COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Browndog]

This has been there for over a year or even more. Click on it and see that they are still not recommending it unless in clinical trials.

In that case, my apologies for the link. This showed up a few sites I frequent, they too thought it new news.

[Yngvi]

How often did a superior ask you to "make the model say X"?

If you have to be explicitly told what the model needs to say and why, you are not suitable for the job.

The senior executive that I reported to would make an implication. His operations guy would then meet with me on the side and press me hard, trying to convince me of his methods. I advised him that my models were based on purchase orders that had been committed to. Anything one unit above or below that number is fraud and I am unwilling to commit fraud. On at least one occasion they sent their "projections" to head office instead of mine, this was in an effort to conceal declining demand and secure more budget. The manufacturing team ordered parts based on those projections and we had to write off millions of dollars. This was all part of the company culture - conceal poor results and ignore reality to get through the next quarter. I started raising alarm bells in 2010. I warned that if this behavior continues and we don't refresh our product portfolio to become more relevant, the whole company would come crashing down. I raised this in every senior-level meeting for the next two years and finally quit when I realized the people running the company were self-interested and not wise or brave enough to make a short-term sacrifice for long-term benefit. One of the many reasons that I left.

Not the first time I have heard this story.
Other than quitting and becoming an entrepreneur, is there a solution to this generally pervasive problem?

[anticausal]

Biden speech.jpg

I think my theories about a theatrical humiliation are bolstered today.

[mkm5]

Bank is Giving Zero Down Payment Loans To Blacks & Hispanics Only - YouTube

[Jenni]

The Bitcoin debate seems to me like ya'll are arguing over which master you're gonna be a slave to.
If it doesn't keep you warm or fill your belly it doesn't have any actual value beyond belief. Faith. A notoriously unpredictable human idea. Very few things, such as gold and steel, have universally agreed upon value and don't fit that description.
Part of how we weaken government and authoritarian control in our lives is by leaving them out of the equation as often as possible and creating new ways to bypass them. If you must traffic in the coin of the realm, fine, but any transaction is going to be better for you and the person you trade with if you leave the control freaks out of it. Bit coin just trades one set of authoritarians for another. It's still not a thing of value in itself. It doesn't loosen any yokes. It relies on things that the authoritarians already control.

[mkm5]

"Parallel construction in reverse?!". Gotta think on that one for a minute!

[anticausal]

/pol/ News Network on Gab: 'They know what they’re doing. We know what they’re…' - Gab Social

This might be the most insane moment in American history, and you're living it. Aren't you happy to have a front row seat?

If gold were merely priced based on it's industrial uses, great though they may be, it would most likely sell at less than $100/oz.]

What a bizarre restriction. Why would it merely be based on industrial uses? Aesthetic uses are what give it most of its value. When all the cheaply made imitations become rusted and worthless, gold will still have its shine. This is an inherent value. It's coveted because of a property that is intrinsic to the gold. Intrinsic value is clearly not meaningless. No one covets bitcoins because of something intrinsic to the bitcoin, except perhaps the fact that it is pure abstraction, but that is being too generous.

[kelticslob]

What is useful about the problems that have to get solved to mine gold?

Solving these problems yields gold - a metal I could use as a good heat reflector, better than any other metal…as well as a type of money in some circumstances.

What could we use bitcoins for - other than as a type of (fiat) money?

[VNV]

For one, the concept of intrinsic value is meaningless. Value is solely subjective. If gold were merely priced based on it's industrial uses, great though they may be, it would most likely sell at less than $100/oz. It's value, like Bitcoin's, comes from it's fungibility, immutability, and scarcity. Bitcoin's "industrial/practical" application is as money, allowing us to abstract away from barter systems and increase trade efficiencies. Just as mining and securing gold require continual resource expenditures, so it is with Bitcoin. The miners, by way of solving these cryptographic problems, are verifying and securing the blockchain network. Neither are fiat, as their values arise from adoption and use, not by decree. Satoshi's whitepaper is accessible to the layman and a brief read. Highly recommended. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

One of the roles of government is to guarantee a stable currency. How does bitcoin address that?

[francesco.decaro]

Coach, you sound like a fellow metallurgist? I spent more than a few years studying at the former Michigan Mining School way up north. And yes, shiny metals which also have intrinsic value in industry have always been fascinating to me, especially the numismatic variety.

