Joined 10 August 2020 · 61 posts
Left-Leaning, but I support Freedom of Speech. Here from Publish0x and Steemit
120 KT
0 KT · $7.17 received · 0 KT · 54¢ given
@AntiSJWLeft
I am hearing rumors that Coinbase is no longer waitlisting people for the Earn EOS program! Get it now while you can to earn up to $50: https://coinbase.com/earn/eos/invite/nmh0xz6g And please let me know if it is not working or you are still getting waitlisted.
@AntiSJWLeft
Comparing Read.Cash to Steemit Isn't Even Fair! Steemit started the crypto-blogging boom, but it isn't the king anymore, and Read.Cash looks like a much better option. In fact, development on STEEM, the blockchain Steemit runs on, has basically been stagnant since I joined Steemit in early 2018. That is at least true based on how the website has (not) changed over that time. I'm less familiar with blockchain development behind the scenes, aside from the hardfork with HIVE recently, but it has made little difference to users of Steemit. ****Advantages of Read.Cash over Steemit**** Steemit's **functionality** is essentially the same as it was when I joined the site. I notice features that seem to be lacking to me more than anything else. For example, it lacks the ability to save multiple drafts of something you are working on. That is a pain for anyone like me who starts and pauses projects all the time (I currently have four drafts on Read.Cash, and a few more on Publish0x). The editor is also harder to use than Read.Cash's. https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc Read.Cash is also much more **user-friendly** than Steemit. From the very beginning, it can take days to get a Steemit account approved. Then, when you make an account, you faced with what appears to be three different crypto currencies the site uses, although they are really just two. There is STEEM itself, which can be staked as Steem Power to increas the worth of your upvote (SP is not a separate currency), and SBD, which is supposed to be a stablecoin, but it is so badly broken that it was at one point worth about 60 cents instead of one dollar. Admittedly, it is now up to 96 cents, but it is clearly less usable than DAI, USDT, or Tether. Aside from a unique currency and a broken stablecoin, not many exchanges carry STEEM, so you better have an account on one of those exchanges if you want to buy or sell it! After all, if you don't own about $100 in STEEM, you upvote will be worth less than one cent. In contrast, Read.Cash uses Bitcoin Cash, a token you can trade on pretty much any exchange, and do not need to own to upvote on the site. The fund, which is distributed daily based on a user's points on the site, which are gained by publishing, commenting, upvoting, getting upvotes, or some other actions on the site, ensure that everyone will have some BCH to tip with after on day. In terms of **Profitability**, Read.Cash has been MUCH better than Steemit. Since the average upvote on Steemit is worth less than one cent, it is very hard to earn much of anything. In two years+ years on the site I have probably earned around $70. At my current rate, I'll earn that in about two months on Read.Cash. I've found that my Publish0x earnings are somewhere in-between, but closer to Read.Cash. With that said, there is a small group of people on Steemit who earn a ton. It is basically a site where 1% get almost everything, and 99% get nearly nothing. https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc ****Advantages of Steemit over Read.Cash**** Honestly the only one I can think of is that you do have a slim chance of becoming one of those rare people who get a log of money from the site. It's almost like playing the lottery, but those few people do manage to make upwards of $50 an article. On Read.Cash there are occasionally massive tips from the largest users, but that is even rarer. ****Conclusion**** For well over 99% of people, Read.Cash is a much better option than Steemit, to a point where it is almost unfair to compare them. Steemit is the "sick man" of cryptoblogging who desperately needs some help and major improvement if it is going to survive. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be happening. I would highly recommending Read.Cash. For those who want to follow me: You can find me on Publish0x. The site is great, and you can cross post there to make more money than just posting on one site, so why not join? **https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc** If you are reading this but are somehow not already a member of Read.Cash, follow this link to join: **https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft**
@AntiSJWLeft
The Philadelphia Eagles just lost to a team called "Football Team" lmao
@AntiSJWLeft
Why Does This User Think Copying Comments and Articles is OK? Today I was informed that another user had copied-and-pasted a significant part of my comment. This user is @Joni.mondol . It turns out they have actually been doing this to a ton of people, so I decided to let all of the users I have seen them copy and paste know by tagging them here. Here are some examples: Compared to Here they are plagiarizing @wakeupkitty : Here they are plagiarizing @Jadeliyi : Here they are plagiarizing from an actual ARTICLE from @TheSiam : AND from an article by @Md.105-74 : AND an article by @Oslec08 AND! An article by @kli4d And I found this just looking through their comments from the last 15 hours or so! Imagine how many other examples there are. They know what they are doing. I reported the comment where they copied me, and I will leave it up to others whether they want to report them as well. In all seriousness, this is a problem on Read.Cash. The spamming is much better recently and I want to give the site owner/developer a ton of credit for that. I know not everything can be fixed at once and he is working incredibly hard to keep this great project going. I just have to see people doing things like this to get points without putting the effort the rest of us have to.
