April 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Nazi Punk Fuck Off
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

Hitler salutes in lieu of applauding, and generally turned a communal experience into one full of hatred and conflict. https://www.gq.com/story/punks-and-nazis-oral-history

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Situationist Swastika SS
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

Punk svengali Malcolm McLaren was a Marxist Communist and proto Nazbol https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/27/never-mind-swastikas-secret-h…

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Punks not dead
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

It just smells that way Hey is this Batshit Crazy or what? https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/3318/331816_0.jpg?1634210698

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DropGangs: Post and Parcel Delivery Services Fully Monitored [re: WikiLeaks was: FreeAssange.net]
by grarpamp 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

> Guess who had a PO Box next to Wikileaks > > https://www.theage.com.au/national/world-leaders-would-love-the-key-to-this… > > They avoided a drone strike on the university by demolishing the > Melbourne Uni post office voluntarily: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWuKVaT13s > > After they destroyed that, they took out the local pub too: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yCKYW5YUWw The USA USPS takes automated pictures of all items passing through its facilities, OCR them, stores them forever, and gives them away to whoever they like that comes asking. Mail and delivery services worldwide are now doing similar, including requiring and recording government photo ID to send parcels and letters, storing all camera footage, facial, and ALPR logs, of the facilities forever, etc.

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Telegraphing a centralized exchange monero bank run
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

a person called bawdyanarchist wrote on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit. "Any exchange that hasn't disabled withdraws (which many of them have already), we're pulling our funds." That post as of Saturday had been upvoted more than 2,200 times. Bawdyanarchist wrote that Monero's obfuscated ledger technology has made it possible for exchanges to misrepresent reserves and sell XMR that they don't actually hold. Bawdyanarchist said exchanges can do this because they believe most Monero holders won’t seek to withdraw their funds. So now, members of the Monero community appear to be coordinating efforts to withdraw XMR coins from as many exchanges as possible https://decrypt.co/98023/monero-faithful-threaten-bank-run-on-centralized-e…

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The Jew Hating Zombie has risen
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

The evidence that Hitler was a staunch Christian is overwhelming. He banned secular education in Germany on the basis that Christian religious instruction is essential to moral development, repeatedly vilified atheism, and although he often clashed with Catholic bishops over his ill-treatment of Jews, Hitler did not perceive himself as being anti-Christian, but rather as bringing the Church back to what he saw as its proper, traditional role in persecuting the pestilent. While negotiating the Reichskonkordat, Hitler said to Bishop Berning that suppressing Jews was, “doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.” There are numerous other examples, from Mein Kampf (“only fools and criminals would think of abolishing existing religion”), to Hitler’s letters (1941: “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”), to the Gott Mit Uns motto on German army uniforms during the Nazi era, to the Lutheran Church in Berlin, full of carvings celebrating Hitler’s rise to power (including an exquisitely carved SA paramilitary trooper on the baptismal font), to the amended 1934 loyalty oath of the German military (“I swear by almighty God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht…”). Perhaps the most telling Hitler quote of all shows that not only did he believe in God, he believed his racial purity laws would protect God’s creation from spoliation by interbreeding. From Mein Kampf (vol. 2, chapter 2): [H]undreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created? After the Enabling Act of 1933 delivered dictatorial powers to Hitler, one of his first actions was to outlaw atheist and freethinking groups. His public speech, after the fact, boasted that, “we have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” In short, there is overwhelming evidence that Hitler saw himself as a Christian doing God’s work (even if his own church often opposed him), and that he saw atheism as one of many insults to the German nation requiring ruthless suppression. Chris Lawson

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Batshit-Crazy Putin putting the ' Naz ' in " National-Bolshevik "
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

