Paragone
@Paragone@lemmy.world
- Comment on Is cryptocurrency good for anything? 1 week ago:
I asked gemini to find it…
Apparently it was in 2 simultaneous interview-publications, by different sites…
don’t know why I’ve got memory of it being video, instead of text, but here’s the answer I got:
While Gabe Newell definitely made those blunt remarks, you are actually remembering a text-based print interview rather than a video clip.
In late February 2022, during the media press tour for the launch of the Steam Deck, Gabe Newell did a series of one-on-one interviews where he addressed Valve’s ban on NFTs and why they stopped accepting Bitcoin back in 2017.
The specific quote you are thinking of comes from two parallel interviews published on the same day:
1. The Interview with PC Gamer
When discussing the nightmare of accepting Bitcoin on Steam, Newell focused heavily on the sheer volume of bad actors:
"The problem is that a lot of the actors who are in that space are not people you want interacting with your customers. We had problems when we started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option. 50 per cent of those transactions were fraudulent, which is a mind-boggling number. These were customers we didn’t want to have."
2. The Interview with Rock Paper Shotgun
In a companion interview published simultaneously, he used almost the exact phrasing from your memory when talking about the NFT and blockchain crowd:
"The people in the space, though, tend to be involved in a lot of criminal activity and a lot of sketchy behaviours… With the actors that are currently in this NFT space, they’re just not people you really are wanting to be doing business with."
Why is there no video?
Because these outlets sat down with Gabe in private press rooms to gather quotes for written feature articles, no official video or audio of these specific exchanges was broadcast.
If you remember seeing or hearing it, you likely watched a video from a gaming news channel (like YongYea, Inside Gaming, or IGN) or a TikTok/YouTube Short where a narrator read Gabe’s text quotes out loud over gameplay footage or B-roll of Newell.
He didn’t hold back, but he did it via the power of the written word!
So, now you’ve got both explicit-quotes, AND 2 independent sources-for-that-interview.
I hope that’s good-enough.
I’m not digging into it any more.
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- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 1 week ago:
Downvote everything I say, & fewer people will see it polluting their-world, right?
It costs you little to do it…
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- Comment on How can I learn to estimate the likelihood of real-world events? 1 week ago:
Sorry, neither do I: must have been either tired, or otherwise-stupider…
There are 2 probable intents:
- getting swathes of reddit being produced by LLM’s prove LLM’s untrustworthiness.
&
- LLM’s getting their training partly by ingesting reddit, proves their untrustworthiness.
number-2 is the only 1 that makes sense to my instinct, but I’m sorry I totally-borked the idea-to-typing job.
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- Comment on White House: Trump's Alleged 2006 Call to Palm Beach Police Chief 'Cracks' Establishment's Epstein Narrative on POTUS 1 week ago:
There was 1 girl who “bit the shit out of” Trump’s penis, iirc, she was 13 or so…
I read that in a highlighted-by-someone excerpt.
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- Comment on Is cryptocurrency good for anything? 1 week ago:
The owner of Valve, I don’t remember his name, old round guy with a grey beard, stated exactly what I said, on video.
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- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 1 week ago:
We fundamentally-disagree, then:
I hold that the product isn’t currently-dependent-on the person/entity that made it.
Argument-by-analogy isn’t straw-man, either.
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- Comment on The way this egg peels in infuriating 1 week ago:
Good: downvote everything I’ve said, that you ever see, to make the world better for all.
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- Comment on Why is stack overflow so horrible? 1 week ago:
Feel free to downvote anything you see I’ve said, as a means of improving the world.
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- Comment on Child’s school updated the uniform policy 1 week ago:
Translating from thoughtshapes to nested-groups-of-words is hard-enough with them…
I wish I had multiple-levels of them…
It’s like trying to translate chemistry to atoms, without being allowed to depict molecules: bullshit inaccuracy.
