Re: Next Year's Federal Military budget over $700 billion. Is that a problem?
On Thu, 16 Aug 2018 18:03:21 + (UTC) jim bell wrote: > On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 6:17:38 PM PDT, juan > wrote: > > > On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:06:10 + (UTC) > jim bell wrote: > > > >> I have explained, above, that even with the use of imaginative > >> accountants, the "ultra wealthy" currently fund at least a large majority > >> of (for example) America's Federal Government. > > > That is incorrect. The money that big and hugely corrupt businesses pay > in taxes come from consumers, not the 'rich' themselves. The rich don't pay > taxes, the poor do. > A given dollar (not necessarily a physical, paper "Dollar") actually goes > through many people. Arguing over who paid a given "tax" is somewhat > useless. Who actually paid the most recent tax? That's who paid the tax. > The consequences of paying that tax are arguable, which of course you want to > do. If you sell somethign for $1 and the govt puts a 10% tax on you, and then you raise the price to $1.10, the consumer pays the tax, not you. Overall, the selling price of goods include ALL costs, so it includes the taxes paid by the producers which are not really paid by them, but transferred to consumers. The counterpoint is that sellers may not be able to raise prices, but that would happen in an ideal free market, not in the highly corporatist world-wide economic system we have today. >Who actually paid the most recent tax? That's who paid the tax. Not true, as illustrated above. And the point is, if the rich are not really paying taxes to any meaningful degree, there's no 'incentive' for them to attack the government. > > > >> Do you think THEY believe that those taxes are being spent wisely? No, > >>they're not stupid, are they? They know that money is being wasted. > > > Indeed they are not stupid. They know that they owe 'their' wealth to > the govt, so the last thing they want to do is go against their vital > partner in crime. > > Some may indeed believe that. But many others might not. In addition, many > of them might see an AP system coming, and want to correct things in hopes of > being treated more kindly. rich people are half the ruling class, at least conceptually since the system works by close cooperation between government and businesses, to control and loot their subjects. also, it should be pretty much self-evident that the rich do not think the way you'd like them to think, since there's virtually no opposition to the current fascist system, except for what a few random individuals may say. If your beloved rich 'free market' 'entrepreneurs' were actually what you want them to be, then you'd see them devoting substantial resources to promote freedom. But what happens in the real is of course THE EXACT OPPOSITE. > > > > All that said (again), if AP has a chance then the funding will have to > >come from honest people, not from the ultra rich, ultra corrupt and ultra > >criminal oligarchy that rules the planet. > > To the contrary, I think the funding can come from anybody who has a > motivation to do so. Right. And the rich have NO MOTIVATION AT ALL. Again, the rich are rich because they are corrupt to the core and the number one supporters of the state, since the half of the state IS THEM, and they couldn't be rich WITHOUT THE STATE.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/16/newspapers-team-up-on-free-press-op-eds
Reason magazine article: Newspapers Team Up to Tell Trump They Aren't Colluding Against Him Plus: Mormons versus medical marijuana, bureaucrats are bad at protecting data, and cops tase 87-year-old woman for cutting flowers. "Journalists are not the enemy." Hot off of calling for more social-media censorship and supporting destructive speech regulations like FOSTA, newspaper editors would like you to know that Donald Trump's dissing of the news media makes them sad. More than 300 U.S. newspapers ran Thursday editorials that "call for an end to President Trump's sustained assault" on the press. Hundreds Of Newspapers Are Challenging Trump's Attacks: 'We Are Not The ... Publications across the U.S. -- from the large to the tiny, conservative and liberal -- are banding together to ... "Our role is to serve as a check on government," the Chicago Tribunedeclares. "The president ought to get used to it." "Our democracy is endangered when citizens are persuaded to reject or ignore the professionals who provide news and information," warns The Athens News in Ohio. In attacking journalists, Trump damages all Americans Editor’s note: The Athens NEWS is participating in a national campaign spearheaded by The Boston Globe to respon... And so on. The editorials were organized by The Boston Globe and, as HuffPostdescribes them, "have each been constructed with different words but bear a shared message: Mr. President, 'journalists are not the enemy.'" As a journalist (as well as general enthusiast for classical liberal principles and a person capable of making basic historical analogies), I too find the president's description of journalists as enemies of the people unsettling. But whipping up contempt toward the press has been a staple of right-wing talking points in this country for at least two decades. The president's preening anti-media tirades are not so much stirring new hatred within his base as stoking a longstanding sentiment. So far, however, Trump's anti-press antics have mostly stayed in the realm of rhetoric. Meanwhile, the good folks in Congress, state government, and federal agencies are doing things all the time that actually infringe on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and an open internet, while the vast majority of news outlets remain silent at best. Then, in places where we could use real reporting, popular journalists fall all over themselves to create petty drama and praise John McCain for his contributions to warmongering and spending. While the ideals espoused in these editorials may be righteous, they ring a little hollow... ...and a little self-serving. Too many in media seem to have confused their own diminishing role as gatekeepers of all info and narratives with an existential threat to democracy. Yes, let's fight back against Trump and anyone else in government who seeks to suppress dissent. But maybe people wouldn't hate us so much if we fought as hard for everyone's dignity and right to speak as we do for our own tribe's. Jack Shafer shares some of these concerns. "It goes without saying that press bashing, Trump-style, is alarming," Shafer writes in Politico. "But this Globe-sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose himThe Globe's anti-Trump project is also an exercise in redundancy, not to mention self-stroking. Most newspapers have already published a multitude of editorials and columns rebuking the president for his trash-talking of the press." America’s Newspapers Just Played Right Into Trump’s Hands Nothing flatters an independent journalist less than the sight of him forming a line to drink from the same foun...
