Split from: Any Ukrainian riders?

[samzed]

On 2/24/2022 at 11:39 AM, Silverfish said:

Its the norm throughout history. 

The US is a country of war. War is necessary for the economy to function. Sad.

[Funky]

59 minutes ago, samzed said:

The US is a country of war. War is necessary for the economy to function. Sad.

"Economy" is going to shit........ All over the world. Sooner or later it all will collapse. Governments will be burned and so on.. Mark my words.

[0000]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:44 PM, samzed said:

The US is a country of war. War is necessary for the economy to function. Sad.

War cheapens the lives of the men in particular who often are coerced or even forced into such a ridiculous theater.

How often have we heard the words "if it saves one life" in the last 2+ years, and yet just how many of the very same people today are happy to look the other way as we "print" off some more debt-dollars to send the most cowardly (and thus effective at turning human beings into meat and infrastructure into rubble) weapons overseas? Speaking of cheap lives, can you guess how many veterans commit suicide each year in the US alone?

Quote

If the eight states represented a national rate, study authors said, approximately 24 veterans die each day by suicide, as determined by a coroner or medical examiner, compared to the VA’s average of 17.7 veteran suicides per day.

24 * 365 = an estimated 8,760 veterans suicides per year! What a legacy. "Thank you for your service." Cheap words to paper over obvious devastating exploitation.

Do people even understand what it is they fight for when they are coerced into these kinds of brother-on-brother engagements as we are witnessing in real time? Freedom right? What freedom?

Which country in the last several years has respected your right to bodily autonomy in the face of massive social pressure to conform with using your body as an experimental pharmaceutical testing/dumping ground? That kind of freedom? Honestly, what does it matter which oligarch rules over them whether their name starts with a Z, a P, or even a B. It's not like any of our current crop of global leaders respects any kind of inherent right or law explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution historically thought of as the pinnacle of political achievements.

No, those rights are flagrantly violated on the daily, freedom of speech (cancelled), freedom of assembly (lockdowns), freedom of movement (restriction passports), freedom of the press (Assange and many other examples), freedom to petition the govt (outright FOIA denials), separation of powers (record amounts of anti-Constitutional executive orders), right to privacy (smartphones and apps), due process and right to speedy public trial (Jan 6 prisoners held in solitary confinement for months also violating cruel and unusual punishment), I could go on ad infinitum. The contradictions and hypocrisies today emanating from our ruling class assholes, no matter your country, pile higher than Mount Olympus and shine so bright now that we are all at some kind of risk of radiation poisoning without the bombs dropping these elites are threatening us with.

There's a choice every man has to make when these shit heads, these cretins lower than the pond scum that feeds the aquatic scavengers in the most vile and dirtiest of waters, when these types leverage the unthinking and uncaring masses of humanity to mount social pressure in all the ways they possibly can to get you to conform to their agenda of violence. Their agenda to get you, their would-be pawns, to sacrifice potentially everything that you are for their arrogant and self-serving decrees. It is a choice that should be as clear as day, it is 2022 after all and we all have access to a veritable Library of Alexandria, 50 times over full of information to figure out the (this) score; don't fight for them.

And not just them, but don't fight for a society that props up such corrupt human garbage, these types that irresponsibly, casually, and criminally offer up the welfare, the infrastructure, and the very heritage/inheritance of their people as targets, as war fodder in such ridiculous spectacles as they pretend to be the titans of power they believe themselves to be in their own mind. No matter the consequences, the answer should be resoundingly and unequivocally NO.

Go fight your own wars you fucking psychopaths.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Vanturion
for clarity and precision

[Tawpie]

8 hours ago, Vanturion said:

Go fight your own wars you fucking psychopaths.

I'm actually with you on this, problem is things get really cloudy when you know people personally affected.

Humans. We seem so focused on royally forking it up. I still don't get it.

[Funky]

13 hours ago, Vanturion said:

War cheapens the lives of the men in particular who often are coerced or even forced into such a ridiculous theater.

How often have we heard the words "if it saves one life" in the last 2+ years, and yet just how many of the very same people today are happy to look the other way as we "print" off some more debt-dollars to send the most cowardly (and thus effective at turning human beings into meat and infrastructure into rubble) weapons overseas? Speaking of cheap lives, can you guess how many veterans commit suicide each year in the US alone?

