Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 104

I found this whole discussion fascinating:

Beware of shitcoins, ponzi schemes, and shady equities.

This video pairs nicely with my video about How To Avoid Getting Scammed

Unfortunately our education system teaches youngsters absolutely zero about how to avoid financial scams and frauds — which are quite common throughout all of history.

It takes a lot of wisdom and life experience to be good at sniffing out scams. Since my Dad was a professional con-artist, I'm really good at smelling scams to the point of taking my ability for granted, but most people are suckers who are easily scammed. The whole crypto/NFT industry is extremely scammy and attracts some of biggest scumbags with no integrity. And the celebrities who promote this shit on social media and elsewhere also have low integrity. Never trust celebrity endorsements. The entire celebrity endorsement industry is a scam, even if it's just for makeup or skin cream. Celebrities have no shame pitching this stuff to their gullible fans.

Here's a good example of that. This guy made $15 million promoting a shitcoin:

Notice this: When it comes to your money, being conservative is a very good idea. All this shitcoin nonsense is the result of excessive financial liberalism. Without a conservative mindset you will lose most of your money at some point.

Full Disclosure: I own some Bitcoin. This is not investment advice.

Here's a good way to empathize with the conservative worldview:

Have you ever hated-on or delayed upgrading to new software because you liked the old version better?

I don't simply mean that you didn't want to do an update because it was a minor inconvenience. I mean, you didn't want to do the upgrade because you tried the new version and you liked it less, or it was objectively worse. Or maybe the new software had more features, but the interface changes made you feel so uncomfortable and annoyed that you would rather settle for less fancy features and more of the old-school practicality of the previous version.

I am very liberal overall, but I am notoriously guilty of being conservative on software. Hell, I still refuse to upgrade to Windows 10. Not because I haven't tried it but because I tried it and don't like its icons, interface limitations, and intrusive automatic updates. I still use Photoshop CS5 and Office 2010 because I don't like the new interface changes and cloud storage and always-online requirements of the new ones.

But also notice, sometimes you resist upgrading purely out of dogma and closedminded. Then, finally, you are forced to upgrade and after an initial period of discomfort, confusion, and lowered efficiency, you get acclimated to the new software, its new features allow you to do new things, your efficiency is higher than ever, and finally you come to love and defend this version as the greatest ever. Until the next one comes along and the whole cycles begins anew.

If you've ever gone through this cycle, now you understand what it feels like for right-wingers to endure social changes such as trans women in sports, gay marriage, secularism, socialism, immigration, gun regulations, etc. You must admit that sometimes change is simply unconformable, scary, and annoying. And sometimes, change is a disaster, like Windows Vista or Windows 8.

New software is never guaranteed to be better. One time, on my old Samsung Galaxy phone, a botched automatic OS update cut my battery life in half, and there was no way to revert it. Ever since I have been hesitant to do OS updates to my phones. When I got my phone working perfectly, I don't want to risk any new updates, no matter what gimmicky features they promise. My phone doesn't need fancy new features, it just needs to work, and it already does. That's the conservative mindset: don't fix it if it ain't broke. Of course the liberal/progressive will cry back, "But everything is broken!", but that is very much a matter of perspective. A progressive is one who looks for brokenness in everything she sees, and of course she finds it. Be careful what filters you use to look at the world, it makes a big difference.

Sometimes new is good, sometimes new is bad.

Sometimes old is bad, sometimes old is good.

There is no algorithm for when is which. Which is why you shouldn't be ideological about it. You must evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

In Maoist China, as part of the communist effort to rapidly modernize and develop the country, the state ordered a mass campaign to hunt down every sparrow — because they would sometimes eat a few crops. But the sparrows actually ate many harmful insects, so after their extermination, insect epidemics ravaged crops and lead to famine.

An example of being too eager to make changes to a system the depth of which you do not comprehend. Systems thinking teaches us to be conservative when trying to change or upgrade complex systems. Socialists, radicals, anarchists, and libertarians often don't comprehend the foundations of the systems they call to eliminate or change. You can't just get rid of capitalism in the way socialists dream because it exists for good reasons. Be careful thinking that you are more intelligent than these systems. Actually, capitalism is way more intelligent than any socialist revolutionary.

