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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Irelephant@lemm.ee to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[-] yesman@lemmy.world 104 points 1 month ago

One of the biggest realizations I had in High School is there are two kinds of people who hate bullies: those who don't think bullies should exist, and those who want the bully's power for themselves.

So it it with crypto. These jerkoffs don't want to crush the corrupt monetary system, they want to supplant it with their own scam.

[-] plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago

It's a movement driven in no small part by rage. By people who looked at [the financial crash of] 2008 - who looked at the system as it exists - but concluded that the problems with capitalism were that it didn't provide enough opportunities to be the boot.

All credit to Dan Olson's masterpeice video Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go watch the whole thing again.

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[-] meyotch@slrpnk.net 16 points 1 month ago

Yep, anyone who wants to change the rules stands to benefit from that change. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

[-] argon@lemmy.today 15 points 1 month ago

There's also the possibility they're just a good person.

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 36 points 1 month ago

mhm and how would Bitcoin fix those problems though? Can those Techbros actually answer that?

[-] Irelephant@lemm.ee 32 points 1 month ago

Value of number goes up, this fixes inflation somehow

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 9 points 1 month ago

Easier to launder. Maybe. 🤔

That's why my savings are all in undistressed jeans. Appreciates in resale with each use and machine-washable.

[-] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

We all fuckin know they can't but it's sure fun to watch the idjits try

[-] match@pawb.social 34 points 1 month ago

"Bitcoin" could just as easily be swapped with "prayer" in this sentence, with the same implications

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

Do you have time to talk about your bitcoins extended warranty, it now uses AI!

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 month ago

Given that he put no effort in finding some arguments, this is a case of "negative publicity is publicity too"?

[-] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 19 points 1 month ago

I would guess, yeah. But 80% of X looks like this, so I don't know what's engagement farming and what's normal posting in a community of radical idiots anymore.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 month ago

Damn, that's worse than i thought.

At this point, shouldn't it be considered a acquired mental disorder?

[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They're barely just now accepting that CTE's from smashing their heads together for fun might be a bad idea, it's going to take centuries for them to realize their social media echo chambers are probably worse overall than actual head trauma, if only because brain rot is a very communicable disease and their population has no herd immunity.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 18 points 1 month ago
[-] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 month ago

Anything that isn't is just bartering.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 10 points 1 month ago

Yes, or backed by actual PMs or other high-value assets. Which actually makes me wonder if those aren't fiat, too, considering artificial scarcity (De Beers and diamonds, for example).

[-] rockSlayer 19 points 1 month ago

Beer is a legitimate currency, don't let anyone tell you otherwise

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 8 points 1 month ago

The way water supplies are currently (mis)handled, you're not wrong. Beer was developed as a sort of sanitation method, iirc.

[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago

Which actually makes me wonder if those aren’t fiat, too, considering artificial scarcity (De Beers and diamonds, for example).

I can see an argument for considering them fiat. The value of "high-value assets" (e.g. gold) comes from the assumption they'll retain their value even if things get drastic, not from being immediately useful (e.g. alcohol) or necessary to survive (e.g. water).

PMs

Zero clue what the acronym means in this context.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 13 points 1 month ago

Precious metals. My point is, artificial scarcity means artificial value.

[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago

Ah, right. Yeah, I can see your point. If it isn't necessary to survive (e.g. food, water), or it doesn't have an immediate use case (e.g. ammunition), its probably some form of fiat.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 3 points 1 month ago

Not exactly what I was thinking, but I can see your point, too.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 1 month ago

Not really related but perhaps entertaining titbit, in the metro 2033 video game series they use high quality ammo as currency. Cant recall if this also happened in the book.

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[-] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Ever since we understood actual scarcity of mineral deposits across Earth, yeah

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 15 points 1 month ago

Bitcoin was a typo, he meant beef tallow

[-] prole 14 points 1 month ago

The beef tallow thing is painfully stupid...

I have started to wonder if the fact that adding it back makes it so vegetarians and vegans can no longer eat french fries (that are made with it) had anything to do with that decision... Or was that just an "unexpected bonus" in their minds?

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It prob is a "some culture warrior/bodybuilder misread a piece of research and it turned into a culture war conspiracy" thing. Like soy. (My silly nickname predates the culture war stuff by several decades, it comes from Shadowrun).

E: yes looked it up, comes via RFK of course and is anti seed oils thing. https://www.diningandcooking.com/1742624/america-stopped-cooking-with-tallow-for-a-reason/ and the anti seeds oil thing is an idea that has been spreading through the (far) right blogosphere for a decade or more (that is when I heard of it, so prob existed before that).

Our friends of the pod at lw also joined in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DHkkL2GxhxoceLzua/thoughts-on-seed-oil (but it concludes the seed oil theory is full of shit, points for LW there, well done (dont read the comments, there is roundup in the seed oils)).

[-] blakestacey@awful.systems 14 points 1 month ago

Well, LW is only being no more wrong than Andrew Tate there, so they don't deserve too many points.

