I don’t have any stats or anything, but I lived in China in 2018 and would see them on my way to work. Usually amputees dressed in very sad attire with a QR code on the ground in front of them. My coworkers told me not to give them money because all the money is going to organized crime groups that manage all the beggars in town. I have no idea if this is true, but I heard it multiple times

In China where digital payments are done mostly via apps like Venmo, there are beggars with QR codes in front of them. However they’re mostly being used by organized crime rings

My apologies, he does make that point. I mis-read into your comment that the poor people using credit cards (who pay interest) pay for the rich person’s credit card rewards. But it’s worse than that, anyone who doesn’t use a credit card (which includes many poor people as you point out) are subsidizing the rich person’s rewards

Good video showing how credit card culture basically makes poor people pay for rich people’s luxury.

That’s not what the video shows. The real issue is that credit cards are a monopoly which takes ~3% cut on almost all consumer purchases in the economy and adds little value

This video is incredible! We need more action on this. Anyone know how one could get involved to ensure there are more reliable indicators of ethical meat

He didn’t sell most of the drugs, he just provided a platform that allowed anyone to sell anything anonymously. Drug dealers used it because it was useful to them.

Drug dealers use private messaging apps like Signal as well. Should Signal be held responsible for drug deals facilitated by their app? (I know it’s not a perfect analogy, what he made was more blatant, but it’s an important distinction to make)

This is a very hard problem to solve, and people have tried.

Let’s say you do as you said: hash the data (screenshot, date, etc) and upload it to a trusted server. Nothing can stop me from generating fake data, hashing that and uploading it instead.

Ok, so maybe you decide to add a cryptographic signature to prove that it was the web browser that made this hash, not an unauthorized one. That might work for a while, but the private key needs to be shipped with the browser software, so a sophisticated person could extract that key and then generate fake data. Especially is the browser is open source (like most are).

Alright, what about if we add a special chip on the device that is hard to tamper with and keep the private key on there and do all the signing on that chip. Those do exist somewhat already, but hackers have found ways to break them.

Ok then you move everything to the cloud. Have the entire web browser running on a cloud machine by a trusted authority. Maybe then you can do what you’re discussing, but you’ve also entered a privacy nightmare where everything you’re doing can be monitored in real time.

What would be a better situation (and where I think we’re going eventually with Gen-AI) would be to put the responsibility on the website publisher to provide cryptographic proof of their content. For example, the NYTimes could create a digital signature of a photo and publish it on a blockchain or other trusted tamper-proof ledger as they publish the photo. Then anyone can verify that the photo is from the NYTimes and the date it was created.

Honestly, this one I can understand. They threw the book at this guy because he showed how privacy technologies can circumvent government control. He got 2 life sentences without possibility of parole for a non-violent crime.

What he did was illegal, but he’s been in prison for 10 years. He’s served his time

This is fair, I wonder if in former Soviet spaces the roles are reversed

It’s a bit bizarre that if you have a hammer and sickle on your shirt it’s a kind of edgy cool, but if you had a swastika on your shirt you risk being fired/cancelled/arrested

Oh I’m so sorry! I misread your comment! I’m going to edit mine so it doesn’t confuse others

Yeah I agree about the title, but that’s just the internet now :(

There are many progressives who are calling for the release of the hostages and calling the October 7th attack a war crime, but the problem is that it is a perfectly acceptable in progressive circles to pretend that the attack wasn’t that bad, or that it was terrible but was necessary for the liberation of Palestine

As I said, I consider myself a progressive, and I know that a lot of progressives think like me. But there is a strand of the left that is very vocal online that I fear has lost its way

I’m not a fan of hers, but I do think she has a point here.

There was a significantly different response by progressives to the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram and the hostages taken by Hamas. When posters were put up of the kidnapped Israelis they were ripped down by the same kinds of people who tweeted #BringBackOurGirls.

I know there will be many downvotes to this comment, but I consider myself a progressive and am worried that progressives are losing sight of their values in favour of what is the prevailing groupthink online

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Good! We need to hold these companies accountable. Around the mid 2010s they realized that it’s more profitable to have addicts instead of users. Casinos, bars, and cigarette sellers are forbidden from selling to children. These addictive platforms should be subject to similar limitations

Gold standard isn’t an odd choice, it was used for many thousands of years. It’s just odd today because no countries still use it.

And while a Bitcoin standard sounds crazy, if you lived in Argentina, you’d probably rather keep your savings in Bitcoin (despite all its problems) than in the peso.

Since taking office Dec. 10, Milei devalued the peso 54% and eliminated price controls on hundreds of everyday consumer products, reversing the policies imposed by former Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who ran against him for president. The libertarian leader also halted runaway money-printing that had flared up during the presidential campaign.

It seems like this guy is making the right decisions here. Seems like he’s ripping off the bandaid for a problem that previous administrations had created. We’ll see if he can right the ship.

developers have figured out it’s more profitable to build fewer expensive properties than a large number of affordable ones

You’re right about this part, but you need to ask why is this the case. It’s due to (among other things) over regulation and a stifling of home building.

Most cities in North America make it very expensive and difficult to build. Zoning laws means there are only a few places they can build densely, and red tape increases the cost of building. This has caused a huge mismatch of supply and demand for housing in cities. So of course in that environment, what is most profitable is to cater to the wealthy.

If developers could build faster than demand was growing, they would satisfy the wealthy demands and then move on to less profitable middle and lower income housing.

This is how all markets work in this context. Electric cars were initially only made for the wealthy, because those sales were the only ones that could be profitable for the emerging technology. Now that the tech has improved and the wealthy demand is satisfied, it has come down to middle class prices

I think his rationale is to take away monetary control from future administrations, which I think is a laudable goal. Argentina should be the richest country in South America, but its people keep getting robbed by the printing press. I wonder if going to a gold standard (or if they feel like rolling the dice, a Bitcoin standard) would be a better option.

(Cue the anti-crypto arguments because I mentioned Bitcoin)

So what about all the people who are being fucked over by not having access to affordable housing?

Someone always gets screwed when policy is changed, we should make our decisions based on if the policy is better for collective flourishing in the long run