#meme regulation units

[duckapus]

So I got the idea that the second batch of MRU universes (the batch that Mega Man Chaos is part of) is going to have all four of them be experimental in some way.

For Mega Man Chaos we obviously have the deliberate split-anchor setup. Though, it's not going to be a 50/50 split like the incidental split Avatars were. Instead each is going to be specifically written with 80% of the code, obviously with an overlap in the extra 30%, because according to the Grid's projections it will theoretically make their universe more stable than average rather than the slight decrease that Cole, Sally and the Arles had to deal with and they want to test that.

Then the second one is Splatoon 3 to see what, if any, effects a fully customizable character becoming the Anchor will have. Yes this will end up bringing in slightly modified versions of my Agent OCs from my Squid Memes AU (basically their names, personalities and designs are the same but I have to remove anything directly tying them to the SMG4 universe).

The third will actually be Super Mario 64, because they want to see how the same game will develop differently as a meme cycle server under different circumstances.

And I still haven't figured out the fourth.

[memenewsdotcom]

@neuralink to test on humans

[frommybookbook]

Earlier today, some friends and I were discussing one of those Star Trek captains memes. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that pit the captains against each other with pithy descriptions that glorify and champion the men and shit on Janeway. The ones where Picard is describe as the wise teacher and scholarly diplomat; Kirk is the brave trailblazer and lovable rogue; Sisko is the take-no-shit commander and more-than-human uniter; Archer is the quick thinking explorer and the avenging do-gooder; Pike is the empathetic Boy Scout and the quippy everyman…and Janeway is an irrational murderer and erratic loose canon. And, as usual, I went on a bit of a rant. They (looking at you @redsesame, @epersonae, and @emi--rose) told me to share it here so, if you trudge through this whole thing, blame them.

Does Janeway make some questionable decisions throughout VOY (Prodigy!Janeway is a different conversation for another time)? Yes, absolutely. But here’s the thing: every captain does. What I still love about her though and will champion until I'm blue in the face is that Janeway owns her decisions more than I think any other captain does.

Picard and Kirk hide behind the Prime Directive a lot. That's the reasoning Picard gives for not interfering in the drug running in “Symbiosis” and leaving the Ornarans trapped in dependence on the abusive Brekkans. His line, “Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous." is a cop-out we hear from him time and time again, especially to Dr. Crusher, as she is the one who most often calls him on his bullshit.

Kirk does the same thing. We still this when he leaves Shanna and the other thralls behind in "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and when he forces Elaan of Troyius into a marriage she clearly doesn't want because it's "for a greater good." And all the while, he's got Spock at his side giving him confirmation bias that he's following regulations.

And Sisko, Sisko makes some of the most horrific and destructive decisions of any captain and uses not only the Prime Directive to fall back on, but he's got the Dominion War to blame. He poisons an entire planet to get back at one man he feels betrayed him in "For the Uniform" and don't even get me started on his actions in "In the Pale Moonlight".

Enterprise is so unjustly shat on by the fandom that I almost hate to bring some of Archer's questionable choices into this conversation but I'm going to do it anyway. Similar to Sisko and the Dominion War, Archer has the threat of the Xindi in his back pocket to excuse some of his worst behavior. If Tuvix is the worst thing people can point to for Janeway, then we have to talk about Archer and Sim, the simbiont created solely to be a living tissue donor for an injured Trip, a procedure that will kill the living, breathing, sentient Sim. Archer orders Sim created against the arguments made by Dr. Phlox. He rationalizes his decision with the same argument for the greater good that we see from all the others. He says to T'Pol before Sim is created "…we've got to complete this mission. Earth needs Enterprise. Enterprise needs Trip. It's as simple as that." And it doesn't end there. When Sim is grown enough for the procedure and has figured out what's going to happen to him, he challenges Archer himself, arguing for his own right to live, and Archer sticks to his guns. This exchange directly between Archer and Sim is haunting.

Archer: I must complete this mission; and to do that, I need Trip. Trip! I'll take whatever steps necessary to save him. Sim: Even if it means killing me? Archer: Even if it means killing you. Sim: You're not a murderer. Archer: Don't make me one.

Not only do all of these captains (except Archer, who arguably writes the damn thing himself at the end of the series) have the Prime Directive to fall back on, they also have Starfleet/the Federation/Vulcan High Council right there on speed dial to validate their choices and hear their excuses and give them another commendation. They all know that ultimately, they can turn to someone higher in command to turn to for help.

Janeway is alone. She is alone with her crew 70,000 lightyears from home with only her training and her own moral compass to guide her. Yes, she claims the Prime Directive a lot but she also goes with what she feels is right and she is clear about that with her crew. When she makes the decision to split Tuvix, despite what everyone else says, she sticks to it and more importantly, does the procedure herself. Picard would have forced Beverly to do it, saying Doctor I gave you an order, your conscience be damned, and Archer does the same to Phlox with Sim, but Janeway takes the tool out of the Doctor's hand and says it's my call, I'll do it. When everyone is angry and mad about her destroying the Caretaker's array, she stands up for her decision and says yes, I did it, because it's what my Starfleet training said to do AND because I think it was the right thing and it's on me to make the hard choices.

She also can admit when she made the wrong decision, which isn't something we see from the other captains. In the season 5 opener, "Night", we see her in a depressive state because she's questioning her decision to effectively strand her crew in the Delta quadrant but she comes out of it when she's reminded by her senior staff that the crew believes in her and trusts her, she should do the same for herself. When the Doctor has a mental crisis in "Latent Image" after questioning his own choice to save the life of Harry Kim over that of another crew member, Janeway admits she did the wrong thing by first deleting his memories of it so he could get back to work and then sits with him for days while he works through it because that's what captains do.

And she does all of this without the backup and support of Starfleet. She doesn't have anyone higher on the chain of command. She's 70,000 miles away from the admiralty and her support system. There's no one higher than her to give her a break from making every decision.

To quote my fellow Missourian Harry Truman, for Janeway the buck stops with her in a way it doesn't for any other captain and she is painfully aware of that and owns that and that is why I love her and she's my captain.

[mariacallous]

The United States government’s leading consumer protection watchdog announced Tuesday the first steps in a plan to crack down on predatory data broker practices that the agency says help fuel scams, violence, and threats to US national security.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is proposing a rule that would allow regulators to police data brokers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a landmark privacy law enacted more than a half century ago. Under the proposal, data brokers would be limited in their ability to sell certain sensitive personal information, including financial data and credit scores, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and addresses. The CFPB says that closing the loopholes allowing data brokers to trade in this data with little to no oversight will benefit vulnerable people and the US as a whole.

“By selling our most sensitive personal data without our knowledge or consent, data brokers can profit by enabling scamming, stalking, and spying,” Rohit Chopra, CFPB’s director, said in a statement. “The CFPB’s proposed rule will curtail these practices that threaten our personal safety and undermine America’s national security.”

Passed in 1970 as the first US privacy law, the FCRA requires “credit reporting agencies” to adhere to certain standards of accuracy and privacy in their dealing with people’s financial information, including credit histories, credit scores, debt payment histories, and other related data. The CFPB’s proposal aims to treat data brokers like credit reporting agencies when they deal in this sensitive data. It would require data brokers to obtain “separate, explicit authorization” before acquiring or sharing people’s credit information, rather than burying these permissions in expansive legal documents that surveys show are often unread or impossible for the average person to parse.

In a conversation with reporters on Monday, Chopra pointed to the recent attacks on US telecommunications systems, which the government has attributed to China, to emphasize the value of personal data to the nation's foreign rivals. “But often, our adversaries don't need to hack anything,” he says. “Data brokers, the outfits that collect and sell detailed information about our personal and financial lives, are making this data available to anyone willing to pay a price.”

The action proposed by the CFPB is aimed, Chopra says, at stopping data brokers from “enabling scammers, stalkers and spies undermining our personal safety and America's national security.”

The CFPB’s idea of using existing US law to regulate data brokers is not novel. In February 2023, a group of consumer-focused nonprofits urged Chopra to enforce the powers the FCRA affords regulators to prevent data brokers from engaging in these potentially damaging practices.

“Protecting the personal information of all people in the US is increasingly urgent in our current political climate,” says Laura Rivera, attorney with Just Futures Law, a nonprofit that supports grassroots activists. “The stakes are too high to continue to let the data broker industry sell our information at their discretion, where the status quo has made it ripe for abuse and targeting from harmful actors.”

