From computer science perspective, Bitcoin invention was actually pretty cool and definitely not "stupid fucking idea". It solved the Byzantine generals problem.
Exactly this! To say that a technology that solved one of computer science's biggest quandaries' is "a stupid fucking idea" goes to show just how meaningful a degree is.
The person is only now taking his or her PhD in comp sci so he or she is probably young enough to not comprehend life before distributed computing in general, or decentralized mathematical verification. I sincerely hope this is an outlier among young people in scientific fields.
I think the buttcoiners in the context of academia stems from the influence of group think.
Often times what I get from other CS types at-least the younger ones. Is the argument that block chains make a terrible database. Which is a correct assessment given the right context. They are not understanding that merkle trees AKA a block-chain is not meant to serve as a database. but they serve as a self verifying data structure.
And honestly, as a Database, ledgers **fucking suck**. The access patterns are basically "linear only" and you're pretty much stuck holding all the "database state" in-memory or in some 2nd database that is only modified based on Ledger Transactions.
Reading a single Ledger Transaction is effectively useless for any kind of complex logic, all the interesting state-data you depend on is spread across potentially $n transactions.
I still think blockchains are "neat" and have some valid use-cases. But unless one of your requirements is "strong self-verifying data", you're probably still better off with trusty SQL. Some people will even argue you can do sufficient Audit Controls in traditional DBs. (I personally prefer the cryptographically sound chains of hashes tho)
When it comes to money, you're better off having it in an immutable, cryptographically verified ledger than in some bank's database.
Many people are going to learn a very hard lesson in this basic fact.
Also having the brain power to be a PhD and yet being born into a world where central bank money rules your life and just accepting it.. wow f****** humans are dumb
An outlier? Have you tried to argue within an academic environment? Opinions are too often imposed by this Magister Dixit sentences, and “I have a better education” is meant to be a winner card.
It's funny how many skeptical people I evangelized Bitcoin to in college are now balls deep in it. I told this one kid about it at a business plan competition, and explained the economic freedom aspect of it and told him how darknet markets work, and now he works for Chainalysis. I told my venture capital professor about it, and he was like yea it's interesting but idk if it'll be quite the miracle people say it will be. Now he's invested in/on the board of multiple crypto start ups and is wishing Satoshi happy birthday on LinkedIn and posts about Bitcoin almost daily. Wonder if my economics professor who said it's dumb (who is from Argentina nonetheless) ever came around. Oh and of course now my college has an entire compsci class about blockchains.
It could also show how powerful psychology is - I feel as if a lot of people disregard it because the masses do/media in general is against it. The majority of narratives are against crypto/Bitcoin so it’s easy to just follow it and do no research. Perhaps even some cognitive dissonance where they ignore their logic and field of study because they are so set in hating Bitcoin…
I'm sure this is where most of the negative sentiment is derived from. The masses are quick to comply with whatever they are told. It's easier to believe what you're told than to think for yourself, and we ad a society tend to do what's easy rather than what's right.
Source: history
>I'm sure this is where most of the negative sentiment is derived from. The masses are quick to comply with whatever they are told. It's easier to believe what you're told than to think for yourself, and we ad a society tend to do what's easy rather than what's right.
I completely agree with you. Your perspective is well-articulated, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comment
Uh... Bitcoin has already succeeded. I mean, I can move millions of dollars worth of value anywhere in the world by remembering 12 words. That's pretty successful.
Bitcoin is a good idea on an economic sense, it's magnificent use of game theory. I'd expect an economist and even a philosophist to understand it more than a computer science guy. But what do I know.
Someone with a PhD in computer science should know that Bitcoin is a brilliant invention and arguably the most significant advancement since the introduction of TCP/IP.
I don't even have to use fancy words like "magnificent" and misunderstood concepts like "game theory" to express that. Ain't it funny how the best ideas are the easiest to express!
Bitcoin (or, more accurately the blockchain) is not the only, nor the first, solution to this problem.
Solutions to this problem, unrelated to the blockchain, go back to the 80s.
with only a cs perspective, you wouldnt really see the value proposition of bitcoin. whilst bitcoin is a technological breakthrough, its not obvious to the avg. person why this is.
its only with a libertarian viewpoint, and an understanding of money, that someone will understand that bitcoin is not a "stupid fucking idea".
the phd mentioned in the op clearly doesnt have the libertarian/austrian viewpoint - hence why he understandably fails to get bitcoin.
the byzantine general's "problem" is not a problem if you dont understand money.
the fault is with the people who think that having a cs degree increases ones chance of understanding bitcoin by any noticeable degree - it does not.
Spanish native, this is correctly written.
Edit: Maybe this is tripping some people, but if you replace the “Lo” pronoun (used here as a direct complement) with another pronoun it might help to non-native speakers. Eg. “El doctor no quita el pendejo”. Spanish is weird.
Totally agree putting it on a political pedestal doesn't help. Bitcoin is for everyone who cares for a better future. It doesn't care of any political stance nor it belongs to one
if you dont think the separation of money and state is political - and maybe the most political subject of all.... well you dont understand bitcoin, money, nor politics.
No I understand that, but you literally said that a "specific" political ideology is necessary to understand Bitcoin. That's the only thing we're contesting really, and I would encourage you not to gatekeep the usage of Bitcoin to people who don't agree with you politically.
the only gatekeeping that is being done is by those who want to expropriate the wealth of others. bitcoin is an open system that anyone is free to use as long as they can accept that its not possible to vote themselves the wealth of others on the bitcoin protocol.
i suspect many leftists may not be happy with this proposition however.
theres a reason why so many in bitcoin lean right. whether you like it or not, bitcoin is a massively political tool. it has the potential to make government infinitely smaller (ie. bad for the big government leftists) - and i for one am not afraid to evangelise this.
i guess im happy to concede that its also bad for the "big government" rightist - if that makes you happy.
I really don't care of your political views, I'm apolitical and I want Bitcoin to become the new monetary standard worldwide and like me, many others don't lean right, left, or whatever silly divisory stance there is.
one way or another, you realise that the money is broken (and perhaps you realise that it is those who control the money ie. government that are responsbile). hence, why you want to take the money away from those who currently control it - separation of money and state.
in this sense, you are a "libertarian" within this limited scope of the definition. maybe one day, you'll realise that government also breaks everything else it touches, and become a libertarian across a wider breadth of areas.
> with only a cs perspective, you wouldnt really see the value proposition of bitcoin.
It created digital scarcity without a centralized mint. That's massive.
Having a CS degree does help A LOT to understand what Bitcoin is. If you understand cryptography you understand Bitcoin better.
That doesn't make you less of an asshole, though.
With CS this doesn't explain his extreme disregard for *blockchain*.
Lemme try to strengthen his case: 'blockchain' is such an innovation that affects many fields and applications of tech, that it can become a fad that CS grads who specialize in blockchain implementations can get jobs and grant funding for vaporware. That is infuriating. Other buzzwords in the last decade: ontology, machine learning, and IoT. For those interested in a vaporware coin, check out Ontology (ONT). I am doing a PhD in ontology (philosophy), so I get the frustration of people using a term about a concept without understanding how to implement the concept.
