Isn't Venezuela technically socialist on a national level

National socialists if you will.

There's a word for that...

Anyway, I wouldn't trust them

Finally, a candidate worth voting for

When the fuck is Burrito Galaxy gonna be done

One thing missing: governments all over the west want to import these guys en masse, or already have, such as Sweden and Germany.  Entire sections of those nations are being lost to the Muslim population, rather than the supposed integration the Muslims were supposed to perform into the host societies, effectively becoming no-go zones where you're expected to be attacked/raped or otherwise if you enter them.  They also happen to be eating up a huge portion of their welfare.

So there's that.  Don't ask me why they're doing it; probably something to do with guilt; I have one friend who says it's only right that we bring them into America because "it's the last we owe them after attacking them for so long."  All I have to say about that is, two wrongs don't make a right.

I've noticed a lot of people are concerned about technology replacing human labor; the idea is that inevitably the machines will replace everyone and everything, and in this scenario there would be nothing left for people to do.  This appears to be a bad thing concerning how one makes a living, but one must also consider the flip side to this scenario, where everything gets dirt cheap because machines are far more efficient than humans in most cases (and in the cases they aren't, there's the factor of improving the machine so that it becomes more efficient); while a human needs a plethora of things to keep going--food, housing, clothing, healthcare, family, recreation, etc. etc.--robots need far less, just energy and maintenance, can work for a long time without "rest", and can work faster.  So the idea of a 2.50$ McDonald's value meal, just as an example, means we can feed far more people for far less; what would've cost perhaps 40$ to feed the family of 4 is pushed down to 10$, which can allow people to allocate money elsewhere.  Meanwhile, the people who no longer work at these establishments are free to pursue work in other fields, most likely services.  With the lowered cost of business operation, thanks to the fact that the business owners no longer have to pay for very expensive human laborers, more businesses can open and stay afloat, meaning it's easier and more preferable to become a business owner than to be an employee.  The increased prevalence of machinery will further democratize business ownership.

The same complaints are always heard about any new machine replacing human laborers; there's a short term woe of "what will I do", but a long term boon now that humans are free from another monotonous task.  Nobody wants to farm the old school way, it now takes 1 farmer to do the same job as 20 farmers, thanks to machines.  Nobody complains about the lowered cost of food production, and the farmers went and did something else.  The pain of the "what will I do" is worsened, however, in a suppressed economic environment where job creation is stifled by government policies; with unemployment at a really nasty rate as it is, it's clear why there's fear for the future.  There's two routes from there: either slow or stop technological progress so the slugging economy can catch up, or stop stifling economic growth with bad policies so economic activity can match technological advancement.  The latter has two advantages, the former has two disadvantages, so the answer to me is obvious.

I don't fear the robots, however.  Even assuming there was an AI developed which could produce illustrations and concept art--which dictates both technical skill and creative prowess, which dictates a ton of prerequisites--I'd just use that AI to my own advantage so I wouldn't have to create it myself.  If ever there was an AI which could replace human direction itself, and AI could run a business better than any human could, then it'd effectively free us all as there'd be nothing to do, which would give rise to a humongous technological boom (as is what happens when people have lots of free time), probably pushing us to colonize space.  Then you'd get into the fantastical stories about how the AI might try to turn on its human owners and turn into a Matrix situation and so forth   I always felt the Matrix situation is a bit silly; with all the energy in the universe, why harvest humans?  The energy output would be minuscule compared to harvesting energy from the just the sun, let alone the rest of the stars, and machines can thrive far better in space and high temperatures than anything else.  If I was a machine with that sort of AI, I'd leave Earth.  But anyway, we're not talking about AI, we're talking about menial tasks like burger-flipping and getting the fucking order right, things which could've been automated a long time ago.  IMO, if what you're doing can be replaced by a machine with the most basic of programming, you should probably do something else, or at least expect to be potentially replaced at some point in your life.

The real question here is this: do you want to be served by a machine?  I think a lot of people would much rather prefer there be a human to talk to--and I'm sure these stores will still have human managers to talk with.  But would you want a machine to prepare your food?  There's ups and downs, I think; among the upsides would be, no chance of someone spitting in your food or otherwise getting their bodily parts in it by accident, such as hair.  I can only imagine the amount of spit I've consumed from fast food without realizing it, though I'm sure it has happened at least once.  I think the most realistic scenario is that McDonald's & Co. will be competing with more services-oriented restaurant establishments e.g. Hooters, where there's a higher expectation to have some human interaction; if there's anything a machine is not going to replace (at least not anytime soon), it's a real woman.  So while you'd go to one of these automated restaurants if you just want something quick and cheap (such as how fast food ought to be), you'd go to the services-oriented restaurant, or perhaps a restaurant where you're expecting to have a professional cook prepare your meal which a robot will likely not be able to do anytime soon, when you want real people involved with your restaurant experience.  I think this will be the case going forward, that some people will prefer the labor of other actual people in certain situations, until we get to a point where machine and human are indistinguishable, and even then there'd be preference for the real thing out of principle.

