The sanity "dogma".
Somehowi the entire "global warming" set of bunk ended up a topic on #bitcoin-assets, which resulted in otherwise intelligent dubs falling all over themselves into a pool of their own ridicule on one hand, and also in me reading stuff I wouldn't normally have bothered to read such as Eric Steven Raymondii's two year old article on the topic (which incidentally isn't bad in the Trilema sense of that term, which is to say more on account of the comments than on its own strength).
The strange property of the clueless which has them fall all over themselves into a pool of their own ridicule seems particularly stable, perhaps to the degree of it actually being usable as a marker. Consider the following comment :
Libertarian mindset 101: If you do intellectual work which seems to suggest the need for policy controls on human activity, then you are — wittingly or not — a purveyor of a pernicious viral meme complex instigated by the KGB to undermine the American political and economic system. Honest intellectual work — by definition — supports and reinforces the libertarian dogma.
(It certainly can’t be because the libertarian is a purveyor of a pernicious viral meme complex instigated by the propertied elite to perpetuate the status quo and secure and consolidate their power base…)
On the strength of the context in which it was presented, one would suspect this comment is intended to somehow show that stupidity is sense and sense stupidity, I presume. Otherwise, I can scarcely see any sense in it. It is certainly the case that any intellectual work which suggests nonsense is, wittingly or not, a purveyor of pernicious evil. It is just as certainly the case that honest intellectual work, by the very definition of the terms work and honesty, strictly supports and without exception reinforces libertarain dogma (if you wish to call it that, sure, why not).
These are points of fact, it's not some sort of hypotetical proposition or anything. For instance : when you're broke, any intellectual analysis of your situation will indicate you need to earn more, and spend less. Any analysis that - through any means whatsoever - arrives at any sort of different conclusion is either not honest, not serious or neither honest nor serious. Similarly, when you're fat, any intellectual analysis of your situation will indicate you need to burn more calories and ingurgitate fewer calories. Any analysisiii that - through any means whatsoever - arrives at any sort of different conclusion is either not honest, not serious, or neither.
So yes, indeed : any honest intellectual work, inasmuch as it's honest, and inasmuch as it's actual workiv will reinforce the "dogma" of sanity. This is pretty much true by necessity, by definition as the original author says.
Moving on to the paranthesis... again : yes of course! Of course it describes the ideas of the people who own shit. This is exactly what it would be : those who succeed explain to those who fail why they fail and what to do to succeed. What the hell else would you expect, what the hell else could it work like ? If Earl Appleseed who's never been to the Big City wishes to know what exactly to do to fit in there, is he to ask the opinion of the guy who lives in the big city or should he indeed ask the opinion of random schmuck with a Lenin beard thing and round glasses that also has never left Schmuck Town ? What do you figure, eh ?
The entire "argumentation" of the retard hinges on you somehow imagining that "landed gentry" ended up landed gentry by sheer accident, as if obgyn clinics consist of conveyor belts going right in between the legs of delivering women and carrying the babies through some random spinners until they fall in the large Poor vat or in the smaller Rich bucket. Pure chance all the way.
This obviously is not the case. Rich people are rich because they're not fucking stupid.v Poor people are poor because they are fucking stupid. It's not anything else but them themselves : they're defective, principally in the head. They're lesser people. That's why others have more and they have less : because others are more and they are less. That's it.
It may be the case someone stupid is born rich. It happens all the time. It also may be the case someone smart is born stupid. It happens all the time. Literally, every single time, all the time. Rich people don't stay that way if they're stupid, unless supported by some sort of socialismvi. People also don't stay stupid unless oppressed by some sort of socialism (so the stupid rich may be created).
Blessfully we are at a time in history when we finally have the tool to completely dismantle and thoroughly castigate the statal edifice of stupidity. This is, incidentally, why I'm so uninclined to accept any sort of negotiation that might make Bitcoin more palatable to "the government", as that notion is currently misunderstood. Bitcoin is here to end such misunderstanding.
