faceh
2d ago
That would be for the government to investigate, ultimately.
But point being if a person isn't breaking the law, then they should not be getting debanked.
Guess I can understand WHY China, Iran, Russia and such would not want to be plugged in as part of the U.S. extended financial network, since that's basically giving them root level control of your citizens' finances, let alone your government's.
And with the implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act, it is also way harder to hide behind corporate structures.
Pretty crazy how while constant culture warring was going down during Trump's term, the Fedgov just quietly picked up all the tools it needs to surveil every aspect of the financial system from top to bottom without any alarm whatsoever.
faceh
2d ago
I had noticed that under the current regulatory regime, the U.S. government in theory should have information pertaining to literally every large monetary transaction that takes place with any regulated bank attached to it.
So almost all of them.
Also can't help but feel like this will eventually enable an end-run around the need to actually investigate crimes and make arrests to enforce the law. Instead they can just haul you in to ask why you made that strange $5000 transaction on July 23, 2026 when you happened to be visiting a known purveyor of badthink?
Frustrating, but inevitable because there's no way that government would CHOOSE to turn blind eyes to the wealth of transaction data that is now electronically accessible.
faceh
3d ago
Well, when you put it like that…what’s the alternative?
I think in the hypothetical ideal in my mind, the payment processors/financial system are 'forced' to be agnostic as to the source of funds they receive, even if they themselves will decline to send money out to certain uses or to take certain types of people or businesses as customers. Money is money when it comes in, as long as all else is legal and fraud protections are cleared.
I suppose it should in theory be 'impossible' to have your funds locked away from you, and your funds should always be withdrawable to some base physical currency or transferable to a different bank, so you will never have to forfeit money sitting in your account because the bank determines it came from some sketchy source.
Government doesn't like this because people will evade taxes and launder money and pay for activities the government dislikes.
Society at large might dislike this because various vices are enabled by an open payment process.
But the point is that if you are operating in sketchy-but-legal industries and you have a contract with a payment processor to help you receive money from your customers, you should not be getting 'debanked' completely without warning and should be able to know you can get those funds out of the bank without too much hassle, even if they ultimately decide to stop processing your payments.
I could perhaps imagine a rule that provides that no payment processor can deny a customer the right to engage in any 'legal' transaction that is <$500 in a single day with a $10,000.00 total limit on a rolling 30 day basis, which is cumulative for the customer in question across any processors they use.
In exchange, the banks/processors get some kind of 'chargeback insurance' up to that $10,000.00 limit, analogous to FDIC insurance on deposits.
So "basic guaranteed processing" is a fundamental 'right' which any regulated bank has to provide.
I'm certain there would be abuses of this system, and second order effects.
But yeah, the idea is to HOPEFULLY prevent average citizens from being 'debanked,' and allow certain 'sketchy but legal' companies to eke out an existence if they have enough customers and not have to worry about an arbitrary policy change from one of like three major companies putting them out of business.
It definitely annoys me that "access to the financial system writ large" has become so utterly critical to doing anything useful that it immediately has a totalizing effect on what anybody can do, anywhere in the world, even on the internet.
Maybe there's one bank/payment processor that holds out and willingly acts to handle the 'controversial' transactions, but that just removes things one layer back, as other banks and processors will eventually blacklist that bank. And thus rendering that bank mostly useless for any other purpose. If it doesn't shut down it'll struggle to remain solvent.
Lets say that some pornography company was wealthy enough it could 'become its own bank' and processes payments on behalf of users and extends credit and otherwise runs all its own transactions and only has to interface with the financial system to purchase the services it needs to operate. Once it is known as the 'porn bank' it'll probably be impossible to find any other financial services willing to interface with them unless they comply with all the sames restrictions the other banks are working under... which defeats the purpose of 'self banking' to begin with.
It comes down to the fact that the financial system is a tightly connected web, and the main value any bank or payment process can provide is access to the network, so maintaining that access is their primary concern.
From the moral standpoint, it bugs me when there's very little evidence(indeed, I've seen none) that digital artwork depicting heinous, illegal, or otherwise disgusting acts is actually causing harm to nonconsenting parties. The reasons we find CSAM objectionable and worthy of legally crushing are generally not present when it comes to digital art. One party or group wants some art, the artist produces it and gets paid, nobody else even need be aware of what it contains!