24 * 365 = an estimated 8,760 veterans suicides per year! What a legacy. "Thank you for your service." Cheap words to paper over obvious devastating exploitation.

Do people even understand what it is they fight for when they are coerced into these kinds of brother-on-brother engagements as we are witnessing in real time? Freedom right? What freedom?

Which country in the last several years has respected your right to bodily autonomy in the face of massive social pressure to conform with using your body as an experimental pharmaceutical testing/dumping ground? That kind of freedom? Honestly, what does it matter which oligarch rules over them whether their name starts with a Z, a P, or even a B. It's not like any of our current crop of global leaders respects any kind of inherent right or law explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution historically thought of as the pinnacle of political achievements.

No, those rights are flagrantly violated on the daily, freedom of speech (cancelled), freedom of assembly (lockdowns), freedom of movement (restriction passports), freedom of the press (Assange and many other examples), freedom to petition the govt (outright FOIA denials), separation of powers (record amounts of anti-Constitutional executive orders), right to privacy (smartphones and apps), due process and right to speedy public trial (Jan 6 prisoners held in solitary confinement for months also violating cruel and unusual punishment), I could go on ad infinitum. The contradictions and hypocrisies today emanating from our ruling class assholes, no matter your country, pile higher than Mount Olympus and shine so bright now that we are all at some kind of risk of radiation poisoning without the bombs dropping these elites are threatening us with.

There's a choice every man has to make when these shit heads, these cretins lower than the pond scum that feeds the aquatic scavengers in the most vile and dirtiest of waters, when these types leverage the unthinking and uncaring masses of humanity to mount social pressure in all the ways they possibly can to get you to conform to their agenda of violence. Their agenda to get you, their would-be pawns, to sacrifice potentially everything that you are for their arrogant and self-serving decrees. It is a choice that should be as clear as day, it is 2022 after all and we all have access to a veritable Library of Alexandria, 50 times over full of information to figure out the (this) score; don't fight for them.

And not just them, but don't fight for a society that props up such corrupt human garbage, these types that irresponsibly, casually, and criminally offer up the welfare, the infrastructure, and the very heritage/inheritance of their people as targets, as war fodder in such ridiculous spectacles as they pretend to be the titans of power they believe themselves to be in their own mind. No matter the consequences, the answer should be resoundingly and unequivocally NO.

Go fight your own wars you fucking psychopaths.

And what can one do... Nothing. Enjoy your mundane life. (Laugh's depressedly.) The world, people, everything is shit and pointless.

[samzed]

For the most part, things in my little township are good. Everybody's got a job that wants one. We have zero homeless. Nobody is fighting in the streets. We are doing good for the most part, despite our high suicide rate, which is really depressing. If a person gets a bad reputation in such a small town, then the social pressure can make a person want to kill themself, but we are working on it as hard as we can. We try to prevent school shootings as much as possible. There is a national guard field with military vehicles and rocket launchers and stuff, but that stuff isn't in use right now. I think the media makes us scared, but a lot of folks here in Douglas Wyoming don't even watch much TV.

[0000]

On 10/14/2022 at 9:40 AM, Funky said:

And what can one do... Nothing. Enjoy your mundane life. (Laugh's depressedly.) The world, people, everything is shit and pointless.

I feel that way sometimes for sure, often even.

On the other hand, I can see the merits of expending effort every once in a while to try and affect change even in the smallest of ways. For example, advising against family or friends if they are thinking of joining the meat grinder we call the military perhaps preventing an unnecessary and misdirected sacrifice (especially true if you are in the US considering no other country realistically can threaten us into a defensive war because of M.A.D., the insane military budget, and other factors). Here you really can say "if it saves one life" and actually mean it. Having some literature ready to back up an anti-war opinion helps too. That study I linked on Veteran suicides might make the difference in some naive youth who believes in the absolute myth of personal glory in militaristic ventures, particularly in the age of tanks, missiles, and drone strikes.