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- Comment on References: [1] out of his ass 2 weeks ago:
I’ve been insisting this for years:
it eradicates the bullshit of hyperinflation being required to smooth the CMB,
it explains why gravity’s sooo weak, compared with the contained-within-this-3d-space forces, like electromagnitism,
it explains why there exist galaxies of dark-matter which don’t have any conventional-matter,
it explains why there exist galaxies of conventional-matter which don’t have any dark-matter.
The gravity’s diffusing through MANY 3D-spaces, not just ours.
the other forces are contained-within-this-3D-space.
Therefore OUR gravity is “dark matter” in other 3D-spaces, too.
The smoothing-of-the-CMB is simple: instead of 1x 3D-space having hyperinflation, there are thousands of 3D-spaces ( or zillions: whatever the math says matches ), & EACH of them inflated at speed-of-light or less, not at zillions-of-times-c.
The painting-method called “glazing” is essentially the same idea:
da Vince used many many thin layers of paint, to make ultra-smooth tones…
the many-many-many-3D-spaces all “underlying” each-other smoothes-out the gravity among them all, so local-lumpiness simply isn’t a significant part of the equation, as it would appear.
Part of this is on the E = speed-of-gravity * mass * speed-of-light, though, so it’s arithmetically identical to the conventional E=mc^2 rendition,
but would gravity & light both be traveling at the same mps speed through say a 100km of quartz?
XOR would the refractive-index be different for gravity & light?
That structural difference is what the speed-of-gravity * mass * speed-of-light variant was trying to show.
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- Comment on Child’s school updated the uniform policy 3 weeks ago:
It can make it much more difficult for drug-dealers, or other creeps, to be on the schoolgrounds: they’re too obvious, with the uniform-requirement.
The only reason I know about that, was a principal identified it, some years ago.
I’d never have thought of it…
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- Comment on Child’s school updated the uniform policy 3 weeks ago:
The motivation of the head of that school … looks fundamentally-wrong.
However, there actually-is a valid reason for school-uniforms:
a principal of a school who’d had problems keeping drug-dealers off the playground, told the world that with school-uniforms, it is easy to see who shouldn’t be on the grounds.
Otherwise, you can’t.
the whole business of proving-insitutional-importance through abusing all who are subject-to-the-institution, though, that’s just middle-class/upper-middle-class bullying.
Avoid capital-cities if that bugs you: they’re made of it.
Do ranked-lists of the problems facing the school, get input from other parents, & do it for each dimension that’s pertinent.
Make it obvious that this institutional-ego forcing-others’-expendatures bullying isn’t what ought be the school’s priority.
The problem is that it’s sociopolitical: it’s the schoolboard who’s got leverage, and … they’re almost-certainly of the same ilk.
Which means that you’d really need to get them replaced, in order to get this school-head replaced…
Whatever, don’t give-up, push even if the results seem insignificant ( the habit-of-pushing is itself worth something meaningful ), & I hope you get progress.
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- Comment on How do I remove bird poop from cement and/or metal surfaces? 1 month ago:
Bird-urine is white, their poo is brown/dark.
Washing-soda or baking-soda ( & if kids are going to be playing on it, or someone’s going to be picnicking on it ) in a weak HE-laundry-detergent solution.
( urine is acidic: the alkali in the washing-soda or baking-soda neutralizes it )
scrub/soak
then rinse.
hth.
- Comment on You know how some medications numbs your emotions... so what happens if you're on those medications and you receive news of a close family member dying, do you like... not have any emotions over it? 1 month ago:
Correct about being dead-inside, on some of those chemicals.
Mind-you, sometimes medication is the currently-right-answer, but I find psychiatry’s devotion to a perpetually-medicated population to be the wrong paradigm.
IF medication’s required, THEN can it be made to be not required, in the future, through engineered-healing, somehow??
That isn’t how Western medicine worked, when I was engaging with it ( I’m autistic, then a brain-injury survivor, & spent much of many days catatonic, for years, late last century ).
When you’re zonked on their drugs, though, you’re zonked, & it affects you consistently-enough that good cops’ll figure-out that you’re medically-drugged probably without even having to ask.
