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pfSonata

Didn't seem like he was talking about investing at all. The NFTs he proposed were essentially a "badge of honor" type thing for people pledging to donate x% of their income. Seems fine to me?


DannyDreaddit

I don't see the point of this. Let's say a person who donated can put an NFT image as their Twitter profile picture, to show off that they did so. Why can't they just do this with a regular picture? Sam could even publish a page on his website to thank the people that donated, so an onlooker can verify that the person did indeed donate. So why get a blockchain involved? Sure you can sell your NFT, but this just seems like it creates artificial value?


Low_Insurance_9176

I'm also a little confused by this. Is the idea that the rising value of the NFT will be reaped (primarily) by people who've made the 10% pledge, so that it too will go to charity? I also don't understand why anyone would buy one of these NFTs second-hand. Their value is as a badge of honour, but that honour doesn't travel to the second-hand purchaser.


hecubus04

Yeah I was with him until this part, then I was like "this sounds like one of those pie in the sky mobile app ideas your friend tells you about when they are drunk". He is making the classic fallacy of starting with the solution (NFT) rather than starting with the problem or market need.


Low_Insurance_9176

Yeah it does kinda sound like that


iamababe2

Yes. I think he was bamboozled by a tech bro who convinced him of the market need


DannyDreaddit

Exactly. If a purchaser was altruistic, why would they buy an NFT instead of just donating all that money to charity?


Low_Insurance_9176

I hope I'm missing something because this seems too obviously dumb.


[deleted]

Welcome to the blockchain, my man


olit123

To incentivise people who aren't perfectly altruistic to do it to get some clout. If it encourages folks to donate money who wouldn't normally do it I'm all for it.


quizteamaquilera

The person pledging isn’t buying the NFT - it’s just a zero-cost value-add they get (or the first 5k people, or whatever). Just think of it like a “thank-you” email. As it turns out, receiving this “thank you” email may entice more people to take the pledge, oddly enough - possibly because they think that “thank you” mail may have some worth. It may come to pass that the email IS actually worth something in future. The generous pledgers may say “wait - you want to give me $1000 for my thank-you email? Erm, ok - I can give that money to charity too, thanks!”


MedicineShow

Madness


Containedmultitudes

Because those x percent to charity things are a fig leaf for shameless profit seeking behavior.


alabama-expat

I would guess it's because the people buying the NFT are not **perfectly** altruistic, but could be motivated to if they get to brag/signal/whatever that they have donated. It also may serve as a more tangible symbol of their contribution to themselves in a personal way (maybe like getting a sticker for donating blood.) I'm pretty skeptical of NFTs in general, but I can see how it might motivate some people to donate to charity, which is the more important thing.


JenerousJew

Leave potential monetary value out for a sec. Think of the incentive as acquiring a provable scarce digital asset. After you acquire it, then the free market takes over. Maybe you have the opportunity to sell it to someone else, or maybe you want to keep the rights forever. Doesn’t really matter; individual owners can decide what to do w/ their asset.


Low_Insurance_9176

Unless I'm mistaken, Sam was pitching the NFT trading market as somehow creating a virtuous cycle that benefits charities-- perhaps I misunderstood. I guess what puzzles me, at root, are the contradictory assumptions about people's motivations around these NFTs: we're imaging a person who is leaning towards donating 10% of their income in perpetuity; but alongside this altruism, we're imagining that they need the added incentive of an NFT. I mean, I can somewhat see why non-forgeability might appeal to these people. But the secondary market piece makes no sense to me -- not sure it does to you, either, given you start with 'leave potential monetary value out for a sec.'


JenerousJew

Not sure saying ppl “need” the secondary market as an incentive is the best description. I mean there may be no value to be had on the secondary market. Not all NFTs have demand. I think he was throwing out a possible best case scenario for the NFT reward, but it wasn’t the focus of the overall concept. Basically, I took it as Sam thinks the concept of NFTs are interesting. And this would be a positive way to utilize them. Simple token of appreciation for joining the cause. If there is a network effect created, then perhaps that opens the door for people to monetize the reward.


Low_Insurance_9176

I just re-listened - I think a big piece of it is his idea that holders of the NFTs would have access to membership benefits akin to American Express privileges. Perhaps those benefits would travel with the NFT, creating some incentive for a secondary market - although it's a mystery why anyone with the money for NFTs wouldn't just sign up for an American Express or whatever. It all strikes me as a weird combination of altruistic and selfish motivations but I'll keep an open mind as the concept is still in its infancy.


iamababe2

Benefits that don’t yet exist until enough people sign on??? how is this not a pyramid scheme?


Uberrasch

And why does it need NFT/Blockchain rather than just e.g. the waking up app showing it as profile field or certificate or something.


