Still think of all the Beeenie babies wastefully produced and ending up in landfill. Now we achieve the same thing but without the Beenie baby. So kind of a little bit of progress.
I found this take both funny and thought-provoking.
Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
221–230 of 280 posts
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But I think that bitcoin advocates would argue that the bitcoin has the same "non-infringing uses that benefit people" I think it would be difficult to argue that it's useful primarily for buying your groceries. I don't think Bitcoin advocates like following this train of thought any further than "USD is also used for crime".
My point is that the true believers do want to eventually buy groceries with cryptocurrency. My point is that this conversation is unfair: Person A: I've just invented a new currency! I think it has better intrinsic properties than USD. Person B: Well, I can't buy groceries with it right now, so it sucks. Similar vein: Person A: I've invented a new thing called the lightbulb. I think it will revolutionize lighting. P…
If lightbulbs were primarily used for buying opium and running scams on widows in the 19th century I could well understand there being some pushback on the whole idea.
As it was, they were primarily used for lighting rooms from the getgo.
I imagine some historian could probably dig up some sort of analog from 100+ years ago (possibly on tech that never did take off) but this isn't it.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#223One of the shocking things is how much cryptocurrency has poisoned the minds of youth who see it as their easy path to riches. Young people simply don’t want to work anymore, everyone is planning to retire very soon and a job is only a temporary inconvenience while they wait for their crypto coins to moon in value and make them millionaires set for life. The truth is while many people did get very rich getting in ear…
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
--Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907
(in case you thought it was someone ancient or famous)
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
You… really think a tyrant would fail because of a bunch of armed general population? The make or break is having public support, a bunch of people armed with guns don’t make a difference - maybe they would when the amendment was written, but the efficiency gap between a person with a gun vs US military has increased 1000x.
This logic only holds if you assume that the US military are merciless killing machines that unquestioningly follow orders. There are plenty of examples of much weaker revolutionary forces prevailing over modern well-funded militaries.[1] Heck, there are many examples of civilian areas that are so persistently violent that the state simply refuses to enforce laws there.[2] No leader has unilateral control to unleash…
You provided more evidence for my case - you don’t need an armed population, just enough public support that can overwhelm armed forces and would cause a bloodbath/loss of military and police loyalty. You linked Egyptian revolution which was literally triggered by civil disobedience. Same for Nazis afraid of average German citizens.
None of the no-go areas sound like historical examples you would want to follow unless you like anarchy. They are messy pro-longed conflicts unlike eg Euromaidan.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#225One of the shocking things is how much cryptocurrency has poisoned the minds of youth who see it as their easy path to riches. Young people simply don’t want to work anymore, everyone is planning to retire very soon and a job is only a temporary inconvenience while they wait for their crypto coins to moon in value and make them millionaires set for life. The truth is while many people did get very rich getting in ear…
It's a sign of decadence, the question "what's my contribution to society?" is out of sight. Becoming rich by the crypto lottery should not be seen as an achievement with pride, but as the shame of becoming a harmful parasite.
It's hard to feel that shame when the system is so obviously rigged badly against everyone except the harmful parasites.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now imagine comparing child pornography (and other things) in mediums before the internet and after. These comparisons are not useful for exponential, paradigm changing technology.
Child pornography was never a significant use of the Internet.
Facilitating CP wasn't the intent behind the internet, but there is significant use, at least if you believe the government when they're trying to justify new regulations.
The same thing holds for BTC and illicit transactions.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin" It was a meme in the crypto community that when you see tether being printed, you long. Maybe it was true at some point that tether was propping up the market or maybe not fully backed[0], but AFAIK they are now doing audits[1] and transparency reports[2]. > "The day regulators finally ban tether" I'm not sure how you would go about ba…
> I'm not sure how you would go about banning a cryptocurrency (it's been tried 100's of times) I don't think it's ever been tried in a western country. The process is fairly simple. Pass a law banning it, if necessary with certain exemptions. Arrest and charge people who purchase, sell or even possess Bitcoin. Most demand will disappear in that country. For the rest, handle it as we already handle similar financial…
> Arrest and charge people who purchase, sell or even possess Bitcoin
Can you imagine the amount of resources required to accomplish this? The war on drugs was a massive failure and that was arguably a much easier sell than crypto. As if the US doesn't already imprison enough of it's population... talk about a victimless crime...
> Most demand will disappear in that country
Not when all you need is internet access. Supply might, but demand will not be effected much. There will also be exchanges hosted in other countries that can be easily accessed.
Crypto is made to be resilient and/or hard to trace. The normal avenues of tracking and enforcement (which already can be pretty ineffective) cannot compete. You can act like it's "fairly simple" but, as I have stated, it's been tried and continues to fail.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#228Why would you trust his opinion on BTC? Does anybody here think he spent hours studying how it works to be able to make an informed comment? Would you ask your grandfather about Netflix or smartphones? This guy didn't invest in neither Microsoft or Apple. Can he be trusted to be on top of the latest technology that if it works is not even going to affect him in any way? I don't think he knows enough about BTC to make such a claim.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Warren Buffet has given many interviews on the topic, and on the topic of Berkshire's investments in tobacco companies. His view is basically that as long as those industries are legal he has a responsibility to his shareholders to invest in them because it is so profitable to do so. He has also summarized his views on Bitcoin many times -- he has no interest in investing in it because it is not a productive asset (t…
Ah, so he's merely being _responsible_ by investing in the destruction of public health. What a clown.
Responsible to his shareholders, who want a maximum return on their investment. He may be a clown, but the fact is that he is very good at giving his shareholders a return.
These industries are legal. If you think they should be abolished, fine -- but don't go around getting angry that people are investing in legal businesses that produce popular, if harmful, products. Until these industries are illegal, someone is going to invest in them, and because these industries are extremely popular those who invest in them will see their wealth expand.
Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’
#230"And I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth" You mean like cash? I'm sorry, I'm sure Warren is a nice guy but that picture reminds me of the Dukes in the movie Trading Places [1] with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places
Ransomers don’t choose cash first, they choose Bitcoin, because they know it is safe.
Also traceable.