Aurelius

Read Michael Hudson
Read Noam Chomsky
Read Chris Hedges
Read Thomas Paine
Read JS Mill
Push back on Financial Imperialism
Push back on War
Push back on Time and Resource Theft
Push back on Austerity
Develop Public Works and Services
Advocate for the Poor
Disable Power of Large Corporations
#Bitcoin!🍊💊

Public Key

npub169yu4d6xl8a6d4xvfyhstjdxr0cc7qtfq5pch5kwv4k2wkapa3pq8v2thg

NIP-05 Address

Aurelius@satoshivibes.com

NIP-57 Address

livingbedroom05@walletofsatoshi.com

Profile Code

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relay.snort.social

relay.noswhere.com

relay.nostr.band

Author Public Key

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Last Notes

2023-09-06 17:41:23

Damus’ new “who to follow” feature is as offensive as YouTube or Netflix or Amazon’s watch recommendations. Algorithms that guide thought inhibit personal exploration, and consolidate opinions into a unified groupthink. This is the proof of stake model…those who have the most (dollars or followers) encourage governing algorithms to boost their product selectively over the products of others.

2023-07-28 10:53:43

In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, he describes being struck by the poverty of the northern people that he met upon his arrival in Newport. His conclusion was that without slavery as he had known in the south, there can be no wealth.
In the modern world where half of the wealth is owned by 0.1% of the population, where 3 billion live in poverty, where a single country siphons away the resources from most of the third world countries, and where the predominant economic model keeps the masses in a perpetual state of wage dependence and debt peonage, the injustices of slavery persist.

2023-07-26 21:02:03

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I think about this every time TSA is feeling me up at the airport.

2023-07-23 20:12:21

“The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in actual production in the most dangerous manner - and this crew know nothing of production and have nothing at all to do wish it.”
Citation: Avoid the ad-hominem fallacy to which you would likely fall victim. You don’t know the man because you haven’t evaluated his words. You only know what you have been told about him.

2023-07-22 17:13:14

Sometimes I like to throw out a quotation without a citation… an excellent thought with which most people interested in delivering humanity from enslavement by the financial industry will agree.
But when attached to the source, some of the best ideas are overlooked because so many of us submit to ad hominem fallacies… and assume we know what an author should say…while ignoring what he did say.

2023-07-22 16:58:03

https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-232-is-the-us-a-failed-state-with-michael-hudson/

2023-07-22 12:25:32

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When I studied Animal Farm in school, the teacher’s presentation was simply “communism bad”…and by extension, “America’s alternative good.”
Now I reread Animal Farm, read Orwell’s other works, learn about Orwell’s beliefs, and read the unpublished introduction to AF, and it’s clear that we all accepted an interpretation that was far from Orwell’s intention.

2023-07-22 12:20:57

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Debt for young people condemns them to a lifetime of wage slavery. Slavery exists, but the financial industry has renamed it, and has shifted its burden onto a larger cross section of the population

2023-07-22 12:14:20

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Have you ever read Orwell’s intro to Animal Farm that wasn’t published with the book?

2023-07-22 12:13:05

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😃

2023-07-21 15:40:19

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In a hospital
20 year old male
Bitcoin “B” in black
Left wrist. 3” tall.
Like an ADD child, I forgot what I was explaining to him and immediately asked about his Bitcoining.

2023-07-21 15:28:17

I had a client with a Bitcoin tattoo this morning. The conversation quickly went from the business at hand…to the business of saving mankind.

2023-07-21 14:38:26

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No idea is leftist or rightist. Ideas are true or untrue, logical or illogical. People are the only things that align themselves with cognitive camps wherein they allow or disallow those ideas based on their association rather than their validity.

2023-07-21 14:36:02

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I disagree with the vaccine comment too… but I don’t lose site of an incredible message because of an unrelated opinion that I disagree with. If I shared my views on meat, people would probably unfollow me and assume that everything else I say is tainted. Ideas don’t work like that. Compartmentalization and association of ideas is a logical fallacy. Ideas need to be evaluated on their individual merits.
I’ll share excellent lectures and conversations at some point today.