Quote

Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction

Could start there, or anywhere really, the enemies of the people (mass media) spearhead every campaign to affect public opinion through obvious (especially in retrospect) lies and outright propaganda whether it's a war agenda or something else like a Pandemic with murder hornets on top of that (remember that one, LOL). There's so much material out there now thanks to the net, it's easy to amass a broad collection of the lies the Empire has relied on to engage in the most profane acts (like torturing so-called terrorists in the form of waterboarding and acts of sodomy at Guantanamo a decade ago which everyone has conveniently forgotten about today).

Ruling through lies and fear as opposed to truth and voluntarism, that's how the show in the West, or rather everywhere you have a monetary system based entirely upon fraudulent and thus un-repayable debt, goes on. Totally my opinion, but if you corrupt the money, is it any wonder everything else goes to shit and becomes corrupt as well over time? Considering how money runs everything, I don't think it is. I really don't think it is.

In any case, I believe things can get better, however, it requires people to first understand that they live in an entire system based on lies that goes all the way to the very thing they use to assign value to things. Things like corruption in the form of endless "aid," weapons, and war are all downstream consequences of this fundamental lie IMO. And if people don't want to hear it because they simply can't be bothered to be made uncomfortable (this being the greatest sin in our matriarchal society), then fuck their feelings and proceed anyway. To be black pilled is to not give a shit about one's status in a broken society, you might as well play to the advantages of this position to do some good every once in a while.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Vanturion

[0000]

12 hours ago, samzed said:

For the most part, things in my little township are good. Everybody's got a job that wants one. We have zero homeless. Nobody is fighting in the streets. We are doing good for the most part, despite our high suicide rate, which is really depressing. If a person gets a bad reputation in such a small town, then the social pressure can make a person want to kill themself, but we are working on it as hard as we can. We try to prevent school shootings as much as possible. There is a national guard field with military vehicles and rocket launchers and stuff, but that stuff isn't in use right now. I think the media makes us scared, but a lot of folks here in Douglas Wyoming don't even watch much TV.

I saw the same too this summer stopping in some of the smaller towns in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, etc. Many, many pockets where life gets on just fine. There's lots of wealth and infrastructure tied up in this country, and there's a long way to fall before some of the nice places resemble some of the not-so-nice places. Hopefully that never happens. And if more people are putting away their Television Programming set, that's definitely a positive step.

That said, I did see a lot of postmortem hero-warrior worship, however, going through many of these towns, particularly around Memorial Day. So many of these places acting as feeders for the MIC machine and vanishingly few seemingly publicly questioning the state of things. Perhaps after enough blood is spilled from all of those veterans suicides, these families will eventually start to question whether offering up their sons and daughters as potential war fodder is the noble act they may have thought, or just what foundational values actually survive in the country today and which are being respected and protected by the leadership their progeny would then serve.

Things change, and I think its better people adapt to what is rather than what used to be. Not that I have any say in that, I can only speak my mind. Anyway, I liked hearing how the day-to-day is going from your corner of Wyoming.

[samzed]

It makes me wonder how affected the small towns in the Ukraine are actually being disturbed. And, Ukraine is also a country of war. It has been since like the 1200's or something. I would like to note that suicide is often times the final outcome of severe depression in addition to the cognitive dissonance returning veterans often face. That is why I always thank a vet for his/her service. Often, they will express some cognitive dissonance from guarding poppy fields and the like.

[0000]

I don't know. It's probably not great, but a quick and dispassionate look at the economy tells some kind of story:

2022 isn't over yet and Ukrainian GDP hasn't collapsed. In fact it's still higher than 5 of the last 10 years which is interesting. What exactly  this means for the average citizen or the rural people, I don't know. Because this place is geographically so far away from me, I can afford and prefer not to get involved or invested.

Historically, this view was the dominant American viewpoint as well, non-intervention. I believe it still is, it's just that more and more people have stopped identifying as American in favor of being a global citizen as that is what our undeserving leadership class signals as the "proper" way of being. Not just that, it is the mind program that is being packaged and taught in our tax-funded indoctrination centers schools to the young impressionable minds as well.

And so with my dispassionate, anti-war, and non-interventionist viewpoint, I tend to view the conflict in Ukraine as an ideological war first and foremost. Specifically, the elites of the involved countries are pitting their ideas of Globalism in total opposition to one country's Nationalism or Nationalist interests and are paying for the current fight by waging the lives and livelihoods of the people incidentally living in the battlegrounds as acceptable sacrifices causalities of this ongoing ideological war.

