#just. i dont know if thats just another facet of his manipulation

[sage-is-in-fact-very-tired]

something about the fact that fable hasn't given Icarus a hug - or been physically affectionate in general with them - in the time he's been here. something about the fact he gave one to Rae, even *sang* to Rae, because he was upset. something about that. something about it is getting to me. something about it.

[bruisesandbuzzaxes]

The issue with DLC 4 (Its not BL2)

Spoilers under the cut as to avoid, well... spoilers.

I have seen many people give DLC 4 shit because it did not meet their expectations lore/game play wise. Although many of these criticisms are indeed true, I have also found a trend (within all of BL3, but especially within DLC 4) that seems to be ever present within these issues. 

Borderlands 3 is not Borderlands 2 and should stop trying to be as such. 

I know, shocking right? But it seems that both the devs of the game, and its audience expected a BL2 clone and yes, they got on but in the worst way possible. The thing that made BL2 great was the lore (or greater presents of), the game play, and characters. The villain we got was deep, sadistic, but also compelling. Handsome Jack was not just some 1 note CEO with an evil company with shallow motivations. He was a father who was twisted by the pursuit of his goal SO MUCH that he ended up killing his daughter to achieve that goal. He thought he was the hero SO MUCH that he built a city commemorating that fact. And at the end of the day, his hatred for us (the vault hunters) comes from his hatred of those who were responsible for the death of his wife (bandits) and imprisonment of his daughter. His megalomania came over time and was not the ONLY facet of his character. The Calypso Twins are still villans, but just not as well developed or compelling. They are sarcastic, manipulative, and at the end of the day still want “the vault” but their presence cannot be felt in previous games despite not being introduced yet. They are not as “impending” and dont interact with you as much. They dont really feel like a threat. They are just sorta underwhelming and over compensate by making the characters as annoying as possible. They try to mimic Jack by dialing all of his negative qualities up to 10, and thats where you get the twins from.

But what does this have to do with DLC 4? Dont worry I am getting there.

The rest of Borderlands 3 follows the same pattern of trying to mimic 2 in both its DLCs and main game. In borderlands 2 Roland (a past vault hunter) dies at the hands of Jack after the events of the control core. Jack gains a siren, and can now finish charging the vault key. Roland’s death was built up to, and executed well. It provided motivation for the characters to move forward in their quest, and also a greater looming threat since Jack just killed/took 2 of the characters we spent the entire game up to this point getting to know and love. However BL3 does the same thing with the death of Maya (another past vault hunter) after the battle with the rampager. However Maya’s death really does not hit that hard since we only got to know here for about 1/3rd of the game, and the rest of the events following this are devoted to her bratty apprentice Ava blaming Lilith for it occurring. The twins also steal her siren powers (sorta fulfilling the need for a siren on their side, in this case just their powers) and use that to help open (or nearly open) said vault. Maya is our Roland, and the twins are Jack. The situation may be changed, but the roles are exactly the same.

Krieg’s DLC ( DLC 4) fulfills the need for a DLC dedicated to how the character closest to that “Roland figure” deals with the loss. Tiny TIna’s assault on Dragons keep DLC does this well by not only giving us a fun story, but also closure. Its fully fleshed out story wise and may not introduce a lot of ‘new’ lore, but it does give us a better look at the Tina and how she deals with grief. It was not given to us to be a “lore intensive” DLC, it was given to us to resolve a conflict for a character and further flesh Tina out as a character. 

Krieg’s DLC essentially achieved the same thing (although in a rather strange fashion), but it was marketed to us as more “lore intensive”. Going into the mind of a fan favorite who has very little known about him and his origins is a GREAT opportunity to give us new, much needed, lore. Even within the nonsensical confines of Krieg’s mind, we still could have gotten much needed exposition and lore about Krieg and his relationship with Maya. We got SOME of that, but it only seemed to only be limited to the template that Assault on Dragons Keep gave us. Krieg was essentially a much more unstable Tina and the snippets of lore we got were either retcons of previous content or were loose enough that they could have applied to ANYONE who was a patient during the Hyperion slag experiments. We did not really learn anything all that important or new. Does Krieg have a wife and son/daughter? Maybe, but we know nothing about them or if they are still alive. Was Krieg’s eye removed by Dr Benedict or a skag? I dont know, it was mentioned once but that could have literally been any patient in the trials. Did Krieg have a relationship with Maya? Yes, but we literally get to see NONE OF IT. Instead, we get a DLC that is trying to ride the emotional coattails of BL2 and trying to reskin what worked there, here. 

