they don't create anything. they move money around and call it work. it's not work, it's gambling, and it's a shell game that eventually blows up and hurts those of us interested in actually leading productive lives that actually produce things
and i don't have anything against gambling. if you want to hurt yourself by investing your money in bubbles of greed, go right ahead. but these assholes never stop with just their own money. their modus operandi is gaining trust they don't deserve in order to get more leverage, to therefore invest more money they don't have in yet riskier and riskier schemes. the lifeblood and hopes of entire countries and the well-being of solid productive companies, in the pursuit of castles in the sky, are then ruined when the bubble inevitably pops
time and again throughout history, they take us down with them. they don't just hurt themselves
what i want is an economy with rules to forebear these endless bubbles and pops. and it begins with rules that seals out this psychopathic behavior of gaining confidence by appealing to human weaknesses, rather than actually working and making something
costa rica's famous nonmilitary has to with the unpopularity of a costa rican military dictator who was overthrown in the 1940s. the military was hated as a source of the dictator's support. so the military was "disbanded" to much fanfare (and little substance): you see, of course, costa rica DOES have a military: law enforcement, foreign peacekeeping troops, etc. the famous propaganda that you believe is just an entertaining narrative of the reaction of the people and politicians of costa rica to the military in the 1940s, due the hated deposed dictator. the myth has no reflection in reality
and you forgot another great myth: the amish. it's easy to preach nonviolence when one in embedded in the middle of a militaristic country: your peace is provided for, so you don't have to provide for it. your peaceful philosophy is therefore a parasitical arrangement with your host country, not a whole, genuine philosophy that can stand on its own. for example, if you were to transport the amish to say, the caucasus mountains, one or two things would happen:
1. the extinction of the amish 2. the all-new improved well-armed amish
likewise, costa rica benefits from the usa's umbrella interest in keeping the status quo in latin america. it's easy to have a lackadaisical military if your peace is guaranteed by someone else. for example, if nicaragua or panama went nuts and started making inroads into costa rica, costa rica would beg the usa for military aid, and/ or bulk up it's existing military
peace is not a static state of being. peace is a balanced state of tension between armed foes. war is a disruption in this equilibrium that is then restored. the goal of maintaining peace is to not have any sudden shocks to the status quo
you will never, ever, have a world where peace is simply a static state of being that requires no armed maintenance. why? human nature is why
show me a place where everyone is unarmed and peaceful, and i'll show you a warlord's pillaging grounds
sorry, but this is reality. stop asking for things that don't exist, and never will, as long as human beings are human beings
how large is this beowulf cluster in Library of Congresses?
a philosophical primer on money for bitcoin morons
on
Bitcoin Price Crashes
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· Score: 0
what bitcoin wants to be, what it wants to do with the idea of money, is actually antagonistic with the way money is supposed to work in society. because IN society is the only way money ever works: even gold has no meaning without other human beings who desire it. if you have a pile of gold, and you are starving, you're doomed. you can't eat it. so what is the intrinsic "value" of gold after all? none, really
bitcoin is a philosophical failure, and is doomed, except for the temporary enthusiasm of a bunch of people who don't even understand what money really is
the more well-functioning, well-policed, transparent, and rich, the society, the more integrity there is, the more confidence there is, and the more value your money has
the simple point is: money IS society. money is an abstract representation of a wealth of a society. everything else is tomfoolery for idiots who don't understand how their fate, and their wealth, is tied inseparably to the society they live in. it is a form of delusion to imagine oneself an island. unfortunately, many idiots do. you're not. sorry. the cash in your pocket is your bond to your society, not your freedom from it
part of rupert murdoch's IQ lowering propaganda empire
and no, this isn't a swipe at conservativism, it's actually a swipe at china's power:
The Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy and conservative bias. In 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review opined that "the New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem – a force for evil."[31] Perhaps the most serious allegation against the Post is that it is willing to contort its news coverage to suit Murdoch's business needs, in particular that the paper has avoided reporting anything that is unflattering to the government of the People's Republic of China, where Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television.[32] Ian Spiegelman, a former reporter for the paper's Page Six gossip column who had been fired by the paper in 2004,[33] said in a statement for a lawsuit against the paper that in 2001 he was ordered to kill an item on Page Six about a Chinese diplomat and a strip club because it would have "angered the Communist regime and endangered Murdoch’s broadcast privileges."
WASHINGTON—Accuracy in Media (AIM) is urging a full inquiry into a report that a Saudi billionaire caused the Fox News Channel (FNC) to dramatically alter its coverage of the Muslim riots in France after he called the network to complain. The Saudi billionaire, Al-waleed bin Talal, is a friend of News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch and controls an influential number of voting shares in the company.
