asourcefamiliarwiththematter
a source familiar with the matter

"A man has no greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"
I am no sacrificial animal, and I regard as twisted and evil a moral code which glorifies my assuming that role.

2024-09-12 14:53:08

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Only in the sense of a lack of good

2024-09-12 01:01:36

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1/6/25 (fingers crossed)

2024-09-10 18:31:02

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Welcome!
I am a carnivore also

2024-09-08 01:41:53

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Yes and no
Dark chocolate has a substantial fat content
Really dark chocolate (the listed category maxes out at 85% but darker is widely available) has much more fat than sugar
During my transition from keto to animal based to carnivore, I stopped eating dark chocolate because of the oxolate toxicity (I started getting rashes whenever I ate chocolate) rather than because of the sugar
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/170273/wt1/1

2024-09-06 05:09:10

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I am partially in agreement with you
I agree that progressive activism is harmful to social perception of sodomites
I disagree that sodomites would not inevitably foster that same negative perception anyway. Once sex is no longer about reproduction, why wait for the age of reproductive maturity? At what age does a boy's bottom become fertile? Once sex is no longer about reproduction, why not surgically enhance yourself (or your partner) for your desired mode of sodomy?

2024-09-06 00:54:29

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gently in the breeze

2024-09-03 16:44:49

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Your link recommends Threema but also Signal Wire & Session (and is ambivalent about SimpleX)
And I don't see the numerical ratings you gave

2024-09-02 15:11:56

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Maybe they're planning to move and hauling all that toilet paper will be a pain in the neck

2024-09-01 16:08:30

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You're not fooling us any longer
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454

2024-09-01 06:23:07

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Aren't they already Nazis?

2024-09-01 04:52:14

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melusine

2024-08-30 17:48:23

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https://spandrell.ch/2024/6/14/the-spandrell-declaration-for-israel-and-the-levant

2024-08-30 17:48:06

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"What should be done with disloyal people? Exile. Or as people like to put it today, “Remigration” . In a nation state, 'multiculturalism' is completely absurd. Under no circumstance should a country allow ethnic minorities of any kind to exist long term. What is an ethnic group ? It's a group of people who marry each other exclusively. And why would they do that? To stay distinct. And why the fuck would they want to stay distinct? How is that not a plain, blatant show of contempt towards their host nation? The only reason to do ethnic separatism is to engage in nepotism and use clique effects to benefit the group against a less organized population. It's literally a conspiracy, that's all there is. How the hell is this allowed? It boggles the mind really.
Note that the usual rationale to do ethnic conspiracies in Western countries is the ruse of 'religion'. Oh you see, we're not an ethnic mafia using the advantage of our small scale to organize better against you, oh no. We just have this “supernatural beliefs” which are just too compelling so you must let us do it or we'll burn in hell, you see. Hey look, my wife is crying. Female tears! Now submit, goyim. Note it's not just Jews doing it, it's a trick as old as sin, happened all the time since the ancient world. Understanding that is why Classical Civilization evolved universally enforced State Religions, to close that loophole and get rid of ethnic mafias. You can think of the Catholic Church as the first iteration of anti-cartel legislation. Northern Europeans weren't dumb, the first thing they did after breaking the Catholic Church was to establish State Churches of their own to close the loophole again."
https://spandrell.ch/2024/6/14/the-spandrell-declaration-for-israel-and-the-levant

2024-08-29 22:10:36

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I scored highest in liberty but my 2nd-4th were the fashy ones

2024-08-29 05:24:48

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They claim to have tested quicklime experimentally with a reasonable control, so I'm inclined to believe the ultimate conclusion
I am skeptical that the volcanic ash is not actually helpful (assuming the claims about its ancient use & reputation are accurate)
Perhaps both are relevant
Is there some other error in thinking you've found?

2024-08-29 01:17:20

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Everyone uses internet without a special internet tax to build out networks. Why can't other utilities function the same way?

2024-08-29 00:20:22

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What do you mean by "public"?

2024-08-28 22:04:04

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I think it's arrogance of putting your own will over reality -> failure -> resentment

2024-08-28 20:55:12

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emptiness

2024-08-28 20:31:29

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All taxation is unjust

2024-08-28 14:51:07

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People who still believe in the system care about how everyone votes
This does not mean that how everyone votes really matters

2024-08-28 04:40:03

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Are we not part of Nature also?

