Donald would sooner shoot RFK in the mouth before he let him take away his Big Macs and Diet Cokes. I foresee a policy conflict. Maybe this calls for a Polymarket.
Threads is so wack. I’ve had my account for two days and I’ve had my account suspended twice. Not even saying hateful shit or anything. Maybe trolling a few MAGA types but whatever. Damn those guys are tightwads.
Also, if you run Umbrel there’s a Tor Snowflake Proxy app in their App Store. Literally one click and you’re running a proxy. Hardly uses any resources. Everyone with an Umbrel should install that app.
I take this to mean you would support cutting social security (your retirement), Medicare (your insurance before you die), veterans benefits (so we can make it worth it for you to put your life on the line for your country)?
I think one of the inherent truths about capitalism is that people can’t provide for themselves. That’s why every functioning capitalist society has social welfare programs. Name one that doesn’t.
Bureaucracy is inherently inefficient. But the alternative to some of these more critical welfare programs is people dying poor, sick and hungry. The trade off is that stark. What gets me about this argument is that those that advocate against these programs seem ok with those consequences because it would prevent abuse by a minority of bad actors (which every society has)
It literally did. Laissez faire government, stock market speculation, unregulated financial industry and income inequality and over-production all contributed to the collapse of the economy. That’s why programs like these exist, and it’s why we haven’t seen anything nearly as severe ever since.
I know it’s going to become insolvent and it will need to be cut. I’m planning my retirement assuming I only get 50% of what I’m entitled to. But there’s a big leap from that to “we should abolish all welfare programs”
Figured you would cite Rothbard! I’ll have a look at this. As a guy who majored in this stuff, though, what I’ll say is that there is little evidence that the principles of Austrian economics can work (at least better than the status quo) in a large, late-stage capitalist society like the US, but it is fun to think about how it might look.
I think the issue is that not enough people can provide enough for themselves to live. We see this today with the number of people living below the poverty line. The wealth gap is too high and, without government intervention, the jobs that people have access to don’t pay well enough for these people to be able to provide food for their families, let alone medical care, let alone a secure retirement. If free market capitalism was working so well, why are we seeing this?
Never said you should trust me, just saying I’m not surprised you cited a controversial fringe economist with little empirical data to support his theories 😉
Nah, inflation does erode un-invested wealth over the years, but it doesn’t evaporate the $30 in a poor person’s pocket faster than they can spend it. Poor people don’t earn enough to accumulate any wealth therefore inflation doesn’t make them poor. The issue is that too many jobs don’t pay living wages or provide adequate benefits.
Yes, inflation does increase the cost of living over time so in that way it’s part of the problem. But imo the real problem is a distorted labor market.
🤝
Btw I’m not dismissing your argument at all. After all, I, too am a bitcoiner, so at the very least I take interest in commodity-backed currency. It’s just hard for me to accept Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalism at face value without a healthy dose of skepticism, since we haven’t really seen those things work in modern history. Still, I’ll read the paper you shared
I dunno about that. It’s mathematically true that if Bitcoin ever does become immensely valuable, the wealth disparity between old and new holders will be remarkable. If Bitcoin becomes the global reserve currency and the value 100X’s, there will absolutely be a new ruling class that’s minted, and I don’t know if we’ll all like what that ruling class does.
Eh maybe. X is a dumpster fire after Musk bought it so I left that. Threads is one-track. Nostr is 90% bitcoin and 10% alt right stuff. I spend most of my time here but do want to see some decent political discourse sometimes
I always expected Trump to win but damn that was a radical-right landslide.
I mean, California rejected a proposition to ban slavery lmao.
America starting to look a lot like Russia.
I was just checking out Ocean to use with my Bitaxe but decided to mine on self hosted solo pool instead. Should I be more seriously considering Ocean? With ~4TH/s I figure I’m better off playing the lottery than getting a few dozen sats every few days…
A Bitaxe actually did find a block, which is why I figured why the hell not and sprang for a $500 SupraHex with 4+ TH.
I used to mine Vertcoin on my GPU and wished I had the power and noise isolation to mine Bitcoin at home (small apartment life) so I thought it was pretty sweet when these low power, near silent Bitcoin miners came about. My AxeOS dashboard reports I’m pulling about 90W and it’s whisper quiet. Decentralization is fun.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/tiny-500gh-home-bitcoin-mining-device-produced-a-block-earning-over-200k-btc
Testing something. Is someone able to pay this 2 sat invoice? Lmk if you get an error or it if works. Will zap back 20X! #asknostr
lnbc20n1pn34k4tsp5ra0ds4mpx9ck3h77jc0eecdapy90gkte99r5qqtc59shln798n2qpp5x2per7pmsn87694nuz9wuzdgpcaxc7x8250clryks9d0f8ms8l7qdq823jhxaqxqyjw5qcqpjrzjqf0zuplwpzhn6hymqjhcfcylzxqhtx5vc64xgac40nnr8sfqaveqmapyqqqqqqqqqyqqqqlgqqqqqqgq2q9qxpqysgqhuh8r2z8n5qjeu6dnqx3zm6nurx5ej380uuz0rz4l7zspx4rt03hpk2vvpd8djnukd3eqg7upjexjf45yddlf56tzpa9phll2sctewgq424t0v
You literally just ignored his entire point and made a trite, bad-faith argument that amounts to “reeee I read on the internet that progressives don’t really want progress for *everyone*”
Rewind in history, the CIA armed the Taliban because they were fighting Soviet occupation in Afghanistan and the US we trying to keep communism in check at all costs. And then a few short decades later… oopsies, 9/11!
Let me give it a shot too: It’s a cartoon duck wearing a hat and sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. I paid the equivalent of $300 for it and now it’s not even worth its face value because literally nobody is buying NFTs anymore.
We can look to NFTs for learnings. That is to say, creators will make money, but there will also be theft (“right click + save”).
Good content will stand on its own but there’ll be lots of garbage, kind of like how fully 80% of the music on Wavlake was generated by AI with like 30 seconds of work.
Challenge will be how to elevate the good stuff above the rest.
Thoughtful response. I suppose I should clarify my original statement of “religious/moral fundamentalists” to “religious fundamentalists and moral absolutists”
Yes there are those that believe drugs and porn should be illegal because God said hedonism is bad
There are others that believe drugs and porn should be illegal because some people use them to ill effect and therefore we should all be forbidden from partaking
Those are the stances I take issue with and I find it interesting that there are so many of those people in the bitcoin community (Bitcoin being a morals-agnostic protocol the very existence of which runs against the grain of the “just legislate it!” impulse)
Anyway at the end of the day I’m more in your camp than those other folks…
As a guy that falls somewhere on the spectrum between agnosticism and atheism—a “god of the gaps” guy, as a nod to your comment about the hazards of scientism—there’s one thing I know about Catholic priests in particular is that you folks are awfully well read.
Anyway to respond to your question: I dunno really. In general I don’t think things should be illegal because some people misuse them. Not everyone will watch porn and become hopelessly addicted just like not everyone will buy guns and start murdering people. Let those people fail but also let there be strong safety nets to catch them and set them right… be they strong communities, institutions of faith, government programs, or whatever.
Full discourse in case my bias is showing: I do enjoy me some occasional cannabis and pr0n
Oh for sure. Kid helps empty the dishwasher, unload the groceries etc. and the older he gets the more he can do (he’s only 3). But we don’t want him in proximity of knives or fire and I spend a solid 4 hours cooking per week… that’s the kind of stuff I need to invoke screen time for.
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