“This report underscores the danger of giving foreign interests a significant financial stake in U.S. media companies,” declared Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media.
The controversial comments came at an Arab media conference featuring representatives of Time magazine, USA Today, PBS, The Wall Street Journal, and other news organizations. The conference and the Saudi Prince’s growing influence in News Corporation are among the subjects of a new December-A AIM Report that has just been posted at the AIM website (http://www.aim.org). The report raises the specter of Arab money influencing News Corporation and other U.S. media companies.
worst case scenario is the natural cooling will mask the manmade warming, lull unless into false complacency, and at some point in a century or so, we'll be dealing with a much warmer/ violent atmosphere
we're also beginning to push up against the limits of agriculture in terms of economically supporting the worlds population. combine that with climate hijinks, i figure somwhere in the next century, we're going to have some serious problems
of course, we can have less kids and control our carbon output, but this of course requires foresight and will power. so we're doomed. or rather, a whole lot of poor people ("screw 'em! their poor!" they said, as if they are immune to effects of that instability)
money is an abstract representation of a wealth of a society. as such, it needs integrity. this integrity is derived from transparency. without integrity or transparency, "money" loses meaning, and therefore value, because people lose confidence in a society's money: they don't want to invest meaning and value in it if they can't depend upon the idea that it is worthy to do so. and without integrity and transparency, there's no way to track or understand a currency's value. it's like wanting absolutely security with absolute convenience: on some level, convenience and security are antagonistic concepts, you make compromises and tradeoffs
likewise, what bitcoin wants to be, what it wants to do with the idea of money, is actually antagonistic with the way money is supposed to work in society. and IN society is the only way money ever works: even gold has no meaning without other human beings who desire it. if you have a pile of gold, and you are starving, you're doomed. you can't eat it. so what is the intrinsic "value" of gold after all? none, really
so bitcoin is a philosophical failure, and is doomed, except for the temporary enthusiasm of a bunch of people who don't even understand what money really is
the more well-functioning, well-policed, transparent, and rich, the society, the more integrity there is, the more confidence there is, and the more value your money has
which brings us to an argument about the tea party assholes who are antagonistic to the idea of investing in the general health and welfare of society, from the healthcare of their fellow citizens to the infrastructure of their rail systems. even though such an investment pays dividends, increasing your personal wealth, in concrete and abstract ways, and not investing in the health of society reduces the value of your money. because money loses value if society loses value. but i digress
but regardless, yes, a piker is someone stingy. such as with money, affection, concern... or with the adequacy of words?
gee, imagine that!
are we beginning to understand the wide fluffy world of language and how words can have evolving, overlapping and complicated meaning?
and that to sit there like a nitwit and insist on mediocre narrow minded definitions as the most important topic of discussion, only makes you out to be socially inept
jesus fucking christ, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you PIKERS
if the conversation strays into the prerogatives of the socially inept and their pinheaded obsessions about word choice adequacy, i might get pissy. sorry
yes, and if we say we live in a democracy, we get the pikers who have to insist it's a constitutional republic
and if we say something was hacked, we get the pikers who no, the system was cracked, or socially engineered
yes, pikers, we KNOW THAT ALREADY
hey pikers: the general meaning of a word often strays from narrow definitions. don't think you are in a position to correct that. understand you are in a position to learn, for once in your life, what common usage means
it's really not complicated. it is no more complicated than using the same username/ pword on every site: an algorithm is just a few small simple steps to remember
i've championed this before, and i don't why it doesn't get more press
instead of the same username pword for every site, make your uname/ pword a derivative of the website name or theme, and your own personal salt
the rules could be as quirky and arcane as you want
for example:
username is the first 3 letters of the website, plus your birthyear, plus the cousin whose name sounds most like the website you're visiting
password is the street you grew up on, minus the last 3 characters and plus the last 3 characters of the website, plus the songtitle from the group you like whose letter starts with the third letter of the website name, rotated 3 characters... blah blah blah
or whatever
the point being, we can't remember all your usernames and passwords, but with a quirky enough personal algorithm combining
1. a characteristic of the website, and 2. some personal arcane trivia,
all you have to do is remember your personal algorithm
and then you can get into every site you've ever visited, not worry about trying to remember anything, and not really worry about being easily tracked or cracked. as long as your personal algorithm is indeed truly quirky and personal enough that even with knowledge of 3 of your username/ passwords from 3 different sites, a potential hacker/ cracker would be utterly mystified as to a pattern
i really don't know why this idea of remembering just one personal quirky algorithm isn't more widespread
Slashdot Mirror
if you give it to a bunch of corporate suits and a squadron of rewriters, you get something boring like green lantern
if you give a fistful of money to a director you trust, you get christopher nolan's the dark knight. that's the way!