+12 more
@AntiSJWLeft
What other blogging sites do you use where you can earn crypto? I have used Publish0x, Hive, and Steemit, but I am not sure if there are other good options out there. Let me know if there are any other sites you'd recommend! I'm happy here on Read.Cash, but I just want to know more about what is out there.
@AntiSJWLeft
Why I rejected BCH Games Sponsorship Since joining this site I have been intrigued by the idea of sponsorships, and so far I have gotten a few, which I am very happy with. However, recently BCH.Games has been giving out a ton of sponsorships, and I found myself in a surprising situation when they offered me one. I found myself questioning whether I should accept it or not. The amount of money was very small, but I've accepted less money without a second thought. So what was different? About a year ago I started gambling, and I lost a small, but not insignificant, amount of money. I wouldn't say I ever got fully addicted, but I started to go to online gambling sites when I should have been doing other things. Eventually I realized I needed to stop before it got any worse. Due to this experience I have decided that I really do not want to promote gambling to others. To be clear, I know their site provides a faucet, in fact I used it, but it is clearly essentially the same as gambling. I *do not* object to them doing this. I believe in personal choice, and I am not saying they are bad people for setting up this site. However, I am personally not comfortable promoting it, having used it. I also see their sponsorship all over the site. It's smart marketing, but I feel like it is getting annoying to people.
@AntiSJWLeft
Check in: Who Else is Getting Way More Points Suddenly? I just wanted to see if my experience the last couple days has been unique, or if others have been seeing the same increase. Today I have got over twice as many points as I was getting a couple days ago, and yesterday I got almost as many. It's a really clear, huge jump. I have a few ideas about why this might be happening. It might be that I have just been active on the site, and have over 100 followers now, so I am just getting more views and likes. But I don't think that would explain such a large jump. I do know that this happened the same day they started muting spammers for a few days. Perhaps this has somehow led to legitimate users getting more points since spammers aren't getting them? I just want to know if others have experienced the same thing. If others have, then it probably is related to muting the spammers, which is a huge step forward! If not, then there must be something I'm doing right that I need to keep doing! (And yes, my current number of points is LEET ;) ) For those who want to follow me: You can find me on Publish0x here. The site is great, and you can cross post there to make more money than just posting here, so why not join? **https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc** If you are reading this but are somehow not already a member of Read.Cash, follow this link to join: **https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft**
@AntiSJWLeft
The Anti-Defamation League has Great Criticisms of Antifa The Anti-Defamation League attracted criticism and ridicule in 2017 when it famously denounced Pewdiepie, a YouTuber who had many of his actions and past statements badly mischaracterized by the Wall Street Journal in such a way as to portray him as anti-Semitic. (The worst of these, arguably, was saying that he wore a Nazi uniform when he really was wearing a recreation WW2 British Royal Airforce Uniform, which is about as far as you can get from the Nazis.) However, the ADL has done a lot of good work in the past combating real anti-Semitism, which we should not forget. However, I recently stumbled across their page on AntiFa, and wanted to write here about how accurate it is. Honestly I am rather impressed and glad to find another left-learning group that sees the clear problems with AntiFa. Here are some key, spot on, quotes from their website (https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/who-are-antifa): "These violent counter-protesters are often part of “antifa” (short