deevolution

Are we witnessing the end of free markets? Or the growth of decentralization? These sorts of moves are making a very strong case for decentralized platforms.

Retweet is more on brand.

Bookmarking this one.

Would this make https illegal??

I also have a lease in NYC set to expire in September and plan not to renew it in favor of moving back home to Colorado. My hope is I'll be able to find remote work and pay off my student loans in one year while COVID blows over. No reason to pay exorbitant rent prices in a city where I cant take advantage of any of the benefits bc of the lockdown. I'm thinking this will be a nice retreat into nature.

I wonder what the nutrient composition was for watermelons before they were transformed into giant sugar orbs.

Bitcoins are represented as integers. A whole Bitcoin is 100MM satoshis.

Typedef int64_t CAmount;

Static const CAmount COIN = 100000000;

Static const CAmount MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN;

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/src/amount.h

A welfare state isn't necessary if people save aggressively like in Singapore. People are actually required to save something like 35% of their income and their employers have to contribute an additional 15%. Some welfare exists but only for special circumstances like for the needy or disabled. Simply telling people to save more wouldn't cut it in America. If we end welfare like the Republicans want, I think we would need a government mandated savings rate or employment matching program similar to Singapore. We also need to go back to a gold standard and end inflationary fiat money - this is exactly why people dont have a rainy day fund / have no incentives to save in the first place. Its left the individual and the family vulnerable, fragile, and it has lowered our time horizons and corrupted our institutions and increased our dependence on the government.

A deflationary money would incentivize more careful investment and consumption, rather than rampant malinvestment and wasteful consumption which is detrimental to our health and our environment.

I suggest taking a look at the dragon portfolio

https://taylorpearson.me/thedragon/

The basic idea is that you create a balanced portfolio of assets that are negatively correlated with each other so that, over a very long time horizon , your wealth retains its value even in the face of uncertainty, black swan events, and volatility. An example would be owning an equal proportion of stock, cash, bitcoin, gold, fixed income, commodities, and volatility. (Harder for the average person to get exposure to commodities and volatility - but I think bitcoin checks those boxes).

Edit: include original paper that describes the portfolio by Christopher Cole: https://docsend.com/view/taygkbn

This is why people should use P2P exchanges like Bisq or localbitcoins. The moment you transfer your coins to an exchange is the moment you lose control.

Online class is suitable for a range of courses, but not all. Specifically lab classes where equipment is required. You can't have a remote lab class, it's impossible. Students should absolutely be reimbursed for such cases.

It's not an either or scenario. Government is doing a great job right now by providing stimulus money, something that bitcoin absolutely would not be able to do. But at the same time this government issued fiat is not really your money. The government regulates how you use it, they manipulate the supply, and banks decide how much you can spend and they do whatever they want with your deposits. Bitcoin offers real monetary sovereignty. Your bitcoin wallet is your very own bank. You actually own your money. The other great thing about Bitcoin is that no one is forced to use it; it's up to you.

The dollar is already digital, but I'd rather live in a world with a predicatable money supply than not.

Even development is not really centralized because anyone can create a fork. But that doesn't mean your fork will have any value - users have to decide that it's valuable. Bitcoin is an ecosystem.

VR facial expression and body language is still pretty low fidelity, but the technology is going to continue to improve. Most of the tech for capturing facial expressions exist already so it's a matter of integration.

For me the current tech is sufficient for office style social interactions, but maybe not suitable for everyone just yet.

These are definitely valid concerns but usually the way changes happen is slowly and then suddenly all at once like we are witnessing with COVID-19 or as we saw with the transition from horses to automobiles, and from blockbuster to netflix. Technology is an incredible force and slowing it down is hard. Ultimately it will come down to which companies, bussinesses and people display the most adaptability.

I think alot of people will want to go back because they've now associated working remotely with being in an isolated jail cell. Also I'm sure couples and people with kids are ready to jump out their windows.

I wont be going back to the office for a number of reasons, however, and I think everyone should boycott the office as well. Weather you want to work in the office or not should ultimately be the employees choice.

1. Commuting pollutes.

2. Commuting is lost time. Almost a month of lost time every year.

3. Office spaces are expensive. Without them, companies would have lots of extra cash. Ideally that extra cash goes to wages or hiring.

4. VR workplaces can be and will be a sufficient substitute. You can get about the same quality of social interaction + more in VR as you can in meat space. Its a different experience and until you try it you aren't really entitled to an opinion.

5. You can go to the gym whenever you want (assuming businesses open up again).

I'm sure there are other benefits that I'm missing.

I absolutely won't be going back to the office, even if it costs me my job.

Why would the loans be high interest? Fed interest rate right now is almost 0%. In some countries the interest rates are below 0. Why do banks have the special privelage of barrowing at this rate but people don't? Its a scam!

Seems like the US should have UBI at this point. How can the purchasing of junk bonds be justified but not a UBI? Give every citizen a fed bank account, type in some numbers and poof! 2k/month.

I wonder if viruses will adapt to this hostile social distancing climate.

So far, the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us that People, rather than Consumption, matter most.

We need consumption to support people, yes, but Economic expansion and increasing consumption can't go on infinitely.

Most people shouldn't be able to afford a car - they should be taking public transit - but they can obtain one because they take out loans.

The american fracking industry shouldn't exist, but it can because it has access to cheap, infinite lines of credit.

Our health suffers for it.

So many people and businesses are able to live beyond their means because of access to credit. If we eliminate the ability to create credit, then consumption would drop to a sustainable level and pollution would also drop and we would see an end to wasteful businesses, products, processes, and ways of life.

"someone leaping to cataclysmic conclusions based on early figures is no more substantive than another person dismissing the whole thing as nothing major"

The potential downsides for "dismissing the whole thing as nothing major" are a lot higher than "leaping to cataclysmic conclusions". Better safe than sorry. Better to be prepared than unprepared.

When will corporations, which are effectively treated as people, be placed in jail and or executed?

I think we should replace handshakes with bows, but that would probably never fly in America.

And this is a part of normal functioning american politics. The manufacture of consent, as Noam Chomsky described.

Andrew yang offered Americans 1k/month... maybe he should have offered 1k/month in booze, opioids and football tickets instead

"Individuals and Interaction" over "Process and Tools" doesn't seem like a great idea when developing software that handles life or death scenarios. Boeing, being the finatialized zombie company that they are now though have probably run some economic analysis and determined the optomal time to test / cost of life ratio. They must have determined that the cost of adequately testing their software is waaaaay more expensive than losing an astronaut here and there or some plebian passengers.

We're essentially living under techno-feudalist system. I don't see breaking up Big Tech's monopoly as fixing this. There needs to be a fundamental shift away from centralized platforms to decentralized p2p platforms. That's the only real way to rebel against the current system of exploitation.