I remember seeing a newspaper photo of an arrested murderer-suspect, & immediately thought: zonked on antidepressant ______ … & then when I read the article, yeah, they were.
Going up against neurological-damage … COSTS one, but … depends on the person, you know?
Some’d rather die than live drugged ( me ), & others just want life to be easier…
Please understand this, though: alcohol & marijuana both can produce the same result.
There used to be a subreddit called r/leaves which was people who wanted to be living again, instead of deadened the way THC does…
( & all the people who pretend that THC “helps” autism, no, it hides the symptoms it doesn’t help reduce the problem and they don’t care: marijuana-cult is a cult, as I was forced to learn, some years ago )
It isn’t only pharmaceuticals which produce the effect you’re asking about…
hell, sometimes trauma can obliterate a person’s emotional-functioning!
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- Comment on Y'all ever have intrusive thoughts about accidentally dropping stuff in storm drains? (particulary when you have your phone out) And like if that happens, wtf is someone supposed to do? 1 month ago:
IF your unconscious-mind is playing that kind of game, AND you give-in to it, THEN it gets stronger, in its subjugation of your life to its bullying.
Give it NO ground, & don’t budge on that.
All your life, if required.
The people who give-in to their unconscious-ignorance’s ordering them to murder people, because they felt if they just-gave-in, then the unconscious-mind’s bullying would relent … don’t get the result they were making-believing-in:
bullying which gains compliance, grows and that should be obvious.
that is true of all unconscious-ignorance’s bullying, small or great.
Give it no ground, & set about consolidating your control/ownership/possession of YOUR life, against that kind of thing.
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- Comment on Not to get political however How did J Epstein die? Usually suicide watch they put you in a specialized suit so it's impossible. So given if they did that like law says how did he commit suicide? 1 month ago:
Strangled with a cord.
the photo of his corpse shows the marks on his neck from that cord.
The cloth he “supposedly” was strangled-with wouldn’t have put those marks on his neck.
There’s a yt mortician who identified this stuff.
& the fact that suicides tend to have 0 or 1 vertebra broken, but Epstein had 3 broken…
& the security-video which wasn’t supposed to have any record of the guy in orange who went into that area, but did ( somebody whose job was to prevent evidence … fucked up )
& the authorities make baldfaced “that isn’t significant” … when it fucking obviously was significant … decisions…
& on & on & on…
There’s a former mafia man, Michael Firenzese, who’s got multiple Epstein videos, & 1 of those has on its thumbnail a marionette style image, so large dark hand above, & … 2, iirc, marionettes, with Epstein being 1 of 'em…
That video identifies enough evidence that now I understand why he was able to get away with the absurd degree of impunity he had…
CIA, Mossad, AND KGB seem to have been working with him.
When the FBI wanted him put away, they were ordered to back off, being informed he was an intelligence asset…
So, then the question of who was using who? comes up…
He was using the intelligence-agencies to gain power/influence, he was getting kompromat/blackmail on everybody, he was sharing that, for a price of some kind, with multiple agencies, selectively, they were using him, NOBODY is being made accountable for raping girls, he apparently murdered multiple girls, some buried “out back” he said, & he bought 330t of sulfuric-acid … probably for eradicating other inconvenient evidence, & Maxwell ( or somebody whose perspective is identical to hers ) murdered a girl to prove herself to her “husband” … there reaches a point where there’s no point in pretending that this is in any way, whatsoever sane.
1 guy who was talking about having met him said the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, & he knew this guy was evil.
I’d believed that I’d had that kind of sense ( have evidence of having got that kind of judgement right, in the past ), but … whatever darkness-sense I’ve got didn’t work with Epstein, in that video Bannon made of him…
The repeated asking by Bannon “do you believe you are the devil” or something like that … & his careful non-response … he may have so believed, tbh…
Anyways, more info than you asked, but the whole thing has evidence scattered everywhere, & the key items need to be consolidated, properly, so people can see & understand, for real…
Years ago, there was the Iran-Contra affair… a guy who dug into that told me the more he knew, the less he could figure-out who the “good guys” were supposed to be…
This is the same, only more so.