Re: Next Year's Federal Military budget over $700 billion. Is that a problem?
On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 6:17:38 PM PDT, juan wrote: On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:06:10 + (UTC) jim bell wrote: >> I have explained, above, that even with the use of imaginative accountants, >> the "ultra wealthy" currently fund at least a large majority of (for >> example) America's Federal Government. > That is incorrect. The money that big and hugely corrupt businesses pay in taxes come from consumers, not the 'rich' themselves. The rich don't pay taxes, the poor do. A given dollar (not necessarily a physical, paper "Dollar") actually goes through many people. Arguing over who paid a given "tax" is somewhat useless. Who actually paid the most recent tax? That's who paid the tax. The consequences of paying that tax are arguable, which of course you want to do. > From: Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2015 Update - Tax > Foundation > × > "In contrast, the top 1 percent of all taxpayers (taxpayers with AGIs of > $428,713 and above), earned 19.04 percent of all AGI in 2013, but paid 37.80 > percent of all federal income taxes. In 2013, the top 1 percent of taxpayers > accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined.Nov > 19, 2015[end of quote] > >> For now, let's just consider that "top 1 percent of all taxpayers" who "paid >> 37.80% of all Federal income taxes. > That same 1% got all sorts of benefits from the govt, starting with the >fact that the government is the enabler of the corporatist system that made >them 'wealthy' thieves. But such people may be willing to decide, now, that they are not satisfied with the efficiency of that system. Also, they are no necessarily some sort of homogeneous group. Some might decide that the "cost" to them is too high, and they want to stop the system and get off the 'ride'. >> Do you think THEY believe that those taxes are being spent wisely? No, >>they're not stupid, are they? They know that money is being wasted. > Indeed they are not stupid. They know that they owe 'their' wealth to the govt, so the last thing they want to do is go against their vital partner in crime. Some may indeed believe that. But many others might not. In addition, many of them might see an AP system coming, and want to correct things in hopes of being treated more kindly. > All that said (again), if AP has a chance then the funding will have to >come from honest people, not from the ultra rich, ultra corrupt and ultra >criminal oligarchy that rules the planet. To the contrary, I think the funding can come from anybody who has a motivation to do so. >> Except that he doesn't have a billion times more targets. He doesn't know >> who to target, and will likely never learn, because AP is intended to be >> anonymous. AP can be readily used to tear down governments and their >> oppression. It cannot be easily used to oppress, if for no other reason >> that people who want to oppress don't know who to target. > Yes, that makes sense, so it seems plausible that the statists won't use the AP system. Also, they may not want to use it because it is 'ilegal'. Although the government certainly do 'ilegal'(by their own standards) stuff, in this case, usign the AP system would be tantamout to admiting that they can't provide security even for themselves, so using it would be very bad publicity to say the least. > What the statists will do is attack the AP system using ordinary means like finding out who the users are, and killing them. While the ultra rich cheer. They can do that already, although not efficiently.
Re: Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 10:08 AM, Razer wrote: > I'm surprised you haven't been put so deep in an email relay servers > blackhole yo mama can't find you. > > You REALLY send individual copies to eighteen people? Really? Hahahaha! RFC's clearly specify minimum 100 must be accepted, that there should be no maximum wherever possible, and that error responses must be generated. I'm not getting any error responses. So no, things are fine on this end and pglaf is broken. It might not be postfix, but more likely mailman, or whatever antispam is running there, which is at least this one... https://amavis.org/ This second message was reordered and cutoff too... Message-ID: Also, pglaf is accepting mail from google over TLS, but pglaf is not sending mail back out over TLS, at least not to google. Check postfix config, and old ssl library version. https://www.openssl.org/source/ Not looked into it but there also seems to be some DKIM / DMARC issue in the headers. I'd suspect pglaf before google there too. https://support.google.com/a/answer/174124 Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; dkim=fail header.i=@gmail.com header.s=20161025 header.b=f+HxqAxu; spf=pass (google.com: domain of cypherpunks-boun...@lists.cpunks.org designates 65.50.255.19 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=cypherpunks-boun...@lists.cpunks.org; dmarc=fail (p=NONE sp=QUARANTINE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.com Authentication-Results: pglaf.org; dkim=fail reason="verification failed; unprotected key" header.d=gmail.com header.i=@gmail.com header.b=f+HxqAxu; dkim-adsp=none (unprotected policy); dkim-atps=neutral > Hahahaha! Just spreading sunshine over a bunch of dark clouds out there.
