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) Image
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.

(2/x)
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.

(8/x)
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.

(14/x)
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.

(21/x)
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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More from @PnictogenHorses

Jan 31
one more rumination for tonight, I think. this one is about something that's been called "contrarianism"—a word that's been coined in some attempt to describe the perplexing behavior of celebrity 'influencers', specially the more toxic ones like @mtaibbi and @mattyglesias.

(1/x)
but the behavior is probably quite general. just about *all* of the #journalist and #media figures who have some privileged access to the press and to mass audience have learned to behave in this way on @Twitter and social media: they run away from challenging questions.

(2/x)
the blue-checked "influencers" of the @LPDonovan / @StevenTDennis / @JakeSherman sort (I've picked three names almost at random) are the people who have *benefited the most* from the #Internet-ization of #journalism. social media has amplified their social privilege.

(3/x)
Read 24 tweets
Jan 31
Western #education is in abysmal state, and #capitalism is to blame.

the noisemakers at all levels of the #conservative noise machine, from the august @AEI propagandists (like "race scientist" @charlesmurray) to circus sideshows like @Timcast, try to blame "woke", but...

(1/x)
that "woke" game is extremely thin by now. really it's just rebranded Red Scare nonsense. in 1950, it was Commies who were "destroying our youth" with virulent ideas that right-wing ideologues didn't like, like abstract algebra; now @mtracey and @DouthatNYT blame "woke".

(2/x)
but ask any low-level right-wing expert on "woke"—ask @realchrisrufo or @ConceptualJames what "wokeism" actually *is*—and you'll get the word "Marxism" in no time: "woke" is, in other words, nothing new at all. it's the same old paranoia about pinko Rooskies in closets.

(3/x)
Read 19 tweets
Jan 30
#capitalism requires what people call "magical thinking". it requires people to believe that impossible things aren't merely *possible*, but can be done routinely, and turned into a dependable cash flow. #AI / #AGI of the @fchollet / @JeffDean sort is a perfect example.

(1/x)
the very name "#AGI" gives the game away: the #programming boys daydream that they've invented a "general intelligence", a universal thinking machine capable of solving literally any problem—and #capitalism is willing to gamble on that. it's just what #business wants.

(2/x)
remember that the ideal corporation in #capitalism *does nothing*. it produces nothing, it provides no service, it solves no problems for anyone not in the ownership hierarchy—because producing things *costs money* and capitalists hate all expenditures for any reason.

(3/x)
Read 24 tweets
Jan 30
more #cryptocurrency talk. it seems that there may be (another) #cryptocrash developing; there's been so many of them.

to reiterate my earlier point: the allure of #cryptocurrencies is instant #money in vast volumes, and that's why $BITC and @ETH have a million copycats.

(1/x) Image
#cryptocurrency (and the related #blockchain money-making gewgaw, the #NFT) are in a sense nothing new. there have been untold millions of #investment scams and #business tricks and other shifty clever ways that at least *pretend* they can guarantee an effortless #profit.

(2/x)
this is an artifact of the extreme #wealth inequality encouraged by #capitalism: once you've got a bunch of elite capitalists *hoarding* all the #money, that means you've got big enough piles to *steal*. all get-rich-quick schemes are ultimately acts of disguised _theft_.

(3/x)
Read 24 tweets
Jan 30
I am not a #Christian; my friend Chara (who writes at @KrisAtLarge) is Catholic—albeit a heretical one—but I am no "believer". as I've said, I tend to leave religion to others.

all the same, it's tough *not* to have opinions about #Christianity—we're inundated with it.

(1/x)
in the United States especially, right-wing politics—which infallibly promotes an extremist and hyperpoliticized form of #Christianity—pours enormous effort and money into publicizing #Christian political demands.

@GOP politics and Bible-bashing are practically the same.

(2/x)
in fact, it seems like *all* public spokespersons for Christianity in the U.S. are political figures. #Christian @GOP politicians and activists and corporate executives proudly proclaim their purpose in public office to be the promotion of "Jesus" and "faith" and "values".

(3/x)
Read 20 tweets
Jan 30
#geopolitical tedium is not for me. I like the world of ordinary matter and energy (and physics and chemistry and all of it) far too much. I like tools and instruments and equipment, and knowing how to use them. fretting about #Russia or #China is not my highest priority.

(1/x)
yet American #politics and political #media have completely inundated popular culture—because @jack Dorsey and #MarkZuckerberg permitted the politicization of #Internet #socialmedia. on specious grounds they kicked down the door between "public" and "private" online.

(2/x)
now, both @TheDemocrats and the @GOP, both @UKLabour and the @Conservatives, and political parties and political figures all over the world freely do business in full public view; @elonmusk openly conspires with @mtaibbi and @lhfang and @bariweiss in full public view.

(3/x)
Read 22 tweets

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