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1321
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: 2020 Democrats
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on: February 11, 2020, 01:27:26 AM
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After Pete's shocking victory (or "victory") in Iowa, it'll be really interesting if he wins in NH as well. The polls are currently very close.
Even if he wins, it's a bit difficult to imagine him winning a majority of delegates, since he has roughly zero support among black Democrats. If he wins in NH, it makes a contested convention much more likely, though: maybe a roughly-even split in delegates between Bernie, Pete, and Bloomberg, with scattered delegates among the rest. That'd be interesting.
If Pete somehow becomes the nominee, I feel like he'd do well against Trump, since IMO he's the candidate who most projects a calming, "return-to-normalcy" vibe, which will appeal to a lot of swing voters. That said, maybe minority Democrats wouldn't turn out for him enough? I don't understand why he's so monumentally unpopular among that demographic. Maybe his polling there would improve if he became the nominee?
Policy-wise, he's probably about the same as Biden or Bloomberg. I certainly don't want him to be president, though I'm hoping he wins NH and this leads to a contested convention.
Honestly they're going to call him the winner, but on first ballot he wasn't the winner. He won the delegate count because Iowa has the whole realignment thing, and in my mind Bernie is going to be able to say that this is more of a win then Pete can. For Pete and his Camp, they're going to be able to run off and say that this was surprising that it happened and that they beat the odds in Iowa. Which they're right, they did beat the odds and the polls had him crashing in the polls. Biden is going to have to have a strong finish in NH to keep his name in the news. He continues to rely on the fact that NC is very Black, and they're pretty much saying that SC is his wall (or whatever that saying is). If he doesn't do well in NH, he's going to lose his edge in electability (which I think is bullshit, but the voters dont) and he's going to fall out of fashion. This is gonna be something. Can't believe NH is tomorrow. |
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1322
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: Help: A list of LocalBitcoin alternatives (P2P marketplaces)
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on: February 10, 2020, 11:32:45 PM
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Nice list, OP.
Just a suggestion though, maybe include a personal judgement on whether or not the p2p exchange has high/low liquidity and whether or not the spreads are high?
The problem with most of these newly formed p2p trading platforms isn't the fact that their service is crap, but rather because there is a lack of buyers and sellers listing ads. You can often see 10% spreads on the most common payment processors, which is quite absurd.
Spreads are going to be pretty important. This is something that I'm going to look at when I do my personal notes for each one of these exchanges. As the information on the fees and stuff on their website aren't going to be enough. I know that a site like PaxFul charges a pretty hefty penny for withdrawl fees, but the spreads are typically fine. |
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1323
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: [society] paying taxes
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on: February 10, 2020, 04:37:28 PM
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2 - Certain departments like Defense, are unable to say 'we're not protecting you cause you didn't pay' It's not like you're not going to be educated if you don't provide funds to education, or if you dont pay into the police/fire department they're not going to protect you. That's just crazy to think about, unless that your intention here. Only certain people will be provided defense, police, fire department, etc depending on how much they contribute (that sounds like an issue)
i guess you missed the parts of history where hospital wards close. people rely on foodbanks. homelessness is on the rise. crime rising where it takes longer for a cop to turn up than a pizza delivery. how about the point of if a certain domestic priority budget was not met then the least priority non-domestic budget gets reduced. EG less foreign humanitarian donations to big corp NGO. some governments 'ringfense' (minimal budget requirement) funds where the excess could be allotted elsewhere so say the $10k tax is $5k government ringfensed alloted and $5k then goes to citizen preference for what they feel deserves the extra budget for expansion/improvements it may actually do things like stop making the military so trigger happy to carpet bomb foreign cities, and think smarter because they have to watch the budget anyway compared to the situation we have currently. .. think of ideas of how todays technology (blockchain included) can be used to make things better. in the UK definetly and i believe the US(maybe) the police/fire are funded by local(state/county) budgets rather than national so it could be more of a case of just 3 categories local, national, international that could be decided. but the point is blockchain has shown it is possible to get individuals more involved in day to day things. and the whole 'disrupt' economy (uber instead of government licenced taxis shows things can change. so what idea's have people got to stir things up a little But this isn't going to make the tax system better, it's just going to change it into something where the people pick where they think the money is best to go -- and to be honest most people are pretty fucking stupid, so that probably isn't too smart of an idea. Do we waste a good amount of money in the current tax system? Yes. We finance wars and other countries around the globe and in the US we have people that are homeless, veterans on the streets, drug problems, healthcare problems, etc. We even waste money when it comes to 'pork barrel legislation' pretty much when politicians attach riders to regular legislation, bringing money home to their district so they can get reelected. But what we need to fix is our focus. If we want to change how horrible the current budget proposals are, and to cut out the waste and spend efficentley -- then we need to vote for people that care about things like that. We need to step out of the tribal train of thought where we pick the 'better evil' just cause we don't want to 'lose'. Lose that thought cause most times when you vote you LOSE ANYWAY cause the two parties dont care about you. Fix the focus, and we'll fix our problems. Elect people that care about the problems you care about. |
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1325
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Economy / Economics / Re: How a Global Epidemic is helping counties see the bigger picture
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on: February 10, 2020, 04:22:14 PM
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If the authoritarian government of China is unable to control this epidemic, then they're going to crumble. The only reason that their in power as of right now is because of the massive control of the government in everyones everyday life. The podcast I was listening to (The Journal) goes into this, talking about how the Chinese government spys on their own people every single day.
