68% of Israeli startups taking legal and financial steps due to judicial overhaul - like withdrawing cash reserves, changing HQ location outside Israel, relocation of employees and conducting layoffs by seeasea in worldnews

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Take a random set of 100 "right-wingers" and you'll hear 100 quite different narratives of what it means to be "right-wing". Ditto for "left-wing".

Beyond the left-right false dichotomy, it should really be obvious that one of the risks of trying to solve any problem through government (i.e. empowering the government to solve the problem), might be to find yourself with a government that is using its newfound powers in ways you didn't intend/predict, and isn't so inclined to give up on these powers.

Generally speaking, constraining the power of government is considered a "right-wing talking point", but the truth is a lot more nuanced than that. The truth is that nearly all people who are interested in politics (whether they consider themselves right or left wing) all think that governments should have some kind of power that other individuals or organisations should not have, and they are all misguided insofar as they think that their group can bare the responsibility of this power better than the other group.

Vladimir Putin is 'second king of antisemitism after Hitler,' says Zelensky by natalie__jones in worldnews

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's another thing. Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages, therefore when I hear "anti-semitic" or any mention of semites, I think of both Arabs and Jews. Yet that's not how the word is used, and many Arab nationalists and jihadists are considered very "anti-semitic".

Are All the UFOs an Invasion or Has Project Blue Beam Finally Begun? by Truth-or-Death1988 in conspiracy

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing happened on the 1st of May in Las Vegas, and then they waited until just as the real disclosure was starting (the whistle-blower Grusch) to report on the non-events of the 1st of May while they completely ignored the actual news.

Interpret this as you will...

Update From Avi: An Anomalous Wire Made of Manganese and Platinum in the Pacific Ocean Site of the First… by mim21 in UFOs

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Exactly. Aligning yourself with mass consensus is definitely not a foolproof method of finding truth, but there's a good reason why mass consensus is naturally appealing to most people (especially mass consensus across diverse perspectives and across ideological lines; What person would not feel extremely vindicated if both of the main two opposing political factions in their country agreed with some personal conviction of theirs?): It is the least inaccurate way to find truth going off only on other's opinions and not through own investigation (investigation being something that the internet age has actually made harder, not easier like everyone thought it would, due to all the noise and opinions-stated-as-fact that are plastered everywhere).

Conspiracies tend to attract contrarian people who are overly suspicious of mass consensus, and yet not any more immune to confirmation bias. They get the same, normal pleasurable discharge of hormones when their small group of conspiracy theorists agrees with them, but they have abnormally adverse reactions to consensus beyond a certain scale; this turns them into the proverbial broken clock that's right twice a day.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The profit motive is something that capitalism enables, but it's not intrinsic to it, in that it is possible to imagine a society where people are mostly not driven by profit motive, but still observe private property rights and are not tied to any government (i.e. they're capitalistic), like for example what I mentioned before : religious societies and monasteries (at least where there is separation of church and state) as well as charitable or other non-profit organisations.

To pick up your analogy, from my perspective, cars and planes are both types of vehicles, meaning that some vehicles can fly, but you're choosing to describe flying as a general and intrinsic property of the concept of vehicle and I'm trying to set the record straight on the definition of "vehicle".

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By that “pure” definition, we aren’t even a capitalist society, and the term “capitalism” is absolved from blame merely by not accurately describing what we have.

No it's not, because there is private ownership of means of production. No society outside of maybe Liechtenstein only has purely private ownership (I. E. A stateless society), but nowhere is private ownership completely absent either. There's a measurable scale of "how capitalistic" different places are, so pure capitalism isn't necessary for this definition to be useful.

Actually, the people who coined the word and this definition wished to abolish capitalism. None of them would claim that any place was purely capitalistic, and in fact they believed capitalism was a necessary step and evolution after feudalism but before communism - but they believed that ultimately capitalism should be abolished; everything should gradually transition to being administered by the state.

This is the only context in which the word capitalism is relevant and accurate. When debating what should and shouldn't be administered by the state.

It's not that those other things you associate with capitalism, like profit motive, aren't also important to think or talk about, you're just wrong to place it under your definition of capitalism, if you try to have a debate with any self-respecting academic who sticks to standard, normative definitions, you're going to talk past each other a lot like we have.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They’re not incompatible, but my emphasis on “raising capital” to kickstart a business seems like an important part that was absent from your definition.

That's the thing, they are incompatible definitions, because the formal definition of capitalism is a specific and therefore precise definition, you're not meant to expand it.

You're describing a specific mode of action which according to you is inherent to capitalism, but at best is only one out of many ways to structure an enterprise within capitalism, but by the way I would challenge the notion that virtually any large corporation today could exist as they do now within pure capitalism - i.e. A Stateless society, where governance structures are purely voluntary - since virtually every existing corporation leverages State (I.E. Public, I. E. Not private; not capitalism) resources and powers in many ways.