It'd be nice to think of our financial system as mostly as set of dumb tubes that transmit the data representing our money around without caring much about the start and endpoint... with a lot of protections in place to mitigate fraud, theft, and user error. But ultimately a financial company is operated by humans who are subject to legal jurisdiction of some country or other, and have to maintain access to the global finance system if they want to take that money to any other jurisdiction, so in reality the 'rules' are set based on what all participants are willing to tolerate.
Anyhow, this is ultimately the impetus for the protagonists in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon to create a private, heavily anonymized bank/data haven in a location outside of the U.S.' sphere of influence. And in order for them to pull it off it required a chain of events that seems even more fantastical now than it did then, such as finding an island nation that is independently wealthy yet also politically stable enough to act as a headquarters for such an endeavor.
faceh
4d ago
Got some of those in the 'leadership' positions independently wealthy.
faceh
12d ago
I don't think you can confidently rely on an adverse party's word when judging whether their actions, even negotiated in advance, don't conceal alternate intentions which will only be revealed when they are taken.
Why would you think "Iran says that was it" is good evidence when Iran can say whatever they want but do something else entirely?
That's not even an uncommon tactic.
Russia was of course claiming the troops along Ukraine's border were a training exercise or what-have-you right up until they crossed over.
Famously, many Russian troops themselves didn't know the plan was an actual invasion.
So I'm not inclined to be CONFIDENT that any given action is what the adverse party is saying just because they say it.
I do sometimes wonder how a military determines the appropriate size of a strike to launch in order to send a sufficiently stern message but with minimal risk of actually crossing a line that isn't easily uncrossed.
Requires accurate estimates of your opponent's defensive capabilities and expect that they'll be able to intercept enough that the damage is limited.
I suppose the selection of targets is more important overall, if you can mitigate loss of life AND not strike something that the other side finds particularly valuable then there's less risk of some miscalculation causing worse consequences.
One memorable scene from the SciFi Series The Expanse sees the forces of the Earth Military blow up one of Mars' Moons which was itself the response to the Martian Military destroying one of Saturn's moons which housed an earth-controlled research station. The argument being "a barely populated rock in exchange for a barely-populated rock" was a fair tit-for-tat to discourage further aggression.
BUT, (light spoilers) the actual underlying intention of certain players on Earth was to trigger an all-out war and they were hoping that blowing up a moon that close to the home planet would actually lead to immediate retaliation/escalation. (/light spoilers)
I thought it was a good illustration of how these sorts of calls end up being made, AND the delicate dance that it can entail when you risk misapprehending your opponent and what you think is a slap on the wrist could be an unforgivable offense to them.
faceh
17d ago
Yes, I'm just saying that the software is maintained by a company that may not make the best decisions for the end-users because incentives aren't quite aligned.
faceh
17d ago
The eternal question is 'compared to WHAT?'
Feudalism 'works.'
Slavery 'works.' We had it in place for eons of human history. Rome was built on slavery, and Rome outlasted the USSR in pure duration.
And perhaps the oldest 'economic' system of all: invading the neighboring tribe, killing them, and taking their shit 'works.' It still gets some use in the current age.
But if there's a system that is completely outperformed along all the metrics that actually matter, and the alternative system survives over the long term, 'working' is not a sufficiently convincing qualifier.
Capitalism (admitting that the definition is somewhat ambiguous) solves virtually any economic 'problem' you throw at it, and it does so more effectively than any other system we've devised or evolved so far. I don't think there's ever been ANY country that collapses due to being "Too capitalistic."
So I don't hold my breath than any of the current contenders are going to replace it.
faceh
17d ago
Summarizing dense, relatively inscrutable material when I don't have the time to read it for myself.
Quick diagnosis of issues with minor appliances or mechanical issues. I don't trust them for medical purposes. Describe the year make and model of your car and any weird noises or behavior it is making.
Song recommendations (i.e. here's a list of songs I like, give me more on this theme)
Nigh instantaneous proofreading and editing of professional letters, documents, or similar.
Quick feedback loop for brainstorming ideas or quickly 'prototyping' concepts you have had difficulty envisioning or expressing.