If you go to buy a train ticket -- you need to show ID.
If you go to the pharmacy -- you need to show ID
If you go to the airport -- you need to show ID.
and so on and so forth.
Everytime you show ID, all of this is noted down and reported back to the Chinese government so they're able to track every single location that people are to. Plus, they're using facial recognition camera to close the gaps between places that you dont need to show ID to go to. The Chinese government knows every single thing about every single person, they're monitored all the time. The difference about this happening in America and China is that the Chinese don't see it as as much of an issue as the Americans do. The Chinese people believe that's pretty much part of their life (I suppose you could argue that some Americans think this as well) and that they're protecting one another by being watched all the time.
China is using this as a tool to track down who has the coronavirus, who may have it, and so on and so forth. It's helping them so far and public support is going to stay high for doing this. But if tons and tons of people begin to die, and the massive government of China is unable to do anything to help them -- it's going to undermine their rule massively.
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1326
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: US Politicians Want to Ban End-to-End Encryption [serious discussion]
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on: February 10, 2020, 04:08:57 PM
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While I do think that KYC laws are a bit annoying at times, and yes they do contribute the surveilance state, I think they're one of the 'better' ones out of the things that 'big brother' does to us. KYC laws don't typically bother me as much because the government is pretty straightforward about them and companies display them.
For instance - it's pretty easy to be able to tell if a certain website is only allowed to US customers and if they want the customers to be verified. You're able to avoid these. This is not me saying that I agree with the law, it's me saying that these are not the worst ways government abuses its power.
I have a problem when the government goes ahead and places restrictions that we don't know about in the background, or searches through our messages (by banning encrypted messages) and so on and so forth. KYC is bad as well, but at least they display it.
I don't necessarily have a problem with the KYC law itself either. It's not the governments abusing it, the platforms are. When they freeze your funds unless you provide documents, the KYC law basically lets them take your money if you don't send the necessary documents. If they consider it's not enough, you've lost everything. There probably needs to be a lawsuit though and then things would change. What I meant by all that wall of text is that through all these laws and measures they're just slowly taking more and more little pieces of our freedom and privacy. I am anti-terrorism and anti-illicit activity, but I think there are way better ways to stop them than being able to read our texts. Well yeah, that's the real issue. Companies use KYC as a way to extort their customers. It's not fair to a customer to say that they're not going to be collecting KYC information, then when they get a big win (gambling companies), cash out a great crypto trade (margin companies - bitmex), they badger them with tons of different requests for information that they may not want to give, cant give, or etc. I assume that there is a good amount of laws relating to the fact that you're unable to seize customer funds if you are to implement some sort of policy that may bar them from using your site. But then again, we're in the wild west of crypto where regulation still isn't fully there and companies can seem to do whatever they feel like. |
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1327
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: 4chan trolls reportedly behind part of the Iowa caucus chaos
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on: February 10, 2020, 03:14:16 AM
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Hm, even if we are to explore the line of thought that people were stopped from reporting data or something along those lines , I feel as if the most important portion is that you interfered in a primary -- something that is handled by a political party, not by the government. Even if you were to interfere in the voting of a primary, would that be illegal? As the party makes any and all decisions relating to the voting process for the primary. If the DNC wanted to right now, they could vote to change their bylaws and pick Clinton as their nominee if they so pleased. I'm assuming this is right. But yes, this was posted online and it was beyond stupid that this is being blamed as one of the big reasons for the delays. Shouldn't have posted it online and maybe the app should've been working. I think most of the charges involved telephone harassment, or something similar, nothing to do with election fraud. Haven't dug too deep though. Ah. Sounds like no prosecutor would want to get into the mud on that one, sounds like something that you throw on the news. Make a threat or two about it that you could get fined or face criminal prosecution, and people don't do it again cause they're scared of getting into punishment (even though no one would punish them anyway) |
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1328
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Betting on Democratic Primaries
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on: February 10, 2020, 12:40:22 AM
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I appreciate the info, I'll have to check out the sites and see. Me and some buddies want to throw some money on some random primaries just for shits and giggles, so I don't think the site would try to run off for my $10-20. Not anything crazy. Thanks! Offer your bet P2P against users here..