Radicals and revolutionaries are rarely good systems thinkers because they are blinded by a strong agenda and ideology, whereas system thinking requires an empirical approach. When politics gets disconnected from empiricism it becomes moronic and dangerous, similar to philosophy and religion. Politics must be science-like to be effective. It's not about what you think will work, it's about what actually works — which are two very different things. You need to have an open mind about whether a policy will work or not, not just assume or insist that it will. But radicals and revolutionaries never have such a mind because they are too embroiled in fighting a political battle from a position of powerlessness. And so many blunders are made.

Insights from my study of communist history. I'm really fascinated by what made communism fail. There are so many interesting and important lessons to learn about human nature, psychology, and self-deception from studying communist regimes.

The Sombrero Galaxy contains 10 times more stars than there are people alive on Earth. It would take you 60,000 years to travel from one edge to the other if you were going at the speed of light.

There are 2 trillion such galaxies in our universe.

Each human on this planet could own an entire galaxy! Assuming no one living there claimed it first.

What would you do with your own galaxy?! Truly a godly question.

P.S. I have already claimed the Sombrero Galaxy as my own. Since I'm the first one to do so, it's mine! Go find yourself some other.

This is a pretty outrageous and under-reported event. The US Supreme Court has been infiltrated and corrupted by right-wing religious ideologues.

Sam Seder does an amazing job reporting on how the right-wing uses judges and courts to further their ideological agenda. He's been ahead of everyone on this issue for years.

It is absolutely vital to our democracy that Supreme Court judges are completely impartial and non-ideological. The way the Supreme Court has been make partisan and ideological is a disgrace. Judges should not be selected based on partisan ideology, right or left.

This is a great film that shows the horrors of being too liberal with science, specifically genetic engineering:

Notice that many of our current political and social problems stem from radicalization and brainwashing of people via social media. Which stems directly from the culture of Silicon Valley being too liberal. "Move fast and break things" was literally the motto at Facebook, and pretty much all over Silicon Valley and most tech start-ups. But there are trade-offs to such liberalism. "Move fast and break things" is not a valid survival strategy when the stakes are high. Otherwise you move fast and break peoples' minds. But since breaking minds and breaking democracy is an externality from Facebook's POV, they can fool themselves into thinking that this strategy is workable. Until it all comes crashing down on them. Which is exactly what a true conservative is trying to defend against.

If you are wary of new technology, if you can foresee all the possible horrors and failure cases, you are a true conservative. But of course you must do this in an even-handed, non-partisan way, not just in ways that benefit your political party to help you win elections. Otherwise your conservatism will be dysfunctional.

So I was playing Skyrim, then as I was battling Nord barbarians in a dungeon, it killed my PC.

Not sure exactly why. Seems like the CPU might have gotten fried. Maybe the cooling unit failed? Although the fan still spins. But it makes a weird rattling noise.

I have been building my own PCs since I was a kid. This has never happened to me before.

Now I cannot render videos until I figure out how to fix it.

Damn you Todd Howard. It just works.

Update: I discovered that the CPU liquid cooling unit started to leak, leading to overheating of the CPU. Ordered a new cooling unit which should arrive in a few days.

Police have gotten a bad rap in our politics lately, but it's important to understand the difficult and vital work that police do every day to make civilization possible.

Remember, police have to deal with some of the biggest assholes and idiots on the planet, every day, for years.

Demonizing the police is not an intelligent political position.

Although, of course, minorities have a right to demand humane policing.

This channel, Police Activity, is an amazing collection of raw footage of police and the scumbags they have to deal with on a daily basis. Have a look for yourself. I was binge-watching this channel for hours.

Yes, of course, police — just like the best scientists — make mistakes. But you will only appreciate that when you understand how difficult policing and science are. If you tried to do policing or science yourself, you'd be much more empathetic about the situation.