> - The only applications anyone is implementing on progcoins are exchanges and/or gambling. So far, dApps are a circular argument.
There's an argument that that's okay for now - the finance applications are effectively capitalizing infrastructure construction, which will make future applications easier to build, more scalable, etc. The amount of $ in these applications incentivizes bad actors to help expose the failure modes of the infrastructure - which again would be nice to know and document before it becomes widely useful.
^ that's a prediction - I'll be the first to admit that this crypto stuff may go nowhere. But it might go to some interesting places.
The scenario describes an advanced artificial intelligence tasked with manufacturing paperclips. If such a machine were not programmed to value human life, then given enough power over its environment, it would try to turn all matter in the universe, including human beings, into either paperclips or machines which manufacture paperclips.[0]
Replace "paperclips" with "clickbait" and "human life" with "the right to privacy". "Artificial intelligence" then becomes Mark Zuckerborg.
It's sort of weird to have watched the target demographic switch from college kids to everyone's older aunts and uncles. We went from "you should know better than to post that picture" to "you should know better than to engage with that order of operations question".
Because we can only wager hazy guesses as to what it means to experience. If a line is to be drawn, than it must be drawn in seemingly inconsistent and arbitrary ways.
There is a mimosa in a garden near me that will close its leaves when you touch it. Is it experiencing the sensation of touch?
(Edit: mimosa pudica, sometimes also called the shameful plant on account of how tenderly it seems to fold itself)
Eric Weinstein says some crazy stuff, but I remember hearing him once say that the best debate strategy for Republicans would be to mention the "noo-kyoo-lar" family, and let them correct you to "nuclear". Then you win because the other side looks like pedants and elitists. This "octopi" is definitely such a word.
Side note: all this off-topic pedantry about octopi vs octopuses is an old discussion already resolved. It is clouding discussion about what the full implications of what it actually means to treat octopus (ha!) as sentient.
Maybe. I'm not sure how you'd measure the benefit otherwise though. If you're going to compare apples to oranges (or deer road collisions to wolf predation of livestock), dollars is one of the ways you can.
- The only applications anyone is implementing on progcoins are exchanges and/or gambling. So far, dApps are a circular argument.
- Smart contracts aren't so smart. They are ticking time bombs waiting to get exploited DAO-style.
That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for utility.