Don't need no books..
Eh, not a big fan of doing stuff like this. Would rather just bet normally on a bookie of some sort. |
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1329
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: 4chan trolls reportedly behind part of the Iowa caucus chaos
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on: February 10, 2020, 12:33:44 AM
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Hm, even if we are to explore the line of thought that people were stopped from reporting data or something along those lines , I feel as if the most important portion is that you interfered in a primary -- something that is handled by a political party, not by the government. Even if you were to interfere in the voting of a primary, would that be illegal? As the party makes any and all decisions relating to the voting process for the primary. If the DNC wanted to right now, they could vote to change their bylaws and pick Clinton as their nominee if they so pleased. I'm assuming this is right. But yes, this was posted online and it was beyond stupid that this is being blamed as one of the big reasons for the delays. Shouldn't have posted it online and maybe the app should've been working. |
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1330
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: The Sun unethical practice to cover sensational news reported!!!
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on: February 10, 2020, 12:24:25 AM
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I think the real thing we have to talk about is that the UK has a role known as the 'press regulator' that's an actual thing..... talk about a lack of free speech. But I do think that if you to have to pick to be apart of this organization, it's not something that just randomly happens to you. I've found this quote on wikipedia regarding certain people not wanting to take membership in press regulators. That calms me a tad. Several of the broadsheet newspapers, including the Financial Times, The Independent and The Guardian newspapers have indicated they will not take part in the organisation. The Financial Times joins The Guardian in establishing its own independent complaints system.[ All newspapers / media companies love sensational news, that's how this works. |
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1331
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: [society] paying taxes
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on: February 10, 2020, 12:18:55 AM
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I mean the biggest flaw in a plan like this is that certain departments are going to provide you benefit if you pay into them or not, this is what is known as the free rider effect. If you were to tell people right now what they want to put money into, most people would say that they're going to put the most into Welfare/Social programs, education, etc. They see that as the one that is the most benefical towards them and the best ROI.
But there are two problems with thinking of your tax dollars as a return on investment.
1 - If everyone puts all of their money into welfare / social security / etc, there's not going to be enough for the other branches of government to operate. That's a problem and it could cause for a weak state.
2 - Certain departments like Defense, are unable to say 'we're not protecting you cause you didn't pay' It's not like you're not going to be educated if you don't provide funds to education, or if you dont pay into the police/fire department they're not going to protect you. That's just crazy to think about, unless that your intention here. Only certain people will be provided defense, police, fire department, etc depending on how much they contribute (that sounds like an issue)
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1332
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Economy / Gambling / Re: Stake.com | Crypto Powered Sportsbook and Casino | 🎰 🏀 ⚾ 🏈 🎾 🥊 🎲
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on: February 09, 2020, 06:45:05 PM
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Hello, what is threshold at which stake decides to ask the customer for KYC. The way I see it, the small fish do not get asked for KYC?
Also, who at stake gets to see the documents sent in, the support team or someone else?
Thanks
Hello, We generally never ask users for KYC unless we are almost 100% sure he is abusing or cheating in some way. It rly does not depend on your profit or amount you are withdrawing. If we ask for KYC in rare occasions we did documents will be handled by myself and only myself. I cant remember last time we asked for KYC it was very long time ago. We do have storage for KYC information up to all standards required. But again we won't ask you for KYC depending on your profit or withdrawals. Hopefully this answers your question. Cheers. Always good to hear stuff like this. Many in the industry attempt to use this to bully people out of their winnings if they're unwilling or unable to provide the documentation requested. That's in addition to me not wanting to send my ID to some random bookie in the middle of nowhere.  Stake.Com is Great and so is PD |
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1335
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: Trade without fees
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on: February 07, 2020, 03:55:59 AM
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Nothing can survive for free forever.
