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Sabrina - oh how I love Audrey!
I'm a bit of a film geek. Here are some recent films I've watched over the last month or two:
Blade (1998)Blade (1998)
I could not help myself. Pairs well with Demolition Man for a Wesley 'Tax is theft' Snipes double feature night. Something about this kind of 90s action film just puts me at ease, maybe it's nostalgia? I am curious if younger people even get it. Maybe you just had to 'be there' to find comfort in the over-the-top violence and vampires being taken down with samurai swords?
Eraser (1996)Eraser (1996)
Same as above, classic Arnold Schwarzenegger. I come for those one-liners, corrupt government cronies being thrown through windows, shoot-em-outs, and of course rail guns.
American Graffiti (1973)American Graffiti (1973)
Is this what America was once like? Or is this just George Lucas' own nostalgia seeping through. I have a soft spot for coming-of-age high school films, whether it be The Breakfast Club, or Fast Times at Ridgemont High. They don't make them like that anymore (even if they tried to).
Swallowtail ButterflySwallowtail Butterfly
Now this is something special, Shunji Iwai's 1996 classic Japanese alternative reality film about a group of immigrants and outcasts on the edges of Japanese society. It is dripping with imagery and colours and scenes that have a specific kind of get-up - a base coat of Wong Kar-Wai with a few layers of Shibuya-kei and Shanghai underworld. If you get it, you get it.
Rebels of the Neon God (1992)Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
Drifting through the filthy streets of Taipei in a Honda NSR 150cc, young love intertwined with East Asian family dynamics, petty theft, and cigarette smoke. Pairs well with the above. Shot on a shoe string budget, but more than makes up for it with pure talent.
I posted what I thought was a reasonable and relevant comment on a Hacker News article for the first time in ages and it got downvoted, lol.
In a way Hacker News and Stacker News are both familiar to me - text-based and insightful, somewhat aligned towards my general areas of interest.
But I realise with Hacker News I am consuming not just articles, but also passively absorbing other people's comments and worldviews. There is a kind of privileged uber-geek, Weird Al Yankovich White N Nerdy 'acktually' vibe to it – Let's not forget how that hive mind feels about Bitcoin.
When I do decide to participate, I am punished and I realise maybe that group is not so much up my alley.
With Stacker I feel part of a community, I love this place's quirks. Downzap me here instead guys :)
I remember reading once that the Greek gods were the original "celebrities". Gossip would rip through the cities with stories of intrigue, infidelity, and infighting in Mt. Olympus. Maybe anyone with a good penchant for storytelling could spin a new yarn and add to the canon?
I agree. I only know a smattering of latin phrases and words but would be hard pressed to construct even a basic sentence that is grammatically correct. For such a foundational language to our modern world (Everything from Principia mathematica to Lex mercatoria) it seems a great shame that it has slipped through the fingers of most of the public.
Maybe a new renaissance is due?
Does anyone have any speculation about what is going on here?
There is discussions over on Hacker News about how this is about setting up to dump on retail, including fast-tracking getting the AI companies into the index funds e.g. S&P500 so that retirement and passive funds have to buy them.
What are the possibilities that there is an AI hype bubble pop, and that the lack of price movement in Bitcoin is useful here as it is somewhat uncorrelated with the insane movements in stonks?
What will be the "safe place" that AI people will rush into when the valuations of AI companies burst?
I mean, I don't want to go back there but I don't want someone picking up my old username and scamming others with it. X is rife with imposters and scam accounts.
Thanks I didn't know about Pubky, I found these links:
Pubky project site
Pubky: The Next Web - Medium article
This is disappointing:Some Bisq developers are highly proficient with AI tools. However, we had not systematically used them as part of an actual security audit process. One developer attempted to get Bisq into an external security audit program, but the application was rejected. In hindsight, this was a serious failure on our side. The mistake was not only the missing validation check. It was also failing to react early enough to the changing security landscape and the increasing practical relevance of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery.
A good line of questioning, keep digging! Some thoughts from me:
Firstly what even is the welfare state? Where did this concept come from?
My own country of New Zealand was actually one of the world's first "welfare states".
The development of social welfare came from (among many things) the experience of political leaders who fought on the other side of the world in WW1 and came home to find that they had "no jobs" and that life had moved on without them.
What were they supposed to do?
Much had been asked of them by their "country", and the country had an obligation in return. Together with the great depression in the late 1920s the buck stopped with the government, who was forced to take an active role in ensuring there were jobs for people and that certain things were taken care of. In the U.S. this was known as the "New Deal".
This was not just the government being "nice" though. The political logic was that a large number of unemployed military-age men is not good if they decide to riot.
Back in the 19th century and earlier things like war pensions and widow pensions were also key parts of the soldier's life. Who would consider fighting at all, if he was going to be left disabled or with a family who had no source of food?
Thus the historical idea of "welfare" is related with the development of the nation state and specifically the conscription military. Well-paid private armies in small kingdoms are markedly different to conscription forces, and it was exactly the kind of big continental armies that were increasingly required as the nation-state emerged from the 17th century onwards and fought for power.
Arguably, the Western concept of "Nation" really emerged from 1648 onwards with the Peace of Westphalia
Prior to this, people were maybe much more inclined to identify with their local region or district. But throughout the 18th and 19th century the age of empire demanded that these new "nations" create a tribe mentality not just among local communities, but at the larger scale of "countries".
So what about the welfare state today?
Normally no one would expect you to have a "contract" with your child or neighbour in terms of giving and sharing - human decency for our brothers and sisters is engrained into our very psychology since the beginning. But what about someone from the far side of a large "nation"? How do you build allegiance with them?
Nation building required sacrifice and ideological alignment, and perhaps one of the tools was the welfare provided to soldiers and sailors etc.
Today the logic is quite different. There is no universal conscription or military service, and most people are pretty meh about the idea of fighting for their country.
But we still live within the framework of nation-states and this is their logic: taxes are to be paid and public services and welfare are provided.
I do think it is important to be critical of the state and consider other ways, but I think the problem with Libertarian thought is that it requires a huge amount of work to achieve.
Hard-core Libertarianism IS utopian - there is no such thing as a libertarian country today. There is no "blank slate" or desert island where we can start again and try building our free market paradise from scratch. All countries inherit obligations and promises made by previous governments to people.
I don't think it is a question of "how does welfare work in a libertarian state" but "how can a libertarian even state work?"
Fundamentally in a system of nothing but contracts and "private property" and minimal government, is it even possible for a viable economy to emerge? I would argue not. A strong state is always required in the beginning to bootstrap an economy, otherwise it will just get taken over by someone else.
I think the healthy way we should think about libertarianism is as a guide, not a destination: "What if the state was less involved in our lives?", "what if we paid less taxes?"
I believe that prosperity and strong economies do not emerge from "the market" on its own, markets emerge in a kind of dance with a strong and vibrant society.
The question we should really be asking is how do we build strong and resilient societies?
We still live in the world of the nation state. We can imagine new ways of doing things, but we should recognise that is the position we are starting from - there are no more desert islands to claim as our own.
The mechanics of 100% libertarianism require too much in my opinion, and most people will always look for a leader or government to protest when things get too difficult. If that government is not able to "do something about it" then they will be overthrown by someone who will.
I love this attitude. One of my fond youth memories was "acquiring" a bunch of depreciated ex-lease Pentium III computers from my school as a teenager and tinkering with them like. My room ended up looking like it was from Serial Experiments Lain.
I think in general, being resourceful and solution-focussed is a strong trait to have.
Check out Duncker's candle problem