Lionir [he/him]

About me on lionir.ca

  • 28 Posts
  • 452 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: January 29th, 2022

help-circle



  • Hmmm, I honestly thought this was going to explore the topic of people that are in the closet about their gender identity. Or maybe, plural people. I find this video more confusing than anything.

    I think the way you describe it is perhaps too abstract for me to understand the points you’re making.

    I find this passage rather distressing however “Pronouns reference the framework you expect someone to use to process your words”. I find that language scary sounding. It feels like specifying someone’s pronouns is forcing an ideology or status on someone and I just don’t think that’s true at all.

    I also don’t think saying gender has “dedicated pronouns” is really accurate. Neopronouns exist and they still confer meaning to the person so I don’t think it’s a defined set. Different languages also have different pronoun systems which complicate creating a specific set.

    I find the third argument kind of odd. I think that displaying pronouns in general has the same effect you’re describing without the need for different pronouns in different spaces. The same thing is true for things like a role bot or other tools to allow people to display their pronouns.


















  • Bitcoin is the same speed it’s always been. Blocks happen every 10 minutes. Pay a high fee? Get in on the next block. Want to save on fees? Maybe it takes a few blocks for your transaction to go through.

    This is a fancy way to say that it is slower unless you pay higher fees.

    Fees are much, much lower than credit card, paypal, or other similar competitors. You could send a billion dollars in a single transaction and pay $1.50 on main chain, or you could send $5 on lightning and pay <1c in fees. Lightning has been around for 5 years now, it works, I use it regularly.

    The fees are fluctuating and can be much higher than you claim (https://decrypt.co/234446/bitcoin-fees-skyrocket-okx-exchange-burning-utxo)

    While it is true you could pay lower fees if you send larger amounts, if we take your 5$ fee at face value, then any transaction below 147.35$ will have lower fees on a payment service like Stripe (3.4% for international transactions + 0.30$ per transaction).

    The supply of Bitcoin, 21 million coins, is known and has always been known. It can’t be diluted beyond that point.

    I did not claim otherwise.

    Nobody owns 51% of the network. Even such an actor can’t print extra BTC or force money to move without the appropriate private key. The best they can do is temporarily delay transactions while burning north of a trillion dollars in energy and equipment doing so. Which is why nobody has ever done it.

    Nobody currently does. However, it is my understanding that theu could fork the network and update it if they had 50%+1 of the network. It is not impossible.

    Given that fees have continued to increase with time, this seems like not a problem. It’s not “dangerous”, it’s part of the design. If hashrate drops, it drops, but given that fees and hashrate have continued to grow despite continually minting less coins, it’s not really a problem.

    It is a problem because people do not want to pay higher fees.

    Anybody can have a cash wallet without disclosing their identity, yet they still pay taxes.

    They can pay taxes but they don’t have to. There is no system to know the identity and know the tax rate that should be applied using the raw bitcoin transaction method. This has to be applied using an external centralized service at best.

    Bitcoin’s rules prevent the kind of fraud where the value of your money is printed away via supply inflation of central banks or “currency restructuring” on the global scale by the the world bank.

    This is not fraud and it is not what I’m talking about.

    People pay taxes because they think it’s the right thing to do and/or because the government has guns and makes them. Either way, if you run a company, if you are providing goods and services, you have a place you can send somebody with a gun and enforce those rules. All the companies currently paying taxes would keep paying taxes if they used Bitcoin.

    The tax and identity layers have to be added on top. They are not built-in. While it is true a country can force things, it is not true they can force the bitcoin network to apply these rules. This is in fact one of the selling points of Bitcoin according to this video.


  • This video has seemingly no sources for its claims.

    Here are some facts:

    Here are some weird claims it makes:

    • Bitcoin transactions happen at the “speed of light” (~27:00) REALITY CHECK: As Bitcoin has grown, transactions have become slow. It’s in fact why many people do not accept it for purchases anymore.
    • Bitcoin cannot be diluted (~27:25) REALITY CHECK: Bitcoin is always being diluted until it reaches its hard limit.
    • The value of Bitcoin has only increased over time (~27:50) REALITY CHECK: The log scale is playing tricks. A linear graph would show how volatile Bitcoin has truly been.
    • Nobody controls the network (~28:25) REALITY CHECK: If someone were to own 50% or more of the network’s compute power, they could control the network.

    Here are some things it omits:

    • Bitcoin transaction fees (~28:15): Transaction fees that empower miners have also made it much less usable as a currency. The transactions fees for Bitcoin are so high that credit card fees are actually more reasonable.
    • Bitcoin’s hard limit is likely very dangerous for the network (~29:00): Once the hard limit is reached, it is unclear if people will keep pumping computing power at it. If the creation of new Bitcoin is no longer allowed, it is possible that transaction fees will need to be raised to compensate miners.
    • Bitcoin’s lack of rules allow for massive amounts of fraud and prevents effective taxation (~29:25): While the video paints a cute picture of financial freedom, the reality is that Bitcoin allows for fraud on a world scale and does not allow for sales tax because of the way that anyone can have a cryptocurrency wallet without disclosing their identity.

    Genuinely, this is Bitcoin propaganda.