Re: [Cryptography] Krugman blockchain currency skepticism
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Benjamin Kreuter wrote: >> > beginning of this thread was a proposal that the problem is that >> > the >> > government might target an activist group's finances. Now it >> > sounds >> > like you are talking about the government trying to attack the >> > entire >> > payment system. >> >> That is indeed a valid problem. >> Among many others in many sectors and applications. > > What is your point? Someone made one point above, that many failed to grasp... Old world fiat and fiat systems are vulnerable to attack, in ways that are not possible to fix, because the failures are intrinsic to and result from the system they reside in and spawn from. Decentralized cryptocurrencies are newborn from an alien mother and delivered by the great dropship Satoshi. Don't expect them to look the same, or to confom, or to share even a fraction of the same vulnerability space. > The question, again, is what problem are you > trying to solve with cryptocurrency? Can you give a clear and specific > answer to that question? The documentary links provided in thread contain a rather large number of problems and answers. Please consult them rather than asking for them to be transcribed in full herein. >> For so long as free speech, encryption, and overlay networks exist, >> cryptocurrency and the internet cannot be shutdown. > > How has that worked out for the citizens of North Korea? > Encryption > and overlay networks get you nowhere when the government refuses to > allow something like the Internet to exist. Exactly. DPRK has never had freedom since its founding, so of course DPRK will never willingly give that to its subjects. Funny that Anti cryptocurrency people always end up making Pro arguments. How is that working out you ask?... https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=smuggling+into+north+korea Let's just say that any freedom in the world is a result of being able to deploy freedom faster and harder than governments and corporations can react and resist. Push harder my friends, mush mush mush!!! > It is not at all hard to > imagine regulations on telecom companies that would make > cryptocurrencies impossible. The government could require telecoms to > drop any packets that are not used to interact with a properly licensed > service (no peer-to-peer networking allowed, no experimentation on the > public Internet, etc.). They could. Or you could get up off your ass, go visit with the telecoms, and require them to stand up with your sales dollars, with you, for both of your freedom. If they refuse, they're not your friends or in your best interest, they're your enemies... so remove your funds, crash their silly parties and go start your own that are. Same with your govenment. Also, taking candy from babies is *really hard*, and all you Westerners are a bunch of seriously addicted babies. It's not at all hard to imagine the amount of crying and resisting you will do then they try to take your sweet sweet internet, and your free and happy research experimentation, away from you, and replace it with Woobie TV, or how about just good old fashioned State run TV broadcast over loudspeakers like DPRK. That's what you're "imagining", arguing, and accepting with all your Anti comments. Or you could do the right thing and stand up against it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qa8SRN86V8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl88J8KOLlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvt9snFQig >> If you accept, >> either personally or as a populace, the shutting of your connection > > Most people would not complain about heavy-handed licensing of Internet > applications because most people would not perceive themselves as being > affected by it. All the popular services and applications will be > licensed and will do whatever the government says they need to do to > stay in business. More apologist suggestions and pre programming by the state to get people to quietly accept your overtures. Disgusting. > Funny, because people from unstable countries with weak governments > that do not effectively enforce the law seem to want to live in > countries with effective law enforcement and stable governments. Maybe > they are tired of having bands of lawless brigands rob them at > gunpoint, or they have seen too many murderers go unpunished, or they > would rather settle disputes peacefully in a courtroom than with > bullets. As you just said, Government is not the source of such peaceful advances. It is the people who have changed their own thinking, away from being assholes to each other, to being good, and seeking a place to develop and excercise it. They are the ones who either revolt such obscenely intolerable situations, or move, to achieve that. You *never* see such extant governments just wake up, sans dire protest and threat from subjects, and transform themselves. Now with all the Earth's land titled, what exactly do you think folks like Musk in Space and the Free Stater's are
Re: Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
I'm surprised you haven't been put so deep in an email relay servers blackhole yo mama can't find you. You REALLY send individual copies to eighteen people? Really? Hahahaha! null
Cypherpunks Mail Server [re: Krugman]
Fyi... This thread is ongoing and is having problems... The first... Message-ID: with recipients 1 To + 18 Cc + 1 Bcc cpunks the cpunks server did some as yet undertermined sort method to the cc line, and stripped two people from it entirely (schear and echeque). One of the direct 18 replied offlist with the complete set of 19 visibles in proper original order, so this end is working fine and cpunks is broken. The second... Message-ID: with recipients 2 To (1 being cpunks) + 18 Cc + 0 Bcc has not shown up yet, whereas other later messages to cpunks have shown up. Also... Bcc's from list subscribers should be set or hacked to post without hitting the mod queue. The server is running old... mailman 2.1.16 from 2013-10-17 whereas current is... mailman 2.1.29 from 2018-07-24 The 1100 lines of documented updates between those two, including 5 CVEs, are here... https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mailman-coders/mailman/2.1/view/head:/NEWS http://list.org/