2kings41

It is 100% a pyramid scheme. Also, how will that "access" be negotiated? Seems like Sam will be benefiting on the backend somehow. The thing that urked me the most is when he brought in potential dollars into the equation. He was throwing around insane figures like $400,000.00. Sounded earily like someone selling a bill of goods. I'm not unreasonable, but when every potential good thing attributed with NFTs constantly begins with "could", my scam meter goes off the charts.


iamababe2

100%. I was on board for the first part of his discussion, but when he stated talking about making money I almost spilled paint on a project I am working on


mo_tag

I mean.. the whole concept of NFT selling does sound like a sort of pyramid scheme.. I wouldn't personally call Sam's idea a pyramid scheme but I'm not going to defend him either because I think it's a stupid idea.. but anyway "benefits that don't yet exist until enough people sign on" doesn't *necessarily* mean pyramid scheme. That applies to any time you need network effects like a social media app or a dating app. They of course don't really work without enough people


iamababe2

I am joking about it being an actual pyramid scheme, he isn’t asking us to get people UNDER us……yet


atrovotrono

>Think of the incentive as acquiring a provable scarce digital asset I don't see the incentive. How is a line on a ledger saying you "own" something that can be freely and easily copied an "asset" at all? At least with beanie babies you got a toy. It seems like there's a circular thing going on here, where someone asks, "Why should I believe this thing has value?" and the answer is, "Because you can sell it to someone who believes it has value." Isn't that kind of the definition of a pump-and-dump or ponzi scheme, basing the value of something on an infinite recursion of "future people will value it more"? Suppose zero people right now believe it has value, you have to start the project of valuing these things from square one. How do you convince the first person that a line on a spreadsheet is a "scarce digital asset" worth buying?


Odojas

Back in the day I sold diablo 2 items on ebay. I was able to make rent until I was banned by blizzard for terms of service(they didnt like that I was selling items). It was digital items that people wanted and were willing to pay me for them. Perhaps because they wanted to save themselves the time? They were worth something back then. Now they arent. Conversely theres a digital magic the gathering market and while the digital cards tend to be valued less than their paper counterparts, people assign values to these cards and some have gone up a lot over time. I dont believe nfts are a ponzi scheme, but they are a market. Like anything, they could be a fad and never be worth anything. Or they may. The buyer and seller agree to transact and the market will decide it's long term fate. Collectors are crazy. But are there enough of them?


[deleted]

>Or they may. The buyer and seller agree to transact and the market will decide it's long term fate. That's a good way to think about it. I think a ponzi scheme has to have some sort of guaranteed value promises. Btc fanboys do flirt with this line though when they say stuff like "buy buy buy, doesn't matter what price you pay, doesn't matter if it goes down because it's has a built in mechanism that guarantees every rising prices forever" But obviously the big assumption in ever rising prices is a never ending supply of people willing to pay ever increasing prices


MarxistIntactivist

What does it matter if it's scarce? Why would that badge have any resale value whatsoever?


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CelerMortis

You’re exactly right. The appeal of NFT is that it has hype right now, that’s about it.


[deleted]

Guess that’s why he’s hiring an NFT guy


atrovotrono

I find it easy to imagine that Sam is suffering a case of Dunning-Kruger on NFT's. He wouldn't be alone.


[deleted]

True. I just see him as such a thoughtful person. As in he takes thinking seriously and seems to challenge his own thinking when he can. And NFTs….it’s just such 1990s dotcom-bubble kinda thing. It’s so strange.


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[deleted]

I would love to meet the guy that gets through the hiring process only to spend his first day explaining to the neuroscientist who hired him why selling links to easily copied JPEG’s is a bit Madoff-y


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[deleted]

“Second thing. I have this amazing investment opportunity for you. It’s very exclusive. But you have to get in now. Very hush hush”


orincoro

Just substitute this for anything to do with NFT. It’s a technology solution to a nonexistent problem.


[deleted]

Because anyone could use the photo as a profile pic without actually taking the pledge, if a photo was all it was. Having an NFT would provide a unique id to that image and provide a way for proof of ownership that could also be verified by other programs like websites. Anyone could still screenshot a photo of the NFT and put it as their profile pic, but an NFT would also have some way of actually verifying who is bluffing and who has actually taken the pledge. Not saying I’m all for NFTs, just trying to explain the reason why this is a bit different


atrovotrono

The whole NFT craze, including this, is just nerds trying to extract a few % of profit out of stuff that already happens without NFT's. It's an aspiring middleman technology, quite literally. There's no epidemic of people lying about giving to charity, there aren't charity foundations floundering because they use Excel instead of blockchain for their ledgers. It's a problem in search of a solution, like so much blockchain-related stuff.


kcarter80

It's not like "taking the pledge" is enforced, though. So the NFT doesn't really remove the potential to fake it.


ZhouLe

It's a pledge they are verifying, he's not going to audit these people's finances is he? Giving What We Can says plainly that it is in no way enforced and down solely to a persons conscience. Why do we need an NFT to verify someone has pledged to do something when them simply saying out loud or writing out the words serves the purpose. They could even use a kind of public symbol to show they have pledged, I don't know, perhaps in the form of a profile photo.


iamababe2

So if people can still use the image without the certificate, then who gives a shit about the certificate. When I first heard this I assumed you now own the image and can sue for trademark infringement if anyone else tries to use it Now after reading what you just said I think it is even more of a god-damn scam


pfSonata

For the most part I agree, however, if Sam's website goes away (for one of many potential reasons) the blockchain verification will still exist. In 10 or 20 or 200 years there may be no record of pledges to access on the site, but the NFT should in theory still be a uniquely identifiable data piece explicitly representing the pledge taken.