or... you may get ang lee's hulk. oh, oops
so you don't want to trust quirky directors with tons of money... but you don't want boring vomitus from a squadron of executives
so... split the difference. give jon favreau a wad of cash, but you attach some strings and keep yourself in the loop, and you get iron man
hollywood: you have to get the director with some quirk and passion. so sorry martin campbell, you've arrived at hired hack status
yes
they don't create anything. they move money around and call it work. it's not work, it's gambling, and it's a shell game that eventually blows up and hurts those of us interested in actually leading productive lives that actually produce things
and i don't have anything against gambling. if you want to hurt yourself by investing your money in bubbles of greed, go right ahead. but these assholes never stop with just their own money. their modus operandi is gaining trust they don't deserve in order to get more leverage, to therefore invest more money they don't have in yet riskier and riskier schemes. the lifeblood and hopes of entire countries and the well-being of solid productive companies, in the pursuit of castles in the sky, are then ruined when the bubble inevitably pops
time and again throughout history, they take us down with them. they don't just hurt themselves
what i want is an economy with rules to forebear these endless bubbles and pops. and it begins with rules that seals out this psychopathic behavior of gaining confidence by appealing to human weaknesses, rather than actually working and making something
costa rica's famous nonmilitary has to with the unpopularity of a costa rican military dictator who was overthrown in the 1940s. the military was hated as a source of the dictator's support. so the military was "disbanded" to much fanfare (and little substance): you see, of course, costa rica DOES have a military: law enforcement, foreign peacekeeping troops, etc. the famous propaganda that you believe is just an entertaining narrative of the reaction of the people and politicians of costa rica to the military in the 1940s, due the hated deposed dictator. the myth has no reflection in reality
and you forgot another great myth: the amish. it's easy to preach nonviolence when one in embedded in the middle of a militaristic country: your peace is provided for, so you don't have to provide for it. your peaceful philosophy is therefore a parasitical arrangement with your host country, not a whole, genuine philosophy that can stand on its own. for example, if you were to transport the amish to say, the caucasus mountains, one or two things would happen:
1. the extinction of the amish
2. the all-new improved well-armed amish
likewise, costa rica benefits from the usa's umbrella interest in keeping the status quo in latin america. it's easy to have a lackadaisical military if your peace is guaranteed by someone else. for example, if nicaragua or panama went nuts and started making inroads into costa rica, costa rica would beg the usa for military aid, and/ or bulk up it's existing military
are other corporate psychopaths, it's hard to feel sympathy
that being said, when there is no justice, people turn to the vigilantes
banks are open season as far as the court of public opinion is concerned, as long as us taxpayers are footing the bill for their irresponsibility
so fire away, hooligans. you have my approval
peace is not a static state of being. peace is a balanced state of tension between armed foes. war is a disruption in this equilibrium that is then restored. the goal of maintaining peace is to not have any sudden shocks to the status quo
you will never, ever, have a world where peace is simply a static state of being that requires no armed maintenance. why? human nature is why
show me a place where everyone is unarmed and peaceful, and i'll show you a warlord's pillaging grounds
sorry, but this is reality. stop asking for things that don't exist, and never will, as long as human beings are human beings
how large is this beowulf cluster in Library of Congresses?
what bitcoin wants to be, what it wants to do with the idea of money, is actually antagonistic with the way money is supposed to work in society. because IN society is the only way money ever works: even gold has no meaning without other human beings who desire it. if you have a pile of gold, and you are starving, you're doomed. you can't eat it. so what is the intrinsic "value" of gold after all? none, really
bitcoin is a philosophical failure, and is doomed, except for the temporary enthusiasm of a bunch of people who don't even understand what money really is
the more well-functioning, well-policed, transparent, and rich, the society, the more integrity there is, the more confidence there is, and the more value your money has
the simple point is: money IS society. money is an abstract representation of a wealth of a society. everything else is tomfoolery for idiots who don't understand how their fate, and their wealth, is tied inseparably to the society they live in. it is a form of delusion to imagine oneself an island. unfortunately, many idiots do. you're not. sorry. the cash in your pocket is your bond to your society, not your freedom from it
dear anonymous coward:
the only thing i get from your post is that you have a serious stalking problem
part of rupert murdoch's IQ lowering propaganda empire
and no, this isn't a swipe at conservativism, it's actually a swipe at china's power:
worst case scenario is the natural cooling will mask the manmade warming, lull unless into false complacency, and at some point in a century or so, we'll be dealing with a much warmer/ violent atmosphere
we're also beginning to push up against the limits of agriculture in terms of economically supporting the worlds population. combine that with climate hijinks, i figure somwhere in the next century, we're going to have some serious problems
of course, we can have less kids and control our carbon output, but this of course requires foresight and will power. so we're doomed. or rather, a whole lot of poor people ("screw 'em! their poor!" they said, as if they are immune to effects of that instability)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_mandala
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandcastle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_sculpture
etc.
