I had a couple of goes at trying to create a very pixelated Donald Trump, but gave up and did this one instead:

Well said. Our treatment of animals - other animals, because obviously humans are animals, too - is appalling. They deserve better.
And the climate crisis is the biggest issue of our time, with potentially profound implications for the future of human (and animal) life on this planet.

From an economic perspective, the single biggest problem and driver of conflict is inequality. There are several possible solutions that could be investigated, but it is important to note that once rates of return on existing wealth exceed that of new income, we enter a runaway feedback loop. The moral case for a wealth tax is overwhelming.

I stand corrected, we do sort of agree on several points!

Yes, agreed on principle on the lack of proof. What is happening is that governments are giving huge handouts to prop up businesses and individuals to cover their losses during the lockdown, with the assumption that if they did not do so, then businesses would either collapse or else be forced to lay off huge numbers of employees. Governments are trying to keep the current system going. I agree that there is no proof that this is the best approach, given that (AFAIK) no other approaches have been attempted - but if the aim is to minimise economic damage, then can you suggest any better approaches? Does the current approach work to prevent catastrophic economic damage? Would 'do nothing' result in less damage?

Agreed again. I'm not suggesting that everyone should be forced to adopt UBI, merely that a) the current response replicated around the world, of handouts to businesses and individuals, is UBI in all but name, and that b) given the first point, governments would be remiss not to look at implementing UBI trials as a possible route out of the coming economic storm, and a possible route to a more egalitarian future.

There is nothing coming up that has the same sort of price-hype as halving did.

As for halving, there was obviously huge anticipation, which was priced in beforehand - but CV19 has overshadowed everything over the last few months, and I would think it has also dampened any upwards bitcoin price movement. Difficult to see what will happen next, as even though lockdowns are ending around the world, the economic impact is only just beginning. Bitcoin is still seen by most as a highly speculative asset. This may mean that people stay away as the economy struggles, thus keeping the price low by reducing demand. But at the same time, this crisis is throwing the inadequacies of fiat into sharp focus, which may make bitcoin more desirable.

Some countries are not supported. If your country is supported, you may still have to wait (bold). Personally I have earned some coins there, but I am still on the waiting list for others.
If you have tried to start earning but it's not available yet, there's not much you can do other than wait.

Thank you. Most of my time on this forum is spent arguing with xenophobes, bigots, racists, religious-nuts, anti-vaxxers, Trump-worshipers and flat-earth-trolls. It's rare and refreshing to come across a post that is based on facts and simple, evidence-based, reproducible and verifiable physics.

If you don't trust the reasons, then why not just look at the figures for excess deaths instead? What is killing these huge numbers of extra people?

As far as I'm aware, every government that has implemented a lockdown. And not just suggested, they have put it into practice; they have been throwing billions of dollars around desperately trying to prop up their economies, because GDP has plummeted everywhere. Have you really not noticed that? What do you think might have been the consequences of no state intervention?

It's nice having the discussion anyway, even though I'm fairly confident that we'll never agree on anything

I'll concede that UBI is at present more a theory than anything else, and that pilot schemes have been limited in scope. No doubt any UBI system would require considerable tuning and would differ in its implementation, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

I'm interested in whether we - and other posters here - are agreed on any or all of the following points?
1) The current system benefits the rich more than it benefits anyone else, and this works to increase inequality within societies (as a feature, not a bug),
2) A system of ever-increasing inequality is unfair and unsustainable in the long-term, and we need an alternative,
3) UBI in theory works to reduce inequality, and
4) An economic recovery from CV19 will not happen by itself through light-touch global market capitalism, and will instead require some degree of state support.

If we agree on #4, then what is a better alternative to trialling UBI? I'm by no means a UBI-zealot, I'm genuinely interested in learning about other ideas.

Both bitcoin halving and ETH's move to PoS should lead to price increases in the future. But of course everything is overshadowed by CV19 at the moment, which is affecting crypto markets as much as traditional markets. We also have to remember that crypto is still in the relatively early days, and bitcoin is currently seen as a highly speculative asset rather than a safe-haven store-of-value. In theory a fiat financial crisis with money being pumped in economies should be good fro crypto - in practice we are not there yet, 'safe haven' status for bitcoin is likely years away.