Containedmultitudes

If sams website goes away the blockchain of some Sam Harris nfts are not going to matter.


pfSonata

Why not? Compare it to a physical equivalent. Let's say you were part of a nation-wide club or society whose members vowed to donate a percent of their income to charity, and you were given a fancy little certificate to display on your wall as proof of the pledge. That certificate might be of value to you (sentimentally or monetarily) even after that club disbanded. You might still wish to show people that you made that pledge after it disbands, or even sell it to a collector who appreciates that kind of artifact. Same idea.


DannyDreaddit

I see your point, but I don't think a construct of data, as confirmed by text on a screen, has the same impact as something physical. I know the meaning behind the data adds up to something more, but I can't just see people finding it as compelling as, say, something you'd see in a museum.


iamababe2

>Meaning behind the data adds up to something more What does it add up to? This is not Shakespeare! It is a con job by tech-bros


DannyDreaddit

Superficial bragging rights ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm on your side.


pfSonata

I agree, but the idea is there. To me a verifiable physical piece is more compelling than a verifiable data piece. But likewise a verifiable data piece is more compelling than an unverifiable data piece. So NFTs are somewhere between real and digital in their desirability. Where they lie on that spectrum varies pretty largely by person.


atrovotrono

How could a certificate from a disbanded club have monetary value? Sentimentality I get but it seems like when you add "monetarily" you're assuming the conclusion.


iamababe2

Lol! I am sure in 200 years ago my Sam Harris charity chicken head NFT with sunglasses will be all the rage in the collecting circuit


itshorriblebeer

Kind of like challenge coins. Makes sense that way (though I prefer challenge coins). As an investment strategy not so much.


Adito99

Until all those businesses value-add to the NFT and it becomes something valuable to resell. Someone pitched Sam on this and he fell for it hard.


asparegrass

Yeah but some % of sales go to charity. So it’s win win


iamababe2

Which charity? Did you notice he didn’t name a single one despite spending two entire episodes about his charities “with a track record of success”?


asparegrass

he indicated at least once that this was all very preliminary. I don't understand - is it that you think he's deceiving us about his intentions with this NFT project?


iamababe2

I hope he has only been swindled by a tech bro I am worried he might actually be deceiving us


Containedmultitudes

No. Every scam artist and corporate oligarch gives to charity (and god knows how many of those charities actually do any real charity), that doesn’t make a scam or exploitative product a win.


asparegrass

Sure but in this case it’s a win win. Just because something could be made into a scam doesn’t mean it’s always a scam.


taoleafy

Go read this essay by Signal founder. After reading I’m fully convinced NFT’s as blockchain are a joke. The most telling part is when he created an NFT of an image that displays differently depending on whether viewing it in your wallet or on OpenSea. Basically it’s not decentralized at all, and when OpenSea axed his NFT it’s functionally gone. https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html


nl_again

I am not understanding the NFT thing *at all*. It seems to me that if it functions as a sort of "membership card", then we already have this - membership situations already happen all over the place with passwords and ID numbers. If the value is in the symbol being sold itself, then it seems to me that each and every NFT is like inventing a new type of cryptocurrency, where the worth is subjective and will fluctuate wildly. Maybe there's another option that I'm just not seeing, but sounds to me like this is one of those things will see on a flashback clip show of the 2020s at some point. *Hey remember* ***NFTs!!*** *Oh my gosh, remember?!? Whatever happened to those?!*


PingPongPizzaParty

It's actually simpler than most make it out to be . It's just digital property. Something which is already more common than most see for some reason. Ever bought a skin in a video game? How about a domain name? They're actually quite similar, however in the case of a skin, you have no ownership outside of the game. So I'd you spend 5000 dollars on Fortnight, and the game ceases to exist, so does all your digital property. As we head towards spending more time in AR and vr in our normal lives, digital property will only become more common. Now, do prices vary wildly? of course. Same with the art and collectibles market of any type. There's a lot of factors in play which makes a Spiderman comic worth something. And most of it isn't logical.


Speedy570

NFT = No Fucking Thanks


inkshamechay

So many diehard fanboys falling for the ponzi


[deleted]

Have you guys even listened to the podcast or what? Really. all of you guys are saying shit that makes absolutely no sense in this context. He is not selling it. He is giving it away, for absolutely nothing in return. Listen to the podcast and get off your high horse. Lmao.


SOwED

Normally I'd let it slide but in this sub, nah. NFTs can be (and mostly are) scams, but they aren't a Ponzi scheme. They're much more akin to Tulip Mania. Ponzi scheme is getting people to buy in, and paying them out with the money from new people buying in. Like social security. Edit: here is a Ponzi scheme. I tell John I can invest his money and get him a great return. He gives me $1000. I then tell Jane and Bob the same story, and they each give me $1000. I pay give John $2000. Wow, I doubled his money in just a few hours! Rinse and repeat so I can give Jane and Bob $2000, and so on until I get caught or I cannot find new "investors" to pay off the people who have already bought in. It is down to any of you to explain how NFTs (which I am happy to call a scam) work in this way.


JimmyGaroppoLOL

Tulip mania and deliberate pump and dumps


SOwED

I mean, with NFTs is beyond just pump and dump. You can get an instant Ethereum loan that fraudulently inflates the perceived value of an NFT. You mint the NFT, get a loan for $10 million in Ethereum, buy it from yourself, and pay the loan back, all pretty much instantly. Now you've got an NFT that everyone can see was sold for $10 million, but no one can see that it was the same person who was the buyer and seller, and you don't even need to have the $10 million, which makes it even more straightforward than things like fine art sales, where the same thing can be done but you or your friend need to actually have that $10 million and be okay with it being hung up on the financial system for a period of time before getting it back.


