Thread by @PnictogenHorses

so! let's talk about the #cryptocurrency phenomenon again. $BITC / @Bitcoin, $ETH / @ethereum, $USDT / @Tether_to, $BNB / @binance — there are a LOT of these #cryptocurrencies out there, maybe even millions of them. and that's a first clue about them and about #capitalism.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/PnictogenHorses/status/1619826813668315136

it's gospel #capitalism that the activities of "the #markets"—capitalist propaganda i.e. #business and #finance and #investment #journalism, not to mention all the #science and #technology journalism that's chiefly #advertising for corporations—are supernaturally powerful.

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the central lie is that "the markets" (i.e. the sum total of all monetary transactions by all money-seeking entities in #capitalism) are the best possible mechanism for fulfilling every conceivable human need.

if it's not "on the market", then you don't really need it.

(3/x)

it's supposed that the *reason* that capitalist markets are capable of imagining and satisfying every possible human need is thanks to the magic of #competition: it's assumed (falsely) that every human need can be "monetized", i.e. turned into a #profit-making #enterprise.

(4/x)

hungry #entrepreneurs, in this scenario, are thus bound to satisfy all human needs, because every human need (in the fallacious logic of #capitalism) is an #opportunity for #profits. therefore the eternal capitalist thirst for profit will somehow satisfy all human needs.

(5/x)

needless to say this is *objectively* false: #capitalism is manifestly _incapable_ of serving human needs.

in fact, the society built by capitalism is currently attempting to re-shape itself along racist and eugenicist lines into a society that *discards* human needs.

(6/x)

"race science" propagandists like @charlesmurray, @EPoe187, and the whole @Quillette crowd exist for this purpose: their business is cooking up any semi-coherent line of pseudointellectual babble that will justify the fascıst social imperative to *liquidate* human beings.

(7/x)

this is the failure state of #capitalism. because capitalist organizations devote themselves solely to hoarding money at *any* social cost, capitalist #management and #executive leadership recognizes no duty to supply any human needs other than the owners' profiteering.

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the fascıst ideologies of @MattWalshBlog and @EPoe187 and the rest are merely the "intellectual" form of this failure state of #capitalism: by reducing human beings to mere cogs in a machine, ranked and sorted by their "productivity", the fascısts serve capitalist desires.

(9/x)

yes, there's plenty of "#competition" in capitalism, but it's of a very particular sort—it's not a competition to fulfill all human needs (which capitalists don't even *care* about fulfilling), but a mudfight over #profits and the easiest ways to make big piles of #money.

(10/x)

#cryptocurrency and those thousands if not millions of "competing" #blockchain thingummies are a perfect example of this sort of purely profit-driven competition. $BITC and $ETH and $BRB and $DOGE and all the rest of the #cryptocurrencies are in fact basically the same.

(11/x)

what separates @Bitcoin from @ethereum? mostly it's mere #branding. $BITC and $ETH are competing brands that have some minor technical differences between each other, but the *real* difference is that different corporations and different capitalists are running them.

(12/x)

Dennis Jarvis (@ogcryptoskier I think) of @Bitcoin, and @VitalikButerin of @ethereum, are typical heroes of #capitalism—i.e. they are profoundly avaricious and unethical men, marinated in the vicious culture of #business, and thus they're locked in combat with each other

(13/x)

they're not competing to serve any human need but their own avarice. yes, the executives (and fanbases) of @Bitcoin and @ethereum both have a prepared line of #sales patter about how they're "empowering" people—that's rather standard #marketing these days—but it's a lie.

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it's a lie that @VitalikButerin and @andrei_verse and @jack and every other greedy nerd in #cryptocurrency might even *believe* sometimes; that's the nature of #marketing lies, lies intended for public consumption. they're more convincing if you sort of believe in them.

(15/x)

really it's the central lie of *avarice* itself: everyone's who's been poisoned by insatiable greed for hoarding wealth (@elonmusk, @saylor, @dalepartridge, whoever) is _constantly_ telling themselves that "it's for a good cause, I can do so much good with this #money."

(16/x)

that's true after a fashion; @elonmusk could do *good* with his #money, assuming that he has any—his "wealth" might all be creative accounting and debts and purely speculative "wealth" that could evaporate at any moment. but #ElonMusk has done no good with his hoard.

(17/x)

it's unlikely @elonmusk is ever going to *start* doing good; he's wasted enough time already and in any case there's a heap of "longtermist" and "effective altruist" frauds like @ESYudkowsky and @KerryLVaughan who specialize in telling rich people it's okay to be greedy.

(18/x)

the chief allure of #cryptocurrency is *pure greed*: it's the daydream of making a gigantic pile of money overnight, as if by magic—#programming magic. the #STEM Lord set (the @pmarca / @JeffDean boys) assist this process greatly; they're *inured* to "magical thinking".

(19/x)

they're used to thinking that #computers are miraculous, so turning #blockchain noise into a king's ransom must seem like *nothing* to them.

that's why the #CryptocurrencyMarket has proliferated so hugely. @Bitcoin / $BITC and @ethereum / $ETC have a myriad imitators.

(20/x)

there's a million tech-savvy nerds out there—not just #computing and #programming nerds but #business and #finance nerds, indeed anyone who spends their whole life on a computer of some sort (@mtaibbi is probably one of them)—who think #cryptocurrency will make them rich.

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and not just *rich* either, but *elite* rich. to go overnight from @mtaibbi-level money to @elonmusk- or @peterthiel-level money (and even higher) is the daydream of #crypto; it's the daydream of #capitalism.

it's a purely destructive daydream. "Crypto" is a destroyer.

(22/x)

the decades if not *centuries* of propaganda for #capitalism and the joys of wealth-hoarding (i.e. the joys of avarice) have pretended as hard as possible that making big heaps of money is *creative*. @BillyM2k and @APompliano think they're "builders".

it's a lie.

~Mona Drafter

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