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We are in an extraordinary moment, but not an entirely unprecedented one. Since the earliest days, societies have had to cope with disasters that wiped out the ability of everyday people to service their debts and thus threatened to destroy their societies.
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https://t.co/6noe3xiiW5
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Regulators have unshackled new forms of predatory lending (aka "fintech") with APRs in the hundreds or thousands of percent:
https://t.co/lIrL7kU93L
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https://t.co/ULX8hBCO5a
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Hudson: "Rising debt overhead serves the business and financial sector by lowering wages while extracting more interest, financial fees, rent and insurance."
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But that's no longer possible. We've hit bottom.
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More from Cory Doctorow #BLM
Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa
Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa
Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa
Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa
Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa

Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa

Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa

Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa

Happy Birthday to the queen of the scream queens, Barbara Steele! https://t.co/qnhQvROGVa

I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/
It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/

It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
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I think a plausible explanation is that whatever Corbyn says or does, his critics will denounce - no matter how much hypocrisy it necessitates.
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel
He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:
He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:
He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party
One of the oddest features of the Labour tax row is how raising allowances, which the media allowed the LDs to describe as progressive (in spite of evidence to contrary) through the coalition years, is now seen by everyone as very right wing
— Tom Clark (@prospect_clark) November 2, 2018
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel
He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:
He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:
He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party