4 ms·

RFK Jr.: "I'm gonna put the entire U.S. budget on blockchain"

8 points by lando2319 2y ago

jprd 2y ago
What a non-serious person.
- biglyburrito 2y ago
  What a serious non-person, too.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    So, in the spirit of "feedback in case it's not intentional": I can't tell if that's a joke piling onto RFK Jr., or whether it's a turnabout aimed at the parent commenter.
    - biglyburrito 2y ago
      I was just piling onto RFK Jr., who is a garbage individual that nobody should be listening to.
- uejfiweun 2y ago
  Nobody cares about his failed presidential candidacy and so he's moved on to the "insane out-there positions" phase to try and get some attention back. It's a cycle we see with pretty much all these outsider candidates.
dotcoma 2y ago
Does that mean also moving the entire US economy to Bitcoin ? ;)
pbohun 2y ago
I would rather have all bills and laws be put into a git repo. We could see all the diffs and do a git blame to see who's adding all the pork :P
- Terr_ 2y ago
  In the same vein, abolish the (deliberately?) insane and opaque bills which are tedious half-baked declarations of manipulating existing statue, like: "Subsection (x)(y)(z) shall be amended by inserting the phrase A in-between B and C."
- verdverm 2y ago
  I recently discovered a citizen effort to do just that https://github.com/unitedstates https://github.com/unitedstates
Terr_ 2y ago
This sounds like an ambitious project of "collect and publicize every single financial transaction any government entity makes for any reason"... except tied up in an extra layer of crypto-pandering to describe an incredibly dumb implementation. The best way for the government to waste more money is to make it use a blockchain for transactions where it doesn't need, and to be buying the most batshit-insanely expensive and slow storage ever for the financial data. (For example, I think Ethereum is on the order of dollars per kilobyte.) Hell, maybe this guy's cleverer than I thought, and it's all part of a scam to pump up valuations by transferring taxpayer funds to miners and speculators.
- philsquared_ 2y ago
  You wouldnt store any data at all on the blockchain. You would force every payment the goverment makes to go through a blockchain. Likely a centrally controlled one which would invoke no fees. On the other end the payment is cashed out for usd. Whether it's a good idea or not who knows but your comment misrepresents the concept.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Executive summary: If the campaign slogan is too empty to be accurately represented, I can't misrepresent it; "Private blockchain" is a fake term for when people don't want to admit they're building something else far simpler and saner; If everything is a first-class blockchain transaction, that also means forcing hundreds of millions of American taxpayers and welfare-recipients and companies to use the crypto-system from the other side--good luck with that! _____________ > your comment misrepresents the concept Why do you believe this particular politician has a sufficiently firm policy that it is even capable of being mis-represented? [0] Is there something from his campaign which clearly lays out what he means by that slogan? > Likely a centrally controlled [blockchain] Pet peeve: That's not a thing unless we time-travel back to the 1990s when people meant something very different with the word "blockchain." It's a contradiction in terms, along with "private blockchain". Those paradoxical euphemisms tend show up when people--for reasons of ideology or startup investor money--don't want to admit that the B-word is not actually good for their use case, and they're trying to avoid admitting that they're just doing a classic distributed database instead of the Sexy Thing. The core feature that sets a modern blockchain apart is unrestricted membership where anybody can spin up any number of nodes/identities to participate. The challenges stemming from that are what cause a whole cascade of compensating algorithms and game-theory incentives, such as using wasted CPU cycles to curb influence. If you don't have that requirement, everything becomes orders of magnitude faster and cheaper and simpler. > You would force every payment the goverment makes to go through a blockchain. Leaving intragovernmental transfers aside, hat also means you would force every private entity that sends or accepts government money to be a counterparty in the same system. So supposing your great-aunt can't figure out a cold wallet then she can't get any medicaid for food this month. Does that still sound practical and reasonable? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
mac3n 2y ago
oh yeah? well i'm going to gamify vaccination!
gregjor 2y ago
I bet he can't explain "blockchain." The guy is nuts.