2023-07-21 13:04:02

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It’s not just that “crime increases.” Crime is a symptom of mystery and need. Create a miserable and fearful population, and people have to look to antisocial behavior to fulfill their needs or find validation.
Again…this helps the banking class. There is a great market to be found by having the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

2023-07-21 13:01:19

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It’s a win-win for the banking class.
1. Drive interest rates unnaturally low at the expense of savers.
2. Cheap money leads to asset price inflation. The wealthy own most of the assets.
3. Wages follow much slower than asset and commodity growth
4. Life becomes more expensive for people who mainly purchase food, energy, and shelter
5. Higher cost of living and comparatively lower wages lead to a stressed, more controllable workforce. The fearful worker is a dream for the industrialist who employs him

2023-07-21 11:45:37

Good hash day
Bad hash day
Like playing the lottery. Without the irrationality

2023-07-21 11:18:14

My fiat job a delight. I do twenty minutes of work, then sit back with my coffee and a Noam Chomsky lecture, to delight in a wealth of understanding about power and oppression.
Few people have done more to elucidate the inequities of modern society than the Professor. If he’s new to you, consume three lectures or read one book, and see if your world view isn’t vastly altered for the better.

2023-07-21 11:03:49

I can’t wait, Professor
https://youtu.be/ZpzrIljG7hU

2023-07-20 21:23:07

If your government and their media ask you to:
Hate China.
Ask why.
Hate Russia.
Ask why.
Hate Immigrants.
Ask why.
Hate Communism.
Ask why.
Hate Gaddafi.
Ask why.
Hate Iran.
Ask why.
Hate Bitcoin.
Ask why.
The reason is always that these things fail to serve the financial interests of those that pull the strings.

2023-07-20 14:35:10

What is progressive taxation?
It concentrates the burden on those whose wealth comes from rents, and minimizes the burden on those who labor.
Rents from assets are the same as Etherium managers siphoning off value just because they own. Bitcoin is a progressive system that does not reward anyone unless they put in work. The US tax system should also be.

2023-07-20 14:20:20

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#The Way of the Superior Man
-David Deida
This book may interest you based on your statement. It is about balancing the masculine and feminine essences of men and women’s nature, and improving relationships with women by amplifying this balance

2023-07-20 01:36:40

https://youtu.be/aLwRZibUqL0

2023-07-20 01:08:31

Ah…new cars.
Borrow money at interest…
To buy an asset that requires maintenance…
And that depreciates rapidly over the first few years.
Sounds like a winning financial decision. I’ll stick with my beater.

2023-07-20 00:52:16

“…freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the power, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.”
Daniel Guerin
Anarchism

2023-07-19 16:56:03

The only art form that we ever created and perfected was the television commercial. We have nothing else to our credit as a civilization. To try and persuade people to buy things they don’t need that are probably bad for them and may blow up in their face… why not sell the next president in the same way and make him just as phony as detergent?
Gore Vidal. Interview with Paul Jay

2023-07-19 15:09:52

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👍 Too many examples.
Imperialism with a moral justification for economic motivations is the norm, not the exception.

2023-07-19 13:47:14

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Nostr is probably the wrong market for airdrop shitcoinery…

2023-07-19 13:45:00

A few days until Block 800,000.
Where’s the party? 🐿😎🎉🎉

2023-07-19 13:43:31

The Romans conquered the Middle East to “civilize the barbarians”
The British conquered the world to “spread Christianity”
The Nazis conquered Europe to “spread German ethnicity”
The Americans conquered the world to “spread democracy”
We conquer for money and resources. If you think you’re on the moral side of imperialism, think again.

2023-07-19 13:41:25

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Shitcoiners fall victim to the same logical fallacy.
You have your work cut out for you 😎 Teach those children

2023-07-19 13:39:49

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Well, you are a math teacher. A 25% chance of breaking even on slot machines actually means something to you. Other people make decisions based on emotion and the imagined feeling of winning.

2023-07-19 13:34:13

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If you’re trying to flee your country, KYC vs Non-KYC could be the difference between safe emigration and indefinite holding in a cell until capital-gains is paid.
For those doxed on an exchange whose records are hacked, the difference could be anonymous existence vs. a burglar showing up at your door with a hammer.
There may not be a big difference at the moment in the US, but Bitcoin exists for the people around the world who need freedom of movement and freedom from oppression. Telling people that you have access to a tool will partly negate the value of that tool…by putting you at risk

2023-07-19 00:51:48

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Always love a rodent-themed post

2023-07-19 00:48:07

I don’t go to psychics, and I don’t entertain PlanB’s endless forecasting about future values.
Exciting predictions bring in likes on YouTube…but provide no value to an asset that needs to be appreciated by its users. Irrational exuberance doesn’t help Bitcoin.