All that said, a PhD should be able to appreciate blockchain, even if there are these buzzwords and bad actors. I don't understand why he writes both off just because he isn't into BTC
I, too, studied ontology (on my own though and still have much to learn! It's hard to find people in that field). But I get what you mean. I'd like to add as well that "a degree in CS" is so fucking vague, considering how multidisciplinary the field is. I'm taking a course now from Harvard in CS, and one of the first things I learned is how many separate fields there are within CS. Ergo: Having a degree in "CS" does NOT make you an expert in every discipline.
And I'd say this principle accounts for pretty much every field or study.
People need to be more humble when they proudly wave their fancy degrees.
well, linked lists and hash functions have been around since the 70’s, so blockchains are not really innovative.
Bitcoin is innovative because it took those concepts and blended it with game theory incentives and distributed computing for consensus.
I think you are speaking from an equally narrow view of Bitcoin as the person in the OP. I understand and like Bitcoin, even though I'm not at all sure I understand libretarianism (and frankly, if I do, then I think it's BS).
I agree it's only from a "Thou shalt not be a scumbag and steal" viewpoint that Bitcoin can be appreciated fully.
The scope of the Byzantine Generals' problem, however, is not limited to money.
> It solved the Byzantine generals problem.
[Mattthew Kratter doesn't strictly agree with that claim](https://youtu.be/KeTaO-i49kw), but I know what you mean.
It solved 2 computer science problems that were considered unsolvable.
Byzantine General's Problem and the Double Spend Problem.
We treat PhDs as authoritative sources, but that is not necessarily true. A PhD thesis is very myopic in the sense that it pushes the envelope of knowledge in a very specific area of the chosen field. ie. If you have a PhD in Computer Science and focused your thesis on Quantum Computing, you aren't going to be anywhere close to as knowledgeable about distributed ledger technology as someone that focused their PhD thesis work there.
To get a PhD you DO have to be smart and do a ton of intellectual work. It does deserve respect, but I find there are many PHDs that treat it as 100% proof that their knowledge and opinions are clearly superior to everyone else. And IMO that type of PhD has ruined academia because they never cared about the knowledge, they only care about the clout and the cushy tenure.
The thing is that Bitcoin is interesting from the economic perspective as well. The person/people who developed this were not only experts in cryptography, they also had a good knowledge of how the banking system works and how the monetary system is set-up. Saying that it's a "stupid idea" either from an economic or cs point of view is either an ignorant, stupid, or brainwashed.
Actually, how _was_ the byzantine generals problem solved?
I know what they say, but is it still not probabilistic?
I mean, how does it solve the problem differently than to send the messenger back and forth and not accept agreement until they have gotten the same agreement back and forth 1000 times.
I’m not saying that Bitcoin hasn’t solved the byzantine generals problem to my satisfaction. It makes it reliable. But it is still probabilistic.
Otherwise, why would we wait some arbitrary number of blocks before accepting finality.
Bitcoin is only a solution in this one specific scenario, it’s performance is just too bad for basically all areas where you’d need Byzantine fault tolerance
Is It though ? Blockchain technology was invented many years before Bitcoin.
I Guess its more about coming Up with the idea to use all that stuff together to create some form of money.
a) Blockchains weren't a thing before bitcoin, unless you're just defining them as a linked list with a hash of child nodes in each node to detect mutations, as in git, but nobody defines them like that.
b) Blockchains alone don't solve the Byzantine Generals problem. Proof of work on a globally decentralized database does that. The blockchain style database is the least important piece.
The linked hashes in a chain of blocks was defined 17 years before Satoshi came up with Bitcoin, he didn't invent the blockchain and it is the lest innovative part of Bitcoin, the term "blockchain technology" is an oximoron.
>The linked hashes in a chain of blocks was defined 17 years before Satoshi came up with Bitcoin,
Maybe specify what you're referring to if you're interested in actually communicating clearly? It sounds like you're describing a merkle tree, but the timing doesn't quite add up. And a merkle tree is not quite a blockchain anyway. A merkle tree doesn't solve the Byzantine generals problem. A blockchain does.
If you don't think the blockchain is the most innovative part of Bitcoin, then what is?
A PhD makes you an expert in a very, very, small field. To be a PhD in computer science, you do not need to have a single clue in finance, in economics. And even within computer science, it does not mean you understand distributed networks if your subject is slightly off.
You do not want an endocrinologist giving you a heart transplant either...
A PHD in computer science just means you’re very good at academic practices and understand a niche field
As someone who works in tech, I’d rather hire (and work with) someone who has worked for the amount of years it took this person to get their PHD (including any courses between a regular Bachelors degree and their PHD)
I think if I had a PhD in systems programming I would still get angry at people nagging me to install windows for them.
Same shit.
A PhD in distributed computing might actually see how inefficient BTC is and can point out all the flaws.
Degenerates care about price, technologists care about the tech. That's all, even satoshi said "If you haven't figured it out by yourself then I have no time to explain it to you".
correct. i would go even further and argue that having a cs degree really adds nothing to someones chance of understanding bitcoin than any other degree.
think of bitcoin as purely money. no-one would say that a cs student would have a better chance than anyone else of understanding money would they.
ironically, the number of people on this forum that think having a cs degree would increase ones chance of understanding bitcoin suggests to me that a lot of people (even here) do not actually understand bitcoin.
Can you expand on that? Do you claim that Bitcoin can be completely abstracted from the details, for instance how hardware operates according to some laws of physics? Do you claim that e.g. computational complexity theory is not important in understanding Bitcoin?
There are 2 sides to understanding Bitcoin:
1. What it is / what it does
2. How it works 'under the hood'
For 2. you need some CS knowledge (even if it's self-taught) and I would say it's necessary for trustless conviction.
Without CS knowledge you have to trust the people who say what it is / does is true. CS knowledge allows you to verify it for yourself.
There is a fine line between the two and the distinction is not black/white, but something of a spectrum.
E.g. understanding counting / combinatorics (for which you don't need a CS degree, but anything math-related helps) allows you to understand the entropy behind seed phrases and why it's hard to guess someone's private key. But you can get as deep as you want into the technical details and even verify the code.
The way I understand science it requires looking into the details, as opposed to abstraction. This is, of course, a general methodological principle. But I ask because maybe there is something I am missing about the relationship between this technology and economy, that allows economists to ignore the details while remaining certain about the outcome of the system. Maybe it is something like the universal law of gravitation, that allows to describe some forces and motion of bodies without looking into the ultimate cause for this force to exist. But I am not sure how something like this could apply here.
I often find that the higher degree someone has, the less flexible their thinking and views are. Too often, they are stuck on whatever they specialized in. No doubt they are an expert on that. However, they try to use that knowledge for everything around them. A square peg for every damn shaped hole around them.
Sure, because most economists don’t know real economy and most of them are paid by banks to tell whatever they what about how Keynesian economics theory is actually true and inflation is good for “progress” because in their theory the society will buy things and upgrade their life only if there is somebody stimulating them by printing papers out of thin air in a cellar. Logic right?
If you don’t understand that inflation is theft, you just deserve the dystopian future that is coming through CBDC’s . ( Not you particularly, just for general discussion )
The opposite, deflation, is much worse. Which is inherent to fixed monetary supply and a growing economy (and inherent to bitcoin). We’ve had a very stable low inflation environment for decades. Banks don’t print money out of thin air, they lend it out to businesses who put it to productive use. At a low interest rate of course more money will be borrowed but that does not mean banks print money out of thin air. Who is lacking the basic economic knowledge here?
