I understand crypto... and it is utter shit.
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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To be fair, us elders had grifts and money laundering too, so crypto is nothing functionally new.
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Older X'er here - I keep telling my wife - for all the shit we've had to live through, we damn sure better get first contact with ET in our lifetimes too!
Best I can do is "ET" for the Atari 2600
I still have PTSD about the pits in that game!
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Is it really so hard to just stay somewhat connected to the world around you?
It's not like it was a rapid shift, this shit has been progressing for DECADES and some just refused to learn. I've talked to 30 yos who can't do anything beyond basic computer usage, and I've seen a 80 year old who was extremely with it and troubleshooting with me.
It's not an age problem, it's a lack of effort
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I’m old enough to remember going to Hollywood video or blockbuster with my grandma on Fridays. Have a movie night. Those were some amazing memories.
I remember going to friends places for sleepovers, we would all go down to the video rental and pick one movie each, then pick up takeaway on the way home. We'd stay up all night watching each video and pigging out on food
I grew up using the (actual paper) card catalog in the library to find books and yes I predate VHS. However, I even understand crypto, but I think my definition may vary slightly from younger folks "understanding".
Crypto has no intrinsic value like gold, and as fiat currency isn't even backed by any nationstate. This means any appreciation is based upon the "greater fool" model. Its not an investment. Its a series of Ponzi schemes so repeated that the term "rug pull" is right at home in the crypto world. I'm old enough to see other Ponzi schemes and know how they end up.
The only real value that I can see for crypto is bypassing of national monetary controls. As in, you can buy crypto in your home country with your home country's currency, then travel to another country with just your coins (as hex values on paper if you want to go that far) and exchange those coins for fiat currency in the other country. This isn't unique to crypto though. You could do the same with buying rare Pokemon cards and transporting them with a slightly higher risk of seizure at one nation's border. There might even be less volatility in Pokemon cards than many crypto currencies.
So many trends are variations on things we've already seen before. Bernie Madoff would have been right at home with cypto.
Personally I love being part of the evolution of computers. I was born at a time where I could be part of "moderne" or rather "not too nerdy" phase of computers, and to see the whole evolution of electronics and so on. I don't envy the younger generations that kind of skipped to the "end part" (computers being "easy"). I know that a lot of things will still be developed and we are only seeing the first of AI stuff now and VR is also still a minor thing but could evolve into a much bigger thing. Electrification of cars is in full swing. Robots do more and more things by theselves (lawnmowers, vacuums, cars) because the "brain power" in the devices are pushed all the time, enabling more advanced sensors to be taken more advantage of.
A lot of fundamental understanding that's needed to work with technology is being entirely leapfrogged by an entire generation. The zoomers are likely the last generation to have actually needed, in whole or in part, to understand how a technology works before you started using it. The modern era of "it just works!" Does not give me any hope for Gen Alpha to handle any abnormal situation.
IMO, this is a lot like software/hardware vendors. They spend so much effort telling you what something can do, and how to do it (under normal operating conditions), then expend exactly zero time/effort to tell you how to fix anything when things are not operating as they're supposed to.
IMO, the more recent generations are only getting the former experience, whereas most millennials have the latter experience.
What happens when we abstract all of the thinking out of technology, make everything cloud based, then "the cloud" goes out for a day, and the services that make the cloud work, which are in and of themselves governed by the cloud, won't start because the cloud doesn't work.
It's catch 22. You need the cloud to make the networks operate, the cloud won't work until the network is operating.
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Before 1990?… fuck you.. I have kids born before 1990… elder my ass … I probably understand crypto better than you do…
I’m not bitter. Not at all.
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