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Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane

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Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPUs are not people. CPUs voting for blocks of transactions is in no way people having political power over the system. Even at the time, systems with hundreds of thousands of CPUs were operating, so even if voting for transactions were something akin to deciding on how to organize society, which it isn't, letting IBM outvote whole states is not democracy, it's oligarchy. Again, I don't think we have even vaguely sim…

Right; he of course knew that. It's just the closest he could get to it that he could think of. I'm not saying it's a democracy; just that he thought it's the closest he could get to it while retaining the properties of decentralization, permissionless, and anonymity. How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic? (I'd argue PoS is more demo…

I am reading the words but trying to focus in on the core of your point. From my perspective, your point is incoherent. That you later contradict yourself does not mitigate that; it's exactly my concern.

> How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic?

I would not try, because cryptocurrencies are hyper-individualist and hyper-libertarian, and very much antidemocratic. The core notion of any democracy is that a group of humans is in it together. There's a reason America's constitution starts with "We, the people", lays out ambitious collective goals, and then details how we make rules together. The point of an anonymous, permissionless, trustless currency is to sidestep all that, raising a middle finger to democratically chosen regulations. Which is why cryptocurrencies are basically not used for normal commerce, but are instead a haven for scammers, grifters, money launderers, ponzi schemers, thieves, and MMF fools who dream of living in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

So I again suggest you are not really clear on what democracy is if you keep trying to suggest it's material to the original Bitcoin plan. At best you're applying a very thin coat of lipstick to a very large pig.

Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane

#172
post #169
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed on “unquestionably a racist”. As far as I’ve gleaned, the assertions that he’s a racist are heavily based on an encyclopedic (surface-level) interpretation that essentially boils down to: evolutionary biology is inevitably racist and therefore anybody who entertains the study is associatively a racist, James Damore, Bret Weinstein, style. The assertion is based on postmodern axioms describing what a r…

> Citation needed on “unquestionably a racist”. Race is a social category, not a genetic one, so his claim is ill-founded from the start. It is scientific consensus that genetics does not explain variations in IQ between racial groups. I don't think evolutionary biology is racist, I think people who believe it supports racism are hiding their basic racism behind scientists who don't agree with them about the nature o…

Totally agree race is a social construct.

There seem to be open questions which I wouldn't expect if there was strong consensus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption...

There are a lot of “problems” with that study and my intention is not to imply anything by linking it. My point is simply that I don’t think it’s honest to say scientists everywhere agree case closed.

I think a more accurate snapshot of the state of the art is: “the subject is incredibly difficult to study at all because we frankly don't really have a clue how the brain works. It seems there is a blend of both biological and social factors that contribute to a person’s perceived intellectual capacity. Whether any of those (genetic or social) factors are specific to a given race is essentially impossible to discern”.

Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane

#173
post #172
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citation needed on “unquestionably a racist”. Race is a social category, not a genetic one, so his claim is ill-founded from the start. It is scientific consensus that genetics does not explain variations in IQ between racial groups. I don't think evolutionary biology is racist, I think people who believe it supports racism are hiding their basic racism behind scientists who don't agree with them about the nature o…

Totally agree race is a social construct. There seem to be open questions which I wouldn't expect if there was strong consensus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption... There are a lot of “problems” with that study and my intention is not to imply anything by linking it. My point is simply that I don’t think it’s honest to say scientists everywhere agree case closed. I think a more accurate sn…

It’s perfectly conceivable that social factors contingent on race (and importantly income and wealth background too) could impact IQ though. That is a lot of the argument that racial differences in IQ do not describe biological differences.

> Totally agree race is a social construct.

Right, and if this is the case, then racial disparities in IQ are describing social differences, not genetic ones, because race is not genetic.

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