asciilifeform: TomServo: these folks are not necessarily brilliant schemers, but they have the basics nailed down. such as how to trade 'interesting' coin for 'boring' coin.
asciilifeform: so long as your 'throne' (kingly, ministerial, city-dogcatcher, commissioner of farts, etc) is a thing - and isn't constantly probing your arse for worthiness to sit thereon - it will behave this way.
asciilifeform: now let's say actual medicinal practice reappears, in underground hideouts of a kind.
asciilifeform: is the answer for king to decree 'anyone may call himself a man of medicine' ?
asciilifeform: (some people see this as something which has already happened, but that's besides the point of the example)
asciilifeform: imagine if actual, scientifically-honest medicine were entirely forgotten, and the licensing authorities in your country permitted only witch doctors, whose main remedy is blood-letting.
asciilifeform: 'Because apparently nobody creates anything anymore, and it all belongs to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram, right assholes?' << this is fundamental.
asciilifeform: certainly the tabloids would love to print a sensational turd about the sub. but then editor's phone rings, and 'editors can also have problems'
asciilifeform: press also has enemies it can, as a whole, agree on. untermenschen, if you like. some things 'it would not do' to print.
asciilifeform: if they all 'link to each other' - you have only alchemy, astrology.
asciilifeform: they link to nobodies, to beginners << unmistakeable, dire sign of a field not yet (and perhaps never) mature. you need some beginnings of a fissure between the alchemists and the chemists, astrologists and astronomers.
asciilifeform: thestringpuller: actually these were, if i recall, german. 17th-18th c.
asciilifeform remembers old engravings of circus bears playing organs
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: his wife wants to remain behind the wire?
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves: no aamount of money (in bitcoin) will be real << to make it feel 'real', convert to a tangible. like an swift escape rocket from usaschwitz
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves, mircea_popescu: 'taken up with the wrong crowd', lol
asciilifeform: when the dekulakization squad wants your usd - they'll take it.
asciilifeform: this - is riotously funny. this is like watching german jews in '36 sit around a table and talk about how they'll 'game the system.'
asciilifeform: there is an ancient law involved. 'не пойман — не вор' - 'not caught -- not thief.' known in english lands, if i'm not mistaken, as 'the eleventh commandment.'
asciilifeform: all you need is basic machine tools. edison had his built (afaik, the man's only actual proven invention, that he stole nowhere) for 20 usd (of the period) in a day or so.
asciilifeform: can still get vintage one. or, in one or two evenings, build yourself.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: anybody else is either too stupid or too poor << the funny part is, if i actually had any palpable coin, i'd find this kind of mental process more arduous, rather than less. being armchair general vs. the actual kind. easier.
asciilifeform: different coinbase << traded in meatspace. purely analogue operation.
asciilifeform: i see it as virtually certain that the sr stash was 'washed' - i.e. traded for some quantity of 'uninteresting' coin, of the kind the public has not been sniffing the blockchain history of on a daily basis; which was then used as fuel with which to stoke gambits like 'ethereum.'
asciilifeform: as i understand, they are simply baking on painting the tape 'dark enough' with arse-mouth lowball bids.
asciilifeform: but how does usg ensure that no third party outbid it ?
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: anybody other than us discussing this publicly ?
asciilifeform: the usd printer doesn't even have to engage unless an outsider shows up to purchase a cheap coin.
asciilifeform: had a thought. usg's btc price dampener strategy has no clear endgame - the 'ethereum' thing will carry on while the usd printing press runs, because it stands to reason they are running both the sell and -buy- ends of the machine. 'arse-mouth system.'☟︎
asciilifeform: for now, i'll call it 'diversion' and be done with it.
asciilifeform: that is - concocting a wildly and brazenly obvious crock of shit, to make lesser ones seem plausible ?
asciilifeform: anyone know if there's a traditional name for this type of scam?
asciilifeform: when i read the 'rebecca' piece, i immediately assumed it was a green hills turd somebody dug up for old time's sake.
asciilifeform: (ghs sells own os, not based on anything in particular. something which in principle i'd find appealing, but virtually nothing is publicly known about it. it's a 'golden toilet' of u.s. military establishment.)
asciilifeform: hasn't worked correctly till about 2004 >> imperial collapse isn't terribly great for satellite constellations. as usa will soon discover.
asciilifeform: it'll get 100% uptime when the last wintel box in russia is ceremonially burned.
