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The Doge πŸ”—
1606411433  



War college morons think the not war is an abyssinian war analogue πŸ”— 1706637390  

🏷️ news
In reality it was the US invasion of Libya, Iraq et al that made a mockery of the bogus organization that is the UN. Similarly, the big steaming dump DC just took on the ICJ just underlines and bolds this.

Poland also going ham on totalitarian neoliberalism πŸ”— 1706547240  

🏷️ news
The dog on Brussels' leash bites.

Taibbi: going to be a bad election πŸ”— 1706287223  

🏷️ news
Given this chicanery is all the admitted plan of the DNC, there's basically 0 chance the outcome will be considered legitimate. The clear messaging that they're willing to go all the way to "color revolution" tells you all you need to know. All I can say is I wish they did this with Clinton, "Slicktatorship" has a better ring to it.

More foundational advances in the understanding of life πŸ”— 1706209870  

🏷️ news
The stuff coming out of these labs is great. It's wonderful to see people finally realize that any system's data is as important as the system itself; the cross-pollination of the programming field with others is why I keep telling people it's so much more useful as a superpower in other jobs.

Peaceful Korean reunification officially dead πŸ”— 1705518849  

🏷️ news
"Mission Accomplished" as far as the tidewater creeps are concerned. I guess we get to see a bunch of Koreans turn each other into hamburger with tube artillery soon too.

SCOTUS to hear case on vagrant immunity πŸ”— 1705357585  

🏷️ news
If anything, it will be but temporary relief. Remember, the current circuit courts are but the next generation to be SCOTUS after all.

Elite crime tolerance and the bum explosion πŸ”— 1705263754  

🏷️ news
When gangsters run your country, of course they'll legalize their activities and promulgate ideology to justify it to the victims. The "If I'm victimized, it's my fault for being a schmuck" attitude is quite common now, and far inferior to the very simple "you loot, I shoot".

OpenAI's ban on military use of chatgpt lifted πŸ”— 1705093782  

🏷️ news
CABAL Online

The mitochondrial role in aging πŸ”— 1705093647  

🏷️ news
Germline cells in the gametes are what sends (or fails to send) the signal for to cells to repair without growing uncontrollably; similarly to allow the lifeform to die when it has lost reproductive viability.

Israelis: Send the Gazans to the Congo πŸ”— 1704406633  

🏷️ news
"Either way, there will be no running water or electricity"

Household debt/income at 123% πŸ”— 1704405342  

🏷️ news
Standards of living on borrowed time

Ukraine lurches ever closer to a Coup πŸ”— 1704403028  

🏷️ news
Looks like the oligarchy and military have increasingly aligned against the Zelensky regime. I suspect if the regime's plan to mobilize another half million actually go through, the ensuing draft riots will almost surely be the last nail in it's coffin.

Anatoly on how he got disillusioned by the Russian Right πŸ”—
1704401694  

🏷️ news
Upon realizing that the Russian regime was a blood-soaked kleptocracy wearing white-guardism as a skinsuit, he did what most people do and doubled down on his hopes. When the reality of systematic falsification of all such metrics became unavoidable, he finally capitulated. In the "hitted too hard way", unfortunately; he sees western liberal internationalism as the way out. He does not yet realize we have the same exact problem. Our system is also a murdering kleptocracy wearing an ideology as a skin-suit to cover for their systematic theft. It's nice that he sees things like the "network state" (which are just re-heated Doug Casey from the 80s) as the way out; ultimately anarcho-capitalism is the only system actually compatible with our ultra-networked future.

Pfizer gets wrecked πŸ”— 1702923838  

🏷️ news
Gee, maybe you should have worked on the actual public health crisis in the country like Eli Lilly.

