Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 3:32 pm

I dunno. A brief google of "reddit CIA" gives me a bunch of people being absolutely horrified. I think the majority reddit opinion on this one is exactly where it should be, and the existence of individual fuckwads being so guaranteed as to not be noteworthy.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 5:26 pm

I don't really think the fuckwad theory applies all that strongly. We've got at least a full generation of people who grew up knowing the bogeyman was named Ivan and despite being relatively young I still grew up with fallout shelter signs in the church basement and memories of people losing their shit over the Berlin wall coming down. So I'm never really shocked to hear some asshole both admire and despise Russians. Your stereotypical manly man type dislikes "drunk, lazy commies" but they hate pussies even worse and when push comes to shove they don't really think of ruthlessness as a vice. They believe deep down in their craven little hearts that America is doomed because we're not hard ass enough. And while these people are thankfully in the minority, in my experience they're happy to put their foot in their mouth right out in public.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:21 pm

A bit of rage would be nice. What does everyone think of Bitcoin?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:26 pm

Bitcoin is still a thing people talk about?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:36 pm

For what its worth, my SJW circles didn't talk about total biscuit at all, which does mean they ignored the DMCA but also means nobody was calling him a hater.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:53 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Bitcoin is still a thing people talk about?

There are still fanatics out there.

I guess the more relevant question is "What's the driving force behind the mindset that attracts people to Bitcoin and goldbuggery?"

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:17 pm

Bitcoin is entirely without a central authority, which is the exact same thing that gives people hard-ons for goldbuggery. Well, it was without a central authority; now mining pools occasionally break the magical 51% necessary to control the network and when that happens they become de facto central authorities and the only reason the house of cards doesn't come toppling down is because... well... apparently goldbugs are willing to trust total strangers with no accountability and strong incentives to fuck them over. Presumably the problem with a public central authority is that it would be too safe for them; it's just not sound money if it isn't perpetually teetering on the edge of total collapse.

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:30 pm

TiaC wrote:A bit of rage would be nice. What does everyone think of Bitcoin?

We did have some discussions about it.

Mostly the takeaway is
1) One of the selling points of bitcoin is that the government can't just declare there's now more or less of it. Anyone who considers it a feature and not a nail in the coffin is greatly misunderstanding how money works.
2) Another selling point is "anonymity". Anonymity that collapses the moment you make a transaction that can be otherwise traced back to you because your ownership of the account is anonymous, but the entire transaction history is public and in particular anyone who has ever owned a bitcoin knows every transaction that was made with that bitcoin.
3) It's unsustainable. Another two selling points are that processing transactions is free because it generates bitcoins that the people doing it are accepting as payment, and that bitcoins are finite in number with generation rate going down and processing costs going up.
4) It's ridiculously unstable with value swings not seen in normal currency outside of massive crisises, as well as highly susceptible to fraud and manipulation with multiple known cases of exploits.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 10:44 pm

How reasonable would it be to compare bitcoin generation to a lottery?

By making a copy of all the transactions you 'buy' a ticket in the lottery, and putting more processing power in gets you more tickets. You have groups that decide to all share if one of them wins.

Because my understanding at the moment is that X bitcoins are awarded every Y minutes, and who it gets awarded to seems to be random based on doing makework that as a side effect records transactions.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 2:08 am

DSMatticus wrote: total strangers with no accountability and strong incentives to fuck them over.

I think I've isolated your mental disconnect.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 9:34 am

TiaC wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:Bitcoin is still a thing people talk about?
There are still fanatics out there.

I guess the more relevant question is "What's the driving force behind the mindset that attracts people to Bitcoin and goldbuggery?"

True fact: Saw a Bitcoin apologist on RationalWiki say that the Bitcoin, which is kinda at the area of "now takes more electricity to produce than the coin is worth", isn't uneconomical to produce because you can use your bitcoin mining rig to heat your home instead of running central heating. Or something on those lines.