2024-08-27 04:55:05

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"In order to fulfill the criteria laid down in the remaining two of his postulates, Koch tried to infect animals with pure cultures of the organism with little success. He rightly concluded that the animals were not susceptible to cholera and took recourse to the extreme step of infecting himself by drinking pure cultures. However, he came down with only a mild episode of diarrhoea, an outcome which was later on exploited by his opponents to ridicule him."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3089047/
Moreover, I believe the sentence preceding the quotation is incorrect and that v. cholerae is found in the stool of non-choleric individuals.

2024-08-27 04:50:47

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Koch's own work shows that Cholera was not caused by the bacteria supposedly responsible
He drank a beaker full of vibrio cholerae and didn't develop cholera disease

2024-08-27 04:47:17

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Has any microorganism ever been shown to cause disease in a scientifically rigorous manner? (eg according to Koch's postulates)
I open to the possibility that Koch's anthrax paper is such an example but I haven't found an English translation

2024-08-26 22:57:59

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I regard the connective tissue in NYS as a positive, but the lower fat as a negative
So it depends on how much fat you get in the NYS fat cap
IMHO the better option for grass-fed is picanha which has a consistent large fat cap

2024-08-26 21:49:35

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In the context of the 1780s-90s:
Militia is the whole body of free people who could be called up for military service
Well regulated means something closer to well-armed than "subject to lots of regulations"
And, the First War of Secession (in the 1770s) certainly suggests that militias might oppose the government

2024-08-26 21:46:00

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I don't think you realize just how fake and gay the US has become

2024-08-26 16:46:39

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What makes a diet unbalanced or balanced?

2024-08-26 16:44:25

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I know what a youth is, but what is a transgender individual?

2024-08-26 15:44:36

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This is really cool
I'm in the process of getting into hobby radio myself and this SDR seems like a reasonable first step

2024-08-26 05:20:12

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My apartment complex has lockers on-site and I get texted a code to open it when I have a package delivered
For home delivery, people have often had some form of one-way drop (eg English mail slots in the front door, a chute into 1800s American homes for coal delivery for heating, recent efforts by Amazon in which you give their delivery person some sort of electronic access to your home)

2024-08-26 02:33:05

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USPS has been monitoring Americans' communications longer than NSA has existed

2024-08-26 01:32:12

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tobasco and sugar

2024-08-26 00:47:52

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I think Team Fortress 2 straddles the line between a traditional First-Person Shooter (FPS) and the League-of-Legends-style Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre (which came to prominence later), while Overwatch goes deep into MOBA territory to its own detriment.
Every character in Overwatch is meant to be highly distinct, with their own weapons, special abilities and a strong "ultimate" ability which must be charged before use. This leads to visual clutter, lack of baseline expectations, and poor dramatic tension.
I enjoyed playing Overwatch, but found Overwatch League (the professional broadcast series of Overwatch matches) to be borderline un-watchable. The special abilities on every character evidently need to feel "epic" which requires lots of special effects. Combined with many characters in a single fight, this leads to a lot of visual clutter. In contrast, Team Fortress 2 mostly has bullet attacks that produce little visual clutter. The only strong form of visual clutter is a flamethrower which is used as a disorienting short-range ambush weapon. Watching TF2 Highlander (a 9 versus 9 competitive format) I have a much clearer idea what is happening than Overwatch's 6 versus 6 team format. While the plentiful visual effects work reasonably well in MOBAs (which have an isometric or overhead camera), they combine poorly with the chaotic world of First-Person Shooters.
The special abilities and unique heroes of Overwatch also make it difficult to form a reliable expectation of what any given character can do. Team Fortress 2 has a clear baseline for health, speed, attack and support ability, roughly at the Pyro class. Deficits in one area generally coincide with strengths in another. While Overwatch has a roughly standard health level for small, light classes everything else varies wildly. In particular, tank classes (with high health and defensive abilities) enjoyed reasonable speed, attack and support abilities leading to the infamous "Goats comp" of all tank and support classes. This composition took over competitive play and caused Overwatch developers to update the game to artificially force teams to pick damage-dealing heroes. While Team Fortress 2 competitive leagues limit the number of players who can play the healing or area damage classes, all 9 classes have consistently seen play. The issue here is not merely balance, but rather that TF2 characters conform to a rough baseline. 4 of 9 classes in TF2 have access to the exact same shotgun, and a 5th has a similar weapon. Almost all strong weapons are tuned to output damage roughly in line with this shotgun. Overwatch has no such commonalities or baseline. It feels like TF2 took a generic character and generated 9 interesting permutations, while Overwatch created about 30 interesting characters from scratch. The result is more variety, but also less coherence.
Team Fortress 2 only has an ultimate ability on one class in the base game; the healing class can grant a few seconds of invincibility. While some ultimate-type abilities have been introduced over the years, these generally are less impactful than the Medic ultimate and require much greater tradeoffs. The flow of every match of TF2 is shaped by Medic ultimate abilities while other ultimate-type abilities are rarely so impactful. This creates excellent dramatic tension, as the whole team coordinates around a single moment where the peak of their team's capacity to win is unleashed. In Overwatch every character has their own ultimate ability and many of the "mere" special abilities are also quite impactful. Thus every fight presents a random selection of powerful abilities rather than clearly defined moments of higher and lesser tension.

