Comment by xdennis
4 hours ago
> cargo culting
I don't think you're using that term right. Not knowing how something works doesn't mean you're cargo culting.
People are not so knowledgeable about the other coins because the whole point of magic internet money is that it can't be controlled by anyone. If your entire account exists in some box somewhere under the control of some entity, how is that any different from a bank (which also mostly doesn't operate on cash but just moves bytes around)?
> People are not so knowledgeable about the other coins because the whole point of magic internet money is that it can't be controlled by anyone
Your problem is treating it as magic internet money. It is not - you literally have the sourcecode to truly assess how it works. Your account is not with some entity. Magic internet money is your bank account - if your bank decides to set it to 0 tomorrow it is "magic" - you have no idea how that happens, and you have no guarantee that it doesn't happen. Or when your credit card is suddenly blocked because your bank decides is "suspicious activity" - again, that is black magic.
Bitcoin is the opposite of magic internet money. It is deterministic to its core. As for other cryptocurrencies - well they are mostly open source so you can check them.
Example of cargo culting in HN is people claiming that there are no tokens possible in bitcoin (false since taproot assets landed in 2021), not anonymous (false also since lightning layer 2 network existed) or not able to "pay for your coffee" in bitcoin (again, bogus since layer 2 networks). This is all cargo-culted knowledge once learned and true in 2017, never to be revisited.