A question few ask: would the lives, livelihood, and cultural identity be better respected under the leadership the American state department installed in the Ukraine from 2014 onward, or would the peoples inside the geographies in contest be better off under the Russian nationalist oligarchy? A simple question, perhaps a complex answer depending on your own understanding, ideological alignment/preference, and understanding of geopolitics.

The thing is, under globalism, here in America we already know what to expect as we are currently living through the transition to this kind of political regime and we can get a good taste of the consequences from the now infamous publications authored by World Economic Forum associates. With nationalism, you may get your despots, oligarchs, and tyrants without effective separation of powers, but I think in even the worst of cases at least you have some kind of ruling class that recognizes and respects the basic welfare and identity of the people they oversee. What I see from our Global citizen leaders is nothing but contempt for people who demand respect of their Constitutional rights and would prefer that the rules that apply to all equally, rather than the hierarchy of dominance that they've clearly established in which the same rules that apply to us never apply to them.

And yet, people are still signing up to fight for their top-down master-slave, zero fundamental human rights, global citizen vision of the world.

15 hours ago, samzed said:

I would like to note that suicide is often times the final outcome of severe depression in addition to the cognitive dissonance returning veterans often face. That is why I always thank a vet for his/her service.

Indeed. I once got the story of my retired neighbor who shared his experiences serving in the sham of the Vietnam War. I spent the whole day with him, and while I wish I could remember his entire story, perhaps it is better I didn't. I drank with him that day, all day, and since I'm not a drinker, I ended up with alcohol poisoning for a couple days afterwards. But from the pieces I remember, at one point he was telling of the chaos and friendly fire that would occur and while he didn't say it explicitly, I remember getting the overwhelming sense of how absolutely disposable the decision makers must have felt toward the servicemen to lead men into such results. While this neighbor wasn't the type to intellectualize about his experiences, and he was able to successfully compartmentalize the exploitation for decades, having a family, relationships, and eventually retirement--I think these experiences did catch up and he eventually and predictably ended up drinking himself to death.

Whether or not a person is capable of thinking about these issues deeply, I think regardless of intellectually capability, most people inherently know when they're being exploited, especially when their good intentions are used for evil. I believe the veteran suicide rate is one resoundingly clear indication of the absolutely broken state of our society as well as huge red flag signaling repeated exploitation. At a base level, men have evolved with a desire/need to protect and it is the perversion of this otherwise honorable trait when it is used for dishonorable outcomes which, failing strategies of compartmentalization, leads some men to despair.

I don't know if thanking a vet today is the right thing to do really. I certainly don't feel thankful that they offered themselves up as pawns to one of the least deserving generations of leadership that does not respect any real American traditions or rights, nor do they offer a means of honorable service IMO.

Collectively, it is their service enables the empire to wage wars of aggression engaging in "regime changes" or coups of other countries' democratically-elected leaders (look up where the term Banana Republic came from if unaware of the term's origin), the theft of natural resources, and the endless search for additional exploitable labor forces. To me, "thank you for your service" would simply be another lie, especially if I was on the other end having served and awakened to the reality of that service only sometime after. Sympathy definitely, but I don't think saying "what you are supposed to" has any gravitas.

People can come back extraordinarily disconnected and unable to reconnect or relate to people who haven't been exposed to the same or similar traumatic experiences. It would be better if we could find a way to just stop altogether making more of these people.

[samzed]

47 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

A simple question, perhaps a complex answer depending on your own understanding, ideological alignment/preference, and understanding of geopolitics.

I don't know ... both the Ukraine and the United states enjoy having actors for presidents.

 

48 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

The thing is, under globalism, here in America we already know what to expect as we are currently living through the transition to this kind of political regime and we can get a good taste of the consequences from the now infamous publications authored by World Economic Forum associates.

the less global dictation, the better, and the more local freedom the better throughout the globe

54 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

People can come back extraordinarily disconnected and unable to reconnect or relate to people who haven't been exposed to the same or similar traumatic experiences.

listen to warpigs as I read and reply

It certainly seems like we are on the verge of some kind of clone war with genetically modified superhumans and drones.

