He didn’t sell most of the drugs, he just provided a platform that allowed anyone to sell anything anonymously. Drug dealers used it because it was useful to them.

Drug dealers use private messaging apps like Signal as well. Should Signal be held responsible for drug deals facilitated by their app? (I know it’s not a perfect analogy, what he made was more blatant, but it’s an important distinction to make)

Picking words at random from a dictionary would not be very compute intensive, the content doesn’t need to be sensical

Honestly, this one I can understand. They threw the book at this guy because he showed how privacy technologies can circumvent government control. He got 2 life sentences without possibility of parole for a non-violent crime.

What he did was illegal, but he’s been in prison for 10 years. He’s served his time

No true Scotsman fallacy

I’m progressive, but we should not deny the failure modes of progressivism

There are many examples of the left pushing blind faith in the leader (see Mao, Kim Il Sung, Stalin)

I think what’s happening is that the old political boundaries are being rewritten. The MAGA crowd don’t hold all the same views as old school conservatives, and so some of them are now swing voters. But also Trump is pulling some votes from the democrats, most obviously the unions

The person who wants Biden to be the nominee the most is Trump. Notice he’s gone completely quiet on him, not blasting him for his age like some democrats are, because he knows he can win against an 81yo Biden. As soon as he’s confirmed as the nominee, Team Trump will turn around and try to make him look as old as dirt

That information doesn’t change anything I’ve said. He can be “trailing trump” and still not be the best candidate the dems could have

I think there are people on the fence (who generally decide the election) who would be swayed by Biden’s apparent dementia

The Polymarket prediction markets gives odds for who will win the presidential election and who will win the democratic nominee. We can compare the odds of each candidate and use Bayes Theorem to determine their chances of winning the presidency if they secure the DNC nomination.

Here’s the results as of posting this comment:

Joe Biden: 27% Kamala Harris: 50% Michelle Obama: 100% Gavin Newsom: 66% Other: 50%

Obviously this doesn’t work perfectly (the Michelle Obama example especially is bizarre), but there is over $300M behind these numbers so people seem to think they’re at least somewhat accurate.

TLDR: there is a lot of money that thinks Joe Biden is one of the worst options

You don’t think if Biden stepped down and it was an open primary there wouldn’t be some good options?

Pete Buttigeig, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, anyone under 60 would make Trump look like a dottering old man in comparison

I don’t think the opinion “the man who has control of the nuclear arsenal is showing signs of senility and should not serve another 4 years regardless of who replaces him” is not an unreasonable one

I don’t like it

It’s anti-tech propaganda. The same is happening with crypto. Certain groups don’t like it, so they try to convince the public that it is bad for the environment so it will be banned

This isn’t a good situation, but I also don’t like the idea that people should be banned from using energy how they want to. One could also make the case that video games or vibrators are not “valuable” uses of energy, but if the user paid for it, they should be allowed to use it.

Instead of moralizing we should enact a tax on carbon (like we have in Canada) equal to the amount of money it would take to remove that carbon. AI and crypto (& xboxes, vibrators, etc) would still exist, but only at levels where they are profitable in this environment.

Humanity:

It seems to be a lightweight alternative to Mastodon that is easier for individuals to run on a private server

Yes, of all the problems in the healthcare system, the problem of letting AI help patients diagnose their own problems is definitely top of the list /s

That would be great! And I’m sure there are people doing it. And if 2.3% of the US Power grid were dedicated to that I’m sure some people would be upset about it too

My basic point is I don’t think there is anything morally wrong with Bitcoin miners using energy, even though this is a narrative that is very popular now. There are plenty of other valid criticisms of Bitcoin, but I don’t think this one stands up to scrutiny.

I would love if this were an option, but it’s not. The current battery technologies don’t have the scale for grid level storage capacity. The only grid scale storage solution that is really being done is to build very expensive infrastructure that moves water between two dams of different heights, and building more of those doesn’t seem politically likely at the moment

The reality is that there is much a whole bunch of excess energy supply that is produced because power plants can’t cycle up and down with demand. So they have to keep producing at peak demand 24/7 (there is some nuances based on the type of power plant, NatGas is faster to turn on/off, but this is broadly true)

I have my qualms with Bitcoin. As a currency it has significant transaction speed problems, and potential security ones after a couple more halvenings. But I don’t see a problem if Bitcoin miners want to pay energy producers to use energy that would be produced anyway and earn the producers nothing.

I agree with everything you’ve said

Pretty much the only things Bitcoin has on Ethereum today is a better brand and Lindy effect