The Cryptodystopia

Tech, as an industry, is splitting.

On the one half, you have people like me — people who looked at cryptocurrency and NFTs, at the massive environmental costs that these, technologies isn’t the right word, but fine, and saw them for the scam they are.

And the other half.

The half who have bought into the scam wholesale, and keep shouting how big and important and world-changing their scam is.

The last month has seen a marked uptick in my world of the cryptodystopia forcing its way in, with people around me talking about their scam, getting involved in the scam, wanting to know more about the scam.

It’s forced its way in to the degree that someone I respected, someone who I thought was doing good things, was talking about the environmental destruction they were giving away for free. As though inflating the value of the scam isn’t a scam behaviour in and of itself.

An argument that ended with me crying with rage.

This is a horror story, that nothing I can say about how unethical and violent the cryptodystopia is will matter to anyone. The facts on the destruction are well-known, and it doesn’t matter. The social costs are well-known, and it doesn’t matter.

Anything I say, no matter how real it is, doesn’t matter. It just looks like unnecessary hyperbole.

That I have so few resources, that people I know with so many resources are jumping in and saying “fuck the planet”. Gleefully.

I am nothing but horrified.

I guess this is also a statement piece, a raw nerve of the deep, visceral revulsion I feel to the software and the people pushing it, to an industry that craves the cheap and easy Ponzi Scheme dollars and is actively burning the world to get it.

Fuck NFTs. Fuck cryptocurrency. If you’re into cryptocurrency or NFTs, fuck you.