431–440 of 561 posts
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What are you talking about - the entertainment industry is the most famous scam industry ever, giving the most famous artists just enough money to keep them dependent and pocketing 90% of it themselves.
Ah yes, independent computer game producers adding copy protection were scammers.
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Just because the methods used by the war on drugs failed doesn’t mean that drugs are somehow good for you. It just means that the methods were ineffective.
Not just ineffective, but counterproductive. Kids saw through the propaganda and that made many of them discount all warnings about drugs. That’s why we shouldn’t abide well intentioned propaganda.
The point of DARE was to be a cover for getting cops into classrooms talking to kids after the LAPD "Public Disorder Intelligence Division" KGB-esque organization was brought to light and dissolved. Daryl Gates, the head of that program, was the one who approached some academics as a cover. It was immediately discovered that kids who went through the program were more likely to do drugs, but Gates didn't care. Because it wasn't about keeping kids away from drugs.
The entire point of the program was to turn kids into informants on their parent's gang activity. Kids were regularly coerced into narcing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzrGCk-F7FY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAPD_Public_Disorder_Intellige...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Educatio...
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Used to be, but now it's agree to paint Musk's fence in exchange for nothing, or else you aren't even allowed to exist, because the system has been thoroughly gamed. Usually when a metric becomes too gamed it's imperative that we stop using it as a metric (Goodhart's law) or else very bad things happen.
I live a perfectly fine, productive life not contributing to musk's empire. Are y'all really buying Teslas and blue twitter checks? The fact that he has a bunch of money really has no bearing on me.
I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…
I got into crypto in 2017 when I came across the phrase "money is a technology". That idea fascinated me. But fast forward several years later, and it's obvious that money might be a technology in the sense that it's a tool, but more importantly, money is a culture .
The notion that people gravitate to metal vs "fractional sheep" is without historical evidence. People in fact, a long time ago, did trade things like IOUs or pieces of broken reeds or sticks[2]. Those sticks acted like IOUs and were often traded around far past the original parties to the contract.
Money is a contract between you, your peer/counterparty, and whatever organization you "trust" to mediate if someone really isn't happy with the outcome of a situation.
Money is, indeed, culture.
[1] https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/chapter-iv-of-the-o... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick
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But a regular database can do that with PKI. Crypto isn't just a reliable ledger -- it's a reliable ledger between an arbitrary number of mutually distrusting parties. Which doesn't really describe banks in a regulated, functioning economy.
What's your definition of a "regular" database? If you need a distributed, well-sequenced, auditable trail of cryptographically signed operations representing the transfer of value, that quite literally can be fit to match the definition of a blockchain.
Banks and brokerages very often use software written 40 years ago because it's so much trouble to get correct.
I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…
Some nice loss harvesting in the past will help with some other financial moves down the road. I'm definitely checking in now and then, but mostly see it as background noise.
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How would that work? I (an important person who is very loved and trusted by thousands of people) agree to give you (a nobody) 0.20 of my tokens for every 1 of your tokens? That smells like financialization, I'd effectively profit 80% on all of your transactions through me.
Well, if I had it fully worked out I'd be telling people to try using my system. But vaguely... In circles the agreement is that trust creates a 1:1 value ratio. I value the tokens you mint periodically as equal to my own, and this influences the number of tokens I give you in exchange for a loaf of bread or something. If I value the bread at 6 of my own tokens, that's the price I change you: 6. But maybe we value ea…
Circles trust isn't about how much I actually trust you to deliver the product I bought and not harm me - it's about how much I trust you to not be a Sybil clone. But if Musk is harming me then I'll not trust his coins and people will have to find someone else to pay through.
You also have to make sure your intended outcome is a Nash equilibrium. In your system it sounds like I can set up a relay that pays out 1:1 (or 1+fee:1) without wrappers, which will quickly become a requirement, making the system harder to use, capturing a financial fee from normal system users, and unsolving the problem you wanted to solve.
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They’re more likely to use a stablecoin and those don’t use Bitcoin.
I checked the internet and it seems el salvador uses bitcoin while in lebanon there is a mix of bitcoin + Lightning and Tether. Tether is investing in US Bonds but 10% seem to be Bitcoin.
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Isn't the whole point of an economy a method of resolving scarcity? Money is a proxy for participation; it keeps me from having to agree to paint the miller's fence in exchange for some flour.
That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being not enough of something to go around--when it took half of us working in the fields just to feed the rest of us--then the system worked relatively well. 9 times out of 10, when somebody got a loan (which is the event that injects dollars into the system) it ha…
That's an enormous claim and I really doubt it.
I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…
Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.
You're in Crimea right now. You want some gasoline. You have some magic numbers in your magic rock. It needs you to cast a spell to transmit those magic numbers to someone else. I guess it probably also needs ... some electricity and some network access and some time to make those magic numbers update in the gas station's magic number.
In what way is this actually going to help you in a total collapse? Let's stand around over my iphone and cold wallet and spacex terminal while we wait for things to beep the right number of beeps?
In the off-chance you find yourself in this situation, what's to stop the party with the gasoline from just pointing a gun at you or your corgi and asking you to add some zeros to the number of magic beans you're zapping into their magic number?
Now, perhaps you as an international agent of mystery, can use some shiny rocks or magic pieces of paper to make your escape, and you can then, once safely back in a stable society, use your magic numbers and spells to transfer "wealth" to some organization closer to your new physical location (let's say belize?) -- in which case, to avoid a bunch of tedious laws and such, perhaps that magic trick will work in the way you suggest.
But, when things go haywire and there's just Hobb's all against all, I'm not sure a magic cold wallet of certificates is going to do much.