Surely it's inevitable; fast food prices are already getting a bit steep.  It costs like 20$ to feed two people on average from a fast food joint over here in Texas, when you factor in taxes.  I could get a lot more food from the grocery store and prepare it myself; a big bag of rice would cost like 5$ and that'd keep everyone in the family fed for a month (although it'd get pretty boring eating rice all the time.)  The cost needs to stay low for people to feel it's worth the price; if you raise the wages of fast food workers to, say, 15/hr, then the business will need to make up for that with higher prices on their items.  Those higher prices can drive away customers, as they don't want to pay so much for what can be considered a meal that's not worth that price.  This causes the business to either make cuts or go under due to loss of customers.  Is this a better fate than making less than 15/hr?  In truth, those who are willing to work for less than that will replace those who are not.  That's just how it goes.  People don't value fast food very much, that's why it doesn't sell for much; we only buy it because it's cheap and quick.  Remove the cheapness and you may as well not get fast food; if I was paying Outback prices for fast food, I'd go to Outback and get some better food, with better service and better aesthetics too (well, depends on where you go I suppose, but the one around here is pretty good.)  Those who don't like this fact should find better work; you're paid your labor's worth, no more.  As stated, the dawn of machines in fast food will drive down costs and make fast food even more worthwhile to purchase, so it's a no-brainer for the business owner if there's no difference to the customer.  But that's what we'll see, whether people will respond positively toward the replacement of workers with machines, and whether the improved cost of production outweighs the loss of human service.  If it's anything like most fast food places are around here, the service would actually be improved by the machines.

Sounds like every government ever; ISIS is just a government in the making

Good, fuck Gawker.

IIRC most people were in support of this.  I said from the beginning it was a bad idea, the state ought to get out of the way.  But no, the general public was convinced the state was on their side here and that the corporations were bad--the ones with state involvement mucking things up already.

So effectively the state is going to continue to consolidate control over this form of communication, and will continue to do so until it's a China situation, where you have one choice of service provider, the national ISP corporation--likely given for "free" at the cost of tax money--which the public will celebrate as giving everyone a "basic human right/need".  Of course, the standard issues with monopolization will come into play, and it won't be long until accepted opinion is mandatory on the web; dissent will be crushed and any hopes of free speech will be completely slashed.  Only hope after that is mesh nets and similar technology, which may be considered "underground" at that point, perhaps even illegal--wouldn't want anyone to support terrorist activity or to share CP, after all.

In between now and then, smaller ISPs will struggle to afford the regulations imposed on them until they either get merged into the existing big ones--TWC, Comcast, etc.--or close their doors.  The problems with the oligopoly will continue to push the public to want a solution to their woes, and if they don't wise up to how the state's going to fuck them in the end, then the problems are going to be met with increasingly severe problems, requiring more "solutions" which worsen the situation further.  It's a never ending feedback loop, outside of rejection of state 'assistance', but the general public is either too stupid or too ignorant to do that.

http://www.ibtimes.com/neanderthal-dna-race-asians-have-closer-link-multiple-breeding-events-studies-say-1822230


It would appear that higher presence of neanderthal DNA is correlated with higher IQ (IIRC east asians have an average IQ of like 105+, while whites around 100 IQ.)  Note that the nations with the lowest average IQ also tend to have the least amount of neanderthal DNA (Africa has something like ~70 IQ, Middle-easterns ~80 IQ.) http://www.photius.com/rankings/national_iq_scores_country_ranks.html

The lowest ranking nation here--excluding North Korea, with an N/A--would be Equatorial Guinea, with a score of 59 IQ.  Here's some pictures of that location:




This is the common theme among the nations with lowest IQ:

Saint Lucia: 62


Mozambique: 64


Gabon: 64


Cameroon: 64


The Gambia: 66


Sao Tome and Principe: 67


Saint Kitts and Nevis: 67


Liberia: 67


Lesotho: 67


Haiti: 67


Guinea-Bissau: 67


Dominica: 67


Swaziland: 68


Somalia: 68


Djibouti: 68


Chad: 68


Burkina Faso: 68


Angola: 68


I could go on for quite a while longer, but I'm sure the picture's clear.