2024-08-25 21:25:39

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https://newagora.ca/inside-popes-reptilian-audience-hall-vatican-city/

2024-08-25 17:04:36

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The State does not exist, it is just another religion. Sadly its worshippers are very real and should be avoided if at all possible.

2024-08-24 23:19:48

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It looks like he's arguing with them before & after getting stabbed
This is a bad idea
Moreover he should avoid someone with a knife unless he's armed with a greater weapon

2024-08-24 14:37:34

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I agree with that
However, I think in practice it would more closely resemble the ancien regime, with punishments like death and exile much more common. I think the "outlaw" system of the American West worked very well, with criminals denied the protection of the law (and thus subject to death or other injury). I also think in a sytem of private law there would be armed self-defense, and thus another avenue by which the death of criminals would become much more common.
Murphy seems to think that a private law system would become nearly pacifist, but I strongly disagree. The ability to be soft requires very strong security which in turn requires that somewhere along the line there is iron determination. We are seeing exactly that tension unravel in modern Europe and the Anglophone countries.

2024-08-24 00:31:26

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There is no scenario where nobody innocent ever dies. It's just not on the table.

2024-08-23 23:25:40

Good news everyone!
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/judge-dismisses-machine-gun-charges-against-kansas-woman-citing-supreme-court-decision

2024-08-23 23:02:51

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I am strongly in disagreement.
I think lifelong incarceration is inhumane and burdens victims & law-abiding people (eg via taxation).
I'm willing to bite the bullet on some nonzero error rate, and I would encourage you to realize that your alternative (eg life incarceration) will also have a non-zero error rate.
It is sometimes argued that lifelong incarceration is cheaper than the death penalty, on account of the automatic appeals associated with the death penalty. Either these appeals do not tend to bring about justice, and they could be removed without an issue, or they do bring about justice and foregoing them for life incarceration would entail a higher error rate in life incarceration than in execution.

2024-08-23 22:49:37

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https://yewtu.be/watch?v=XpvQmjld_G0

2024-08-23 22:44:48

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Californians voted almost 60-40 to restrict benefits to illegal imigrants
A Jewish judge decided the citizens of California had no right to do anything that might diminish the flow of illegals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_California_Proposition_187
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Pfaelzer

2024-08-23 21:09:45

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Maybe he was a sharp guy prior to his disease
But check out this interview (eg at 1m45s)
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jdanSzYmjFM

2024-08-23 18:59:43

Was Stephen Hawking a genius, or a retard in a chair which other physicists used as a convenient mouthpiece?
https://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/311/kausel.html

2024-08-23 17:07:16

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I do this also (try to relate concepts to each other) and I think it's responsible for my apparent intelligence

2024-08-23 15:47:57

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I am skeptical that incompetence promoting peasant revolt is the fuel for revolutions
It seems to me that usually revolutions are led by members of the oligarchic class forming a counter-elite
English, French, Russian revolutions all follow this pattern
Even something like the defeat of the Kapp Putsch (by general strike) was effectively led by the pre-existing privileged class

2024-08-23 14:40:59

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mathematical = imaginary

2024-08-23 14:39:34

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"gold without the weight"
aka nothing at all

2024-08-23 14:38:45

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Indeed, and no one has

2024-08-23 05:49:43

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we are already in an Ice Age
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

2024-08-23 04:59:40

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who is snooki ?

2024-08-23 04:51:29

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This (link) gives me a similar result in 10 minutes to what I would get from 45 minutes of zen (sitting) meditation
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=kbTkwMJExCc

2024-08-23 00:40:55

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https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/peerreview.jpg?w=1024

2024-08-22 19:49:42

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No
You eat the engine lubricant, I'll eat meat and dairy

2024-08-22 17:15:13

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No wonder slavers like it - it fits right into their religion of world dictatorship

2024-08-22 16:35:49

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how do I find interesting people to follow?