Eventually it will charge you, or even it may be already charging very high deposit / withdrawal fees.
Imo it is better to look for a more trusted and established exchange, that charge fees compatible with the market and provides a good service.
+1 to this. The business could be surviving on selective scamming people or selling users information for chainanalysis or something along those lines. I'd guess that they're probably just surviving off having a good amount of withdrawl / deposit fees. But if their claims are truthful about only charging for BRL -- they literally just need the coins for liquidity as they probably don't have much on the platform. |
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1336
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: POST BREXIT FUTURE FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM & THE EU
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on: February 07, 2020, 03:00:40 AM
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I really try to say out of the political side of the forum, but since I just had to deal with it:
GB for the moment is shooting themselves in the foot by dragging this out. I just helped a client of a client begin to do some IT work for their move out of GB (some place just outside of London) to another city just outside of Paris (where they already had a small office). Why? Not because they gave a crap about Brexit one way or another. But they have been trying to figure out what the next move would be. Where / when / what kind of deal and the owner just finally got fed up and said. Screw it, we have to renew our lease and some other contracts in 90 days. Lets just move and not deal with it.
If he knew what was going to happen he would have been happy to stay. But, since nobody knows 100% what is going to happen it's easier just to pack and move. It's just office workers so there is nothing to move in terms of machinery.
-Dave
Ouch. Just thinking about how expensive this is to have to do, this is probably brutal for a business owner and has been freaking him out for months now. Just cause I'm curious, was the client also living outside of Paris or was the office just for workers or something along those lines? Cause moving from London to Paris (I know you said outside of Paris) is going to be rough if you double the amount of things to think about, as you're not only dealing with your business but with your home and family moving as well. How expensive is such a move? All in all that is. |
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1337
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: US Politicians Want to Ban End-to-End Encryption [serious discussion]
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on: February 07, 2020, 02:57:42 AM
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Well here's the thing about privacy and right to privacy activists -- people don't like them. It isn't hard to sell people on the fact that government should be able to ensure that their citizens are safe, that''s simple -- you show them a couple videos of 9/11 and some other horrid terrorist attacks across the country and then you tell them that all of this could've been stopped if the good guys were able to look at the bad guys texts. The next line they use is probably something along the lines of -- well you have nothing to hide right?
It takes a lot to sit down with an everyday person and tell them -- the government shouldn't be able to look through everything that you do online, you should be able to have privacy, and for the majority of people i guess they have NOTHING TO HIDE, but no one wants any of their dirty laundry having the potential to be aired. No one should have to fight for privacy, as we all have a right to privacy. But that's a much harder thing to convice people of, cause they don't understand WHY things should be private.
There's always going to be a way out for the terrorists, child porn traffickers and all the other criminals. Meanwhile, we, the legit ones, are being scammed thanks to KYC laws being abused by stupid websites and apps. When will proper action against THESE guys be taken? They basically allowed a law companies can abuse of and they're calling us criminals for using Bitcoin. What? First we've seen Bitcoin concerns due to "a large part of transactions being used in illegal activities" which was and still is a false idea to begin with, and now they're using child porn as an excuse to stop end-to-end encryption? You could as well stop me from abusing my wife by forcing the installation of security cameras all around my house, it's the same shit. Privacy? None. Govs are pushing the limits imo. Like come on, if we put together all these measures they're taking "against crimes", it's ridiculous and turns into exactly what I feared years ago: we're heading towards total control. Because the same excuse can be used in any scenario: - Need to buy Bitcoin? You need to share your ID to make sure you're not a terrorist. - Need to talk with someone? Let us read your chat logs to make sure you're not sending someone child porn. - Need to browse the Internet? Let us see what you're browsing to make sure you're not buying drugs. - Need to take a photo? Let us see these photos to make sure you don't own some child porn. And the list could go through hundreds of examples. Where does this end? Well, it doesn't. It only gets worse, actually. As I keep saying, our privacy is in danger. It's getting shrank down as days go by, and they're taking steps so slow we don't even notice them. I can't feel safe knowing the government is spying on my texts, listening to my calls and looking at what I'm browsing. At this point, it gets pretty scary because these are like actions a communist country would take. Is North Korea our idol or? While I do think that KYC laws are a bit annoying at times, and yes they do contribute the surveilance state, I think they're one of the 'better' ones out of the things that 'big brother' does to us. KYC laws don't typically bother me as much because the government is pretty straightforward about them and companies display them. For instance - it's pretty easy to be able to tell if a certain website is only allowed to US customers and if they want the customers to be verified. You're able to avoid these. This is not me saying that I agree with the law, it's me saying that these are not the worst ways government abuses its power. I have a problem when the government goes ahead and places restrictions that we don't know about in the background, or searches through our messages (by banning encrypted messages) and so on and so forth. KYC is bad as well, but at least they display it. |
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1338
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: 4chan trolls reportedly behind part of the Iowa caucus chaos
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on: February 07, 2020, 01:15:38 AM
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At the end of the day there was going to be chaos either way, doesn't matter who did it. This was caused by people posting the phone number online, and the people running the poll not changing the phone number they were using quick enough.