———- Somehow as in, I disdainderrided some random retard's ideas on how to improve financial reporting. Said ideas went something along the lines of "Companies should assess in advance random arbitrary burden the socialist governments of the world might impose on them, because why not". A sort of "Jews are to disclose to the camp guards the cuantified health risk of their living in the camp", and if you think about it not too far off from the actually implemented "If you report to your customers that they have to pay more because we hiked taxes we will prosecute you" stuff the Aussies are currently involved in. [↩]
- He's the cathedral/bazaar guy, or the Hacker Lexicon guy, whichever you prefer. [↩]
- Yes I do mean any in the Kantian sense of any. Absolutely universal. Before you even dream of telling me how you're "big boned" or "alternatively metabolistical", consider that of all the Jews treated at Auschwitz there existed exactly zero cases of big bonedness or alternative-metabolism that somehow survived starvation, because they magically got juicy and fat "no matter how little they ate". You don't recall any suspiciously obese guys in the Russian pictures of the sad surviving lot, do you ? You don't, because it just doesn't work that way. Thermodynamics, I mean, it just doesn't work that way. Which is why thermodynamics is a science and US-centric pseudocultural blather is not. [↩]
- Rather than you know, posturing for the purpose of exploiting the masses. [↩]
- Or at least, not as fucking stupid as the poor people. Which, given the situation today, is actually a much looser criteria than the original. [↩]
- Which, in the broad sense of this article, quite exactly means anything whatsoever in any way different from the sanity "dogma", either through being dishonest, or lazy, or both. The various braindamaged ideologies that work at collecting pennies from the mass so that some random schmuck may pretend like being rich may be attained even by the stupid. [↩]
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Again this your insisting that poor=dumb explains everything including climate nonscience. Even if this would be fully valid for an individual, society is whole different animal. Let's compare Scandinavia which is pretty close to socialist ideal and the US pretty close to capitalist dream where being a billionaire means not just practical tax imunity, but also criminal one. Honest intellectual work then implies one is full with rich and clever people, and the other one with poor and stupid ones...indeed?
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Middle class utopia.
That country/society could still be achieved if one has a few billionaires who can afford the best researchers whom all migrate to their country of residence because high pay? Us, Israel?
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
@jurov I think there's a host of various unobvious assumptions that prevent us talking about the same things the same way. For instance : purchaseable tax immunity is NOT in and of itself a sympthom of capitalism in absolutely any way. Premodern French rich people bought their tax immunity as a matter of course, Mazarin's France was not capitalist in any sense (and the practice carried over through the Assignats etc). Every single rich Roman citizen held some sort of tax entreprise, and Imperial Rome was no capitalism either.
For further instance, the notion that "society is a different animal". You think so, for some reason, and you might even be right, but I tell you I don't see it. I most emphatically don't see it if your "different animal" boils down to something like, "if each kid in a 30 kid class fails to do their homework this is just 30 individual kids not doing their homework, but if the 30 kids work together to not do their homework then this is significant". Indeed it is significant : each kid in the 2nd scenario will be punished for thirty missing homeworks, rather than one.
Finally, I think the proposed "compare Scandinavia" with "US" is pretty much a discussion in the terms of Newman and Kramer playing "Risk" (the game of world conquest). Something like this. Have you lived in "Scandiavia" for a few years ? Do you own a herd of tall blonde (pubic hair y compris!) Swedes you're diddling on some sort of regular basis ? What is the grounding for this notion of "Scandinavia" you employ ? Because past those objections the most one could do would be I suppose something like "ask Chomsky", which degrades the entire discussion into wikipedianism and I ain't going there.
@Anon The Chinese like it, mr Clueless R. Knowitall. Guess why the people that labeled your culture "dead" don't particularly give a shit what you wish to call "middle class" or anything else.
PS. Smart people don't give a shit about how much money you have. Because they can take it from you, any time they feel like it. Get it through your skull : you ain't buying it, you ain't coercing it, get on your knees and start worshipping it.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
'open minds' these days seem to have discovered whole new ways to 'shields up'.
America should by no means be used in these days as an example of capitalism it is much closer to fascism.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Well, Mircea, do you explain your workable idea of non-socialist utopy somewhere? While pursuing as frictionless as possible accumulation of wealth towards cleverest individuals is attractive, it does have consequences. Either the wealth is just a number with many zeros in the bank, vault or in the blockchain and then for practice it is as good as not existing. Or it is being reinvested and maintained in whatever, stocks, property, bitches, or even invent new forms of property such as click patents etc. But then you need to build some structure to protect, maintain and upkeep it. (See no further than Russia for examples of people who tried to be wealthy without such.) Being clever, such players seek to optimize by sharing such structures and reusing any previously existing (such as statal) ones so they grow until the bureaucracy ends up unmanageable and collapses. Screaming bloody murder against stupidity or socialism seems completely irrelevant here, everyone has a threshold where he has to rely upon others to achieve his/her goals and another threshold when whole thing gets too complicated to optimize.
This CFC example you say, was the original cause that general public is stupid? Well yes and no, there had to be some clever and rich fellow who saw a chance to sell moar refrigerators first. He likely got a herd of tall diddly blondes or so out of this so all is well then, no?
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Well yes, on this blog :D
You used to, back in the gold days, have to have people guard it. Bitcoin solves that problem nicely. I am perhaps missing the gist of your Russia reference ?
The problem is by no means the state in general, and I'm not an anarchist. The problem is the welfarist state quite specifically (which, in passing, is an aberration without root in either history or sense).
This is really what's irrelevant in the discussion. How did it get mixed in ?