From there it's a short walk to seeing the difference between nations with mostly high IQ and nations with mostly low IQ, in every aspect, from national power to quality of life to crime rates and so forth.  While I don't think it's fair to judge a person by their apparent ancestry, I think it's fair game to judge a person by their intelligence, particularly because the lower-intelligence people tend to be more barbaric in nature; I cite the disproportionately higher levels of crime among blacks in America (and likely elsewhere), and the entire Islamic faith as examples.  I've known plenty of high-intelligence black Americans who are perfectly respectable so I don't believe racism is a legitimate way to distinguish between quality and otherwise people: it is far too general when a single race can potentially include anyone with an IQ of 50 to 100+.  Sure we could nitpick about what truly counts as one race or another, but Joe Average, assuming he's judging by race, is not going to get into those details and will instead rely on what is most obviously present to him which is general appearance.  It's better to just not use it at all.

Thanks man; it's been a little over ten years now, started when I was young

So the answer is donation in lieu of ads.  I wouldn't call this a novel solution, and I think it'd be far easier for people to stick with the most popular option since it has the greatest amount of users i.e. bitcoin.  I certainly don't want to have to use yet another crypto to do something very specific.  I think having another crypto for this very specific problem is not worth the trouble.  The issue is still there, to encourage people to donate to sites esp. when they don't want to assist in the generation of ad revenue.  ADZcoin doesn't seem to assist this in any way, all it offers is to be an alternative to bitcoin with a social network attached to it.  I think it's a dud; the only way this can take off is if it gets as big as Facebook, which I don't see happening on a meaningful level; there's already Tsu which does this, but they pay out with dollars, a currency far more popular than bitcoin and to greater extremes relative to ADZcoin, and they don't even pay you much, and still struggle to break into the mainstream.  I am also extremely skeptical that no ads will be involved on the social site itself, which I assume will be the case since it's a response to ad blockers; how then does this company generate its revenue to pay its users?  Will it turn out like Reddit, where the ads are hidden as user-submitted content?

Also, the comments on the article smell fishy.  As in all of the articles.  Nobody is going to criticize it?  They're all just saying how great and wonderful it is that there's a bitcoin clone out there, which is especially fishy on a site specifically devoted to this one crypto.  I also hate how the articles go on and on about filler instead of just getting to the meat and potatoes, for example:


HOLY SHIT, just tell me what you mean to say already, I'll figure out whether it's good or not on my own.  There is no need for all this fluff and all these promises.  Even the news isn't this bad with leading its readers.


  orly

Anyway I figure the only reason this is being posted here--in off topic, rather than alternative cryptocurrencies where it belongs--is that the OP is in some way connected to the project and seeks to get more people in on this crypto; maybe he's got a stake in it.  Tried opening it up as just an innocent sharing of an article, but didn't want to do it in a place where negative attention would be drawn--which wouldn't happen if this was truly about just bitcoin.  But if you place it in the alt cryptocurrencies forum, it gets drowned out by all the other cryptos that nobody cares about.  So here it is.  What really set off the red flag was that the OP responded to Fortify as if focus was being placed in ADZcoin, when Fortify mentions nothing about it.  This makes the intentions of the OP clear: this is an advertisement for ADZcoin, as Jstalk points out, being disguised as a regular post.  So more pleather, on top of the astroturf from the article comments.  Just be honest about what it is you're trying to do and none of this would be an issue; going about it this way makes it seem like there's something to hide, like there's some wrongdoing going on.

I think it all smells fishy and I'm going to avoid it, but even if that wasn't the case, I don't think this is at all necessary to donate to a site instead of looking at ads.  I think the creators are placing way too much faith in everything just working out with enough fancy rhetoric.  I think if you will continue to pursue this mixture of social media and crypto, you should just use bitcoin instead, or perhaps litecoin or doge--something which is out of one company's hands so potential abuses are minimized.  Or better yet, offer multiple crypto payouts for the Tsu-clone.  All I can imagine another crypto is good for, where its purpose is so narrow, is a pump and dump.  What's to stop people from using ADZcoin for purposes outside of funding sites?  If the purpose of ADZcoin is just this, what encourages people to join the social site to earn it?  If it's just to support sites they wish to support, why can they not give charity without ADZcoin?

My verdict: none of this needs to exist for none of it offers anything which isn't already being offered by other services, nor does any of it resolve the underlying issue being encouragement of donations.