In a briefing with WIRED on Monday, CFPB officials declined to comment on whether they believe the regulatory action will be short lived, as president-elect Donald Trump plans to empower a number of Silicon Valley figures to reorganize the federal government with the aim of targeting “waste and fraud.”

Elon Musk, who is coleading an office named after a meme coin—the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—directly attacked the CFPB's work last week, calling for the agency to be “deleted.” Musk's remarks followed an attack on the agency's work by Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, who claimed on a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that the agency is “terrorizing” banking startups.

The CFBP was founded in 2011 with the aim of protecting consumers from the kinds of fraud and abuse that kicked off the 2008 financial crisis.

A CFPB official tells WIRED that the agency is also concerned about data being transmitted in ways that companies allege protects people's identities but in reality can be "de-anonymized" in simple ways, as studies have repeatedly shown. "As technology advances, we surmise that it will be even easier to de-mask purportedly de-identified data," one official said. The proposed rule thus includes a range of guidelines for credit reporting agencies involved in selling data they alleged has been de-identified.

Asked whether the proposal would extend to US government agencies, an official says that US law sets forth "very clear pathways" for the government to purchase personally identifying data for law enforcement and intelligence purposes. In a recent case, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement was discovered by reporters to have purchased access to the personal data of Americans in an attempt to investigate immigrants—data acquired by the media conglomerate Thomson Reuters, which it provided to custeroms in contracts the company disclosed were worth more than $100 million. (Thomson Reuters previously denied that the purpose of the data is to track undocumented immigrants and has emphasized that its database does not contain information that normally requires a search warrant to access.)

“We are not disrupting any of those pathways,” a CFPB official says. The agency is requesting comment, however, on the potential impacts of such government purchases to ensure that access is “appropriate.”

Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of corporate power at the nonprofit advocacy group Demand Progress’s Education Fund, commended the CFPB’s proposal and urged the incoming Trump administration to see it through.

“The CFPB is doing something important that will resonate with every single American. Anyone you pick off the street can tell you about the daily scam texts, emails and calls they receive from fraudsters who easily buy our contact information from shady, unaccountable data brokers,” Peterson-Cassin says. “Finally, someone—specifically the CFPB—has stepped in to stop this daily plague affecting hundreds of millions of people by applying real standards to their sale of our sensitive information.”

[cyberpunkonline]

The Untamed Web: How Internet Culture Rebels, Evolves, and Defines Our Digital Age

What is Internet culture? The question drifts through the ether like a rogue signal, elusive and captivating. To untangle this web, we must trace its lineage back to its inception, a digital genesis rooted in the analog rituals of Deadheads in the 70s. Much like those dedicated followers of the Grateful Dead, early Internet denizens sought connection and community, but instead of tapes and stories, they shared bytes and bits in mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups. Here, intellectuals, hackers, and rebels mingled in a digital potluck of ideas, raw and unfiltered.

As the dial-up tones gave way to the persistent hum of a growing network, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) emerged as the heartbeat of this underground culture. Real-time interaction became the new frontier, a global speakeasy where minds met in channels dedicated to everything imaginable. This wasn't just idle chat; it was a crucible for innovation and rebellion. Hacking groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Legion of Doom pushed the limits of technology and legality, shaping the Internet in their anarchic image.

Then came vaporwave, the eerie soundtrack of a digital dystopia. This genre, with its nostalgic echoes of the 80s and 90s, felt like the Internet itself was creating music. Vaporwave artists like MACINTOSH PLUS crafted tracks that were both haunting and familiar, resonating with those disillusioned by the encroaching corporatization of digital spaces. It was a sonic rebellion, an aural middle finger to the commercialization of the Internet.

Memes, those viral fragments of culture, became the lifeblood of this digital underground. From the early days of "All Your Base Are Belong to Us," a quirky mistranslation from the game Zero Wing, to the complex narratives of modern memes, these digital artifacts spread like wildfire, uniting and dividing communities in equal measure. The tragicomic saga of Harambe, the gorilla shot at the Cincinnati Zoo, turned into a meme that evolved into a cultural phenomenon and even inspired a cryptocurrency in his legacy. Memes are the modern folklore, ever-evolving and reflective of the current digital zeitgeist.

At its core, Internet underground culture embodies the cyberpunk ethos—an unyielding rebellion against corporate overlords, a fight for digital freedom and privacy. Piracy, casual hacking, and the rise of cryptocurrency are not just acts of defiance but declarations of identity. This culture stands in stark opposition to corporatism, advocating for the decentralization of information and power. The emergence of decentralized networks and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are testaments to this ongoing struggle for autonomy.

Influences of Discordianism, with its embrace of chaos and rejection of traditional structures, permeate this culture. The Internet thrives on disruption, finding beauty in the unpredictable and the chaotic. It's a digital frontier where order is constantly challenged, and chaos is celebrated.

Politicians view Internet culture with a mix of fascination and fear. The concept of an "ungovernable" digital populace is both an ideal and a nightmare. Early Internet pioneers dreamed of a decentralized, unregulated space where freedom reigned supreme. However, as the Internet has grown, so too have efforts to control it. Governments impose regulations, corporations seek to monetize it, and the original vision of an ungovernable digital utopia becomes harder to live. Yet, pockets of resistance remain, where the spirit of rebellion and the desire for autonomy continue to thrive.

But like any culture, it has a dual nature. The democratization of information and the global connections fostered by Internet culture are profound positives. Yet, the same platforms that unite can also incubate hate speech and cybercrime. It is a reflection of humanity itself, with its myriad facets of light and dark.

So, what is Internet culture in 2024? It is a digital rebellion, a chaotic blend of nostalgia, anti-corporatism, and radical freedom of expression that continues to shape and redefine the digital landscape. In one sentence: Internet culture is the chaotic digital tapestry woven from the threads of rebellion, nostalgia, and the relentless pursuit of freedom.

We seek resistance. It begins with the maintainance of the culture.

[gold-rhine]

Sorry, I meant the genshin vision holders. Maybe it is just me, but the whole idea of ontologically special people that stand apart bc their ambitions are special and 'normal' people could never compare just... feels iffy even though a part of it can be justified by selling characters for gacha.

tbh i cant agree. first of all, they are not framed as "ontologically special people", bc like its very strongly shown that like anyone can get a vision. its not hsr where you need to be "noticed by aoen" or be chosen one by the prophecy. in genshin, you can be a cat who wants to work in uber or a cook who wants to use fucked up ingriedients, its about finding purpose you want to apply yourself to and its aligning with one of the elements.

second, the only real advantage you get is in combat. like i dont think we have any storylines where ppl without visions were disadvantaged by people with visions. we do have the opposite with vision hunt in inazuma, but its not organized by ppl without visions, its organized by raiden, and ppl with or without visions are united against it. and "npc impact" is a meme bc a lot of quest actually center visionless npcs and focus on their stories instead of playable characters with visions.

third, visions are by lore a tool used by celestia to help regulate elements and harvest energy from people with visions, so they are more of utility tool and not like objecively special princess mark. and we have many playable characters who dont have visions, like cloud retainer can manipulate energy bc shes a magical bird, and neuvi is straight up offended by the idea of even faking having a vision. i.e. visions are not treated as a sign of being better than others.

tldr, i think that concept of visions could go horribly, but it depends on execution, and genshin simply does not have storylines of hating common people the way hsr does. im open to hear examples if you have them tho

[radiosummons]

Real talk: Does the Jedi Order have a tax exempt status?

I know it's somewhat of a meme to make jokes about how the Jedi don't know how to pay taxes, or rather questioning whether they get paid or make any income at all. And, yes, this question is kinda dumb in the sense that whether the Jedi Order has tax exempt status or not, it doesn't effect the over all story or any actual SW lore in any way that actually matters.

I also know that tax exempt status works differently in other countries besides the US (yes, hello, I am American. I hate it here, too). But for the sake of taking this very dumb question at face value, would the Jedi Order:

1) Count as a religious institution in the eyes of Republic law?

2) If so, would their status as a religious institution have any impact on whether they attained tax exempt status from the Republic?

3) What standards and regulations would the Republic IRS have in place regarding tax exemption?

