#1393584

If there's one thing I'm convinced of it is this. Given enough public approval and enough lawers anything is legal.

I think that's true, but I'd suggest that that's probably how it should work: laws should reflect what the people bound by the law want, so if there's sufficient public demand for something, the laws should reflect that, and we'd consider it a failure if they didn't. Every law is reflecting somebody's values, after all.

The more interesting question is: is it legal even in spite of public approval? Or: does public demand render something pragmatically legal, even though technically it isn't? The latter seems like maybe the situation we're in here.

I'm looking connect with people and see the world from different points of view and integrate the results of that into my model of reality; I'm not looking to be entertained, really, although sometimes that happens too.

Insofar as the thing I'm looking for can be achieved by AI, I welcome AI interactions. (I spend a substantial time every day just talking to LLMs for this purpose.) But most slop isn't really that, or it's a low-fidelity version of it.

Not much for me in the apes slapping gangsters beyond momentary novelty, although that, too, is a useful thing to understand about the world.

I wish I was an investor or fund manager or whatever, because the modern version seems to be a kind of gentleman philosopher, who reads widely, spends time thinking about broader issues about human nature and where the world is going, and (because the job is bound up with money and finance) people pay attention to.

One gets the impression that being a public intellectual, and writing these missives to demonstrate bona fides, is a major part of the act. It may even be genuinely useful, although one wonders how much of what is useful makes it into the public-facing corpus.

Anyway, it seems fun. I could get into that role.

The slop discussion is interesting because it challenges a person to say what, exactly, is objectionable, or (alternately) laudable? People have a gut intuition that slop is bad, but why is it bad? Or perhaps: under what circumstances?

Based on what I've seen, most people have trouble articulating their reasons; and when they can, their reasons are usually dumb and grossly inconsistent with their other revealed preferences.

It's a good exercise to do, if you haven't thought about it.

That is weird and cool. Presumably motivated by the Borges story?

We should bring this up at the next CA Billionaires Luncheon. I think it should be the first item, don't you?

Brilliant. The line between fact and fiction continues to blur. Seems like we'll be seeing way more of stuff like this.

That's likely the case. Still, the power of introducing these ideological building blocks into the discourse -- nudging them into the Overton window -- is not to be underestimated. A power too soft to even notice in the moment, but over time, overwhelming.

Could a law that retroactively took people's money be constitutional, or compatible with relevant legal precedent? And not just money, I suppose: could you have a law that made some previous behavior retroactively illegal, and then you be prosecuted for it?

Seems absurd, but that's not saying anything, really.

If you think of him as some weird life form who metabolizes attention you'll have all you need to know to understand him, and much of the modern world.

It always ends badly for everyone except the few people who live close enough to the printer to buy their way out of the consequences.

Compared to what? How did the non-money-printing scenarios end, for the nations (who?) who maintained them?

It makes me wonder what the productive version of this is. Or maybe: how to use these principles in a domain (btc) to get the outcome that you want. For a thing that is pure reflexivity, how would you harness this controversy loop?

I wrote a lengthy response and then realized it was just a shittier version of something I've said already. Which is a depressing place to find yourself.

I've heard people mention this mining / tax thing in passing before. Is there a place you'd recommend to learn more about it?

You made many great points. However:

I don't think any of us should be on the main social media platforms anymore. They're wretched hives of scum and villainy. At this point, I think even the idea that "We'll miss out if we're not on those platforms" is a trap.

Strong disagree with this, at least in general. I'm on Twitter, principally for AI-related stuff, and if you curate (don't follow shitheads, block/mute) then it's unparalleled. Maybe that's only possible for a 90% technical topic, and wouldn't work w/ btc or political things. But my heart swells in gratitude for what's been made available on that topic.

Congrats! The soul of SN users. You've had a giant and extremely positive influence on this place.

@k00b is a well-known sandbagger. Shit work ethic.

(Also, it's k00b, with zeros, not koob).