gesticulator

Joined 13 years ago

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122
Submissions
47
Member since
Dec 14
meet.hn/city/us-Seattle
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Recent submissions

Comment · 3 years ago
This has to do with a web of relationships and risk tolerance, not some product set…
Comment · 3 years ago
I think you are looking for this teamblind.com
Comment · 4 years ago
Are they unable to tow it out of the environment for some reason?
Comment · 4 years ago
This quote is eerily similar to net result of one of the Four Pests Campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, where sparrows were targeted for extinction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

“Researchers also found that common birds from just 12 families, such as blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent—or over 2.5 billion birds—of total population decline. Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor.”

The result was a calamitous famine, and it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context.

Comment · 5 years ago
How many people are not working because they suddenly no longer have a reliable place for child care? Lots of jurisdiction's protocols will shut down day cares or in-person schooling for a week or more after a single case. In that environment, who are you going to get to take care of your child that may have been exposed?
Comment · 5 years ago
This post gets to the core that the relevant axes for belief in Bitcoin and decentralized crypto in general lie in "knowledge" vs "trust in the system."

The main issue I have here is that the knowledge bit glosses over the "high trust in the system/high knowledge" quadrant quite a bit. One perspective from those folks that's missing is that Bitcoin's day of reckoning will inevitably be if and when it becomes a material threat to the system, that the system itself will react to (1) suppress Bitcoin and (2) replace its own currency with one that re-establishes trust.

The history for currencies around the world broadly follow the pattern we're seeing unfold today: a "hard" currency becomes devalued, typically due to some event like war, loses trust, and the system replaces it with a new currency that can re-establish trust. Some examples are the greenback-dollar relationship, the mark-rentenmark-reichmark, and the 1994 Brazilian real.

The other shoe here is that, as part of the playbook for establishing new currencies during a crisis, the governments always suppress alternative currencies, whether those were bank-issued notes in the 19th century US, FDR's massive gold confiscation, or re-valuing debts in terms of the newly established currency - all options are in play, and there is basically nothing that the government will stop at to run it's playbook to stabilize the currency in crisis.

In that context, maybe the smart/high trust people think "Crypto is a cool technology, but it can be used to create the next central bank currency so why do I care about this one when anyone can create a new coin" and also consciously or unconsciously know that the government is going to take massive action to suppress a $1MM bitcoin.

Some good references for how currencies (and contract denominated in the currency, like debt & assets) evolve in various crises throughout history: "Principals for Navigating Big Debt Crises" by Ray Dalio, "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graeber, Perry Mehrling's course "Economics of Money and Banking."

Comment · 6 years ago
Comment · 6 years ago
Ok, I think we just disagree on what is journalism and that’s fine. The Opinion page is not journalistic, it’s just other people’s op-eds selected by an editorial board and said board is not immune from either bias nor criticism.

The rest of the paper is generally outstanding, though they have some high profile screw ups. Can’t trust anything 100% ever, but I don’t think this incident reflects on the rest of the paper. Regular NYT subscribers (myself included) already know what they’re getting in Opinion, and I personally think it’s trash.

Comment · 6 years ago
Precisely why it matters is that the debates you cite in the WSJ are in a completely different realm where you can have reasonable people disagree. I don’t think Cotton’s Op-Ed is novel territory for either the NYT or WSJ, but I think it’s a reasonable position that the NYT should not legitimize calls to violence as a resolution to an ongoing domestic issue.

The NYT operates on links, this is not cable news. Of course it will be shared on FB and elsewhere, so not getting your point at all.

As for the final point, I think there’s a reasonable debate to be had there! I don’t know exactly where I stand on it, I personally find the piece disturbing and it crosses the line in a functioning democracy. However, it certainly informed me beyond a doubt to Cotton’s and his colleagues’ opinions, so I just have to trust others felt similarly.

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