4) Do the Jedi even have an accounting department?

I would peronally argue that, yes, the Jedi Order is in fact a religious institution. On the account of the obvious connection to the Force and heavily coded (if not just downright) religious practices that the Jedi follow.

However, even if the Republic were to grant the Jedi Order the status of a lawfully recognized religious institution, I'm not sure if this would actually lead to them a guaranteed tax exempt status.

According to United States IRS standards and regulations, the Jedi Order could and would also be seen as a religious institution. However, one of the biggest stipulations for retaining tax exempt status is that the religious institution does not attempt to or make any influence on legislative or attempt to influence political campaigns.

(Palpatine voice: Ironic).

Now, if the Republic had similar stipulations, I would argue that, no, the Jedi do not get tax exemption. Mostly because one of the longest known duties associated with the Jedi Order is their role in assisting with galactic diplomacy. It would be literally impossible for them to not get involved in some capacity, especially when their aid is often directly requested (whether by a Republic aligned planet or not).

That being said, this is all going by the standards of the IRS. And at the risk of sounding too jaded, there are hundreds if not outright thousands of religious institutions in the US that should have lost their tax exempt status decades ago. And yet ....

Obviously, this all ultimately depends on what standards the Republic would theoretically have in place for situations like this. And while I would never actually want George Lucas--or any other writer for that matter--to attempt to give us a canon answer, I can't help but wonder.

Even if the Jedi Order was completely self-reliant--which I personally don't think is possible due to them, well, living on Coruscant for thousands of years-just as an example. It just doesn't make sense to me that the Jedi would limit themselves to only what they make in house when they could have easy access to other local businesses, ya know?--whose to say that they wouldn't still be required to pay for taxes like regular citizens?

The Jedi Temple, again, has literally been there for thousands of years. I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that the Republic wouldn't have sent their own SW IRS agent at least once to audit the Jedi Order.

I honestly wouldn't even be surprised if that Jedi Order would be given a slight form of tax exemption, but only if certain conditions were met. Like, I don't know, what if an official member of the local Coruscantii/Republic government were to make a direct request for the aid of the Jedi. Maybe they'd get a tax write off for all the transportation and housing (or vehicular damage) they'd acrue while on this government sponsored mission?

Or what about this? Business institutions in the US get tax write offs for charitable donations (which the fuckers exploit to hell and back, fuck me). I have to wonder if there was a point in time (maybe the early years of the ye Old Republic) where someone had to bring up the fact that a lot of what the Jedi do could count fall under charitable tax deductions. So if they wanted to continue taxing the Jedi Order, they'd probably have to change up the definition or something.

Idk, man, I'm sort of spit balling random thoughts at this point.

I'd also like to say that I believe the Jedi do, in fact, have an accounting department. Just to keep thing running smoothly in regards to the Temple budget and so on. It would be kinda hard to keep a place that big with that many occupants still around and for that long without having someone keeping a close eye on the Order's spending.

Mostly, though, I just find the idea of the Jedi being audited absolutely hilarious.

[madsworld15]

Why Queer as Folk (2000) Was Seemingly Forgotten

An analysis by a professional TV Critic

Let me start off by saying the initial run of Queer as Folk and its current resurgence can be represented by this mantra by Brian Kinney: There are two kinds of straight people. The ones who hate you to your back and the ones who hate you to your face.

The initial run of QAF coincides with the first half of the statement: hate behind your back.

So, recently I started thinking about how in the early 2000s, Queer as Folk seemed to be on a trajectory of going down in TV history. Then, seemingly just as quickly, people stopped talking about it. So much so that by the time I finished watching it in 2009, I only got a few good months of chatter on social media platforms (Twitter mostly) with other fans before it just stopped being talked about in a wide-reaching manner.

I will even admit that I stopped thinking about the show not long after that and wasn't reminded of its full impact on my psyche until late last year when it was back on easy-access streaming due to Showtime's merge with Paramount+.

But why is it that this show is only just now starting to pick up speed again? (I'm talking fan cams on TikTok, memes, etc.)

I have some theories about all of this, so buckle in.

To really get a grasp of what Queer as Folk was working against when it aired on Showtime -- a paid subscription channel back before the days of an overabundance of streaming services, you have to look at the climate we were living in. Also, how inaccessible a paid TV channel was for most people.

So, in the early 2000s, life in the United States, and probably the world, but I'm not fully educated enough to comment on that, wasn't the greatest for those in the LGBT+ community. It would be years before the President of the United States would pass legislation that Gay Marriage be legal nationwide.

Employers were able to fire people for being gay, and the employees couldn't fight it. Gay parents had very little in terms of rights to their own children; in fact, some couldn't even adopt the kids they wanted to because there were no laws against discrimination.

All of these things are depicted left and right throughout Queer as Folk, with Ted getting fired from his job, Michael being extremely closeted at his job, and Melanie not being afforded rights to Gus because of adoption regulations during that time.

So, for our community to receive a show that was by us for us, we were overjoyed. There was something so resolutely refreshing about the unapologetic manner in which these characters were allowed to present themselves and live their lives. And while the show gets dinged today for its lack of racial diversity, we were glad to see queer people represented in a variety of ways -- we got to see the Emmett's and Justin's of the world being friends with the Ted's and Michael's and Brian's.

Not only that, these characters got to love who they wanted, however, they wanted, and whenever they wanted. Characters like Michael and Emmett could go from wanting to freely fuck whoever to finding that special person and settling down. We got to see Ted find the right guy at the wrong time over and over and over again until it was finally the right guy at the right time.

But most of all, we got to see a character like Brian, who, in the hands of a straight person, might've actually gone "soft" and "domestic" just by being with Justin. Instead, we got to see him never change his opinion about what he wanted, but still finding love in his own way.

However, not long after the show ended (like around 2008), the climate in the United States started to shift more towards open acceptance of the queer community. So, people stopped needing an escape from the hardships of real life because things seemed to be on an upward trend toward love and equality. Therefore, Queer as Folk sort of fell off the radar of viewers because we didn't want more of the gritty, complicated, messy queer stories. We wanted our stories to be happy and lighthearted.

(Keep in mind I am speaking in terms of general viewers. There are always exceptions to the rule)

Then, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, and suddenly, it was totally okay for people to openly mock us and hate us.

This is where the resurgence of QAF falls into the second half of Brian's mantra: hate us to our face.

Around 2016/2017, people started talking about this show again. And the love and fervor for it has only increased exponentially over the last few years, especially with the onset of COVID-19 and the merging of Showtime/Paramount+. Both events made the public more aware and able to access the show.

Now more than ever, we need something that isn't afraid to show queer people as we are, not as the media and those outside our community paint us. We need to feel like there is a media format that understands what we are like when we are with our closest friends. We say things that, in today's world, would probably get us canceled, and we judge those around us and have very biased opinions about certain people.

Brian Kinney's unapologetic "I am who I am and fuck anyone who tries to change me" attitude is the exact level of strength and courage we wished more people right now had. His biased, but not illogical, opinion of non-queers needs to be loud. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops because we now live in a world where we are hated just for existing as we are.

Even our rights that had been given to us just a decade ago are being stripped away from us once more. So, the fight for love and equality continues, and the hope that Queer as Folk gives us is important now more than ever.

So, people are seeking this story out and are begging others in the world to watch it and understand that we have always been here. We've always been these flawed but loving characters. We deserve to be heard.

In 2022, Peacock tried its best to create a redo of the series but failed miserably. But why? If we are desperately looking for queer media that is gritty, unapologetic, and real, then why didn't we latch onto this latest iteration?

The answer is simple. This new version was great at creating a more diverse image of the characters created for the Showtime series but failed to understand that recreating things almost note for note with entirely new characters isn't what we want.

It would've been better if the show stuck to broad-stroke themes and made these characters and their experiences their own. Queer today is different than queer in the early 2000s, just like queer in the 2000s was different than queer in the 1980s. Trying to put queer 2000s stories into a queer 2020s world isn't going to work.

We need to embrace this resurgence of Queer as Folk (2000) and give it the love and attention it should've always had. Perhaps finally giving its rightful due in the eyes of the history of queer media. Does it have its issues as the world changes? Absolutely, but we also can't sit here and deny the insane level of impact this show had on the queer media we now know and love.