I feel like if the devs did not do try to create another BL2 , and the fans did not expect another BL2 the people would like both DLC 4 and BL3 better. Like, having a quality game is important. But we dont need another BL2 for it to be a good game. 

[cryptswahili]

Wendy McElroy: Interview With Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part Two

Interview with Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part Two

Conducted by Wendy McElroy

The multi-faceted Jeffrey Tucker is an American writer who focuses on market freedom, anarcho-capitalism, and cryptotech. He is the author of eight books on economics, politics, and culture, a much-sought after conference speaker, and an Internet entrepreneur. Jeffrey is editorial director and vice president of the venerable American Institute for Economic Research, founded in 1933. His career has focused on building many of the web’s primary portals for commentary and research on liberty, and is undertaking new adventures in publishing today.

I have incredible good fortune, as Jeff has written the preface to my book “The Satoshi Revolution,” which will be published in early 2019 by bitcoin.com. Meanwhile, a rough draft of the book is available online for free, compliments of bitcoin.com. Be sure to come back for the substantially-rewritten and thoroughly-edited book. I expect there will be a forum established here for me to chat with readers and answer their questions.

To access Part One of this interview, please click here.

Wendy: I was very impressed by an article in which you argued against the idea that Misesian regression theorem invalidated bitcoin as a money. For readers, the Regression theorem claims “Any valid medium of exchange (money) has to have a previous use as something else.” Could you offer an overview of your argument?

Jeff: Mises’s argument was that the root value of money traces to a conjectural history in which the pre-money form was deployed, for example, in barter. By 1949, Mises became hardened in this view: money had to originate in barter; there is no other path. From a historical point of view, this is probably correct. But it is a theoretically misleading formulation.

To understand the theory behind the conjectural history, you have to return to Mises’s original 1912 argument. Here he is more precise. In order for something to become money, it had to have a pre-existing use value. Use value. That’s not the same thing as being used in barter trade. His point was that you can’t take a useless thing and call it money and expect it to take flight.

How can we reconstruct the history of Bitcoin to discern if this applies here? From the January 2009 genesis block until October of that year, Bitcoin’s posted dollar exchange value was exactly $0. And yet we know, because we have a perfect historical record, that there were many thousands of trades being made all these 10 months. What was happening? What was going on? This was a period in which the network was being tested by enthusiasts. What does this network do? It permits the peer-to-peer exchange of immutable information packets on a geographically non-contiguous basis using the Internet so that they can come and go without corruption or compromise.

Is this a valuable service and does it work? This is what was being tested. By October, the use value of this network had proven itself, and so we began to see the emergence of a dollar/Bitcoin exchange ratio. That is to say, Bitcoin was priced as a scarce good. We can see, then, that the conditions of the “Regression Theorem” as theory are met via the services provided by the blockchain. You can also see, however, that if an economist looking at this did not understand the payment system embedded as part of the monetary technology, he or she would be completely befuddled.

To be sure, some very smart people disagree with me. My friend William Luther is blunt about his opinion about his matter. He thinks the Regression Theorem is just wrong, so it doesn’t matter if Bitcoin is theoretically compliant. He once made the argument to me and pretty much backed me into a corner. If he turns out to be correct, I’m fine with that. What matters more, my theory or existing reality? I faced that problem in early 2013 and concluded that I had, as a matter of intellectual integrity, to defer to reality, even if it meant admitting the wrongness of my position or even that of Mises’s. Shocking, I know!

Wendy: The crypto community parallels the libertarian one, in ways both good and bad. An example of the latter is the deep personal schisms with which it is rift. You are a person who stays away from internecine battles. What advice do you have to others who wish to do the same?

