Aurelius

Damus’ new “who to follow” feature is as offensive as YouTube or Netflix or Amazon’s watch recommendations. Algorithms that guide thought inhibit personal exploration, and consolidate opinions into a unified groupthink. This is the proof of stake model…those who have the most (dollars or followers) encourage governing algorithms to boost their product selectively over the products of others.

In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, he describes being struck by the poverty of the northern people that he met upon his arrival in Newport. His conclusion was that without slavery as he had known in the south, there can be no wealth. In the modern world where half of the wealth is owned by 0.1% of the population, where 3 billion live in poverty, where a single country siphons away the resources from most of the third world countries, and where the predominant economic model keeps the masses in a perpetual state of wage dependence and debt peonage, the injustices of slavery persist.

“The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in actual production in the most dangerous manner - and this crew know nothing of production and have nothing at all to do wish it.” Citation: Avoid the ad-hominem fallacy to which you would likely fall victim. You don’t know the man because you haven’t evaluated his words. You only know what you have been told about him.

Sometimes I like to throw out a quotation without a citation… an excellent thought with which most people interested in delivering humanity from enslavement by the financial industry will agree. But when attached to the source, some of the best ideas are overlooked because so many of us submit to ad hominem fallacies… and assume we know what an author should say…while ignoring what he did say.

I had a client with a Bitcoin tattoo this morning. The conversation quickly went from the business at hand…to the business of saving mankind.

My fiat job a delight. I do twenty minutes of work, then sit back with my coffee and a Noam Chomsky lecture, to delight in a wealth of understanding about power and oppression. Few people have done more to elucidate the inequities of modern society than the Professor. If he’s new to you, consume three lectures or read one book, and see if your world view isn’t vastly altered for the better.

I can’t wait, Professor

“…freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the power, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.” Daniel Guerin Anarchism

The only art form that we ever created and perfected was the television commercial. We have nothing else to our credit as a civilization. To try and persuade people to buy things they don’t need that are probably bad for them and may blow up in their face… why not sell the next president in the same way and make him just as phony as detergent? Gore Vidal. Interview with Paul Jay