Biden could literally dress up like Commando and slaughter the Supreme Court on live tv without “undermining the judicial process.” Can’t undermine something if it doesn’t exist.

Well, fiat currency is just IOU’s, literally. Check out Debt the First 5000 Years for an anthropological look at the origins of money.

So would I prefer to live in a moneyless (i.e., debtless) post-scarcity anarchist utopia? Of course I would! Incidentally, that’s how small tribes and communities were organized for tens of thousands of years before the rise of nations.

Fiat currencies have a few advantages for maintaining a modern marketplace, whose purpose is to allocate scarce resources.

1. Personal debt is risky. If I issue an IOU, I might die before I can fulfill that promise. Governments are more permanent, which removes the speculative aspect of currency (at least for most purposes, though Forex trading is a thing).
2. A central bank can balance inflation and employment numbers to ameliorate the natural volatility of the market (with good regulation lol).
3. Fiat currency can be synchronized with economic productivity, avoiding the deflationary pressure that is anathema to any currency.

A few other things to clear up. Fiat transactions are infinitesimally cheap. I’m not sure whether ordinary transactions are 1000 or 100,000 times cheaper than using crypto, but the difference is gross. Just attempting to acquire crypto can take minutes and costs enormous fees. I know this from experience.

Dollars represent faith in the power of the US government to extract taxes from its population. Crypto represents nothing. It stands for nothing. “Coins” come and go, and if you’re the last one standing in the zero-sum game of musical chairs, you lose your savings. For that to happen with dollars, the US government would have to implode, which is unlikely.

Crypto is, quite possibly, the purest form of speculative trading (gambling) we have ever concocted. The only reason I don’t think it should be illegal is that I have no interest in saving people from their own cupidity and greed.

Let me just say: respect. People like you restore my faith in humanity. Although I’m an atheist, I have an affinity for the teachings of Jesus. He wanted us to be the best versions of ourselves, and it upsets me to see his memory dragged through the muck of these for-profit cults.

After decades in the US, I’m yet to meet a real Christian. Folks pretending to be Christian all conveniently forget that the rich can’t enter the kingdom of heaven, that they should sell their possessions, feed the poor, heal the sick, and meekly turn the other cheek.

America has no Christians. Just cultists and charlatans.

To some extent. Speculation on the stock market used to be illegal until the 80’s, meaning that investments had to be based on a company’s tangible performance. Companies are not ephemeral, like crypto, but represent real people doing real work. So the stock market is not a zero-sum game (like musical chairs).

Crypto is fundamentally different. Bitcoins have no utility. They don’t “do” anything (except consume ungodly amounts of power to no discernible end).

Let me put it this way: if Microsoft died tomorrow, some would chortle with secret delight, but the truth is that a lot of our infrastructure would need to be rebuilt from scratch — hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, computer networks, servers, websites, gaming and cloud ecosystems would be decimated. Something like 25% of the internet would be down.

If bitcoin disappeared tomorrow nothing would happen, because bitcoin isn’t real. It does nothing and represents nothing. It’s a distillation of the most purified nothing that ever was. If bitcoin vanished that would be a boost for the environment and a boost for the economy (as people stop pissing away money by buying literal nothing).

“Entrepreneur.”

Gentle reminder that you cannot make money in crypto unless someone else loses money. It’s not entrepreneurship. At best, it’s scam artistry, at worst fraud or theft.

That sounds like a bonus.

Nonsense. This law will generate revenue as we fine the ever-living-shit out of social media websites until they can figure out how to get kids off their toxic platforms.

Honestly, who gives a shit. Literally no one should be using these brain-rotting democracy destroying websites anyway. If you want your privacy get a life.

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So we should legalize stabbings because otherwise people will turn to “even worse” forms of violence? Surely there must be a simpler and less moronic approach to legislation.

First of all, fifteen year olds don’t give a shit about political “news.” Secondly, is your argument that Facebook shouldn’t be banned because something else just as bad as Facebook exists (which could also be banned)?

So you admit this is a good start? 4chan isn’t particularly popular anymore, btw. I’m guessing that’s why it flew under the radar.

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So… it’s harmful to everyone, especially kids, which is why we shouldn’t ban its use by kids?

So your complaint is the bill doesn’t go far enough? It should ban more things?

I work with young men on a daily basis and all I can say is: holy shit finally. You guys don’t understand what it’s like out there. 16 year olds are dumb as shit by default, so imagine what happens when you add Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate. Please. Imagine what it’s like to explain for the hundredth time why human trafficking is actually bad, and feminism isn’t evil, and so on. I just can’t imagine ANY FUCKING REASON that a child needs to be on a social media website of any kind, from twitch to twitter.

The function is a homeomorphism on R, so it preserves its topological features.

He’s right.