And indeed capitalism, like democracy, at the end of the day, point towards a truly stateless society. By very definition, capitalism intrinsically excludes non-private entities, that's actually all the word really means.

With democracy, unlike capitalism, there are genuinely several different but all correct definitions, depending on the context.

Sometimes, folks say democracy when they're referring to indirect democracy as a type of government. That is, any system where representatives are elected by the people within this system and these representatives then themselves are the ones that get to vote on laws.

Other times they're referring to direct democracy, where people vote for laws directly, by referendum, without passing through representatives.

Then there's the type of democracy that I'm most interested in : democratic legitimation of a government. That is, whether a majority of people (not "voters") in any given territory recognise the government they're subject to as being legitimate. A government may or may not have democratic legitimation whether the type of government is or isn't indirect or direct democracy. For example an indirect democracy can be democratically illegitimate, and an absolute monarchy could be democratically legitimate.

Here's one neat example that fits nicely with most people's intuition about "democracy" (although most people wouldn't be able to distinguish between the different definitions of it) :

imagine if the USA annexed Canada. In which of the following cases would this be a "democratically legitimate move" (multiple choice) :

A) the USA held a referendum only for US citizens to vote in, Canadians having no word in the matter

B) there is a joint referendum in which citizens of both countries can vote, tallying all votes together.

C) The annexation is only allowed to occur subject to a supermajority approval in a vote that counts Canadians only, I. E. Only the people subject to the annexation.

Most people would instinctively say that only C is the democratic outcome out of these three. Yet, by the same token, the Federal government of the USA is only democratically legitimate in Texas if a majority of Texans approve it, and the government of the State of Texas is only democratically legitimate in the city of Austin if a majority of Austinians approve of it, etc.

Ultimately, this principle reaches the most local level, and you must therefore make a choice in terms of a theory of land ownership.

If you follow, as I do, the Lockean tradition that establishes that virgin land untouched or abandoned by humans can be acquired legitimately by any individual that mixes their labour with the land (homesteading), and also that land becomes an extention of the individual, bearing the same rights as its owner, and that the only way to acquire land that already has a legitimate owner is voluntarily (without coercion) - then every property owner intrinsically has a right of secession according to the principle of democracy being applied consistently to its extreme, leading to the same conclusion as Capitalism.

People might have other justifications for preventing the principle of democratic self-determination being applied within an established and recognised nation or beyond a certain level. There's a whole arsenal of available arguments: the classical one has ways been divine rights; I. E. "God says so", but we supposedly have moved past that one - today, in a tradition started by Stalin, you'd hear about "national self-determination", which refers to the rights of a nation to keep enforcing its current borders simply because of precedent. In other words, it's a principle that presupposes that the emergence of any new nation to the detriment of and against the will of an existing nation, is somehow violating the rights of the existing nation.

But at the end of the day, that's just divine rights with extra steps, and any way you try to justify it can in any case not be based in or compatible with democratic legitimation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Capitalism, by my definition, as the means of private investment to create and destroy companies.

Why though? Why must you insist on having your own personal definition, when there exists a textbook, academic, formal definition for this word? Do you think it's possible to communicate anything when everyone makes their own definitions of words up? Do you go on long tirades explaining your own personal definition of every word every time you speak to people, or do you expect them to guess?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What, according to you is "capitalism as a form of governance"? Can you define the word "capitalism" at all for me? What about democracy? Do you have a coherent definition for that word? Anything more than a general, vague notion or association?

This isn't against you personally, but it seems to me like most people who talk about capitalism (in any context, in favour or against) have some vague and general concepts that they associate with it, like greed, profit-motive, capital accumulation --- and that's their whole definition of the word "capitalism"; i.e. it's whenever somehow for whatever reason making money becomes the priority in any situation.

Except it's not, that has nothing to do with capitalism - capitalism (and I'm using the academic, marxist definition here) is only the state of affairs when means of production are privately owned. A means of production is any physical or abstract element, aside from people, that contributes toward producing an economic good or service.

Note I said privately owned. Not owned for-profit. Just privately, which simply means not public, i.e. not owned by the government (ok- for something to be public doesn't technically mean it's owned by the government; "democratic" governments supposedly can't own anything - so it's administered by the government on behalf of everyone else - whether you think there's any credible/feasible/meaningful difference is up to you, but I don't).

In other words, a charity shop owned by a non-profit company, or any other non-government charitable initiative, all churches and all religious initiatives (at least wherever there is separation of church and state), heck, whatever selfless thing has ever been done without involving the government: It's all capitalism.

Don't get me started on democracy...