for “antifascist”), a loose collection of groups, networks and individuals who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements... Most antifa come from the anarchist movement or from the far left." This does a good job of starting to explain that AntiFa are not just "anyone who doesn't like Trump" or anyone on the political left. They are specifically Far Left, like Anarchists and actual Communists. Those I have met do not even like Democratic Socialism, since they don't like Democracy. "Most people who show up to counter or oppose white supremacist public events are peaceful demonstrators, but when antifa show up, as they frequently do, they can increase the chances that an event may turn violent. " It's nice to see a left-leaning group acknowledge that Antifa can cause violence, not just that events happen to sometimes get violent when they are around, which is how a lot of outlets portray Antifa. "Their presence at a protest is intended to intimidate and dissuade racists, but the use of violent measures by some antifa against their adversaries can create a vicious, self-defeating cycle of attacks, counter-attacks and blame. **This is why most established civil rights organizations criticize antifa tactics as dangerous and counterproductive**." I added the bold font there because I think this may be the best quote from the whole page. This is so important to tell people who are liberal or more moderate who think Antifa is alright. I'm going to go ahead and trust the real Civil Rights groups that have experienced leaders who have been fighting for equality for decades over a bunch of mostly white, upper-class college kids who read some Facebook posts about Marxism. "Antifa have expanded their definition of fascist/fascism to include not just white supremacists and other extremists, but also many conservatives and supporters of President Trump. In Berkeley, for example, some antifa were captured on video harassing Trump supporters with no known extremist connections. Antifa have also falsely characterized some recent right wing rallies as “Nazi” events, even though they were not actually white supremacist in nature. " I don't have much to add here except to say this is an important point. Not everybody you dislike is a Nazi. As soon as you begin to believe that you have given up on Democracy, the ability of people to talk to each other, and the fundamental idea that people can change their beliefs. "Another concern is the misapplication of the label “antifa” to include all counter-protesters, rather than limiting it to those who proactively seek physical confrontations with their perceived fascist adversaries." Yep, this is one reason I make a point of denouncing AntiFa. They provide an easy scapegoat for the genuine racists out there to dismiss all counter protesters. Basically AntiFa make the rest of the Left look bad. "Additionally, violence plays into the “victimhood” narrative of white supremacists and other right-wing extremists and can even be used for recruiting purposes. Images of these “free speech” protesters being beaten by black-clad and bandana-masked antifa provide right wing extremists with a powerful propaganda tool." On the same note, AntiFa is counterproductive for the Left in other ways. They are an embarrassment who push people away from anything left of center. Imagine if your introduction to politics was some dumbass privileged white kid beating up a mainstream conservative and calling them a Nazi. You would think the whole Left was was a bunch of misinformed psychos! Finally, "That said, it is important to reject attempts to claim equivalence between the antifa and the white supremacist groups they oppose. Antifa reject racism but use unacceptable tactics. White supremacists use even more extreme violence to spread their ideologies of hate, to intimidate ethnic minorities, and undermine democratic norms." I generally agree with this - at this point there is no AntiFa equivalent to the KKK's lynchings or racist skinheads assaulting black people for sport. Historically, there is certainly no AntiFa equivalent to the Holocaust. Still, AntiFa ultimately does more to help fascists than hurt them.