2024-08-22 06:05:34

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The lefties are quite Christian, especially the atheists
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/how-dawkins-got-pwned-part-1/

2024-08-22 02:36:43

Leftists: I care more about space rocks than my own grandmother
Rightists: I care most about my family and friends
https://nostrcheck.me/media/f5b55f6b44b8997b2b6e8469a6a57f8d3f3b2ef27023543445c40ecec485ee64/e7b5140eae86f66e4149766a5e97363dab613fee4749d24758c619bcfd30184d.webp
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heatmaps-indicating-highest-moral-allocation-by-ideology-Study-3a-Source-data-are_fig6_336076674

2024-08-22 02:31:43

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Lefties have it bad
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heatmaps-indicating-highest-moral-allocation-by-ideology-Study-3a-Source-data-are_fig6_336076674

2024-08-22 01:24:25

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I don't doubt that you got sick, and that your symptoms loosely matched the constellation of symptoms described as Covid.
But the question, in your case and every other, is what caused the illness?
Some sort of microbial parasite smaller than a bacteria (and not observable with a light-based microscope) causing the illness is a hypothesis (not a theory, and certainly not an observation). However there is no scientific evidence to support this hypothesis.
Unless some evidence emerges to support the hypothesis, we should consider alternatives. Perhaps your family was poisoned via your food, water or air. Perhaps you were all exposed to some sort of radiation. Perhaps your family was all deficient in some nutrient (eg seasonal deficiency of Vitamin D due to low sun exposure).

2024-08-22 00:25:08

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How do you know that a subcellular obligate parasite caused your illness?

2024-08-22 00:05:07

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People get sick, our "germ theory" failed so it must just be a smaller germ
Same issue with particle physics - the collider doesn't find the particles we predict so they must be smaller than we thought

2024-08-21 23:39:32

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Not nearly as sick as the standard American diet

2024-08-21 23:39:09

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Our ancestors lost a foot of height and 10% brain mass when they started eating grain.
You implicitly admit the amount of sugar is what matters, and ignore the fact that modern processed food (including bread) has an order of magnitude more refined sugar than the foods of our grandparents.
If the "long" history of human grain consumption (a blink of an eye compared to our millions of years eating meat) shows the relative safety of grain, why does the short history of seed oil consumption (less than 200 years) not indicate a lack of such safety?

2024-08-21 21:47:06

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the buns are usually the worst part (grain, seed oils, sugar)

2024-08-21 20:43:14

https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-harris-department-energy-official-calls-queering-nuclear-weapons-part-radical-dei-agenda

2024-08-21 17:06:42

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Sounds great, how much will 10 kilograms cost me?

2024-08-21 16:37:12

https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-eye-at-the-end-of-time
I recommend the first half of this (before the subscriber shill) and not the second half
I think there's a more fundamental division to be made here, rather than future vs past or Jesus vs "Progress" (which after all are not so different... being judged at the end of the world vs at the end of time)
Instead, I think the division is between subjective and objective, or more fundamentally between a reality that exists here and now independent of consciousness and a "reality" that is subordinate to consciousness. The "Eye at the End of Time" posits morality as something to be judged by a conscious observer (hence "Eye"). In contrast I view morality as part of reality - this works, that doesn't. This leads to flourishing, that does not.
I think this distinction (between a world of consciousness and a world of existence) is the fundamental philosophic and political distinction. The left supports group consciousness (an impossibility) while the traditional right supports divine consciousness (also an impossibility). Those who support reality for its own sake are rogues and hermits.

2024-08-21 16:16:40

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🪙

2024-08-21 16:12:24

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"Bitcoin is the most scarce form of money to ever exist"
Too right!
There isn't an ounce of the stuff in the whole world

2024-08-21 16:11:37

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Well we've reached N of 1, at least
I have a graduate degree in economics & (more importantly) have spent thousands of hours studying (mostly Austrian) economics since then
I am of the opinion that Bitcoin is economically illiterate and it will be to the great shame of Austrian economists to have ever supported it
I regard Bitcoin as a better form of fiat - a "nothing" but with better rules than the dominant "nothing"
Also, do you imagine that Peter Schiff hasn't spent thousands of hours studying money?

2024-08-21 16:07:39

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The point is that any fluctuation at all means the Bitcoin doesn't represent a specific unit of computing power.
If the dollar is just a name for a certain weight of silver (as it was in 1780) then any fluctuation at all makes the label "dollar" meaningless.
This may seem strange, but let's use a different unit: the gram. If I promise to pay you 10 grams of gold 2 years in a row, and I give you 2 different masses of gold, then either I've cheated you or "gram" is just a measure of whim (or both, especially if it's my whim).
So if "Bitcoin" is a monetary unit that represents 10 petaflops of compute, and then next year it represents 8 petaflops, it's not really a unit at all. Similarly, a "dollar" that represents 10 grams one year and 8 grams the next isn't actually a unit.

