Crypto + Copyright = 🤡💩

No, you can’t own a fucking color, you absolute lunatic

Part of the sales pitch for a Color Museum NFT.

The world of crypto is full of scams, grifts, and absolutely foreseeable flops. The underlying ideology of crypto — the much-vaunted “system design” — starts from the principle that systems are most stable when they appeal to each participant’s self-interest, rather than their solidarity, generosity or empathy. This is an extension of the “greed is good” / ”there’s no such thing as society” ideology of the Thatcher-Reagan revolution. It’s an ideology grounded in empirically false propositions about how people actually behave in markets.

In a recent interview, Yanis Varoufakis describes his experience running an economy in God-mode when he was chief economist of Valve, overseeing game economies with “access to the full data set in real time,” lured by the prospect of “playing ‘god; i.e. being able to do with these digital economies things that no economist can do in the ‘real’ world, e.g. alter rules, prices, and quantities to see what happens.”

Continue reading "Crypto + Copyright = 🤡💩"

Pluralistic: 03 Jun 2020


Today's links

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 03 Jun 2020"

Pluralistic: 09 Apr 2020

Today's links

  1. Neighbors treated to socially isolated buildingside screening: Scott Duggan treated his terrace to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
  2. Philips quadruples ventilator costs: They reneged on their HHS deal and will get $646.7m for their trouble.
  3. Kansas GOP nukes ban on large Easter gatherings: What's wrong with Kansas?
  4. Kickpunch's Disney comics/horror movie mashups: Daniel Björk's terrifying poster children for fair use.
  5. Plastic-eating enzyme: Leaf-branch compost cutinase to the rescue.
  6. Cold brew coffee chemistry: Making the black stuff reproducible.
  7. Tails adds Secureboot support: Evil chambermaids, beware!
  8. Crisis makes heroes of IT workers: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.
  9. Automating fake PDF signatures: Make it look like you printed, signed and scanned.
  10. Pocket Art Director: Your high-handed boss in D20 form.
  11. This day in history: 2019
  12. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 09 Apr 2020"