@AntiSJWLeft
I just got $10 in Stellar Lumens from Coinbase Earn! I just wanted to update my followers and readers here that Coinbase has once again started offering Stellar Lumens through their Coinbase Earn program. Coinbase Earn just requires users to watch some short videos about a token (Lumens in this case) and answer pretty easy quiz questions about them. Stellar Lumens have been on Coinbase Earn for a while, but for a long time they were all out and everyone got put on a wait list. Now they are being offered again. Click here to take advantage of this opportunity! **https://coinbase.com/earn/xlm/invite/jv076d4f** If you want to join Coinbase to take advantage of his opportunity, please use my referral link for Coinbase here, so we can both get a $10 bonus when you buy or sell a total of at least $100 on the site: ****https://www.coinbase.com/join/moncur_u8**** Accounts need to be verified to earn on Coinbase Earn. I know I have been writing a lot about cryptos lately, but I promise after this it will be back to my usual content for a while! This is just a unique opportunity that has not been available for a long time.
@AntiSJWLeft
Why Are SJWs Often Very Unhappy People? So, I am friends with a number of very social justice oriented people. I'm in College, and that is basically unavoidable these days. For the most part we agree enough of most issues to get along alright. Some of the ones I'm not super close friends with though I have noticed are more extreme. I either follow or have seen many of them post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. so I have some idea of how they think. (For non-American readers, I am talking specifically about the type of "Social Justice Warriors" who are often found on United States college campuses - the type who are extremely politically correct, oppose freedom of speech, and shout down speakers they do not agree with. I'm not talking about people who just generally support gay rights, women's rights, etc. On an international scale especially those are important issues.) What I have noticed is that some of them seem to pretty much always post unhappy things. What I mean is that they post almost exclusively things that are about how fucked up they think the world is, criticisms of people, attacks on people, or just generally hostile takes on situations. They almost never seem to joke or talk about things they enjoy. It's all about criticism. It occurred to me reading though some Twitter feeds that these are deeply unhappy and constantly toxic people. But why? I guess it is possible that they were unhappy individuals before they became SJWs, but I definitely think that becoming SJWs has made them even more unhappy. If one is an unhappy individual, they are more likely to become an SJW because SJWs complain about things all the time, and take offense to nearly everything it seems. Happy people, on the other hand, can take jokes, and don't always view everything in the most negative light. Positive people are more likely to be open to hearing other points of views rather than just getting angry or offended by then. I think that becoming an SJW contributes to, and worsens, these maladaptive types of behaviors by encouraging things like taking everything in the most negative way possible. For example, "make me a sandwich" jokes aren't just jokes, they are examples of an oppressive society. Whereas a healthy person might shrug that of as obvious trolling, or even a joke that women are meant to be included in that really makes fun of how dumb sexists are, an SJW will freak out about it. On that note, SJWism also leads people to believe that such jokes, or similar minor actions (like "microagressions") are part of either some massive conspiracy to push a sexist agenda, or a symptom of sexism, or both. Basically they read a lot into little information. The SJW will then often worry about that all day. These habits lead to SJWs thinking that the world is a hostile place, which further stresses them out. Then, they can barely make any jokes because they are worried about offending people, so they have hardly any relief from this stress! I am getting a bit tired now, but I will expand on many of these views in the future, so please follow if you are interested in this sort of things. I realized that I have been very focused on cryptocurrencies lately, and have neglected the more political content I have traditionally written..
@AntiSJWLeft
New Coinbase Earn Opportunity - Get Free CELO Token Just wanted to alert all of my followers and fellow Read.Cash users that Coinbase just came out with a new opportunity to earn $6 for watching videos and answering a few easy questions about a currency called Celo. Celo is designed to be especially mobile phone friendly. You can find the link here: https://www.coinbase.com/earn/celo/lesson/1 That is not a referral link, but if you want to join Coinbase to take advantage of his opportunity, please use my referral link for Coinbase here, so we can both potentially get a bonus: https://www.coinbase.com/join/moncur_u8 Coinbase also supports Bitcoin Cash, so you can immediately trade Celo for BCH, or whatever other major currency you prefer. It only takes about 10 minutes and the quiz questions are all very easy if you pay attention to the videos. Happy earning!
