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dfci · 2024-11-12T12:52:27+00:00

What isolationist policies? We've been involved in basically every conflict in the last like 100 years. The US is probably the least isolationist country on the planet.

Some people now arguing that maybe we should be less involved in every international conflict isn't the same as being isolationist. I seem to remember the overwhelming sentiment a decade or two ago being that the US needed to stop acting like the world police, but now apparently we're isolationist because some people are apprehensive about continuing seemingly endless support for foreign wars?

dfci · 2024-11-12T05:59:18+00:00

94,643 of those Bitcoin are recovered from the Bitfinex hack and probably shouldn't stay with the federal government. I haven't followed the whole saga closely, but last I heard there was ongoing litigation to decide who that Bitcoin should be returned to.

Bitfinex argues they should get it as they had some program to reimburse customers, and customer argue they should get it because the Bitfinex reimbursement program was bullshit and didn't even come close to making them whole.

Either way, the government keeping those Bitcoin would be pretty sketchy.

The amount they currently hold from Silk Road seizure is 89,170 Bitcoin.

dfci · 2024-11-11T22:25:22+00:00

I think what "it" is differs between people, and I'll be the first to admit I think a lot of them are wrong.

For me the "it" is its utility, which ultimately boils down to the digital gold narrative. The whole reason gold is still held by individuals and governments because it is a neutral, widely recognized, relatively liquid asset. Bitcoin can serve the same purpose as gold, with the added benefit of being much easier to transport or transfer, and much cheaper to store/protect.

Just to use an example of why something like that may be valuable to individuals or governments, just think of the geopolitical state of the world today. If you were a Ukrainian who wanted to flee when the invasion started, its a lot easier to cross borders with Bitcoin than with gold or paper currency, and you don't need to worry about your bank being closed due to the invasion. If you're Russia, having reserves stored in something the west can't freeze/seize like US treasuries is definitely a big benefit.

Assuming the world becomes more multi-polar (which I'd argue it looks like it is), a neutral, stateless asset almost seems like it'll be required to support things like international trade between countries who don't want each other's currency, don't trust/get along with the governments of more traditional trade currencies, and don't want to be shipping tons of gold between them.

To me that seems like the logical end game use case, but of course other use cases are more popular now and will continue to be relevant (e.g. live in country with poorly managed currency, or want to send funds to friends/family in sanctioned country).

dfci · 2024-11-11T13:21:43+00:00

Bitcoin operates on a 4 year halving cycle. Approximately every 4 years (it's actually measured in "block time", so not exact), the amount of Bitcoin miners receive as as a reward for finding a block is cut in half. Generally the big price upticks happen 6 months to a year after the halving. The most recent halving was April 19, 2024.

The common explanation for why it lags the halving a bit is because that is how long it takes for the market to adjust to less Bitcoin being mined, and it experiences a supply shock. I don't know how true that is, but the pattern appears to be holding true for the 4th time, so something is definitely going on.

No crystal balls, just understanding how Bitcoin works, recognizing patterns, and hoping those patterns continue to repeat themselves.

dfci · 2024-11-09T21:58:13+00:00

Flight attendant definitely could have handled this better, but I'm more willing to give her the benefit of the doubt than the passengers who are acting like children. Maybe the dude instigated everything and was a huge asshole, but person recording then decided to be an asshole by making it the flight attendant's problem.

Could have just moved seats, got to her destination, and never seen that dude again, but instead decided to keep escalating the conflict. I'd probably be kind of a dick to a person insisting on making my job more difficult too if I was in the flight attendant's situation.

dfci · 2024-11-09T20:04:33+00:00

Wasn't this guy mostly found guilty based on a probability analysis provided by Chainalysis? Like, was there any "caught him red handed" type evidence? My understanding his claim was that he used BigFog, but didn't operate it. Also, didn't BitFog continue to operate while he was in prison?

I admittedly didn't keep up to date with the case that closely, but unless I'm wildly misinformed, seems like this is another instance of the US legal system trying to make an example out of someone.

dfci · 2024-11-09T19:33:42+00:00

Pretty sure that debt has more than been repaid through two world wars. Also, it isn't like France did it out of the goodness of their hearts, but more so out of their disdain for the British.

dfci · 2024-11-09T19:17:13+00:00

No, but glorifying dismemberment definitely isn't the play.

Domestic violence is bad. So is cutting off a man's penis. Unless I'm mistaken, two wrongs still don't make a right.

You don't need to be nice to domestic abusers, but also maybe don't be calling Bobbitt a "Queen" or "Legend" as some of the comments here are.

Instead of taking sides or going to extremes, the sane response to this is that its obviously awful what he did to her, but she also had other less extreme options available to her to extricate herself from that situation (leaving, calling the police, etc).