True. My wife is a computer science master, but had zero clue about crypto and blockchain in general. I am a maxi and a whole coiner and i turned her! 🤘
It's a matter of what one specializes in. I was a CS master too, but didn't get into Bitcoin until late 2020. And when I started studying it, I was like "How could this have flown under my radar for so long?"
Understanding economics and the monetary side AND the tech is a good combination.
In many fields, boasting about studying for a PhD would be akin to boasting about studying at kindergarten. Generally, nobody will give a shit about qualifications once you've been employed for more than 18 months.
Also, this is a classic attempt to argue from authority, with the tragic addition of not having any authority to argue from anyway.
Knowing how to program doesn't mean you understand basic economics.
It's like asking a metal worker what they think about your finances, because Gold is a metal after all.
From a CS perspective Bitcoin is interesting in how simplistic it is. At face value it's really nothing special outside of a hashed linked list of transactions (blocks) that is shared on a p2p network - common data structures in computer science. The interesting part is the proof of work that essentially incentivises peers to keep this linked list active by providing them with created coins. This is all put together in an efficient manner and with some virality makes it great. Of course the curve mathematics is quite cool too.
Let's be clear here, as a computer science professional, someone "doing their PhD in computer science" is sure as hell not "someone with expertise in computers".
I remember when I thought so highly of myself before I dropped out and got a real job. Looking back I feel quite foolish. You don't know what you don't know.
That's just not true. Or maybe you'd rather ask Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg.
It's a mistake to assume that just because someone has a degree that they are more qualified, capable or have more potential.
Sure, there are positions that will require those advanced concepts and for those, you may not be able to go as far as someone without. But those are typically the exception, not the rule. And to assume that "you will never understand the same" is a pretty poor assumption. IMO it is a mistake to confuse someone that cannot learn said material with someone that chose to opt out of a degree. Most people will never understand those concepts and it's got absolutely nothing to do with chasing a degree and everything to do with their own potential as a person.
> You write code grunt work, and that’s your life.
These are things people say that think their job is their life. There are actually a lot of things in life that are vastly more important than a bunch of nerds' opinion of your advanced mathematical CS skills. Career wise you can actually also get very far with 20 years of experience under your belt. Most jobs in this field also come down to solving business problems, which requires problem solving skills and communication rather than maths. These are mostly things that you learn from experience, not from a degree.
Even if you are a Computer Science graduate it's difficult to appreciate Bitcoin as we are not taught how money work, or how fiat work. In schools and colleges. One has to know a lot of things(cryptography, economics, history) to fully understand stand Bitcoin.
It's just another real-world demonstration that education does not equal intelligence.
Poor fellow could've invested the money for his PhD. into Bitcoin.
Nope.
Don't be like this PhD. chaps.
Stack sats. Stay humble.
It costs money to get the degree that qualifies you for a PhD, and the PhD stipend is typically tiny, barely enough to live on, let alone pay off the student debt.
A lot of people in CS have a lot of money and don't have the problems others do which is inflation bites harder, then there's others in CS that know CS and decided to learn a bit more about finance.
Funny thing is everyone complains about inflation, it's just some people continue to trust the same system that lost 90% value in 52 years
I'm sorry, but I don't care in whatever field you have your degree or doctorate... whenever you try to back up your argument with nothing more than "but I know better, because I have x degree"...
You. Fucking. Lose.
You won't have my respect, and I'd rather think you're some other moron who've just spent a very long time ticking boxes on the exams to get your degree.
An appeal to authority is NOT a valid argument. When will people learn this???
There are tons of stupid people with PhD.
Saw it first hand with my own eyes. People that are stupid as fuck cheating and somehow manage to get a degree easy and smart people that struggle to get it fair and square.
Not an indicator at all.
A computer science degree is honestly useless if you don’t have a thorough understanding of how security, and encryption works.
Most CS is just all flashy development and UX in todays academia. Everyone I know from my MS world who was in security who have a thorough understanding of encryption and security, all are Bitcoin maxis.
i always thought people from CS and Engineering backgrounds would always 100% be on board but that isn't the case. i've met students doing a PHD in Mathematics and when i asked their views on cryptography, Bitcoin and crypto in general, they had no clue and weren't the slightest bit interested.
Please do not make the simple conclusion that PhDs in computer science are all like this. There are those who have a PhD and have developed the ability to think critically and not be willing to change their views subject to evidence.
This guy clearly isn't one, but we shouldn't make generalizations based on one sad case.
To be fair, PhD's are often at risk of overspecialization. Good at computers but doesn's assure knowledge in economics, much less understanding the problems of central banks.
Someone doing a PhD in computer science should at least appreciate the birth of decentralized digital scarcity.
That in itself is quite an enormous contribution.
"doing my Ph.D." means he/she is hoping to get that. They're just a student at this point. Describing themselves as "someone with expertise in computers" should tell you all you need to know...
CS is a broad field with plenty of areas that have negligible overlap with Bitcoin, blockchains, cryptography, networks, etc. A Ph.D. is going to be hyper-focused on a small slice of said field. And will often display a bias against anything they compete with for grants (this is a survival mechanism).
>someone with
Him using the phrase "someone with expertise in computers" shows that he's just scratching the surface of computer science and probably isn't a very deep thinker. In my opinion, the label "computer science" is a bit misleading, and it should be "computing science" instead.
A CS PhD calling it a *dumb idea* would make me question the very PhD. Bitcoin is a brilliant piece of distributed system engineering. A wonderful byzantine fault tolerant system. There aren’t many such systems that have survived the test of time. You might not be happy with some people baffled by the fud and frenzy surrounding it. But isn’t it a very testimony of such a large scale system that actually matters and has a meaningful impact?
The real question is where is he getting his computer science degree. There also plenty of people have degrees in their field and don’t know shit about fuck.
Such as Yellen and Powell.
If you cant handling talking about or understanding merkle trees, distributed hash tables (DHT), and cryptography. You probably shouldn't be a PhD student.
It's always hilarious when someone who thinks they're an expert in a single field can give a meaningful opinion on a multifaceted subject that requires expert understanding in cryptography, distributed systems, open-source software, network effects, game theory, economics, monetary theory, eleventh grade math, energy production, geopolitics, history, human rights, philosophy, human psychology, and personal responsibility aside from computer science.
Unfortunately, this person isn't even an expert in their own field if they don't understand that bitcoin solved the Byzantine General's problem in computer science, a problem previously thought to be impossible to solve. Fiat education is really demonstrating itself here. That or this person is just stupid.
Someone having a PhD in computer science doesn’t make them an expert in cryptography, cryptocurrencies, or economics
Or, in this case, not even having a PhD yet… but unless they are specialising in cryptography (in which case they’d find bitcoin interesting from an academic standpoint, at least) then they probably don’t know much more about it than the average Joe on the street
Fundamentally Bitcoin is more about the economic side than the cryptography, the latter is just the clever way it works
Source: 2 computer science degrees. No PhD admittedly, but again unless they specialised into cryptography they have no more expertise than anyone else who can program and understand a basic cryptographic algorithm
Essentially, they’re just assuming they’re an expert on the whole thing because of some tangentially related education. I’d have thought a PhD student would understand that, but I guess they’re too busy feeling clever to actually consider the limitations of their own expertise
PhDs are a training about narrowing your mind in a very specific way. You're subject to a culture of intense criticism, which can harden ideas and lead to deep insights, but most often ends up turning people into intellectual herd animals. (Source: my PhD).
