site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It looks like it is doing more swinging down than swinging up. Given that it's highly correlated with S&P 500 to the downside and less on the upside does not portend well because it means it captures the downside of the market and not the upside (I have realized a significant windfall over the past 4 months by exploiting this recurring pattern).

It's been holding around 20k for nearly a year now and is significantly up from it's bottom in November.

Yeah, but that is after a 77% decline. still 67% off highs. If something drops 99% and doubles, it's still 98% off the highs.

My point though is that he is pretending or acting like his firm was not hyping one of the worst performing assets of 2021-2022, at the very top. Which will likely not recover, but of course I could be wrong. This strikes me as as unconvincing at least.

https://archive.is/orIcB#selection-291.0-314.0

Andreessen’s flagship crypto fund shed around 40% of its value in the first half of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. That decline is much larger than the 10% to 20% drops recorded by other venture funds, which have largely avoided the risky practice of purchasing volatile cryptocurrencies, according to fund investors.

Sure, his earlier funds were a success as mentioned in the article, but ,imho, crypto is not at all like 'the early web' or 'the next Facebook'. His early success is like winning at roulette and then saying that playing roulette is a good business model. The world wide web and social networks saw rapid adoption, huge profits, and are convenient, but crypto is none of those. Crypto is more like Linux, less like Microsoft: great for coding enthusiasts or tinkerers, not so great for investors.

Yeah, but that is after a 77% decline. still 67% off highs. If something drops 99% and doubles, it's still 98% off the highs.

This is just a game of where you draw the lines. If you instead of picking the 2021 point pick 2020 then it's either doubled or quadrupled. Here is a log graph of all time data. You can make quality arguments against crypto valuation but isolating the drops from the rises is not an honest way to talk about risk.

/images/16779004002893846.webp

You can make quality arguments against crypto valuation but isolating the drops from the rises is not an honest way to talk about risk.

You can see how starting in early 2018 returns become much worse even if still positive. 22k/15k is just an 8% annual return since early 2018. If history is any guide and if you believe the people on twitter and youtube, November was the bottom BTC will go up 10-20x (or more) to $100k or whatever. I think it will not recover.

You can see how starting in early 2018 returns become much worse even if still positive. 22k/15k is just an 8% annual return since early 2018.

I mean here you go picking another peak. 2017 is a 20x and 2019 is a 5-6x but you, for not very mysterious reasons, picked 2018 and not just 2018 but a period of roughly 3 months that it was over $10k.

If history is any guide and if you believe the people on twitter and youtube, November was the bottom BTC will go up 10-20x (or more) to $100k or whatever. I think it will not recover.

Do you do all of your market sentiment analysis based off of the activities of random sketchy 'influencers'? This is like feeling bearish on cosmetics because of the unrealistic ramblings of Mary Kay stay at home moms, there is no signal where you are pointing.

Pre-2018 is where all the easy money was made. 100x returns from mid 2015 to late 2017. That will never happen again. At best, maybe $40-60k. Andreessen creating a crypto fund in 2020-2021 is too late. It's like creating a gold mining company in California in 1884 instead 1848. But since its not his money anyway, it's not like he is going to lose , unlike his followers who bought at the top.

Do you do all of your market sentiment analysis based off of the activities of random sketchy 'influencers'?

I said "I think it will not recover." so obviously not.

Of course people were saying this in 2019, and of course you could be right it may never go back up. But you could also be wrong and your confidence seems unfounded. I would also point out that a crypto fund isn't necessarily just buying bitcoin and sitting on it. Smaller and newer projects have different growth potential, making the right choice on the various bitcoin forks could have doubled or tripled the amount of bitcoin you were sitting on at certain points not to mention making the right bets on the various other happenings over the years, polygon/matic in 2021 could have done quite well for you and people plugged in could probably have seen the scaling benefits, I know I saw a great return on it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats