Readit NewsI've met and worked with many people who never shilled a coin in their whole life and were treated as criminals for merely proposing any type of application on Ethereum.
I got tired of having people yelling online about how "we are burning the planet" and who refused to understand that proof of stake made energy consumption negligible.
To this day, I have my Mastodon instance on some extreme blocklist because "admin is a crypto shill" and their main evidence was some discussion I was having to use ENS as an alternative to webfinger so that people could own their identity without relying on domain providers.
The goalposts keep moving. The critics will keep finding reasons and workarounds. Lots of useful idiots will keep doubling down on the idea that some holy government will show up and enact perfect regulation, even though it's the institutions themselves who are the most corrupt and taking away their freedoms.
The open, anonymous web is on the verge of extinction. We no longer can keep ignoring externalities. We will need to start designing our systems in a way where everyone will need to either pay or have some form of social proof for accessing remote services. And while this does not require any type of block chains or cryptocurrency, we certainly will need to start showing some respect to all the people who were working on them and have learned a thing or two about these problems.
Proof of stake brought with it its own set of flaws and failed to solve many of the ones which already existed.
> To this day, I have my Mastodon instance on some extreme blocklist because (…)
Maybe. Or maybe you misinterpreted the reason? I don’t know, I only have your side of the story, so won’t comment either way.
> The goalposts keep moving. The critics will keep finding reasons and workarounds.
As will proponents. Perhaps if initial criticisms had been taken seriously and addressed in a timely manner, there wouldn’t have been reason to thoroughly dismiss the whole field. Or perhaps it would’ve played out exactly the same. None of us know.
> even though it's the institutions themselves who are the most corrupt and taking away their freedoms.
Curious that what is probably the most corrupt administration in the history of the USA, the one actively taking away their citizens’ freedoms as we speak, is the one embracing cryptocurrency to the max. And remember all the times the “immutable” blockchains were reverted because it was convenient to those with the biggest stakes in them? They’re far from impervious to corruption.
> And while this does not require any type of block chains or cryptocurrency, we certainly will need to start showing some respect to all the people who were working on them and have learned a thing or two about these problems.
Er, no. For one, the vast majority of blockchain applications were indeed grifts. It’s unfortunate for the minority who had good intentions, but it is what it is. For another, they didn’t invent the concept of trustless systems and cryptography. The biggest lesson we learned from blockchains is how bad of a solution they are. I don’t feel the need to thank anyone for grabbing an idea, doing it badly, wasting tons of resources while ignoring the needs of the world, using it to scam others, then doubling down on it when presented with the facts of its failings.
The internet was a big level-playing field, but for the past half century corporations and state actors managed to keep control and profit to themselves while giving the illusion that us peasants could still benefit from it and had a shot at freedom. Now that computing power is so vast and cheap, it has become an arms race and the cyberpunk dystopia has become apparent.
This is like saying “All the “sugar-sweetened beverages are bad for you” people will sooner or later realize it is imperative to drink liquids”. It is perfectly congruent to believe trustless systems are important and that the way the blockchain works is more harmful than positive.
Additionally, the claim is that cryptocurrencies are used like that. Blockchains by themselves have a different set of issues and criticisms.
My wife just had ChatGPT make her a pill-taking plan. It did a fantastic job, taking into account meals, diet, sleep, and several pills with different constraints and contraindications. It also found that she was taking her medication incorrectly, which explained some symptoms she’s been having.
I don’t know if it’s the friendly helpful agent tone, but she didnt even question giving over data which in another setting might cause a medical pro to lose their license, if it saved her an hour on a saturday.
https://archive.ph/20250812200545/https://www.404media.co/gu...
I feel the emdash is a tell because you have to go out of your way to use it on a computer keyboard. Something anyone other than the most dedicated punctuation geeks won't do for a random message on the internet.
Things are different for typeset books.
There’s no incantation. On macOS it’s either ⌥- (option+hyphen) or ⇧⌥- (shift+option+hyphen) depending on keyboard layout. It’s no more effort than using ⇧ for an uppercase letter. On iOS I long-press the hyphen key. I do the same for the correct apostrophe (’). These are so ingrained in my muscle memory I can’t even tell you the exact keys I press without looking at the keyboard. For quotes I have an Alfred snippet which replaces "" with “” and places the cursor between them.
But here’s the thing: you don’t even have to do that because Apple operating systems do it for you by default. Type -- and it converts to —; type ' in the middle of a word and it replaces it with ’; quotes it also adds the correct start and end ones depending on where you type them.
The reason I type these myself instead of using the native system methods is that those work a bit too well. Sometimes I need to type code in non-code apps (such as in a textarea in a browser) and don’t want the replacements to happen.
> I feel the emdash is a tell because you have to go out of your way to use it on a computer keyboard.
You do not. Again, on Apple operating systems these are trivial and on by default.
> Something anyone other than the most dedicated punctuation geeks won't do for a random message on the internet.
Even if that were true—which, as per above, it’s not, you don't have to be that dedicated to type two hyphens in a row—it makes no sense to conflate those who care enough about their writing to use correct punctuation and those who don’t even care enough to type the words themselves. They stand at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Again, using em-dashes as one signal is fine; using it as the principal or sole signal is not.
Yes it's not a guarantee but it is at least a very good signal that something was at least partially LLM written. It is also a very practical signal, there are a few other signs but none of them are this obvious.
I believe you. But also be aware of the Frequency Illusion. The fact that someone mentions that as an LLM signal also makes you see it more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
> Yes it's not a guarantee but it is at least a very good signal that something was at least partially LLM written.
Which is perfectly congruent with what I said with emphasis:
> it is never sufficient on its own to identify LLM use
I have no quarrel with using it as one signal. My beef is when it’s used as the principal or sole signal.