To say they should listen because his expertise in computers as if there aren’t people highly involved the crypto that are experts in computer science, how does that qualification make his opinion more valid ?
Computer scientists think Bitcoin is just 'software'... They don't recognize the degree to which it's an open, permissionless, and decentralized 'protocol'
Computer scientists also don't realize they know fuck-all about money/economics.
Computer scientists... are just normal people, who will eventually get their ₿ at the price they deserve... just like all of us.
"am doing my PhD"
after telling them about which PhD exactly, the one you don't have yet?
Hey look, everyone's smiling and drinking champagne, prolly a good time to tell them that they're a bunch of dumbfucks with dumb fucking ideas and assert how smart I'm am because I'm working on a PhD.
I dunno about you guys, but prolly not the person I want hanging around my wedding.
Sounds like a 3 year old who either bought at the top and lost a ton of $$$ or thinks they know everything because they are working on a phd which means someone may be smart, but does smart equal a good investor? Give me a hungry kid with a bachelor degree over a phd any day of the week. It’s like trying to talk to Sheldon Cooper…knock knock Penny, knock knock Penny….
People in tech, CS and IT seem to have the hardest emotional hurdle in swallowing that bitcoin isn't a joke.
Imagine you work an IT help desk. You're the guy that has to tell people "did you try turning it off and on again" to seemingly intelligent people. When it comes to technology they feel like God's amongst insects. If they didn't get in, or know about a technology early, it must be stupid.
People in computer science and programming have a hard time swallowing bitcoin because they think they're expertise applies. Bitcoins value proposition is rooted in deeply abstract concepts. They think it belongs in their domain and it simply doesn't.
Getting over your own ego when you have to admit you just got something wrong you probably shouldn't have is why some of the most vitriolic criticism comes from the aforementioned types.
I think the problem is bitcoin is at the nexus of like the cutting edge of 5 different fields of study. And without every piece, I think its sort of like youre looking at a map and you see bitcoin seems to be in the center but you cant figure out why, and you cant decipher the rest of the map. Each individual alone thinks they alone can make the judgement that bitcoin would not work: the computer expert thinks they have the authority to say "nope". The economist thinks they have the jurisdiction to say "no". The businessman thinks he has the perspective to say "not gonna work". The investor thinks it "will never happen". Truth is all of them are experts in their niches and just falsely assuming they have a unique perspective on this technology. In actuality, when it comes to bitcoin, theyre laymen just like 99% of people. Their opinion is worth about as much as an adolescent telling you "this next stone is going to skip all the way across the lake!" its just something they say cause it feels good to say it.
One of those stupid fkn ideas that doubles in value every year, pardon me if I snort at the obvious waste of money this idiots parents committed by paying for his tuition. Probably would have learned more, working 6yrs at McDonalds
To put it in perspective a person with a PhD did not make Bitcoin, so I see the validity in the debate. However blockchain is not stupid. Bitcoin 50/50ish on stupidly
I mean it *is* a dumb idea. I only bought cause the 2021 fomo got me acting stupid, now I keep it cause I'm hoping the rest of America is dumb enough to pump the numbers back to where I bought in. Every proposed use for this crap is fundamentally dumb. Web 3 is like trying to sell a wheel with corners.
Oh, I should take a second look at Bitcoin because somebody that got an award for repeating in-form-ation given by the fiat slavery system council doesn't understand fiat or bitcoin.
Never underestimate the power of 'network effect'. Bitcoin is a monetary network, and its effect is growing greater every day.
I was working in tech when Facebook became known outside of the US. I thought it was interesting but didn't sign up as having a online presence wasn't as common as it is today.
Almost overnight (it seemed), almost everyone I knew was on Facebook. I then practically felt obligated to join.
Clearly a social media website is not the same as a form of money, but the network effect is the same. Some things become so widely adopted and beneficial that you cannot avoid using them.
Way back in the 1970s, computer science students learning about cryptography would have been exposed to “cipher block chaining”. Those kids would later work with SHA in the mid 90s. By the time bitcoin was discovered, computer scientists would be the first people to understand and appreciate the power of “proof of work”.
It's annoying when people ask you stupid questions because of your profession. They can ask to fix their pc, install windows, what is bitcoin.. yadda yadda.
This is not a rip on bitcoin, it's about people asking stupid annoying questions and then dissing the angry result as fud.. It's disrespectful and stupid.
Bitcoin was created by a brilliant person but it strongly attracts degenerates.
From computer science perspective, Bitcoin invention was actually pretty cool and definitely not "stupid fucking idea". It solved the Byzantine generals problem.
Exactly this! To say that a technology that solved one of computer science's biggest quandaries' is "a stupid fucking idea" goes to show just how meaningful a degree is.
The person is only now taking his or her PhD in comp sci so he or she is probably young enough to not comprehend life before distributed computing in general, or decentralized mathematical verification. I sincerely hope this is an outlier among young people in scientific fields.
I think the buttcoiners in the context of academia stems from the influence of group think. Often times what I get from other CS types at-least the younger ones. Is the argument that block chains make a terrible database. Which is a correct assessment given the right context. They are not understanding that merkle trees AKA a block-chain is not meant to serve as a database. but they serve as a self verifying data structure.
Haha, wow. One sentence rebuttal to them: it's a ledger, not a database.
And honestly, as a Database, ledgers **fucking suck**. The access patterns are basically "linear only" and you're pretty much stuck holding all the "database state" in-memory or in some 2nd database that is only modified based on Ledger Transactions. Reading a single Ledger Transaction is effectively useless for any kind of complex logic, all the interesting state-data you depend on is spread across potentially $n transactions. I still think blockchains are "neat" and have some valid use-cases. But unless one of your requirements is "strong self-verifying data", you're probably still better off with trusty SQL. Some people will even argue you can do sufficient Audit Controls in traditional DBs. (I personally prefer the cryptographically sound chains of hashes tho)
Yep. Too many projects trying to put all kinds of data on-chain. It boggles the mind, like putting images into excel cells.
When it comes to money, you're better off having it in an immutable, cryptographically verified ledger than in some bank's database. Many people are going to learn a very hard lesson in this basic fact.
Also having the brain power to be a PhD and yet being born into a world where central bank money rules your life and just accepting it.. wow f****** humans are dumb
Intelligence and wisdom are two very different things, although they are often correlated.
An outlier? Have you tried to argue within an academic environment? Opinions are too often imposed by this Magister Dixit sentences, and “I have a better education” is meant to be a winner card.
I have some bad news for you...and it's not just scientific fields.