@AntiSJWLeft
I am now One of the Top Fund Donors on Read.Cash As of today I have become one of the top-20 listed donors for the Read.Cash Fund. I am happy to do this, as I find that this site is a very unique opportunity, and I love that it pays out to a large number of people every day, not just the few lucky enough to get major donations. However, I do find it a little troubling that my $3.00 contribution is enough to get me in the top 20. I know a lot more than 20 people really believe in this site, and I would hope that others would donate more to the fund. It's cool to see your name on the list, and I know that as this site goes it will start to take a lot more than $3 to get in the top 20. The more people donate to the fund, the healthier the site will be, and the more it will be able to help BCH reach a larger audience. On that note, I want to issue a challenge. I want to get knocked back off this list. For what it's worth, the previous #20 was @scottcbusiness So Scott, are you going to retake the throne? I am fully willing to donate a bit more to try to stay in the top donors list, but I hope that a few people will step up and knock me back down. It would be good for the site, and I'd be glad to see it. (Also I know Scott donates a lot on the site, and I appreciate his contributions, I just through it was funny that I was knocking such a well-known figure off the list.) For those who want to follow my account, I am on several sites that allow users to profit in cryptocurrency, and you can even cross-post content between them to maximize your earnings! To join Publish0x or follow me please follow this link: **https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc** If you are reading this but are somehow not already a member of Read.Cash, follow this link to join: **https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft**
@AntiSJWLeft
(Update: Fixed!) Boosting Glitch - Paid, but no Boost (Update: I contacted the site admin and this situation has been fixed!) I've had a pretty good time using Read.Cash, but yesterday I ran into a pretty serious bug that cost me a little bit of money. I tried to boost one of my articles from my wallet, but got an error message. I tried a second time shortly after, and got the same message. About an hour later I tried a 3rd time and it worked, but I noticed that the money for all three boosts had been taken from my account. I looked at the My Boosts section of my account menu and confirmed that I had not actually gotten any views or interaction from the boosts, and the boost was never marked as active. Here is the record of transactions from my wallet. Of the three significant transactions (ignore the one cent tips) only the one circled in red led to a successful boost: Again, my experience here has been good overall, but this was a bit of an issue. I know $5 isn't a lot of money, but I would still appreciate if this could be fixed somehow.
@AntiSJWLeft
HUGE Opportunity for Bitcoin Cash: Publish0x Adding non-Ethereum Coins Imagine if two of the top blogging platforms in the world both paid out in Bitcoin Cash! I have blogged on Publish0x for over a year now, but just today they announced that they can not make payouts at their usual time. Publish0x is highly trustworthy, and this is the first time I have ever heard about them not making the weekly payout. So what happened? https://www.publish0x.com/publish0x-official-blog/announcement-payouts-delayed-due-to-extremely-high-eth-gas-f-xjjljwl?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc Ethereum fees happened. I know this is a BCH site, but if you don't know about Ethereum, one of the key problems with it is the high fees (also called "gas"). Demand for Ethereum and the numerous ERC-20 tokens it has spawned has increased so much recently that the network has become crowded. This has led to higher fees. These fees are now so high that, as Publish0x says, they would lose too much money in fees to payout as regularly as they try to. https://www.publish0x.com/publish0x-official-blog/announcement-payouts-delayed-due-to-extremely-high-eth-gas-f-xjjljwl?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc This really isn't Publish0x fault, since they can't control what the fees are, but they are looking for ways to fix it. They have always only paid out ERC-20 tokens, including Ethereum itself. Here is where Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has a HUGE opportunity for growth. They are considering adding non-ERC 20 tokens for the first time ever. Just to be clear, Publish0x is a larger site than Read.Cash by number of users, at least based on the views I can get. I frequently get between 500-1,000 views per article. They are currently taking suggestions from the community on this article's comment section about what they should do. https://www.publish0x.com/publish0x-official-blog/announcement-payouts-delayed-due-to-extremely-high-eth-gas-f-xjjljwl?