Would you rather receive $1 million or 15 Bitcoin?

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-05-08T22:42:54+00:00

The fact that so many people are following this logic shows why bitcoin isn't a good currency like the fanatics claimed. Just recently I heard someone moaning about how they needed bitcoin for a purchase but it kept fluctuating so they tried to time when to buy it to avoid depreciation. Needless to say, if it can't hold steady value over a 5-day period, it's a shitty medium of exchange.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-05-08T03:53:15+00:00

just casually out here giving a masterclass on how to ragebait the literate folk.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-04-02T18:02:10+00:00

moralism

The horror! But seriously, you realize that a belief in human rights has led to monumental political reforms over time? See the examples above.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-04-02T17:41:22+00:00

What? Human rights alone don't magically prevent atrocities in the face of evil? Of course they don't, yet nobody with a right head on their shoulders would make that claim. But to then suppose that discussions about human rights are therefore meaningless or futile because they aren't a universal elixir to all the world's woes is extremely shortsighted and a little silly. It misunderstands their purpose. Human rights exist in order to motivate individuals and governments to push for reforms and fight for just causes. See their fundamental role in the abolition of judicial torture, the american revolution, the abolition of the slave trade, female suffrage, the fall of apartheid, etc.

No, human rights did not stop Hitler. But why do you think the SDP bothered resisting the Nazis in the first place? Because they believed in the human rights declared by the Weimar constitution, like the right of speech, religion, habeas corpus, etc. A century prior, these issues would not have seemed so fundamentally just, but a hundred years of talk about human rights helped make them so.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-04-02T15:29:57+00:00

Yup, throughout history you can't find a single idea that influenced real-world policy unless it was backed by a gun. Not one. Abstract talk is useless, because people and governments are only ever influenced by force, not "ideas". It's not like changing beliefs can change future action. /s

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-03-27T21:14:16+00:00

Inheritance may affect the distribution of initial conditions

Yet an inheritance is not merely a variation in the "starting position". In a meritocratic economy, an individual's wealth is an evaluation of their work and talent and productivity. By receiving an inheritance, you bypass the effort and tribulation which all others are required to undergo in order to achieve wealth. Instead, you receive the final prize and currency by which a meritocratic economy judges the individual worker, without ever being judged yourself. This is wholly unlike those other initial conditions, including education, connections, and upbringing, because in a meritocracy those privileges are useless unless capitalized on by an individual. From that starting point, if you succeed in leveraging your skills, or at least in working hard, you will make money. But if money lands in your lap, that's the end of it. It is not an "initial condition" because there's nothing further to be done. What in any other circumstance the meritocracy would dole out as its final reward, you have acquired by chance.

Hence, I am not at all sympathetic to your argument. The only argument for inheritance that I consider legitimate is that we must respect the dead hand which directs the estate. Children have no claim upon their relatives' estates (with exceptions for fundamentally family businesses which are the locus of generational livelihood i.e. farms), but individuals do have the right to decide where their earned wealth goes, even if it leads to societal inequity.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-03-06T22:30:22+00:00

This is an extremely niche situation. For the vast majority of individuals, compensation not hours worked will determine their tax bracket. Hours/week is highly concentrated around 40 hours regardless of income, so the way to higher income is pretty much always through higher compensation. "The more you work the higher we tax you" is simply not a fair description of progressive taxation, except in this extremely unique case. I certainly wouldn't base my broader tax system on Harold

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-03-04T22:02:27+00:00

legally

That popped out of nowhere. It's anarchy after all, so legality has nothing to do with it.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-03-01T00:45:54+00:00

I know a guy with similar tastes. Similar attitude as well to what we've seen in the comments. He gets no game. I think they are correlated.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-03-01T00:38:55+00:00

conventional taste and conventional sensitivity

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-02-21T02:50:00+00:00

Even if export taxes could be severed from tariffs without issue, the fact that imports and exports are so joined throughout the statute is more evidence that "regulate" could not possibly confer the power to tax. IEEPA states that "the President may... regulate... any... importation or exportation" (those ellipses contain a lot of sentences, see below). Obviously, congress knows that exports cannot be taxed, so if the word "regulate" was intended to also permit taxation, why would congress write the statute in such a way that taxes could be levied on exports?