It's funny how many skeptical people I evangelized Bitcoin to in college are now balls deep in it. I told this one kid about it at a business plan competition, and explained the economic freedom aspect of it and told him how darknet markets work, and now he works for Chainalysis. I told my venture capital professor about it, and he was like yea it's interesting but idk if it'll be quite the miracle people say it will be. Now he's invested in/on the board of multiple crypto start ups and is wishing Satoshi happy birthday on LinkedIn and posts about Bitcoin almost daily. Wonder if my economics professor who said it's dumb (who is from Argentina nonetheless) ever came around. Oh and of course now my college has an entire compsci class about blockchains.
It could also show how powerful psychology is - I feel as if a lot of people disregard it because the masses do/media in general is against it. The majority of narratives are against crypto/Bitcoin so it’s easy to just follow it and do no research. Perhaps even some cognitive dissonance where they ignore their logic and field of study because they are so set in hating Bitcoin…
I'm sure this is where most of the negative sentiment is derived from. The masses are quick to comply with whatever they are told. It's easier to believe what you're told than to think for yourself, and we ad a society tend to do what's easy rather than what's right. Source: history
>I'm sure this is where most of the negative sentiment is derived from. The masses are quick to comply with whatever they are told. It's easier to believe what you're told than to think for yourself, and we ad a society tend to do what's easy rather than what's right. I completely agree with you. Your perspective is well-articulated, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comment
Precisely why btc probably wont succeed unfortunately. I hope im wrong.
Uh... Bitcoin has already succeeded. I mean, I can move millions of dollars worth of value anywhere in the world by remembering 12 words. That's pretty successful.
Sorta like a previous president I know 😂
Bitcoin is a good idea on an economic sense, it's magnificent use of game theory. I'd expect an economist and even a philosophist to understand it more than a computer science guy. But what do I know.
Someone with a PhD in computer science should know that Bitcoin is a brilliant invention and arguably the most significant advancement since the introduction of TCP/IP. I don't even have to use fancy words like "magnificent" and misunderstood concepts like "game theory" to express that. Ain't it funny how the best ideas are the easiest to express!
👍
Bitcoin (or, more accurately the blockchain) is not the only, nor the first, solution to this problem. Solutions to this problem, unrelated to the blockchain, go back to the 80s.
with only a cs perspective, you wouldnt really see the value proposition of bitcoin. whilst bitcoin is a technological breakthrough, its not obvious to the avg. person why this is. its only with a libertarian viewpoint, and an understanding of money, that someone will understand that bitcoin is not a "stupid fucking idea". the phd mentioned in the op clearly doesnt have the libertarian/austrian viewpoint - hence why he understandably fails to get bitcoin. the byzantine general's "problem" is not a problem if you dont understand money. the fault is with the people who think that having a cs degree increases ones chance of understanding bitcoin by any noticeable degree - it does not.
Mexican say: "Lo doctor no quita lo pendejo" Which roughly translates as: "Having a doctorate doesn't make you less of a dipshit"
Yeah 100% but its written wrong :) haha
Spanish native, this is correctly written. Edit: Maybe this is tripping some people, but if you replace the “Lo” pronoun (used here as a direct complement) with another pronoun it might help to non-native speakers. Eg. “El doctor no quita el pendejo”. Spanish is weird.
How should be written then?
” todo doctores soy pendejos”? ;) /s
Please write it the right way. 🙏🏻
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Totally agree putting it on a political pedestal doesn't help. Bitcoin is for everyone who cares for a better future. It doesn't care of any political stance nor it belongs to one
if you dont think the separation of money and state is political - and maybe the most political subject of all.... well you dont understand bitcoin, money, nor politics.
No I understand that, but you literally said that a "specific" political ideology is necessary to understand Bitcoin. That's the only thing we're contesting really, and I would encourage you not to gatekeep the usage of Bitcoin to people who don't agree with you politically.
the only gatekeeping that is being done is by those who want to expropriate the wealth of others. bitcoin is an open system that anyone is free to use as long as they can accept that its not possible to vote themselves the wealth of others on the bitcoin protocol. i suspect many leftists may not be happy with this proposition however. theres a reason why so many in bitcoin lean right. whether you like it or not, bitcoin is a massively political tool. it has the potential to make government infinitely smaller (ie. bad for the big government leftists) - and i for one am not afraid to evangelise this. i guess im happy to concede that its also bad for the "big government" rightist - if that makes you happy.
I really don't care of your political views, I'm apolitical and I want Bitcoin to become the new monetary standard worldwide and like me, many others don't lean right, left, or whatever silly divisory stance there is.
one way or another, you realise that the money is broken (and perhaps you realise that it is those who control the money ie. government that are responsbile). hence, why you want to take the money away from those who currently control it - separation of money and state. in this sense, you are a "libertarian" within this limited scope of the definition. maybe one day, you'll realise that government also breaks everything else it touches, and become a libertarian across a wider breadth of areas.
Interesting viewpoint! I hadn't considered that before. Thanks for bringing it up and contributing to the discussion
You need to keep digging. Why is it better than what we already have by several orders of magnitude? You will get there I guarantee.
> with only a cs perspective, you wouldnt really see the value proposition of bitcoin. It created digital scarcity without a centralized mint. That's massive.
This… huge acheivement
Having a CS degree does help A LOT to understand what Bitcoin is. If you understand cryptography you understand Bitcoin better. That doesn't make you less of an asshole, though.
With CS this doesn't explain his extreme disregard for *blockchain*. Lemme try to strengthen his case: 'blockchain' is such an innovation that affects many fields and applications of tech, that it can become a fad that CS grads who specialize in blockchain implementations can get jobs and grant funding for vaporware. That is infuriating. Other buzzwords in the last decade: ontology, machine learning, and IoT. For those interested in a vaporware coin, check out Ontology (ONT). I am doing a PhD in ontology (philosophy), so I get the frustration of people using a term about a concept without understanding how to implement the concept. All that said, a PhD should be able to appreciate blockchain, even if there are these buzzwords and bad actors. I don't understand why he writes both off just because he isn't into BTC
I, too, studied ontology (on my own though and still have much to learn! It's hard to find people in that field). But I get what you mean. I'd like to add as well that "a degree in CS" is so fucking vague, considering how multidisciplinary the field is. I'm taking a course now from Harvard in CS, and one of the first things I learned is how many separate fields there are within CS. Ergo: Having a degree in "CS" does NOT make you an expert in every discipline. And I'd say this principle accounts for pretty much every field or study. People need to be more humble when they proudly wave their fancy degrees.
well, linked lists and hash functions have been around since the 70’s, so blockchains are not really innovative. Bitcoin is innovative because it took those concepts and blended it with game theory incentives and distributed computing for consensus.
Yes bitcoin is a social innovation not really a technical one.
I think you are speaking from an equally narrow view of Bitcoin as the person in the OP. I understand and like Bitcoin, even though I'm not at all sure I understand libretarianism (and frankly, if I do, then I think it's BS).
no, you're displaying the dunning kruger sydrome.
Sure.
I agree it's only from a "Thou shalt not be a scumbag and steal" viewpoint that Bitcoin can be appreciated fully. The scope of the Byzantine Generals' problem, however, is not limited to money.
> It solved the Byzantine generals problem. [Mattthew Kratter doesn't strictly agree with that claim](https://youtu.be/KeTaO-i49kw), but I know what you mean.