2023-07-18 01:21:34

“The core of anarchist tradition is that power is always illegitimate, until it proves itself to be legitimate…
…It is the responsibility of those who exercise power to show that somehow it’s legitimate. It’s not the responsibility of anyone else to show that it’s illegitimate. It’s illegitimate by assumption…
Harry Kreisler interview with Noam Chomsky

2023-07-18 01:11:58

“Although various rationales were given for these wars, each was undertaken primarily to expand worldwide US military hegemony by gaining permanent American military bases in these countries. The delusionary impetus of these costly and destructive enterprises is captured by the definition of the philosophical phrase reductio AB absurdum: "a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequences is absurd or contradictory."”
https://original.antiwar.com/ronald_enzweiler/2023/03/28/iraq-afghanistan-and-now-ukraine-reductio-ab-absurdum/

2023-07-18 01:10:11

BRICS countries have twice the population as dollar-obligate countries. Once they establish their currency based on proportional contributions of each member’s currencies, and are able to make loans denominated in that currency, then debt denominated in dollars will lose all that luster that you find alluring. We’re already well down the road toward that point where treasury notes held by foreign entireties will be dumped, and the corporate debt accounting for the 40% of the value of the S+P owned by foreign governments and business will be sold off. The fact that “everybody uses the dollar” is an observation, not an appreciation of the the world’s trajectory.
Inflation resulting from the “printing” of 2 trillion over the last three years is a drop in the bucket compared to the potential inflation that may result from the devaluation of the 45 trillion dollar bond market.

2023-07-17 17:28:56

Bank bailouts do not stabilize the economy as billionaires would have us believe. They shift liabilities onto taxpayers. The financial class who yell “free market” are precisely those who designed a legal system that protects the rich at the expense of the poor.

2023-07-17 12:16:44

Debates about the quality of human nature seldom take into account the contribution that basic needs play in decision making.
It’s easy to be “good” if you aren’t hungry, stressed, at risk of losing your house, and are safe.

2023-07-16 02:46:35

To opt out of fiat is not to succumb to political ambivalence. In fact, Bitcoin is a politically relevant decision. Our democracy has been reduced to a form of representative government which is by nature, distanced from the citizen. A protocol that receives users’ feedback directly by way of POW and nodes, embodies a democratic element that has been lost in real politics. This character strengthens its resistance to anti-political appeals to patriotism, fear, and demagoguery.

2023-07-15 21:21:15

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Designing an enemy for the population to fear.

2023-07-15 18:51:01

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👍Excited to read this when I have some time tonight. Manufacturing Consent is one of those books that redefines one’s world view.

2023-07-15 13:06:37

2023-07-15 02:10:39

There is no left-right conflict inherent in the system.
There is only top-bottom conflict, and a dialogue controlled by the top with a purpose of fomenting resentment between the suffering masses below.

2023-07-14 23:24:21

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The power of decentralized money, communication, media… is not economic equality, but political equality. These protocols have the potential to undermine the elite’s claim that economic status should dictate political participation. The current relationship is by nature illiberal.

2023-07-14 23:16:24

It is crucial to recognize the tension between political democracy and economic power. The demos strives for political equality, and the elite claims that political inequality is a natural and acceptable aspect of economic inequality. When economic status dictates political status, democracy becomes impossible.