Right now they don't have much 'agentic' uses (I'd really like one that can e.g. order pharmacy refills or schedule oil changes for me) but I think the basic capabilities are there.
faceh
17d ago
Yeah and probably best practices to not do that.
faceh
18d ago
I've been willing to pay a couple bucks to rent a film for a movie night, but I do feel utterly betrayed when something I've bookmarked for later consumption is pulled when I actually go to watch it.
My habit now is if there's a series or something I'm watching with friends, I'll download local copies just in case.
faceh
18d ago
It is funny, but I know people like you EXIST who live mostly 'unplugged,' but it is still pretty surprising to find one in the wild, happily outside of the angry egregore that most of us inhabit.
faceh
18d ago
I do so because I think the idea of renting access to your media is insane, and it baffles me that so many people seem to be ok with it.
Seems like there's just SO MUCH media out there that people accept that there's no way they can actually keep up with it all.
Imagine what it might be like owning 100 different cars when you can only drive one per day. It would make more sense to rent/lease than to just have most of them sitting unused all day.
Yes, I know storage costs round to zero for digital music. I'm mostly referring to the mentality. "I will watch this movie maybe twice this year, why bother keeping it around any longer?
I buy a digital download or I rip the CDs I own. Tag them, and then put them in Plex media server.
I'm so devoted to not relying on centralized services I went with Jellyfin instead.
faceh
18d ago
On the one hand I agree, on the other, I have had a few occasions where the ability to pull up some vaguely-remembered file I made 12 years ago has been useful, it not critical.
My own policy on destroying data I need but don't want is to wait 7 years, since that's the longest statute of limitations on most crimes in most jurisdictions, barring like rape and murder.
I think I genuinely expect that if a sufficiently powerful AI were to review the contents of my hard drive(s) it could use them to form an accurate approximation of my personality and preferences and thus, if it is friendly, use that to optimize my life for maximum fun and happiness.
So perhaps I'm making a long-shot bet on immortality via being simulated by the future superintelligence thanks to the echoes of my consciousness I stored on my computer over the years.
faceh
18d ago
I don't really have that. I just know where everything is, and if I forget, I find it using Everything.
I read a book a while back that suggested when it comes to computers, almost ZERO actual organization/sorting is needed if you have a sufficiently powerful search engine.
I don't really buy it completely, but I do often find that organizational schemas that made sense for me at the time become less scrutable later, so when I try and find, say, some videos I saved from a vacation in 2014, it's just 'easier' to sort by date and manually check files than to even try to remember the folder I stuck them in.
Music has lots of automated tools for sorting, so I've remained diligent in that respect.
faceh
18d ago
I'm also tinkering with Syncthing across multiple devices for accessing retro ROMs and save data no matter where I'm at
A while back I had set things up so any music added to the library on my PC that I rated as 4/5 stars or higher would also get loaded to my laptop and phone.
But again it seems to be largely obviated by the ability to set up a playlist on a streaming site which can contain all your favorites and then some.
There's even playlist migration services so you don't have to keep remaking them on new services.
I hate ads, I hate things becoming suddenly unavailable due to corporate agreements expiring, and I don't get any benefit from the exploratory aspects of these platforms.
Ultimately I think I just like the concept of being 'independent' of any given streaming service, and that nobody can deny me the enjoyment of music on own hardware.
And yes, if the streaming cos. have their way, they WILL wedge ads into every single service. I'll take the restricted library over having my auditory senses abused for products and services I don't need or want. I still have angry memories about some extremely repetitive ads that I was harangued with like 10 years back.
Long-term, my plan is to backfill my digital copies with physical media when budget and interest permits. Even if I rip them once and never pull them out of their cases again, there's something to be said for a physical collection for reasons of aesthetics and conversation.
I have a boxful of DVDs jammed in my closet, and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it because almost all of them are movies I love or loved and the absolute state of video streaming is such that I can't be sure which of them might be available at any given time, and on the same logic as above, I like the idea that nobody can control what I can watch on my own hardware.
This is hampered by the fact that I don't have a DVD player anymore.