We wouldn't have casually queer shows like Schitt's Creek, Heartstopper, and Our Flag Means Death if Queer as Folk hadn't broken down our walls and made us realize that we can demand stories for queer people by queer people.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Rupa Subramanya

Published: Mar 6, 2024

One of the first things you learn—or should learn—in Civics 101 is that there is no freedom at all without freedom of expression. Free speech is the essential freedom from which our other rights flow. It’s a right that we have taken for granted in the West. 

But a new wave of hate speech laws has changed that. In English-speaking countries with long traditions of free expression—countries like Canada, Britain, and Ireland—this most basic freedom is under attack. 

Take Canada. Civil liberties groups north of the border are warning a new bill put forward by Justin Trudeau’s government will introduce “draconian penalties” that risk chilling free speech. How draconian? The law would allow authorities to place a Canadian citizen under house arrest if that person is suspected to commit a future hate crime—even if they have not already done so. The legislation also increases the maximum penalty for advocating genocide from five years to life.

These punishments depend on a hazy definition of hate that Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, executive director and general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has warned could blur the line between “political activism, passionate debate, and offensive speech.” 

The proposed law is in keeping with the Trudeau government’s broader hostility to free expression. I’ve reported before for The Free Press on this censorious turn in my country, from the crackdown on the trucker protesters to the backdoor regulation of online speech. And, testifying before the U.S. Congress in November, I urged Americans to treat Canada’s war on free expression as a cautionary tale. Increasingly, though, what’s true of Canada is true across the English-speaking world. 

In Ireland, the government is pressing ahead with controversial new restrictions of online speech that, if passed, would be among the most stringent in the Western world. 

The proposed legislation would criminalize the act of “inciting hatred” against individuals or groups based on specified “protected characteristics” like race, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. The definition of incitement is so broad as to include “recklessly encouraging” other people to hate or cause harm “because of your views” or opinions. In other words, intent doesn’t matter. Nor would it matter if you actually posted the “reckless” content. Merely being in possession of that content—say, in a text message, or in a meme stored on your iPhone—could land you a fine of as much as €5,000 ($5,422) or up to 12 months in prison, or both. 

As with Canada’s proposed law, the Irish legislation rests on a murky definition of hate. But Ireland’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee sees this lack of clarity as a strength. “On the strong advice of the Office of the Attorney General, we have not sought to limit the definition of the widely understood concept of ‘hatred’ beyond its ordinary and everyday meaning,” she explained. “I am advised that defining it further at this juncture could risk prosecutions collapsing and victims being denied justice.” 

In Britain, existing online harm legislation means that tweeting “transwomen are men” can lead to a knock on the door from the cops. Now the governing Conservative Party is under pressure to adopt a broad definition of Islamophobia as a “type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” 

Other parties have adopted this definition, and free-speech advocates in Britain worry that it is only a matter of time until a Labour-run government codifies the definition into legislation. To do so, they argue, would mean the introduction of a de facto blasphemy law in Britain. 

These growing restrictions on speech across the Anglosphere are making the United States, with its robust First Amendment protection of speech, an outlier—though not for the Biden administration’s lack of trying. 

In April 2022, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of a “Disinformation Governance Board” to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” There was an immediate pushback from free-speech advocates, who pointed to the obvious fact that this new body would necessarily impinge on protected First Amendment rights. The administration dropped the idea a few months later. 

Then, in September 2023, a federal court ruled that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment when they “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” during the pandemic. 

Jay Bhattacharya was one of the scientists on the winning side of that case. Writing in The Free Press after the ruling, he recalled being grilled on the First Amendment during his citizenship test when he was nineteen. “The American civic religion has the right to free speech as the core of its liturgy,” he wrote. “I never imagined that there would come a time when an American government would think of violating this right, or that I would be its target.” 

The trouble isn’t just the Biden administration. 

Listen to Barbara McQuade, an MSNBC legal analyst and professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Her new book, Attack from Within, details “how disinformation is sabotaging America.” America’s “deep commitment to free speech in our First Amendment. . . makes us vulnerable to claims [that] anything we want to do related to speech is censorship,” said McQuade in an interview with Rachel Maddow last week. 

A worrying number of Americans appear to be sympathetic to McQuade’s argument. A 2023 Pew survey found that just 42 percent of voters agreed that “freedom of information should be protected, even if it means false information can be published.” 

McQuade has it backward. The First Amendment is a feature, not a bug; a strength, not a vulnerability; and the bedrock of American freedom and flourishing. 

Across the English-speaking world, we once took our civil liberties for granted. Freedom of speech was understood as a blessing of democracy, not something that needed to be fought for every day. We thought that opaque and vague laws were used by those in power to punish their political or ideological opponents only in illiberal autocracies such as Russia or China. But we were wrong. And those now fighting censorship in Canada, or Britain, or Ireland, wish they had a First Amendment of their own to fall back on. 

==

Calls for censorship always come from those in power to silence dissent.

You're not supposed to notice that although they're doing it in the name of - and using the language of - "victimhood," those calling for censorship and restriction of speech are the ones who hold power from that claim to victimhood.

[contemplatingoutlander]

I'm so tired of my peers on the left who DON'T know what "socialism" is and who consequently inadvertently feed into right-wing disinformation about socialism.

Apparently Simon Donald who wrote the above meme doesn't know what "socialism" is and neither does the OP of this post @rickmctumbleface.

However, they also apparently don't know how "communism"--as it is practiced today in mainland China--has evolved, or they wouldn't have posted this:

Communism - nobody can be rich.

As Statista reports:

According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2023, China housed the highest number of billionaires worldwide in 2023. In detail, there were 969 billionaires living in China. By comparison, 691 billionaires resided in the United States. India, Germany, and the United Kingdom were also the homes of a significant number of billionaires that year. [color emphasis added]

So "communism," as it is practiced today in China, allows for some free enterprise, capitalism, and wealth accumulation. My guess is Marx would be turning in his grave if he knew what was happening there.

Back to "socialism." Here is a basic definition of "socialism" from the Google English Dictionary (i.e., Oxford Languages):

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. [color emphasis added]

The problem is that when many Americans talk about "socialism" (like they do in the above post) they are actually talking about "social democracy" which is a movement to reform and regulate capitalism, and provide a basic safety net, without the goal of eventually abolishing the capitalist system. This fits with the above post's definition of "anybody can be rich but nobody should be poor."

These Americans are also generally not even talking about "democratic socialism," which can be temporarily reformist in similar ways, but which ultimately hopes there will be a transition to full socialism, where basically no one is rich, but no one is poor.

Consequently, when some people on the American left (who are in fact "social democrats") proudly proclaim they are "socialists," they feed into the fears that the right wing spreads that they are actually "socialists" who want to abolish capitalism and take over all the means of production.

This confusion allows the right to get away with absurdly proclaiming that the U.S. Democratic Party is "socialist," as is Joe Biden. I mean Joe Biden? Seriously?

If you don't believe me about how even the most left-wing American politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are NOT "socialists," read this article by Annalisa Merelli:

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Sanders, who describes himself as a “democratic socialist,” provides fuel to Trump’s rants against a socialist takeover of America. But despite the longstanding negative connotations of socialism—and its powerful effect in halting social reforms such as universal health coverage—the senator from Vermont doesn’t seem too concerned about the effect a socialist label can have on his campaign or proposals. While it might not sound as dramatic, what Sanders is isn’t a socialist—democratic or otherwise—it’s a social democrat. Social democracy is a reformist approach that doesn’t do away with capitalism in its entirety (as, instead, socialism eventually suggests) but instead regulates it, providing public services and substantial welfare within the frame of an essentially market-led economy. Other leftist politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also fall into this camp. [...] The Democratic Socialists of America describe their proposals as social democratic, essentially using the two labels interchangeably, advocating that social democratic reform “must now happen at the international level” and using northern European countries as references for their vision. This seems inaccurate, however, and feeds the misunderstanding Trump is banking on. Democratic socialism does not pursue a model like Finland, for instance, which has not done away with capitalist ways of production or a private market. The key difference between democratic socialism and social democracy is precisely that the former advocates for social ownership of the means of production, and does not believe in reforms within capitalism (although it does support temporary social democratic actions), but in a revolution of the system. The platform Sanders is running on is reformist, and what he is proposing is a US that looks much more like Canada, or Europe—which certainly are not socialist nations. Whether he believes that the end goal is beyond what Europe has achieved (and the history of his political beliefs suggests so), he still isn’t proposing an actual revolution (not within his lifetime, at least) and should just label himself accordingly. [color emphasis added]

So, my fellow people on the left, please don't arrogantly define political economic systems that you don't understand. You are giving the far right political ammunition against us.

