this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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More efforts from tech bros to build Rapture.

Interesting quotes:

it had backing from tech heavyweights such as billionaire Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, and venture capitalist** Fred Wilson**, a Coinbase board member who sold his shares in the company for $1.8 billion after it went public in 2021.

“Bitcoin, if it wins, completely changes the world, because it changes the ability of centralized states to do what they’ve been doing,” Srinivisan said in a presentation delivered to a Bitcoin conference in Amsterdam in October.

The Bitcoin-based Network State will be based on “internet values” such as “open source” and “peer-to-peer,” Srinivasan has written.

An utopia run on Bitcoin? What could possibly go wrong?

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[–] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 55 points 11 months ago (2 children)

'Tech Billionaires give all wealth away to end world hunger.' 'Tech Billionaires lobby for wealth tax with national governments.' 'Tech Billionaires realize they are normal people like anyone else, not super smart world-saving geniuses, and finally shut the fuck up.'

Now these would be news.

[–] gatelike@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago

this comment made me feel the draw of dillusional thought, it felt good to read those fake headlines and I didn't want it to stop

[–] rekabis@programming.dev 51 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Libertarianism requires its members to engage in due diligence in order to execute their libertarian ideals properly and make the choices that are correct for them.

This, unfortunately, excludes the lower-60% of all Americans, who are so ground down, economically terrorized, and mentally overwhelmed with their daily struggles to survive that they have little to no opportunity to approach any major choice with anything even vaguely in the realm of due diligence. They just don’t have the headspace to do so, and are forced to spend all their available mental efforts on just putting one financial foot in front of the other.

This is why having social support frameworks enforced/provided/funded by the government is so important for so many working-class people - it allows them to put those issues on autopilot, significantly reducing their own cognitive load and allowing them to better process the most important issues in their lives.

Ergo, libertarianism is a wealthy person’s toy. It is something that they can champion, because only they have the economic options and financial freedom to fully and properly engage with it.

Until everyone has vanishingly few catastrophic-level issues on the horizon (like one missed paycheque leading to homelessness, or a sudden illness leading to medical bankruptcy), any attempt to implement libertarianism will only bring mass amounts of misery and destroyed lives to anyone beneath the Parasite Class.

And when you have those kinds of widespread government-provided supports that lift all boats - and not just the megayachts - why bother with libertarianism? We should continue to use what got everyone into that safe state in the first place -- socialism.

Remember, the Parasite Class already uses socialism for themselves. It’s called grants and bailouts and subsidies, and allows the Parasite Class to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.

It’s just at a scale that makes it impossible for working-class people to leverage.

[–] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Lets just call them what they are, oligarchs

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 22 points 11 months ago

I feel like they are more dangerous than oligarchs.

Look at Russian oligarchs. They don't try to change the world. They know they are not welcomed so just buy properties at London, buy yachts, etc. and then enjoy what they have.

Tech libertarians seem to view themselves as savior of the world and attempts to change it (for the worse).

[–] MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk 23 points 10 months ago

Cancer on society decides to form a tumour.

[–] Ganbat@lemmyonline.com 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ya know what? I hope they do it. That many rich assholes with more ambition than brains in one place? It'll burn from the inside.

[–] GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network 8 points 11 months ago

Target rich environment

[–] GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Wait, they want to put all the assholes in one place? We should let them, it'll make it easier later.

[–] explodicle@local106.com 4 points 11 months ago

But part of it is decentralized! Can't we just slap a blockchain on anything and declare the whole thing immune to coercion? /s

[–] RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 10 months ago

I give them three months before the new society collapses due to arguments over age of consent.

[–] senseamidmadness@beehaw.org 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We can only hope that, like the citizens of Rapture, the rich tech-bros go insane from their own fumes and start eating each other.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 months ago

While also doing body horror.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago

No society should accept billionaires. There are so many other people who are in dire need. It makes zero difference if they have a billion or a 100 million.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 9 points 10 months ago

Of course "libertarian" here is code for "oligarchy", because they know modern libertarians in the US are aggressively apathetic, will let them get away with anything, and thus form a perfect base to appeal to and dominate.