healthcare is best served by the government, not because it does it well, but because it does it better than the free market
unless you prefer social darwinism?
you fail to understand what "choice" means when you have no choice at all, such as with healthcare expenses
money is an abstract representation of a wealth of a society. as such, it needs integrity. this integrity is derived from transparency. without integrity or transparency, "money" loses meaning, and therefore value, because people lose confidence in a society's money: they don't want to invest meaning and value in it if they can't depend upon the idea that it is worthy to do so. and without integrity and transparency, there's no way to track or understand a currency's value. it's like wanting absolutely security with absolute convenience: on some level, convenience and security are antagonistic concepts, you make compromises and tradeoffs
likewise, what bitcoin wants to be, what it wants to do with the idea of money, is actually antagonistic with the way money is supposed to work in society. and IN society is the only way money ever works: even gold has no meaning without other human beings who desire it. if you have a pile of gold, and you are starving, you're doomed. you can't eat it. so what is the intrinsic "value" of gold after all? none, really
so bitcoin is a philosophical failure, and is doomed, except for the temporary enthusiasm of a bunch of people who don't even understand what money really is
the more well-functioning, well-policed, transparent, and rich, the society, the more integrity there is, the more confidence there is, and the more value your money has
which brings us to an argument about the tea party assholes who are antagonistic to the idea of investing in the general health and welfare of society, from the healthcare of their fellow citizens to the infrastructure of their rail systems. even though such an investment pays dividends, increasing your personal wealth, in concrete and abstract ways, and not investing in the health of society reduces the value of your money. because money loses value if society loses value. but i digress
my head just exploded in meta-irony
but regardless, yes, a piker is someone stingy. such as with money, affection, concern... or with the adequacy of words?
gee, imagine that!
are we beginning to understand the wide fluffy world of language and how words can have evolving, overlapping and complicated meaning?
and that to sit there like a nitwit and insist on mediocre narrow minded definitions as the most important topic of discussion, only makes you out to be socially inept
jesus fucking christ, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you PIKERS
if the conversation strays into the prerogatives of the socially inept and their pinheaded obsessions about word choice adequacy, i might get pissy. sorry
sorry pikey
you think common usage is for morons?
you realized you just defined yourself as socially inept, right?
yes, and if we say we live in a democracy, we get the pikers who have to insist it's a constitutional republic
and if we say something was hacked, we get the pikers who no, the system was cracked, or socially engineered
yes, pikers, we KNOW THAT ALREADY
hey pikers: the general meaning of a word often strays from narrow definitions. don't think you are in a position to correct that. understand you are in a position to learn, for once in your life, what common usage means
now that's hot
your average user isn't going to do sha256 hashes though
but, skipping that step, it's still a workable framework
this is a good criticism. you are correct. different policies and standards complicates the algorithm and is discouraging
it's really not complicated. it is no more complicated than using the same username/ pword on every site: an algorithm is just a few small simple steps to remember
i've championed this before, and i don't why it doesn't get more press
instead of the same username pword for every site, make your uname/ pword a derivative of the website name or theme, and your own personal salt
the rules could be as quirky and arcane as you want
for example:
username is the first 3 letters of the website, plus your birthyear, plus the cousin whose name sounds most like the website you're visiting
password is the street you grew up on, minus the last 3 characters and plus the last 3 characters of the website, plus the songtitle from the group you like whose letter starts with the third letter of the website name, rotated 3 characters... blah blah blah
or whatever
the point being, we can't remember all your usernames and passwords, but with a quirky enough personal algorithm combining
1. a characteristic of the website, and
2. some personal arcane trivia,
all you have to do is remember your personal algorithm
and then you can get into every site you've ever visited, not worry about trying to remember anything, and not really worry about being easily tracked or cracked. as long as your personal algorithm is indeed truly quirky and personal enough that even with knowledge of 3 of your username/ passwords from 3 different sites, a potential hacker/ cracker would be utterly mystified as to a pattern
i really don't know why this idea of remembering just one personal quirky algorithm isn't more widespread
thank you
and an art best forgotten
now we must listen to the 14 year olds tell us how easy it is to weaponize
wait, you can still remember things?
(i keed, i keed ;-)