The stock market. Only when society collapses due to climate change and whatnot the Western hoi polloi will realize it had become a cancerous pyramid scheme that eventually runs out of tissue to metastasize in.

- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Look at that brave manly man arresting such a danger to the god-fearing, Jesus-loving, for-profit US society.

- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

I don’t know whether I put too much weight on this, but the lack of English proficiency in a developer rubs me the wrong way. I had already stopped using Ventoy and reinstalled the machines where I used it on, and this makes me glad I did.

“Crypto is far less wasteful than the fiat banking fraud scheme.”

Whataboutism fallacy. It’s not because serial killer A murdered less than serial killer B, that A should be forgiven.

- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

If you lived in Africa you would say that Bitcoin is godsend, as you can hear it from many africans

“[…] As already mentioned, imposing technology doesn’t work; struggling people know their needs far better than anyone. On the contrary, it seems that the “developing” countries should be telling us what do:

• “The East African region has cemented its position in the digital economy as the global leader with the highest penetration rate of mobile money in the world.” —Daily Monitor (2021)[49]
• “Finally, a number of telcos have managed to develop a superior client experience early in the evolution of mobile financial services in Africa. M-Pesa’s client experience is remarkably simple: it takes only three inputs and six clicks to send funds, on any type of handset. Registration is straightforward; merchant acceptance is widespread, and there are no transaction fees on bill payments.” —McKinsey (2017)[50]

All without blockchain. Who would’ve thunk? For first world countries we sure think third-rate. […]” —Crypto Cult Science

– – – – –
Simply copy-pasting from my own website because of POSSE: “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.”

Faulty generalization That some scammers or greedy people in rich countries are promoting it like a ponzi scheme to benefit themselves doesn’t mean every person use it in the same way. Some people use it for its savings in a highly devaluating currency (my use case), others for money laundering, or to send money to Palestine, or to flee a collapsing country because of war and avoiding their money being seized by the policy at the borders, for ransomware, or creating circular economies in poor countries, to donate to human rights activists in dictatorships, to buy drugs, etc, etc these are just some of the dozens of verified uses cases. That’s what happens when a technology is free and permissionless, it’s not good or bad by itself, it’s as good or as bad as the person that uses it. AI is being used to scam people and to detect cancer more precisely than the best experts. That’s and inherent feature of free software. Lemmy is a perfect example, would you promote not using it because there is an instance used for child porn?

It would’ve been a faulty generalization if, like knives or Lemmy, most use cases were benign. Unfortunately crypto"currencies" are predominantly speculative and malignant to society.

Hmm okay, fair enough.

I wouldn’t describe it as “bad”, but because of repetitiveness and vagueness I’d say it’s a draft that could’ve used a couple of re-reads by the author. It sells well because it’s rightfully so dumping on Microsoft.

If the Lemmy admins adhered to everyone’s request to “stop doing X and I’ll donate”, they would end up with zero more donations because people will always give another reason for not donating

I know. But I am not everyone, and this request is not unique. Wikimedia stopped accepting crypto"currencies" as well by community vote.

FIAT stanning never went this hard.

False dilemma. Being against wasteful greed-incentivizing MLM pyramid schemes doesn’t mean not objecting to the flaws of contemporary finance as well.

Please stop accepting crypto"currencies"—multi-level marketing pyramid schemes—and I donate.

What if I paid for all my free software?
I’ve always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let’s change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway? —https://www.arscyni.cc/file/take_my_money.html

“Can you use dd to create multiboot USB drives?”

No. But in my case that’s just a minor inconvenience considering the infrequency of having to use a live USB. And at work I just use separate USBs for wiping drives and OS installs. I much prefer the peace of mind that comes with knowing there’s no Ventoy blob that could potentially infect all its installed operating systems with malware.

In any case, it seems it is possible to manually make a multiboot USB drive manually. Haven’t tried it yet though.

“Even the link you shared lists Ventoy as an option.”

I know. I simply linked that website because it’s where I learned dd from and because for novices it might be less overwhelming than the Arch Wiki.

Got over my laziness
dd will do
stopped using Ventoy
suggesting others to do so too.

“You asked, we built it” = “Your data is profitable, so we slapped AI on it and feign altruism”.

It’s good, and it’s funny. So much so that I’m jealous.
With this potential critical mass combined with the gaming community it’s all downhill for Windoze from here.

PS How to force Steam games in Linux to use an Nvidia GPU, because games might unknowingly perform needlessly bad.

- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

“Are you 14?”

Irrelevant.

ad hominem (adjective, ad ho·​mi·​nem (ˈ)ad-ˈhä-mə-nəm -ˌnem)

1. appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
2. marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made

“Russia, which is blocked from other international payment systems.”

Fair enough.

“We’re still throwing around fallacies like it’s 2010? Okay, I cast fallacy fallacy!”

Guess I’ll simply parry with fallacy fallacy fallacy—quoting from your linked Wiki: “That one can invoke the argument from fallacy against a position does not prove one’s own position either, as this would also be an argument from fallacy”.

Your latter argument for the crypto cult is that the others are problematic too, therefore it’s okay to join the cult. This invalid reasoning renders the entire conclusion void. I did not claim your conclusion is false, only that your reasoning is invalid.

“like it’s 2010?”

There’s no expiration date on logical reasoning.

“Cryptocurrencies are a tool, similar to how money is a tool. You can’t blame money itself for all the scummy shit done using it, similarly for cryptocurrencies.”

A knife is a tool. Knives can be used for food and violence. However, knives do not persuade their users to buy as many knives as they can, they do not incentivize manipulating others to do so too, nor do knives inherently encourage violence. The exact opposite is true for crypto"currencies" because these are multi-level marketing pyramid schemes. As soon as one joins the Crypto Cult one benefits from recruiting new members—often by indoctrination and/or demagoguery.

“I guess some random HN user is smarter than the research arms of these companies who are all building on and utilizing crypto”

List of fallacies in the aforementioned statement:

• Ad hominem.
• Argument from authority.
• Bandwagon fallacy.

“I don’t have venmo, so I don’t use it. I don’t get mad when somebody offers it.”

Venmo is not a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme, all crypto"currencies" are^[1].

“Depending on where users are located, it might be the only realistic option they have if they want to donate.”

Could you give us an example of such a location please?

“Besides, traditional payment systems like PayPal, MasterCard, Visa etc are all problematic in their own right.”

Whataboutism fallacy.