Indian Federalism destroyed πŸ”— 1702923353  

🏷️ news
No state allowed to have more autonomy than any other, which is to say Delhi's autonomy (e.g. none at all). "Surely centralizing won't cause a civil war this time, ignore all lessons of history"

On the FED's nacking of another crack at a 100% reserve bank πŸ”— 1702922316  

🏷️ news
From the "It's a big club and you ain't in it" file

The left's take on the overconsumption crisis πŸ”— 1702921134  

🏷️ news
They of course forget entirely that .gov policy comprehensively punishes saving and capital formation, while encouraging profligacy. Then they of course demand gibs as the solution. Look, this is entirely driven by Women, who spend 80% of the money in the economy despite earning ~40% of it. The globalization of the sexual marketplace has driven their expectations to the moon, and men won't tell their wives the magic word 'no', as this is commonly grounds for divorce to not keep up with her delusional wants. The savings rate will not recover so long as inflation & buying female votes is the 2 step .gov solution to perpetual reelection.

The anti-trust crusaders hit a nerve πŸ”—
1702501468  

🏷️ news
The pentagram "not asking no questions" RE the ownership of defense contractors is so that the same mobbed up names don't show up in every single transaction. This is actually striking the root of the real problems in US politics. I suppose the Intel aristocracy has finally decided it's time for hot war against the organized crime faction that achieved apotheosis in the 80s. I suppose this is to be expected, as the parties have gone from being heavily infiltrated by both sides to increasingly polarized. I suppose some of it is well meaning, as the rapacious looting of our criminal oligarchy certainly fails to deliver concrete results beyond financial irregularity.

25% of filled jobs this year: government jobs πŸ”— 1702317212  

🏷️ news
Screaming recession indicator

The big bang never happened πŸ”— 1701801415  

🏷️ news
As anyone who read WJ Sidis' 100 year old book knew already. The difference is now the cosmologists have data screaming at them to look at the wide open holes in their theories they have neglected up to date.

On the state of the Russian Oligarchy πŸ”—
1701799615  

🏷️ news
VVP pinkie swears he won't tax those creeps if they de-offshore their operations. Any of the oligarchs with brains will scurry back to Israel and cut their losses, but it appears for now their greed is getting the best of them, as he's offering the carrot of seized western assets. The "stick" of a subsequent oligarch dinner where they are all taken out and shot if they don't pay taxes comes later (if at all, as RU patriots suspect).

Wharton does the math on the fiscus πŸ”— 1701797670  

🏷️ news
As we've mentioned here before multiple times, the feds are "on borrowed time". If they can't get spending under control (spoiler alert) the end comes much sooner than 2050.

Trump II campaign promises sounding pretty natpopped πŸ”—
1701797225  

🏷️ news
How very lincolnesque of this yank. If he actually pulls a nazbol attack off against the USSA's bioleninist regime, he'll be our man of steel(ing things). Stalinist purges but with "your fired!" BLAM! on national TV. Ha! as if. More likely, the ship of state will simply continue to list for the next 20 years until we default.

The Whistleblower-Industrial complex πŸ”— 1700174323  

🏷️ news
SEC's tip line: we only listen to former SEC people and their buddies. Like all financial regs, it's just making the scams worse.

The real meaning of "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" πŸ”—
1700170642  

🏷️ blog

Two aspects are important to consider here. First is that the law is necessarily arbitrary; in this sense knowledge or ignorance of the law is irrelevant - the knowledge of the Judicial apparatus and its personnel is what is actually important.

The second aspect is necessarily a corollary of the first. Namely, that anyone with sufficient knowledge can structure their behavior to make otherwise unlawful behavior entirely legal. In fact, the entire economy and political apparatus is dependent on this mechanism to function, because without it there would be no effective heuristic for identifying opposition to the state (the actual purpose of all judiciary and enforcement apparatuses).

For example, it is highly unlawful in 99.99% of the country to pay a stripper to fuck you. It's 100% legal everywhere in the country to fuck a stripper, and then make it rain on them when they go onstage at some time before or after. While this looks a hell of a lot like money laundering, good luck proving that without written or recorded conversations attesting to that. The only thing that is truly unlawful is good record-keeping and poor operational security. The state wants only smart "criminals" operating; like knows like.