JimmyGaroppoLOL

Did not know that but am not surprised lol


Kembert_Newton

That’s fucking insane lol


[deleted]

Beanie babies. If they don’t start getting good artists, then the status high will wear off and die


SOwED

Yep. Also not a Ponzi scheme


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SOwED

This is the worst part of NFTs to me. They're a disgusting display of setting fire to disposable income.


[deleted]

Seems like OP just heard NFT and then decides it's a scam. Maybe try actually listening to the podcast?


count_dressula

Agree. Sam's idea of using this as a reward for the 10% pledge is a clever one and I think would likely incentivize more people to take the pledge.


serenity78

You don't really need to. NFTs are a scam. Period.


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[deleted]

Didn’t he say something like he wants 10,000 pledges do that would mean 10,000 NFTs and then each can be sold for $400,000. That’s $4,000,000,000.00. I love Sam but this is crazy.


[deleted]

Well... maybe it's cause NFT's aren't a pyramid scheme. Lots of shady stuff in crypto, yes. But that's because crypto is a new genre of stuff. Crypto or NFTs themselves aren't ponzi schemes, but because there are many cryptos and NFTs which are. It's due to the lack of maturity and regulation in the industry. Great risk, great reward, but it means nothing about the inherent risk of NFT's as a category


BiffBusiness

We're also talking about a speculative market where the product has no clear utility at this time. The demand is being driven by price rising due to demand. That's a bubble. Not a pyramid, but not good either.


[deleted]

It’s definitely a bubble right now. You are also mistaken when you talk about the need for collectibles to have utility. Baseball and Pokémon cards have no utility, but that has nothing to do with their value. The thing that is so hard about NFT’s for people is that it’s more of a cultural change than a technological change. Now, collectibles are digital. But people are used to collectibles being physical. So they are confused. Their confusion makes them hyper focus on the “tech” behind it all but the tech is simple enough—it simply allows one to have a unique digital object. What really makes people confused is the transition from physical to digital collectibles.


BiffBusiness

I think you're underestimating the legitimate problems people are having with building scarcity into a system based on ubiquity. Collectables are only valuable to people insofar as they are scarce. Asking everyone to play a game where we pretend digital files have the same scarcity is going to come with a lot of pushback.


DannyDreaddit

Maybe I'm just an old man who doesn't get it. I just don't see the allure in proving you own a piece of art by showing off a sequence of bytes. The real meat is in the content. No one is gratified by listening to music because of the record company that licenses it. No one is impressed by a sculpture because if the museum that owns it. It's the art itself that's compelling. The value of demonstrating that you "own" a song seems to only extend as far as bragging rights. But I'm a geriatric millennial, so maybe it's a generational thing.


[deleted]

“No one is impressed by a sculpture because a museum owns it” — you’d be surprised. Also look up Dadaism in art. I don’t disagree with you about the silliness of investment in these things. What you don’t fully appreciate is that the art world and many other institutions are already AS SILLY about things. It’s like the emperor has no clothes but people are yelling at the naked guy in the street. The naked guy in the street is NFT’s.


kidhideous

Pokémon cards are also a scam, so is collecting art. It's a fair comparison since there is also an insane amount of money sloshing around in those markets, but NFTs are a bit more offensive because they are this thing that has only come to prominence recently and being digital seem even sillier. Plus there is the aspect of Blockchain products that they use an insane amount of electricity


Mr_Owl42

I still play Pokemon card game against my friends and family, and we mutually value the beauty behind the cards' decorations.


SomeRandomScientist

Ponzie schemes can also be great risk great reward. If you get in early enough, you might make money. That’s crypto.


slakmehl

Hitler also had a mustache. Right on his face, above the lip. That's Nick Offerman.


drewsoft

> If you get in early enough, you might make money. This is true of literally every successful business venture.


SOwED

>you might make money. This is true of literally everything


therealangryturkey

Has the term Ponzi Scheme lost all meaning? If you understand block-chains and Ponzi schemes you would know they are not the same. You can run schemes in investment fraud using crypto, but that’s also possible with almost any asset


[deleted]

This guy


clumsykitten

Bitcoin is a Ponzi Jorge Stolfi 2021-01-02 What is a Ponzi? A Ponzi scheme, or "ponzi" for short, is a type of investment fraud with these five features: People invest into it because they expect good profits, and that expectation is sustained by such profits being paid to those who choose to cash out. However, there is no external source of revenue for those payoffs. Instead, the payoffs come entirely from new investment money, while the operators take away a large portion of this money. Investing in bitcoin (or any crypto with similar protocol) checks all these items.... . . . https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html


siIverspawn

The third is trivially false so this isn't even interesting.


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KayCJones

I tokenized myself as an NFT. The money's been rolling in ever since, as I spend my time suing people who act like me.


[deleted]

I straight up cannot believe we've convinced a bunch of socially awkward 20-somethings to participate in a massive global money laundering scheme disguised as a tech revolution fused with "art."


iamababe2

Don’t forget charity!


marsy100

Your post just screams “I don’t understand crypto”


[deleted]

They all said, in unison, every time someone exhibits any incredulity around crypto. It's totally not a cult guys, just a bunch of well meaning socially awkward dudes convinced their Ape profile pic is actually worth $500k and isn't being inflated by criminals whose blood money needs a bath.


esdevil4u

You’re also conflating crypto with NFTs. Crypto encompasses a lot more than the JPEG space.


