He has strong opinions on economics, but doesn't understand it. His points about economics are partially true but either subtly incorrect or interpreted incorrectly.
When the public gives (or random bloggers give) give a damn about economics, it's a sign the economy isn't working. Of course they don't have useful solutions - they're not economists - but that feels a little beside the point: you don't have to be a plumber to recognize that your house is full of sewage. And since no one can be an expert in everything, life demands the ability to identify and call attention to problems you cannot personally solve.
An article like this is the equivalent of your roommate going "oh, damn, the living room is full of sewage, we better do something about that!" Of course you'll vigorously agree at first, because you're talking about the problem (which is clear to everyone). But then your roommate suggests fixing it by dropping dynamite down the drain - i.e., talking about the solution - and you're a lot more likely to disagree.
No one who understands modern economics wants to bring back the gold standard.
Seems like geohot should stick to jail breaking iPhones and mocking programmers and CTF challenges… and maybe read a few more books and attend some lectures if he wants to continue deepening his understanding of economics and political science.
It immediately frames questions as "us vs them", if there's a talking point you hear come up frequently and it's easily dissolved: learn how to dissolve it.
The fewer people walking around with incorrect ideas about things the better we all are.
If people rebuff you, maybe they had a point the whole time? If they change the subject or resort to ad hominems, then it's clear to everyone listening that the talking point was bogus. You might not change the persons mind, but it can help others.
I might have time for reading an interesting take on economics. I can learn from that, even if I don't agree with the overall position. (That was one of the beauties of HN 10 years ago - you learned from people you disagreed with. You could even wind up upvoting posts you disagreed with, because they had an interesting point that made you think.)
If something is a collection of far-right or far-left talking points, I don't have time for it. Either way, it's too little reality and too much zealotry, propaganda, and shilling. I don't have time or patience to wade through it and dissect all the problems and issues and just general falseness of it all.
Now, that framing can be used as a general pejorative ("I don't like that"), or even as an attack from the other side (far-left labels normalcy as far-right, far right definitely labels normalcy as far-left). But, honestly given, it's useful to know something is far-right or far-left, just to avoid wasting my time and sanity.
One of the heuristics is that if someone says something very left-field, does not qualify why it falls out of consensus, and it appears the same as arguments made by politically motivated actors, we trust it a lot less.
Especially when that person has no expertise in the area and is mostly famous for a completely different thing.
Ignorance just leads to further polarisation, and honestly, we've got to be close to a breaking point soon.
You might hate the idea, but it's actually an excellent characterisation of how ideas spread in a polarised environment.
If you ever try engaging with both extremes over a long period of time eventually you'll notice that both of them repeat the same narrow set of ideas and sound bites over and over again. It's like these people train themselves in having arguments by repeating the arguments they read about. If you spend enough time with these people you can play a game with yourself, which is to try and map out the set of existing arguments and try and predict if you say X what will the person respond.
Except, of course, Miseans.
[0] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/neo-confederates...
Mises did it to his own ideology. He was often employed by the Hapsburgs. Otto von Hapsburg was a sponsor of the Mises institute. His writings and ideas remain fringe because it comes with the baggage of racial politics and the monarchy stuff. Modern libertarian anarchists that still follow the Austrian school may reject some of those parts but the radical organizations that have co-opted it certainly haven't... and guess who's in power right now in the US?
Besides, the Praxeological arguments and system haven't held up. The field moved on to empiricism. Mises isn't often remembered for those arguments. It's generally the other stuff people seem to dig up.
It's still a fringe theory and will probably remain that way.
Update: gold standard/gold-hoarding is strongly associated with radical right-wing extremists, hence red-flag. OP says, "diversity is our strength," which is encouraging... but gold standard stuff, even if simplistic ("gold real, debt imaginary"), is still a red-flag.
A theory that rejects empiricism and is based on private ownership, an idealized vision of markets, and limited state intervention is refuted by so many wars.
Success in one domain should not imply competence in another.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2...
These things seem abhorrent to Americans who have nearly unlimited free speech protection.