I believe they exist, the odds seem very likely that conditions for life exist elsewhere in space (or rather, it's very unlikely that planet Earth was the only one, especially considering all the ingredients necessary to start it exist everywhere), but I don't believe they've visited Earth, there doesn't seem to be any clear evidence of this occurring, just speculation.  Even assuming the aliens had 100 million years of technological advancement ahead of us, it seems they either don't know we're here or they just can't travel long distances very fast and don't want to bother coming here; even traveling at the speed of light it could take a very long time.  It's also possible that they're not quite as sentient, e.g. similar to lions or bugs or something.  I think the whole ancient aliens thing can be explained by ancient humans having imaginations capable of doing all those things themselves; from what I understand, human intelligence hasn't changed much since like 10k years ago, so it's totally possible that, even without the knowledge we have now, they still had the mental capacity to develop engineering and so forth.  It's just us who don't know how they managed to do it and filling the gap with a possible explanation, in the same way we use religion in other areas where knowledge is scarce.

It still wouldn't end poverty; perhaps it would 'end' for a short while, but those destined to be impoverished will find a way to squander what wealth they get and it'll become lost in the hands of the few once more; in other words to "remedy" this situation will simply distort the economy even further, after which it'll self-correct as it always does.  So long as there is inequality in intelligence, there's going to be inequality in general as this impacts one's ability to operate effectively in the world, and so far I've seen nothing which can raise anyone's IQ beyond ~5 points.  So I really don't blame them for not wanting to spend money on, for example, Africa; in the end you'll wind up creating a lot more needy Africans and a whole lot more warfare in that nation between warring warlords, and what good is that?  What good is breeding the stupid?  Why fill the world with more violent idiots?  Then you just have more starving people who, if fed, will produce more starving people.  It's just going to create more problems.

Poverty is never going anywhere, the end of which is a pursuit only for one fully disconnected from the reality of the situation.  It's just an excuse used to morally justify stealing from another.


It's not as if being invaded is something to take lightly.  They're both issues, and people do care about both, just not always at once.  Everyone has their own focus.

Hopefully this article will clear up some confusion about what's going on: https://mises.org/library/where-negative-interest-rates-will-lead-us

Here are some relevant excerpts:

No country's government wants you to use any currency besides the national currency; it weakens the power of monetary expansion, which means less power for them.

Work

Then again that's also an investment, of time--both to do the work and, potentially, to build up the skill necessary to do the work.

You're gonna have to invest something, it's not gonna just fall into your lap.  Even a thief has to make an investment.

That old quote just keeps coming back with these nanny state nations:

There's two forms of freedom here: freedom of being (social liberty, left) and freedom of action (economic liberty, right.)  Liberalism, as far as it goes in the states, refers only to freedom of being, but abhors economic freedom.  In other words, something like homosexuality or transgenderism or any religion or culture whatsoever is a-ok with the liberal ("tolerance", multiculturalism etc.), but running a business however one sees fit is not.  This is largely in part due to the lefties taking full control over the term, who are wholly blind to the benefits of freedom of action, for whatever reason.  Conservatives are the liberal's opposite, supporting freedom of action but abhorring freedom of being; the limitation is intended to preserve tradition.  Libertarian is essentially what the liberal used to refer to, which supports both freedom of being and freedom of action; as the root of the word liberal is liber which means freedom, it makes sense that it ought to support freedom period, and I'm sure this is what it means outside of the insanity of US politics.  In contrast, authoritarians abhor both freedom of being and freedom of action, which is fundamentally similar to being a slave; of course, such an advocate can only intend to be the slave master, e.g. dictators and the fools which elect them.

With that in mind, the influence of the left and of authoritarians has grown immensely lately while the economy suffers.  Just saying, they're connected.

Admittedly it is harder to trust individuals with relatively low participation rate, as they have less to lose for their potential disappearance.  Hero members and above have a lot more time to lose by poor behavior since it takes a long time to build that up, so they're less likely to do risk it.  They'll still do it, just less incentive to do so.  Totally new members are the most distrusted since the time it takes to make a new account is negligible.  Only way to overcome these prejudices is to stick around; before that, you can get by easily with a proper attitude and presentation, e.g. empathy towards others like kindness and manners, proper usage of the accepted language (English in most cases), making good on promises.  The prejudice will still be there but people will be willing to overlook it.

Only thing I can tell right now is that it's likely to be Trump Vs. Clinton.  I don't think Bernie's gonna make it.  Couldn't give any less of a shit about the other running republican candidates.  I'll take Trump over Clinton, but I don't find either ideal, putting it lightly.  I don't think Bernie is ideal either, putting it lightly again, but I'd take him over Hillary.  Then again, I'd take a garbage bag full of dog shit over Hillary.