Messages

RIGHT? I fucking love that so much.

Bless me, Rev.

Disappointed to be excluded again but thrilled and impressed with your work. It looks fantastic! I'm proud of you guys!

Nope. But it's not entirely dishonorable either for the experiment to reward its subjects (the early adopters) for taking the gamble by participating if it turns out the new drug works.

That's fine for them, not for you and me and if it gets corrupted, some people are going to be pretty fucked.

Early adopters at the top of a pyramid scheme didn't gamble on the success of the bitcoin. The way it works is it gets progressively more difficult to get bitcoins based on these cryptographic hashes, they could do this without ever investing any of their own money (read up on bitcoin mining).
They took little to NO risk, the currency rises based on the larger investment pool of people below them in the pyramid. They sell off and cash out their earnings that they never had to invest in.

It was worse then negligent or dishonerable, it is a calculated effort to separate people from their money.

Yeah, actually it's worse than that.

It's everything we detest about the current American economy since in order to own a slice of the pie, you either had to get there first or be able to afford a supercomputer to mine all day for you.

So, it's a system where the rich get richer and the poor get nothing. Poor, blacks with no access to adequate computers on the bottom. Again.

Consider me officially disillusioned.

Nope. But it's not entirely dishonorable either for the experiment to reward its subjects (the early adopters) for taking the gamble by participating if it turns out the new drug works.

That's fine for them, not for you and me and if it gets corrupted, some people are going to be pretty fucked.

The more I read it, the more yes.

30 pages and almost four years, and nobody's answered the original question yet!

"Yes. It is just you."

EOT

No, I think it isn't...unless you're spelling libertarianism with a capital "L."

I don't think it's the concept of prioritizing liberty within a social structure that sticks in people's craw, it's the brand.

No, I don't think it's just that, either. I think we've been able to set aside the branded concept quite a bit but there's a valid concern about prioritizing individual liberty to the point where nobody gives a shit about anyone but themselves and everyone relies on the existence of some lofty, charitable "safety net" to clean up the messes.

Me being a douchebag for the sake of being a douchebag: I notice "Liberarianism" is capitalized in the title, but "discordianism" isn't.

Seriously though, I think if you're going to throw away the moniker of "libertarianism," then you're not really angling for libertarianism, you're angling for an increased emphasis on respect for personal liberty. That's commendable, but it isn't something that can be solved by implementing a new system. All systems encroach to whatever degree people will allow them to encroach (that's the nature of these systems); the inconvenient part is that how much you allow the system to encroach has less to do with how much you want it to encroach, and more to do with how motivated you are to actually stand up against it. And the more satisfied you are with your liberties, the less likely you are to stand up against a system you don't perceive as threatening you too much.

The problem with America was that, for a long time, it was too successful, at least for the groups of people privileged enough to have any power over the system. The American system does buckle fairly easily when it's confronted with people determined to change it, though, which we have seen throughout the 20th Century. But the bottom line is that if the system moves aside so you can do what you want for the most part, then you will go about your business and ignore where it is oppressing someone else, until that oppressed person or people speak up loudly enough for you to notice. That's just the way society works. And it isn't just America that works that way, it's every society.

My only point here is that "Freedom" is not something that can be instituted from the top down. It isn't a policy that can be passed, or the act of removing policy. It wasn't just pretty words when they said no government can grant or deny rights. It's the truth. Your rights are what you take; you can't stop the government from standing in the way: that's diametrically opposed to the nature of government. You have the right to do whatever you can get away with. If enough people decide to get away with something despite the consequences, then the government will back off. But it has to start with people choosing to be free to do something regardless of whether they're "supposed" to do it or not. They can't be made free as a result of public policy.

Fucking right on.

[less competent at crime]

I think you were assuming facts not in evidence.

Also, there is no reason a black person would be more or less competent at crime, or even more or less worried about the consequences of being caught.

Criminals in general are dumb, and dumb crosses every boundary.

I don't think that's where my mind went. At least I hope not. I think it was more or less that there's a strong police presence there and fewer blacks "hanging around" for fear of NOPD getting in their face. Not to say it doesn't happen but I see the exchanges between the police and white crust kids go down a lot differently than with blacks in the Marigny and in the FQ. The crusties get loud and indignant and are pretty damned obnoxious, even when they're caught doing something red-handed. They hang around the Spirit shop on Decatur drinking and busking and hogging the sidewalk.

My knee-jerk assumption was likely the product of that.

The other possibility is that I was targeted. Maybe it was someone who knew what to look for. I'm sure my Faulkner State parking decal was a big hint that there might be some cool gadgets in my car. The hot-pink steampunk goggles and the stethoscope slung over the rear-view mirror probably didn't hurt. I don't know.

30 pages and almost four years, and nobody's answered the original question yet!

"Yes. It is just you."

EOT

No, I think it isn't...unless you're spelling libertarianism with a capital "L."

I don't think it's the concept of prioritizing liberty within a social structure that sticks in people's craw, it's the brand.

No, I don't think it's just that, either. I think we've been able to set aside the branded concept quite a bit but there's a valid concern about prioritizing individual liberty to the point where nobody gives a shit about anyone but themselves and everyone relies on the existence of some lofty, charitable "safety net" to clean up the messes.

Hrmmm...I think some brilliant ideas and brilliant minds come from the people who use the technology. There are plenty of enlightened, educated hopefuls who earnestly try to change the world from behind a screen. That's not what troubles me about ideas like Bitcoin. It's the equally-brilliant, black-hat exploiters that keep the shit-factory running. The unabashed takers who feel the weak and naive have it coming to them and rely on non-victims to agree and validate them ("You can't cheat an honest man! Yuk yuk!")...often for the same reasons the NOPD dispatcher suggested it was my own fault when my vehicle was smashed and burglarized this weekend.