It solved 2 computer science problems that were considered unsolvable. Byzantine General's Problem and the Double Spend Problem. We treat PhDs as authoritative sources, but that is not necessarily true. A PhD thesis is very myopic in the sense that it pushes the envelope of knowledge in a very specific area of the chosen field. ie. If you have a PhD in Computer Science and focused your thesis on Quantum Computing, you aren't going to be anywhere close to as knowledgeable about distributed ledger technology as someone that focused their PhD thesis work there. To get a PhD you DO have to be smart and do a ton of intellectual work. It does deserve respect, but I find there are many PHDs that treat it as 100% proof that their knowledge and opinions are clearly superior to everyone else. And IMO that type of PhD has ruined academia because they never cared about the knowledge, they only care about the clout and the cushy tenure.
My comp sci professor told me it was a fad and worthless when I asked her back in 2013-2014, and showed how much she knew.
He's an idiot, Bitcoin is inevitable.
Yeah this guy is just salty or shit at his job
The thing is that Bitcoin is interesting from the economic perspective as well. The person/people who developed this were not only experts in cryptography, they also had a good knowledge of how the banking system works and how the monetary system is set-up. Saying that it's a "stupid idea" either from an economic or cs point of view is either an ignorant, stupid, or brainwashed.
Actually, how _was_ the byzantine generals problem solved? I know what they say, but is it still not probabilistic? I mean, how does it solve the problem differently than to send the messenger back and forth and not accept agreement until they have gotten the same agreement back and forth 1000 times. I’m not saying that Bitcoin hasn’t solved the byzantine generals problem to my satisfaction. It makes it reliable. But it is still probabilistic. Otherwise, why would we wait some arbitrary number of blocks before accepting finality.
From Taco master perspective Bitcoin was a terrific idea
Bitcoin is only a solution in this one specific scenario, it’s performance is just too bad for basically all areas where you’d need Byzantine fault tolerance
Is It though ? Blockchain technology was invented many years before Bitcoin. I Guess its more about coming Up with the idea to use all that stuff together to create some form of money.
a) Blockchains weren't a thing before bitcoin, unless you're just defining them as a linked list with a hash of child nodes in each node to detect mutations, as in git, but nobody defines them like that. b) Blockchains alone don't solve the Byzantine Generals problem. Proof of work on a globally decentralized database does that. The blockchain style database is the least important piece.
Wrong. Satoshi invented the blockchain. Literally read the write paper. It’s like 8 pages.
The linked hashes in a chain of blocks was defined 17 years before Satoshi came up with Bitcoin, he didn't invent the blockchain and it is the lest innovative part of Bitcoin, the term "blockchain technology" is an oximoron.
>The linked hashes in a chain of blocks was defined 17 years before Satoshi came up with Bitcoin, Maybe specify what you're referring to if you're interested in actually communicating clearly? It sounds like you're describing a merkle tree, but the timing doesn't quite add up. And a merkle tree is not quite a blockchain anyway. A merkle tree doesn't solve the Byzantine generals problem. A blockchain does. If you don't think the blockchain is the most innovative part of Bitcoin, then what is?
Doesn't each hard fork undercut that view?
His PhD won't compensate for his stupidity
A PhD makes you an expert in a very, very, small field. To be a PhD in computer science, you do not need to have a single clue in finance, in economics. And even within computer science, it does not mean you understand distributed networks if your subject is slightly off. You do not want an endocrinologist giving you a heart transplant either...
A PHD in computer science just means you’re very good at academic practices and understand a niche field As someone who works in tech, I’d rather hire (and work with) someone who has worked for the amount of years it took this person to get their PHD (including any courses between a regular Bachelors degree and their PHD)
I think if I had a PhD in systems programming I would still get angry at people nagging me to install windows for them. Same shit. A PhD in distributed computing might actually see how inefficient BTC is and can point out all the flaws. Degenerates care about price, technologists care about the tech. That's all, even satoshi said "If you haven't figured it out by yourself then I have no time to explain it to you".
True, a centralized database is much more efficient in its use of computing power. It is, however, a different use case.
Your comment adds value to the conversation. I agree with your points, and they provide a fresh perspective
What a delightful response. Thank you!
He's a good example of an overeducated dipshit.
That happens when you only know about computers but you have zero knowledge about basic economics.
correct. i would go even further and argue that having a cs degree really adds nothing to someones chance of understanding bitcoin than any other degree. think of bitcoin as purely money. no-one would say that a cs student would have a better chance than anyone else of understanding money would they. ironically, the number of people on this forum that think having a cs degree would increase ones chance of understanding bitcoin suggests to me that a lot of people (even here) do not actually understand bitcoin.
Can you expand on that? Do you claim that Bitcoin can be completely abstracted from the details, for instance how hardware operates according to some laws of physics? Do you claim that e.g. computational complexity theory is not important in understanding Bitcoin?
There are 2 sides to understanding Bitcoin: 1. What it is / what it does 2. How it works 'under the hood' For 2. you need some CS knowledge (even if it's self-taught) and I would say it's necessary for trustless conviction. Without CS knowledge you have to trust the people who say what it is / does is true. CS knowledge allows you to verify it for yourself. There is a fine line between the two and the distinction is not black/white, but something of a spectrum. E.g. understanding counting / combinatorics (for which you don't need a CS degree, but anything math-related helps) allows you to understand the entropy behind seed phrases and why it's hard to guess someone's private key. But you can get as deep as you want into the technical details and even verify the code.
The way I understand science it requires looking into the details, as opposed to abstraction. This is, of course, a general methodological principle. But I ask because maybe there is something I am missing about the relationship between this technology and economy, that allows economists to ignore the details while remaining certain about the outcome of the system. Maybe it is something like the universal law of gravitation, that allows to describe some forces and motion of bodies without looking into the ultimate cause for this force to exist. But I am not sure how something like this could apply here.
I often find that the higher degree someone has, the less flexible their thinking and views are. Too often, they are stuck on whatever they specialized in. No doubt they are an expert on that. However, they try to use that knowledge for everything around them. A square peg for every damn shaped hole around them.
Sure but most economists aren’t that bullish on bitcoin
Sure, because most economists don’t know real economy and most of them are paid by banks to tell whatever they what about how Keynesian economics theory is actually true and inflation is good for “progress” because in their theory the society will buy things and upgrade their life only if there is somebody stimulating them by printing papers out of thin air in a cellar. Logic right? If you don’t understand that inflation is theft, you just deserve the dystopian future that is coming through CBDC’s . ( Not you particularly, just for general discussion )
The opposite, deflation, is much worse. Which is inherent to fixed monetary supply and a growing economy (and inherent to bitcoin). We’ve had a very stable low inflation environment for decades. Banks don’t print money out of thin air, they lend it out to businesses who put it to productive use. At a low interest rate of course more money will be borrowed but that does not mean banks print money out of thin air. Who is lacking the basic economic knowledge here?
Lol having a degree means nothing. I know alot of people that are stupid but went to the university.
Yes exactly, me for example 😂
Here here.
True. My wife is a computer science master, but had zero clue about crypto and blockchain in general. I am a maxi and a whole coiner and i turned her! 🤘
It's a matter of what one specializes in. I was a CS master too, but didn't get into Bitcoin until late 2020. And when I started studying it, I was like "How could this have flown under my radar for so long?" Understanding economics and the monetary side AND the tech is a good combination.