Jeff: I try to stay focused on the big picture and imagine that my audience is not my friend network but rather the general public. I try to serve that readership. That means no Twitter wars. No flame wars at all. Plus, I’ve seen vast destruction spread by vicious internecine battles. I’ve seen friendships wrecked, bad theory perpetrated by virtue of ego alone, massive setbacks take place in understanding and marketing. Also, there are some people who are ideologically attached to the friend/enemy distinction. Unless they are smashing someone and hitting “the enemy” they think they are not working. It’s extremely strange how some people thrive off this posture.

To be sure, I have no trouble taking a stand, as I have when libertarians have wrongly drifted left and right. Why? I like to seek greater intellectual clarity and share my thoughts with others, in hopes that I can help others understand too. I’m not seeking saints and not looking to burn witches. I try to choose my battles carefully and stay focused on doing productive work, cooperating with anyone who thinks, writes, and acts in good faith. That’s the main thing to ask yourself, not “Who have you destroyed today?” but rather, “What kind of light have I brought to the world today?”

Wendy: Different explanations of crypto’s recent plunge in price have been advanced. Some people point to increased government regulation, especially in China and in the U.S., where the SEC is taking active steps against the crypto community. Many believe the tumble resulted from a bursting bubble that was created by surging prices earlier in 2018. Still others speak of manipulation by “the whales.” These explanations are not mutually exclusive, of course. But do you favor one over the other? Do you have another explanation?

Jeff: It’s impossible to untangle all of this, and many of the factors you name are right, but let me add another issue. The amazing bull market of 2017 was fueled by wild optimism and adoption. People in the space were ready to rock. Then this optimism was massively interrupted by a terrible realization. Bitcoin would not scale. It stopped behaving like Bitcoin and started becoming more expensive and slower than regular credit cards. To use street parlance, it sucked. It was an amazing thing to have happened. It was a true calamity. And to top it off, it was completely the fault of the guardians of the code. When the code would not adapt to broader use, the optimism turned to pessimism and we experienced a huge setback.

By the way, I’ve worked for years with people who are geniuses at code but completely stupid when it comes to the user experience. It was the tragedy of Bitcoin that it fell prey to exactly this same problem. Coders desperately desire cleanliness, zero bloat, no cruft, perfect logic. It’s an old joke in the community that a coder invites you to use his new program but all you see on the black screen is a blinking green cursor. “Of course I still have to write the user interface.”

The OCD-ish mind of coders is a great thing for some purposes but this outlook has never prevailed in the commercial marketplace. In the early 1990s, there was a great battle over word processors. Microsoft kept making Word larger and larger, puffed with cruft, and the code monkeys were screaming that this was a disaster in the making. For my own part, I hated Word in those days and completely agreed that the hard-to-use light-weight programs were better.

But guess what? The market disagreed. Moore’s Law kicked it as it always does and eventually Word destroyed the competition. Why? Because it had more features that users like. Eventually the code got clean again and now Word itself has many elegant competitors. This is the normal progression of any software with a consumer focus.

Incredibly, some people with the keys to the kingdom of Bitcoin actually came to imagine that they could develop a digital money without an efficient, consumer-focussed use case. They drove a wedge between two functions: store of value and medium of exchange. This is not how much work. One function depends on the other. The freeze in the development of Bitcoin, in the name of staying light and elegant, was a fool’s errand. During all the scaling debates of 2014-16, they dug in their heels, shouting slogans, guarding their small blocks, instead of thinking about adoption and scaling when the time came.

When the time did come, Bitcoin did not perform. It fact – and it pains me to say this – it completely flopped.

Old school Bitcoiners like me were horrified to see it all happening. It was like an old friend had become possessed. When the mempools exploded, and the miners were in a position to ration trades based on price, it would cost $20 to send $2. This was in the fall and winter of 2017. It was absolutely disgraceful, and all the more so because the newly emergent “maximalists” defended this preposterous reality, acting if as this was part of the plan all along. They were like PeeWee Herman explaining that when he fell off the bike that he “meant to do that.” They flagrantly ignored even the title of the White Paper. Then the fork came in August of 2017, as it necessarily had to. But then followed a tremendous explosion of tokens of all sorts.