8 points by lando2319 2y ago

jprd 2y ago

What a non-serious person.

biglyburrito 2y ago
What a serious non-person, too.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  So, in the spirit of "feedback in case it's not intentional": I can't tell if that's a joke piling onto RFK Jr., or whether it's a turnabout aimed at the parent commenter.
  - biglyburrito 2y ago
    I was just piling onto RFK Jr., who is a garbage individual that nobody should be listening to.
uejfiweun 2y ago
Nobody cares about his failed presidential candidacy and so he's moved on to the "insane out-there positions" phase to try and get some attention back. It's a cycle we see with pretty much all these outsider candidates.

dotcoma 2y ago

Does that mean also moving the entire US economy to Bitcoin ? ;)

pbohun 2y ago

I would rather have all bills and laws be put into a git repo. We could see all the diffs and do a git blame to see who's adding all the pork :P

Terr_ 2y ago
In the same vein, abolish the (deliberately?) insane and opaque bills which are tedious half-baked declarations of manipulating existing statue, like: "Subsection (x)(y)(z) shall be amended by inserting the phrase A in-between B and C."
verdverm 2y ago
I recently discovered a citizen effort to do just that https://github.com/unitedstates https://github.com/unitedstates

Terr_ 2y ago

This sounds like an ambitious project of "collect and publicize every single financial transaction any government entity makes for any reason"... except tied up in an extra layer of crypto-pandering to describe an incredibly dumb implementation. The best way for the government to waste more money is to make it use a blockchain for transactions where it doesn't need, and to be buying the most batshit-insanely expensive and slow storage ever for the financial data. (For example, I think Ethereum is on the order of dollars per kilobyte.) Hell, maybe this guy's cleverer than I thought, and it's all part of a scam to pump up valuations by transferring taxpayer funds to miners and speculators.

philsquared_ 2y ago
You wouldnt store any data at all on the blockchain. You would force every payment the goverment makes to go through a blockchain. Likely a centrally controlled one which would invoke no fees. On the other end the payment is cashed out for usd. Whether it's a good idea or not who knows but your comment misrepresents the concept.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Executive summary: If the campaign slogan is too empty to be accurately represented, I can't misrepresent it; "Private blockchain" is a fake term for when people don't want to admit they're building something else far simpler and saner; If everything is a first-class blockchain transaction, that also means forcing hundreds of millions of American taxpayers and welfare-recipients and companies to use the crypto-system from the other side--good luck with that! _____________ > your comment misrepresents the concept Why do you believe this particular politician has a sufficiently firm policy that it is even capable of being mis-represented? [0] Is there something from his campaign which clearly lays out what he means by that slogan? > Likely a centrally controlled [blockchain] Pet peeve: That's not a thing unless we time-travel back to the 1990s when people meant something very different with the word "blockchain." It's a contradiction in terms, along with "private blockchain". Those paradoxical euphemisms tend show up when people--for reasons of ideology or startup investor money--don't want to admit that the B-word is not actually good for their use case, and they're trying to avoid admitting that they're just doing a classic distributed database instead of the Sexy Thing. The core feature that sets a modern blockchain apart is unrestricted membership where anybody can spin up any number of nodes/identities to participate. The challenges stemming from that are what cause a whole cascade of compensating algorithms and game-theory incentives, such as using wasted CPU cycles to curb influence. If you don't have that requirement, everything becomes orders of magnitude faster and cheaper and simpler. > You would force every payment the goverment makes to go through a blockchain. Leaving intragovernmental transfers aside, hat also means you would force every private entity that sends or accepts government money to be a counterparty in the same system. So supposing your great-aunt can't figure out a cold wallet then she can't get any medicaid for food this month. Does that still sound practical and reasonable? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

mac3n 2y ago

oh yeah? well i'm going to gamify vaccination!

gregjor 2y ago

I bet he can't explain "blockchain." The guy is nuts.