And Yud himself went full-blown anti-seed-oil.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes the score is still negative even of they had one win. Note how the glyposate asspull still got 50 upvotes. (And how one person went 'wow i have the same' in reaction to that to then just go 'it was gluten'. Enormous levels of contrarian so open minded their brains now have worms stuff. And amazing that all of this started just because Yud thought others were not unbiassed enough to properly understand his argument about training agi safely. Talk about 'I realized my initial goals were impossible so I made secondary goals which were also impossible so I'm going to become a weird (far) right winger scope drift. See also Musk. Whos plans for Mars were replaced with AI robots, and now is starting a company townwith all the women he has kids with (see also 'the implication'). (Yeah I made up that his women compound and company town are in the same place, but you get my point I hope).

Interesting how they fail in similar ways, Musk ignores the community notes and spouts his bs, vs Yud and ignoring the post (i assume 2023 yud vs 2024 lw) and already going anti meta study (??) in the tweet. Womens compound vs math pets. Weird science fiction bs vs weird science fiction ba. Has group of haters he claims are actually a small (undead) Jewish cabal who are behind all his hate vs Has group of haters who all are (goth) David Gerard.

[-] fullsquare@awful.systems 3 points 4 weeks ago

painting goth David Gerard as their archenemy is pretty rich coming from a group that already owned two castles

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[-] corbin@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago

I'm guessing that you're too young to remember. Lucky 10000! In the 1990s, McDonald's was under attack for a variety of anti-environmentalist practices, and by 2001 there was a class-action lawsuit against them for using beef tallow in fries from a coalition of vegetarians, vegans, and primarily Hindus who were deeply offended that they had been tricked into consuming what they consider to be a sacred animal. In a nutshell, it's a very racist and revanchist move, not just an anti-environmentalist move.

Unlike normal, I can't link to good peer-reviewed articles on the topic. McDonald's is one of the few groups who can successfully control their Internet presence, and they've washed away these controversies as best they can. I almost feel like linking to this summary of the case on Wikipedia is unhelpful, since it's got so many apologetic caveats. They do this all over Wikipedia; McLibel or Liebeck are also heavily edited in favor of McDonald's. You'll have to explicitly add "hindu" or "indian" to search queries; for example, instead of "mcdonalds beef tallow", try "mcdonalds beef tallow hindu indians".

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 8 points 1 month ago

I still don't understand what that was about, like do fries made in tallow taste better? Or at least noticeably different?

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago

Idk if I have the formulation right on this but I imagine it’s a combination of various things:

  • Conservative nostalgia, concretely for fries themselves and abstractly for a fake, idealised version of the past.
  • Crackpot health woo: beef tallow is “carnivore” and “caveman” diet-coded. It’s not a processed/GMO seed oil.
  • Conspiracy by US Big Dairy to beef up their numbers.

I can’t speak for the taste. However, the fat used to fry fries does make a difference, as fat is a conveyance of flavour. Many fry recipes call for peanut oil, for example, while many people prefer using a neutral oil like canola to deep fry. I don’t think I know instinctively what the taste of beef tallow is like, but I imagine it’s just… beefy?

Notably different oils have different smoke points, meaning you can fry at higher temperatures for different textures. That’s why duck fat potatoes are a thing, for example.

Malcolm Gladwell famously has a podcast episode on the crusade against beef tallow, where he also replicates mcdonalds fries with beef tallow. But Gladwell is a chud, so fuck all that.

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

Conservative nostalgia, concretely for fries themselves and abstractly for a fake, idealised version of the past.

This is so weird to me like you can literally just go out and have fries today and they're great? They're so much better now because there's so many different places that literally just sell fries with various sauces so they have to be in an arms-race for the most delicious kind of sauce and the best fries. Plus everyone now offers sweet potato fries if you're bored of the normal ones. There's never been a better time for fries. When I was a kid fries fucking sucked man, and they had only ketchup.

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 1 month ago

100%. Nostalgia is a toxic impulse.

[-] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

People remember fries used to taste better, and they'll attribute it to anything except the maturation of their pallate.

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[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

You can replace the word "Bitcoin" with almost anything else and it'll make more sense.

[-] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 3 points 1 month ago

I wonder what he thinks Bitcoin will do. I assume they think it will just keep growing magically?

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[-] Nangijala@feddit.dk 14 points 1 month ago

Bitcoin is to men what MLMs are to women.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 12 points 1 month ago

I'll trade those cheap chocolate coins for your bitcoins, at a 1:1 ratio. Seems about the same value

[-] istewart@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago

Wow, coiners tried to parasitize YIMBY while I wasn't paying attention?

[-] kyle@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago

Wow I was with him at first lol

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

Wow, Bitcoin was the solution for that. That is a first. Might have found a first real usecase.

[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

"Let them eat bitcoin"?

[-] BurningRiver@beehaw.org 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If this guy is a CFA, I’d rather light my money on fire than let him manage it. I feel like the outcome would be the same anyway.

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago

A burning pile of money at least has some warmth, though.

[-] corbin@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago

I bet you're thinking of CPAs (not to be confused with CPAs or CPAs), who are the sort of folks that might manage money for the working class. CFAs are something different:

The top employers of CFA charter-holders globally include UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley.

You shouldn't let any CFA directly manage your assets. Go to your local credit union and get free advice from their CPAs; they often have a standard path to wealth-building for their members, even those without much in the savings account.

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[-] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

My Uncle is like this, he's currentley living in the same building as me, I sometimes wonder what shit he's posting thats getting traced back to our IP that I will eventually get blamed for.

If we lived in the US, I'd be legitimately worried.

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this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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