The two of you might simply talking about different locations. This article seems very US focused, but in europe third places still exist, and it seems the US is having a severe decline in those.
People hold dollar-backed stablecoins because they believe the US dollar to be the most durable unit of account on the planet.
All the proof you really need for that is that most crypto users outside the US still consider the value of their crypto tokens in terms of how many US dollars it’s worth.
The author of this article talks about this being a “parasite” to the US monetary system, but it’s hard to think of a better thing that could’ve happened for the US. Not only has it reinforced that dominance… it’s also driven hundreds of billions of dollars of US treasury bills purchases from providers like Tether and USDC.
Stable coins are mostly backed by Treasuries, so it’s engineering instability: a run on coin redemption triggers treasury sales which raises interest rates which triggers a run on any asset backed by treasuries like coins, and so on.
It’s like the 2008 crash: people speculating because they think housing never goes down, except a market-scale drop can trigger an uncontrollable rush for the exit. With banks and companies permitted to hold coins as assets, the impact is broad but impossible to regulate ex ante, and difficult to model monetarily.
It’s what I would do if I were Putin and Xi, frustrated with the western controls on the banking system (that have mostly enabled us not to have to go to war).
Keep in mind stablecoins aren't a product built for Americans, they're built for people outside the US financial system to give them access to some of the benefits of the US's relatively solid money.
If it's a fraud, then it's one with a working product.
In 2022 when confidence in stablecoins plummeted after the Terra collapse, $20 billion in Tether was liquidated in a month - $10 billion of that in a single day: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether
Through that black swan event Tether did its job, processing redemptions for collateral dollar for dollar.
One point is missing for me - you get lazy. People are less and less equiped to think about complex problems the more they RELY on this for coding. Also this article is just about coding.
Not sure why more people aren't mentioning this. But that's the exact reason I've stopped using any LLM stuff. Your thinking just gets lazier and lazier the more you use it. You stop thinking the problems deeply and thoroughly when the "answer" is just around the corner. Then one day you snap out of that mirage, and see what a boatload of junk you've just created with this stuff.
I also dread what's going to happen to the younger generations which have this to replace their real education, but that's a bit offtopic here.
Depends on the context - in a scripting language where you have some kind of console you just don't copy all lines, and see what each pipe does one after another. This is pretty straight forward.
(Not talking about compiled code though)
From a "neutral" perspective it gives them legitimacy
From a "maximalist" perspective it gives you access to government
From a "scammer" perspective it gets you tax dollars and average Joes
If your sycophants eat everything you'll throw at them there won't be any need for justification. Which completely baffles me. The US digital technology sector seems to be full of yes man and groupthink, and it's getting worse.
I think some people are so motivated by "hate" (for lack of a better word) they they pretty much would shoot their foot off with a sawed-off if someone told them it would "own the libs". It's like you say: there is not even need of justification, Musk is "our guy" and that's that.
There is plenty of criticism of Elon Musk coming coming from both sides of the political spectrum. I am consider myself right of centre and I hear plenty of criticisms of Elon Musk coming from the right. The complaints are completely different though.
The big problem with any of these discussions (especially online) is that a lot of people are intellectually lazy and assume the other-side is comprised of brain dead zealots who only support the most extreme positions.
I don’t think it’s quite right to say they assume it. News outlets and online platforms intentionally cultivate that idea, because in the modern era they directly optimize for engagement, and I’m substantially more likely to click on people saying or complaining about outrageous things than measured criticisms from a perspective I don’t share.
Maybe it is a bit of both. However the end result is the discourse online is frequently frames on the idea that the if you are part of Group A, then Group B is full of sycophants. I am also dubious whether I am actually talking to a real person in a lot of these discussions, but that is another discussion entirely.
In this context Project Blinkenlights in Germany should be mentioned. They are using big buildings and illuminate the windows to create some kind of public pixelart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blinkenlights
cacophony = chaos, so a lot of mixed opinions that don't really make sense would achieve just that. I would not expect thought out and stringent discussion from throwing a bunch of bots at every discussion
