From the article: "Although John McAfee is often perceived as an erratic and outgoing individual, I believe that he only wants the best for Cryptocurrency and having an influence as large as his is highly beneficial to helping spread awareness of this great technology which should help boost long-term success. Make sure to follow John and have a watch of some of his interviews, this man has some great knowledge and will do great things for the industry."
That ending remark caught me off guard until I looked at the domain the article was hosted in (itsblockchain.com).
> Although John McAfee is often perceived as an erratic and outgoing individual, I believe that he only wants the best for Cryptocurrency and having an influence as large as his is highly beneficial to helping spread awareness of this great technology which should help boost long-term success. Make sure to follow John and have a watch of some of his interviews, this man has some great knowledge and will do great things for the industry.
Italics and an > quote prefix look much better than code blocks, both on desktop and mobile.
It doesn't even work well on desktop, look at this: https://i.imgur.com/i2NdHfR.png A tiny sliver of the trailing 'e' on "influence" was sliced off, so in response to that minor readability issue a horizontal scroll bar was rendered over the entire last line (and for whatever reason isn't auto-hiding). Behavior of scrolling in these sort of situations is unpredictable across platforms/browsers; the entire scenario should be avoided.
>Pre-formatted code blocks are used for writing about programming or markup source code. Rather than forming normal paragraphs, the lines of a code block are interpreted literally. Markdown wraps a code block in both <pre> and <code> tags.
Presumably, <code> to indicate that it's code, and <pre> to preserve source formatting, since HTML renderers will eat tabs, spaces and newlines. This has been the behavior of <pre> since at least 1997: https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/literal.html
>Preformatted text between the start and end PRE tag is rendered using a fixed with font, in addition whitespace characters are treated literally. The spacing and line breaks are rendered directly, unlike other elements, for which repeated whitespace chararacters are collapsed to a single space character and line breaks introduced automatically.
This works less well with the modern diversity of viewport sizes and pixel densities. (Not as much of a problem 20 years ago.)
Blockquotes don't do this, and act like regular HTML blocks, (<p>, <section>, etc) with normal line wrapping. HN-markdown doesn't implement blockquotes. Would be great if it did!
I'm pretty sure McAfee is also interested in women, drugs, and inflating his own ego, although I guess he could buy all those things with enough money.
For a moment there I thought McAfee must be starting a new cryptocurrency called the Crypto Shilling (accompanied of course by the Crypto Penny and the Crypto Pound).
> With almost 830,000 followers on Twitter, John has a huge influence on the community and has made some bold price predictions for various Cryptocurrencies. His most common prediction is the still outstanding, where he predicted $500,000 USD Bitcoin by the end of 2020 which has since been raised to $1,000,000 USD.
his Model assumed that Chinese could still trade bitcoin..that is no longer the case with Bitcoin loosing 50% of user base due to China bitcoin ban..current price slump is part of that reasoning
And they're starting to crack down on yuge mining operations, too.
Can't say I'm unhappy about that, though. The energy usage required for BTC mining is... unsustainable, to say the least. And Chinese power sources aren't the most environmentally friendly ones, either.
Classic pump and dump behavior but because he’s seen as “technical” and eccentric it gets a pass. There is so much buzz for a technology that still fails to do anything
Cryptos are the average man’s Juicero—an encumbered, poorly thought out solution to a non-problem with just enough hype and institutional money on the line to make for spectacular fireworks when it goes.
Is he seen as eccentric? I see him as a stimulant-addled psychopathic killer with the conscience of a starving shark. Otherwise I’m in agreement with the rest of your post.
Would you mind elaborating on why you see a "non-problem" as far as cryptowhatever goes?
I see a lot of fraud in the space, and it does seem like there's a lot of inefficiency in different solutions. However, it also appears to me to be an unavoidable continuation of a decentralization effort that kicked into high gear with the printing press. This process seems to have on average improved life for individuals, and so I have trouble seeing anything that moves decentralized solutions forward as addressing non-problems.
I am aware that my knowledge and understanding is quite limited and prone to error so I'm curious as to how you have come to your position.
For you specifically, I have no idea. I suspect we're at least a decade out from these technologies being reified enough to make decent forecasts as to where they'll actually lead. Undoubtedly there will be those who benefit and suffer disproportionally as has been the case with all technology. It should be noted that I'm not specifically speaking to Bitcoin here, although the Bitcoin protocol/network opened up the space for everything that will follow.
I see a lot of potential for decentralized tokens/governance-models to alter the way humans organize themselves. The closest historical parallel I see to this technology is the corporate charter. Where the corporate charter allowed for the decentralization of the power of kings & military decentralized token systems act on the power of the Nation State & Corporations. I don't know if you should care about it, but the technology is here it will be used and abused whether you care or not.
I think the broadest possible beneficial effect to the average person of this technology is the potential to reinvigorate what historically might be referred to as cooperatives or unions. To be able to self-select into pooling and multiplying your efforts with like-minded people on a global basis is a huge change from being the previous geo-spatial-political limitations to organization and cooperation.
Of course, there's nothing to prevent people from organizing around values like racialNationEugenicsCoin so there's plenty of potential for harm too.
Then there's the potential multiplier effect that you get out of this technology. It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a game or service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the old paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve (think online game's, Uber, E-Bay, AirBnB). This efficiency of effort could potentially be used to further concentrate value than under old models or to require less value extraction from users. This particular effect is, I suspect, why in it's nascent state the technology is so pregnant with potential for scams.
Anyways I've gone on for too long, but that reflects some of my thinking. I'm not invested in crypto outside of, an admittedly limited, knowledge investment. I'd really love to have my mind changed but haven't come across a solid argument for how this tech isn't going to effect our human society as much as any of the related tech that's come before it.
I appreciate you taking the time to answer, but I don't really see anything concrete there.
I'm really not sure how tokens or 'coins' would/could result in the benefits you mention. Global communications networks certainly have revolutionised global cooperation in ways not before possible. I'm just not seeing the value-add of cryptocurrency here.
> It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a game or service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the old paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve
We've had game tokens for quite a bit longer than cryptocurrencies...
I'm sorry, but this reads like a fantasy more than any way in which blockchain technologies could actually enable anything.
Judging by the stories he should not be taken seriously and the media should ignore anything he says (which they won't because his claims are good click-bait).
The Netflix documentary on him is equal parts disgusting, entertaining, and insightful (particularly relating to how our culture of worshipping money and power over all else enables people to get away with murder, literally)
He constantly flip flops on his Bitcoin price predictions and when asked about gets super defensive. He's into very weird conspiracy theories..and definitely his documentary did not help.
McAfee is a conman among conmen. Does anyone even have a shred of respect for any of his software products? I remember they often caused more issues and were the source of more problems than they solved.
42 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 87.8 ms ] threadThat ending remark caught me off guard until I looked at the domain the article was hosted in (itsblockchain.com).
Consider doing it like this.
Single carrot to indent it slightly, then an asterisks to italicize the quote and another asterisks at the end to stop the italicization.
> Although John McAfee is often perceived as an erratic and outgoing individual, I believe that he only wants the best for Cryptocurrency and having an influence as large as his is highly beneficial to helping spread awareness of this great technology which should help boost long-term success. Make sure to follow John and have a watch of some of his interviews, this man has some great knowledge and will do great things for the industry.
Italics and an > quote prefix look much better than code blocks, both on desktop and mobile.
Specifically, what people actually complain about are the <pre> blocks, not the <code> tags. Markdown code sections use both: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#precode
>Pre-formatted code blocks are used for writing about programming or markup source code. Rather than forming normal paragraphs, the lines of a code block are interpreted literally. Markdown wraps a code block in both <pre> and <code> tags.
Presumably, <code> to indicate that it's code, and <pre> to preserve source formatting, since HTML renderers will eat tabs, spaces and newlines. This has been the behavior of <pre> since at least 1997: https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/literal.html
>Preformatted text between the start and end PRE tag is rendered using a fixed with font, in addition whitespace characters are treated literally. The spacing and line breaks are rendered directly, unlike other elements, for which repeated whitespace chararacters are collapsed to a single space character and line breaks introduced automatically.
This works less well with the modern diversity of viewport sizes and pixel densities. (Not as much of a problem 20 years ago.)
Blockquotes don't do this, and act like regular HTML blocks, (<p>, <section>, etc) with normal line wrapping. HN-markdown doesn't implement blockquotes. Would be great if it did!
What does this even mean?
Do you honestly believe that he's interested in anything but money?
His latest prediction flopped just last week: https://blokt.com/news/mcafee-predicts-bitcoin-will-hit-1500...
> To support his argument, he stated that “my algorithm predicted Trump’s June 12th date. They have never been wrong.”
Guess it was wrong.
Can't say I'm unhappy about that, though. The energy usage required for BTC mining is... unsustainable, to say the least. And Chinese power sources aren't the most environmentally friendly ones, either.
Cryptos are the average man’s Juicero—an encumbered, poorly thought out solution to a non-problem with just enough hype and institutional money on the line to make for spectacular fireworks when it goes.
I see a lot of fraud in the space, and it does seem like there's a lot of inefficiency in different solutions. However, it also appears to me to be an unavoidable continuation of a decentralization effort that kicked into high gear with the printing press. This process seems to have on average improved life for individuals, and so I have trouble seeing anything that moves decentralized solutions forward as addressing non-problems.
I am aware that my knowledge and understanding is quite limited and prone to error so I'm curious as to how you have come to your position.
I see a lot of potential for decentralized tokens/governance-models to alter the way humans organize themselves. The closest historical parallel I see to this technology is the corporate charter. Where the corporate charter allowed for the decentralization of the power of kings & military decentralized token systems act on the power of the Nation State & Corporations. I don't know if you should care about it, but the technology is here it will be used and abused whether you care or not.
I think the broadest possible beneficial effect to the average person of this technology is the potential to reinvigorate what historically might be referred to as cooperatives or unions. To be able to self-select into pooling and multiplying your efforts with like-minded people on a global basis is a huge change from being the previous geo-spatial-political limitations to organization and cooperation.
Of course, there's nothing to prevent people from organizing around values like racialNationEugenicsCoin so there's plenty of potential for harm too.
Then there's the potential multiplier effect that you get out of this technology. It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a game or service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the old paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve (think online game's, Uber, E-Bay, AirBnB). This efficiency of effort could potentially be used to further concentrate value than under old models or to require less value extraction from users. This particular effect is, I suspect, why in it's nascent state the technology is so pregnant with potential for scams.
Anyways I've gone on for too long, but that reflects some of my thinking. I'm not invested in crypto outside of, an admittedly limited, knowledge investment. I'd really love to have my mind changed but haven't come across a solid argument for how this tech isn't going to effect our human society as much as any of the related tech that's come before it.
I'm really not sure how tokens or 'coins' would/could result in the benefits you mention. Global communications networks certainly have revolutionised global cooperation in ways not before possible. I'm just not seeing the value-add of cryptocurrency here.
> It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a game or service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the old paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve
We've had game tokens for quite a bit longer than cryptocurrencies...
I'm sorry, but this reads like a fantasy more than any way in which blockchain technologies could actually enable anything.
Judging by the stories he should not be taken seriously and the media should ignore anything he says (which they won't because his claims are good click-bait).
https://www.netflix.com/title/80148180