Amazon Prime just put ads into their video streaming service, which can be disabled for a few bucks a year. But I think I'll be putting my foot down on this and cancelling prime altogether if they don't get the message that I will not tolerate ads now any more than I did with cable.
I do still use free Pandora for 'radio' occasionally. There's a Skip limit, but I haven't heard an ad in years since using a VPN (not quite sure HOW that worked out, but I won't question it).
With the advent of Song Recommendation AIs (also, ChatGPT does a pretty good job!) I find it less necessary to have a radio function at all, since I can seek out new music in a much more targeted way by telling the AI what I like, what I am searching for, then review the options it presents me directly.
faceh
19d ago
I don't know of any app or tech that lets you play your own local music collection but intersperses songs from a given streaming service for better variety and to emulate a more radio-esque experience. That'd be a pretty neat use case.
Last.FM scrobbling can track your music preferences across different players, that much I know.
I like using streaming services for discovering new music, and I would like to implement one-click way to download a good song and rip it to my library. I probably use youtube music more than youtube itself these days.
But I'm increasingly questioning the goal of having such a library. Pass it on to my kids? A backup in case the internet goes down? Am I the equivalent of a boomer hoarding 8 tracks or something?
Not even joking, the main goal of having such a library might be for the Friendly AGI overlord to find my hard drive and divine my music tastes so it can produce ideal songs for me to enjoy for eternity.
Does anyone still 'collect' music (i.e. keep locally stored copies in some kind of organized database, regardless of format) in the current age of ubiquitous streaming?
I assume that Spotify (and the rest) has all but killed the idea of 'keeping' music on your local computer or phone amongst the youth.
As someone who has a music collection going back to when I first started obsessively ripping CDs to my PC in my teens, I find that I mostly keep doing it through force of habit, and the slight fear that things I like might disappear. Some of the older files in my collection are hard or impossible to find online these days. But with so many different streaming options and, now, an AI that can produce radio-quality music in seconds it seems like there's really no point to keeping a large local music collection unless its related to your career in some way.
So if you DO still store music locally, what are your reasons and methods?
TO BE FAIR, I don't want it to be 'true' either, in the sense that I wish the truth was something different, even if the underlying idea of humans having diverse phenotypes which have impacts on behavior were true.
Any joy I'd get for being a member of a 'superior' group dissipates when considering how my own capability to effect change is practically nonexistent.
I'd prefer the world where HBD was 'true' but IQ and cognition were a bit more malleable (in the positive direction, hit someone in the head with a hammer and it's malleable downward). Then we could probably cooperate towards a better place on the payoff matrix where the tradeoffs aren't so severe.
There are a ton of failure modes for that world too, don't get me wrong. But the world we're currently working with has molochian incentives that we currently can't budge without committing certain atrocities (which wouldn't guarantee success!) is endlessly frustrating.
Imagine by comparison that we figured out that the laws of physics somehow dictated that it was impossible to get a human-sized payload past the orbit of the moon without investing literal continent's worth of resources to it. To the point where we would have to simply accept that we were stuck on this planet and whatever resources lay beyond are simply not going to be available.
I'd hate that truth, and would rage against it, but ultimately the universe would care just as much about out fate whether it is true or not.
Instead, thankfully, getting past lunar orbit is merely very difficult but affordable.
Kinda like how the potential brainpower we as a species can marshall is limited by our number of geniuses and most humans are just not able to contribute meaningfully to the advancement of the species. If we could reach an intelligence 'takeoff' where we could boost low IQ humans to some reasonable degree then we could be improving our lifestyles a lot faster than we are.
And we're getting to the point where a broad 'uplift' of human intelligence might fall into that 'very difficult but affordable' category. Or it could be a long way off, but at least its visible.
How are you supposed to deal with that without becoming utterly nihilistic?
Reframe your locus of concern to yourself, your immediate family, and your local community, and see what if anything you can do there.
It is entirely possible for a particularly committed (and wealthy, in this case) individual to push back against entropy/moloch in their local environment. Care less about the fate of 'humanity' in the abstract (aside from existential risks) and more about the humans within your personal dunbars number.
Effect change where you can effect change. That's how you avoid nihilism.
The booze-and-meth of the masses. Get 'em all riled up and take away inhibitions so they get distracted brawling each other.
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