Following former US president Trump’s chummy press conference with his good mate Putin in Helsinki in 2018, David Duke lavished praise on Trump and Putin, believing his wish had come true: “Bravo Trump! Bravo Russia! Russia has values America once had and America the values that Communist Russia had!” Similarly, French far-right leader Eric Zemmour claims Putin “restored the state,” “stepped in as the last defender of the Christians of the East”, “defends national sovereignty, the family and the Orthodox religion”, contrasting this to liberal, multicultural French politics. This may be confusing to some who have recently heard that Putin claims he wants to “de-Nazify” Ukraine Anyone considering taking seriously Putin’s rhetoric about “de-Nazifying” anywhere should read on for a reality check. Contents: Introduction Material basis of Russian imperialism’s alliance with global fascism Alexander Dugin: Putin’s fascist brain The global far-right and Putin Fascism in the Donbass Active global far-right support for Assad Putin, global fascism, Assad and the Israel connection The Ukrainian far-right versus the Russian far-right Impact of the Russian invasion on far-right support for Putin https://mkaradjis.com/2022/04/06/vladimir-putin-can-the-god-of-global-fasci…

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Dialectical materialism Vs Quantum mechanics
by professor rat 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

Before Lysenko and genetics there was Lenin and quantum physics Lenin refutes collapse of wave-function https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/five3.htm Chinese physicists measure speed of Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150207-chinese-physicists-measure-speed…