I don’t regret the competition, and I think this is all a good thing. I’m not a Bitcoin Maximalist. I’m a Competition Maximalist. But the absurdities of Bitcoin’s performance could have been completely avoided with just a bit of concern for the user. I would love it if we could perform a controlled experiment and see the BTC price today if the thing had properly scaled. We can’t do that. We have the reality we have.

Privately, of course, Bitcoin Core developers will admit that this was a disaster and that scaling will eventually take place on the chain. But at this point, pride and arrogance had gotten the best of them. How long will they continue to promise the Lightning Network while showing no concern for the use case? It’s time for a bit of humility.

To be sure, the Lightning Network is super great. We run a node at the Atlanta Bitcoin Embassy. I look forward to its final stability and adoption. The problem is that this was proposed as an eventual solution to the scaling problem that currently exists. Real-time technological development has to deal with problems in real time according to the time schedule of the market rate of adoption. Markets don’t obey code architects; the reverse has to be the case. Bitcoin Core forgot that at the very point it mattered most.

Wendy: Whatever the probable explanation(s), do you have a sense of when or whether crypto markets are likely to rebound significantly? Do you have a sense of what will cause a rebound or prevent one?

Jeff: Like all enthusiasts, I do expect a turnaround. Remember that I’ve been in these markets since BTC was $14. I’ve seen wild swings and long periods of nothingness. I’m prepared for anything.

Wendy: A debate within crypto parallels one I have heard between gold bugs. That is, should one take physical possession of precious metals, or they can be stored with reputable entities. In crypto, the parallel argument is whether coins should be in private wallets with undisclosed keys, or can they be stored with exchanges that do not demand possession of the keys?

Jeff: That is an interesting parallel! I think it is a valid one. I’m disappointed with the rise of what are effectively Bitcoin Banks that now dominate the market. I’ve reluctantly concluded that there is indeed a demand for financial intermediation, even within crypto. Here is a case where my own preferences are being overridden by market choice. That said, intermediation in crypto is not going to have the problems that it does in a central banking world. We have transparency. We have clear lines of ownership. We know the difference between money and a money substitute. I don’t necessarily think that intermediation is an evil thing in the crypto world.

Wendy: Any other thoughts you’d like to share on this subject?

Jeff: I would council Bitcoiners and anyone who sees the potential of this technology to be patient. Think back to railroads and how they came to be. The headlines were all about land speculation, wildcat banks, stock fraud, bankruptcies, and crashes. The reality, in the end, was a transformed world. It was true with the Internet too. People said for years that no one could make money on the Internet. The dotcom crash of 2000 seemed to prove it. Now Internet commerce leads the world. It will be a long time before crypto becomes competitive with nationalized money, and even longer before the pundit class comes around.

The important point is that we have the knowledge. We have the technology. We know now that it is possible. It can be done. There is no longer any excuse for not turning over the production and management of money itself to the market.

Also let us not forget what matters most. Bitcoin is a technology but the goal is much more grand: a better, more peaceful, more prosperous world. I’ve seen it myself how this works. When you pull down the barriers, when you provide opportunities for people to cooperate, beautiful things happen. I see it constantly at the Atlanta Bitcoin Embassy. This is a place where people from all walks of life come together in a spirit of joyful cooperation to build the future. This inspires me more than anything else and points to the kind of future that can be built by a P2P technology. It’s a microcosm of what life in the cryptocon can be like.

Wendy: Thank you, Jeff! This has been fascinating.

[To be continued next week.]

Reprints of this article should credit Bitcoin.com and include a link back to the book

Wendy McElroy has “published” her new book The Satoshi Revolution exclusively with Bitcoin.com. However, things aren’t over yet. Every Saturday you’ll find another installment in a series of interviews about sections of the book with people like Doug Casey, L.Neil Smith, Jeff Tucker, Carl Watner…and so on. Altogether they’ll make up her new book ”The Satoshi Revolution”.