[edited]

[duckapus]

(5/11/24: edited because I was looking through stuff and realized at some point I'd forgotten to start from 0 when counting the MRUs)

"Emulation is stable. Trinity is online. Drive inserted. Ready to install on your command, sir."

"Proceed."

"Yes director. Uploading mod... now."

"...Upload is progressing smoothly. Time until Activation estimated at 3 minutes."

"Excellent. Hopefully there are no complications."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Great Sky Island

It's a beautiful morning here among the clouds. The Forest Ostriches graze. The Chu Chus slosh along between the trees in search of prey. The temple's bell chimes, prompting the Steward Constructs to resume their work. And far below, the people of Hyrule stir as well, preparing to go about their days.

None of them have any idea of the madness that is to come.

Far above even the highest Sky Island, a mysterious object appears, hurtling down like a meteorite. As it falls it becomes clear that its current path will bring it down directly on top of the Temple of Time.

Soon enough it arrives with a monumental CRASH, yet the Temple remains intact, with the object simply embedding itself into the flat roof. Said object appears to be a silver flash drive, monolithic in scale, with a strange circular symbol painted in orange on the front. A few moments later, a robotic voice calls out.

"Uploading the latest Spicy Memes."

A wave of blue energy pulses out from the drive, traveling across all of Hyrule in seconds, causing anyone it touches to behave strangely and leaving a variety of bizarre people and creatures in its wake. Not done, lighting arcs out from it, causing the temple itself to glow and then emit beams of light in seemingly random directions. Wherever these beams end, a portal is formed, each with a past version of Hyrule on the other side. One bolt of electricity from the drive happens to graze a nearby fairy, causing it to jitter in place and rapidly shift between various colors while spamming Navi voicelines.

Eventually the light show ends, and the drive's front opens to reveal a man with brown hair and eyes who looks otherwise identical to Link (pre-arm loss) wearing an orange version of the Hero of Time Armor Set.

"Hey, what is up every...body?" he looks around, realizing that he's completely alone, "Uh...anybody home?"

As if in answer, the out-of-control fairy careens into his face, still spouting random voicelines. He's initially freaked out, but quickly gets an idea and ducks back into the clearly-bigger-on-the-inside flash drive, coming back with a video camera and a laptop. Within a few minutes he's filmed the fairy and edited the resulting video into a Carameldansen Rave Meme, which he then uploads to the internet (the digital multiverse's internet. much like SMG8 the technological limitations of living in a medieval fantasy setting prevent him from uploading within his actual universe).

Soon after, a flash of light pulses out from the fairy, and their color settles on a deep blue despite the fact that all of the BotW/TotK fairies are supposed to be pale pink. Their flight has calmed down significantly, and they're not saying random voicelines anymore.

They are, however, still talking...sort of, "WwwOOw tHaAAAAaat zuuUc- IIiiII1!iizzzzthhhhaAat7tmeE33ee?"

"...da fuk."

"HhhOoOolLlLlDddDDiIiIiIiiiIIIIti11111igoO0oddafffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffiIigYYyyiuuuooouuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrthIs outwaitokayisthisrightnotoo f a s t a l m ost got it! Okay, testing, testing, do you read me now?" She still sounds synthetic, but at least now she's coherent.

"...Yeah?" 'the fuck just happened?'

"Sweet. Now, my name's Loni. Who the hell are you and what did your weird-ass ship thing do to me?"

"Oh, I'm MRU1, a Meme Regulation Unit! It's my job to keep the universe stable by posting about all the memes my Command Pod uploaded and protecting... the..." He suddenly goes wide-eyed and runs off, "Oh shit I've gotta find my Anchor!"

Unfortunately, there's a certain problem with that, as he realizes when he reaches the edge of the roof, "Uh...that's a pretty long way down."

"Yep."

"...and it's even further to the actual not-flying ground."

"Sure looks like it."

"...is there like a ladder or..."

"LOL no. Sucks to be you dude."

"goddamnit"

[misfitwashere]

Trump's crypto-ligarchy

It will blow up in his face — and possibly take the financial system with it

ROBERT REICH

JAN 27

Friends,

As of Friday, the Trumps’ cryptocurrency meme coins — the $TRUMP and $MELANIA cryptocurrency coins — had a combined market value of about $6 billion. 

Days before taking the oath of office, Trump announced on his social media platform the creation of the $TRUMP coin, featuring Trump’s image from the July assassination attempt, and said: “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!” 

The $MELANIA coin soon followed. 

Despite no details about the coin’s value, use, or risks, Trump supporters. gamblers, and those wishing to suck up to Trump bought it — sending the coin’s price into the stratosphere. On paper, the Trump family is now several billion dollars richer. 

Trump once denounced crypto, but as the crypto industry poured tens of millions of dollars into 2024 campaigns, he changed his mind. Not only did he see the political power of the crypto industry; he saw an opportunity to make a pile of money. 

He then promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.” 

In September, the Trump family started World Liberty Financial, which they marketed as a platform to facilitate borrowing and lending in digital currencies. (Trump receives a cut of the sales of WLFI, the cryptocurrency associated with the platform.)

Now that he’s taken office, Trump plans to make billions off his presidency by implementing policies that favor crypto.

The truth about crypto

Cryptocurrencies serve no useful purpose other than the purchase of other crypto assets, money laundering, extortion and scams. As economist Paul Krugman has said, their market value rests on nothing but “technobabble and libertarian derp.” 

They also use huge amounts of energy. 

And if they infiltrate Wall Street, they could destabilize the entire financial system. 

The crypto industry has a dubious reputation. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, was last year sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud. Changpeng Zhao, founder of a rival exchange, has spent four months locked up for money-laundering.

But the richest people in America with huge power — the oligarchy, including Trump — support cryptocurrencies. Not only can they make a fortune, but crypto advances their longterm aim of shifting financial controls out of a democratically elected system of government and into their own hands.

Trump II and crypto

Now that he’s president, Trump is actively promoting crypto — reversing Biden’s attempts to prevent the crypto industry from infiltrating Wall Street. 

Biden’s tight rules made it prohibitively expensive for banks to hold digital assets on behalf of clients, and stopped them from developing their own crypto products, such as stablecoins (tokens pegged to the dollar or other assets). 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a watchdog, stopped dozens of such projects on the basis that it did not know how digital assets ought to be treated in regulatory filings. 

With Trump, though, banks and the crypto industry are now pushing in the same direction, and face little resistance. New and enormously profitable forms of risk-taking are emerging — for a small group of people able to take such risks and able (like the Trump family) to profit of their own crypto products. 

Trump is putting crypto-friendly people into place at key federal agencies, boosting its prospects. In December, he picked Washington lawyer Paul Atkins, a known crypto booster, to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, America’s main financial regulator.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission altered its guidance so that financial institutions no longer have to account, on their own balance-sheets, for crypto assets held on behalf of customers. The S,E.C. rolled back accounting guidance that had deterred banks from getting involved with crypto.

Trump has tapped the venture investor and digital currency enthusiast David Sacks to oversee administration policies on crypto (and artificial intelligence). 

Then, this past Thursday, Trump issued an executive order committing the Trump administration to “protecting and promoting” the crypto industry:

“The digital asset industry plays a crucial role in innovation and economic development in the United States, as well as our nation’s international leadership. It is therefore the policy of my administration to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets.”

The order gives his administration authority to establish a national cryptocurrency stockpile — a stash of digital coins that the crypto industry has spent months lobbying the new administration for because it further legitimizes crypto and adds to the demand for it. 

Trump’s order also prohibits the creation of a “central bank digital currency,” overseen by the government. And the order promises “fair and open access to banking services” for crypto (responding to complaints from crypto companies that banks have denied them accounts). 

In effect, Trump is writing the rules for a business venture from which he and his family are personally profiting. It could earn them hundreds of billions of dollars.

If you’re outraged by this, fine. You’re probably outraged by a large number of things Trump has done since January 20. 