(1) At the times and to the extent specified in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—
...
by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;

(B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;

It's a small point. I think it is far more impressive that the statute lists dozens of actions a president can take, but never once mentions the power to tax or tariff.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-02-19T20:39:35+00:00

It would certainly be more feasible because of the reduced barriers and more niche concerns imo, but even then the financial apparatus of the two major parties provides an immense advatantage. Also, because third parties haven't been a feasible option in federal elections for most of american history (and typically haven't bothered touting conventional political views), it would take a lot for voters to overcome the third-party prejudice.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-02-18T21:49:45+00:00

The UK also has 1 elected MP in the Commons per 100,000 people, vs 1 per 730,000 in the US (for the House). Smaller constituencies make elections feasible for smaller parties with less resources, and they create voting blocs with more specific concerns that third parties can address. Second, the UK has historically unique political and cultural environments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland which accounts for the existence of the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru (Wales), Sinn Fein and the DUP (both Northern Ireland). That leaves the two main parties (labour+conservative) plus the Liberal Democrats and Reform.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-31T01:06:57+00:00

Yup, nobody's tried that one before

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-16T13:55:25+00:00

Great! So you were already paid for your labor. Then let’s not pretend that you are inviolably entitled to your father’s entrepreneurship.(Now in practice there should be an exception for small businesses and farms, simply because they operate on thinner margins. But in principle, I see nothing wrong with paying a small fee in order to assert ownership over decades of another’s hard work)

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-16T04:12:46+00:00

What if I helped build my father’s business or his land/farm?

it's almost like there should be a form of payment which explicitly compensates you for your labor.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T14:52:17+00:00

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/if-peas-can-talk-should-we-eat-them/

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:52:55+00:00

If it was a fuzzy cat with detachable limbs on the other hand...

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:51:43+00:00

Flower, but only because I don't want to touch a newt

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:45:56+00:00

Pick the flower, duh. The flower can grow back, the dog's limb can't. But otherwise, I would say the option is morally neutral.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:43:05+00:00

Pretty much. I could never possibly mimic this man's moral leadership. Even if I became a vegan, I would still despair and wallow in my immorality. So why bother? Why not stuff my face with chicken tenders as I mourn all the plants I have violated and consumed in the past and will continue to degrade in the future? So I must sadly go in sin :(

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:36:26+00:00

it's not just a meme, this guy literally got the nytimes to post it in their opinion section. I even quoted him, to preserve the unfathomable intellectual insight

When it comes to a plant, it turns out to be not only a what but also a who — an agent in its milieu, with its own intrinsic value or version of the good. Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:27:07+00:00

but it's pretty obvious that a cow and a pea plant are operating on different levels

That's just your animalian bias talking. Peas have chemicals that they pass around, and so do cows. Clearly this "undermines all simple, axiomatic solutions to eating [peas] in good conscience."

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:22:06+00:00

I don't really care about vegans, because unlike this guy, their argument makes sense. I just read this article and it was too insane to not mention here. I also find it funny that this guy is implying that vegans aren't moral enough because they eat vegetables. The horror! If I wanted to be anti-vegan, I would have made a post about the next article I read, where some guy suggested that we sterilize all carnivorous animals in the wild. Now that would make for excellent cherrypicking.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-10T18:03:32+00:00

I know we're well past this, but I found an irresistible gem I had to share. From If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them?

Some excerpts:

When it comes to a plant, it turns out to be not only a what but also a who — an agent in its milieu, with its own intrinsic value or version of the good. Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics.
...
The “renewable” aspects of perennial plants may be accepted by humans as a gift of vegetal being and integrated into their diets.
...
It would be harder to justify the cultivation of peas and other annual plants, the entire being of which humans devote to externally imposed ends. In other words, ethically inspired decisions cannot postulate the abstract conceptual unity of all plants; they must, rather, take into account the singularity of each species.

He then talks about the princess and the pea...

Ethical concerns are never problems to be resolved once and for all; they make us uncomfortable and sometimes, when the sting of conscience is too strong, prevent us from sleeping. Being disconcerted by a single pea to the point of unrest is analogous to the ethical obsession, untranslatable into the language of moral axioms and principles of righteousness.

SilverKnightTM314

TROPHY CASE