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc Imagine if we could get them to add Bitcoin Cash to their possible payouts? If we could do that, the demand for Bitcoin Cash would increase dramatically, since it would be used on two of the largest crypto-based blogging platforms in the world! This would also introduce a whole new community to Bitcoin Cash. This would be great for the value of Bitcoin Cash, the community around it, positive media attention, and the importance of Bitcoin Cash to the advancement of cryptocurrencies as a whole. This represents a sudden and important new opportunity for us to increase demand and use for BCH. I do not endorse brigading by people who are not genuinely interested in Publish0x as a platform, but for those of us who want to see the site do well, and support Bitcoin Cash, I highly recommend leaving a polite comment supporting BCH on this article: https://www.publish0x.com/publish0x-official-blog/announcement-payouts-delayed-due-to-extremely-high-eth-gas-f-xjjljwl?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc Again, please make these comments respectful. I have been using the site for over a year, so PLEASE don't make me look bad for doing this. 😂 Especially mention if you'd be more likely to be active on the site producing content if they supported BCH. If you need to join the site so you can make a comment, please sign up here with my referral link. It doesn't take anything from you to use the link, but it helps me get a small bonus. The site pays for all tips itself, so you can tip for free and even keep part of your own tips. The site is genuinely great to use, and you can cross post there to make more money than you do just posting here, so why not join? To join Publish0x follow this link: https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc If you are reading this but are somehow not already a member of Read.Cash, follow this link to join: https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft
@AntiSJWLeft
Bitcoin SV Scandal - Most Network Transactions are Bots Potentially over 96% of SV network transactions are microtransactions that make no logical sense - often less than 1/10th of one cent. Before going further I want to acknowledge two things. First off, this article is largely based off of this fantastic expose from Bitcoinist.com: https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-sv-volume-is-heavily-manipulated-data-finds/ Second, I want to acknowledge that to some of you all this is not new news, but I think it is important enough to still talk about. (Also I think people here will love it). Earlier this year, crypto researcher and asset manager Timothy Peterson tweeted out that the average transaction size on the SV network, based on numbers from Coinmetrics was less than 1/10th of one cent. This obviously seems to indicate that something is deeply wrong. One explanation is that there is an extreme level of bot activity on the network, especially given the small number of active SV wallets, is designed to inflate the number of transactions on the network so as to make it look like Bitcoin SV is in much more demand than it really is. To a casual observer this may make it seem that the asset is in demand, and therefore much more valuable. This would make sense given that one of the major criticisms of Bitcoin SV is that it is largely based around one guy (who has repeatedly claimed to be Satoshi himself, yet failed to provide good evidence), and isn't really used by a large number of people. Heavy bot activity would theoretically make it look like this was no longer an issue. However, some people propose that there are alternative explanations. For example, a writer for Coingeek argues that "a transaction is a transaction". They argue that these transactions show utility regardless, and therefore are useful to the network. https://coingeek.com/clueless-pundits-dont-understand-bitcoin/ **Conclusion:** Personally, I do not feel that "a transaction is a transaction". By that logic you could take any shitcoin and make it totally valid if you just design an AI to make millions of transactions on its network. There is also a question that we need to ask: Why is somebody doing this with the Bitcoin SV network? I don't know how the Coingeek author would argue that. Are they just doing these transactions for fun? There must be some motivation. To me it makes more sense that there is some purpose behind this that relates to changing the price, or at least perceived demand, for Bitcoin SV. This seems like a way to boost the price of Bitcoin SV by making it look like it is in high demand, and trying to entice investors who may not pay a ton of attention to the details.
