Courtesy a rentier investor class intent on not sharing the growth of the economy with workers.

I know, right? Every time his name comes up I groan inside.

Huh, so if they have a beneficial effect I wonder what happens if you disrupt their lifecycle. Are they, for instance, sensitive to certain cleansing compounds, etc.

I have a problem with a compromised immune system that lets the population of these mites get out of hand. It results in red, patchy skin on my face. This was an embarrassing problem for years before finding out the root cause. Now a few times a week I rinse my face in red vinegar, which has totally stopped the problem.

I wonder if such a disruption is the reason why some people seem to be excessively prone to blackheads, like yours truly for instance, my nose looks like a strawberry up close.

Mine too but I never wash my face with anything but water.

When I wash my face with soap by accident, I usually get a breakout of spots and have to use acnecide. Always figured it was due to killing the mites.

We need to stop lathering ourselves up with soap all the time. Like mites, we have a community living on our skin, our microbiome and soap decimates that community that helps us

Does it though? As long as the soap isn't antibacterial, it shouldn't exterminate everything.

> As long as the soap isn't antibacterial, it shouldn't exterminate everything.

All soap is antibacterial.

This is true. Soap's purpose is to literally break down the cell walls of bacteria, some are more resistant so antibacterials are needed depending on the constituents of the cell wall

These aren't bacteria though, they are animals. It's unclear whether antibacterial soap has much of a detrimental effect on them at all.

Good. The world definitely does not need more wasteful bitcoin mining.

If we assume for a moment it's a currency (and not a security) and it fulfills the goal of an non manipulable currency well (IMO it doesn't) then you could say:

Besides the operators (miners, devs) following people are the main profiteers:

- in a progressive well working country, mainly organized crime, terrorists and people wanting to destabilize the country, so if you live in such a (non existing) country you would not want it at all

- in a autocratic country it's the opposite, you want it really really hard

- in a dysfunctional country it can be helpful but the "it's safe from government manipulation" point matters less then the it's not operated by the government point

Now most countries are somewhere in-between so there is no clear cut answer.

But as far as I can tell all ethically "good" use-cases which couldn't simpler be archived with other means are also illegal by law of at least some involved parties/countries.

Now by-law illegal doesn't mean bad.

Still IMHO Bitcoin completely failed as currency, and some of the other promises aren't really there either.

It did have a temp. huge success as security, (stock like) speculation target and high risk speculators (at some point, not now).

> Do you think the world could benefit from money that can't be manipulated by governments?

Not really, no. What you call manipulation is really necessary maintenance and management meant to avoid the hypervolatility we see in crypto.

How many real world experiments do we need to run before people accept that markets, especially for money, aren't self regulating.

How many real world experiments do we need to run before people accept that governments aren’t self-regulating? Why do laws matter when the government can get around them and change them whenever it wants? Eliminating alternative means of exchange is just cementing the opportunity for governments to implement their own digital currencies, and if you don’t think they’ll abuse the power that gives them, you need to read more history.

If governments are successful in manipulating money to avoid volatility, why are these still scores of hyperinflation failed currencies, financial crises due to too much debt, and so on? Why is these not a clear law of economics that can lead to stability and no recessions?

Because politicians and lobbies get away with leveraging laws to create moats and red tape.

Economic policy is just a charade.

Less interference would be ideal, but a government is still a necessary evil. It’s just too large in most cases.

> What you call manipulation is really necessary maintenance and management meant to avoid the hypervolatility we see in crypto.

It depends on the government...

It's being manipulated by private entities, so, I'm not really sure it's an improvement.

Just like the government itself?

Governments are far more answerable to average citizens than the people behind Tether or the whales currently, even if government isn't ideally accountable. Also, governments have reasonable incentives to keep currencies at levels that maintain economic conditions. Being voted out or overthrown are consequences of economic mismanagement.

I've yet to see that from Tether.

This is only true in democracies. In autocracies like Russia and China they just do whatever the government tells them.

The CCP is oppressively authoritarian because it's scared of its own citizens, especially its young NEET men.

> I've yet to see that from Tether

The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, it's no different with any other financial scandal.

True, but the fact that government regulation is needed kinda voids the argument that crypto currencies are great because they can't be manipulated by the government like a fiat currency.

Isn’t the money being manipulated by the governments an important positive feature for their economy?

> Do you think the world could benefit from money that can't be manipulated by governments?

Maybe, but that's not Bitcoin for sure.

Some expenditure, but how much? Because right now it's an incredibly large amount of energy. Also, the US govt controls quite a substantial amount of bitcoin, I even have a conspiracy theory that bitcoin could have been created by the US govt ..

No, and no.

"Manipulated by governments" primarily means "tax evasion and crime".

Bitcoin is a failed experiment and it's in free fall.

Ah Sheryl Sandberg. Just another mercenary sadly

Who would you entrust with all of this capital?

Obviously the institution with a proven track record of running successful schools - the government.

That is far too reductive

Human DNA is only 1% different than chimps. 1% is not that reductive.

Sometimes I wonder if hackernews ever does anything with the ideas it generates or if it just gets a kick out of generating them.

actually, that stat is completely and totally wrong. If you take the most similar parts of human and chimp DNA- just the well-aligned proteins- then yes, we differ by 1%. But that's not a metric that means much, if at all, since many aspects of phenotypes are not controlled by the difference in our protein coding regions.

This is a great way to put it.

your behavior and thinking is purely a function of your DNA?

I mean, according to a physicalist's view of the human condition, yes. You are a function of the haploid cells your parents conceived you with, and the environment those cells responded to over your lifetime.

I would say that “and the environment” means “no, not purely a function of your DNA”.

And this article is full of typos

And factual inaccuracies.

> Yakuza ヤクザ: is the largest criminal organisation in Japan, similar to the mafia.

The word describes a type of criminal organization, not a singular organization. There are many completely independant yakuza groups.

Yakuza organizations aren't likely to be "completely independent", even if rival and autonomous: their relationships tie them into a criminal meta-organization, which if pure enough can be seen from outside as "the Yakuza" even if it isn't a federation or a conglomerate.

It's just like "The" Mafia, even though we know there are multiple Families.

aren't there also multiple mafias? I thought a mafia was a type, and essentially the western yakuza

Why am I not surprised. Microsoft operates in all the sketchy countries.

The Timeless Way of Building is great