[0000]

8 hours ago, samzed said:

both the Ukraine and the United states enjoy having actors for presidents.

Exactly, which is, or rather should be, extremely revealing as to the real responsibilities allowed to the occupiers of that position. Primarily, putting on a show for the many rubes who refuse to recognize that the President selects, in the "professional" capacity anyway, do nothing more than what they are told to do. The American president casting couch situation is well known here, but probably known to a lesser extent for anyone else following along in America is the somehow popular at the time (I assume) then comedian President select Zelensky (2 mins). Linking the now infamous clip of Zelensky practicing his shtick prior to his more recent theatrical performances at the UN begging for the means to bring death to his ("our" YGL overlords') enemies.

8 hours ago, samzed said:

the less global dictation, the better, and the more local freedom the better throughout the globe

It's what we want (and vote for), it's not likely what we'll get.

8 hours ago, samzed said:

listen to warpigs as I read and reply

It certainly seems like we are on the verge of some kind of clone war with genetically modified superhumans and drones.

Nice, I like that one.

Realistically, I fear the implementation of CBDC, central bank digital currencies more than any other possible dystopian future. Not only do I think it's likely a majority of people will be naive enough and/or be made fearful enough through the next global crisis scam (like, for example, a deliberately triggered crisis of confidence in our current "basket" of fiat currencies) to go along with this prescribed monetary system, but once implemented and established, the ruling classes will then be well positioned to have full spectrum dominance which will eventually, over time, reduce everyone else not in the ownership class to a state of absolutely slavery. This form of "money" represents the death of every hard won liberty humanity has achieved and a real return to kind of antiquity where the majority of humans were simply counted as tenants, as the personal property of their local lord. In other words, if you don't do what they say, you can be canceled from the economy and starve.

"You'll own nothing and be happy", they're already priming and normalizing their future vision for us. This aspirational re-framing of complete disenfranchisement of the "global citizen" citizen didn't come no where and hasn't been promoted to the public without reason.

If CBDCs are allowed by the public to take root, then getting a fine from Paypal for $2,500 for "misinformation" in the land of "free speech" will be the least of our problems.
 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Vanturion
missing words

[samzed]

Well, If we are in a simulation I bet Elon Musk is the player of this one.

[0000]

On 10/17/2022 at 6:31 PM, samzed said:

Well, If we are in a simulation I bet Elon Musk is the player of this one.

I'd take that wager. Not that I'm keen on the thinking about the nature of reality in that way, but I think there's plenty of evidence out there that the good (and bad) press he constantly gets resulting in his "Iron Man"-like perception, among other things, isn't the least bit accurate.

In fact, an in-depth look at the very well-connected huckster extraordinaire just came out the other day (1 hour), I'd highly recommend it for anyone still stuck in the star-struck phase of hero-worship toward those like Elon who are more connected, have far greater access to credit, and subsequently aren't subject to the same laws that the rest of us working-class schlubs are. ^{Did anyone say "funding secured, $420"?}
 

Even the people who are adamantly pro free speech, which includes the right to offend others using words online (shudders) or disseminate their opinions contrary to perceived and declared "experts" granting all individuals the opportunity to determine for themselves what is and isn't misinformation, are likely going to be disappointed by Elon's upcoming over-lording of Twitter (1 min clip).

Just look at the submissiveness in our would-be technocratic overlord Elon here to this un-elected European bureaucrat/envoy of Ursula von der Leyen (and presumably the agenda of the European Commission). Nary a complaint in how the EU Commission will now be dictating how "American" social media platforms regulate and police free speech in what has become the new town square, the net. Just full agreement and support among various odd hand signaling and awkward/uncomfortably submissive body language.

Not a good look for the Main Character IMO, to say nothing of what will be lost as all of these highly cooperative transnational technocrats put their plans in motion to effectively eliminate the protections provided by our Section 230 legislation and drastically increase monitoring and policing of speech (and the thought that follows) among many other wonderful changes.

[samzed]

You make several good points. How do you feel about Vitalik Buterin's work?

[0000]

17 hours ago, samzed said:

How do you feel about Vitalik Buterin's work?

I'd have to admit that I am not intimately familiar with all or even most of his efforts, but if you're asking how I feel about cryptocurrencies in general, that I can answer.

