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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • An alternative way to buy things or even store value (maybe not Bitcoin specifically on that one, but other currencies). Admittedly I don’t think its the best at any of those things, but it doesn’t have to be. I know that’s always the ant-crypto person’s next come back, suddenly change the goal post from having some value to being the best at a particular thing. Some people value the decentralized nature of it, and right or wrong, I don’t see why their choice of using something you don’t like shouldn’t be allowed.

    I don’t use them, and agree with a lot of the reasons for not using them, but I just don’t see my self as the ultimate arbiter of what should be allowed. If there is no value, then eventually it will fizzle out, and we can all continue not using them like we have been. While the environmental angle is very convenient to vilify it (or any other thing you personally don’t like for that matter), I don’t see how it fairly gets applied to this and not almost every aspect of life. Cars for example, a great one because it falls into the same trap. The general consensus on Reddit/Lemmy is that any one who drives a pickup truck is a POS, but even if the anti-truck gang could wave a wand and ban them all, will it then become the anti-rav 4, CRV, etc etc. As long is there is any choice in a vehicle, someone could always they that someone is driving something bigger and worse for an environment than the need and that they are a bad person for it.

    Another great example is air travel. This one gets some attention around celebs and private jets, but for the most part you don’t see people in here saying what a piece of garbage anyone who travels by air more than once a decade or so is. I mean I haven’t done any non work travel in that long, so clearly no one else should need to.

    Sorry this got long, but it all comes back to the point of who gets to decide? Worth taking a setup back from the group think of Reddit/Lemmy and realize there are always going to be people who do things and even use resources on things that you (or me) think are stupid.



  • I mean lot’s of things follow that trend. Look at drones for example - RC helicopters were around since (and I’m sure before) I was born and were never a huge problematic thing with people flying them in dangerous places above people or near airports (although I’m sure there were very specific cases where those did occur).

    But during that time they were both A) expensive and B) required a lot of practice and skill to operate. Anyone that spent the large amount of money and will to put in the time to learn to fly them probably had the common sense to not fly them near people or airports. Bit when anybody can spend $100 on a drone of the convenience aisle at checkout, you start seeing all sorts of problems.


  • I don’t think he’s arguing that, and I don’t think you believe that either. Doubt any of us would consider that content ethical, but what he’s saying is it’s not nearly the same as actually doing harm (as opposed what you said in your original post).

    You implying that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow into those awful things is extremely poor taste. I’d expect so much more on Lemmy, that is a Reddit/Facebook level debate tactic. I guess I’m going to get accused of that too now?

    I don’t like to give any of your posts any credit here, but I can somewhat see the normalization argument. However, where is the line drawn regarding other content that could be harmful because normalized. What about adult non consensual type porn, violence on TV and video games, etc. Sliding scale and everyone might draw the line somewhere else. There’s good reason why thinking about an awful things (or writing, drawing, creating fiction about it) is not the same as doing an awful thing.

    I doubt you’ll think much of this, but please really try to be better. It’s 2024, time to let calling anyone you disagree with a pedo back on facebook in the 90s.


  • We really need to grow past this idea that just because you don’t personally use or like a thing that it is useless. Who are you to get to decide what has value and what doesn’t? If there wasn’t value, no-one would buy or use it. The unspoken part of this argument that gets repeated so often is that the reasons people are interested in the thing are reasons associated with groups you’ve been told very confidently don’t matter. Lack of control from the government? Only a nasty conservative/libertarian hick who “don’t like no GuBmint” would want something like that. Anonymity/privacy reasons (I know, only for for certain coins)? Only a scammer would want that, why care about privacy if you have nothing to hide?

    None of this is even promoting or saying I’m pro crypto, just saying these are poor arguments.

    As an example, as someone who doesn’t follow any sports whatsoever, I could argue the amount of resources and travel for this big football game coming up are vulgar. I mean come on, I don’t care about this game so why should anyone else be allowed to use resources on it?

    Inevitably, you will come back and say but sports offers X, Y, and Z real benefits. If I were to continue the analogy of the inverted argument, the next argument is ALWAYS: “Yes, true, but it’s not the absolute best or most efficient at X, Y, or Z so therefore that doesn’t count”. It could very well be argued that any benefits coming from the super bowl could be done in cheaper, more environmentally friendly ways. Do we cancel this game then? Is anyone who is interested in it a POS?

    This was an example, I actually realize there are tons of benefits to sports even though I don’t get much at all out of it personally. But it’s part of becoming a well adjusted person to realize people are going to have different values and I don’t get to decide what is important to them, or that because they are part of an out group their interests and values don’t matter.

    To make one more example, if someone said they put their life savings in gold in their safe to prep for some doomsday scenario, I certainly wouldn’t agree at all that it was a good choice. A fairly objective case could be made that it is in fact the wrong/bad decision, however I still don’t get to decide their values don’t matter just because I don’t agree with them, or more importantly because Reddit/Lemmy folks told me confidently that those values only belong to preppers/conservatives/libertarians/etc etc and also that those are bad people.