asciilifeform: i suppose if your cargo looks immediately valuable, you might have problems.
asciilifeform carried a fat oscilloscope and ominous-looking crate with sample boards through u.s, german, romanian customs; nobody blinked an eye
asciilifeform: benkay: i hear they'll let your machine through if you bring it as... carry-on baggage
asciilifeform: usms manages to get SCAMMED << had urge to bet on this, immediately after the press release. then understood that probably 'badBet.'
asciilifeform: herr taleb alternates between ruminating on his personal sense of brilliance and excellent pedigree, and... punching a boxer's bag. how much fun to watch a man punch a bag?
asciilifeform: it is very reminiscent of the 'atheism books' one finds in u.s. shops. if you were never a christian, they're a total snore.
asciilifeform: ^ finally forced myself to read that book - not a fan. despite not really disagreeing with the arguments (to the extent the man bothered to make arguments)
asciilifeform: 'Avarus, Inc. (“we”, “us”, “our”) was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware on September 20, 2010. The Company was originally organized as a “blank check” shell Company to investigate and acquire a target company or business seeking the perceived advantages of being a publicly held corporation.' << lol!
asciilifeform: los_pantalones: dpr might be sitting on a stake as we speak, coughing up the keys
asciilifeform: (not to be confused with 'puppet state')
asciilifeform: result was a miniature preview of the 'roaring '90s'
asciilifeform: ('nep' was an experiment with limited 'backslide' into capitalism)
asciilifeform: burn a registered company and walk away and start a new one << interesting historical degenerate case: russia during lenin's 'NEP' - 20s - folks would close a firm immediately prior to tax day, open new one the day after with same assets
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: with 30k usd profit, it is not too adventurous a guess that polimedia does not house mpex ?
asciilifeform: in this scenario, the 'cerebral' work was done for you - by the folks who built the plant which churns out pseudoephedrine by the gigaton
asciilifeform: (the hicks don't start with a bag of carbon, a bottle of water...)
asciilifeform: it is again - when the one-step precursors are unavailable
asciilifeform was involved in a (failed) project to churn out butyrylcholinesterase via transgenics.
asciilifeform: a world where coke is the currency and sugar is illegal... an agro product << point of the second (e. coli) gedankenexperiment isn't that the planet needs a gigaton of coke (perhaps it does, but i digress) but would be to profit maximally off the 'demonetization.'
asciilifeform: coke market in the us would be like meth market << nope. bioreactor (aside from somebody having to jump the hurdle and produce the transgenic critter in the first place) is a considerably more cerebral undertaking than grignard reaction in a garage.
asciilifeform: genetically diddling e-coli is tricky.
asciilifeform: (bacterium is energetically-cheaper than plowing fields)
asciilifeform: could easily become the same kind of 'agro product' as... insulin.
asciilifeform: (coke is no more difficult to churn out by the gigaton than, e.g. progesterone. do you see it at local pharmacist for a penny a dose? didn't think so. because it is a kind of chemical / international fiat currency. with all of the features that come with such.)
asciilifeform: cocaine demonetization is, of course, gedankenexperiment. nobody interesting is particularly well-positioned to benefit from it, and so it won't happen - just as cardboard full-height replica of eiffel's tower won't happen.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: the basic idea behind the 'antidepressant' market is at least as mistaken as the phlogiston theory. so what kind of result can be expected.
asciilifeform: learn how alchemists were treated back when influential folks thought that alchemy might work
asciilifeform: btc folks who expect to 'can have problems' from daring to demonetize the dollar should contemplate gedankenexperiment - what'd happen to a nation that 'demonetizes'... cocaine. (that is, establishes dirt-cheap production & distribution.) if your starfish doesn't quiver at the thought of the 'problems you can have' then...
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: so weak as to be almost useless.
asciilifeform: this is why the 'optimize for patentability' process is an inevitable crock of shit. when the scamz0rs can't enclose the commons - they torch them.
asciilifeform: 1) pick a problem 2) ban solution 3) ??? 4) profit!☟︎
asciilifeform: interestingly, sometimes the pharma folks fail: they spent some years trying to cough up a dopamine reuptake inhibitor that doesn't reduce to a synthetic cocaine, and, afaik, gave up☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: in both examples, ordinary opium is the champ
asciilifeform: dxm, loperamide, etc. solve what might be called 'fiat problems'
asciilifeform: talking about the goal, vs. the process
asciilifeform: Mats_cd03: not necessarily - where in nature do you find, e.g. ssri
asciilifeform: Mats_cd03: 'let's take a drug that's been known for 5,000 years, but is too much fun; nip at the structure a bit until we have a - anti-diarrheal, cough suppressant, etc. that's almost as good as opium.'
asciilifeform: Mats_cd03: interesting case of the kind of thinking that gave us, e.g. DXM