Only in this case, there are more opportunities to be informed. That doesn't put the victims at fault, nor does it make them complicit in their own victimization. It just gives you a little more time to catch that dude walking towards your window with a spark-plug in his hand.

I think it's entirely possible Satoshi had the best of intentions here. I've heard it said that the safeguards against inflation were deliberate but at its best, it's a social experiment and that means someone's got to be the guinea pigs.

[Humans.]

My giant thought experiment is much simpler, and will work just as well as yours:


1. What if everyone was nice to each other?



As you can see, the problems resulting from your plan would be just about the same as the problems resulting from mine.



Humans.

Better to look at what we can do now.  If you want to spend $10 on a burger, with the cook and waiter getting a fair wage, it is an option...

That is what I do now. Should I stop thinking and hoping for a broader system that facilitates that?

One thing that reading your last installment brings to mind is the way threatened white people always bring up the fact that Hispanics have large families. They're scared shitless of being overrun by brown-skinned people. They really ARE terrified that brown people will out-breed them, and they seem peculiarly unaware that A. those kids are all Americans, and other than being brown won't be noticeably different from any other American kids, and B. that is only true of the immigrant generation; subsequent generations, being Americans, tend to have the same small family sizes other Americans do.

The hilarious thing is that they stand right in front of me and say this shit to my face. TO MY FACE. Like they failed to notice that I'm brown.

That's not a reflection on your personality, Nigel, or your appearance.  It's that your mannerisms don't project an impression of being oppressed.  You're direct, you look people in the eye, and you don't give the impression of being one who will take a lot of shit.

So they turn you white in their heads, because you don't look like an easy target.  And that's what they're after, just like any mindless mob of bullies.

But yes, they are TERRIFIED of being "overrun", and the points you bring up would never occur to them, nor would they listen to them.  It would go something like this:

Nigel:  "Kids are kids.  Hispanic kids are no different than white kids."

Po'bucker:  "Yes, but...<insert truism and/or You Know How Those People Can Be."

What you said would vanish into their empty heads, and they'd simply use your statement as an opening to rationalize their fear to you and to themselves.

Remember the conversation I told you about with Jacob?

Jacob:  "Have they (Hispanics) ever broken into your house?"

Me: "What, all at once?"

To Jacob, it WAS all at once.  Because to him, it is perfectly acceptable to blame the entire Hispanic population for burglary, despite the fact that you are more likely - in this city - to be burglarized by whites.

My car was burglarized this weekend in New Orleans while I was inside at a wedding. I was gone for less than two hours.

It was in the Marigny. Smashed my window on the driver's REAR and grabbed stuff on the passenger FRONT. Given the area, the circumstances, the shit they took (Asus tablet and keyboard dock, near-empty wallet, near-empty bag and a bag of toiletries with my glasses and a watch inside)  and what they left (GPS, some cash in the side pocket, an iPod, car stereo), I just get the feeeling it was one of those crustwave whites. While I was standing at the corner of Decatur and Elysian Fields, as people passed me by, I caught myself suspiciously scrutinizing the scraggy, drunken whites, not other races.

The tablet was covered up by my hi-vis EMS raincoat. I'd taken all the cash and cards out of my wallet already and threw the mostly empty thing on top without thinking about it.

I just feel like a black person would feel less bold, especially in the Marigny, about taking the time to go through all my shit to get the best stuff and leave the rest. Someone sat in that back seat with the door closed, pulled my EMS jacket off the front seat and exited the car with the best stuff. This wasn't just a desperate act to grab a quick crack rock. If they'd wanted that, they'd have smashed the driver's window and grabbed the GPS and the wallet, then ran. No, this was self-indulgence. Possibly someone who watched me go into the gallery. Someone comfortable hanging out there for a minute. I have a concealed carry permit. I'm lucky my firearm wasn't in the car because I'm sure they looked (it's legal to keep one in your car in Louisiana so it's exceedingly common).

What does that say about me? Is this a rational set of reasons behind my "gut" instinct or is it borne of some kind of bias?

I bring it up because it's relevant to explore whether certain kinds of racial bias themselves are borne of a character flaw or simple misinformation.

I'm sure there is at least an element of bias in my initial feeling but I'm dealing with a lot more information about the area and circumstances than someone who hasn't spent time there or hasn't been through it. But I still chided myself for my preconceived notions: it's still a race-based assumption.

What do you think of that?

Finance is a really BAAAAD area for me to for hard-and-fast opinions. I realize this and moderate myself. I probably won't understand half the shit on that wiki because OFUK MATH.

Which is funny because no matter what a persons beliefs, the finance side basically dictates the reality of what is and is not possible.

That doesn't make my ideas less valid.

Look, as I see it, this world is made up of number-crunchers, ideas people, philosophers, etcetera. Leaving all the decisions about how "reality" should be defined up to the money people is part of why my country's in this mess.

I do the best I can to keep myself informed. Some areas are easier than others but I'm no idiot, either.

Labels are for the reader, not the wearer.

My reaction when I see this stuff is that if I have to essentially MARRY INTO a damn community forsaking all others etc., etc., to be seen as supportive or whatever, fuck it. I can override that when necessary, but is everybody going to do that? It's really off-putting, and that's sad because trans people get fucked over a LOT.

Yeah, I was surprised, in spite of my own believed familiarity in the GLBT community at my lack of comprehension about "labelless gender" until we had the conversation with Kai.

I'm leaning more and more towards a "who gives a shit?" model. Just trying to find the neutral ground between shoving people into boxes or steamrolling/failing to acknowledge someone's identity.