At it's heart, I would define cryptocurrencies as an attempt to provide alternatives to the current mediums of exchange that are all in various states of basically catastrophic failure across the world. Since money was taken off of long-established commodity-based standards and replaced with debt, the ensuing fiat currencies have been continually devalued to the point at which using it as a measure of value today requires incredible feats of financial manipulation and outright fraud as the levels of outstanding debts denominated in these currencies have grown so large that it would be impossible for all of the debtors to be paid back by the economies they rely upon to maintain such valuations. Many financial games, incredible levels of corruption, and geopolitical manipulations ensue to continue to prop up and exploit this ridiculous house of cards. In comes blockchain.

On the surface, cryptocurrencies seem to have some great benefits to the liberty-minded individual, such as the ability to quickly settle payments peer-to-peer without a middle man as well as provide a very secure and accessible digital store of value. However, they come with some serious drawbacks that I have personally become much more sensitized to living under what I would now call a totalitarian state of governance in the United States.

1. Full transparency of all of your financial interactions through the blockchain. The notion "if you're not doing something wrong, you don't have anything to hide" has been proven so utterly wrong and devoid of even the smallest amount of imagination in recent years especially. Fact is, radical and highly politicized changes to rules, laws, and definitions are an extremely likely possibility in the years ahead, and there is no limit to the risks you could potentially incur in the future by making public such intimate records as ALL of your economic transactions if you're using most forms of crypto as money.
    
2. Infrastructure security. Basically, everything we do through our smartphones or computers leaves digital footprints and creates opportunities for profiling, tracking, manipulating, and even exploiting individuals. Adoption of cryptocurrencies, while they are portrayed as freedom enabling, are, in fact, also enabling the opposite by requiring the internet to function. At the end of the day, you, the individual, don't own the infrastructure (satellites and cables) through which the digital transactions occur, and it is reliance on this medium itself that is not always a strength, but can very easily become a weakness under the right or wrong conditions. It's not just centralized data hubs that can be compromised at the state level, it's also down to individuals' digital devices which can compromise your digital financial security as well.
    
   1. People generally understand how to secure their physical assets/money from physical threats; however, many people are very bad (and will always be bad) at digital security. If the individual doesn't fully understand and own this process, they are straight back to reliance on a centralized hub for securing your digital assets defeating one of the main purposes of crypto in the first place, decentralization.
       
3. Getting locked into the digital economy. The more people who adopt the digital economy and ecosystem over the physical alternatives, the greater control the people, organizations, and governments that hold power over those required mediums will have over ultimately your ability to transact through those mediums as the physical alternatives such as cash, physical metals, and other physical assets are de-emphasized or even done away as a side effect of the adoption transition over time. Just look at big tech social media and payment services, how they operated 10 to 15 years ago, and how they operate and who they cancel today as an example of how control manifests over these important mediums of communication.
    
4. Rule changes and the instability of digital products. In my very limited interest following crypto trends, didn't Etherium switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake? This being a prime example of the inherent instability of digital assets IMO. With precious metals such as gold for example, you can't just change the rules, update the software, or even distribute a bunch more units of CBDCs to select peoples' accounts because an authority, or a voting majority decides it to be so. There's are natural limits to resources such as this which inherently constrain fraudulent accounting whereas there are no such restrictions with digital products (or currencies denominated in debt for that matter). Things change, people change, rules change, and those changes are inherently unstable and thus carry a constantly changing level of (political) risk.
    
5. Valuation. Currently, all value assigned to crypto is determined at the exchanges at which they trade and are intrinsically linked to the fiat currencies they are exchanged for and valued in. While this is the same for any other commodity, those traded on the stock market for example; cut them off from the exchanges (which is always a risk with regulations and government rule changes), and what is the individual left with? An entry in a ledger on some specific crypto blockchain. So what. In the absence of fiat, what is the measuring stick by which we are suppose to use to assign some value to your units of crypto. Will people accept them in trade? At what cost? How is value to be re-established in a trust-less environment? Does a digital unit of essentially nothing do it better than a physical unit of precious metals that required a real proof of work (mining + energy inputs) to acquire?