The larger picture

The real significance of such blatant profiteering off the highest office in the land is what it reveals — not just about Trump but about the entire oligarchic enterprise he fronts for. It is likely to contribute to a vast wave of public alarm and disgust. 

Just as Elon Musk is demonstrating how huge wealth can create enormous personal political power, Trump is demonstrating how enormous personal political power can create huge wealth. 

Musk sank a quartet of a billion dollars into electing Trump, and was rewarded with a key spot as director of the so-called department of government efficiency, or DOGE (Dogecoin, itself a cypto token, has benefited from Musk’s vocal support) — creating vast conflicts of interest over crypto and Musk’s myriad businesses (X, SpaceX, and Tesla, which are regulated by federal agencies and also major government contractors). 

This dynamic — great power creating huge wealth, and huge wealth creating great power — is central to the oligarchic takeover of America.And both are premised on the corruption of democracy. 

Any wealthy person, corporation, or foreign leader wishing to curry favor with Trump now has a particularly easy means — just buy $TRUMP and $MELANIA cryptocurrency tokens.

The corruption will grow worse because neither Trump nor Musk has any sense of limits. Nor do any of the oligarchs surrounding them, such as David Sacks, who Trump picked to oversee his administration’s policies on crypto and artificial intelligence.

Like Musk, Sachs serves as a "special government employee,” which does not require Senate confirmation or full financial disclosure, and allows Sacks to maintain his business interests while influencing policy. Expect more conflicts of interest. 

As crypto and banking begin to merge, bank deposits will become more vulnerable to movements in the crypto market, and banks more vulnerable to runs. That’s what happened at Silvergate and Signature, two crypto-focused banks which collapsed in 2023. Both were broken by a tumble in cryptocurrency prices that began in late 2021 and then reverberations from FTX’s collapse.

The biggest beneficiaries of all this are the highest rollers — the oligarchs who have been pushing crypto for years. And now Trump is in on it and stands to personally gain billions, as will those seeking to curry his favor by buying his coin. 

The endgame

The American public doesn’t abide flagrant self-dealing. We don’t want public officials personally profiting by decisions that are supposed to be made in the public’s interest.

You may be thinking: “But Trump has been profiteering for years off his presidency, as have members of his family. And they’ve gotten away with it.” 

True, but what’s happening now is much bigger and far more visible. It involves an entire industry (crypto), and conspicuous members of the American oligarchy who are investing in it, including the President and officials around him. 

And it’s inherently risky. For oligarchs, the rise of digital finance provides large moneymaking opportunities. But for the rest of us, it increases the risk of another financial crisis. 

Unbound greed combined with unconstrained power is an explosive combination. When the blowup comes, it will take Trump, Musk, and the oligarchy with it.

[caspi2305]

Bitcoin at $100,000? Trump rally sends crypto past $80,000 mark

Bitcoin Price today: The largest and oldest crypto asset scaled new highs since the announcement of the US elections and the bullish momentum has pushed it above $81,000 mark. Bitcoin has been surging higher ever since the outcome of US election, where the Republican Party's Donald Trump will be swearing in as the 47th president of the United States. The largest and oldest crypto asset scaled new highs since the announcement of the US elections and the bullish momentum has pushed it above $81,000 mark.

Bitcoin nears $80,000 in weekend surge after Donald Trump’s return to the White House 

Jefferies shares views on the comeback kid Trump, animal spirits, bond yields, Bitcoin, gold & stocks

US Elections: Bitcoin surges past $75,000; here’s what Trump's victory could mean for crypto world According to the data from Coinmarketcap, Bitcoin rose nearly 6.25 per cent in the last 24 hours to $81,858.29 in the early Asian trading hours. The largest crypto assets total market capitalization has neared $1.7 trillion mark, thanks to the 20 per cent rise in the digital asset in the last one week. In the past week, Bitcoin surged from $67,000 to $79,900, breaking multiple all-time highs following Trump’s US presidential victory. Ethereum followed the same trend, said Edul Patel, co-founder and CEO at Mudrex. He sees steady ETF inflows, rising global liquidity, a positive economic outlook, recent rate cuts, and regulatory support as the key factors in the latest crypto rally.

Bitcoin has surged to $80,000, marking a major milestone that highlights its resilience and growing acceptance in global finance, said Balaji Srihari, Business Head, CoinSwitch.

"We have large institutional investors accumulating Bitcoin and offering it as an asset to customers in the form of ETFs, a positive regulatory environment and several innovative projects ready for take off. It's the perfect set up for a bull cycle," he said.

The recently elected US president Donald Trump has presented himself as a staunch crypto supporter on multiple occasions. His win is seen as a big positive by the crypto industry in terms of validation and regulation. On the other hand, institutional inflows have been moving from gold to Bitcoin, said the industry participants. Bitcoin’s rally towards $80k indicates a resurgence of confidence in the crypto market, fueled by solid fundamentals, said Sumit Gupta, co-founder at CoinDCX. "With growing institutional interest, reflected in increased investments through Bitcoin ETFs and clearer regulatory guidelines, Bitcoin is solidifying its 'digital gold moniker," he said.

If regulatory frameworks become more crypto-friendly, we may witness broader institutional adoption and a positive impact on the entire digital asset ecosystem, potentially marking the end of the crypto winter, Gupta said. The global crypto market capitalization was up by about 5 per cent in the last 24 hours to $2.79 trillion level, the Coinmarketcap data suggests. The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours has seen a rise of as much as 106 per cent at $230.05 billion, while Bitcoin's dominance in the total marketcap of crypto assets is up marginally, inching toward the 58 per cent mark. Not just Bitcoin, Elon Musk-backed Dogecoin has zoomed nearly 30 per cent in the 24 hours. The meme-token, which is the sixth most valued cryptocurrency globally, has nearly doubled its value in the last one week. The total market capitalization of Dogecoin has soared above $43.25 billion.

Known for his favorable stance on cryptocurrency and financial innovation, Trump’s win has raised expectations for a more supportive regulatory environment for digital assets, said Himanshu Maradiya, Founder and Chairman at CIFDAQ. "This peak underscores Bitcoin's expanding role within global finance, capturing interest across sectors and signaling future prospects." Srihari from CoinSwitch said that the trading volumes on their platform have risen by 350 per cent since the election results on a weekly basis. "As the market gains momentum, it's important for investors to stay vigilant and informed about factors that could influence price stability," he said. Among other crypto assets Cronos, Floki Inu, Shiba Inu rallied 18-28 per cent in the last 24-hours. Top tokens like Solana, XRP, Cardano, Tron and Avalanche rallied 4-10 per cent in the last 24 hours. To recall, 14-year old Bitcoin has rallied nearly 16,80,04,056 per cent or 16.80 lakh times from its all time low hit on July 15, 2010.

Patel from Mudrex expects Bitcoin to hit $100,000 market in the coming weeks due to increasing retail participation since the last few sessions signals a strong bull run going forward. "Strong momentum in the top two coins could also trigger a rally in the altcoins setting stage for further rally in the crypto market," he said. The $100,000 mark is indeed the next significant psychological target for Bitcoin said Gupta from CoinDCX. The homegrown exchange recently appointed former Indian Cricketer and current head coach Gautam Gambhir as their brand ambassador.

"As the market matures and regulatory support grows, we may see a surge in interest across both Bitcoin and altcoins. Such tailwinds, paired with Bitcoin’s fundamentals, point to a strong possibility of Bitcoin achieving this milestone, reinforcing its status as a key asset in diversified portfolios," he said.

CIFDAQ#BITCOIN#CRYPTOINVESTING#BLOCKCHAIN#WEB3COMMUNITY  

www.cifdaq.com

[mariacallous]

The price of bitcoin went over $100,000 for a few hours on Dec. 5, peaking at $103,400. The financial press can’t resist constructing a hand-waving story of market forces, so bitcoin going past $100,000 has been attributed to a market reaction to President-elect Donald Trump’s lining up a slate of pro-cryptocurrency cabinet, advisory, and regulatory picks after the crypto industry put more money into funding Republican candidates in this last election cycle than anyone had previously put into an election in history.

But crypto trading is thin and almost entirely unregulated—perfect conditions for commodity market manipulation. The public image of cryptocurrency is still shaped by the 2023 trial of Sam Bankman-Fried of the failed FTX crypto exchange, culminating in his conviction—and not to mention the hangover from the NFT fiasco. Crypto is seen as the domain of cheap scammers. Ordinary people are not flocking into crypto.

