53 Comments
Jan 18, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick

This feedback is probably generational (I am 44) and read your content to gain insight into a complex topic that I find important. This article comes across as an emotional reaction to someone telling you "your baby is ugly" with a side of "educational elitism" layered on top and deviates from the traditional content I have read historically on this platform. This feedback dates me further, but I wonder if reaching out to Galloway to suggest a podcast discussion would have provided the most value to readers of one (or both) audiences. Good luck going forward. -L

Expand full comment
author

I appreciate the feedback, Lee!

Expand full comment

I love this comment so much. I'm only slightly younger (40.9) but I had exactly the same thought. A few good points and a whole lotta hurt and emotions. Which ultimately undermines the "rebuttal" if you want it to be that.

Expand full comment

I'm 43 and whilst I find Packy's language playful, it's very far from the emotions and reductionism of the Professor G's post (which is typical of the vitriolic debate around Web3). There's emotion here, for sure, but it's tamed by the logical debating framework and actual depth of investigation into the arguments and the data. It's to be commended.

Expand full comment

I'd rejoice in the reality that deviation can, and will, occur on a platform dedicated to stimulating thought and debate within a reader. Is all music from an artist going to sound the same on each album? We think it should, but love that it doesn't. And what reaction is anyone supposed to have when you lay into them with "your baby is ugly?"

To be emotional is human. It's not about right or wrong, it's about connection and feeling. I'd be aghast at a parent or relative that didn't cry out in the most raw, organic way possible to defend their own relative existence. The best speeches and inspiring moments come from this internal rationalization not built on logic or reason, but the core essence of humanity, soul even.

I enjoyed this piece for what it's trying to convey, in the most direct and concrete way possible. If we're to be cynical our entire lives and believe the game is over, then good luck to you and giving up on trying to leverage everything those trying to rise up have created as new tools for the world to embrace. Meanwhile, I'll personally continue to agree, "Web3 is good." That's all this was about.

Expand full comment

I'm older than all of you (53) and thought this was playful and not at all emotional or defensive. It never once became personal or snarky, but still had a light tone that suggested Packy was having fun putting on his old Debate Pants.

Expand full comment

i had a similar reaction. While i certainly don't subscribe to every one of Prof G's stances, I appreciate him for making specialist and elitist areas of expertise accessible. He takes strong stances, but also will be very explicit of when and what he was wrong about; something that seems to be entirely lacking from the Silicon Valley/VC bubble. To me, debating should not be about winning or losing; that just becomes a cynical exercise of defending your position no matter what. It should be about learning, presenting your points of view, and carefully considering others'. Just trying to find 'gotcha' mistakes to try to disqualify your 'opponent' teaches the participants nothing, and is just plain boring for the audience. There appears to be this belief in Silicon Valley circles that to criticize one aspect of [whatever the latest hype cycle is] is to criticize the whole. Criticizing people for 'moving on' from downside to downside of whatever they're arguing about only makes sense if you debate to 'win', not if you debate to further knowledge. For crypto, have you considered that people bring up things like it being a vehicle for organized crime, an unregulated space ripe for fraud, a technology with a massive and ever increasing carbon footprint, etc. not because their previous arguments have been rebutted, and they want to 'win', but because these are legitimate concerns that should be raised, discussed, and debated in the public square?

Expand full comment
Jan 18, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick

I actually like Prof G’s content and enjoyed his book. I’m also a Crypto investor/enthusiast.

There’s “thought leaders” and “thought followers” in Crypto. It takes hours…per day to find the former…you qualify. Your critical thinking skills are a big bonus.

Expand full comment
Jan 18, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick

If anyone were alive who remembered the Elvis and rock and roll debate? Seriously? Of course many of us were. Dear Dear Packy -- I'm a retired professor. This reminds me of a time in an MBA management course when one of my students said "old employees cannot learn technology; they're worthless." At the time I was probably around 60 but had white hair since my mid 40s; I did not look young. Many students were aghast because they perceived it a personal insult to me. I did not; I merely asked this young man how old that would be. He quickly declared, "40!!" I asked him how old he was. "32." I then calmly and cheerfully said, "well, you have 8 years left; you'd better enjoy them." The whole room roared with laughter. I made it a point never to embarrass students because it would stifle discussion, but this one was deserved. Pay attention to what you say, Dear Dear Packy.

Expand full comment
author

Hey Abigail, that's not what I said or meant! I said, "If the people who *disliked* Elvis and Rock ‘N Roll in the 1950s were alive today, chances are, they’d be anti-crypto." But re-reading, I could have chosen my words more carefully -- probably should have said, "The same people who disliked Elvis and Rock 'N Roll in the 1950s would dislike crypto today!" Thanks for calling me out when deserved :)

Expand full comment

Generalizing will alienate some of your audience. I know plenty of more mature folk that are very interested in crypto. If your goal is to target a younger audience, cool, but do it with your eyes wide open.