Personally, I think cryptocurrencies are, more than anything else, a beta-test that the international financial community provided to us anonymously (oh the mysterious pseudo-entity Satoshi was it? LOL) to test the waters of how aspects of the Central Bank Digital Currencies they've always been planning on implementing would work out in practice. That is, after they allow their ongoing fraudulent fiat currency scam to fail completely which isn't like to happen until they're ready with this financial transition. I think the adoption of crypto is also indicative of a general theme we're living through in which the machines we use to tame the environment for our convenience are being used, more and more, to tame, control, and enslave us instead.

IMO, cryptos have always been a trojan horse for this planned financial eventuality, and I believe the more people who transact and check their 1040 tax form "at any time did you receive crypto," the more evidence our financial overlords have that people are comfortably transacting and assigning value to something that intrinsically shouldn't have any value whatsoever. A rich mans trick, perhaps the ultimate one, as I think the consequences of the public accepting the Central Bank Digital Currency paradigm is the equivalent to the enslavement of humanity. In short, under the CBDC paradigm which I think is only empowered by interacting with cryptocurrencies, 100% control of our deposits is within the grasp of the issuing centralized bank, including our access to those funds and who can be allowed to receive them. If my view is correct, it's ironic that the so-called liberty-granting cryptocurrencies as they've been promoted might instead be serving, ultimately, as a precursor to the opposite, our collective enslavement.

Of course, this is all speculation and deduction, but that's how I see it.

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Vanturion

[samzed]

You brought up a lot of issues. I would start with the problems of gold. Roosevelt forced the citizens to sell their gold to the government, then the price of gold was raised. Gold mining is controlled. I am unsure about gold’s status in this modern era. I’d rather have some bitcoin or etherium.

[0000]

That's true, but like anything else, that anti-constitutional decree required compliance to be effective. People can choose not to comply, and anecdotally, I read that the compliance rate in America for turning in their gold was only around 40%. Making a law or issuing a decree does not mean it should be automatically and unthinkingly followed, particularly in this day and age.

In a similar vein, if a government arbitrarily decides on a valuation or price for gold (or any commodity really) in an attempt to make or force the market rate, people can again choose not to sell it at that arbitrary price. Owning the physical asset ultimately gives people the power to voluntarily choose to participate or, more importantly, not participate in an economic transaction, and if a powerful player in that market decides to use the force of law to manipulate free market action, then people don't automatically have to comply. Maintaining this option is what I see as the definition of freedom, voluntary non-coerced participation.

Besides enabling complete transparency of all of your economic transaction that can always be reconstructed by anyone with access to the blockchain giving anyone the power to identify any blockchain participant and subsequently all of their transaction history forever, the biggest sticking point with crypto for me is the valuation problem.

Without fiat being pumped into all of these cryptocurrencies, how do you establish their value?

Currently, valuation of cryptos is 100% dependent on maintaining access to the on and off ramps that crypto exchanges that are permitted to provide. Permission which is also completely dependent upon the whims of governments. Take away that permission and what is a crypto owner left with?

The scarcity of their units of crypto, which itself is maintained through the consensus of a 51% majority of miners. A blockchain mining infrastructure that I believe has become increasingly centralized over time, and subsequently, more easily subject to the permissions or allowances of government decrees IMO. Blockchain mining infrastructure which has a propensity to be captured by those with greater amounts of fiat credit to throw around to buy said productive mining assets for as long as they are perceived as such.

So what if that 51% mining majority, by hook or by crook of forces of centralization, decides to change the state of the blockchain in a way in which you, as a crypto-owning stakeholder, fundamentally disagree? Well you're shit out of luck, it's a classic case of tyranny of the majority. There is no protection for the minority against the majority in that scenario. With a physical commodity such as gold, if a majority decides to change the rules in a way you don't like such as centralization forking, inflating the supply, or forcing a redistribution for stakeholders in some kind of decay transfer mechanism mirroring a kind of crypto-UBI, you can simply choose not to participate in that market without affecting your physical holdings. The power of voluntary non-participation is greatly reduced by the inherent structure of blockchain maintenance and the ease at which other digital crypto alternatives can supplant your preferred blockchains.

