asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: printing press scam is directly analogous to carnot engine. it is the closest shave one can give the sheep without skinning them
asciilifeform: decimation: pretty much every living thing in nato-dom is alive beneficiary of the printing press.
asciilifeform: sorta the carnot engine of sc4mz0r1ng
asciilifeform: short of perpetuum mobile, which physical reality balks at - printing press is -the- scam.
asciilifeform: there is also the realization, shared by the more-intellectually-bent part of usa, that 'if i were to be paid what i am worth, i will starve and be boiled for soap. therefore gotta help carry on the scam'
asciilifeform: spacex ultimately runs on the apparatus whereby continent full of schmucks is robbed of what little they produce
asciilifeform: decimation: it is about 'i do this and i keep eating; i don't - and don't'
asciilifeform: (the latter is an increasingly common path out of u.s. army - ever wonder why?)
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: to grasp this, it is necessary to look through the porthole glass on the atomic dirigible, down to the planet below - where most folks are so thoroughly wedded to their meal ticket that they do not really perceive themselves as having a choice of what sort of system to be part of, aside from the abstract choice of eating one's pistol
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: you're there because you were born and raised there and door is welded shut ?
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: they would have, if they could be sure of 'blink back' when 'blinking eyelashes' up the chain of command
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: half a mil in usd is not 'i-can-give-it-to-isis-money'
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the quantities are not co-measurable
asciilifeform: pete_dushenski: there is a long list of idiocies not yet surfaced. for instance, a usg stooge will eventually propose 'wallets' keyed to passport chips or the like
asciilifeform: decimation: thing is, it is still obvious if usd walked in and didn't walk out
asciilifeform: sorta like that fable, where the sheep asks the wolf what his 'crime' was, why he deserves to be eaten, and wolf answers 'your crime was that i am hungry and you are fat'
asciilifeform: for so long as the robbers even bother to construct arguments, they will necessarily take this form
asciilifeform: 'so, mr schmuck, you ran a widget factory, brought in p/yr. ex-mrs schmuck is now entitled to y*(p-r) where r was your rent'
asciilifeform: which is to say, every idiot who wastes time and money on it imagines that it will work in his case, because celebrity xxxxx
asciilifeform: pete_dushenski: again, they 'work' like patents 'work'
asciilifeform: trinque: even in the absence of children, imagine that, l0l
asciilifeform: decimation: the golden quadrifecta is female minority crippled in iraq
asciilifeform: (more accurately, they work in the same manner as patents. which is to say, if you have infinite money and are willing to spend most of it on lawyers, it can be made to 'work' in a way.)
asciilifeform: pete_dushenski: pre-nups, as a general rule, don't work in usa☟︎
asciilifeform: (makes for interesting divorce proceedings, one might imagine)
asciilifeform: phun phakt for non-u.s. folks: usg contractors who are registered as 'woman-owned' get preferential contract status. the practical consequence of this is that a great many operators of such firms have them registered in wife's name
asciilifeform: trinque: it arguably descends from u.s. hitler (fdr) 's phrase 'freedom from fear'
asciilifeform: the 'eternal war' thing is summarized by herr orwell
asciilifeform: named for physical effect where fastest molecules phase off into vapour and whole thing has lower energy as per boltzmann
asciilifeform: the yudkowskyans call it 'evaporative cooling' (to describe why doomsday cults on day n+1 after planned 'doomsday' not only do not fall apart, but get more 'culty')
asciilifeform: decimation: the concept described in the linked piece is known as 'shit test' to the pua enthusiasts
asciilifeform: (for non-mordor folks, i will add that the entire train, and in fact all the trains i was in that day, had the same ads)
asciilifeform: pete_dushenski: who the hell cares what a transparent shill does
asciilifeform: the notion that this would be permitted were he not a usg asset, or that his little shop of horrors could afford the fee, is sheer lunacy
asciilifeform: decimation: i still had a scrap of doubt about zimmerman's betrayal all the way until i got into a d.c. metro car plastered, literally floor to ceiling, with 'redphone' ads.
asciilifeform: decimation: the actors in the act are the best kind, from the standpoint of the muppetmasters - they don't know they are actors, likely
asciilifeform: decimation: chumpers are to think, presumably, that if 'big bad fbi' 'hates crypto' therefore 'buy redphone!'
asciilifeform: williamdunne: the usg connection of karpeles is as clear as daylight, considering how he is investigationally untouchable (both in the sr trials and in the greatest btc-related monetary black hole known to date)☟︎
asciilifeform: decimation: this realization is at least a century old
asciilifeform: they're still following the 'close your eyes and the room will go dark' algo.
asciilifeform: also note that you (node) are free to broadcast a tx that refers to a not-yet-in-block tx. just that other people will throw it straight to dev null
asciilifeform: as far as i'm concerned, nuking the tx orphanage cuts away some of the remaining 'promise' crud from the protocol, leaving the cold metal for which i for one love it
asciilifeform: whereas right now there is 'benefit of the doubt', largely harmless because 1) 'everyone' has infinite ram 2) no one is crapping out spurious tx in earnest
asciilifeform: because it could be a work of fiction