Expand full comment
Jan 18, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick

The big value in your piece, imho, is in the thorough background checks and detailed context clarification. The glib dismissals from prof g and many others indicate fear of the new, cloaked in mock disdain for the tech and cheap shots. Nothing could increase interest in Web3 more than weak, biased criticism coming from, as you point out, people whose minds are already made up…

Expand full comment

it would've been great if instead of responding to a really underbaked Neg Case from Prof G, you responded to a really dank NC from somebody like Stephen Diehl.

https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html

his argument--echoed by many Engineers--isn't that "Blockchains aren't even decentralized", it's that Blockchains are technically useless, as decentralization is the only technical dimension which a Blockchain is superior to distributed databases (something Albert Wenger, cited by Dixon, granted in his "Why Bother?" piece).

Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime.

what's your response to the many, many engineers who maintain Web3 has zero technical utility--that there's "no there, there". cuz Wenger+Dixon+you have had pretttttty pisspoor rebuttals to that idea.

Expand full comment

I'm an engineer and I see the point. It's not about the technicals (though blockchains have solved data synchronisation in a seamless way that almost every DB vendor has failed to do reliably). Blockchains are about the decentralisation -- no centralised control, censorship resistance.

Expand full comment

as Packy himself has pointed out many times, nobody (end users) really cares about decentralization as an end in and of itself. the challenge is "what Good Cool Stuff That People Care About does decentralization get you?"

so far, "censorship resistance" seems to be the best anybody can do, but that argument only appeals to Libertarian weirdos; nobody cares.

the gesturing at "no centralized control" isn't effective to people who aren't in the TechnoLibertarian bubble.

so what are the good cool things that 'permissionless' or 'decentralization' might enable? is it "The Casino" except applied to good stuff?? what's that look like, specifically???

to my mind this is *the* key question for all of Web3.

Expand full comment

There's no response so far because technical utility isn't the point of cryptocurrency. The point is its social utility in transferring wealth from late investors to early investors. Dress it up with all the technology you like, the idea is an old one. There's a reason early investors are leveraging FOMO so hard right now. You are their exit strategy. As the old saying goes, if you can't spot the mark at the table, it's you.

Expand full comment

Ok, so a long article about how to argue followed by more arguments.

What is not addressed is the simple question: is there really any gain to be had if web3 or distributed finance or whatever blaberty blah selling point is regulated with the same rules as the existing institutions?

I would argue that it is the existing regulations - right, wrong, whatever - which define the environment of the present system. And the existing institutions that are successful in this present system will insist on equal rules for all in it - new or otherwise.

As such, the technotopian dream that technology will somehow change the equation is naive at best. It has never been specific rule this or customary that which defines how verticals operate - it is the operators in the system defining and populating it.

Expand full comment
Jan 18, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick

I did Parliamentary debate too :')

Expand full comment

Super weak “rebuttal”. Focusing on the minutiae of prof’s arguments and spending like 40% of your words rehashing high school debate rules was an odd choice. Was hoping to see a thoughtful case for web3’s alleged utility/value.

Expand full comment

For the life of your young brand your content has been reliable, valuable, and consistent and your articles have faithfully educated, informed, and inspired with a generally uplifting, highly positive framing, and a point of view that screams WAGMI. These are really nice and highly accretive brand attributes to build if you can, and you have.

Given this, I was genuinely confused and frankly disappointed by the seemingly deeply personal, almost vitriolic, emotionality of your rebuttal to Prof G's piece. I kept wondering why you felt it necessary to bring a knife to fist fight that wasn't even a fist fight. Given everything I've read of yours over the past 18 months, the frequent sniping in this piece came across as so far off-brand and so out of character that for a minute I thought I had wondered off Not Boring dot co and landed somewhere in Washington, D.C. I fully understand wanting to set the record straight, especially when the facts, the knowledge, and the nuance are so heavily weighted in your favor and the person you're debating hasn't done their homework, but in the course of doing so, while the Prof stayed true to his sometimes sensationalistic brand, you wandered far afield of your own.

If you polled your audience I'd bet they far prefer the wise-beyond-your-years and WAGMI Packy over the winning and sarcastically sniping Packy any day. Disagreements are fine. Differing points of view, also fine. But perhaps we should leave the sniping and winners-take-all elitism aside and opt for discourse and discussion. Remember, in a world where rising tides lifts all boats, web3, crypto, et al will have advanced significantly when someone like Prof G knows all about last year's Glassnode investigation, LooksRare's recent launch and it's many consumer-facing benefits, and the nuance of progressive decentralization to DAOs.