Another benefit besides the thousands of years of human history in which gold has been recognized as money over and over again by civilizations seeking to establish a basis of trust for the issuance of their currencies, is that it is possible to create a physical reality-based valuation more closely linked to human economic activity. In other words, besides physical scarcity, gold has a real proof of work value based on the energy costs and human labor costs of mining and refining. Therefore, it's scarcity is fundamentally tied to 2 key factors of economies, energy and human labor. On the other hand, blockchain is really only tied to electrical energy production costs. I think this is an important distinction with perhaps philosophical implications as it basically excludes human labor from the process of establishing underlying value.

Even scarcity should be emphasized as another divergent property as it is a physical reality-based scarcity vs an arbitrary digital one. The amount of gold on the planet is an unchangeable factor that was fixed by the creation of the universe, not set by a computer program maintained solely through majority consensus. In other words, you can't print more gold, but you can print crypto by changing the rules with a 51% majority blockchain mining stake.

On 10/31/2022 at 2:41 AM, samzed said:

I am unsure about gold’s status in this modern era. I’d rather have some bitcoin or etherium.

That's cool with me, people are free to make up their own minds about such currency alternatives and to choose to participate or not regardless of whatever rules or decrees intervening governments decide. The speculators who got in early and benefited from the massive explosion of fiat to pump up the valuations of cryptos got to experience an incredible transfer of wealth without producing anything of value to make peoples' lives better in the real economy. Personally, it's hard for me not to be at least a little envious of those who were savvy and lucky enough to get in on such a once-in-a-lifetime gravy train!

Personally, having had more time to think through the implications of crypto as a replacement for money or as a store of wealth in comparison to precious metals, well, I think I've made my own position clear already. For transferring money overseas in the short term, some crypto's might be attractive as a financial tool, but IRS tracking, as well as all of the Know Your Customer big brother stuff makes even this use far less attractive than say doing the exact same thing in 2014 without all of the government imposed oversight friction.

[samzed]

2 hours ago, Vanturion said:

Besides enabling complete transparency of all of your economic transaction that can always be reconstructed by anyone with access to the blockchain giving anyone the power to identify any blockchain participant and subsequently all of their transaction history forever, the biggest sticking point with crypto for me is the valuation problem.

It's human nature to display wealth as a form of social status. The public nature of crypto blockchain could become another way by which individuals display their economic status. Or, show how thrifty they actually are with what they have earned, to let others know they are good citizens and good stewards.

[0000]

For some, on the other hand it is also human nature to hide wealth as public displays of wealth incur certain kinds of risks as well. Very wealthy people and celebrities tend to employee private security to minimize some of these kinds of risks.

I align more with the camp of thinking that it's none of your business, speaking generally and not specifically to you I mean. This goes quadruple regarding for government level inquiries as it's the principle of the matter. I see you live in the United States as well so I would point to our 4th Amendment right:

Quote

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In other words, making all of your stored "wealth" and economic transaction public (if you choose to use crypto in such a capacity), in my opinion, is voluntarily throwing away your 4th Amendment right with regards to unreasonable searches as information about your wealth, who you've dealt with, and when all of those dealings occurred is automatically made available to the public by the very nature of the Blockchain itself once your wallet(s) have been de-anonymized.

So crypto as a technology, excluding Monero-type cryptos, which I think still require using some kind mixer/tumbler, a VPN, and probably other privacy-minded strategies to attempt to maintain some kind of anonymity with your crypto transactions, is fundamentally compromised when it comes to the expectation of economic privacy against interested, motivated, and skilled parties/investigations.

As long as you're fully informed what you're buying into, you're free to choose such circumstances. Considering our government does not respect and actively violates many of our constitutional rights as a matter of course, it's not the future I would choose to live in to willingly give up on financial privacy, individually and collectively, and empower further and future abuses by the state.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Vanturion

[samzed]

Trade is basic to human culture. In a way, barter is more fair than the use of currency. It's good to use the right kind of trade for the right situation. If a person wants to hide how they are spending their money, being the curious person I am, I would wonder why. Socially responsible people don't squander their assets. Cash is good if a person wants to maintain privacy, which is most certainly their right. Barter is good if local people want to compensate each other in a fair way locally. Crypto is a good way to trade internationally with strangers. Having some precious metals is always good. Credit cards work for speeding the spending process. It's good to take hold of the one without letting go of the other.