Category: Life

Losing 200 million dollars in bitcoin on your hard drive because you forgot your password: A Marxist interpretation

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bitcoin
Bitcoin only exists digitally. This will only provide a mental image and nothing else.

(Based on a New York Times commenter going by the name of Franz, from Germany):

Bitcoin’s increase in value is quite remarkable – the virtual increase in value is not matched by any actual value.

The generation of the Bitcoin is not a product of human labour, but that of a computer; a large amount of energy was consumed by computers around the world for this reason. As a result, the world climate, to the disadvantage of all, further heated up.

Bitcoin is neither the product of labour nor creative efforts. It is simply created out of nothing and now you lost the password and cannot have it. You see it in on the hard drive in front of you but you can not get it.

I feel sorry for the people who lose their house and belongings in a hurricane or fire, these are usually the product of a lifetime of labour. Sorry, but I can spare little empathy for Bitcoin victims.

As an asside, I think a light bulb joke is in order. Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lighbulb? A: None, because it contains the seeds of its own revolution.

Trendy Google Searches of 2020

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I have heard about Google’s cataloguing their top search terms. They don’t really curate the “top 10” of all time or anything; rather, they divide their search terms into categories. I have discovered something about myself when I saw these lists: I don’t give a shit about most of it. Here is Google’s finger on the world’s pulse for 2020:

  • Top search:  Coronavirus. Celebrities and politicians have been beat out in the search rankings by a submicroscopic, nonliving viral particle. It was also top in the news category also.
  • Top Actor: Tom Hanks was at the top.
  • Top Athlete: Ryan Newman. This NASCAR guy  survived a grisly crash on the last lap of the Daytona 500 back in February.
  • Top Game: Among Us trended after late August.
  • “Top” Recent Deaths: Kobe Bryant, also the third most frequent search term overall.
  • Top Movie: Parasite is at the top. I saw this movie. It’s about how the protagonists, a servant for a rich family lowers their morals continuously to obtain more of their master’s wealth, to the point of murdering their masters. I thought the idea was supposed to be that a parasite doesn’t kill its host. Personally I don’t like movies where you can’t root for the protagonist.
  • Top TV Show: I have no appreciation of television shows. What’s “Tiger King”? Maybe I should Google it. Oh, I see. It’s a show about cat breeding on Netflix.

If you want a meaningful life, quit filling it with glorified lolcat programming like this and actually take on something intellectually challenging, with the TV shut off. In my case, I do  have the TV on as I type this, but it is tuned to a spotify-like music-only station playing smooth jazz. No words. I can concentrate. I seem to have a low tolerance for mindless programming.