Molly White is running a blog bitching about NFTs and crypto

[journo]

Today I spent a few minutes giving AI Mollyisms, or opinions Molly is known for spreading. My concern is from a personal level as her writing, which appears #1 on Google, has negatively affected my life and even I believe a relationship with a previous therapist I had, among quite a few others. I have told her about this, her response was that I'm just mentally ill. As far as I can tell I was the only person on the internet publicly self-identifying as 'incel' verbatim, with my full real name, around the time she made that article. While it seems unlikely the first widely negative attention on involuntary celibates had anything to do with me, I know of others who have been unfairly broadbrushed with inaccurate statements since that article (which is also the length of a novella). She does not share 10% the responsibility as people like Lamarcus, who inspired probably most of the denialist or bigoted media, but still some nonetheless.

One interesting thing is that Google Gemini, ChatGPT etc all *firmly* believe that involuntary celibacy is real. Without exception. Her incel article, which I've now ranted about probably 10 times on this forum was initially based on her, and many others perception on Wikipedia that it is not real.

From Google Gemini eg:


As far as her crypto opinions, which I've also ranted about, AI disagrees with her that it is a big scam. But it agrees with her more than I thought about the importance of the FTX stuff, even down to the importance of SBF. I had to argue with it to produce a non-Mollyism.



Crypto is generation Z's most common investment https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/crypto- ... risky.html

She is approaching "old lady snarls at young people's choices" at this point, even if she is partially right about crypto.

[journo]

Funny WPO thread about a podcast featuring Molly claiming that "Wikipedia is all there is left of the internet" or something.....

https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... =6&t=13477

I am hoping they are not just now realizing she is a propagandist and will be as vapid as needed to be so.

[ericbarbour]

from a private email exchange:

Oh btw: I was going to drop a little item about Apple. This woman, a former employee, is on the warpath against them. The facility she's talking about is an unmarked "skunkworks" operation on Scott Boulevard in the Santa Clara industrial park. In past years they would have gotten away with this, that area is full of semiconductor fabs and other weirdness; unfortunately a developer recently built a gigantic apartment complex right across the street. Where she lives. Being an attorney, she's stirring up a big hellstorm. Not that it matters. Mainstream media usually take Apple's word on stories like this.

https://c.im/@ashleygjovik@mastodon.social

Maybe she should post in more places than a Mastodon server or on her personal website ashleygjovik.com. Does she have a very long and ranty Wikipedia article that takes her side automatically?.....of course she does, the largest editor of which is the notorious Molly White........(is Ashley a) whistleblower or crank, you decide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Gj%C3%B8vik

https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/ ... j%C3%B8vik

[Archer]

She even dismisses it's use for smuggling large amounts of money out of an authoritarian country during a war.

Whom would that concern in the first place?

[ericbarbour]

Whom would that concern in the first place?

Government regulators in other countries, for one. Remember that Swiss bankers hid the financial transactions of some truly disgusting dictators and criminals for something like two centuries. Until the US started pressuring them to change their practices, mostly because of widespread tax fraud by American citizens.

Here's a small item that applies to any discussion of crypto. Marc Andreessen, one of the "founding figures of the internet" or whatever, has decided to help fund the Trump campaign. Even though he doesn't seem to actually like Trump. Mostly because Trump claims that he will remove all regulation from cryptocurrency and NFT markets. Andreessen, along with a motley gang of Valley fat cats, are heavily invested in crypto and want to protect their "investments". How "charming". Then you have to ask; how many of them are fiddling around in crypto specifically to avoid paying taxes? And why isn't Molly blogging about this?

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/busines ... c/5601949/
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/24/2420 ... -donations

[ericbarbour]

And PPS: now there's a Deadpool-themed crypto thing.

https://douchepool.wtf/

[Archer]

Then you have to ask; how many of them are fiddling around in crypto specifically to avoid paying taxes?

Fair enough, though minutia compared to the monetary question.

And why isn't Molly blogging about this?

No idea, I've not read any of her material. Those who receive so much media attention usually just turn out to be fangless pundits, though I hope I'm wrong. At any rate, BTC's most serious flaw is its proof of work model which, as many have already said, is inefficient and does not scale well; proof of stake and other alternatives might be viable. The point is somewhat moot if the object is currency reform, as public fiat seems a more practical replacement for commercial fiat than any of the 'trustless'/'decentralized' cryptocurrencies. One should be pointing out the inaction of the government and demanding answers from them, not so much random bloggers.

[ericbarbour]

No idea, I've not read any of her material. Those who receive so much media attention usually just turn out to be fangless pundits, though I hope I'm wrong.

At least try to scan this. She tends to obsess over tiny details about obscure offerings, so her blog really isn't much value, except as an archive of crypto fuck-ups. And there are many of those. But she doesn't post updates very often. Waiting for juicy scandals I presume.

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

[Archer]

No idea, I've not read any of her material. Those who receive so much media attention usually just turn out to be fangless pundits, though I hope I'm wrong.

At least try to scan this. She tends to obsess over tiny details about obscure offerings, so her blog really isn't much value, except as an archive of crypto fuck-ups. And there are many of those. But she doesn't post updates very often. Waiting for juicy scandals I presume.

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

I suppose I have to agree with you, but it doesn't seem all that bad at first face (apart from its recommendation of Wikipedia).

[Archer]

He views blockchain technology as "the byword for a libertarian ideology that treats all governments, central banks, traditional financial institutions, and real-world currencies as evil concentrations of power that must be destroyed."[40]

A very suspect conflation between central banking and government. It would be hard to overstate how much the public stand to gain from reform, though cryptocurrency is probably not the solution people should be looking at. This Nouriel Roubini is not someone I would trust.

What's interesting is that Roubini superficially appears to be criticizing a broad characterization, yet without citing anyone who has actually made such a statement in the first place and instead attributing it to some abstract "libertarian ideology". The quote is apparently from this article https://web.archive.org/web/20240823114 ... urrencies/. This discourse does not address any of the problems with commercial fiat. It is written as a critique of cryptocurrency, omitting any mention of public fiat (a better alternative) and the problem with commercial fiat in the first place - crushing, inescapable debt. In and of itself, his critique of cryptocurrency is sound, but cryptocurrency and commercial money are not the only options and most of his points would not apply to public money. There's nothing wrong with making a critique of cryptocurrency, but it's dishonest to use it as a straw-man argument against currency reform.

Conversely, White writes

But I also think that these proposed solutions are enormously attractive to people who see them as a tangible option in a world where these problems are not being solved—where we are being failed by our political establishments in so, so many ways. I don’t think they are a feasible solution, and in fact I think they will worsen many of the problems they ostensibly aim to solve, but they are certainly being sold as the solution, and a solution that people desperately need.

This is essentially correct. Judging from a cursory look though, her general critique misses the target. She does not identify the real problem or explain how to solve it. The quoted paragraph implies she understands there's a problem and that it's related to currency. Whether she does not fully understand it or intentionally withholds that information is unclear to me. Frankly the latter is probably the case for most pundits. In any case, I put little trust in characters like "renowned economist" Roubini and other such "truly knowledgeable people" when the subject is economic, political or monetary.