As for the driving force, it's...oh, either get-rich-quick ideas or Austrian/Conservtive/Libertarian/Right-Wing economic ideas that having a currency free of government influence is the best currency.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:59 am

Maxus wrote:True fact: Saw a Bitcoin apologist on RationalWiki say that the Bitcoin, which is kinda at the area of "now takes more electricity to produce than the coin is worth", isn't uneconomical to produce because you can use your bitcoin mining rig to heat your home instead of running central heating. Or something on those lines.

I know, I've been telling him off and reverting him.

The weird thing about Bitcoin is that it attracts all the same people as gold without many of the claimed benefit of gold. It has even less backing than most fiat currencies.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:29 pm

Alright, that's fucking topkek right there.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 2:57 am

Maxus wrote:True fact: Saw a Bitcoin apologist on RationalWiki say that the Bitcoin, which is kinda at the area of "now takes more electricity to produce than the coin is worth", isn't uneconomical to produce because you can use your bitcoin mining rig to heat your home instead of running central heating. Or something on those lines.

A.k.a. positive externalities can make it economical in some circumstances. True, but cue eye-rolling nonetheless.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:52 pm

Note, there are good things to be said about cryptographically secure and counterfeit resistant electronic bearer instruments. Its just that decentralized ones suck.

If, for example, the US treasury expanded Eagle Cash, I'd be all over that even though it can't be used for online transactions. There are good reasons for the government to do it and good reasons for individuals, too. If they went a bit farther and actually came up with a secure system for moving US dollars around online, I'd be happy with that.

Because right now the only alternative is prepaid cards, and I don't trust those guys too much.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:06 am

This is just a random thought that occurred to me as I was watching the latest episode of Legend of Korra-

(and is in no way condoning the CIA's bullshit)

In a war, both sides are trying to harm and kill the soldiers of the other side to advance the goal of their side. Maybe not expressly, but that is the method through which wars are fought, generally speaking.

So, it's expected in a war that soldiers will shoot, fire/launch explosives at, maybe gas, and possibly get into actual melee with other people with the goal of killing them.

But threatening, or inflicting, harm on a captive with the goal of extracting information* to advance the goals of your side is somehow evil, or unspeakable.

The incongruity of this just struck me. I mean, since LoK is what brought it up, let's look at it that way-- Korra quite possibly has killed people. I mean, when you're throwing giant rocks and shards of metal and ice and gouts of flame around, there's a real possibility of killing someone. And in real life, soldiers are expected to kill. And in both scenarios, they are considered heroes.

But if Korra had threatened, or actually went through with, say, cutting of Bataar's fingers, there'd be a huge fan backlash. If it came to light that a soldier beat a captive in the hope of gaining information, they'd likely be considered a monster.

It's just an interesting thought to turn around in my head, about where that line is, and why.

*regardless of that not actually being particularly effective

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:55 am

Unless you are the villain, and a particularly nasty villain at that, your goal in war is not to "hurt and kill Walonians" (or whatever other signifier the people on the other side possess). Your goal is to take territory, impose your preferred economic system, get people to open eggs from the correct side, or whatever. And when the war is over and you get what you want, it's sort of assumed that you won't then torture and murder all the people who opposed you.

If someone surrenders, the war is over for them. They are no longer contesting your faction's control of the copper mines or wearing the offensive hat or whatever. So if you torture or kill that person, that demonstrates that your claimed goals were in fact a lie and your actual goals were just to hurt or kill people. Which means you are the villain.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:04 am

Ok, that makes sense. What about a scenario where the captive didn't surrender, but was specifically captured through use of force for their value as a potential source of information? It's getting specific into the LoK episode, but I would imagine that it might occasionally come come up

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:53 am

Prak wrote:their value as a potential source of information

They don't have that value. Enemy soldiers will very rarely give up useful information even after they've been captured. They might have useful information on them (particularly if they're an officer who might presumably have maps or messages containing their orders), but anything they have in their brain is basically useless to you since there's no good way to force them to talk.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:27 am