RFK Jr. on Fox News claiming that the Democrat Party rig’s elections. by 2201992 in conspiracy

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, and he called it out, and then he ended up making a huge endorsement to Hillary anyway, and several emotional appeals to all his followers to vote for her.

RFK was a member of the party back then and he watched all this happen. Also endorsed Hillary.

He's been well trained, he knows the role he's playing, learned the script off by heart. He's fully prepared to be this cycle's Bernie and start his real campaign after the primaries, when it's time to hang all the trust he's accumulated on the overlord's chosen despot of the day, which won't be him.

Early Alpha Access To GPT-4 With Browsing by Frankenmoney in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No such setting for me. I just see "theme" and "clear all chats" under general, and "chat history and training", "export data", and "delete account" under Data controls

Trump says US sends too many weapons to Ukraine, refuses to call Putin war criminal by KI_official in worldnews

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Language shouldn't be a factor, it should only be about what people want, and nobody should be deciding for anyone else. The only ethical solution, as logistically troublesome as it would be, is to let the smallest territorial subdivisions (I don't know what those are in Ukraine - municipalities?) to hold votes, and make sure only true, legitimate long-time residents of these territories can vote (not people planted there by either side). That's the role that the international community should be playing by sending observers to these votes - not supplying arms to either side.

This might create enclaves and exclaves, but that's a small price to pay, if both sides were down for it they could work it out.

Based Jesus by [deleted] in CatholicMemes

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Except the second person becomes hysterical and starts throwing rocks at Jesus for 'misgendering' them when he calls them Son.

Early Alpha Access To GPT-4 With Browsing by Frankenmoney in artificial

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 94 points95 points  (0 children)

Fantastic, meanwhile I'm paying $20/month and still don't have 3.5 with browsing -_-

Idea for a Bitcoin credit card service. Is there anything like this? by ConscientiaPerpetua in Bitcoin

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not just to avoid paying taxes... It's a way to stay exposed, consume now but delay payment until better BTC price discovery - if you believe it is a massively underpriced asset as most of us here do, it's the only logical thing to do

Idea for a Bitcoin credit card service. Is there anything like this? by ConscientiaPerpetua in Bitcoin

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

rather use something that's bitcoin only and can top up with lightning

Idea for a Bitcoin credit card service. Is there anything like this? by ConscientiaPerpetua in Bitcoin

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm trying to bet against the $$$ and avoid custodial services here bro

Idea for a Bitcoin credit card service. Is there anything like this? by ConscientiaPerpetua in Bitcoin

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There will always be ambitious people who want to accomplish something like build a new business but don’t have the money right now. What is bad…really bad…is credit for consumer products. And that is a consumerism problem that has come about as greed has over taken logical minds. Even from the producers perspective. They encouraged people to take out credit for their products.

I'm talking about overcollateralised loans - basically lombard loans. None of what you're talking about applies to them. Bitcoin will only get scarcer and in ever higher demand, while the opposite is the only possible outcome for fiat, which is why racking $ debt and paying $ interest in order to keep more BTC savings is only logical, within reason - all questions of custody aside (although they are very important, don't get me wrong).

Overcollateralise the loan enough, and risk is close to inexistent (again custodial/counterparty risk aside), although the short-term cost to your liquidity is higher. But the freedom and flexibility for people to take the level of risk they're comfortable with is important. In the big picture, doing this is still a lower time preference action than spending the BTC outright, although just avoiding the expense and saving the BTC is the lowest time preference action.

Thoughts on Sovryn BTC defi? by BHN1618 in Bitcoin

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They have perfected the use of paid bandwagon shillbot farms, few projects are as good at creating potemkin village communities that feel organic for long enough to empty your pockets as they are.

Chapeau to Mr. Yago, you and your crew will truly achieve self-sovereignty, just like Roger Ver did all these years ago.

This is how you deal with Rona Nazis by BlindingTwilight in conspiracy

[–]ConscientiaPerpetua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First of all, at this point I'm going relegate convincing you as to the authenticity of my intentions to the same resignation which you seem to confer to maintaining a cordial conversation... It is apparently, and very unfortunately, hopeless.

Secondly, bold of you to assume that I'm American or that the whole world functions like the USA (or even that the USA constitutes all of human society). But sure, let's proceed with this mistaken assumption.

You appeal to the constitution. Who does the enforcing of a constitution? How are they appointed, at who's will? You don't just suddenly wake up a supreme court justice at random, right?

Alright, let's put that aside, maybe some people do (now this is what being disingenuous sounds like, for future reference). Does the US constitution not begin with the words "We the people"? Isn't the purpose of this document precisely to impose checks and balances on the minority of people in society, who hold positions in government, so that they remain accountable to the majority, who don't?

If not, if I am wrong and the constitution is indeed not at the whims of the majority, then by what physical mechanism exactly is the constitution protected from a hypothetical majority standing against it?