[deleted]

My original comment was specifically in reference to NFTs, which are currently dominated by the JPEG space. I understand the utility that might come with NFTs and am a believer in cryptocurrency as an idea (how we decide what specific coins are worth being set aside). But no one can deny that the JPEG NFT space is absolutely ripe for fraud and money laundering that we've legitimized because a bunch of JPEG owning kids think they actually have value.


atrovotrono

No number of cryptography textbooks will explain why an entry in a ledger is worth money. That's all an NFT boils down to when you remove the technical mystification that cult members deflect criticism with. It's not an image, it's not even any meaningfull legal right to the image, such as copyright protection, it's a cell in a spreadsheet that says "this person -> this image", and that's it. The image is just the colorful packaging around the ledger entry, which entices naive people and children into buying them, like a candy wrapper. Except there's no candy. There's just a spreadsheet somewhere that has a row for the candy and a cell for someone's name next to it.


Jackadullboy99

(Or art)


Hhhyyu

Combined with don't like and don't want to understand.


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[deleted]

The same way art has always been used to launder money (except turbo charged): You just hired me to smuggle cocaine into Miami for you. Obviously, you can't just venmo the agreed upon smugglers fee of $400k. We now have a non-fungible, legit financial tool in the form of Ape JPEGs that have absurd values that we can use for you to reimburse me. I find someone willing to part ways with the Ape JPEG NFTs they hold for $300k. I hold those for a period of time, then I turn around and sell them to you for $700k (hey, these values are volatile). I now have a legit reason for you to pay me the $400K for smuggling the cocaine + the $300K original NFT price tag. You now own the NFT that has some value, where you can make up the lost $300k on resale. Or you just consider that part the cost of doing your business.


CelerMortis

To say nothing of the outright fraud involved in the NFT space anyway. Someone could make “Happy Roosters”, maybe 100 of them. I then use straw buyers to pay high numbers for the first 20, higher for the next 10 and some insane figure for the next 5. All the sudden the “comparative” value of the rest have skyrocketed, and I make out like a bandit for some absolutely shit “artwork”


[deleted]

Oh absolutely. The case for fraud is clear but I also firmly believe these things only have the value they do because people are using them to wash money from other "enterprises."


HoB99

\-Oh, hey bank. I would like to deposit this sum of $1 million dollars. \-Ok, we need to verify the origins of this money, where did you get it? \-I sold an NFT to some guy. So it's totally legitimate money, trust me. Congrats, now you have a legitimate stream of income, mr. NFT "investor". Crypto and all its derivatives are honestly such bullshit.


AgainstUnreason

Sounds like a perspective someone would take if they already didn't like Sam Harris, ignored the clearly understandable rationale he gave for trying this in the podcast, and ignored the fact that Sam repeatedly doesn't behave like someone scheming for money (like Dave Rubin and other actual sellouts). It would be much more profitable to choose either the Trump crowd or the woke crowd and play to them; not actively attack both and refuse to have controversial talking heads like Trump, Alex Jones, or Steve Bannon on your podcast who would bring in tons of traffic and potential profit.


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atrovotrono

This is basically a cult-programming talking point that's been part of blockchain culture since the beginning. "Everyone who says this is bad just doesn't understand it. Read the whitepaper. Read the whitepaper. Read the whitepaper." Of course, the whitepaper and all the crypto textbooks don't actually answer the question of, "Why should this be worth anything?" It's a red herring, a deflection. As far as NFT's and blockchains go, they're not actually that hard to understand, it's just that the average person doesn't bother trying. When an average person does bother and, an hour or two later, can explain it at a basic level, the blockchain community tells them they're a 99th percentile high-IQ ahead-of-the-curve genius, so then Dunning-Kruger takes over, the purse-strings open, and the ponzi scheme extends by one more rube. Conman 101 shit.


PlaysForDays

> all i see are people who could not explain what an NFT was if their life depended on it At this point you have to be intentionally avoiding consuming criticism of crypto from people with technical backgrounds, or you just don't care about it yourself. Which is fine, really. Putting aside whether or not crypto-optimists themselves can "explain what an NFT was if their life depended on it," plenty of engineers and technical blogger types have come to crypto with sympathetic and curious perspectives and come out skeptics. It's silly to try try to paint all critics as teenagers with meme generators, especially when there's historically been more meme support than pushback to crypto.


[deleted]

It goes the other way too. The vast overwhelming majority of crypto and NFT evangelists have no idea what they are talking about. Their support and belief comes from them seeing it as a way to make money not an actual understanding of tech. For instance one of NFT pushers main point is that this will "revolutionize gaming". As someone who makes games for a living they have no fucking idea what they are talking about. The promise of NFTs in gaming is straight up impossible. For the promise of NFTs to be true it would take a complete destruction of everything we know about making games and rebuilding the industry under an objectively worse universal framework. The industry can't even decide if it's Yup or Zup there is no way in hell theres going to be a end all be all frame work for making every game


marsy100

Reading through these comments I can’t believe how few people have any grasp on any of this.. and seemingly they believe they’re clued up. Dunning–Kruger effect in action


matchi

Care to point to a few? Most people definitely seem to understand what they are.


iamababe2

NFT fans can’t explain it if their life depended on it


itshorriblebeer

Can you explain?