Coincident with the bitcoin price news was the collapse of the Hawk Tuah crypto token. Haliey Welch, who told an oral sex joke that went viral on YouTube, leveraged her momentary fame into a career as an influencer and podcaster. This culminated in the meme-coin cryptocurrency $HAWK, marketed entirely on amusement value, which crashed on launch in what looked very like a pump-and-dump—tokens were dumped on ordinary buyers soon after launch, crashing the price.

Welch denied that insiders had dumped her token and blamed automated snipers who bought the token the moment it was released, then dumped immediately. The Hawk Tuah-token fiasco only strengthened crypto’s image as a place where fools lose their money being foolish.

The price of bitcoin has recovered since the November 2021 peak of the last bubble—but actual-dollar retail trading volumes have not. Coinbase’s retail trading volumes are $127 billion so far in 2024—much better than 2023’s $75 billion, but nothing like the 2021 bubble’s $545 billion.

Bitcoin remains a strangely useless asset that doesn’t do anything. All you can do with it is buy, sell, or hold. The only use for cryptocurrency other than pure zero-sum speculation is bitcoin’s original use case: evading regulations, most often for illegal purchases, money laundering, or dodging sanctions. One might be justified in evading some regulations in some cases—but most are there for good reason.

The largest actual-U.S.-dollar crypto exchange is Coinbase. But price discovery takes place at the venue with the largest trading volume: the offshore exchange Binance. This exchange admitted a string of money laundering offenses in 2023, was fined over $4 billion, and was placed under stringent compliance monitoring by the U.S. Department of Justice and FinCEN.

But the Binance trading floor itself remains an unregulated free-for-all as long as U.S. entities are not caught trading there. Every market manipulation that would be illegal in the United States happens at Binance and similar unregulated, offshore floating crypto casinos—wash trading, flash crashes, delayed settlements, spoofing, and the exchange trading against its own customers.

Bitcoin trading volume is substantially against two dubious U.S.-dollar stablecoins: tether and FDUSD. These are minted in round billions at a time. It is frankly not plausible that anyone put billions of U.S. dollars into tethers or FDUSD to buy bitcoins on an offshore exchange with above-board intentions. They could have just used the money to buy bitcoins directly at a U.S.-dollar crypto exchange or, safest of all, to buy bitcoin ETF shares from any securities broker. The purpose of buying billions of tethers is to manipulate the price of bitcoin.

Each stablecoin is supposedly backed by a U.S. dollar held in a bank account—except when it isn’t. Tether Inc. has long created tethers out of thin air as loans, with the listed backing asset being the loan itself. Banks do this, too, but banks are regulated. Eighteen billion tethers have been created just since Trump’s election on Nov. 5, bringing the total issuance to 135 billion. How far could you pump the price of bitcoin with 18 billion instant pseudo-dollars?

The other use case for tethers is crime. Zeke Faux’s Number Go Up details the value of tethers as a dollar substitute for those too crooked to get dollars—it’s the favored currency for “pig-butchering” romance scams run by human traffickers. The U.K. National Crime Authority and the U.S. Treasury recently cracked an international money-laundering ring that used tethers to serve drug dealers, ransomware groups, Russian espionage operations, and sanctioned entities; the NCA called tether, not bitcoin, the “cryptocurrency du jour.” The news of the bust came out just before bitcoin hit $100,000. Tether-fueled bitcoin pumps seem to coincide with bad news mentioning tethers.

Tether Inc. is sensitive to the criminal use case for its coin and frequently freezes tainted tethers on the requests of the Office of Foreign Assets Control and FinCEN—but only after the fact. This requires Tether Inc.’s operations to be much more organized than they have been previously—such as during the years when the reserve was tracked, not in proper accounts but in a shared spreadsheet that was often out of date. Despite its compliance efforts, Tether Inc. is the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation by the Manhattan office of the Southern District of New York into possible anti-money-laundering and sanctions failures.

Tether Inc. has worked to mend its reputation in the corridors of power. The company does not operate in the United States, but it does keep much of the cash portion of its reserve in U.S. Treasury bills. These are custodied by Cantor Fitzgerald, whose CEO, Howard Lutnick, wanted to become Trump’s new Treasury secretary and will be brought in for commerce. Cantor Fitzgerald recently bought a share in Tether Inc.

After the crypto industry’s success with directing unheard-of quantities of campaign funding to the cause of electing Trump, we should anticipate further such attempts to curry favor. The Trump family’s own crypto project, World Liberty Financial, was set to fail until crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, proprietor of offshore crypto exchange HTX, dived in and bought $30 million of its WLFI coin—taking World Liberty over the threshold so Trump would get a $15 million payout from the project.

Sun is given to flashy stunts, like purchasing Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana artwork Comedian (with cryptocurrency) and then eating the banana on stage. These give the media something to talk about other than Sun’s legal and regulatory issues, most recently the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s ongoing suit against Sun for securities violations. Sun looks forward to a more “friendly” U.S. crypto market under the new administration, with the pro-crypto Paul Atkins as Trump’s planned SEC chair.

One of the greatest channels for payback to his crypto allies may be Trump’s proposal at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in June for a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve, apparently on the basis that the nation needs a store of this speculative commodity largely used for crime. Trump originally proposed that the government hold onto bitcoins that had been seized as proceeds of crime, rather than sell them off.

The current proposal to bolster crypto is Senator Cynthia Lummis’ Bitcoin Act of 2024, in which the Treasury and the Federal Reserve would buy 200,000 bitcoins each year for five years. The U.S. government would become the bitcoin holder of last resort, and the beneficiaries would be the crypto industry—and not ordinary Americans.

The incoming U.S. administration wants to clear “experts” from the bureaucracy. If the incoming executive branch wants crypto to operate freely, it will do its best to force crypto through and remove all possible impediments. Crypto’s perennial issues with fraud and impoverishing retail investors, and regulator’s fears of the risk of contagion from crypto to the wider economy, are likely to be glossed over so as to ensure market opportunities for administration insiders.

But in the end, gravity still works, and a balloon can be inflated only so much. The bitcoin bubble is an artifact of market manipulation and has no more economic substance than the Hawk Tuah coin does. The U.S. government may be ripe for plunder, but other nations need to take steps to shield themselves from the impact of rug-pulling on a global scale.

[casper0510]

Bitcoin at $100,000? Trump rally sends crypto past $80,000 mark

Bitcoin Price today: The largest and oldest crypto asset scaled new highs since the announcement of the US elections and the bullish momentum has pushed it above $81,000 mark. Bitcoin has been surging higher ever since the outcome of US election, where the Republican Party's Donald Trump will be swearing in as the 47th president of the United States. The largest and oldest crypto asset scaled new highs since the announcement of the US elections and the bullish momentum has pushed it above $81,000 mark.

Bitcoin nears $80,000 in weekend surge after Donald Trump’s return to the White House 

Jefferies shares views on the comeback kid Trump, animal spirits, bond yields, Bitcoin, gold & stocks

US Elections: Bitcoin surges past $75,000; here’s what Trump's victory could mean for crypto world According to the data from Coinmarketcap, Bitcoin rose nearly 6.25 per cent in the last 24 hours to $81,858.29 in the early Asian trading hours. The largest crypto assets total market capitalization has neared $1.7 trillion mark, thanks to the 20 per cent rise in the digital asset in the last one week. In the past week, Bitcoin surged from $67,000 to $79,900, breaking multiple all-time highs following Trump’s US presidential victory. Ethereum followed the same trend, said Edul Patel, co-founder and CEO at Mudrex. He sees steady ETF inflows, rising global liquidity, a positive economic outlook, recent rate cuts, and regulatory support as the key factors in the latest crypto rally.

Bitcoin has surged to $80,000, marking a major milestone that highlights its resilience and growing acceptance in global finance, said Balaji Srihari, Business Head, CoinSwitch. "We have large institutional investors accumulating Bitcoin and offering it as an asset to customers in the form of ETFs, a positive regulatory environment and several innovative projects ready for take off. It's the perfect set up for a bull cycle," he said.