About those second 2 guys, what's that phrase that americans like so much? Fuck around and find out. I think the US, even in their nearly unlimited free speech, has similar laws in regards to inciting violence. Defamation, slander, fighting words, are also not protected by free speech. So really, the only difference between the US and UK is that the UK does not allow hate speech.
Germany has some more regulations, but the real significant difference seems to be about not being allowed to display nazi symbols or denying the holocaust.
- Nazi pug man got a fine of £800; no jail.
- Cheshire people; in the context of rioting and the consequences of rioting.
For the record I think (personal view only) that the Nazi pug man should never have been prosecuted, I personally find it grossly offensive but I think that the harm of stopping people saying these things is greater than the harm of the idiot saying them.
The Cheshire thing I find much more serious, it seemed to me that this was about people calling for other people to get hurt and killed. Is it really the case that it's ok to threaten people or to call for violence against a community in the USA?
Also, what about folks like Snowdon and Assange? I mean if freedom of speech is absolute in the USA why can't they just tell the CCP about USA nuclear control?
Why do people constantly and intentionally misconstrue arguments? It's so obnoxious and intellectually dishonest. I didn't say it was absolute. It's like people can't even have a conversation anymore without dealing with this.
>I think that the harm of stopping people saying these things is greater than the harm of the idiot saying them.
Oh, so you're a Nazi sympathizer? See how annoying that is when people intentionally misconstrue arguments?
I know it's a habit these days with the news and I don't mean to jump on your shit, it's quite common; but it's bleeding into person to person conversation and you just can't have any meaningful conversation this way.
> Also, what about folks like Snowdon and Assange? I mean if freedom of speech is absolute in the USA why can't they just tell the CCP about USA nuclear control?
I said it was near unlimited protection and he claimed I said it was absolute so he could make a counter argument. He intentionally misconstrued my argument to make a counter argument. What am I supposed to do, defend and argument I didn't make? It kills any conversation or sharing of ideas. It's annoying.
The news does this all the time.
In cases like that, courts in the US make the determination as to whether the speech is protected based on whether it may cause “imminent lawless action”—hard to say in the Cheshire case without seeing what they were actually posting, but encouraging people to start violent riots would not be protected in the US either. There are plenty of cases of people getting arrested in the US for Facebook posts inciting violence.
US woman arrested for allegedly threatening health firm: ‘Delay, deny, depose’
is this equivalent of EU meme jailing?
https://web.archive.org/web/20070315091415/http://news.com.c...
"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Drawn up in 2005, passed by Bush in 2006.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/social-media-influencer...
This “arrested for a meme” meme is so dumb. What’s important is the content of the meme, not the fact that it’s a meme.
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
(An example of something that might be perceived by some as a judicial over-reaction based on perceived offensiveness to others.)
Seems similar to the German law that makes it illegal to wear politcal symbols or talk politics outside of polling places. There is an undefined "buffer zone" outside of the voting location where, if you display political symbols, you will be arrested. This is a limitation of freedom of expression, but IMHO it makes total sense.
"On the day, he was asked to leave the area by a community officer who spoke to him for an hour and 40 minutes - but he refused."
The US has much stronger free speech protections than Europe. (At least for now.)
From what I hear from acquaintances and social media, the UK is even worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc
Still, the author of the original article has some pretty polarising and crude views, and I think it's valuable to keep that context in mind. The key is not to be lazy and just dismiss everything that doesn't come from the smoothest PR media personality.
For me, it felt like reading a frustrated author arguing against over-reliance on the service sector as an economy, given the dependencies it creates. There is certainly nationalism, realism/geopolitical views and a somewhat raw criticism of the current monetary system in the mix. The author sprinkles a lot of cultural references all over it and concludes with a tongue-in-cheek hint at an accelerationist strategy.
.. based on that random blogpost I probably still wouldn't buy any gold just yet.
(Trump also just tweeted that activists will be imprisoned)
Seems like this was not just about posting memes.