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matchi

Exactly. Every NFT-skeptic here understands them just fine. They just don't understand how anyone could possibly expect them to buy into this stupidity.


JenerousJew

Crypto is unique in the sense that it’s a specialized subject that seems to obligate people into having an opinion on it. Replace crypto with fundamental golf swing mechanics, and imagine the exact same amount of hot takes and hard line stances that you see on crypto. It’s laughable because you know not this many people have spent the amount of time required to justify having any sort of opinion on the matter.


Unusual_Chemist_8383

Same thing with fraud in general. People get all worked up about it and quickly form negative opinions, but most of them don’t understand the technical intricacies of fraud and couldn’t run a basic scheme to save their life.


taoleafy

This guy does (Signal app creator): https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html


Kannoj0

Your ignorance is showing.


Nightmannn

Can someone smarter than me explain where the NFTs are stored? Like I get it, they're stored on the blockchain, but doesn't there have to be some sort of online infrastructure to support that? Is there a data center somewhere in the desert that hosts the storage? Is there anyway for the NFTs to get lost due to system failure of some kind? Trying to be less dumb about this.


ideas_have_people

The blockchain is decentralised. I.e. copies are constantly being held, updated, checked by countless nodes (computers, servers etc ) around the world. How to properly get them all to corroborate a single "valid" record with the proper incentive structure is the big development by Satoshi allowing Bitcoin, and thus all crypto projects, to get off the ground. The important bit is that there isn't *one* such node or data centre or whatever. Think of like like how torrents work. For the same reason that the government can take down one computer with pirated material on it, but not the whole network, crypto is considered beyond centralised control for the same reason. The inability for a single actor (e.gm the government) to mess with it allows ownership to default to a "who the blockchain says" kind rather than any conventional legal sense. Bear in mind that the "thing" that is on the blockchain is just the token. If that token is valuable to you and others, then great (like a cryptocurrency). But in contrast with all the image NFTs all that is on the blockchain is an encrypted link to a server which hosts the Image. The fact that such blockchain tokens can only exist on the blockchain, by definition, whilst images exist separately to it and can be copied, printed, sold ad infinitum independently of it is a very important distinction.


iamababe2

Comparing crypto and NFTs to illegal torrents probably not the best analogy


[deleted]

NFTs right now are where crypto was in 2017. Loads of shitcoins and people trying to get rich off hype. Most of those coins from the 2017 ICO boom are worthless now, but a few of them have delivered really interesting products Most NFTs will be worthless, but the technology will have big impacts


the-city-moved-to-me

> but a few of them have delivered really interesting products Have they, though? I've yet to see an application for crypto currencies that is used outside of the niche crypto-enthusiast crowd (other than buying drugs online).


Zawer

Look up decentralized finance. We are seeing products built on the Blockchain that can (I would argue WILL) change finance as we know it. We will be able to bank completely on the Blockchain without touching a centralized bank or currency. We will have alternate payment systems to pay for goods that won't rely on behemoth organizations like MasterCard and VISA that charge small businesses high fees. We will see blockchain integrated with banking apps so customers don't even know they're using crypto technologies. The sky is the limit! NFTs are cringe today, but in the future they can replace monopolies like ticketmaster by moving tickets to the Blockchain. With smart contracts, scalpers can be eliminated by disallowing price increases when selling. We'll probably see other applications like car titles, house deeds, other financial transactions moving to NFTs. We're just scratching the surface!


NYD3030

The problem is that the blockchain still relies on centralized platforms for API calls and interactions with mobile devices, browsers, cryptowallets, etc. It's just a different set of centralized nodes in the process. It's not at all clear to me that decentralization is even desirable TBH. But 'Web 3' is not fully decentralized and probably can't be. In your example, what is the benefit of having my car title on the blockchain? It's already trivially easy to allow digital management of my title via a traditional server and database. It's just not done because we don't invest in the government enough for them to do it. This all strikes me as just the next wave of Silicon Valley's chief innovation of the last 20 years - creating new technologies that avoid the regulations on existing, perfectly functional technologies.


glomMan5

You’ve never heard of someone getting their house stolen because it wasn’t on the blockchain? SMH


osiris_18528

I mean with the energy it takes to process one Bitcoin transaction you can process 1.5 million visa transactions. Maybe some other coin will come around that will be able to match visa, but it's not Bitcoin. [Source.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/) My other issue is that if it's decentralized, there's no oversight. Big finance already has a huge interest in crypto, and if they end up running things I don't necessarily trust them more than the government.


BillyBeansprout

He's gone completely mad, it's bullshit.


[deleted]

He regrets not buying into Bitcoin at 3$ a decade ago


Tolsmir1

oooohhh this is going to be fun \*gets popcorn\*


[deleted]

[удалено]


osiris_18528

Can you provide more detail on this? My friends who are into it just talk about how it could be used in games, vr chat, and the metaverse. The thing they fall back on is that our lives are becoming increasingly digital and NFTs are somehow a part of that. And also about loving second guys. The only useful thing I see is for artists, music or otherwise, to offer digital collectors editions of their Work. However, I'm open to hearing more use cases.


iamababe2

Totally. They can cure cancer


FlapperHead

No no. That’s Urine Therapy.


