Charities

[Clinamenic]

It's only through grey market use that a lot of these coins developed value imo

ETH's rise was clearly tied to the markets like Empire

What's Empire?

 

[wg-]

What's Empire?

Sources Say World's Largest Darknet Empire Market Exit Scammed, $30 Million in Bitcoin Stolen – Bitcoin News

One of the world’s largest darknet markets (DNM) Empire Market allegedly exit scammed after the marketplace was taken offline.

news.bitcoin.com

ETH was the main coin for Empire. It was worth very little when it started up

 

[Clinamenic]

all states have some element of separation from business, as well as systems to protect them from founders' whims (ie succession), they can act as checks on wealth, but only if they make the effort

This I agree with, from what I understand. But because the foundational texts are nonetheless written by subjective and partial parties, they would seem to necessarily contain avenues for bias and the self-interest of the more enfranchised to be codified into law, which I think you would obviously agree with.

And, however naively, I am a believer in democracy, at least relative to what other forms of government I am aware of. And, which may be even more naive, I think the U.S. democracy maintains sufficient dynamism to incrementally assert a more just society, in manners compatible with national economic growth.

 

[Clinamenic]

Sources Say World's Largest Darknet Empire Market Exit Scammed, $30 Million in Bitcoin Stolen – Bitcoin News

One of the world’s largest darknet markets (DNM) Empire Market allegedly exit scammed after the marketplace was taken offline.

news.bitcoin.com

ETH was the main coin for Empire. It was worth very little when it started up

I believe the value is still primarily speculative, and substantiated to no small degree by illicit markets which are benefiting from the public sector's ostensibly limited understanding of this tech.

But, to state a trite sentiment in the culture of crypto, I believe in the tech, and I believe it can introduce avenues for financially incentivizing more just practices, i.e. potentially insurance issued on a blockchain supported by pertinent sensor data (which we can go into if you want).

We are still at the point where nations qua national economies are flirting with the notion of blockchain, and are learning about the current state of the tech as well as its potential development.

That said, there are major public sector and public-sector-adjacent figures who are themselves big believers in the tech, namely in how it can systemically remove friction, the cost of which is usually handed off to end users.

Which isn't to say that the only costs that can be shaved off are the ones that the major institutions cannot otherwise avoid, but also some of the ones that they exploitatively place on the helpless, i.e. certain debt arrangements.

 

[Clinamenic]

That said, there are major public sector and public-sector-adjacent figures who are themselves big believers in the tech, namely in how it can systemically remove friction, the cost of which is usually handed off to end users.

I have in mind Gary Gensler, current head of the SEC, and Jonathan Ehrenfeld of SWIFT. Both of those bodies I have an insufficient understanding of to elaborate how blockchain may be specifically utilized, but at the very least it will allow T-0 settlement with transaction fees that can be relatively negligible, depending on the sophistication of the algorithms.

Already that spares costs that are ostensibly passed on, or at least able to be passed on, to end users in our current arrangement

 

[sufi]

Who among us would say that monarchal systems are more just than capitalist democratic systems? Seeing as monarchal systems is yet another topic I lack sufficient familiarity with to speak of with certainly, I am instead working on another assumption, based on what understanding I do have.

That is, I could be wrong. There could be instances of equitable monarchies where the peasants somehow managed to practice oversight over the ruler, but rightly or wrongly that strikes me as farcical.

https://ophi.org.uk/policy/gross-national-happiness-index/

 

[Clinamenic]

I've only cursorily encountered the happiness index (I presume its the same metric that this article is about), but it does strike me as a step forward in terms of quantifying wellbeing and contentment. As it is, I doubt the metric is meaningful enough yet to be relied on as yielding policy-informing data, but I again I assert: baby steps.

 

[wg-]

I agree 100% that it has really versatile uses- stuff like VET is clearly great tech- but i have very little interest in those apart from exploiting dips and rises in the market and trying to spot laundering waves to jump on the back of

I used to contract for a firm who had made loads during the first tech boom, just playing the market before it crashed. This isn't that different to that really, apart from the ability to wash your money quite effortlessly

*

What was this thread actually about

 

[Clinamenic]

I started it initially to get recommendations on good/impactful charities, but just today I changed the focus to speculation about how a vast sum of wealth should be distributed for optimal social impact, should such a sum be earmarked for charity.

 

[Clinamenic]

I'm currently of the notion that eating the rich is not only an untenable course of action, but that even if it were tenable it would have a net-negative impact on humanity in relatively short order, i.e. barbarism.

 

[wg-]

Ah okay. Donate to your local food banks they're the ones who need your help the most

 

[Clinamenic]

I stand by, if even naively, the belief that technological advancement has had a net positive impact for humanity, while having more of a net positive impact on the 1%.

 

[Clinamenic]

Ah okay. Donate to your local food banks they're the ones who need your help the most

This I would second, from my limited volunteer exposure to such facilities.

 

[Clinamenic]

I think an increasingly just society is compossible with outlandish wealth inequality.

 

[Clinamenic]

That is, taking away the wealth of the 1% is not an end in itself, for me.

edit: speaking as an upper-middle class utopian whose living has been made for him.

 

[Clinamenic]

other_life is definitely going to be your forum nemesis,

the barbarian ideal

well shit ok since no one seems to give a shit about this i'll try something looser, nonspecific. the barbarian ideal in your life. communists are barbarians. civilisation presupposes a much longer history of high culture. it all goes in here... discuss.

dissensus.com

We did experience some discursive friction in that thread about the dialectic, nothing apparently substantive, but I think enemies are liabilities so I will opt for diplomacy.

 

[Clinamenic]

In the American spirit of nation-building, naturally. Informing external systems unto optimal interoperability, ideally for a multipolar system-of-systems.

edit: partial sarcasm.

 

[sufi]

I believe the value is still primarily speculative, and substantiated to no small degree by illicit markets which are benefiting from the public sector's ostensibly limited understanding of this tech.

But, to state a trite sentiment in the culture of crypto, I believe in the tech, and I believe it can introduce avenues for financially incentivizing more just practices, i.e. potentially insurance issued on a blockchain supported by pertinent sensor data (which we can go into if you want).

We are still at the point where nations qua national economies are flirting with the notion of blockchain, and are learning about the current state of the tech as well as its potential development.

That said, there are major public sector and public-sector-adjacent figures who are themselves big believers in the tech, namely in how it can systemically remove friction, the cost of which is usually handed off to end users.

Which isn't to say that the only costs that can be shaved off are the ones that the major institutions cannot otherwise avoid, but also some of the ones that they exploitatively place on the helpless, i.e. certain debt arrangements.

as soon as you mention "introduce avenues for financially incentivizing more just practices," the tech stops being a neutral impersonal tool, I'm not sure what it becomes though

 

[sufi]

I'm currently of the notion that eating the rich is not only an untenable course of action, but that even if it were tenable it would have a net-negative impact on humanity in relatively short order, i.e. barbarism.

it would be a wonderful jubilee of reconciliation and moral justice that would restore humanity

 

[Clinamenic]

it would be a wonderful jubilee of reconciliation and moral justice that would restore humanity

I fear what would happen if our leashes disintegrate too abruptly, which frankly I don't think is possible at this point, but I agree that a public beheading of a lineup of wall st. executives would likely yield a considerable release on behalf of the 99%, in a bipartisan manner no doubt.

That said, while I would not condone a beheading, I do think such a release needs to be had, for something needs to give.