If it weren't for this fact, pretty much every marginal business (read: 80% of business) would go bankrupt. Unprovable accounting control fraud, while resulting in the occasional Enron, is also the only reason that taqueria down the street has a profit margin after sales and other taxes. Taxation is the primary motivating force behind fraud and various other distortions in the economy.

Rampant control fraud is also why tons of people who are otherwise useless have jobs rather than are yet another SNAP/SSI recipient. Corporate Managers looking for more direct reports to fuel their promotions who are willing to fudge performance reviews to protect dead wood likely take off a good 10-20% of the unemployment rate all by themselves. This also allows them to protect the actually productive people when layoffs finally come due to economic conditions entirely out of the manager's control.

Of course this naturally comes with corrosive effects. If your business relies on control fraud to be viable this implies the optimal amount of shrinkage is nonzero; preferably some fraction of the taxation otherwise avoided. This is because any mechanism you can use to identify sources of shrinkage can also be used as a means of assessing your "true" tax burden. As such, those mechanisms are routinely omitted as "cost saving measures".

This is what is behind most complaints of being unable to staff businesses. Untrustworthy people cannot be allowed anywhere near decision making. Even if they don't steal directly they'll do other stupid shit that's liable to get them to turn stoolie in desperation.

Nevertheless, if you have to scale a business you just have to swallow that bitter pill and adapt. If you've ever wondered why "mushroom management" (keep them in the dark, and feed them shit) is so common, it's because it's an adaptation to these realities. Managers call these sort of interactions with employees "baby talk", as it's most commonly employed on young and idealistic employees. Anyone who can't see thru it is clearly not suited for anything beyond toiling. Similarly, anyone who "looks like a criminal" (read: non-beta) can't be trusted.

Which brings me to the "heuristic for identifying opposition to the state". Much like corporate, governance has had to scale far beyond its actual ability to employ coercion and maintain some semblance of their preferred order without a hell of a good filter. Viewed through this lens, the reason why some things are "unlawful" and others not becomes immediately clear.

For example, why has every single attempt to roll out a "cashless society" (read: no bearer instruments of any kind) failed so spectacularly? Because if there is no clearly identifiable activity such as "withdraws and deposits large sums of cash routinely" to narrow down your list of potential malefactors, there is no option besides a full index scan to increase revenue or suppress organized "subversive/criminal" activity. This is why bearer instruments such as cash (read: non-refundable) remain allowed in the physical world but ruthlessly suppressed in the digital realm.

The commonly used excuse by the payment processors for their official oppression of things like sex work is the prevalence of chargebacks. This makes sense to a degree, as drunk idiots who don't realize their wife reads the bank statement will always exist. Nevertheless, there is no technical reason even under traditional digital finance systems that nonrefundable transactions can't be supported. The fact that they don't is because the government explicitly prohibits such as it allows anyone to unprovably be an Unlicensed Money Transmitter.

To be fair, it's not exactly smart to engage in a transaction where one fat finger can increase the order of magnitude of a mistake. This is why I'm still astonished that digital transactions (such as with a credit card) aren't by and large subject to escrow. It's also worth noting that one of the important functions lawyers tend to serve is that of escrow. Much like with your taxes, having legally protected client confidentiality allows a great deal of otherwise questionable activity to be beyond proving it isn't entirely above board. This is tolerated because lawyers are almost never threats, but the biggest boosters of the state that exist.

If there's any moral to this story, it's that two wrongs don't make a right. The deadweight loss to the economy due to the impossibility of valuing things correctly thanks to rampant and tolerated control fraud is quite large. All equity you acquire is necessarily a pig in a poke. As such, there's no "free lunch" -- investing in businesses you aren't personally involved in to a degree you can see through the bullshit is simply gambling. That's the real meaning of "ignorance of the law is no excuse".

Caveat Emptor.


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