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- Comment on New homeless village offers 'brilliant solution' that organisers want to bring to a town near you 1 month ago:
I’ve tried telling people that even a 8’x12’ bunkie ( 3 plywood sheets for the floor ) is drastically better than either the sidewalk or the local homeless-shelter, & that just getting people their own shelter/space ought be the primary concern…
those are luxury-apartments, by comparison.
You can house many more people in bunkies than you can in expensive modular-homes, if you are budget-limited…
Maybe my 7+ years of outright-homelessness have biased me towards help everybody orientation, but … the lives you “can’t afford” to help are lives, too.
Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needs, you know?
Get everybody up into life-safety, & then work on the higher-levels later…
They’re doing good work, but the not-included … die.
The streets are destructive in ways that mere-circumstance can’t possibly communicate.
The toxic culture, the prejudice, the randomly being robbed… the not having any legal right to participate in any online-transaction, because you’ve no address…
grinds you towards death, fast…
So does exposure…
( UK that may not be as much of a thing: in Canada it’s kinda lethal, in winters )
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- Comment on Consumers urged to ‘completely avoid’ UK-caught cod as population plunges 1 month ago:
From the Canadian perspective, it isn’t the fish’s decline, it is that their coral-forests-breeding has been wiped-out by dragger-nets, & the fishery’s permanently broken, because that takes about a century to grow back to a height of 2-dm, & they rather probably need more than that, to be breeding in??
Dragger-nets are marine-ecology “carpet-bombing”.
No gov’t will outlaw such idiotic destructiveness, & so … therefore the predicted-in-the-Christian-bible marine-foodchain-collapse, that our “management” of our world’s oceans is in the process of producing, will happen, later this century.
< shruggeth >
Humankind’s choice…
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- Comment on If Peaceful Gaza Protest is Criminal, What is Left of UK Freedom? 1 month ago:
Despicable abuse.
Pick a side: totalitarianism XOR civilrights.
Civilrights means making a “bathtub-curve” for legal-action: as wide & deep as can be consistently managed, with the illegal stuff out at the ends.
Making it so that laying flowers, in protest, at the BBC or at the feet of the cops limiting the progress of the protest is a crime … the root-guru of the Christians, benJoseph, got physically violent on the commercial-operation of the temple, & the UK’s fundamentally Christian … so, they’d have had him crucified, not freed, from the looks of things, now…
After the tippingpoint’s crossed, the natural tendency will be to go MUCH harder line totalitarian authoritarian, but it’s possible that the UK will suddenly switch sides…
Wait & see, I guess, same as with all countries that claim democracy…
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- Comment on How would I even start an investigation into my states use of marijuana money? How to keep it covert with gathering alot of info? And find freinds in power to help me out. 1 month ago:
Buy 2 good books ( different authors ) on becoming a private investigator.
Read them.
Hit Nolo press, & buy their book on legal-research.
Read it.
Now you have 2 understanding-sets that normal-people don’t have, & you can begin digging into institutional-crimes much more competently than normals could.
BellingCat would be an advisable set-of-learnings, too.
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- Comment on Do we know how much apps would cost if we had to replace as revenue with subscription fees? 1 month ago:
Remember that infinite-greed is part of the equation, though…
IF revenue MUST increase, no matter what the cost-to-the-world, THEN … the example of covid supermarket-profits-skyrocketing, while people couldn’t afford food, comes to mind…
That is part of the problem with concentration-of-wealth-archy paradigm & moneyarchy paradigm: they’ve both got infinities in their goals, that is infinite-concentration-of-wealth, & that breaks civilization’s viability.
The 2 equation-classes are incompatible.
Public-benefit-companies are where we ought be, but … there isn’t even that category of incorporation in Canada, ttbomk…
We, globally, have NOT been solving the right problems…
Internet-itself, & social-discussion-forum ought be considered required-civil-infrastructure, removing it from narcissistic-depravity’s control, … but nobody’s got the spine to understand that countries are automatically highjacked, otherwise, by the platforms that the country’s social-nervous-system is.