Notice also that the poster was only accused, not found liable or convicted. That means almost nothing - you can accuse anyone of anything.
Notice also the guilt by association, where the possibility of the poster committing violence (which isn't impossible) is used to try to invalidate their right to speech.
Yours is the only reply (yet) that talks about Palestine, that I find much more interesting in this context. It should be noted that pro palestinian protesters have been arrested in the US too, so I don't know if it's really a good point when comparing "freedom of speech" between the US and Germany.
Unless what you meant was "freedom of speech" is an illusions and Americans are deluded into thinking they have more of it.
Context and content is important. There are limits to allowable speech (yes, even in the USA) and if you transgress that you can be breaking the law.
No, she was not fined for posting crime statistics [0].
> Kaiser published a tile on her social media accounts with the text "Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for 'unbureaucratic' admission; Welcome culture for gang rapes?"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Kaiser...
She was found guilty of reinforcing negative stereotypes and by doing so she "violated the human dignity of a distinct group of Afghan refugees".
Where is the line between having anti-immigration politics and harming refugees? If free speech means anything it should at least protect political opinions, and that includes politics many of us find distasteful or racist.
Dragging somebody through the courts and fining them heavily for a simple social media post is pretty extreme. If her post was deserving of a €6000 fine what kind of commentary will get you fined €1000? Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to? Who decides where the line is between acceptable political opinion and unacceptable hate speech? How are regular people supposed to tell the difference? Or are regular people just expected not talk about controversial subjects at all if they can't afford to pay a €6000 fine?
Simple cute social media post where she equates afghan refugees to gang rapists.
> Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to?
Racist ones that leads to violence. Argument started from "going to jail in europe for posting memes" to "posting statistics" to blatant racist xenophobic stereotyping punished via financial penalty. Free speech crusade came all the way to this goal post.
It's no coincidence that the laws used to punish people for speech are exceptionally vague. There is no clearly defined benchmark of harm. In fact harm does not need to be demonstrated at all. Simply asserting without evidence that a blog "leads to violence" is sufficient for those who don't believe in free speech.
I also think that such laws almost have to be kind of vague by necessity, because the agitators will just try and be clever for plausible deniability. The idea is that a judge will rule on it, and the accused gets legal representation to defend their case. Of course you can always find some case where you may think the ruling was too harsh (or too lenient), but overall, the system seems to work pretty well. You really have to dig deep to find one or two iffy cases.
- Wikipedia
You're ok with that?!
I strongly believe that inciting hate and violence against others should have consequences. And I'm glad to live in a place where society decided that there is no place for such things. We're not talking about political opinions here, but hate speech with clear intention to cause harm.
People have been jailed for racist rioting and planning racist riots, but not many people in the UK see that as a bad thing.
The climate change prisoners are getting a lot more support.
The US imprisons countless black people every year for the flimsiest reasons with questionable due process, in for-profit prisons, some of which have been caught operating with kickbacks for judges.
Also, Aaron Swartz.
And multiple arrests of journalists.
https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/journalists-arrested-in-...
The idea that the US is some kind of utopian beacon of free speech while the rest of the world is authoritarian and repressive is utter nonsense.
This is a factually false. The recent UK riots were largely about protesting violence (stabbings, killings, rape (which increased by a factor of 4.3 over 13 years, closely correlated to migration) and unchecked immigration (which is unpopular and opposed by a large fraction of the population, from someone who lived there).
These are, factually, not issues of racism - they are humans rights (in the case of the violence) and extremely reasonable political positions (in the case of cutting down immigration), and it's intentionally and maliciously deceptive to claim that they're "racism".
Yes, it's likely that some number of people at the riots were there because they were racist. No, the majority of the protestors were not there for that reason, and claiming that that small fraction makes the riots "racist" (not that that's even a coherent statement to make in the first place) is a lie.
Additionally, it's also a lie to claim that only people participating in or planning the riots were jailed - "A judge has warned that anybody present at a riot will be remanded in custody, even if they were only a “curious observer”"[1], which was actually implemented, with documented video evidence of people getting arrested for merely filming the protests and police, with no participation[2].
