspects an improvement on those intrinsic qualities that make gold and cash valuable so it’s only natural that they will replace the aforementioned in many areas of life.






  • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.detoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlLemmy today
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    5 months ago

    Yes, my comment wasn’t about online casinos but about the people who think they have a right to tell others how to live their lives. I’m not defending the gambling industry, I think gambling is stupid. I’m defending the right of the people to make their own decisions.

    My “defense of the gambling industry” was just me pointing out that as long as something isn’t inherently nonconsensual and the terms and conditions are clear there is no reason to forbid other people from doing it just because you disagree with it.


  • Who’s “they”? I don’t know much about the gambling industry but if it’s anything like any other industry then it’s not a centralized monolith but many independent business. As long as the founding principles aren’t inherently corrupt (and in the case of casinos they aren’t. Nobody is forced to play and everyone knows the house has an advantage and in the long term is guaranteed to win. Because of this it doesn’t make sense for the house to cheat and risk getting caught, it will win anyway.) there is no reason to think that the majority of the industry engages in criminal activity. This is a massive generalization.


  • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.detoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlLemmy today
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    5 months ago

    Why are online casinos bad? I don’t understand this pervasive need some people have to force their way of life on others and take away their agency over their own lives. It comes off to me as some kind of superiority complex. “They’re too stupid to make their own decisions, I know better what’s best for them, I must protect them from themselves”.



  • A gui app that lets you:

    • symmetrically encrypt and decrypt text and files with AES-256 and without any weird formating that would make it incompatible with openssl.
    • generate (without writing to file) RSA-(2048-4096) keys and asymmetrically encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify text and files.

    It should be simple without any advanced options or storing any data or credentials or saving anything without asking the user. For example;

    For symmetric text:

    • 3 text boxes, 1 for input, 1 for output, 1 for password, encrypt/decrypt radio, 1 button.

    For symmetric file:

    • file picker, 1 password text box, encrypt/decrypt radio, 1 button

    For asymmetric generation:

    • 2 text boxes, 1 for priv key, 1 for pub key, 1 button.

    For asymmetric text:

    • 3 text boxes, 1 for input, 1 for output, 1 for priv/pub key, encrypt/decrypt/sign/verify radio, 1 button

    For asymmetric file:

    • file picker, 1 priv/pub key text box, encrypt/decrypt/sign/verify radio, 1 button

  • Is there any benefit to it over nostr though? You’d have to link your public key to your account(s) and store a backup of your private key in addition to your regular login/password just to get a more fragmented and less seamless version of nostr. A lot of people already have issues figuring out how fediverse works with multiple instances and all… now they’d have multiple accounts with different credentials to keep track of on top of a meta login/password (pub/priv key). With nostr you only have 1 login/password (pub/priv key) to everything, it’s just long and you can’t change it. At least I think that’s how it works, I don’t really use twitter/nostr/mastodon type of sites.



  • I use crypto to privately pay for my VPN, phone bill, to donate to foss projects. I sold some digital items online for crypto. I use it because it’s faster, more private (if done correctly) and convenient than using a credit card or bank transfer. No one can seize, freeze, or control my crypto. I can donate, pay or get paid on my own terms with no middle man. If visa, mastercard, banks or fintech companies generate value then so does crypto.