2024-08-21 16:02:07

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There's a huge selection bias there.
If I take 10 hours to study Bitcoin and conclude that it is impressive from a cryptographic point of view but economically illiterate, why would I then spend thousands of further hours studying it?

2024-08-21 14:10:56

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Bitcoin aren't fungible - each UTXO can be tracked on the blockchain

2024-08-21 14:09:14

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What can you do with Bitcoins? Are they good to eat? Perhaps you can melt them down and make useful tools?

2024-08-21 05:46:20

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The computers have value, yes.
But how much of that power does a certain unit of Bitcoin buy me?
If the answer depends on the conversion rate between fiat and Bitcoin, that power cannot be the source of the value of Bitcoin (because it would provide the valuation at an arbitrary and fluctuating rate)

2024-08-21 05:44:35

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Subjective value doesn't mean it's just made up, it means it relates to the subject.
So if I have one gallon of water, I will put it to the most highly-valued use available to me (probably drinking it so I don't die)
If I get a second gallon, I will put it to the second-most-highly-valued use (which might be different than your second most highly valued use)
So the value of the water is subjective (it depends on who is getting it, how much water they already have, and what uses that person can imagine to which to put the water)
But it's also objective in that if you knew all the uses of water available to me and how I rank them in terms of the satisfaction of my needs, you could predict how I will use the water, and there is an objectively correct usage of a given volume of water (conditional on knowing the unknowable)
Bitcoin has no physical form and therefore no subjective or objective use. The first unit of Bitcoin I get doesn't allow me to do anything whatsoever, nor does the second, nor does any further amount. It's true that I can sign the chain to create new UTXOs for the next person, but that person also has no use for Bitcoin. The whole thing looks reasonable only in comparison to centralized fiat currency, in which the same drawbacks apply plus a privileged group is allowed to monkey with the system.
A thought experiment: Suppose Satoshi had promised to pay 1 Bitcoin for each Bitcoin mined, and the ledger tracks how much Bitcoin he owes you for maintaining his records, rather than being the "money" itself. Then suppose Satoshi disappeared and it became apparent he would never pay. Presumably the value of these promises would go to zero when it becomes obvious they would not be fulfilled. But, how is that any different from the current system?

2024-08-21 03:53:10

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I'm partial to the double conspiracy theory
(that neocons blew a hole in the Pentagon but Israelis learned about the plan and destroyed the towers)

2024-08-20 22:58:32

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the ultimate shit-test

2024-08-20 20:25:45

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The victory of reality over delusion is inevitable

2024-08-20 18:19:24

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Yeah I've met some Africans who I regard as assimilated into middle-class Anglo-American culture.
I've also met some Africans born abroad and clearly assimilated into global Anglo culture.
However, this doesn't mean all Africans are assimilated, nor that such assimilation washes away all meaningful differences.

2024-08-20 17:20:12

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Plainly not

2024-08-20 17:12:59

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I don't hate Africans, I just don't believe that race is merely skin-deep
I don't hate hippos but I wouldn't want them loose in my neighborhood

2024-08-20 16:18:10

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Or marrow

2024-08-20 12:00:06

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No, I will not watch other people play D&D

2024-08-19 22:42:50

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Machiavelli is dealing with a very specific scenario, in which a man comes to hold political power in a new way but must grapple with an existing oligarchy. It's written as a guide to stabilizing medieval Florence out of a revolutionary period rather than governing at all times and places.

2024-08-19 01:51:40

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gold is at all time highs
but silver is still waiting to take off

2024-08-19 01:46:07

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only 6% more inflation left

2024-08-19 00:07:48

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"Just say no to Tucker"
"Why?"
"Am I not entertained?"

2024-08-17 21:28:55

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To be fair natural "intelligence" is also out of control
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=jdanSzYmjFM
(see 1m45s for a particularly clear example)

2024-08-17 21:16:30

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The Shriners claim to be Islamic (but Jews claim to be all sorts of things)

2024-08-17 21:11:22

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Are Freemasons Jewish?

2024-08-17 02:30:16

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the actor was just an actor

2024-08-15 20:02:49

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It's leveraged long, so the ETF aims to recreate 175% of the movement of MSTR
So if MicroStrategy goes up 10% in a day, the ETF should go up 17.5% on the same day (and similarly for declines)