crumbshot

8 ms·

31.
by crumbshot 6y ago
My point is that when someone is currently relying on a state welfare programme to meet their basic needs, it doesn't imply a lack of contribution to society - as is too often the connotation.
32.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> or that the only division that makes implementing policies harder is the one of race, or that race must be a dividing block, is just a racist way of thinking. But politicians do often try to engineer these splits down racial lines,
33.
by crumbshot 6y ago
I'm not really sure what you mean by the comparison to Somalia? Seems like a very different situation, as Somalia is still recovering from civil war and genocide, and due to this, much of the economic support for its people is being pr
34.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> I don't agree with the author: technology such as A.I. as a means for exerting illiberal control on citizens is not inherently a feature of capitalism. I think you're technically correct here, but, it is a feature of capita
35.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Raising kids is a significant contribution to society. Though sadly, as your comment demonstrates, it's a form of labour that is very often undervalued.
36.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> what's the point of their owners, what do they contribute? Same applies to the existing owners of Uber and Waymo. If self-driving cars do take over the world, it makes no sense for this technology to be controlled by a handful o
37.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> relying on the government to fund their lifestyle This sort of rhetoric needs to stop as well. Public funding of someone's basic needs of food and shelter isn't a lifestyle. And anyway, a person receiving such funds probabl
38.
by crumbshot 6y ago
I think you're right, they do note this as a limitation of their study due to insufficient data: > The great unanswered question faced when exploring cryptodamages is that while we can identify select geographic hotspots of product
39.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Good point, thanks - I'm using CCAF's 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study as the source for my assertion: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternati... Their research indicates th
40.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Sci-Hub link to bypass Elsevier's paywall: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101281
41.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro. This has become almost a religious belief amongst cryptocurrency acolytes, but it's simply not true. -- Edit: please see my comment¹ and piplikoc&
42.
by crumbshot 6y ago
The value would end up pegged to the price of a bag of weed on the dark markets, as that category of trade is the only genuinely useful application of cryptocurrency that's been found so far.
43.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> there is nothing that can be done about it, short of a global ban on computers and the internet This is not true, there are numerous ways to discourage these harmful proof-of-work systems. This could be done at the mining source, by
44.
by crumbshot 6y ago
The headline doesn't really match the detail of the article, which notes that the work was subjected both to the obscenity laws of the time and what has been contemporarily rebranded as 'cancel culture': > It had been ini
45.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Exactly this. Indeed, looking at Timnit Gebru as an example of someone who worked at both, I'd be very surprised if her paper that was censored at Google would have had any issues in being published if she were still working for Micros
46.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Though in this case the transparency is one-sided: ICANN can gather all manner of information on Sunde, but Sunde is denied any detailed explanation from ICANN on exactly why his application was denied. Just this rather opaque reason of the
47.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Agreed, and with a very pure and selfless motive, in massively broadening access to works of scientific research. Elbakyan's project really is a shining beacon of anti-capitalist action, against our broken system where a small number o
48.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> The problem is that publishers are not actual creators of these works, scientists are – they do all the work, and academic publishers simply use their position of power in the Republic of Science to extract unjust profits. Sci-Hub doe
49.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Could it be Great Britain Ltd? https://youtu.be/vnojOGjz578
50.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> some kind of economy game (where you raised taxes, and did similar things. You had to get elected again and keep your population happy. I wish I knew what that was called.) Yellow River Kingdom?
51.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> This whole article reads like a conspiracy theorist rant like some luddite against tech. Your whole comment is a rant. At least the article you're complaining about had some points to make. Much of what the author mentions has i
52.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> Even if you do count from the end of the civil war, I would not consider my central thesis destroyed by the small and frankly uniquely weird country of Switzerland. What exactly is your central thesis? It sounds like you're pres
53.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> there are (by most measures) no other democracies out there which have gone as long under peaceful rule of law as the US. Are you taking the end of the US civil war as the starting point? If so, then Switzerland has a longer duration
54.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> Volunteering is nice but it’s not the answer to systemic problems. Agreed - a prominent example of this in the UK in recent years is the sharp rise in volunteer-run food banks. Which was a reaction to the huge cuts to public services
55.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> The argument was about their exile, not their assets being seized. A fair point, I did pivot back from answering this regarding exile. If we consider why a set of international human rights principles were pushed in the first place,
56.
by crumbshot 6y ago
> Saying “ It is not a form of punishment; it is simply a procedural change. ” can be used to enable any such matter. Yes but the converse is also true, claiming that something is being done as an unfair punishment, as an argument agai
57.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Drawing rhetorical analogies is one thing, but exactly which human rights do you feel would be violated by applying these proposals to the royal family? Also just to note this wouldn't be done arbitrarily, but within a specific purpose
58.
by crumbshot 6y ago
It wouldn't have to be deemed a punishment, merely a procedural item as part of establishing the Republic of Britain and eradicating any trace of royal privilege. > Technically just abolishing the monarchy / taking away their
59.
by crumbshot 6y ago
It wouldn't be as a punishment or sanction, it would be a procedural event as part of the transition to a republic.
60.
by crumbshot 6y ago
Why would it be a retroactive law? A new Act of Parliament would be needed anyway to establish the United Republic, it could be included in that. Perhaps as a 100% wealth tax on the first X people in line to the throne, or similar.

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