asciilifeform: if mircea_popescu were awake, he would probably describe the process as 'what the fuck is so surprising, gas let into an empty container will fill it' or similar. nobody is blowing up the police stations in response, so there is no back-pressure and usg can do whatever.
asciilifeform: the peculiar, imho, thing, is that somehow tradition requires american police to actually charge folks who are taken to a police station. and so it is now important to rob them ~without~ arresting.
asciilifeform: 'News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state. It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes.'
asciilifeform: ' If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money. "We're gonna look for different factors in the way that you're acting,” Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. “We're gonna look for if there's a difference in your story. If there's someway that we can prove that you're falsifying information to us about your business."'
asciilifeform: whereas buying and snorting the coke - is unambiguous spend
asciilifeform: the way i read pg's thing, it was reasonably sane, hypothesis being that bad investment is more like pouring petron into a leaky tank, you don't ~think~ you've destroyed it
asciilifeform: how's that? eskimo will blow maxint on coke and not even blink ?
asciilifeform: people trying to sell you expensive things say "it's an investment."'
asciilifeform: 'In most people's minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn't. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you've already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You're not spending the money; you're just moving it from one asset to another. Which is why
asciilifeform: where he grabs a bunch and can't get hand out, and then hunter comes
asciilifeform: for some reason, whenever i think of 'early adopters' and voorheeses who 'lost it all', i think of the proverbial monkey trap with the gourd full of goodies
asciilifeform: but after that, voorhees moved on to illustrious career of spamming, mlm, and usg collaboaration..
asciilifeform: sdice was a pretty good 'torture test' of the network tho!
asciilifeform: iciently many layers of isolation between him and the chumps.'
asciilifeform: ftr, what i said re voorhees's dice in feb. '13: 'Satoshi Dice is a can of worms which almost deserves its own discussion. It is, at its core, a simple “numbers game.” That is to say, an industrial-strength harvester of chump money, precisely the kind of thing which Popescu expresses his disdain for at every opportunity. But listing its stock on MPEx does not bother him, because there are suff
asciilifeform: iirc he was well-regarded in #b-a at one point (but largely before my time)
asciilifeform: was voorhees ~always~ scum or was he hit once too many in the head or what .
asciilifeform: re: earlier thread, am i the only one who is slightly astonished that scientology does not yet - afaik - have own altcoin ?
asciilifeform: 'The encryption does not include an identity authentication scheme. This BIP does not cover a proposal to avoid MITM attacks during the encryption initialization.' << lel wastin' our time.
asciilifeform: granted i have nfi what is or is not 'small cost' to phf.
asciilifeform: or is it simply that 'civilized society' is so loathesome that ANY alternative is welcome.
asciilifeform: 'i will be a chump but if i play cards right, i will have sub-chumps...' ??
asciilifeform: i admit, i've always been fascinated with the folks who show up to be eaten. what motivates them? is it something like the participants in pyramid scheme ?☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: trinque: aha as per yesterday's thread re yudkowsky.
asciilifeform: i can imagine that a modern cult could be built around, e.g., mri machine.
asciilifeform: also lulzy is that their cult object is a 1940s-style 'lie detector'