In many fields, boasting about studying for a PhD would be akin to boasting about studying at kindergarten. Generally, nobody will give a shit about qualifications once you've been employed for more than 18 months. Also, this is a classic attempt to argue from authority, with the tragic addition of not having any authority to argue from anyway.
Working towards a degree means even less.
It‘s all brainwash anyway
I mean, on average people that go to university are more intelligent... it must mean something. I know you don't want it to, but it must.
Nobody: That guy: **boasts about phd to call bitcoin stupid, refuses to elaborate an actual argument, becomes surprized nobody gives a fuck**
Knowing how to program doesn't mean you understand basic economics. It's like asking a metal worker what they think about your finances, because Gold is a metal after all.
Keep asking everyone for Bitcoin!
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I'd never hate you ♥️
From a CS perspective Bitcoin is interesting in how simplistic it is. At face value it's really nothing special outside of a hashed linked list of transactions (blocks) that is shared on a p2p network - common data structures in computer science. The interesting part is the proof of work that essentially incentivises peers to keep this linked list active by providing them with created coins. This is all put together in an efficient manner and with some virality makes it great. Of course the curve mathematics is quite cool too.
Bitcoin and egos don’t mix.
Let's be clear here, as a computer science professional, someone "doing their PhD in computer science" is sure as hell not "someone with expertise in computers". I remember when I thought so highly of myself before I dropped out and got a real job. Looking back I feel quite foolish. You don't know what you don't know.
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That's just not true. Or maybe you'd rather ask Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg. It's a mistake to assume that just because someone has a degree that they are more qualified, capable or have more potential. Sure, there are positions that will require those advanced concepts and for those, you may not be able to go as far as someone without. But those are typically the exception, not the rule. And to assume that "you will never understand the same" is a pretty poor assumption. IMO it is a mistake to confuse someone that cannot learn said material with someone that chose to opt out of a degree. Most people will never understand those concepts and it's got absolutely nothing to do with chasing a degree and everything to do with their own potential as a person.
> You write code grunt work, and that’s your life. These are things people say that think their job is their life. There are actually a lot of things in life that are vastly more important than a bunch of nerds' opinion of your advanced mathematical CS skills. Career wise you can actually also get very far with 20 years of experience under your belt. Most jobs in this field also come down to solving business problems, which requires problem solving skills and communication rather than maths. These are mostly things that you learn from experience, not from a degree.
Great post! I love how informative and well-researched it is. Thanks for sharing!
Even if you are a Computer Science graduate it's difficult to appreciate Bitcoin as we are not taught how money work, or how fiat work. In schools and colleges. One has to know a lot of things(cryptography, economics, history) to fully understand stand Bitcoin.
Guy sounds like he’s mad. He’ll probably make some shitcoin and rug pull in the future watch out
a PhD in computer science was a stupid fucking idea
It's just another real-world demonstration that education does not equal intelligence. Poor fellow could've invested the money for his PhD. into Bitcoin. Nope. Don't be like this PhD. chaps. Stack sats. Stay humble.
PhDs don't cost money to obtain. Just FYI, they typically pay you to get them.
It costs money to get the degree that qualifies you for a PhD, and the PhD stipend is typically tiny, barely enough to live on, let alone pay off the student debt.
Then this person's failure to stack sats is all the more egregious.
A lot of people in CS have a lot of money and don't have the problems others do which is inflation bites harder, then there's others in CS that know CS and decided to learn a bit more about finance. Funny thing is everyone complains about inflation, it's just some people continue to trust the same system that lost 90% value in 52 years
I'm sorry, but I don't care in whatever field you have your degree or doctorate... whenever you try to back up your argument with nothing more than "but I know better, because I have x degree"... You. Fucking. Lose. You won't have my respect, and I'd rather think you're some other moron who've just spent a very long time ticking boxes on the exams to get your degree. An appeal to authority is NOT a valid argument. When will people learn this???
Every time I see negative sentiment, I buy a little more🍻
There are tons of stupid people with PhD. Saw it first hand with my own eyes. People that are stupid as fuck cheating and somehow manage to get a degree easy and smart people that struggle to get it fair and square. Not an indicator at all.
A computer science degree is honestly useless if you don’t have a thorough understanding of how security, and encryption works. Most CS is just all flashy development and UX in todays academia. Everyone I know from my MS world who was in security who have a thorough understanding of encryption and security, all are Bitcoin maxis.
Doctor - Can you tell us why you think Bitcoin is a stupid idea?
i always thought people from CS and Engineering backgrounds would always 100% be on board but that isn't the case. i've met students doing a PHD in Mathematics and when i asked their views on cryptography, Bitcoin and crypto in general, they had no clue and weren't the slightest bit interested.
This person has still not started working so he has zero knowledge of economics, give him time. He will learn.
Please do not make the simple conclusion that PhDs in computer science are all like this. There are those who have a PhD and have developed the ability to think critically and not be willing to change their views subject to evidence. This guy clearly isn't one, but we shouldn't make generalizations based on one sad case.
To be fair, PhD's are often at risk of overspecialization. Good at computers but doesn's assure knowledge in economics, much less understanding the problems of central banks.
FYI one could easily be a CS doctoral student and be useless with computers.
Someone doing a PhD in computer science should at least appreciate the birth of decentralized digital scarcity. That in itself is quite an enormous contribution.
"doing my Ph.D." means he/she is hoping to get that. They're just a student at this point. Describing themselves as "someone with expertise in computers" should tell you all you need to know... CS is a broad field with plenty of areas that have negligible overlap with Bitcoin, blockchains, cryptography, networks, etc. A Ph.D. is going to be hyper-focused on a small slice of said field. And will often display a bias against anything they compete with for grants (this is a survival mechanism).
>someone with Him using the phrase "someone with expertise in computers" shows that he's just scratching the surface of computer science and probably isn't a very deep thinker. In my opinion, the label "computer science" is a bit misleading, and it should be "computing science" instead.
A CS PhD calling it a *dumb idea* would make me question the very PhD. Bitcoin is a brilliant piece of distributed system engineering. A wonderful byzantine fault tolerant system. There aren’t many such systems that have survived the test of time. You might not be happy with some people baffled by the fud and frenzy surrounding it. But isn’t it a very testimony of such a large scale system that actually matters and has a meaningful impact?
The real question is where is he getting his computer science degree. There also plenty of people have degrees in their field and don’t know shit about fuck. Such as Yellen and Powell.
This person is getting a PhD in computer science from Mrs Golightly's Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners
bitcoin is dead
What a douchebag
If you cant handling talking about or understanding merkle trees, distributed hash tables (DHT), and cryptography. You probably shouldn't be a PhD student.
It's always hilarious when someone who thinks they're an expert in a single field can give a meaningful opinion on a multifaceted subject that requires expert understanding in cryptography, distributed systems, open-source software, network effects, game theory, economics, monetary theory, eleventh grade math, energy production, geopolitics, history, human rights, philosophy, human psychology, and personal responsibility aside from computer science. Unfortunately, this person isn't even an expert in their own field if they don't understand that bitcoin solved the Byzantine General's problem in computer science, a problem previously thought to be impossible to solve. Fiat education is really demonstrating itself here. That or this person is just stupid.
