asciilifeform: i know several folks who work or have worked at uspto. they will swear that the only -individuals- still seeking patents are certifiable lunatics
asciilifeform: decimation: just like the cone that takes out wash.d.c will prove to be great soviet roi
asciilifeform: individual patent is about as useful to the megacorp as a particular cone full of radar chaff in a particular ballistic rocket in a particular underground shaft
asciilifeform: ben_vulpes probably knows 1) how patents are used in modern usa 2) how patentmeisters in megacorps are incentivized to work quota
asciilifeform: housing and discrimination etc << the bans on 'asking wrong question' were enthusiastically pushed by the real estate racket, who were all too happy to have price become the one and only legal selector☟︎
asciilifeform: the history of never having worked is a plus (though davis worked just once, iirc)
asciilifeform: the guy who wrote templeos is living on that racket << terry davis. and schizophrenia is still one of the more reliable ways a white man can get usg payola. though it's still an 'achievement', on part with getting a $1M research grant on your lonesome
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: ...but a leech ? a leech is a revolutionary. << usg welfare folks aren't leeches, they're employees. (what're they paid for? ask tlp.)
asciilifeform: to let people pick the density of welfare cases in their area << they already can! (price)
asciilifeform: decimation: in general there's nothing secret about who they are - you can mostly tell by street address
asciilifeform: how's that work - what did they actually -do-
asciilifeform: the 'living wage' thing is much closer to things that actually happen, because pumping staight from treasury to rentiers (who jack prices immediately on anything subsidized) is apparently a-ok
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: did the 20k thing ever actually happen ?
asciilifeform: or, more to the point, drinking the sea
asciilifeform: very few people would enjoy actually eating the horse
asciilifeform: at any rate, the 'eat a horse' effect is at work
asciilifeform secret connoisseur of 'rotting in prison' literature. has most of a bookcase - and none is in eng. doesn't know of any in that language worth keeping