I'll need some explanation of the context you wish that interpreted in, because freestanding like that it doesn't make sense to me.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Why do I keep writing about "relying upon others" - since your model of society seems to be simplistic like you described (and that would also explain why I just don't get it):
> I most emphatically don’t see it if your “different animal” boils down to ? something like, “if each kid in a 30 kid class fails to do their homework this is just 30 individual kids not doing their homework, but if the 30 kids work together to not do their homework then this is significant”. Indeed it is significant : each kid in the 2nd scenario will be punished for thirty missing homeworks, rather than one.
It boils down to both scenarios being extreme and practically non-existant in reality. Usually part of people won't do their homework(not only because of stupidity, they may be sick), largest part will do with various flaws they are unaware of and the few who do it correctly can end up drowned by the noise, because there is no teacher and consequences are delayed and blame can be shifted, etc. Humanity tried to cope with it and while trying out various such homeworks ended up with welfare systems at the moment. I did not live in Scandinavia, only visited and have friends there.. does that disqualify me from forming an opinion that despite their damnable socialist practices it seems to be good place for life?
By the CFC stuff, I meant this: http://btcbase.org/log/?date=17-09-2013#319090
>> But then you need to build some structure to protect, maintain and upkeep it.
> You used to, back in the gold days, have to have people guard it. Bitcoin solves that problem nicely. I am perhaps missing the gist of your Russia reference ?
LOL, so bitcoins don't need to be guarded (or they can without human control)? Do tell. And once you invest them into anything you have to guard the investment, no? Yes it's true bitcoin may make good chunk of banking and financial sector obsolete. But they won't stop age-old yearning to invest and to that end, new industry with its inefficiencies will inevitably emerge to enforce rent will be extracted.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
The only thing that comes to mind is that Babbage quote, re the wrong numbers, and this is because I can't come to imagine the confusion of ideas that's at work here. What of all that has something to do with what I'm saying, and where exactly ? Pick one spot and illustrate it so maybe I can follow the rest.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
When one reads this blog he gets his mental foundations rustled.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Heh. So let's pick the (perhaps) easiest argument, expense to guard bitcoins vs. gold. Most safe (while still liquid enough) thing is perhaps brain wallet, the ability to carry it inconspicuously is clear advantage. But as soon as there is any adversary that knows you have them, any major difference vanishes.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
How do you mean any major difference vanishes? Gold is a physical object at all times. Bitcoins have no physical existence. This difference is still there.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
You do have a physical existence (despite some btctalk noobs insisting otherwise). The hardware that you use with brain- or any other wallet has physical existence and needs to be kept secure, too.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
jurov: Rectothermal Cryptoanalysis?
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Electrons have mass.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
But the gold is the gold. The Bitcoins are no particular electrons.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
That aside, consider the other points. At issue in my comment wasn't whether people do or don't do their homework. At issue was whether people that don't do their homework organise towards that goal. That's the point of the comparison, this is wht it says
Discussing whether the first set of kids failed to do their homework because they were sick rather than lazy is not germane to the distinction proposed. The distinction is all about organised, marauding stupidity, the sort that aims to replace clear labeling of its failure with some sort of discussion of the environment, the old "who dunnit? not me!" pony.
Homeworks aren't optional, they're mandatory. This mandate may not be eschewed in any way and through no means, irrespective what the subject thinks, or likes to think, or prefers to represent he's thinking on the topic.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
@pletzalcoatl: We are here comparing need to guard bitcoins vs.gold, not the stuff they are made from. Just imagine instant and cheap teleportation of gold is invented. But it would still need to be stored somewhere (bitcoin private keys do, too) and it would still have an owner that can be subject to various unpleasant things in order to separate the stuff from him/her. Maybe someday http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/The_Luggage will exist and alleviate the need to guard one's property, but likely not soon.
@Mircea: OK this slipped me and got sidetracked. Yes, the stupidity does this. But I'm deeply sceptical about claims like "we have the tool to completely dismantle and thoroughly castigate the statal edifice of stupidity.", especially when supplanted with claims that bitcoins don't need to be guarded like gold. Homeworks may be mandatory in theory, but despite I do try, am staunch realist and see many people get away without - thus I think the theory doesn't match reality.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
But instant teleportation HASN'T been invented. And quite probably can't be invented, for very good physics.
You are saying wood = hamburger, same thing. Just imagine we invented a holy blessing that made wood chewable. What sort of nonsense is this?!
Thursday, 19 September 2013
So you're skeptical. Nothing wrong with that, at all. Being skeptical does not cast a shadow on the proposition you're skeptical of, either, it's just sane mental behaviour.
Whether people get by/away without homework is immaterial. In principle any embryo could get away with failing to close its neural tube. Wouldn't make a very good baby, in the end, but it would definitely be able to get away with it.