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For those who can't be bothered following the link, it's August 16th, 2024.

Lovely work, as usual.

Heh, that guy's hilarious.

[Three-Body]

I've just finished Ep 2 of the Chinese offering, Three-Body, and it's damn good so far. It's a hard sci-fi thriller at the moment, with a rather deep philosophical conundrum at its core - which is presented in Episode Two with aplomb. There are thirty episodes in this season, so I've still got a long way to go, and it is taking its time, but in a good way. All I can report so far is that it's a fascinating start.

Now shoo... I need to watch Ep 3.

It seems to me that using up finite resources to produce currency makes things more expensive and devalues the currency?

I think that's partially true. All currencies use up resources. "Paper" money and coins also use up a lot of resources, not only in initial materials and printing costs but in continuing fuel also. I'd imagine that the fuel and manpower costs incurred through the constant transportation of cash from one institution to another throughout the world is considerable. Then there are peripheral costs such as safes, armoured vehicles, physical bank buildings with all the concomitant energy costs, and so on. I'm confident that these factors play a significant role in the global banking industry's plans to introduce CBDCs of their own.

The biggest factor in devaluing currency is, as with most things, overproduction. Our current currencies are based on debt, which can be pushed to practically infinite levels. (The more money produced, the less it's worth. The less it's worth, the more it's needed. The more is needed, the more is produced. The more is produced, the less it's worth, and so on in an eternal vicious circle - the true engine of inflation.) Current global debt levels are around 305 trillion dollars, which is due to mismanagement rather than production costs, and is causing incalculable harm and misery around the globe.

Obviously, I take some systems might be better at encouraging co-operation and avoiding coercion, which is what I take from Shark's outlook, but as this cryptocurrency example would seem to show is that there's no system that will self regulate for the benefit of all its users

I agree with this entirely.

In my view, the trick is to come up with a system that can't be manipulated or abused so easily (as a step along the road to doing away with money altogether). In this area alone crypto is a step in the right direction due to the inbuilt blockchain ledger.

Of course, it doesn't really matter what the unit of exchange happens to be. I think it's the institutions that monopolize and manipulate currencies for their own benefit which are at the core of the problem. 

Well, that's your choice - if you think that a person being wrong on one thing makes him wrong on everything then I guess you wouldn't listen to anyone.

not looking good for crypto in the US

Interesting.

My take on this is that it's not cryptocurrencies per-se that are at fault here but the corrupt financial institutions trying to profit from them, which sounds all too familiar. Although neither you nor the article directly argues that cryptocurrencies are at fault, this seems to be the impression that is trying to be made. This could be said of virtually anything, blaming corporate or even personal greed on the currency itself - which is correct, to a certain extent - so as to say that everyone from pickpockets to bank robbers to tax-collectors to corrupt bankers only broke the law because of the nature of money.

I am not a fan of any form of money, finding it to be a fundamentally toxic element in our world's civilizations, but crypto at least has anonymity going in its favour. However, all currencies are fundamentally unsound - especially since 1971(?) when the most important method of monetary control was swept away following the abandonment of the gold standard. 

Once humanity finally leaves behind our current primitive mindsets and methods, money will be seen for what it actually was - a mechanism for social, economic, and philosophical control.

Interview with Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace, on Sensible Environmentalism.

Good, strong start to Season Two!

You're gonna fit right in

By the way, welcome to the forum, BadlyDrawnKano.

Sorry to dip your introduction thread into a vat of weird, but that's the boards for you.

But is it the words that cause the outrage, or do they merely set it free?

At least I didn't type Covid.

I'll get me mask...

...I was just wondering, are there any other words which I should avoid typing?

Marvel, Mills, microscopic, muff, mangled, Manchester and moist.

[The Cursed Earth]

Good show, JW.

I think The Cursed Earth was probably the story that made me a proper Dredd fan, before that he was just another character to me.