[–] Titan@beehaw.org 8 points 10 months ago

Libertarians are just conservatives who are ok with weed and gay people

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wish them luck. It's good for people to try new things. I won't be moving there though.

[–] Marsupial@quokk.au 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)
[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago

I bet Wish Version Lex Luthor in the thumbnail photo is extra crunchy. Bears like that because it helps clean their teeth.

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago

This is the classic example.

Below one is also super fun: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313/

Take the streetlights. Turning them off had saved the city about $1.25 million. What had not made the national news stories was what had happened while those lights were off. Copper thieves, emboldened by the opportunity to work without fear of electrocution, had worked overtime scavenging wire. Some, the City Council learned, had even dressed up as utility workers and pried open the boxes at the base of streetlights in broad daylight. Keeping the lights off might have saved some money in the short term, but the cost to fix what had been stolen ran to some $5 million.

FREEDOM TO STEAL!!!

[–] timo21@mastodon.sdf.org 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@sculd freaking Ayn Rand cult strikes again. These 1%ers think they are THE new world order. Regulations are needed to protect our basic human rights from these folks. To piss them off, just say "you didn't build that" .

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Yea, Atlas Shrugged really presented a very naive and simplistic world view that cannot work in real life. The capitalists all fuck off to build a city? Who is going to build them? Right. The workers. The workers that they despise.

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Srinivasan has floated the car-free Culdesac private community in Tempe and the Peter Thiel-backed Próspera in Honduras as examples of currently-existing proto-Network States.

“Suppose you found a new startup society like Culdesac on the basis of car-free living…which is an innovation in parallel transportation.

Is "fuck cars" libertarian?

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Maybe in a twisted thought process: privatized public transport for the masses, and because the rich have no actual restrictions in reality, I’m sure they can drive a car if they want to.

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good question. Since "libertarian" in practice always becomes some form of authoritarian state. They just jumped a few steps ahead.

On the other hand though, car-free city sounds so nice.

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

"libertarian" in practice always becomes some form of authoritarian state.

What has been libertarian in practice?

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago

Until a Libertarian decides he wants to drive a car. You can't expect discipline from these assholes.

[–] explodicle@local106.com 1 points 11 months ago

Nearly all pollution violates the NAP

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

didn't they try this in el salvador and it flopped?

[–] pbjamm@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

I feel like I already watched this Documentary. It did not end well.

[–] ulkesh@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago

Libertarians (n., plural) - Sooo…. Conservatives.

Perhaps they can take all the asshole Republicans (leaving the reasonable ones…I know, not many left) with them and we can be left with a society that doesn’t suck and is instead filled with leadership that may have opposing viewpoints, but are willing to compromise — like, you know, mature, scientific, educated adults would.

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] sculd@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Hey! Behind the Bastards is really a great podcast! I listened to this episode and its hilarious!

[–] pipows@lemmy.today 3 points 10 months ago

As a libertarian, I don't trust these billionaires a single bit to do it.

They are not libertarians, they don't care about the free market, small local business, regulatory and certification companies, or what else. They are very happy to lobby the government to enforce any anticompetitive practices that will benefit them in the long run. They probably just want a new way to evade taxes, they don't give two fucks about libertarianism.

Sadly, tech bros won't see through it and will hype anything these clowns do.

[–] todwest@mastodon.world 3 points 10 months ago

@sculd 'Libertarian society' is the political equivalent of 'jumbo shrimp.'

[–] soljin@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago
[–] nilsskirnir@kolektiva.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@sculd We have corrupt states and corrupt billionaires. Neither is good

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Neither are good but if I have to choose one....Corrupt state usually need to pretend they are doing good. Billionaires just say fuck you

[–] nilsskirnir@kolektiva.social 3 points 10 months ago

@sculd
Human societies have periodically tried Plutocracy. It never ends well, usually ended in warlord periods, famines, servility for the masses, and mass slavery.

[–] DarthYoshiBoy@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My favorite Libertarian society experiment. I mean, it's the only one that I'm aware of, but that it ended about as well as you'd expect is just fantastic.

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

The bear one. Yes the classic!