Posts by mike805@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AwT8UmFUJEBWIpE9Fw by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T20:01:31Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
@cjd @kaia @mrsaturday @sj_zero It's pretty unlikely that bitcoin was allowed to get as far as it has, without them having their hooks in it.BTC is lousy transaction money, and all the proposals to fix that essentially create a fiat banking system on top of the blockchain.There are huge early wallets that have been idle for years.The people who own the Fed probably own those, and will therefore own the Bit-Fed.BTC would be treated like hard drugs unless they had plans for it.
(DIR) Post #AwTCTD9lhB7kzd3p68 by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T20:21:25Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd @kaia @mrsaturday @sj_zero Lending at interest does not create the money to pay the interest. That money only shows up later when the interest is paid and spent.That is why such a system produces either real economic growth, constant inflation, or a boom-bust cycle. It cannot run at a steady state.If you cannot create more BTC then you will get the boom-bust cycle. They had that in the free banking era. Other things will then have to be introduced as monetary base.
(DIR) Post #AwTCVA16L95Tpmw6t6 by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T20:23:33Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd @kaia @mrsaturday @sj_zero This would parallel the "monetize both gold and silver" argument that raged during the free banking era. They badly needed more monetary base and they could not mine fast enough. With BTC you will not be able to mine at all, so whoever holds the physical BTC will be the lords of all.Except the banking cartel won't let it get that far. They would foment a war first, if it came to that. And it might.We need a clear distinction between money and credit.
(DIR) Post #AwTEPs2JxlFKWu70c4 by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T21:11:28Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd @kaia @mrsaturday @sj_zero Agreed, it least it restrains the government.However, this is a math problem and we have computers now. We should be able to solve it. There has been deliberate confusion injected into economics. The few who understand the problem are profiting from it.We need a big discrete event simulation of the economy, so all the proposed alt-money schemes can be tested out.Econ now is like medicine before clinical trials. Bleeding and leeches.
(DIR) Post #AwTGrQC7Gw1KCCxVNA by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T21:30:05Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd @kaia @mrsaturday @sj_zero Then the question becomes how do you put that unit inside of a feedback loop so it maintains a fairly constant value over time, and nobody can screw with it for political and financial gain.For that you need multiplayer games with human participants and real money up for grabs.Bitcoin does not have that feedback loop, which means it cannot be the single base of a monetary system for long. With gold and silver, high prices motivated the miners.
(DIR) Post #AwTOzd99nbOOJh03NI by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-07-24T23:03:33Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero @kaia @cjd @mrsaturday Ok read that. You're on to the general idea of we need a feedback loop to regulate the money supply.There are a bunch of alternative money schemes proposed since the Depression. Heinlein laid out one of them in For Us The Living, which initially got me interested in this.Multiplayer games and discrete-event simulations are the new way to test them out and see what works. Heinlein did not have that.
(DIR) Post #Ax46hmSs0417g3tZSq by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-08-11T15:52:12Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero Look at the institutions that decide what movies get made, and to a lesser extent, books get published. (Most of the book authors probably have movie rights in mind anyway.)Those institutions all have psychopathic dominance hierarchies. In general I think technology creates dominance hierarchies. Even when the people who invented the technology did not want to do that, it is hard to prevent.
(DIR) Post #AxiToFMFYfvyIJFRlw by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-08-31T03:00:39Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero Or on the other side, a lot of people have taken a good look at the state of things and said, why make more of this?People need a belief in the future, and that has been systematically destroyed.
(DIR) Post #AyVHCquwjg8uijOfeS by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-09-23T16:23:17Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@BasedLunatic @EdBoatConnoisseur@poa.st Oddly enough, cocaine is still theoretically a prescription drug. It was used as a dental anesthetic well into the 20th century.
(DIR) Post #AybtznYYyzyFh0S9p2 by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-09-26T21:20:06Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero It would definitely work as effective birth control! Anyone taking such medicine will absolutely not be having children.The side effects would be unpleasant, however.
(DIR) Post #Ays1FpRXXmSwNz7NA0 by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-04T15:43:02Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero @Ballerina @DeWalt This is just like when a city has a budget fight. The first things the bureaucrats cut are the fire department and the libraries.It's an extortion racket. Give us more money every year, or we let you burn.
(DIR) Post #AzLz8WBqMDTvToxaXA by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-18T15:43:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@philip Open source has its roots in religious do-good philosophy. There are some problems the market can solve well (making computers) and some it cannot (making good software tools.)The original complaint was that tools such as compilers were unaffordable, and should be free. That has been solved.
(DIR) Post #AzRT1MuQQy5T5G7SuO by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-21T15:43:41Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero Cables and small things like that are their profit margin. That and mobile phones where they get a commission. No profit in TVs any more.I miss Fry's because they had that sort of thing at a reasonable price.
(DIR) Post #AzTli2NapDMRM7B5mq by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-22T21:01:53Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero Yup. There are a lot of people who will argue that "need is a legitimate claim on resources." They do not seem to understand that they are arguing for slavery."I NEED my cotton picked!" was precisely the argument of the people who started the Civil War.
(DIR) Post #AzXXlThD69OeDcwKmW by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-24T16:43:55Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero @nicholas There was a fellow called Selco who survived Yugoslavia and wrote about this.He said stockpile hard liquor. It will be in demand, can be traded for anything, and is also a disinfectant.Also butane lighters were valuable. One person made his living refilling them.You can buy most of the common antibiotics for fish, but they are the same pills. Those will have trade as well as survival value.Crypto's use case is getting your money out during an embargo.
(DIR) Post #AzYlc9CbW6KUZL1raC by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-10-25T04:28:46Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sun The person on the right believes in an external purpose for human life. The one on the left does not.
(DIR) Post #AzpvnGZKrnjuxd4hai by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T03:48:30Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@p @thatguyoverthere This is called the Dunning-Krueger Effect. It's been studied. Dumb people think they are more competent than they are, while capable people think they are less competent than they are.
(DIR) Post #AzqpbvRudzC3hslv3Q by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T21:37:06Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@thatguyoverthere Heh, before I read the last line I thought, doesn't Epstein have an island he can use?
(DIR) Post #B06vJvPw5bcOOqaEJE by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-11-10T18:22:52Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero Once you needed a hard drive for updates, and a network connection, a console had all the components of a PC.So a console that plays games as good as PC games, costs as much as a PC. The only possible advantage you can gain is using ARM for better performance per watt, and Apple is already doing that in their laptops.Effective DRM was the other selling point of consoles (for developers) but networked multiplayer games cover the piracy issue.So consoles have no advantage now.
(DIR) Post #B06wvWwNdpeDReFpgW by mike805@fosstodon.org
2025-11-10T18:41:13Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sj_zero So you're saying that adblocked users don't show in the stats at all? That's interesting.Ad market stats are well known to be cooked beyond recognition.Probably in the past Google was charging advertisers for those ads and just making a point to not notice that they failed to play.They are probably facing a lawsuit or a big advertiser rebellion, and are now forced to make their stats somewhat honest.uBOrigin for the win.