axiom

Of course!

Yes, it is valid to state that the ease with which fiat currency can be brought into existence (by its design) is an enormous burden on future generations. This is because of the inevitable increased taxation required so that governments can pretend to pay back their debt (which by now can never truly be repaid). The justification for saying this is immoral and evil is that such a mechanism enslaves the population. It ultimately forces people into poverty because taxation becomes too high, and the asset bubbles created by the inflation of the money supply make living an ordinary life unaffordable for growing numbers of people. Life becomes much more about work, survival and worrying about the cost of living. All the while, the (private!) owners of the Federal Reserve - who cause all of this misery - remain obfuscated from view.

Just to be clear here, 'fiat' does not simply mean currency. I am not referring to the idea of a dollar. 'Fiat' refers to government-issued currency that is not backed. Pure fiat was introduced by Nixon in 1971. Banking systems existed prior to 1971. The internet, computers etc would still exist if he hadn't unpegged the dollar from gold. Bitcoin is a return to the principle of sound money that existed in the past. The mechanism by which it achieves it (solving the Byzantine general problem) is revolutionary though of course. By the way, I was not straw-manning Leo at all. He is correct in the sense that humans often need to fail before they can succeed. But I still don't think pure fiat was ever necessary. It's a 50 year old experiment which now seems to be failing.

@Breakingthewall To circumscribe and to understand are the same thing. There can be an apparent conceptualisation of infinity. There can be overwhelming depth and novelty in what appears to be consciousness, and this can be followed forever.

Yes, insofar as becoming a heroin addict is an evolutionary step, and you can't get to sobriety without using drugs first.

@Breakingthewall All "teachings" are just whatever is happening. Enlightenment is the recognition that nothing can be circumscribed nor understood, because it is already everything. Nothing can get outside of it, no ring can be drawn around it. Yes, the 'old trick' of the Zen Master is as impotent as any other apparent method. Enlightenment is the complete end of seeking and a natural reabsorption into wholeness. The "problem" is the seeking itself. It's not really a problem as such - it will end whenever it ends. It cannot be taught.

@StarStruck The forbidden fruit was self awareness / metaconsciousness, since it is the root of separation. When the fruit was eaten, Adam and Eve became metaconsciousness and realised their nakedness for the first time. In that moment they were separated from heaven.

@tuku747 All teachings are just waves in the ocean.

100% correct.

Ok sure. I genuinely don't know what you're talking about when you say God. This is easy. Buddhism is a story, just like everything else.

@zurew Probably the most important characteristic of money is that it should be backed. Without this basic principle, fiscal irresponsibility is guaranteed. This is why the US has 30 trillion in debt, stock P/E ratios are at near all-time-highs, and homes are unaffordable. The ability of the Federal Reserve to create money from thin air simply by typing it into a computer screen, loan this freshly-created money out to government at interest, and then keep citizens on the hook to repay it in the form of taxes is deeply immoral if not evil. It funnels wealth to the 1% and imposes an enormous burden on future generations. I would advocate bringing back some form of backing for currency such as gold or silver, or potentially the energy used to mine Bitcoin.

On the contrary, I understand the history and the mechanics of fiat currency very well, and I do not believe that pernicious theft can be defended.

It’s not a left wing idea. Nor is it a right wing idea. I think both sides are more or less equally capable of coming up with bad ideas. Instead of partisanship, we really ought be blaming whoever came up with a fiat monetary system that essentially turns humans into livestock.

Humans and communism aren’t compatible. Selfishness is a function of mortality, less so entropy in general (probably) That being the case, communism might work with AI, who knows. Maybe that’s the goal… end humanity and allow communism to proliferate amongst a willing AI population.

The idea that the right is somehow “inhuman” or morally / ethically bankrupt is dangerous. The assumption of moral certitude is dangerous. I see this attitude increasingly these days. It’s no coincidence that with the western world’s youth once again enamoured with socialism, antisemitism is on the rise. It’s the same attitude of “othering” and dehumanisation of those considered to hold together some Capitalist status quo. The truth is, most of the death and destruction in the past century has been caused by left wing ideas or those inspired by them. I could give a lot of examples, but perhaps you mean “today’s left” as opposed to the the political movements of the past century which would self-identify as such? The dangers of left wing ideas are pretty well established by the history though, and whilst at first glance “today’s left” might look relatively harmless to those caught in its midst, it’s quite easy to draw a direct line between things like today’s Cancel Culture and the Struggle Sessions of Maoist China for example. The brutality may not be on par (a matter of time potentially), but the quashing of perceived dissent, the discarding of “outdated ideas” and the push towards en-masse thought reform directly echoes the past. Things were getting out of hand at Twitter, and personally I’m very glad and relieved to see a centrist like Elon Musk at the helm lest the echo chamber of sanctioned ideas it has thus far incubated further permeates the culture - and pushes us into a Dystopia of Intolerance the Red Guards would have been proud of. It’s useful to periodically take stock of the extent of one’s own tribalism… because if you’re strongly anti-left or anti-right as some matter of principle, then this has become an identity - and that means you’ve been brainwashed in all likelihood. Remember that there are in truth no “left wing people”, just as there are no “right wing people”. There are just good ideas, bad ideas, brainwashing and tribalism.

God Realisation is at first a peak experience, which later on, with sufficient work (psychedelics, inquiry, meditation) can become something more like a default state ostensibly experienced by a higher Self / God. And in tandem with this process, it is overlayed with (and then becomes inextricable from) some type of understanding and conceptual framework. In essence it is a deep and endless cerebral exploration of the infinite frontier of consciousness itself. Enlightenment is none of those things. Enlightenment is the complete end of experience, awareness and self / Self. This seems completely incoherent to a dream character. Dream characters tend to argue for their own survival (“awareness is all there is” etc) God Realisation is a bit like living the fable of Achilles and the Tortoise. It chases infinity but can never reach it.

I would be genuinely interested to read the science behind this. Do you have a link? It sounds a bit fishy ;-) Personally I think it’s sort of obvious that those who would identify as left wing occupy the middle portion of an IQ distribution bell curve. That is, fewer of them would have a very low IQ or a very high IQ. It’s just a gut feeling, but I also think there may be an upper limit of IQ (still a respectable score, though) for those who are left-leaning. Hence the caricature of “evil genius” as opposed to “wholesome genius”. (Elon Musk probably looks like an “evil genius” to someone of average or lower IQ)

The situation is not helped by former chief scientists of companies like Pfizer explicitly stating that the vaccines are, in his view, designed to curtail global population. For every dangerous right wing idea, I can count at least one comparably dangerous left wing idea. And you can do this too if you’re being completely honest. The left does not have the moral high ground. Far from it. It’s really not about right wing or left wing - that’s all bread and circus, divide and conquer. What it’s really about is economic devastation, the failure of Meaning 2.0, the fall of empire, the marketplace of good/bad ideas (social media brainwashing and tribalism) and the Meaning vacuum.

God realisation is all fine and good, but it is not enlightenment ;-)

You can’t do anything.

This is not the type of rigorous scientific statement that I have come to expect from Leo Gura Esquire.

Yeah, Socrates was a proto technocrat, believing that a society should be ruled by a Philosopher-King. He respected the rule of law as a greater good. When sentenced to death, he drank the poison willingly.

Reality is 77mph on the Atlantic Ocean Road. Reality is a Hawaiian pizza. Reality comes with a pink bow. Reality is a totalled Chevrolet. Reality is a powerful sneeze.

@Wyeth No problem. I also wanted to become a film director or writer or artist. I went into business instead, and for similar reasons to those you've outlined here. I became wealthy but I did not become happy nor fulfilled.