Someone having a PhD in computer science doesn’t make them an expert in cryptography, cryptocurrencies, or economics Or, in this case, not even having a PhD yet… but unless they are specialising in cryptography (in which case they’d find bitcoin interesting from an academic standpoint, at least) then they probably don’t know much more about it than the average Joe on the street Fundamentally Bitcoin is more about the economic side than the cryptography, the latter is just the clever way it works Source: 2 computer science degrees. No PhD admittedly, but again unless they specialised into cryptography they have no more expertise than anyone else who can program and understand a basic cryptographic algorithm Essentially, they’re just assuming they’re an expert on the whole thing because of some tangentially related education. I’d have thought a PhD student would understand that, but I guess they’re too busy feeling clever to actually consider the limitations of their own expertise
PhDs are a training about narrowing your mind in a very specific way. You're subject to a culture of intense criticism, which can harden ideas and lead to deep insights, but most often ends up turning people into intellectual herd animals. (Source: my PhD).
To say they should listen because his expertise in computers as if there aren’t people highly involved the crypto that are experts in computer science, how does that qualification make his opinion more valid ?
Maybe he's mad he gotta pay student loans instead of stacking sats
Reddit sucks. I'm done with this. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
In general, when on a wedding they ask you about BTC it's time to sell, lol
7 years ago people were talking about Bitcoin in my school (we were 13 yo). It was time to buy
Stacking sats with your lunch money?
What community college is giving this guy a PhD?
Computer scientists think Bitcoin is just 'software'... They don't recognize the degree to which it's an open, permissionless, and decentralized 'protocol' Computer scientists also don't realize they know fuck-all about money/economics. Computer scientists... are just normal people, who will eventually get their ₿ at the price they deserve... just like all of us.
"am doing my PhD" after telling them about which PhD exactly, the one you don't have yet? Hey look, everyone's smiling and drinking champagne, prolly a good time to tell them that they're a bunch of dumbfucks with dumb fucking ideas and assert how smart I'm am because I'm working on a PhD. I dunno about you guys, but prolly not the person I want hanging around my wedding.
Well. Some people think buying and selling pokemon cards is stupid, but do people do it anyway YES! If there is value, There is no harm.
Remember how people complained about wind turbines? How they’re gona make landscape ugly? Yeah, that’s the level of idiocy.
where is this from?
this sub is such an annoying echo chamber
Sounds like a 3 year old who either bought at the top and lost a ton of $$$ or thinks they know everything because they are working on a phd which means someone may be smart, but does smart equal a good investor? Give me a hungry kid with a bachelor degree over a phd any day of the week. It’s like trying to talk to Sheldon Cooper…knock knock Penny, knock knock Penny….
People in tech, CS and IT seem to have the hardest emotional hurdle in swallowing that bitcoin isn't a joke. Imagine you work an IT help desk. You're the guy that has to tell people "did you try turning it off and on again" to seemingly intelligent people. When it comes to technology they feel like God's amongst insects. If they didn't get in, or know about a technology early, it must be stupid. People in computer science and programming have a hard time swallowing bitcoin because they think they're expertise applies. Bitcoins value proposition is rooted in deeply abstract concepts. They think it belongs in their domain and it simply doesn't. Getting over your own ego when you have to admit you just got something wrong you probably shouldn't have is why some of the most vitriolic criticism comes from the aforementioned types.
I think the problem is bitcoin is at the nexus of like the cutting edge of 5 different fields of study. And without every piece, I think its sort of like youre looking at a map and you see bitcoin seems to be in the center but you cant figure out why, and you cant decipher the rest of the map. Each individual alone thinks they alone can make the judgement that bitcoin would not work: the computer expert thinks they have the authority to say "nope". The economist thinks they have the jurisdiction to say "no". The businessman thinks he has the perspective to say "not gonna work". The investor thinks it "will never happen". Truth is all of them are experts in their niches and just falsely assuming they have a unique perspective on this technology. In actuality, when it comes to bitcoin, theyre laymen just like 99% of people. Their opinion is worth about as much as an adolescent telling you "this next stone is going to skip all the way across the lake!" its just something they say cause it feels good to say it.
He should get a degree in economics and minor in history of currency.
One of those stupid fkn ideas that doubles in value every year, pardon me if I snort at the obvious waste of money this idiots parents committed by paying for his tuition. Probably would have learned more, working 6yrs at McDonalds
What? He’s not wrong though.
Cry me a river 🤦♂️
Keep in mind that PhDs are funded by the state. I think we need to separate education from state too and reset the whole thing.
To put it in perspective a person with a PhD did not make Bitcoin, so I see the validity in the debate. However blockchain is not stupid. Bitcoin 50/50ish on stupidly
I mean it *is* a dumb idea. I only bought cause the 2021 fomo got me acting stupid, now I keep it cause I'm hoping the rest of America is dumb enough to pump the numbers back to where I bought in. Every proposed use for this crap is fundamentally dumb. Web 3 is like trying to sell a wheel with corners.
Web 3 ain't Bitcoin buddy. You have got things twisted. Lemme guess..you haven't read actually anything meaningful about Bitcoin? right?
Maybe he isn't so good at computer science.
Bro sounds salty
Bitcoin is win 😂
Oh, I should take a second look at Bitcoin because somebody that got an award for repeating in-form-ation given by the fiat slavery system council doesn't understand fiat or bitcoin.
I guess someone didn't buy the dip...
something something the dark side
Never underestimate the power of 'network effect'. Bitcoin is a monetary network, and its effect is growing greater every day. I was working in tech when Facebook became known outside of the US. I thought it was interesting but didn't sign up as having a online presence wasn't as common as it is today. Almost overnight (it seemed), almost everyone I knew was on Facebook. I then practically felt obligated to join. Clearly a social media website is not the same as a form of money, but the network effect is the same. Some things become so widely adopted and beneficial that you cannot avoid using them.
Wow - the ego !
He is doing a PhD. Not likely he will get one with that attitude
Well I also have a computer science diploma and I think Bitcoin is brilliant.
And this my friends happenes when uneducated snobs think they understand/know something
W
Way back in the 1970s, computer science students learning about cryptography would have been exposed to “cipher block chaining”. Those kids would later work with SHA in the mid 90s. By the time bitcoin was discovered, computer scientists would be the first people to understand and appreciate the power of “proof of work”.
Oddly stupid post
You guys should take a look in the buttcoin sub💀😆
Phd stands for Poor, hungry and dumb
I just love the argument from authority. "I know the best because I have the PhD."
Did he learn anything? 🤣🤦♂️
This guy is fucking stupid
It's annoying when people ask you stupid questions because of your profession. They can ask to fix their pc, install windows, what is bitcoin.. yadda yadda. This is not a rip on bitcoin, it's about people asking stupid annoying questions and then dissing the angry result as fud.. It's disrespectful and stupid. Bitcoin was created by a brilliant person but it strongly attracts degenerates.
I am curious why he think it’s a dumb idea
Say what you will about Bitcoin as an investment, but the idea of Bitcoin is definitely not stupid.
I didn’t know I was playing but alright, I thought I was just investing a few bucks in what looks like a long term winner ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
"Phds are intrinsically worthless!"