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Bloody judges. A law unto themselves, the lot of 'em.

Take a photo for us!

Pleeeeeeeaaaasssse!

Maybe Dredd's rank as a senior street judge gives him a city-wide remit to chase leads wherever they go and to be constantly assisting and monitoring the lower ranks; keeping them in line and focused. A kind of wandering general.

I typed in "Clint Eastwood as Judge Dredd" and got this horrid image:

[The two Popes]

The two Popes. An absolute masterclass by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, by turns funny, thought-provoking, and moving. I am not religious at all but I wholeheartedly recommend this film.

[Back to Life]

At a dozen half-hour episodes, Back to Life (created by and starring the wonderful Daisy Haggard) had me engrossed from start to finish. Haggard (yum!) plays Miri, who returns home after 18 years in prison only to find that moving on isn't as easy as she'd like it to be. I don't think it could really be described as a dark comedy - but perhaps as a gray comedy.

I haven't had time to go deep into this FTX thing so far because it's quite complicated. However, according to The Grauniad, as of April 13th FTX has recovered $7.3bn (£5.8bn) of customer funds, of which the biggest sum has been in "category A crypto" tokens. I can't be sure, of course, but until I can find out more I assume that the crypto tokens were more easily recovered due to the nature of the blockchain which (as I'm sure you know) records every transaction in millions of widely dispersed and separate ledgers. In order for such a massive fraud to be perpetrated by a bank only a handful of ledgers would have to be altered but in crypto it would involve altering literally millions of ledgers all around the world, and even then the alterations would leave fairly blatant concomitant errors in previous and subsequent blocks.

So, until I know more I'm still of the mind that legitimate cryptocurrencies are indeed safer than banks.

I have still to read the scientific paper quoted by the Smithsonian Magazine in the second link but the first thing that jumps out at me is that crypto mining is being compared to the beef or crude oil industries instead of the traditional banking system - which would be the obvious comparison to make.

Lycantropes.

Thanks - I'll look into those links when I get some spare time.

Okay. The blockchain is, however, good for other things as well such as registering cars, property, etc. I agree that crypto is still money, and in my view money is something we really should be looking to retire, but so long as we insist on needing money crypto is as good as anything. It's also safer than banks, which are again teetering on the edge of collapse as we speak.

Okay, say you're right about crypto - that's only part of the solution. Decentralizing money creation or, rather, ending the global monopoly enjoyed by a vanishingly few private banks and returning the mechanism to public hands would be a massive first step (which would also prevent these private interests from undermining crypto, thereby increasing its stability) and, I say, a vital first step towards economic stability and the long-term goal of doing away with money altogether or at least as much as possible.

Planned obsolescence must also be done away with as it is unbelievably wasteful and polluting.

What would some of your solutions be?

Hey Locusts - good to see you around again!

Official Problem - People don't have enough money.
Official Reaction - People need more money.
Official Solutions - CBDCs and Social Credit.

Unofficial Problem - Rampant money creation reduces the value of money.
Unofficial Reaction - Devalued money makes everything appear more expensive.
Unofficial Solutions - Decentralized money creation, decentralized digital currencies, more Austrian Economics solutions, a ban on planned obsolescence, any politician losing an election to be shot*.


*Not really a serious solution, but we can all dream...

Fully deserved.

The only sport I ever really engaged with was Rugby League. Not many cissies in those teams and the fans were a delight.