The difference for me is in killing combatants and killing non-combatants.
So if you kill civilians you're evil; if you kill / torture a soldier who is under your complete control and can't resist anything you do, you're evil.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:27 am

More significant to the point torture is not a way to reliable information. Studies have shown this. Hell, the latest round of CIA bullshit has shown this. You can get anybody to talk, but at that point they will literally say anything to make you stop - they will make shit up, they will try to tell you what they think you want to know. Torture actually distorts memories and makes it harder to get accurate information out of people later.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:59 pm

There's also the fact that you don't want the other side torturing your guys,

The laws of war are very much a gentleman's agreement. They developed from unwritten rules regarding how knights and nobles would treat each other. It makes sense. You don't want to be tortured if you're captured and there's a decent probability that you will be captured in battle if your luck goes bad, so you don't torture your captives.

Likewise, you don't execute them, even if it is expedient, because you don't want to be executed if you're captured.

However, like any gentleman's agreement its fragile. If you start torturing POWs, then there's a chance that your enemies will start torturing POWs in retaliation. And then some third parties also start torturing POW in their hands, because you've already set the precedent, and the whole thing chain reacts until the expected protections are all thrown out the window by everyone.

Hence its a better, and more stable, policy to stick to the rules even when the other guy doesn't. Because you're not playing a two player game of iterated prisoners dilemma. You're playing an MMORPG.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:10 pm

Interesting.

Like I said, the thought just occurred to me because of LoK. Clearly Korra wasn't going to do anything to the guy, whether torture, mutilate or kill, and she had no one to hand him off to. It just made me wonder why people treat combat and "enhanced interrogation" differently because they were trying to get information right as it was noticed he was missing and while the information was most relevant.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 10:48 pm

Most right-minded people aren't doing any of this ethical calculus. They are getting by on a human compassion which makes them viscerally disgusted at the prospect of actually sitting down to inflict torment on anyone in the overwhelming majority of cases, which is an instinct that really only comes off in actual practice when it's faced with an active, belligerent threat that isn't accepting anything less than a violent confrontation before it backs down. Sometimes not even then.

"Uncompliant person totally at your mercy" is a descriptor that sits just as solidly on a tantrum-throwing toddler as it does a captured terrorist. You shouldn't want to be the guy who wants to subject that class of person to cold-blooded beatings, and you shouldn't want to even tolerate that kind of guy hanging out in your neighborhood. Aversion to torment is the starting emotional position for any well-adjusted human. You should need to engage in a reasoned ethical dilemma to even consider departing from that position, not to get to it in the first place.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:36 pm

Eikre wrote:Most right-minded people aren't doing any of this ethical calculus. They are getting by on a human compassion which makes them viscerally disgusted at the prospect of actually sitting down to inflict torment on anyone in the overwhelming majority of cases, which is an instinct that really only comes off in actual practice when it's faced with an active, belligerent threat that isn't accepting anything less than a violent confrontation before it backs down. Sometimes not even then.

"Uncompliant person totally at your mercy" is a descriptor that sits just as solidly on a tantrum-throwing toddler as it does a captured terrorist. You shouldn't want to be the guy who wants to subject that class of person to cold-blooded beatings, and you shouldn't want to even tolerate that kind of guy hanging out in your neighborhood. Aversion to torment is the starting emotional position for any well-adjusted human. You should need to engage in a reasoned ethical dilemma to even consider departing from that position, not to get to it in the first place.

If your theory of ethics doesn't tell people who have want to hurt people why they shouldn't hurt people your theory of ethics is a waste of fucking time.

Great, some people have an aversion to causing physical pain to others. But on the other hand, lost of people only care about the physical pain of people immediately in front of them, or of people they like, or in some circumstances they might be turned on by hurting others. Those people exist. And frankly, I'm pretty sure I can win an argument about who was the better ethics system without actually describing one if your solution to people who like BDSM is murder them all or deport them.