The recently elected US president Donald Trump has presented himself as a staunch crypto supporter on multiple occasions. His win is seen as a big positive by the crypto industry in terms of validation and regulation. On the other hand, institutional inflows have been moving from gold to Bitcoin, said the industry participants. Bitcoin’s rally towards $80k indicates a resurgence of confidence in the crypto market, fueled by solid fundamentals, said Sumit Gupta, co-founder at CoinDCX. "With growing institutional interest, reflected in increased investments through Bitcoin ETFs and clearer regulatory guidelines, Bitcoin is solidifying its 'digital gold moniker," he said. If regulatory frameworks become more crypto-friendly, we may witness broader institutional adoption and a positive impact on the entire digital asset ecosystem, potentially marking the end of the crypto winter, Gupta said. The global crypto market capitalization was up by about 5 per cent in the last 24 hours to $2.79 trillion level, the Coinmarketcap data suggests. The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours has seen a rise of as much as 106 per cent at $230.05 billion, while Bitcoin's dominance in the total marketcap of crypto assets is up marginally, inching toward the 58 per cent mark. Not just Bitcoin, Elon Musk-backed Dogecoin has zoomed nearly 30 per cent in the 24 hours. The meme-token, which is the sixth most valued cryptocurrency globally, has nearly doubled its value in the last one week. The total market capitalization of Dogecoin has soared above $43.25 billion. Known for his favorable stance on cryptocurrency and financial innovation, Trump’s win has raised expectations for a more supportive regulatory environment for digital assets, said Himanshu Maradiya, Founder and Chairman at CIFDAQ. "This peak underscores Bitcoin's expanding role within global finance, capturing interest across sectors and signaling future prospects." Srihari from CoinSwitch said that the trading volumes on their platform have risen by 350 per cent since the election results on a weekly basis. "As the market gains momentum, it's important for investors to stay vigilant and informed about factors that could influence price stability," he said. Among other crypto assets Cronos, Floki Inu, Shiba Inu rallied 18-28 per cent in the last 24-hours. Top tokens like Solana, XRP, Cardano, Tron and Avalanche rallied 4-10 per cent in the last 24 hours. To recall, 14-year old Bitcoin has rallied nearly 16,80,04,056 per cent or 16.80 lakh times from its all time low hit on July 15, 2010. Patel from Mudrex expects Bitcoin to hit $100,000 market in the coming weeks due to increasing retail participation since the last few sessions signals a strong bull run going forward. "Strong momentum in the top two coins could also trigger a rally in the altcoins setting stage for further rally in the crypto market," he said. The $100,000 mark is indeed the next significant psychological target for Bitcoin said Gupta from CoinDCX. The homegrown exchange recently appointed former Indian Cricketer and current head coach Gautam Gambhir as their brand ambassador. "As the market matures and regulatory support grows, we may see a surge in interest across both Bitcoin and altcoins. Such tailwinds, paired with Bitcoin’s fundamentals, point to a strong possibility of Bitcoin achieving this milestone, reinforcing its status as a key asset in diversified portfolios," he said. https://www.businesstoday.in/crypto/token/story/bitcoin-at-100000-trump-rally-sends-crypto-past-80000-mark-453251-2024-11-11

#CIFDAQ#BITCOIN#CRYPTOINVESTING#BLOCKCHAIN#WEB3COMMUNITY  

www.cifdaq.com

[akalimbratic]

Ok ngl the absurdity of 2025 already is genuinely comical if you look at it through a TV show lense.

My explanation below the cut

We opened up in 2016 where the generic villain (and I'm not even making this up, Donald was so hated and mocked that movies DID base their evil ceos off of him) rules over the country before the people prevailed in 2020 at the start of a plague plot. (🎶I sent the pestilence and plague into your house into your bed🎶), and it became a show about surviving that.

About 3/4ths into the 2024 season we get the a beacon of hope to step in and start rallying the people together, things look absolutely fantastic as we get closer and closer to election day.

And then, ✨️ plot twist ✨️, the big bad wins! We don't know why or how, but he wins!

Aaand immediately starts breaking promises btw. Like things started going downhill FAST. People get violent, the world's on fire (literally, my heart goes out to those affected by the fires /gen), it's like hell itself opened up.

TikTok goes down, the one media the united states didn't regulate, indicating that by this point the government is already silencing the people because the big bad evil guy signed the order for it to happen before his first defeat. Then it's back up in 12 HOURS thanking the man who took it down in the first place before he's even president. Like??? Okay so Tiktok's ban was politically motivated, plot twist 2. I mean big whoop really, roses are red the sky is blue and I sincerely hope people remain Xiaohongshu cause the memes are funny and it's great seeing two cultures create community with each other.

BUT IT GETS BETTER/MORE ABSURD.

DONALD DORK STARTS MONOLOGING IN HIS VICTORY RALLY JANUARY 19TH. I watched Luke Beasley's video on it and 5 minutes in, this dude admits the evil plan and says (I'm paraphrasing), "..2026 2028 I'm not gonna be your president anymore, and then they rigged it. And we won." LIKE??? DUDE??? He also went on to comment how good with the evil tech bro (who we were ALL clowning on) is with computers and how due to that fact, they won Pennsylvania by a landslide.

AND THERE WAS FORESHADOWING

•Trump alluding to a secret with Mike johnson

•billionaires dumping so much money into his campaign (they don't just do that unless they know the winning horse)

•"I don't need your votes"

•Elon Musks starlinks were attached to the voting booths

•People reporting their votes never got counted

•Ballots being tossed in the woods

•How the count came in so quickly

•calls from Russia that they tried sweeping under the rug

•Russian bomb threats in major polling locations

AND MORE

I'm cackling. You cannot make this shit up-- EXCEPT YOU CAN. I AND MANY OTHER WRITERS HAVE LITERALLY WRITTEN THIS. THIS IS HOW I'D FORESHADOW A TWIST LIKE THIS ONE.

I am just.

I am that. I am that guy. I was that guy after the election results came in the next morning, I was that guy as people also got started getting suspicious and I began to rub my braincells together in hopes a thought would occur.

So we fast forward to inauguration day, and my god did the directors do ARCANE levels of symbolism. Flags half-staffed at his crowning because we lost a great man (and of course he bitched about it online), it's the coldest day of the year, his wife wearing a god damn funeral outfit, things are still on fire and NOBODY is happy. He didn't even put his hand on the Bible, like you couldn't even do that? If this was in a show, I'd be analyzing every frame, every line of dialog, every episode because this would be a MASTERPIECE if it was just fiction.

But oh, my friends, does this recent episode get delicious.

Because the god damn tech bro boyfriend henchman, threw up the Nazi salute. THE WRITERS ARE BRINGING BACK THAT OLD PLOTLINE. ONE OF THE MOST INFAMOUS MEN IN HISTORY IS COMING BACK IN CULT FORM, BABY! I feel like we're living through castlevania's season 2 here!

But, craziness aside, you know what I will give the writers a good handshake for?

Community.

Throughout this entire mess, there's always been community. When Donvict got elected governors rallied against him and began putting protections in place, they're not afraid to stand up to him. When the fires were raging, while he was making fun of it, Mexico sent firefighters for us, and I cannot thank them enough.

Leaders around the world rallied against us and continued standing up to him, when Donald toyed with the idea of buying Greenland the Prime Minister declined, but said something along the lines of; "we'll happily take some states off your hands and give your people what they need though.", and so much more. World Leaders have our backs, and even the people within. I've seen countless comments from other countries talking about how they weep with us, but are by our side. There's love, community, and we aren't left completely alone.

Even within the United States, there is love and community. The people are not afraid of this man, going as far as to protest outside at the Lincoln Memorial.

Not to mention, when we thought TikTok would be banned people moved to Xiaohongshu. You know what happened? Community. From what I heard, Chinese and American folks are striving to learn each other's languages to talk to each other easier, they ask questions about culture, make jokes, etc. Community.

Jokes, memes, we're all making those aren't we? "If I don't laugh I will cry" you know. Songs and other forms of art just to put a smile on someone's face in this harrowing time. We hadn't stopped creating, stopped sharing, stopped loving. We're afraid, very afraid. But we're together.

We can't forget that, and if this tale goes as I hope it does, that togetherness will ultimately be what saves us all.

So, yeah. The absurdity of 2024 and 2025, looking at it through a writer's lense, it's already one hell of a ride.