"Broadly, Balik has argued that Sacks and other Silicon Valley investors are in effect running a money laundering ring for the Chinese Communist Party."
Balik's post was an interesting read.
A quick note. I have decided that "articles" are in newspapers, magazines, trade publications (broadly what we can consider CoinDesk), news sites (Vox, The Verge, Arstechnica). But more importantly than the forum, articles have an organization that operates the forum and has more than one author. Anything else--blogs, Medium, Substack--are "posts." I don't like the fact that the word "article" still has more gravitas. But I suspect that will change.
Not because articles have always been and stayed venerable (The Daily Mail technically has "articles" but it's really just a steady job innit?), but because posts have really gone up in comparable quality. Ed Zitron's newsletter/substack is being mentioned quite a bit in social media and aggregator. Ironically, an organization should suggest less susceptibility to influence, as you seemingly need to pay off more than one person to get your agenda. But that's not what happens in practice because of capitalism. When the whole enchilada has a price tag, you do actually only need to pay one person: the seller. Sure, CoinDesk isn't technically owned by Peter Thiel. And CNN is technically beholden to John Malone; it technically has a supposedly-somewhat-liberal CEO that just happens to be a long time acolyte of John Malone. This indirect influence might be the new flavor versus outright-buying moves. Like when Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal. And, yes, when Musk bought Twitter. X doesn't create articles but Musk does seem to want to make lemonade, if not Lemon-ade, out of his sour purchase with in your face deep-fake propaganda. Well, maybe not "deep" fake, but it was definitely blatant and offensive propaganda, and the first dang thing I saw when I logged in after months. Which I only did because crypto /still/ often requires that atrocious technology.
Okay, not a quick note.
Balik's post was interesting because it brought back memories of very openly anti-gay Republicans being found out as being very much closeted gays. It made me think if it is so much that pop psych explanation of projection and self-repulsion after all. Maybe not, methinks.
Another quick note. It annoys me that while that quotation from Hamlet is generally applicable when it is used, most people probably don't realize how it is only losely correct most times, and some people do realize this, and these latter people probably wonder if the former people realize this, and that makes me not want to use the quotation. "Protests" is just making a strong opinion in the original meaning, but a strong opinion against something (common current usage of protest) is still, yes, a strong opinion. It's not like Hamlet is saying the quotation to his mom after she goes on and on about how much she dislikes that she has had to marry his father's brother. It's his mom saying the woman in the play within the play is being too performative in her promises (protests) to never remarry after her husband dies. The basic point of the quote is someone is being too performative contrary to likely true feelings, so it always closely fits, but rarely perfectly in modern usage.
No more quick notes.
Anyway, with the female lesser subject and male primary subject of the post, these dedicated investors in defense technology (i.e they sell really big guns) that protest they hate the CCP... The lady and the dude protest too much, methinks.
With gay-bashing gay-being Republicans, I think a lot of it is presented as causal, i.e. they are gay-bashing because they are secretly gay. And I guess in this case this is presented as causal. They are CCP-bashing because they are secretly CCP. But in both cases, there is the audience to consider.
If these politicians were looking to get elected as mayors of San Francisco as opposed to, say, congressmen of Bible-belt red states, regardless of how open they were of their personal sexuality, it is highly doubtful that they would be going on social media espousing views that could offend potential LGBTQ+ voters. But they are instead trying to get votes from adherents to a religion that where they live is fairly hostile to non-cis-het relationships, to the point where their religious services officiants will pontificate against those relationships more than, you know, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Similarly, the lady and dude are seemingly trying to sell guns to a country that is a direct rival of another country, and seemingly really likes to have guns in case of aggression from said country, or to be fair, towards said country. Though, I doubt the vast majority of the population of either country wants any aggression at all. In fact, that's the crux of it, the gun sellers are not selling to the vast majority of people. They are selling specifically to people who push and receive such rhetoric that we need guns, and we need guns because of "them." Thus the sellers are willing to espouse rhetoric against "them" in social media.
Such pandering does not necessarily mean a closeted gay or closeted Chinese spy. But if your lover releases an erotic video of you... Or your "liquidity provider" puts your investment company on its "partners" page... Well, like I said, it just may not be causal is all. And is the video authentic? Well, seeing as sexual relations between consenting adults of any gender are not a crime--thankfully and so far--I guess it's okay we have no way of knowing (beyond statistical probability based on how many of these stories have come out). But seeing as money laundering is a crime, well, it sure would be nice if there was some sufficiently decentralized/censor-proof distributed ledger technology used to make/record all the transactions. But no, I don't think we have a transparent (block)chain of transactions from the sister of the leader of China to this dude and lady. Alas.
But, to touch point on why maybe orange people touting orange tokens might matter (not that there is anything wrong in aesthetic choices of makeup or iconography): It could be the death knell to many that yet another facet of life that needs not be upon a political divide is nonetheless now upon a political divide. To put it blithely (but I hope respectfully as I am personally proudly pro-LGBTQ+ rights): guns are for red / gays are for blue / but now it seems / not crypto too. Alas.
