veqq
5mo ago
Off topic:
A reminder to everyone, we have a Telegram group with nearly 100 members. Join us: https://t.me/quokkas_den
veqq
1yr ago
What's required is a personal commitment to the idea of a long-term relationship before you even meet the other person. And a recognition that the relationship will drastically change multiple times and require constant work. If that is the starting point, you've got a shot and then you can sort of grocery list for all of the matching attributes. If that is not your starting point, I think you can still have a decent enough romantic life, but you shouldn't think you're going to make it long term.
I strongly agree with this.
veqq
1yr ago
The Chinese Taoists, – he said, – had a similar notion, I will retell it in my own words. Struggling for hearts and minds, discourse workers constantly demand that people answer 'yes' or 'no'. All human thinking must flow, like an electric current, between these two poles. But in reality there are always three possible answers: "yes", "no" and "fuck you". When too many people begin to understand this, it means there is some wiggle in the skulls. In our culture, it has reached a critical point. It needs to be reduced drastically.
This reminds me of older discourse around powertalk(?), wherein enough people "leave" the game of producing to extort producers, that society begins to collapse. (I only briefly leafed through a decade ago and current perusal leaves me uncertain whether that was the source.)
veqq
1yr ago
Well I don't buy the whole 'Russia inflicting genocide' line
Russia's stated goal is to reunify the Ukrainian people with the Russian people, destroying an independent Ukrainian identity. That matches the definition of genocide.
By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. ... The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups
Forced assimilation qua taking Ukrainian children is one of the 5 prohibited acts, amounting to genocide in context.
veqq
1yr ago
More North Korea stuff. Zaruka has many pics and impressions from visits a decade ago. I finished the rabbit hole after Zaruka and figured someone might be interested, but it's a bit hard to choose any comment and even "top" isn't helpful. But I'll try this: https://old.reddit.com/r/northkorea/comments/n8ysx/i_travel_to_north_korea_annually_ama/
veqq
1yr ago
This is a telegram channel doing the same thing, but less doomsdayish: https://t.me/axisofordinary
veqq
1yr ago
Actuary tables put the (economic) value of a life at somewhere under $10 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States
veqq
1yr ago
BDO:
Our opinion is limited solely to the CRR and the corresponding consolidated total assets and consolidated total liabilities as of 30 September 2022. Activity prior to and after this time and date was not considered when testing the balances and information described above.
They just confirmed that Tether claimed they had so and so assets on paper - not whence and why. It's literally meaningless. But sure, avoiding an audit for 5 years, and changing their claims of holdings many times is totally a string of bonafide grade-a deeds of trustworthiness!
If you collate redemption events with outside events, it's rather clear most is just drawing numbers down entirely. SBF's plots alone involved billions of Tether which were wiped off the books without fiat appearing. Tether created the tokens out of nothing and then wiped them later. Now, I don't just mean a few billions. Alameda and Cumberland received 70% of all Tether. There are concrete examples like 3 Arrows "redeeming" more than 2x the Tether it supposedly had accumulated around May. Now, in March it continued receiving more Tether - but directly on exchanges instead of its historical wallets.
There are many fun treatments like: https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/
not making its users whole due to fraud
And that's half the instances.
veqq
1yr ago
Here's a list of ~450 (by line count) exchanges which failed: https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchange-graveyard/
75 exchanges closed down in 2020: https://cointelegraph.com/news/75-crypto-exchanges-have-closed-down-so-far-in-2020
https://coinjournal.net/news/42-percent-of-failed-crypto-exchanges-vanished-leaving-users-in-the-lurch/ lists 94 in 2020 and 81 in 2020... Higher than the others. From my work, there are more than a few which certainly weren't listed in the above. (Some 0 years when quite a few scams occurred.) Note, 42% disappeared without any justification at all.
veqq
1yr ago
A good friend's been a kept woman for years. We once had a short fling. Years later she opined we were too different as I yearnt to conquer the world, while she wanted to comfortably be, so it's easier for her to be with the malaised. It always seemed very aberrant to me in a modern way.
veqq
1yr ago
China is a big player in the Stans which worries Russia.
China and Kazakhstan recently signed broad security agreements, China has troops in Tajikistan. China sells a lot of arms to the region. (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are skirmishing, like Armenia and Azerbaijan with Russia unable to exert influence.)
The Belt and Road Initiative (which was added to China's constitution) involves land routes to China from Central Asia in order to survive a loss of sea routes. China is the biggest trade partner in the Stans. Kazakhstan's Nurly Zhol and Uzbekistan's New development Strategy have been fused into the BRI. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is replacing the (Russia led) Eurasian Economic Union as an umbrella only missing Turkmenistan. The actual activities are more massive than this:
-
China's building a railroad through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to reduce transit times to Europe (the transsiberian was at capacity) (but the planned route goes through Ukraine, which China's not happy about) and allow for direct imports and exports to Central Asia without going through Russia
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Huge investments in gas infrastructure directly to China, sidelining Russia as a transit point besides as a produer: https://eurasianet.org/analysis-can-central-asian-gas-exporters-rely-on-china
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China halted investments in Russia after Russia blocked Kazakh fuel exports - a conflict between China and Russia over Central Asian policy...
Anyway, true geostrategic conflicts are immaterial at this point because Russia is under China's thumb. Chances are, Putin's successors will be Chinese plants.
veqq
1yr ago
The word "Russophile" means pro-Russian (dependent on definitions of Russia(n)). Calling Galeev a Russophile is incorrect. That is the only scope of my comment.
veqq
1yr ago
Tether's story went from "backed 1:1 to dollars" to "holding various tokens" to "we mostly have Chinese corporate paper" all along fighting or failing audits by state regulators and redefining what it's backed by, while printing billions a month without relative inflows.
Where is the evidence for Tether being fraudulent?
Surely you're joking? Google "Tether scam" and there's a deluge of proof, including successful investigations against Tether, which led to Tether providing new reserve definitions.
veqq
1yr ago
dance,
How wealthy are all the people in this video? They largely seem to have huge houses/driveways or are at least in much nicer and more "modern" places than one normally finds watching Indian media, travel videos etc.
veqq
1yr ago
I see this scenario where weird homeschooled kids get surpassed repeatedly to the point where I think that your mindset is pretty common
Can you give examples?
veqq
1yr ago
liked and believed in the idea of psychic history and mathematical formulas and believe most of history resolves around the sun of many forces
Cliodynamics does this and has a healthy amount of publications!
veqq
1yr ago
Guy Steele's "Growing a Language" is similar: https://youtube.com/embed/_ahvzDzKdB0
veqq
3d ago
Ian Hacking's Rewriting the Soul discusses how modernity reconceived people as their memories, instead of e.g. an immortal soul unimpacted by general experiences. Thus trauma, history etc. come into play. This "right side of history" blends well here. He also uses a concept "acting under description" for the reason something's done (demonic possession, trauma, because of bipolarity etc.) Very clearly, these people's worldview sees them embodying the wheel of history inexorably plodding....
veqq
1yr ago
His 911 call sounds a lot like someone who has dementia
He seemed normal to me.
The context of the call is baffling. Why would this guy let him call? Clearly Pelosi was trying to get the police to come without saying "HELP" while the responder seemingly had no clue what was going on (for most?) of it.
veqq
1yr ago
In the 911 call, he's asking where the capital police are since they normally protect his wife. I guess they just protect her? Or he gets a minimal detail, someone went to the bathroom or... Who knows
They clearly have cameras since we can see the security footage of him hammering his way in.
For those interested, the "managerial revolution" expands this a lot further. A dash of "elite theory" spices it up.
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