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- Comment on Most of plant based leather uses a lot of polyurethane 1 month ago:
I hadnt thought of that:
good point!
Not that anybody’ll actually do it, but it could be done.
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- Comment on Most of plant based leather uses a lot of polyurethane 1 month ago:
Herdbeasts are sentient: they are “others”.
They don’t want to be slaughtered: we care more about using meat from their bodies for a momentary meal than we care about their lives-themselves.
That is OUR values.
& our being sociopathic doesn’t make sociopathy universally-right or universally-valid.
( I’m not vegan, but universe has beaten learning into me until I’ve come around to seeing the prejudice in our whole “civilized” “relationship” with reality )
TTBOMK, vegetable-tanning isn’t done as much because it costs more.
& the original person’s comment about chromium-salts looks spot-on, & was ignored by your counter.
Just pointing out some stuff for objectivity, is all: integrity’s a precious-resource, & it takes all of us being loyal to it, to make it remain in our world.
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- Comment on Most of plant based leather uses a lot of polyurethane 1 month ago:
Chromium-based tanning is only 1 kind of tanning, but yeah, chromium’s one of those chemicals which needs to be limited more-carefully, among our ecologies.
Vegetable-based tanning also exists, & I’m no expert, so there could be multiple way I don’t know about.
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- Comment on Most of plant based leather uses a lot of polyurethane 1 month ago:
“TreeLeather” or something like that, was 1 brand of the cellulose “leather” stuff…
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- Comment on Why is stack overflow so horrible? 1 month ago:
When they attack you and delete your question or lock it because they don’t want “your kind” polluting their forum, that isn’t meritocracy: that is national-narcissism.
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- Comment on Why is stack overflow so horrible? 1 month ago:
Toxic-culture won.
Period.
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- Comment on Why do some people with college degrees and an education, still act so fucking stupid? 1 month ago:
Simpler & clearer:
Intelligence is solving-the-problem-efficiently/quickly…
Wisdom is realizing we’d been solving the wrong problem, & working-out what the right-problem is…
Wisdom’s meta-intelligence.
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- Comment on Why do some people with college degrees and an education, still act so fucking stupid? 1 month ago:
Why do billionaires/oligarchs do it?
Principle of Least Effort.
It isn’t particular to the “lower class” or to the “less educated” or to any particular faction of the population.
That’s normal.
Some people, no matter how you “slice” the population up, still act so fucking stupid.
'Tis a fact of life, is all.
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- Comment on What jobs do people from very upper-class wealthy families get? Or don't they have jobs and live off their families' wealth? 1 month ago:
Upper-middle class is doctor/lawyer/professor/diplomat.
Upper-class is power, not job.
Totally different categories.
Oligarchs are upper-class.
Monarchs are upper-class.
To the upper-class, job-people are hirable-dogs, not equals.
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/…/1111206189?ean=9780671…
Read that long-ago, & it has proved its right-framing consistently since then.
He got the fundamentals right.
There are other sub-class-systems, however:
The academic-class system, the financial-class system, etc.
But the fundamental givaway is this:
Power is what “validity” means in the upper-class.
Institution is what “validity” means in the middle-class. ( so, PhD is high-status within the middle-class, school-dropout is contemptible-inferior in their eyes ).
Money is what “validity” means in the working-class.
Underclass has its own hierarchy, too… street-bosses, etc…
The parent-child relationship is a class-system!
But Fussell’s right on the fundamental 3 categories in the class-system, & their “validity” anchorings.
The whole “Ivy League” thing is that it isn’t the skills you have , that make you valid, it is being in the power-clique that does.
That is upper-class.
So, there’s Venn-diagram intersection between raw-oligarchy & jobs … so truly-upper-class could well have jobs, but … it’s the power, not the grind, that true-upper-class is.
When your power-connections are more important than your in-organization-day-to-day-decisions, then you’re probably upper-class in mode, though your instinct may still be upper-middle-class, or financial-class ( which is above upper-middle-class ).
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