Are you into coin collecting and gold/silver? Interested on your perspective there, since it often feels like too many bitcoiners feel a rivalry with the gold community

Cherish that. The fact that it tugged on your heartstrings showed that you're a good dad. There's too few people these days who really care about their kids, thanks for making my day

Thanks! Glad to be back :)

That makes sense, I'll have to take a look at that

The law ought to protect Bitcoin and shitcoins alike. Equality before the law is essential for Bitcoin's long term success. Let the market kill the shitcoins, not the politicians

First off, thank you for sharing this link. I love the treatment of the trolley problem Less Wrong gives and would generally agree with it. If you want where my thoughts differ, here's a few ideas.

I'd argue that the trolley problem has social value, but only as a foil with which to demonstrate to others how overly simplistic and procedural many of their formulations or reality are. Whenever my friends ask me about the trolley problem, I answer that I cannot and will not give a categorical answer to it because morality is about people and the trolley problem is about robots.

Utilitarianism might say that you should pull the lever. Deontology might say that you should not. But what it cannot say is how a human being ought to respond, since both of those previously mentioned philosophies could just as easily be automated. If virtue is automated, it isn't really virtue anymore, is it? Less Wrong's treatment of the ethical issues involved in automating morality is fantastic, but I would contend that typical answers to the trolley problem not only distract us from larger environmental problems, but from individual human ones as well.

Most people feel terrible both about pulling the lever and about not pulling it. I have friends who refuse to answer because the thought of the thing makes them feel sick. The trolley problem is a situation that we ought to feel sick about, a situation that any truly virtuous person will weep over and toss and turn in the night for months after it occurs. There is no good and right answer to the trolley problem in the way that it is typically presented, and that is because it is not a true moral choice like humans actually face. Even in war and emergency response situations where choices akin to the trolley problem must be made there is a human aspect.

It's the mechanical nature of the trolley problem that makes it a useful foil. It forces us to remember that morality is about people, not math. Virtue is not a logical problem to be deduced, but an experience to be lived. Our responsibility is to use the trolley problem to teach that to others.

I'm not sure. MAGA seems more intent on abusing the political system than opting out of it. Besides, MAGA support of Bitcoin might not help our public image either, so idk that I want it quite yet

Darth, save your sats and stop putting words in @tomlaies mouth

No, that would be TCP/IP, the cryptographic functions, or the like

Just curious, do you identify yourself as any particular philosophy now or just an indepent thinker/political agnostic?

Also, I deeply resonate with your experience there. Same thing happened to me when a friend introduced me to the word libertarian. Up until then I'd considered myself a conservative who didn't fit in with the conservatives. There's edges of the freedom movement that seem more interested in shouting matches then solutions, but the intellectual core is truly beautiful

To my knowlege many insurance companies have sorted out that you would be liable here, which I think is reasonable. That's very much a "sorted it out through civil law and precedent" solution, which are some of the most libertarian legal solutions out there

I can't with the CHIPS Act garbage. Didn't Adam Smith debunk mercantilism centuries ago? And Ibn Khaldun several centuries before that? Pure lunacy...

Mises was a smart dude

This is a fascinating take. He comes off as a little too sympathetic to Putin I think. But his points are nonetheless highly pertinent. The US has played too much by a "the rules don't apply to me" mindset, and we need to focus more on deescalation and peacefully resolving Russia-Ukraine

I did, though I've never used it. It might take a lot for me to seriously consider downzapping. I'd rather just zap good content or be the change I want to see

Some beautiful, old buildings with incredible architecture that the town is proud of

Both are screwing themselves over, China is merely doing so faster

They're all over the place in my city. I used them when I was a kid but don't much anymore. Maybe I should