"Broadly, Balik has argued that Sacks and other Silicon Valley investors are in effect running a money laundering ring for the Chinese Communist Party."
Balik's post was an interesting read.
A quick note. I have decided that "articles" are in newspapers, magazines, trade publications (broadly what we can consider CoinDesk), news sites (Vox, The Verge, Arstechnica). But more importantly than the forum, articles have an organization that operates the forum and has more than one author. Anything else--blogs, Medium, Substack--are "posts." I don't like the fact that the word "article" still has more gravitas. But I suspect that will change.
Not because articles have always been and stayed venerable (The Daily Mail technically has "articles" but it's really just a steady job innit?), but because posts have really gone up in comparable quality. Ed Zitron's newsletter/substack is being mentioned quite a bit in social media and aggregator. Ironically, an organization should suggest less susceptibility to influence, as you seemingly need to pay off more than one person to get your agenda. But that's not what happens in practice because of capitalism. When the whole enchilada has a price tag, you do actually only need to pay one person: the seller. Sure, CoinDesk isn't technically owned by Peter Thiel. And CNN is technically beholden to John Malone; it technically has a supposedly-somewhat-liberal CEO that just happens to be a long time acolyte of John Malone. This indirect influence might be the new flavor versus outright-buying moves. Like when Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal. And, yes, when Musk bought Twitter. X doesn't create articles but Musk does seem to want to make lemonade, if not Lemon-ade, out of his sour purchase with in your face deep-fake propaganda. Well, maybe not "deep" fake, but it was definitely blatant and offensive propaganda, and the first dang thing I saw when I logged in after months. Which I only did because crypto /still/ often requires that atrocious technology.
Okay, not a quick note.
Balik's post was interesting because it brought back memories of very openly anti-gay Republicans being found out as being very much closeted gays. It made me think if it is so much that pop psych explanation of projection and self-repulsion after all. Maybe not, methinks.
Another quick note. It annoys me that while that quotation from Hamlet is generally applicable when it is used, most people probably don't realize how it is only losely correct most times, and some people do realize this, and these latter people probably wonder if the former people realize this, and that makes me not want to use the quotation. "Protests" is just making a strong opinion in the original meaning, but a strong opinion against something (common current usage of protest) is still, yes, a strong opinion. It's not like Hamlet is saying the quotation to his mom after she goes on and on about how much she dislikes that she has had to marry his father's brother. It's his mom saying the woman in the play within the play is being too performative in her promises (protests) to never remarry after her husband dies. The basic point of the quote is someone is being too performative contrary to likely true feelings, so it always closely fits, but rarely perfectly in modern usage.
No more quick notes.
Anyway, with the female lesser subject and male primary subject of the post, these dedicated investors in defense technology (i.e they sell really big guns) that protest they hate the CCP... The lady and the dude protest too much, methinks.
With gay-bashing gay-being Republicans, I think a lot of it is presented as causal, i.e. they are gay-bashing because they are secretly gay. And I guess in this case this is presented as causal. They are CCP-bashing because they are secretly CCP. But in both cases, there is the audience to consider.
If these politicians were looking to get elected as mayors of San Francisco as opposed to, say, congressmen of Bible-belt red states, regardless of how open they were of their personal sexuality, it is highly doubtful that they would be going on social media espousing views that could offend potential LGBTQ+ voters. But they are instead trying to get votes from adherents to a religion that where they live is fairly hostile to non-cis-het relationships, to the point where their religious services officiants will pontificate against those relationships more than, you know, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Similarly, the lady and dude are seemingly trying to sell guns to a country that is a direct rival of another country, and seemingly really likes to have guns in case of aggression from said country, or to be fair, towards said country. Though, I doubt the vast majority of the population of either country wants any aggression at all. In fact, that's the crux of it, the gun sellers are not selling to the vast majority of people. They are selling specifically to people who push and receive such rhetoric that we need guns, and we need guns because of "them." Thus the sellers are willing to espouse rhetoric against "them" in social media.
Such pandering does not necessarily mean a closeted gay or closeted Chinese spy. But if your lover releases an erotic video of you... Or your "liquidity provider" puts your investment company on its "partners" page... Well, like I said, it just may not be causal is all. And is the video authentic? Well, seeing as sexual relations between consenting adults of any gender are not a crime--thankfully and so far--I guess it's okay we have no way of knowing (beyond statistical probability based on how many of these stories have come out). But seeing as money laundering is a crime, well, it sure would be nice if there was some sufficiently decentralized/censor-proof distributed ledger technology used to make/record all the transactions. But no, I don't think we have a transparent (block)chain of transactions from the sister of the leader of China to this dude and lady. Alas.
But, to touch point on why maybe orange people touting orange tokens might matter (not that there is anything wrong in aesthetic choices of makeup or iconography): It could be the death knell to many that yet another facet of life that needs not be upon a political divide is nonetheless now upon a political divide. To put it blithely (but I hope respectfully as I am personally proudly pro-LGBTQ+ rights): guns are for red / gays are for blue / but now it seems / not crypto too. Alas.