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crypto is obviously equally opaque - that's one of its defining characteristics

so in other words, computational integrity means that the banks DB is public?

just turned 40, thank yo\u

the other big unknown is the unintended consequences of being drawn into some kind of conflict. even indirect involvement which seems like a massive win in the short to medium term can turn into a long term loss - consider Afghanistan, for eg.

basically yeah: we don't know what public opinion is, how it will react, or even to what extent it matters

no reason to expect that this is playing out in russian public opinion the same way it is as on our twitter feeds

harder to explain to whom?

even now russia has access via capital controls / financial repression to enough dollar liquidity to support the ruble:

presumably both. but then it's still an open question as to what the overall effect will be (e.g., suppose the ppl become alienated from the regime, but that the regime is independent of them and still able to function due to the ready availability of petrodollar or exporter dollar flows).

ultimately it's not a given what the effect of the sanctions might be. they might work as desired but they also might have the opposite effect. they dont seem to have been particularly successful in the case of iran, for example

the logic is: crash russian economy, turn ppl against putin, putin abandons war in ukraine. obvs there's two major issues there. what if crashing economy doesnt have that effect and what if putin doesnt depend on public opinion to prosecute the war.

so it is "about" the russian ppl, in other words

also, they're not really nth order effects. the *direct* effects on commodity and especially energy markets have been evident today

what then is the purpose of destroying their economy?

suppose we launched missiles at Russia. what effect would that have on russian popular opinion?

well, one obvious way is to make Russians feel as tho they're under attack and therefore band together

i think there are two problems with the sanctions regime the west has responded with: firstly, the sanctions might paradoxically strengthen putin; secondly, the sanctions might paradoxically weaken the alliance against him. a further problem is the increasing possibility of all sides being drawn...

coward!

my take: only way sanctions work is if they're so extreme they prevent russia from continuing the war in the next few weeks which seems unlikely (hopefully I'm wrong) it seems just as possible that sanctions create support for Putin and ultimately strengthen his routine locally at the same...

so where we at dissensus