All the Democrats are trying to do here is pin the blame on someone else for them not making sure their app works, and ensuring that the public was informed of things quick enough. This is stupid.
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1339
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: US Politicians Want to Ban End-to-End Encryption [serious discussion]
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on: February 06, 2020, 10:42:02 PM
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The sad thing about using this angle, is that it works. The American people (and most people in the world) are always worried about irrational things. The chance of a terrorist attack happening is slim to none, statistically, but that doesn't stop people from spending billions of dollars a year in ensuring that every single safety feature is present. They way they present it to people who don't agree with them is -- if you don't support this, and a terrorist attack happens, the blood is on your hands. And that's a pretty simple way to make people follow your path, and to get voters to agree with you as well.
Crazy, eh? So the push for total State surveillance (police State) doesn't end in China. The most stupid part these politicians never get is that such laws wouldn't stop the practice, people would do clever things like encrypting twice (strong then weak), more stenography etc. This can only benefit attackers who are would love to harvest everyone's data. This wouldn't stop any terrorists and terrorists would not follow any laws anyway. Yet it would aid THEM to collect info on individuals to better plan their attacks. Ironic isn't? But that's the problem with politicians, in their ignorance they always cause more harm than good. Oh and as a side effect things like bitcoin would become illegal, because only terrorists use it right?... Maybe a right to privacy movement is needed, at this rate even thinking against the State will become a felony. Well here's the thing about privacy and right to privacy activists -- people don't like them. It isn't hard to sell people on the fact that government should be able to ensure that their citizens are safe, that''s simple -- you show them a couple videos of 9/11 and some other horrid terrorist attacks across the country and then you tell them that all of this could've been stopped if the good guys were able to look at the bad guys texts. The next line they use is probably something along the lines of -- well you have nothing to hide right? It takes a lot to sit down with an everyday person and tell them -- the government shouldn't be able to look through everything that you do online, you should be able to have privacy, and for the majority of people i guess they have NOTHING TO HIDE, but no one wants any of their dirty laundry having the potential to be aired. No one should have to fight for privacy, as we all have a right to privacy. But that's a much harder thing to convice people of, cause they don't understand WHY things should be private. |
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1340
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Nancy Pelosi Rips SOTU, an act of Constitutional Defiance or Mal-intent ?
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on: February 06, 2020, 10:32:41 PM
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The way Ms. Pelosi tore up SOTU simply points at her immediate reaction to Trump ignoring her handshake (IMHO). It simply shows how fragile the Dem ego is; maybe they nvr expected Trump to win in the first place and then continue to be in office with a second term staring at them in the face with their own stupid acts. I think they'll lose with a better margin despite the sevaral shortcomings on part of Trump Admin. In your opinion does it bode well for the impending elections? Not a good look for her, imo. Way too many misleading and false statements in his speech though, and with a speech like this they were all intentional/premeditated. I assume this is the statement she was trying to make. Yeah, regardless of the lies and whatever in his speech -- this is not a good look in the least and I think that the WH (Trump administration) is going to win the PR spin on this one. Every single president lies in their SOTU speech, it's literally what they do everyday. They take credit for things that they didn't do, and try to get the American people to think that they're worth giving another vote to and reelecting them. Not surprising in the least that he lies. But sitting behind the President and ripping up his speech on national television? That's a pretty bad look, far left dems are going to LOVE THIS -- but the independents aren't going to at all. |
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