Dylan Lawrence Moore

I was a chem major, and I remember my junior year it was announced that the chem scholarships were available in the office in the chem building. I went to go check them out (working 40 hours a week all summer at the refinery was enough to pay for 1 quarter of college at the time). I took the sheet that had the list of scholarships. There were 11 of them: 1 general chem scholarship available to anyone, 1 scholarship for students planning on pursuing pharmaceuticals, and 9 scholarships for women only. Send me a PM and we can talk more about this.

This post is aimed mostly at MMD. I've sent a few mails to request to be on the Call-in Show. The majority of them seem to not be arriving, as I've gotten a response back from one out of maybe seven emails I've sent from multiple addresses over the last two months. Is there a better way I can get in contact with you? I would really like to get on. Thanks! -Dylan

Just because he was evil doesn't mean he wasn't smart.

Definitely, but this doesn't address why the precious metals were valuable in the first place. If I remember my government history classes correctly, the ruler of the Aztecs was utterly confused why the Spaniards were so obsessed with such a useless material such as gold, when they already had materials like glass, which he considered far superior. Pre-agricultural revolution, taking care of basic necessities was a MASSIVE amount of time and energy. I remember reading from Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope that in pre-agricultural revolution England, it took 20 people working at making food to support 21 people (it became 3 working in food to feed 21 after the agricultural revolution, which sent everyone to the cities looking for work to set the stage for the industrial revolution). In post-collapse Rome, it took 50-100 people working in food to support one mounted knight. In medieval Europe communities would regularly starve to death. In a society where food production is so vital and requires so many hands, where are these excess workers to mine and smelt a material that's valuable because it's shiny? In contrast to metals like iron, copper, tin, and lead, which have utility in food production and other basic necessities. Post-agricultural revolution, it wasn't long before gold and silver actually gained utility for more advanced products (chemistry, electronics, computers, etc.).

It's not that there's something wrong with it, I find it insufficient. Yes there is a value to me liking something. If something is shiny and it makes me feel good to have it around or to wear it as jewelry, that's great. However, when it comes to the majority of human history, where humans have struggled to get themselves above subsistence level and a bad farming or hunting year could literally wipe a community out, why the absolute obsession with gold? Did the Spanish conquistadors slaughter and enslave the natives in the Americas for the purpose of mining gold and silver out of the earth, something incredibly costly and dangerous, just because of the subjective value that it was shiny and nice for jewelry? Why spend valuable labor and time mining and smelting something which is extremely difficult to mine and smelt, when it could have been spent on genuine life-supporting resources? Because the ruler demands it.

I'm saying that even gold-backed money is invented and gains its value from violence. Prior to the modern era where we found out gold was useful for computers, electronics, and other scientific reasons, what was the intrinsic value of gold? The best answer I ever get out of anyone was that it was used for jewelry or that it was shiny. Tyler H nailed it when he said that rulers demanded it (for whatever reason). This demand is what gave it its value. I would argue that BTC is valued by the people who trade it. In the same way that the gov't creates value for USD by demanding it for their "services", BTC gains its value because you must use it for services that send, buy, and sell it. The difference of course is the presence of violence. If I don't use BTC to pay for BTC services, no one cares. If I don't USD to pay for taxes, I run into problems. I always hear this term "counterfeit" when it comes to the US govt creating money. If the US govt has the right and obligation to create money via the constitution, how is any money they create counterfeit? Again, it doesn't matter what the money is made out of it, it's the demand for taxes which gives it its value. The USD has value essentially on its taxation. If it wasn't taxed we would find something else to use. Additionally, there are many things to buy with USD. The US, having been the most free and prosperous nation on earth, created a lot of stuff that we're able to buy. Venezuelan money, for example, won't buy you much despite the government demanding it in taxes, because there is simply nothing purchasable within the govt's jurisdiction.

Find someone/some people who have qualities, materials, connections, money, or whatever else you may desire, and figure out how to change yourself so that you might have what they desire, then you can exchange.

I'm not sure what the jargon is that you're talking about. Not that it has to be, but money is a state-created phenomenon. Furthermore, it's an abstract concept, not a objective object. It chooses a material (gold, silver, tally sticks, notes, digital numbers, whatever) to demand as taxes, and legally defines the nature of that material to demand. This is what turns it into money. Gold wasn't money before the state came around. The state came around, demanded gold, and thereby turned it into money. This is important to note, particularly in relation to federal income tax, because as I mentioned above, it doesn't pay for anything. Particularly since there is no physical resource that the money is tied to, the government can create or destroy money at will via spending and taxation. Federal taxation is a method of removing money from the economic system, NOT a method of financing. Thus when I say that this is the "best part", I'm being sarcastic because the government could literally delete the IRS and still pay for everything it does just fine.