2023-07-14 15:43:11

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Hello Brother,
I like Jamison Lopp, but he is not a progressive person. If your intention is to have a progressive podcast, I recommend having conversations with people who study human rights, equality, and socially responsible political systems. Many Bitcoiners start with Bitcoin and work backwards to a set of tenets that really don’t support their conclusion. One should the conversation start by sharing an understanding of plutocracy, of elitism, of the traditional power of corporations and monopolies over the masses. Your podcast should include conversations about labor struggles, about the dangers of austerity, about the finance/insurance/real estate sectors and their tactics to extract rents from the people. Let’s discuss US imperialism in Central America in the 80’s. Let’s discuss resource and labor extraction from third world countries in Africa. Let’s discuss managed democracy and the rise of inverted totalitarianism. Let’s discuss the works of Noam Chomsky, Michael Hudson, JS Mill, Sheldon Wolin, Richard Wolff, Brian Czech, Chris Hedges, Alex Vitale, Tim Parsons, Gore Vidal, Paul Craig Roberts, etc. Bitcoin is the most liberal economic system that has ever existed, and it is part of the answer to many of the criticisms put forth by Marx, Rocker, Trotsky, Lenin, and Kropotkin.

2023-07-14 15:16:43

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Awesome. Now you can sell your furnace to buy some more miners.
1. They’re super loud; don’t put them under your bedroom
2. Filter that air really well. There’s some dirty air in those ducts, and miners do not care to be dirty.
3. One may want to consider whether placement of miners in series or in parallel would make more sense. In series would be easier, but then the hot exhaust gasses from one would become intake gasses for the next.
4. Bitmain says miners should not be placed in damp areas. Evaluate that crawl space.

2023-07-14 15:07:16

Belief in species exceptionalism…or cultural exceptionalism…or national exceptionalism…or genetic exceptionalism…depends on a mythical and imagined foundation. The only exceptionalism is in life itself.

2023-07-14 14:52:26

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What do you mean by that?

2023-07-14 14:50:02

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🫂🐿

2023-07-14 14:49:17

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🫂

2023-07-14 14:48:54

I think freedom from ideology is greatly liberating. Why find comfort in a set of collected beliefs and values designed for you by a political tribe? Designing your own set based on an independent world view, allows you to define your own tenets and then extract logical conclusions. The existing plutocracy would rather present you with allowable conclusions, and hope that you ignore the fact that the natural tenets of human need do not support them.

2023-07-14 12:03:15

At the fiat mine, making more money than most, because I know a thing about barriers to entry, trade monopolies, and state regulations... not because my time is worth more, or because my craft is more valuable.
It’s nice for me…but really it’s a symptom of a broken system that allows powerful industries to write their own rules.
Bitcoin fixes this.

2023-07-14 11:52:58

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Looks good 👍🐿

2023-07-14 10:48:03

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Agricultural practices in India and the western US are key causes

2023-07-14 10:43:53

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103509

2023-07-14 08:27:59

We’re terrified of public opinion from the moment we’re born, partially due to religious training, partially due to an educational system that is not very interested in educating us.
What, really, the rulers want are docile workers, who refuse to have anything to do say about minimum wage or labor unions, and passionate consumers…
Gore Vidal
History of the National Security State

2023-07-14 01:19:57

According to Thorstein Veblen, wealth was historically measured in personal time: leisure, the ability to let your wife stay at home, the time to study and learn.
Rent seekers and money lenders changed the dialogue, and convinced the world that wealth is things. Your leisure time, it turns out, yields them no interest and no rent.

2023-07-13 23:47:37

A concise explanation of how the US exports inflation to developing countries.
“The… thing about inflation in developing countries … it’s usually the case of external inflation that’s imported when you import food or fuel or whatever resources a particular country has. So, when you look at most developing countries, you realize that the reason they lose their monetary sovereignty is because they have structural economic issues, structural trade deficit issues. And when you zoom in, in most countries, those tend to be two reasons. One is a deficit related to food imports that just don’t have enough food production domestically.
So, they have to import food on a systemic basis. And number two, it’s energy or fuel trade deficit related.
So, they have to import fuel to fuel their economy. And those are things that, no matter what you do as a central bank, you’re not going to eliminate those structural issues unless, as a country, you start investing in renewable energy so that you don’t have to import fossil fuels anymore. Or you invest in a sustainable agricultural policy so that you have food self-sufficiency.
So, if you have that hole in your trade deficit every single year, if you don’t borrow in a foreign currency, as a developing country, if you don’t borrow in dollars or euros, what’s going to happen is that your exchange rate is going to depreciate. And, then, the next morning or the next month, when you as a country try to import food or fuel, you’re going to import it at a higher price. So, you’ll be importing inflation into your domestic economy.”
Fadhel Kaboub

2023-07-13 21:56:30

All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual’s own.
— Herbert Marcuse

2023-07-13 21:50:13

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The conditions, and the balance of leaders and followers that are necessary for successful and sustained revolution has been debated for years.
So I think it’s humorous that this quotation came from a book entitled “Everything is Obvious.”
😎

2023-07-13 19:25:57

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You’re absolutely right…the House, full of the ultra-rich living off of rents and corporate bribes in exchange for legal favors certainly isn’t representative of the people who labor for their money.
I meant to say the House is the only body directly elected by the people, rather than appointed by another body supposedly representing the people (Senate, President, Sup Court).