The post Wendy McElroy: Interview With Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part Two appeared first on Bitcoin News.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[isaacathom]

i had a weird dream that both of my parents were monsters

i believe my mother was a demon, and my father was a sort of law enforcement angel. neither knew the others identity, as they had disguised themselves as human andhad fallen in love. both fully believed the other was human.

this changed when my mother gave me a necklace for my birthday. in real life, that necklace is something my sister bought from scotland that has ogham on it, something about holly trees. but in the dream, it was a sign of my mothers demonic heritage, and she likely gifted it to me due to her needing to do something, and wanting me to have something to remember her by.

and thats fine. but my dad saw the necklace. and as a demon hunter angel, he recognized it instantly, and asked if he could have a look at it. ‘to find its history’, he said. and i said sure, because im the sort of kid who would love to know the history behind family heirlooms. so i gave him the necklace to look over,and i went off to school for the day.

while i was out, a demon appeared nearby, a creature with a texture like potato skin and a shape similar to a hexagon? or a d20, that might describe it better. a big potato beast with the facets of a d20. who then split in half to explore. my mother saw this, and promptly left the house and shed her human form. she was sort of vampiric looking, with large horns and glowing eyes.

my father didnt see her leave, but noticed she was gone, and he then went into his secret study behind the bookcase, which could be opened by manipulating the fantasy books he had on his top shelf. he then left by a secret entrance.

at this point i arrive home, having been held up due to heavy books and bus times. im walking part of the way home, coming down the bike track next to the dog park, which was wear the potato demon was. but i see no sign of any of them. what i do see is the backyard of the house directly on the corner of where the bike path diverts into a small sandy path that connects back to the streets. its a wide backyard, lush and green, and a brand new pale grey stone sort of courtyard has been built. two people stand there, a parent and a child, and as i walk past they turn to look at me. being awkward, i just avert gaze and keep walking.

in their renovations, theyve extended their backyard to the left, meaning the sandy path is only big enough for one person, if even that. but since im small, i get through without much issue, and head on home (which is far closer to the bike path in the dream)

i find noone home, but i do find the necklace i gave my father on the top shelf of his bookcase. when i grab it, i accidentally trigger the mechanism, with two ‘layers’ of books falling forward and then pushing back in, and the bookcase swings open to reveal my fathers secret study.

the dream seemed to end there, but i imagine once inside i found a bunch of stuff about demons, and perhaps sign of a scuffle (between my father and potato demon, perhaps?) and so i would assume my parents had been kidnapped by demons. especially as their cars were in the driveway/garage. so then, yknow, go hunt for my parents.

there was a very weird tangent about my mum wanting to fuck the potato demon?? who i believe was called Kayli. that or my mum was kayli. there was some fucking weird shit going on there. it was possible a trick or trap? because Kayli had split in half, and my mum ended up getting deeply distracted by one half. which might mean the other half had time to go and attack my dad? who even knows. i dont. it was weird.

but yea! my parents were starcrossed lovers but they didnt even know it and wont find out until probably one of them dies at the end, or my dad goes to capture/kill my mother and suddenly goes ‘oH FUCK’. possibly both, if it was kill, and he didnt realise until too late. because, and heres the thing, both were in disguise. their demon/angel forms do have similarities, but if you werent looking for it, you wouldnt see it. my dad has no reason to look for my mothers face in a demon, and she no reason to look for his face in an angel. meanwhile i, who have probably been on some deep journey involving the bike path slipstream between dimensions and the wooded paths ‘out back’, ive learnt a lot about both. for instance, ive probably found out that my mum is a demon, just because i have her necklace and have been attacked/treated nicely by demons because of it. they look at it and go ‘oh, [mums name in the dreams] kid! how is she doing?’ ‘w-what?’ ‘? thats her necklace, isnt it? and you look ust like her, except more human. hows she been doing? havent seen her in decades!’ ‘??????????????????????????’

so i dramatically bust in to find my parents locked in mortal fucking combat and i go ‘Mom????!’ and shes like ‘wHAT’ and dads like ‘WHAT’ and its very confusing and conflicting for everyone involved.

