I think what’s happening is that the old political boundaries are being rewritten. The MAGA crowd don’t hold all the same views as old school conservatives, and so some of them are now swing voters. But also Trump is pulling some votes from the democrats, most obviously the unions

You’re still not answering my question.

But it’s now clear that communism for you is a religion. Upper stage communism is the paradise that is promised to those who follow the tenets of the faith fully, and I am a heretic non-believer

I will not be continuing this discussion any further

How about instead of just saying that I am wrong, describe to me how an individual in a higher stage communist state would be prevented from slacking in his duties (and still gaining “according to his need”) without state induced violence

What I described is exactly how it played out in about a dozen instances where a transition to communism was tried

There are different kinds of work which needs to be done for our society to function. These tasks have costs for those who perform them (lost time, spent energy, danger, boredom, etc).

In pure communism, everyone works hard and everyone is given the spoils of the work we collectively provide. But it is rational for any individual to not work as hard, because he will bear less of the cost of that work, but still realize the same gain

Therefore most people tend to shirk their duties, and the output of the entire collective drops. In order to maintain the system, the threat of violence is introduced, and we quickly get to Stalinist purges

It is not game theoretically aligned. It’s not his fault, Game Theory didn’t really get going until after his death

Marx’s critique of capitalism is spot on. It’s his proposed solution that is problematic

I don’t like it

I have to give credit where it’s due, I actually like this change. Likes used to be private, and then they became public and subject to the toxic performativity of social media

I would love for lightning to scale the network, but I’m worried that it won’t. I don’t have much experience with it myself (I’ve set up a small channel to try it out) but I know many people have been disappointed by it.

I hope that something like the OP_CAT soft fork can be initialized, so that ZK-Rollups can be implemented on Bitcoin. IMO that would open up so many more scaling options for the network

It’s anti-tech propaganda. The same is happening with crypto. Certain groups don’t like it, so they try to convince the public that it is bad for the environment so it will be banned

This isn’t a good situation, but I also don’t like the idea that people should be banned from using energy how they want to. One could also make the case that video games or vibrators are not “valuable” uses of energy, but if the user paid for it, they should be allowed to use it.

Instead of moralizing we should enact a tax on carbon (like we have in Canada) equal to the amount of money it would take to remove that carbon. AI and crypto (& xboxes, vibrators, etc) would still exist, but only at levels where they are profitable in this environment.

Humanity:

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

It seems to be a lightweight alternative to Mastodon that is easier for individuals to run on a private server

Yes, of all the problems in the healthcare system, the problem of letting AI help patients diagnose their own problems is definitely top of the list /s

That would be great! And I’m sure there are people doing it. And if 2.3% of the US Power grid were dedicated to that I’m sure some people would be upset about it too

My basic point is I don’t think there is anything morally wrong with Bitcoin miners using energy, even though this is a narrative that is very popular now. There are plenty of other valid criticisms of Bitcoin, but I don’t think this one stands up to scrutiny.

I would love if this were an option, but it’s not. The current battery technologies don’t have the scale for grid level storage capacity. The only grid scale storage solution that is really being done is to build very expensive infrastructure that moves water between two dams of different heights, and building more of those doesn’t seem politically likely at the moment

The reality is that there is much a whole bunch of excess energy supply that is produced because power plants can’t cycle up and down with demand. So they have to keep producing at peak demand 24/7 (there is some nuances based on the type of power plant, NatGas is faster to turn on/off, but this is broadly true)

I have my qualms with Bitcoin. As a currency it has significant transaction speed problems, and potential security ones after a couple more halvenings. But I don’t see a problem if Bitcoin miners want to pay energy producers to use energy that would be produced anyway and earn the producers nothing.

I agree with everything you’ve said

Pretty much the only things Bitcoin has on Ethereum today is a better brand and Lindy effect