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Cryptocurrency: CBDC's Doomed, or 1984?
by grarpamp 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed To Fail - And Here's Why https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=br2t2-11fd66f-pb&from=pb6admin&share=1… As central banks including the Fed, the ECB and (of course) the PBOC (along with some 85 others) scramble to roll out their own digital currencies, some naive crypto bros might assume that the financial establishment and the government have completely embraced cryptocurrencies. But as we have pointed out before, this isn't exactly true. The reality is that while they have spoken of 'the financial revolution,' they have only embraced some aspects of cryptocurrency. For example, they have embraced the fact that all transactions on a digital blockchain can be carefully tracked and monitored, assuming they are the ones in control of said blockchain. This deep level of vision and insight would allow centralized financial authorities (like the Fed) to exert unprecedented levels of control over Americans' spending habits. But what impact will the advent of digital currencies have on the dollar's hegemonic status in the global monetary order? Fed expert Jim Bianco offered some very interesting thoughts on this topic during his latest interview with MacroVoices' Erik Townsend, where he offered an interesting prediction. First, Bianco pointed out that many of the central banks that are most advanced in their CBDC projects are members of the emerging and frontier market classifications. As we have noted before, three CBDCs have already gone fully live in the past two years: the so-called DCash in the Eastern Caribbean, the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas and the eNaira in Nigeria (and, of course, the PBOC is making swift progress with its "e-RMB"). One reason why central banks in emerging markets are so eager to accelerate the transition to digital currencies is because many are growing frustrated with the realities of American hegemony. Even the IMF (or at least some of its senior officials) has acknowledged that western sanctions are undermining international faith in the dollar-based monetary system. Here's Bianco, responding to a question from Townsend about a theoretical global monetary system managed by a consortium of central banks and based on a kind if supranational digital currency. So you're seeing the adoption rate, really what's pushing this is Asia, Africa, the Middle East, knowing that they've been at the short end of the stick having not to have access to world capital markets, or to banking services at a reasonable rate. And wanting to have that. That's why you're seeing the adoption of places like in El Salvador, and potentially in Argentina, as well, too. Because they have been shut out of the capital markets, they need the permission of entities like the World Bank, or the IMF to do certain things. They are punished if they do things that displeasures, the first world or the United States, or the IMF, or the World Bank. And so that's why they want some kind of system like that. This shouldn't be a surprise to anybody (at least, not those with at least a base level of understanding of economics). As both Bianco and Townsend point out, the concept of "exorbitant privilege" is nothing new. What you wind up doing is making it fair for the rest of the world because one of the problems the current global financial system has, is it's more of a tiered system that if you're further up the list in the United States is at the top of the list, you get more privileges, better, cheaper financing, better access to markets. As you move further down the list, you get less access, things become more expensive. With this in mind, remember: despite the Fed's best efforts to develop a CBDC of its own, the US would likely do everything in its power to make sure the type of system described by Townsend above - that is, one where control is distributed among various central banks, and not concentrated in the hands of the Fed (and its supplicants) - never comes to be, since that would eliminate the 'exorbitant privilege' of the American economy (and create serious problems as the Treasury would likely be forced to pay higher interest rates on its massive debt). But there's another obstacle to CBDCs: the fact that people remember how the Canadian government treated people who donated to the Canadian Truckers (they were essentially frozen out of the financial system for something that was completely legal and normal). Because of this, they remember how easily the government can exercise control over their lives via their money. So, presumably, millions of people wouldn't be comfortable with central banks exercising even more direct control of the financial system (having wiped out the intermediaries of the banking system due to CBDCs). A central bank, digital currency makes that a lot more efficient. And so you've heard calls in the wake of that incident, that this is going to hurt the adoption of a central bank digital currency. Yes, they may create one. And yes, they might even take on potentially disrupting their banking system. But will people willingly say I want to keep my money with the Federal Reserve. And then one day, they might donate to a group, and remember, this happened with the truckers back in February. That people donated to the truckers, and it was perfectly legal, and it was fine. And then the Canadian government invented a word called retroactive law, that when you donate it in the beginning of February, to these truckers that was perfectly legal and fine. But by the end of February, when we decided that they we didn't like that group, we're gonna go retroactively back and punish you by freezing your account for doing that activity. I don't want to make it easy for them. I don't want to keep my money with a central bank directly in a digital currency. So they've got issues that they have to resolve the issues are not technological issues. The issues are more about control, privacy rights in policy that they have to work through. And so therefore, I think we're still a ways away from seeing a central bank digital currency, because those issues haven't been resolved For this reason, Townsend says, he believes the launch of a Fed CBDC would be "a big flop". And my prediction is CBDCs, issued by central banks will be designed, first of all, to make it much easier for governments to do all sorts of crazy things like freeze people's bank accounts, and, you know, automatically if they say something against the government narrative, as happened in Canada, as you described. And I don't think that they're going to be open to a supranational system. So for that reason, I think what's much more likely is the CBDCs get developed, and they get launched with a big flop, and nobody really cares. And both Townsend and Bianco agree: the biggest obstacles to CBDC is skepticism and reluctance among the end users, since CBDCs will never be designed with the needs and desires of the users in mind (on the contrary, they're being designed in accordance to the rules of the end government). Bianco offered the launch of China's e-RMB as an example: the PBOC literally offered people free money to use it, but the currency came with "all these rules" about how people were required to spend it. As a result, the program wasn't very successful. I absolutely would agree with that. And it's not only the permissioning too, it's the rules too. Just give you one example, in China, they'd have issued a central bank digital currency, a digital yuan. And one of the things that they did with it was, they put on its a bunch of rules that if you actually bought into this currency, you were in to use the crypto version, you are airdropped money, they put extra money in your account. But they put rules on what you could do with the money, you had to spend it in a certain period of time, I think they gave you 30 days. And you had to spend it on certain things, and you couldn't spend it on other things. And even in China, even though they were giving you free money, with all those rules, didn't go over very well. People don't like you know, to have all of those restrictions. This is why there's so much excitement in the decentralized space: because users are inherently excited by the idea of a 'parameter-less' currency, that's beyond the reach of governments and sanctions. The creators want to do it, because they say, good, we could do all these rules and permissions. And we could we can affect behavior by changing the parameters. And the people that would use it say, well, I'd only use it if you left me alone, completely parameterless with it, let me do with it what I want when I want it. And that's why you're seeing people more and more gravitate towards the crypto space that is permissionless, that is decentralized, so no one controls it as well, too. And you're seeing the excitement in the decentralized finance space really starts around what is referred to as stable coins. And a stable coin is just a digital token that is supposed to have its value pegged to something else.

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Project Socrates: Debating Two Ways Of Crypto App Development
by grarpamp 17 Apr '22