It's deeply evil to defend the UK government's behavior here.
> The idea that the US
This is the tu quoque fallacy, in addition to being irrelevant - the topic is the UK and EU on free speech, not the UK.
This whole comment is just a tangle of lies, fallacies, and emotional manipulation.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/09/judge-refuses-ba...
The issue is the harassment. Most of these cases are baseless and get dropped once presented to the public prosecutor. But it puts unwarranted stress on people who just opened their mouth, regardless if I disagree with what they had said.
If these cases were moved forward, they could end up in front of the European Court of Human Rights, where Germany and Austria are among the worst offenders[1] when it comes to the article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights[2], which grantees free speech in the EU.
Usually these individual cases are used by neo-conservatives to criticize Europe and describe it as (their words) "a socialist hellhole."
While this argument (= "there is no free speech in Europe") might be based on some truth, and while I agree that the free speech situation in most of Europe could be improved, I think it is grossly exaggerated.
[1] https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/#{%22languageisocode%22:[%22ENG%2...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...
"Meechan was sentenced to a fine of £800, with no prison sentence." i mean his video probably made more money than that...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/count-dankula-na...
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/judge-right-to-award-lying-...
- The Crown Prosecution Service
https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/man-jailed-offensive-...
- Benjamin Franklin
This is why we fought a war to be separate from your "wretched" country. You're justifying jail time for racist speech!
Ironic coming from a future slave owner. He did become an abolitionist, after travelling to France and England and being exposed to some, for Americans, pretty radical ideas.
For inciting further civil unrest during civil unrest.
Kinda weird to just cherry pick some things from my post.
As a liberal, your attitude is exactly what got US democrats steamrolled in the latest election.
Leading with a Curtis Yarvin citation as supporting material
No individual, other than setting up lofty but ambiguous goals like reducing hunger/malnutrition, understand how or why certain goals should or not be set for certain sectors and why the processes are what they are to accomplish them.
Lampshading is when someone acknowledges a flaw or controversial aspect upfront, often humorously or ironically, to deflect criticism or give the appearance of humility or openness.
Saying something like "A home for poorly researched ideas" while actually propagating extremist, controversial, or misleading content is a tactic intended to: disarm critics, avoid accountability, and create plausible deniability.
some of his "watch me program" vids are also pretty popular. I learned a lot from watching his workflow.
but I'd never trust him when talking about economics or politics, or even where to go for dinner.
> Protectionist America is a boring place and not somewhere I want to be. It kicks the can further down the road of poverty, basically embraces socialism, is stagnant, is stale, is a museum…
But the killer is the gold standard. The author seems to be confusing this with fractional reserve banking. Interestingly, they're anti-crypto, which is kinda odd because most gold bugs became crypto bros.
China's foreign policy is very different. China invests in creating infrastructure in countries to help make them future customers for Chinese products. US foreign policy is simply to loot the Global South and to use foreign aid as a form of economic imperialism.
> Back the dollar by gold (not socially constructed crypto)
Gold is worth so much in dollars because everyone thinks everyone else also wants it. Sure you can process it for some industrial use, but most of the worth is because "Someone else will also find this worthy").
I have a 100 trillion dollar note (Zimbabwean) in my wallet, is it worth anything? Just the novelty value. Is the $100 (US) note worth anything? Well I can buy $100 worth of groceries, which at the moment is probably 20 cartons of eggs, but the way Musk is doge-ing the nation, it could be only 4 cartons in the near future...
What many gold bugs and crypto bros don't seem to understand is that:
1. The US dollar was never 100% backed by silver (originally) or gold;
2. What really backs the US dollar is the US military. This was true with the gold standard and it's true now;
3. The ability to manufacture more dollars and thus control the money supply is a feature not a bug;
4. Fractional reserve banking is so stunningly successful, it's impossible to ignore; and
5. A lot of the problems detractors point to are really symptomatic of unfettered neoliberalism, not abandoning the gold standard.