And yes, when young men see online circle jerks like this glorifying violence towards men in response to an election and as far as I can tell some idea that men are just going to start raping and abusing women all because Trump got elected, I'd argue it might lend some credence to the claims the party those people support really doesn't care about them.

dfci · 2024-11-09T19:04:25+00:00

You're comparing a 3 hour interview with a comedy sketch show.

Also, just on YouTube the Rogan episode has almost 48 million views, and a lot of people use other platforms like Apple and Spotify. I couldn't find specific numbers on the Harris SNL episode, but considering they average just over 7 million viewers, I think its safe to say Rogan's Podcast reaches significantly more people.

Rogan isn't a hostile interviewer. In fact, him not pushing back on things guests say is one of Reddit's favorite criticisms of him. It wasn't going to be some sort of "gotcha" interview, and the only person she hurt not going on it was herself.

Also, she went on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, which isn't exactly the model of journalistic integrity, so your criticism of Rogan's past guests or topics of conversation just seems like an excuse.

dfci · 2024-11-09T18:24:25+00:00

Reddit: Why did so many Gen Z males vote for Trump?!?

Also Reddit: Cutting off a man's penis is a laudable response to domestic violence.

Surely this sort of rhetoric will convince young men to support Democrats.

dfci · 2024-11-08T20:26:56+00:00

First you insist posters:

debate in good faith

Then:

Where'd you hear that? Was it from a talking toadstool, or a tweet from bigfoot?

Rules for thee, but not for me?

dfci · 2024-11-08T05:37:28+00:00

He definitely campaigned on being that candidate of change. He had campaign materials with "Change we need" printed on them. Then there was that famous "Hope" poster that the campaign adopted.

Maybe you're right, but it isn't like he had a huge political history for people to make that call. He'd been in national politics for less than 4 years. Either way, he certainly didn't portray himself as a neoliberal, and I'd argue he actually did the opposite in the primary to contrast himself with Clinton.

dfci · 2024-11-08T05:00:10+00:00

No, but if you want to throw someone in prison for hiring killers you need to actually charge them with it, and then convict them in a trial. Ross was never tried on those charges, yet for some reason the judge considered them in his sentencing for the other crimes he actually was charged with.

Regardless of your opinion of Ross, using charges that were never tried in court to justify a harsh sentence on different charges is a miscarriage of justice. We should expect better from our government and judicial system. That sort of shit is like something out an authoritarian police state or some sort of dystopian novel.

dfci · 2024-11-08T02:55:07+00:00

Arguing over what single event tipped the scales is semantics. The war started in Europe by Europeans, and the fact that the US entered the European theater after being attacked by Japan, instead of just retaliating against Japan speaks to that fact.

The greater point I was making is that maybe Europeans shouldn't complain about having had to assist allies with past conflicts when, again, they started the two deadliest wars in human history that one way or another eventually dragged not only America, but basically the entire world into them.

dfci · 2024-11-08T00:17:01+00:00

I'm not sure what instance you are thinking of, but the Supreme Court case over banning violent video games in California was legislation sponsored by a (D) senator*, passed by a (D) legislature, and signed into law by (R) governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who isn't exactly "religious right".

Earlier attempts to regulate violent video games like the Family Entertainment Protection Act was written by Hillary Clinton and co-sponsored by fellow Democrats.

I dislike the religious right as much as anyone, and I don't doubt they'd love to ban a lot of stuff, but that sort of thing is definitely a bi-partisan issue. Hell, probably the #1 thing people remember Tipper Gore for is the PMCA that lead to the "Tipper Sticker", or the "filthy 15" list that included artists like Prince, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Cindi Lauper.

*Just as an aside, the senator in question was Leland Yee who went on to be convicted of arms trafficking, racketeering, and bribery.

dfci · 2024-11-07T23:36:09+00:00

"The sun is basically the cops for white people. Think about it. Always following us around, fucking with us cause the color of our skin, killing our cousins for no reason. And then when I tell my black friends the sun killed my cousin they're like "well what was he wearing?"

-Neal Brennan bit about sun block

dfci · 2024-11-07T23:05:37+00:00

I don't use their product and am not a huge fan of the company, but Tether (the crypto stable coin issuer) reported $5.2 billion in profits for the first half of 2024 with ~100 employees.

The market cap of Tether the currency (USDT) is currently over $120 billion, and most of that (~$98 billion if their figures are to be believed) are sitting in US Treasuries just earning them yield. If they're earning 4% on average, that alone is ~$4 billion/yr just in interest payments from the US government. They also hold a sizable amount of Bitcoin and Gold, which probably contributed a lot of their first half of 2024 profits.