@AntiSJWLeft
Publish0x Vs. Steemit - A One sided Blowout! I began cryptoblogging back in early 2018, on a site called Steemit. Nowadays you are much more likely to find me on Read.Cash or Publish0x. So what happened, and why do I now spend much more time on either of those sites than Steemit? Well, let's compare these sites. This articles compares Publish0x and Steemit, but I plan to write one comparing Read.Cash and Steemit next, so please follow if you want to see that (spoiler alert, it is going to be pretty one sided). I have already compared Read.Cash and Publish0x here. https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft https://www.publish0x.com/left-antisjw/readcash-vs-publish0x-advantages-and-disadvantages-xdrlqxl?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc https://read.cash/@AntiSJWLeft/readcash-vs-publish0x-advantages-and-disadvantages-fab2ff91 *****The Argument for Publish0x***** **Tips provided by the site** This is huge. Publish0x itself provides a certain amount for tipping every day. This is the best way I have seen to encourage tipping, especially when you get paid a percentage of any tips you leave. It is literally free money for both authors and upvoters. This has helped me get more tips. **Ease of use** Publish0x works essentially like any normal blogging site. If you have written online before, you'll get how Publish0x works immediately. The layout is like a normal website, and the writing editor is reasonably well put together. Steemit works on two of its own unique cryptocurrencies - STEEM and SBD, your upvote value depends on how much STEEM Power you have (which is just normal STEEM stored in a way that makes it more difficult to access). STEEM power also impacts how many actions you can take on the site over a period of time. Your upvote value also depends on your voting power, which you can change manually, but also depends on how many upvotes you have given recently, and recharges over a period of time. Steemit has a lot of upvote bots, which are essentially accepted on the site because it is one of the only ways for small accounts to potentially make money. The editor is poor, and doesn't allow saving multiple drafts. Got all that? Because that's the basic version. Explaining Steemit really requires its own article. **Less toxic community** Steemit is infamous for its often absurdly toxic community. On Publish0x you are never going to see an article pushed to the top of the site that accuses another member (without evidence) of being a pedophile and making numerous sexual jokes about them. Yes, that really happened on Steemit. More than once! Then you have major users creating bot networks to downvote every post another user makes. They often try to justify this as taking some moral stance, but it destroys the community of the site and just makes it a series of toxic feuds that tear everyone down. The amount of beef in the Steemit community makes WWE look mature and peaceful. Publish0x really just doesn't have this problem. **Lack of improvement** Steemit, in many ways, has barely changed since I joined it over two years ago. It is fine for a new crypto site to have problems, but the lack of progress is very concerning. Steemit has fallen behind, and will only fall even more behind if they don't get their act together. You can't stay stuck in 2017 while everyone else is improving. **Better average payout** For most people, you are going to get a better average payout per article on Publish0x, especially early on. It's not just hard to get attention on Steemit, but there are also just not many people who have valuable upvotes, since the Steem Power system links how much an upvote is worth to the amount of Steem Power a user has. Unless a new user wants to pay for Steem to make into Steem power, they wont have much for a long time. This leads to upvotes that are worth a fraction of one cent from most users. On Publish0x your first upvote every day is worth closer to 3-5 cents. **Views/Exposure** At least in my experience, I have managed to get way more views on Publish0x. I have a few articles with over 1,000 views, and many with hundreds of views. Steemit got rid of its view counter ages ago, but my views were a fraction of that. **Easier withdrawal of funds (Any ethereum wallet vs. few possible exchanges)** Publish0x allows any user to withdraw their funds to any ethereum wallet, while STEEM is only accepted on a couple of exchanges. Fortunately, Binance is one of the exchanges that takes STEEM, but this is still very limiting. **No hardfork drama** STEEM recently went through a hardfork recently that led to the creation of HIVE and Hive.blog as an alternative blogging site based on Steemit. As with any hardfork, this was filled with drama and bad blood. I wont get into the whole reason for the fork here, but this is yet more drama for the Steemit ecosystem. **Fast account approval** This pretty much explains itself, but I got approved to write on Publish0x in less than a day. The last time I checked, Steemit accounts can take days to more than a week to get approved. *****The Argument for Steemit***** **More people get high payouts** Although many Steemit users hardly get paid anything for their articles, a small number get large payouts from twenty dollars to a few hundred for a single article. If you are one of those lucky few, you are in great shape! **Larger community/comments** Even