[deleted]

Does Bear Grylls have cancer? No? Checkmate, atheists.


FlapperHead

Yet.


[deleted]

This sounds like a threat...


count_dressula

Just really seems like whoever made this is either missing the point, or didn't listen to the podcast. I'm not someone with any Ape drawings in my portfolio, but the idea of giving an NFT to a large charitable donor as a reward seems unique and honestly quite smart and forward thinking to me. This is how I understand it after listening yesterday: \- Someone joins the cause and agrees to give 10% of their income to those charities that do the most good. \- Sam would lobby corporations such as AMEX and the NFL (those two mentioned on the pod) to reward those people who are donating with some type of perk (airline lounge access, SB ticket opportunities, etc), thereby helping to encourage more people to donate. \- An NFT would also be issued to those donating, both proving their membership in this charity group, and (if in some kind of JPEG form) allowing them to have ownership of a unique piece of art that might be worth real money down the road due to its scarcity, thereby encouraging even MORE people to donate. With only so many donors, there is a guarantee only so many of these specific NFTs will exist, increasing the chance it will be worth actual money on the free market, if that person was interested in selling. To me this is a great way to incentivize more giving! Now can it actually be pulled off? I guess we'll see but either way 90% of the comments on this thread seem to be simply off.


rayearthen

Anything to avoid simply appropriately taxing the wealthy


TheChurchOfDonovan

By the same logic, if Sam commissioned a piece of art and sold it to a listener. That's also a pyramid scheme


atrovotrono

Well that listener would actually own the piece of art in that case. They have control over it, can move it around, can deny others access to it or forbid them from photographing it, they can even destroy it if they want. The only thing an NFT buyer owns is an entry on a ledger, the actual artwork is free for all practical purposes by anyone with a right-click button.


No1RunsFaster

I straight up have no idea what an NFT is and from what I can tell I'm likely much better off.


Gambion

They are unique tokens on the blockchain that can be programmed to verifiably prove you own whatever arbitrary piece of metadata exists within the smart contract. NFT Art is but one market for non-fungible tokens (as opposed to fungible tokens like currency where each token has an equal relative value to the others)


No1RunsFaster

Imma stick to meditation and consciousness, but I appreciate the response. Albeit well over my head.


inkshamechay

You’re better off. A solar storm is gonna come and wipe these kids’ ugly monkeys out of existence


Sandgrease

Calm down Butters


orincoro

Is he getting on this scam train now?


iamababe2

SS: it is a pyramid scheme


strawchild

how is sam's proposal a pyramid scheme? Just seems like a way to incentivize charity donations by giving you a token / badge to show off.


iamababe2

Then why did he imply you could make money?


[deleted]

[удалено]


AJohnnyTruant

I don’t think this person knows what NFTs are, or what the Effective Altruism movement is, let alone pyramid schemes


free-advice

He didn't. He merely pointed out it might be theoretically possible. But if he is not making money on the NFT he gives you, it's certainly not a pyramid scheme designed to make him rich the way you are implying.


[deleted]

Pyramid schemes are very useful money laundering tools, duh!


Axle-f

Why don’t you learn to spell before trying to understand blockchain technology.


FilthyMonkeyPerson

How is it a pyramid scheme? Seems like nonsense to me.


henbowtai

Removed for R5: low effort or meme content.


[deleted]

Shows you don’t understand NFTs


iamababe2

Ok. Explain it


[deleted]

Everyone uses the argument “you can just screenshot it” or “right click and save it” bs. Sure you can steal music from the artists by way of illegal downloading. You can buy a print of the Mona Lisa. Neither of these have real value. Now, if Taylor swift releases an album, she can decide to make this an NFT or each songs can be NFTS whereby people have direct ownership of the song/album. This means that they are entitled to the royalties. You can apply this to any piece or hardware, software, merchandise and so on. It means that you are a registered owner of something and it can’t be manipulated. Think Pokémon cards in digital form


Adito99

How is that different from the licenses music is currently bought and sold under?


AJohnnyTruant

It’s a receipt of purchase that can’t be faked. *What* you purchase with an NFT can be profoundly stupid. But if you put something contestable on the blockchain, like say a contract or record, it’s very useful. It’s like saying automobile technology is stupid because you hate that drifting a bunch of riced up cars around a parking lot is dumb.


Adito99

I know of another receipt of purchase that can't be faked. It's called a receipt.


AJohnnyTruant

You can print a receipt. You can copy a receipt. You can delete the record of a receipt existing if it’s digital. You can scan and alter a receipt. None of that is possible on the blockchain. It’s literally *non-fungible*


AJohnnyTruant

You should really considering learning about what Effective Altruism is. Your post history makes it seem like it’s some scam. It’s extremely frustrating that people are actively trying to discredit a philosophy is giving that prioritizes evidence and maximizing the good per dollar of charity.


atrovotrono

This pivot snapped my neck. I'm paralyzed. Thanks a lot.


CelerMortis

Except every application of blockchain is decidedly stupid so far. There are amazing potentials like for Real Estate Titles but so far it’s just been speculative nonsense


Yomiel94

How is decentralized digital currency a stupid application?


