For a community that claims to not care about politics it sure has been quiet tonight.
kepford
kepford@nostrplebs.com
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What They Didn’t Tell You About the Scopes Monkey Trial
For many years I have been fascinated by how often common knowledge on some historical event is terribly incomplete or even flat wrong. After listening to Bob Murphy read and summarize the transcript of the "Scopes Money Trial" this pattern holds true. I recommend this podcast if you are interested in the Scopes Trial. If you are hard core young earth Creationist you will be disappointed. If you are a devote atheist you will also be disappointed. But if you just like to learn, I think you will enjoy it.
Here's a taste. You might be surprised how [Eugenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics) plays into this. You might be surprised by which side comes off as reasonable. You might be surprised by the popular summary of this event and how the actual transcript sounds in contrast.
## Some Personal Experiences
What I have come to find as a pattern is that the dominate story line is often incomplete or complete wrong. If one cares to understand society and history you have to seek out alternative primary sources. This will not give you a complete picture but it will bring the past into better focus. We have to accept that we will never know what really happened in the past. Not fully at least. But what we are taught in schools is almost always designed to keep the state in a positive light. What we learn in culture and entertainment is also full of agendas.
We see this today in modern politics. I'm not a Trump fan but the sheer number of times his words have been manipulated and repeated to portray a false image is astounding. It is so absurd that many on the left have moved toward supporting him as it has become obvious how dishonest and sinister his opposition has become.
What I find interesting about this is that its not really new. The older I get and more research I do on any topic the more I see this pattern of agendas and false info play out. One must remain skeptical.
For those with TDS the right also does this to their opponents. The thing is, the right / conservative movement is not the stronger of the two in culture and the permanent state. So don't just think this is a right/left thing. Its not. Its about power and control over the hearts and minds of the malleable masses.
Many times when I go down a rabbit trail I end up finding out something I just took for granted was completely false or at least very slanted.
My goal in sharing this is to challenge stackers to question what you are told by "authority figures". Not with the mindset of proving it wrong or never trusting anything. But just thinking for yourself. Recognizing we don't have perfect knowledge and we can't just trust the establishment. This goes for bitcoin culture as well. Everyone has an agenda.
originally posted at 
Bob Murphy Show
Ep. 355 What They Didn’t Tell You About the Scopes Monkey Trial
The 1925 Scopes Trial ostensibly featured the triumph of science over fundamentalist religion. Bob gives some surprising facts that may change your...
Stacker News
What They Didn’t Tell You About the Scopes Monkey Trial \ stacker news
For many years I have been fascinated by how often common knowledge on some historical event is terribly incomplete or even flat wrong. After liste...
Watched Money Electric last night. My take is that I can see no coiners being turned off by the way Bitcoin and the figures are protrayed.
Its not a terrible film. I pretty much agree with most bitcoiners take on it. The whole who is Satoshi is really tiresome but I get it.
Tip: No, I do NOT want to Sign in with Google!
This tip comes from Steve Gibson of the Security Now! podcast. If you hate those annoying "Sign in with Google" pop-ups you can easily eliminate them with uBlock Origin
Stacker News
Tip: No, I do NOT want to Sign in with Google! \ stacker news
This tip comes from Steve Gibson of the Security Now! podcast If you hate those annoying "Sign in with Google" pop-ups you can easily eliminate the...
The Subprime AI Crisis - Ed Zitron
Ed is a bit verbose for me but a friend of mine sent me his blog and I [shared his latest article today](https://stacker.news/items/707609). He seems to get what is going on in the tech world and where AI is heading in a business sense. As someone that has been in the tech world for the last 20 years there are not enough people looking at the hype in the way Ed does.
I know I know. Bob, you're just an old. You're just dumb. Sure. Those things may be true but I've seen hype before and I've seen crashes before. The AI hype is not all smoke but it sure isn't what we are being told.
From Ed:
Generative AI is being sold on multiple lies:
* That it's artificial intelligence.
* That it's "going to get better."
* That it will become artificial intelligence.
* That it is inevitable.
> My concern is that I believe we’re in the midst of a subprime AI crisis, where thousands of companies have integrated generative AI at prices that are far from stable, and even further from profitable.
Here is the key point:
> Almost every "AI-powered" startup that uses LLM features is based on some combination of GPT or Claude. These models are built by two companies that are deeply unprofitable (Anthropic is on course to lose $2.7 billion this year), and that have pricing designed to get more customers rather than make any kind of profit. OpenAI, as mentioned, is subsidized by Microsoft — both in the "cloud credits" it received and the preferential pricing Microsoft offers — and its pricing is entirely dependent on Microsoft's continued support, both as an investor and a services provider, a problem that Anthropic faces with its deals with Amazon and Google.
This affects more than JUST these companies that are using "AI" in their products.
> And what we really don’t know is how unprofitable generative AI is for the hyper-scalers, because they bake those costs into other parts of their earnings. While we can’t know for sure, I imagine if this stuff was in any way profitable, they’d be talking about the revenue they were receiving from it.
> They’re not.
He explains why this is happening
> So, why does this keep happening? Why have we had movement after movement — cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and now generative AI — that doesn’t seem like it was actually made for a real person?
> Well, it’s the natural result of a tech industry that’s become entirely focused on making each customer more valuable rather than providing more value to the customer. Or, for that matter, actually understand who their customers are and what they need.
I'm still thinking about this article but I can see his points.
Here we have an example of tech not providing value to the customer but rather trying to suck people into the existing systems. Its why so many of us despise these companies.
> The products you’re being sold today almost certainly try to wed you to a particular ecosystem — one owned by Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or Google, as a consumer at least — and, in turn, increase the burden of leaving said ecosystem. Even cryptocurrency — ostensibly a “decentralized” technology — quickly abandoned its free-wheeling libertarian ideas and sought to consolidate users on one of a few big platforms like Coinbase, OpenSea, Blur or Uniswap, all backed by the same venture capital firms (like Andreessen Horowitz). Rather than being flag bearers for a new, radically independent online economic system, they were all only able to scale through the funds and connections of the same people that funded every other recent era of the internet.
originally posted at 
Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At
The Subprime AI Crisis
None of what I write in this newsletter is about sowing doubt or "hating," but a sober evaluation of where we are today and where we may end up on ...
Stacker News
The Subprime AI Crisis - Ed Zitron \ stacker news
Ed is a bit verbose for me but a friend of mine sent me his blog and I shared his latest article today. He seems to get what is going on in the tec...
Bob Murphy pointed out that reading Allen Dulles Wikipedia page can be a red pill. I first learned about him by reading Legacy of Ashes. Great book about the CIA. Not theories. On the record stories from known sources.
If you don't know about this dude or for some reason still don't think the US has done some crazy stuff. Go down this rabbit trail.
Allen Dulles - Wikipedia
It's hip to blame almost every modern ill on "capitalism". Rarely is the term defined but it seems to be coming from a socialist perspective. I have found most of people's complaints are more accurately aimed at two things. The state, and fiat money.
Freedom is not a cure for humanity's flaws but I have a hard time beleiving the world would be better off with less of it.
So for all the people that tire of " bitcoin fixes this". Spend some time studying economics from an Austrian and study bitcoin. Removing capitalism isn't the answer.
Twitter sucks. Politics sucks. Fiat sucks.