'Altcoins' covers everything in crypto except bitcoin. This means the the term covers a huge variety of projects, from multi-billion-dollar coins with a rock-solid use case and talented devs and a well-thought-out roadmap, to pointless scam coins with tiny marketcaps, and everything in between. Some coins will surely do very well in the future, and many will fail.
Generally, for a simplified approach, you can consider marketcap to be a barometer of the quality of the project. Of course some high cap coins will fail, and some tiny cap coins will grow enormously... but market cap in general can be considered a reasonable approximation of how each project is currently viewed.

A more pertinent analogy might be nice.

I would add that it doesn't have to be a shady project, it just has to be a small one in terms of marketcap. Anyone can become a whale with a very small coin. The smaller the cap, the easier in general to manipulate the market.
I'd add another massive red flag as well - if a coin is rising dramatically and there is no obvious reason for that rise, then it is almost guaranteed to be PnD or else runaway FOMO - in either case steer well clear.

I'm not sure why so many people are dead-set against UBI. It is a great way to rein in some of the worst excesses of untrammeled capitalism, and reduce inequality. UBI grants power to the poor, not only by boosting their income but also by disincentivising wage-slavery and other exploitation by powerful employers. Also it removes the huge state burden of maintaining the welfare system. Post-COVID, we are looking at struggling economies and much-diminished job opportunities, with whole industries on the brink of failure. UBI helps to ensure that money circulates in the economy in a much fairer way than we've seen in the past with QE, and also reduces the 'too many people not enough jobs' aspect by making it that even a part-time job is sufficient to keep someone above the breadline. Employing 5 people on a 3-day week or 3 people on a 5-day week is the same $ outlay for the company, but under UBI a 3-day week can be sufficient for the employee, and we get more people into work.
I for one am sick of my tax payments just being used to supplement the already swelling coffers of the rich. It's time for a fairer approach.

Some profound cognitive dissonance there - unless you are self-identifying as a racist?

All lives matter, which is why it is important to take a stand to defend exploited and disenfranchised minorities. The BLM movement is vitally important, and a step forward on the long road to true equality of treatment and opportunity. "Black Lives Matter" actually means "Black Lives Matter, Too".
I don't think that saying "All Lives Matter" is an appropriate response to BLM, because it implies that the demands and rights of white people aren't being met... which is patently untrue. I've not answered the question posed at the top of the page, because it is a false dichotomy, because the alternatives overlap. To say "Black Lives Matter" is not to imply that white lives don't, rather it is saying that all lives matter equally, even those that society treats of being of lesser value.

I do agree with this part. It's ridiculous and pathetic to see this desperate virtue-signalling from every company and political and public figure. Even the NFL have finally decided to change their stance (pun intended) based no doubt on a careful assessment of how the barometer of public sentiment is moving.

This part, however, is nonsense. The biggest killer of black people is probably the Catholic church, through their religious colonisation of Africa and outlawing of contraception, leading to a population way in excess of what the environment can realistically support. 

Whilst it's good that more companies are getting involved, I'm extremely skeptical of Honeywell's claim. Their assessment is based on the assumption that Quantum Volume is the defining metric for QC power, and that's very much open to question. Quantum Volume is the metric that IBM uses:


The thing is... absolutely no-one else uses that metric. IBMs QC is currently the most powerful in the world, based on Quantum Volume, because it is the only one that uses Quantum Volume as a metric.
It looks like Honeywell are trying to put out a QC that is more powerful than IBM's, using Quantum Volume to determine that power... thereby becoming the "most powerful" QC in the world by improving on its only competitor on that metric.

It is great that another company is entering the space, and it will certainly be a big achievement if newcomers Honeywell can out-perform IBM... I just think that the "most powerful" claim is a little misleading.

ETH still has one of the strongest use cases in all of crypto. Smart contracts will transform society, and ETH is the clear frontrunner.
This year we have the move to PoS, and this plus the underlying strength of the project should mean that we'll see decent price increases. Staking rewards are sufficiently lucrative that I would anticipate a lot of ETH getting locked up, thus increasing the price of what remains in circulation.

I think there is a good chance that ETH will outperform BTC  for the remainder of this year, particularly as BTC halving is now out of the way.

My thoughts are that this is extremely unrealistic. This is almost an order of magnitude above the previous ATH for the coin... and on top of this we have the fact that XRP has performed extremely poorly since that ATH. We are talking about something like x70 above current price, for a coin that already has a marketcap in the billions. Even if XRP performs dramatically better than recent history might suggest, $14 per coin and over half a trillion dollar marketcap seems a long long way out of reach.