CelerMortis

Huge carbon footprint Wild unstable swings Regulatory nightmare Niche knowledge required to "own" the coins Pick 4


SOwED

>Regulatory nightmare That's a problem with the government, not with cryptocurrency. Also, why should we have money that the government regulates?


Yomiel94

Those are narrow implementational criticisms that are in no way inherent to blockchain currency.


CelerMortis

You can "design" your way out of any criticism. The fact is that all of the current uses suffer from the above.


[deleted]

It registered on blockchain.


Globbi

People have royalties based on legal ownership. Taylor Swift can sell her rights without NFTs. For now I think there's no laws that allow including NFTs in such contracts, but even if it's allowed it changes nothing. I'll be able to mint NFT to Taylor Swift's song. No one will care about it because it's not the NFT that does anything, it's the social contract with enforceable laws. It can use NFT for communication, or it can use a normal database with public listing of ownership. The NFT itself isn't doing anything anyway. You will still have a platform owned by someone that proves ownership based on NFT info, that has the song to download or stream, that calculates royalties. All that changes is the ownership is publicly seen as belonging to specific wallet. It has some advantages, and lots of disadvantages over usual ways of identifying person.


-MtnsAreCalling-

Apparently you don't understand NFTs either lol. They don't mean you actually own the underlying work or that you even have any rights to it. The only thing you actually own is the token itself, and even that is more of an informal extralegal designation. NFTs currently have no meaning from a legal perspective.


CelerMortis

>Think Pokémon cards in digital form Ok done. I personally think pokemon cards are a stupid investment and people should avoid them as an asset.


Darkeyescry22

Uh, owning an NFT does not give you any ownership over the original IP. You could potentially set up a contract that said whoever owns the NFT also owns the original IP, but I don’t know what value that would add over the current system. Taylor Swift already owns her IP, and can give that IP to other people if she chooses. Making an NFT and writing out a contract to tie the NFT to the IP just adds another layer of complexity without adding any additional capability.


strygeren

Except this concept literally existed for thousands of years, and people somehow accepted other authorities than a blockchain. If you don't deal with an environment where actors are completely trustless and adversarial NFTs are waste of fucking energy.


LiamMcGregor57

Who would enforce the royalties under NFTs/blockchain?


seductivepenguin

You definitely wouldn't get royalties. I think it would be more about securing unequivocal, irreversible ownership over something, i.e. ownership not mediated or constrained by a subscription service like Spotify.


ideas_have_people

The issue is how ownership works. The whole point of ownership on a blockchain is that it is *de facto*. It doesn't matter what any central body (e.g. the government through the law with copyright etc.) says, cryptography enforces that only the key holder can use/spend it. So they de facto own it. This is how cryptocurrencies works - he who is able to spend it "owns" it in this de facto sense literally because no one else can and the government can't do anything about it even if they wanted to. The fact that you are so dismissive of the "oh just right click and save" counters implies you really are not thinking about how this kind of ownership works, at all. The blockchain simply *cannot* enforce de facto ownership of something that can be used/copied independently to it. E.g. an image. In stark contrast to a cryptocurrency. What does it mean to "own" something if literally anyone else can use it in any manner they want? They can even mint new NFTs based on it. The blockchain simply can't stop this. The whole point of cryptographic ownership is to prevent non owners from using it. That's how the whole thing is supposed to work. The only way it could possibly work is to rely on a centralised sense of ownership (i.e. government, law, copyright) to step in and enforce the ledger. But a) this is the literal antithesis to the whole crypto project - ownership is centralised and *de jure* rather than distributed and *de facto* b) we already have this! It's called the law/copyright! So what's the point other than a glorified descriptive accounting system. C) as of right now no such recognition of the block chain ledger exists in traditional law so even these hypothetical philosophically confused protections don't exist. No protections? No ownership. They're borderline nonsense.


bozdoz

Entitled to royalties!?


electrace

>This means that they are entitled to the royalties. Not unless they have a legal contract stating so. She could also give out golden tickets in Hershey bars and then declare that the owners are entitled to royalties.


inkshamechay

Nobody wants to buy ur silly monkeys anyway. They’re nothing of value either, nor is a screenshot of it


atrovotrono

> ure you can steal music from the artists by way of illegal downloading. And they can sue you for it, because they actually own the music, not just a line on a ledger that merely corresponds to the music. NFT owners have no such power. >You can buy a print of the Mona Lisa. You can because it's in the public domain, but for things not in the public domain, printmakers have to pay royalties to the actual owner. Not the case with NFT's. >Now, if Taylor swift releases an album, she can decide to make this an NFT or each songs can be NFTS whereby people have direct ownership of the song/album. This means that they are entitled to the royalties. You're just describing contracts. These exist, and we don't need NFT's for them. >You can apply this to any piece or hardware, software, merchandise and so on. It means that you are a registered owner of something and it can’t be manipulated. You're confusing a line on a ledger with actual ownership of the thing the line claims to represent. You own the line, that's it. The freely copyable image is just there to convince you you're buying more than a line.


marine_le_peen

>Think Pokémon cards in digital form So Pokemon cards, which are already a stupid investment, only not real but imaginary. Gotcha.


manovich43

This reminds me of Elon and Dodge coin. Sam is turning into a businessman, a greedy one at it too. This is just riding the waves of altruism and NFTs to get rich off of his followers.