2023-07-13 16:12:31

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And because of this sentiment, we have an elite class of managers that constantly enact polities that roll up our rights, shift wealth out of our hands into theirs, privatize public resources to sell back to us, sacrifice social services for more lucrative exploits, and create ever more Orwellian surveillance policies sold to us as “protection.”
Maybe the public are dumb and don’t know what’s best. Or maybe it is inevitable that a class of managers will abuse the power they have over the people. I am of the masses, and I think I know what is best for me better than an in-elected oligarch.

2023-07-13 16:00:30

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We feel that we are losing our rights, but many of our “rights” were only ever imaginary.

2023-07-13 15:59:35

The purpose of the Constitution was to shift power back away from the people…a democracy enacted by the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution reestablished a representative government over a republican government, wherein the only branch of government truly representative of the people would be the House of Representatives.

2023-07-13 15:54:51

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“…to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”
Our government was never intended to be a democracy representing all people. It was intended to protect a certain elite class.

2023-07-13 15:49:34

https://www.commentary.org/articles/sohrab-ahmari/terrible-american-turn-toward-illiberalism/

2023-07-13 15:47:51

“The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, — when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.”
Attributed to either James Madison or to John Adam’s, depending on the source. Likely 1787

2023-07-12 16:04:03

“Be a man of vision, Palamedes. A lookout and a statesman who perceives the whole of the politics that forms the needs of our people.”
-The Lost Muse of Justice

2023-07-12 15:15:26

Programmatically, both the Republican and Democratic parties exist to advance corporate economic and political interests.

2023-07-12 15:11:03

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When we use terms incorrectly to elicit feelings in the reader, we diminish the value of our communication

2023-07-12 15:06:57

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Pursuit of ideologies leads to ignorance. Pursue understanding.

2023-07-12 15:03:02

People lose their ability to describe oppressive relationships with power when they use terms like “socialist,” “fascist,” “communist.” These terms have been hijacked and reinterpreted for us so that the original meanings are misunderstood by most. To use such a term interchangeably for “bad” belittles the original meaning and demotes whatever message you’re trying to share.
I see these terms used incorrectly all the time.

2023-07-12 13:30:58

Nationalism and patriotism, not ideology, suffice to control the American population and gain its support. Patriotism requires no collective self-examination. It needs only a spontaneous response to whatever threat is sold to the population

2023-07-12 13:18:58

When did the people delegate “most powerful force in the world” to the government?
Our founding fathers and their documents did not delegate power over our lives, over the lives of people in Syria and Palestine and Lebanon, or over the time and resources of people in Venezuela, Nigeria, Turkey, etc.
Such power is antagonistic to the concept of democracy.

2023-07-12 01:25:44

As long as Bitcoin uses the RIPEMD160 hash function, there are 2^160 Bitcoin addresses.
That number is:
1,461,501,637,330,902,918,203,684,832,716,283,019,655,932,542,976

2023-07-11 13:18:54

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There is no natural harmony among self interests, especially when a small part of the population has access to unlimited 0% loans, while the majority of the population is relegated to 17% interest contracts on credit cards.

2023-07-11 13:16:25

I notice that all teaching about Adam Smith invokes a mythical yearning that unrestrained competition will somehow lead to a world of morally relevant economic interactions, rather than to a world of unrestrained monopolies growing ever larger.
Smith’s “invisible hand” was his imagination, and was only used once or twice within his works. His clearer message was about the dangers of monopolies.