17 Apr '22

China Threat Grows As Beijing's 'Tech-Based' Plans Dominate Washington's 'Finances-First' Approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Socrates http://www.michaelsekora.com/ https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/asking-questions-about-chi… Authored by John Mac Ghlionn During the Reagan administration, Michael Sekora helped establish Project Socrates, a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program. The aim of the program was twofold: first, to identify the reasons why the U.S. was struggling to maintain its economic advantage; and second, to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. (Romsvetnik/Shutterstock) In 1979, two years before Reagan became the 40th president of the United States, Sekora had been recruited by the CIA. He worked as an intelligence officer within the Office of Technical Services. He was a physicist by training, having entered the University of Michigan at the age of 15 and then attended Miami University for graduate studies. In 1983, Sekora transferred from the CIA to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Project Socrates was born. Although he and his colleagues at Project Socrates had identified the China threat for Reagan, Sekora told me, and were working on strategies to contain that threat, when President Bush came into office, his administration “abolished Socrates to appease certain allies.” Sekora agreed to answer a few of my questions, and presented his view that the United States is mistakenly focused on finance-based rather than technology-based planning and strategy in addressing the challenge posed by China. Our conversation is presented in an edited form for the sake of length and clarity. The China threat has only grown. Today, Sekora said, China is winning because it is putting strategic technologies first. [It] is executing an offensive/defensive adroit game of worldwide technology exploitation chess. As a result, China will continue to out maneuver the U.S. R&D no matter how much money we spend. That is what has enabled China to become a superpower faster than any country in the history of the world. China’s rise to power is not based on cheap labor, currency manipulation and a little theft of U.S. technology as all the experts maintain. If that was all that China was doing, China would still be only producing hand assembled trinkets, as they did in the 1950s, instead of beating the U.S. in quantum, AI, biotech, et cetera. While he has dealings with Congress, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community, Sekora said he is deeply frustrated by what he sees and hears, because “none of what is being executed or proposed by these organizations has any chance of countering China.” In some cases, he said, the responses proposed will “actually accelerate the decline of the U.S. and the rise of China.” I asked why. Because they are based on some very faulty core assumptions. One is that the U.S. is in an R&D footrace with China. Both sides hunker down in their respective labs to address the “key” technologies and whoever gets to the R&D breakthrough finish line first has the competitive advantage and wins! American leadership believes the way to beat China to the finish line is to spend more money than the opponent, Sekora said. “In actuality, increasing U.S. spending on R&D will increase not decrease or reverse the rate of U.S. decline,” he explained. Of course, that seems rather counterintuitive; I pressed Sekora to clarify. If the U.S. continues to execute its present approach to rebuilding U.S. economic health and military might to remain a superpower and counter China, the U.S. will be a poor debtor nation in a world where China is the sole world superpower, and this will occur in much less than 10 years. The underlying cause is that at the end of WWII, the U.S. began shifting from technology-based planning to finance-based planning. Today, he went on to say, finance-based planning is still pervasive throughout the entire U.S. economy and military ecosystem, from private industry to the Department of Defense and the White House. The difference between the two is that in finance-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is the optimization of the funds,” or how to manipulate money to achieve a financial objective, such as staying within budget. Meanwhile, in technology-based planning, “the foundation of all decision making is exploiting the technology more effectively than the competition/adversaries to generate a true competitive advantage in the marketplace or on the battlefield.” Technology-based planning helped the U.S. became a superpower before WWII, Sekora said, and was also what Japan used after WWII to transform itself into an industrial giant in 20 short years. Our rivals use it, too. “[It’s] what the Soviets used in the Cold War to match the U.S. militarily from a much smaller economic base,” he said. And China, not surprisingly, “has been using it for decades to become a superpower faster than any country in history.” Today, Sekora said, the U.S. uses finance-based planning for economic strength and military might, which forms the basis of our political actions and strength. China, on the other hand, uses technology-based planning. Because of this, he argues, “China will continue on its rise, and the U.S. will continue in its rapid decline.” As is already obvious, Sekora is not optimistic about the chances of success of America’s current strategy. What is the current administration doing wrong? I asked. “A better question is, ‘What is the current administration doing right?'” Sekora said. “Everything that this administration and Congress are doing and proposing is based on finance-based planning.” By focusing on the financial system, the current administration is further enabling China at the expense of the United States. “China can literally neutralize a U.S. multi-billion-dollar R&D initiative for pennies on the dollar,” Sekora said, “while ensuring that they have the competitive advantage on the battlefield or in the marketplace.” Sekora and his colleagues are currently working for the reestablishment of Project Socrates. John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of National Review, New York Post, South China Morning Post, and the Sydney Morning Herald. He can be found on Twitter at @ghlionn.

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