This sounds eerily similar to the concept of taxation to me.

The 2008 recession was preceded by balancing the federal budget.

Be prepared to have a strong stomach.

I see. Did ancient societies, like the Romans, use gold as money because it was valuable for these reasons?

What's the use of gold if it's not taxed?

Our agreement is irrelevant to the usefulness of money. It is being used regardless of our agreement of its value. Premise 1: Money by itself has no use. (Example: if I printed a $100 bill off my computer, it would not be worth $100. It would just be a piece of paper with some ink.) Premise 2: Government demands money to pay for taxes. Premise 3: Government demand creates use for money. Premise 4: Use creates value. Conclusion: Money has value because it is taxed.

Meet people in person and talk about FDR related stuff with them...?

Your willingness to give up time and resources for money is because the government demands that money for taxes, thus giving it value. Our agreement is what's irrelevant. Value: the usefulness of something.

Only a was my premise. Furthermore: a.1 does not necessarily follow from a. Just because taxation gives money value to begin with, that doesn't mean further increases in taxes correlate to further increases in value of money. I never said b.

The threat of force is the threat of taxes. You must pay taxes in US dollars in the US. When I start talking about MMT, I think people freak out because they think I'm saying that there isn't a scam. There is a scam, we've just identified it wrong. What people think traditionally: the government needs to take money from people in order to be able to pay for things with taxes. What it actually is: the government needs to demand taxes in order to give value to the money it made up. When the government demands taxes in legal tender (i.e. money it made up), the only place to get that money is from the government itself. Thus the government is able to buy things, which in reality is a violent transfer. Because the government can literally infinitely create money (it's not a real resource--it's made up), by definition it cannot be in debt. The federal government neither has or doesn't have money. This is why paying taxes takes money out of circulation and federal spending puts money into circulation. The fact that it's called "debt" is a misnomer which has been very successful into confusing people (including me) into falsely identifying the problem. Thus, to come back to my original comment, because federal taxes don't actually pay for anything (they just remove money out of the system), it's an extra-hard forehead slap to have to be forced into a discussion about its constitutionality.

Why are you willing to give up time and real resources for otherwise useless pieces of paper and digital representations of those pieces of paper?

Precisely.

Nope. Been learning this in MMT. Because the federal gov't creates money out of nothing, it can't be in debt. The "debt" of the federal government is just the amount of net private sector savings in the system. The purpose of taxes is to give the money value to begin with.

The best part is that federal income tax doesn't actually pay for anything. It just removes money out of the system.

Regarding appropriateness: One thing that is really hard for people who heavily rely on using reason, discussion, and negotiation, is using any of these things on someone who is incapable of them. I've known this for a long time but it really, really hit me at the Milo event in UW when I did my damnedest to get any Antifa idiot to talk to me ("But tell me why I'm a fascist!"), and I was simply rewarded with blows and paint on my head. You literally cannot reason with some people. Unfortunately, there are people who can fake reason. These are known as sophists. Whether they are really good at undermining your argument, or just not shutting the fuck up so no other information can get through, they will often appear to be reasonable to others watching. Trolling then is an effective method for frustrating them and sabotaging their efforts, allowing you to get more wholesome information out. The goal is to shut them up, waste their energy, or get them on something unimportant, in the same way they set out to waste your energy by pretending to be reasonable. Regarding being a jerk: The initiator who pretends reason is the jerk. When you troll, you will appear as a jerk to people who can't reason, and a savior to people who can. Focus on impressing the important of the two groups. I noticed this when Stef had a call-in show a few months back with a guy, I think named Fritz. Fritz was an annoying sophist and Stef literally spent 40 patient minutes with him. I could tell within 30 seconds Fritz was a jerk, and after 40 minutes when Stef finally lost his patience, he received a HUGE amount of feedback that HE was the jerk. Stef actually had to do another call-in show to explain exactly what happened and why Fritz was the jerk and not him. I noticed it right off the bat, and was actually frustrated with how patient Stef was. If you identify sophistry, don't worry about being a jerk. How to know when you're going to far: When you're trolling people who are being reasonable to begin with? When you can't stop trolling? Hope that helps.

Why is everyone engaging with a snowflake?

Discontinue being rational when you've identified the other person refuses to be rational.