That's my whole argument for gold. The finite supply isn't socially constructed, and getting more requires building real infrastructure.
2. What do you mean by "real" infrastructure? Crypto-mining rigs are no less real than actual mines.
My argument would be that gold's value is as much a social construct as that of crypto; value is just a function of supply and demand.
I'm guessing you might post that there is a third input: utility. "Currency" is one use for gold, but can certainly serve many purposes, whereas crypto coins are strictly used as currency. That fact is presumably taken into account by a coin's price; nonetheless, it still has whatever value the market says it has at any time.
Meanwhile a TSA scanner's beep get treated as "this person is bringing a problem.".
Really? Because the vast majority of "Belt and Road" destinations connect China to raw resources. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. China is making it pretty damn clear that they do not intend to pay for those resources, or at least not in money, especially now that the "Belt and Road" initiative has turned into yet another Chinese money pit so deep it makes Trump look like a great businessman, and on top of that it made China so unpopular it makes it look like Europe loves Trump. And everyone reports another problem: CCP officials, even low level ones, make Trump look like a humble man.
Locals seem to hate the Chinese, and Chinese investments, everywhere the Belt and Road goes, whether it's Pakistani in Balochistan, Greeks in Piraeus, in Madagascar the people pretty much kicked out the government, largely over Chinese presence, China is now negotiating in Australia by openly threatening with warships in Sydney harbor firing live ammunition in the direction of the city and even their military base in Djibouti is not popular, despite being right next to a US, a French and a Japanese military base that ARE popular (despite middle eastern tensions. You know, you'd think the US base would be in the locals' bad graces given the last 2 years. It's not).
If this is supposed to build to a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship between China and these countries, they're not off to a great start. Not on the economic aspects, not on the political aspects, not on ...
But frankly, the answer to this weird state of affairs is brutally simple: China has no intention to turn this into a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship, and neither do those countries or those peoples.
The IMF (and World Bank) is economic imperialism doing things like preventing African countries from growing crops to feed themselves. Instead they need to produce export crops and then they can buy excess food created by Europe and the US. This has resulted in famines and utterly destroyed, for example, the economy of places like Somalia [1].
Yes, China is seeking preferential access to natural resources and considering the strategic importance of the borrower. But the general consensus seems to be China's terms are better than the West's.
[1]: https://twn.my/title2/resurgence/2011/251-252/cover06.htm
1) Chossudovsky criticizes subsidized grain imports for undermining local markets, but in contexts of hyper-inflation or economic collapse (e.g., Somalia’s public sector wages dropping to $3/month), external food aid was the only means for households to survive. Criticism that it destroyed the market is dishonest. Markets ALSO don't survive if the customers die off. Obviously.
2) While imposed austerity measures that worsened inequality and local economies, the alternative—total state insolvency—would have been far worse. A teacher wage of $3 is still far superior to a collapsed state offering a wage of $0, and probably forcing locals to wage war on each other. PLUS the state needs to get back to surviving on it's own, without external help, or it would just delay total collapse instead of fixing it.
I was curious about this article. So well written, but it's a totally unfair attack piece, it's lunacy ... and here is the wikipedia page on the author:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky
"Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa[1][2] and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which runs the website globalresearch.ca, founded in 2001, which publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[3][4][5] Chossudovsky has promoted conspiracy theories about 9/11."
"In 2017, the Centre for Research on Globalization was accused by information warfare specialists at NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (STRATCOM) of playing a key role in the spread of pro-Russian propaganda.[12] A report by the U.S. State Department in August 2020 accused the website of being a proxy for a Russian disinformation campaign."
I interpreted it as - the US "exports" debt in exchange for the import of goods and services. It's a deficit country, it consumes more than it produces.
China (not only China) is a surplus country, they produce more than they consume. They store that surplus into US financial assets but also increasingly into other places, like developing countries. I've read that their investments into developing countries are often unprofitable. Previously they've been using the excess production to invest into real estate and infrastructure but those were often money-losing investments too (empty houses, under-utilized high speed rail with high maintenance costs).