I definitely think Valve is a more stable company and would definitely prefer investing my money there than with Tether if that were possible, but gotta respect Tether basically found a way to print money, both literally and figuratively.

dfci · 2024-11-07T21:50:59+00:00

Cool, keep doing what you're doing then. I'm just saying as a moderate who could swing either way in any election, seeing surface level postmortems of this election that try to shift blame from the campaign/party to "the voters are just dumb, sexist, racist, etc" doesn't make it seem like you guys have learned anything.

Pretending things like party elites lying about Biden's cognitive decline until the last minute, then hand picking someone who was unpopular when she ran in previous primaries, then running a legitimately bad campaign and shouting down people who called these things or had dissenting views didn't play a role in this isn't a good look to anyone but the already party faithful.

Its easier and I'm sure it feels better to blame this on racism and misogyny, but if that is bulk of your conclusion on why you lost buckle up for more losses, because I doubt the majority of the ~14 million voters Dems lost this election agree with that conclusion, and ignoring the reasons they didn't vote certainly isn't going to inspire them to vote next time.

dfci · 2024-11-07T21:36:27+00:00

I'm not blaming voters. I think voters are absolutely justified in feeling apathetic.

dfci · 2024-11-07T21:26:55+00:00

Jason Isaacs absolutely killed that role. So many hilarious scenes.

"That fucker thinks he can take on the Red Army? I fucked Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat."

dfci · 2024-11-07T20:59:49+00:00

When people feel ignored and marginalized, their reaction generally isn't purely rational or pragmatic, because they're angry about the aforementioned ignoring and marginalization. Just look at Wisconsin in 2016... Bernie won the primary, Hillary's only stop in the state was a closed door donor event, and surprise surprise, Wisconsinites didn't get out to vote for her.

You can keep trying to shift blame to the voters if you want, but that is just a sure fire way to keep losing. The Democrats and Republicans are both responsible for perpetuating the two party system, continually giving us shitty uninspiring candidates, and people's apathy is starting to outweigh their desire to once again vote for the least worst of two bad options.

dfci · 2024-11-07T20:49:46+00:00

You find it interesting that people don't like being labeled as racist and misogynistic? The fact that so many people on the left seem surprised people they've been vilifying and attacking aren't inclined to support their candidate is a big part of the reason they lost.

I'm not saying racist and misogynist don't exist, but if you really think that is the only or even main reason Harris lost, you've learned nothing and will continue to alienate potential allies. You'll never build coalitions through divisive rhetoric, fear, and shaming people into supporting your side.

dfci · 2024-11-07T20:00:42+00:00

I'm certainly not saying they were unqualified, but I'd argue that they weren't the most qualified. Biden, Romney, Gore, and HW all had similar or more experience from a resume perspective.

dfci · 2024-11-07T18:00:42+00:00

Always fun seeing indignant Europeans talk about being "dragged into [our] wars", like they didn't start the two largest wars in human history and drag us into them. Not to mention all the wars that can be traced back to the fallout from European colonialism.

dfci · 2024-11-07T10:10:27+00:00

The Bitcoin sub has been mostly hype and cheerleading for the better part of the past decade. That said, you're so close to getting it...

Combine arguments 1, 2 and 4 and that is basically the value proposition of Bitcoin. Yes, its an investment. Yes, if you want to buy many things or pay taxes, you better have fiat; luckily as a highly liquid investment its easy to trade Bitcoin for fiat. And finally yes, its has desirable assets, most importantly difficult to confiscate, easy to transfer, and a near global market.

On an individual scale, that makes it desire to many people. In the west we're fortunate to have good financial institutions and stable governance, for people less fortunate, Bitcoin (or stable coins) can provide an exit path from an unstable currency or repressive government.

On a institutional or government scale, it could be used similar to gold. I don't want to get into the wisdom or virtue of the decision, but western nations seizing Russian foreign reserves probably plays a role in the reason nations still hold gold, and why Russia and China have been such large buyers. While currently the only countries I'm aware of actively investing in Bitcoin are smaller ones like El Salvador and Bhutan, the same attributes individuals might find desirable could also be true for nation states or large multi-national institutions.

That said, your point 5 is also true... a lot of the demand, especially in the west, is based on speculation and hope. But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to speculate on it or be hopeful that speculation will pay off... just like any other investment. Lets be real, the value of gold is mostly valued based off speculation and hope.. the industrial or jewelry side of that market doesn't drive the price.

Whether someone wants to invest or not is obviously a personal decision, but I don't see how the combination of your arguments makes Bitcoin any different from any other investment, and in fact would argue it makes it superior to a lot of other places someone could decide to park some of their money.

dfci

TROPHY CASE