While I think it's safe to say the ship has sailed on a Prof G-Packy podcast episode about web3's choice vs. web3's web2 rerun it sure would have be nice to hear that. -dth

Expand full comment

Great read! By the way, the "Continue Reading Online" button is broken from the email newsletter.

Expand full comment

Packy, if you think this is a strong rebuttal, then I'd like to cordially disagree. This reads like an emotional stream-of-consciousness piece that is as likely to undermine your credibility as highlight Scott's weaknesses.

Scott's "mistakes" such as saying that 2% of accounts control 95% instead of "just" 71.5% of Bitcoin? How does this mistake disprove the basic premise that it's very much centralized and concentrated?

If the premise behind "web3 is good" is "power to the people"—then that's just not a fact.

And if you remove "power to the people" from web3—then what do you have left?

The same thread runs through Moxie's argument: there are forces pushing towards centralization and control… meaning winner-take-all platforms, yet again.

Logically, the sheer fact that there's a lot of VC funding behind it should be a tell—else, why would VCs invest into something that supposedly "cuts out the middlemen" and redistributes all the gains to creators and consumers? You either take the creator surplus (like Substack) or the consumer surplus. That's how you make money.

Or, am I missing something?

My fundamental issue with any "brave new world" proclamations is essentially this: people are people, and their psychology doesn't really change. Not without laws.

So, what is it about the technology that creates a different set of constraints that makes people behave differently under "web3"?

Your rebuttal doesn't really rebut any of the underlying points expressed by Jack, Scott, and Moxie. No matter the order they went in.

Expand full comment

You give the game away right here:

"It’s not about whether any particular platform is centralized, or who owns how much of what."

In capitalism, it is always about who owns how much of what.

Anyone who tells you anything different is selling something to your disadvantage.

Expand full comment

“Decentralization is a false god evangelized by high priests who pass collection plates the size of Mars and admonish regulation as heresy.” - this felt like the gratuitous sex scene that makes the cut because the film director said so.

Expand full comment

When I travel in countries that have black markets for U.S. dollars, I pay cash because merchants lower prices to get U.S. dollars. Ecuador had a horrible inflation problem that was devastating to the poor and middle-income classes. It decided to go on the U.S. dollar, which solved the inflation issue. What does Bitcoin or crypto currency do for the poor? My experience in Third World countries provides an answer and it isn’t Guatemala.

Expand full comment

Hmmm… I am from Venezuela and crypto does tell a different story than Ecuador. It provides the stable coin easily available for all since you do not have to wait for travelers to bring you the hard cash or travel abroad to get a few hundred dollars from an atm. what you have is a myopic view on crypto based on your luxury belief that environment comes before economic freedoms.

Expand full comment

“your luxury belief that environment comes before economic freedoms.” Really? Global warming concerns are a luxury belief, aren't an economic issue for all people? The use of “myopic view” and “luxury belief” betrays an elitism. Best of luck with Bolivar Revolution 2.0.

Expand full comment
Jan 18, 2022·edited Jan 18, 2022

> That a 6-day-old project had not yet decentralized is a weak and amateur indictment of the concept of DAOs as a whole. Indeed, it seems the Prof’s arguments against DAOs more broadly are based on a very basic and inaccurate model of governance in which maximum decentralization is the goal and every decision should be one person, one vote. That doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground.

Galloway is making a terrible argument here. Let me espouse criticism about this.

The more general criticism is less that it hadn't decentralized and more that it raised 47 million dollars in 6 days and wasn't even prepared to say how they were going to use the constitution or how to govern usage of a shared item. Yet they still were able to raise that astronomical value of money and spoiler, it's not because people give a shit about the project. They are buying purely based on the fact that this is "web3" or "blockchain" or "DAO" or whatever other buzzword you want to use.

If constitution DAO was a gofundme, it likely would have raised hundreds of dollars (if that). Instead they raised millions and didn't even have a way to refund the money or establish what they were going to do.

Expand full comment

Interesting how you blithely skated past the environmental issue. Wow!

Expand full comment

which issue?

Expand full comment

and how much CO2 would it consume and cost (through omission) cost to print 1€/$ bill?

Expand full comment

A credit card costs me no annual fees, doesn’t require paper currency, provides a five-figure credit line, and (because I’m not a revolver) no interest (“gas fees” in re crypto wallets).

Expand full comment

Interesting how you blithely skated past the environmental issue of paper money. Wow!

Expand full comment