My favorite local hamburger joint will accept a 90% silver half dollar for a double cheeseburger, but I'm pretty sure they don't accept BTC.

Is that supposed to be some kind of evidence that bitcoins are not valuable? Ask all those venezuelans if they used silver half dollars to escape their country, or bitcoins

Most importantly, Gold has thousands of years of history proving it's value and worth.

Gold is the next best thing of course. And it doesn't need to disappear just because Bitcoin is here, just like it didn't disappear for all this time.
It has problems though. Hard to move around, hard to hide, hard to exchange peer-to-peer. If americans had bitcoins in 1933, Roosevelt's program would've never worked.

Francesco,
Check out a guy by the name of Lyn Alden. He has a pretty balanced approach to Bitcoin. Bitcoin in theory has many advantages and has very useful applications especially in extremely unstable and hyperinflated economies to give autonomy to citizenry that just don't feel safe storing their money in local banks, like some south American countries and Lebanon etc.... But the main problems with Bitcoin at the current time is that, a) it does not have a big enough market as of yet to be a useful reserve. b) Adoption is still not as big as is needed, c) it is currently too slow and volatile, d) and it just has too much of a learning curve at the current time for it to be adapted by the masses at scale. Yes, I am aware that applications like lightning will be implemented soonish, but at it's current form it just is not ready for global adoption yet.
I am also aware that big banks and countries such as Russia are figuring out ways how to integrate Bitcoin into their economies. But my issue is that when government gets involved, they will figure ways how to disrupt the key element and beauty of Bitcoin and defeat the reason of it's creation.

I think there is value in it, I just don't know if it is ready yet. Would I invest in it? Probably, but I think we haven't seen it's true bottom, let's see what happens with Saylor etc....

You might also want to hear Jeff Snider's thoughts on Bitcoin and crypto in general. He has a pretty interesting take on the matter.

I don't think anyone can decide when Bitcoin will be used on a world scale. It's a technology, it's gonna take its time
Think about the learning curve necessary to use a computer in 1965, or even 1995 and compare it to now. My 80 year old grandma can do a videocall or send an email by swiping her finger on a screen.
There is a lot of educational work being done out there, especially in the parts of the world you mentioned, where people don't need to be sold on Bitcoin because they immediately understand its value as money. And a lot of work being done to make Bitcoin as user friendly as possible. It has and it will create a huge amount of job opportunities. As Aantonopolous says, it is disruptive technology, which is part of the reason why most people can't imagine how it can be applied. It's like people trying to drive cars on unpaved roads and complaining that horses are better so there is no need for cars. Then someone comes along and paves the roads and suddenly both cars AND horses can go on it just fine.
Again, if you or anyone else can explain to me how big banks or governments can disrupt Bitcoin, I'm all ears.

There is no intrinsic value in a bitcoin itself. Even if the math problems being solved by mining were extremely useful, that wouldn't matter. The value of those problems being solved would still only be a by-product, not something held within the bitcoin itself. You could run software simply to solve them, without mining coin. So yes, it is fiat, which I'm fine with since it directly competes with a government monopoly. But the properties of the block chain do have value. Namely the fact that the ledger is permanent, can't be manipulated, and can be anonymous (only if you do it right, which the vast majority of people don't). If your account made a payment, there is absolute public proof you made that payment and it cannot be altered.

It's basically just software that can do some cool things. Is there any intrinsic value in the software this forum is run on? Not really. The value only comes from how it is used.



The argument is not if all the power goes out, it's if your power goes out and you are cut off from civilization by a government action. But it doesn't even have to go that far--you might only be cut off from having access to digital communications. All of this is very plausible. If you see no scenarios in which it could happen, you really lack imagination.

Same logic applies. In what world would the government cut all your power off arbitrarily? Is that the only thing this authoritative government would do to people? Is money the thing you'd be concerned with? As I said, gold still exists. Just like with fiat money, all your wealth should not be stored in one single asset. What about the inability to refrigerate any food? Or have any heat in the winter? That would come first probably.
What about the fact that your bitcoin wallet is nothing but a string of words and you can access to it ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD? You can just go to your neighbour's house and use their electricity and buy whatever you need.
I think it's just catastrophic thinking for the sake of being right.

You have obviously not looked into derivatives markets.

Markets can do whatever they want, it doesn't change the technology and it doesn't inflate the supply of bitcoins. That only exists when you convert it to fiat money.