alternatively, if my father has the necklace, then my mother recognizes it (no shit, its hers) and demands to know why he has her necklace. which is instantly confusing because, well, he got this from his child??? who got it from their mother??? so who the - oh fuck me. thatd be just sort of how it goes.

though surely if my dad is a demon hunter and recognized that the necklace was demonic, he’d be looking out for her in demons? unless he thinks that she’s maybe been possessed or something, hence going on a big ol battle fight trying to find his Definitely-Human Wife, who he would believe was captured and replaced by a demon. coincide it with external drama (and the fact my mum had been planning to leave for a little while, thus changing her attitude) and he’d think the necklace was some sort of signal for demons to come kick our ass. which, well, it SORT of was, considering like a day after i get it, Kayli the Potato Fucker appears to kick our asses.

idk. its all dramatic and shit. and naturally im half demon half angel and look like a human kid. which is good fun. depending on showdown circumstances i probably haveto fight off both of them at once. maybe its like, as i travel through the ~spirit realms~ i shed my human form a little bit as well which means i ALSO look different. got like, angel wings and devil horns. shits whack. and because they arent expecting me to be there, they dont recognize me either. dad would think im a devil pretending to be an angel to fucking trick him, and mum would think im an angel pretending to be a devil to fucking trick her. suddenly im fighting my parents. who, idk. whether i recognize them depends on adrendaline and whether I have the necklace. assume i do. then it would be fun if i didnt, and i fought them both for a bit, and when i get my ass beat my mum swoops in for the kill and then goes ‘wHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT’ and grabs the necklace and then, yknow, ~revelations~. because id say i got it from my mum, and she’d be confused, and then my dad would recognize it as the one he took from me and HED be confused. the entire final showdown part after the necklace comes into play is just OOF, my guy.

admittedly at that point im probably aware that both my parents are non-human. my mum is the obvious one, since i have her demon necklace, but i probably find out my dads an angel because he’s been rampaging through the spirit realms after getting briefly captured by Kayli. depending on how that layed it, its possible id actually seen him before and possibly even freed him FROM the half of Kayli Potato that caught him. and he probably played dumb, pretending he didnt know me (for my safety, naturally) and just told me to go home. spirit realm is no place for a human. probably says something that makes it way too obvious he know where i live. maybe he mentioned the bike path slipstream? which, assuming there are multiple ‘slip streams’ like it, implies he knows exactly which one i used to get in and that i live close to it. hence, oops thats my dad, yknow. and plus he’s going on a rampage after that, and if i meet any friendly demons or angels, they likely mention it. an angel would actually be really good for that, and fighting an angel before i fight my dad makes sense as a build up thing. maybe in the middle of a friendly conversation they suddenly spot my demon necklace and go ‘oh no. ohhhhno. where did you get that.’ ‘from my mum?’ ‘your mOTHER?’ ‘yea?’ ‘..... give it to me’ ‘no? its mine?’ ‘i dont think you understand whats at stake her. your mortal soul is in peril’ ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ and then, yknow, some grown ass angel asshole starts trying to beat up a kid for a demon necklace and WHOOPS thats my demonic heritage exposed because oops i just blasted an angel in the facewith demon magic before fucking bolting. and i dont know what i look like, so i cant see the horns, though i likely suddenly become aware of them when i try and find somewhere to sleep and fail to. or when i get out of the spirit realm to sleep and look in a mirror and fuckin shit myself.

the revelations of my parents heritage are a bit awkward because once i know one, the other one gets REAL weird, as a thing to reveal. revealing my dads heritage incidentally is probably the easiest one to do, since angels are probably friendlier to humans. probably. and when i freed my dad, i didnt know about his heritage, and so didnt recognize him (its a place-faces thing). but then, yknow, talk to another angel who tells me to go home because ‘his good buddy is going wild and its not a good time to be here. its never a good time to be here, but especially not now, kid’ ‘why is he going crazy?’ ‘something about his wife? i havent seen him in two decades but i think he married some human woman who has gone missing.’ ‘huh.’

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH anyway that was the dream i had?????? oops