2023-07-11 12:41:31

The amorphous character assigned to the new world of terrorism justifies an ever-enlarging power of state.
Don’t fear enemies; fear those who tell you about enemies

2023-07-10 19:53:36

Real patriotism is a commitment to the wellness of all fellow creatures.
Commitment to a flag, to a piece of paper, or to a myth of exceptionalism, is a cognitive trap sold to you, that you may dance in the game of global domination, and hate your brothers whose wellbeing stands in the way of wealth for the few

2023-07-10 19:49:09

We live within an economic system that is designed to allow the exploration of the many in the service of the few.
Yet we are surprised that we have mediocre healthcare, the greatest private debt in the world, longer working hours than any other civilized nation, 3.5 million people in prison, 850 military bases around the globe, decaying infrastructure, and millions of poor, hungry, and undereducated citizens.
The glory of a civilization should be measured in its benefit to the populous, not in its willingness to step upon the people in the service of the masters.

2023-07-10 19:40:52

A normie gets a paycheck for doing his job all day.
**Proof of work**
A 1%er receives rents for controlling the means of production.
**Proof of stake**

2023-07-10 17:13:23

Chris Hedges: Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats
https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-journalists-abandoned-julian-assange-slit-throats/285250/

2023-07-10 16:33:28

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
— George Orwell, 1984

2023-07-10 15:25:58

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This is excellent. On many occasions I have wrestled with the desire to start a cooperative of some sort. Maybe a public internet library. Maybe a homeschooling cooperative. Maybe a drainage company. I don’t know; it’s the structure that frees workers from wage slavery that most interests me.
One of the problems I run into is the management of funds and finding a voting structure that doesn’t rely on a centralized party to approve community decisions. I can’t wait to try this out

2023-07-09 00:02:07

“This is how the financial sector operates. It tricks the host economy’s brain—the educational system and the government as planner and lawmaker—to make it think that the way to grow is to promote a financial oligarchy.”
Finance Capitalism and its Discontents.
Michael Hudson
#bitcoin erodes the financial oligarchy

2023-07-08 13:08:34

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The University has been remodeled from a study model, and is quickly becoming a credentialing model. Man’s desire to improve his life makes him a ready market for the elite to sell those credentials to him for a life of debt.

2023-07-08 13:05:02

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The perpetual need to hop investments is past. Mathematics, usability, and glaring improvement on the shortcomings of the largest industry (finance), make Bitcoin growth inevitable

2023-07-08 13:02:34

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That’s the success of American Capitalism. To prioritize business profits over social good. That’s what it’s all about.

2023-07-08 03:37:41

Let us question all the establishments that are so ingrained in our lives that their existence is assumed to be normal, rather than parasitic.

2023-07-08 03:37:13

“the West faces the dreadful prospect that it could become the standard-bearer of a new regime type: a socially totalizing, surveilling, information-monopolizing, biopolitical, and martial regime disguised in the feel-good casing of liberal democracy”
https://www.agonmag.com/p/the-crisis-of-liberal-modernity-and

2023-07-08 02:00:43

The way to sell a book:
1. Find an eager audience
2. Find an audience with a minimal understanding of the topic
2. Tell them what they want to hear
3. Appeal to emotion
4. Never mind that your tenets do not support your conclusion.
#Saif.
#Read better books.

2023-07-08 01:52:59

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I don’t blame the victim. I blame a system that values the extraction of profit and information over the natural rights of the public.

2023-07-08 01:49:36

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I retroactively salute those who participated in the Occupy movement, who understood that participatory democracy is about sit-ins, riots, strikes, pickets, and speeches.
Whatever your opinion, do not accept that your vote is the proper and only outlet for amending the government’s actions.

2023-07-08 01:46:02

I lived in NY during the Occupy Wall Street movement.
At the time, I did not appreciate how participatory democracy has essentially vanished. It has been replaced with a mere ceremonial form of democracy that relies on voting as a tool of legitimation, but that so effectively fragments the public and stifles and replaces any mass sense of civic responsibility, that the public has been removed from its role as grantor of power to a servant government.

2023-07-07 15:50:06

It is self-subverting for the managers of democracy to subordinate egalitarian convictions to the pursuit of expansive politics

2023-07-07 13:36:33

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I don’t know a thing about that scale, but I’m delighted to have something new to read about today at work!
The closest I get to Carl Sagan is to read Lynn Margulis (his ex-wife) and her works on symbiogenesis

2023-07-06 18:15:16

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And your endocrinologist