after a year on Publish0x, I still have a decent number of articles that only get 1-2 comments. These comments are real and can lead to good discussions, but obviously there is only so much you can do with that. **More articles/sub-cultures** People on Steemit blog on tons of different topics, while Publish0x is more focused on crypto. Publish0x allows blogging on different topics, but the way the community has emerged just happens to be more focused on crypto. If you do blog on certain specific topics on Steemit you have a decent chance of finding a little community (often a nicer one than the culture of the site as a whole). I got a decent number of followers who I regularly had interesting and polite discussions with. **No special deals or promotion of articles** I'll be honest - I've benefited from this on Publish0x. From time to time the site gets donations from certain projects, mostly famously Brave Browsers and Basic Attention Token, which leads them to offer contests for authors to promote that brand. I made some decent money off a good article I wrote promoting Brave (which is genuinely a good browser), but to some people this favoritism may be a turnoff. This can lead to a huge swell in articles about a certain topic all at once, which can get annoying. Personally, I haven't found it too troubling. I haven't seen them promoting anything that I thought was bad. However, Steemit is totally neutral in terms of promotion. **Steemit is built on a blockchain** The fact that Steemit is built on the STEEM blockchain makes it more censorship resistant than Publish0x can be. To most authors this probably wont matter much, but for those who write about more controversial topics, this is definitely a positive. *****Purely Opinion***** This section is for significant differences between the sites that I think are so opinion-based that I do not feel like I can objectively tell you whether they are good or bad. **Different Currencies** Steemit uses its own currencies, STEEM and SBD. Publish0x changes currencies from time to time, but is currently using Ethereum, BAT, and Loopring. I can't tell you which currencies to prefer or what projects to believe in. **Referral program for Publish0x, but not Steemit** This is probably positive for authors, because we get a slight bonus on Publish0x for referring users, but some users may find it annoying to see lots of referral links. *****Conclusion***** I feel that Steemit is essentially the site of the 1% - the top few people on the site have a great experience, while most people do not get a whole lot from it. Publish0x is more of a site for the 99% - for the vast majority of people it is a better, more profitable, and easier experience. Overall I'd easily recommend Publish0x over Steemit. With that said, it's always possible to crosspost between Read.Cash, Publish0x, and Steemit to maximize your earnings, if you are so inclined. https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft Sign up for Publish0x here: https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc https://www.publish0x.com/?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc (And yes, that is a referral link ;) It gives me a slight bonus and costs you nothing.) Join Steemit at Steemit.com
@AntiSJWLeft
Good News About Spammers - At least they Aren't Flat Earthers! This is probably my favorite spam comment ever. To be fair, it is good to [be] a nice person, and the world *is* spherical, but can anybody help me see the connection between the two? I suppose I would rather have spammers who know the world is round than spammers who are flat-Earthers...
@AntiSJWLeft
Let's go Spammer Hunting! They're taking our tips! I remember two days ago when each point was worth about one cent from the fund, but now they are less than half of that. What happened? The fund and daily spending are the same, so the number of points being assigned must have gone up. How did this happen? The numerous spammers on this site are siphoning off as many of those points as possible with their "I already subscribed subscribe back?" and "good article dear" comments. The spammers aren't just annoying, they are also causing each point to be worth less because their activities generate so many points. This spamming is not just annoying, it something that we all as a community need to come together to address. Read.Cash has introduced a measure to help fix this. Comments can now be marked as spam by article authors. Let's all make sure to use this function as much as possible so that these spammers can not make a profit off of this otherwise great platform. Hopefully once they stop making money they'll just leave...and leave us with more valuable points and more money! Let's go spammer hunting! (Hopefully this doesn't need to be said, but the pictures are for dramatic purposes only, not a suggestion for how we should deal with spammers.) For those interested in crypto and blogging, check out these sites where you can earn crypto for writing and tipping!: To join Publish0x follow this link: **https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc** To join Read.Cash follow this link: **https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft**
@AntiSJWLeft
Read.Cash vs. Publish0x: Advantages and Disadvantages Publish0x and Read.Cash are both blogging sites that allow users to earn crypto for their writing. However, which one is better? As a user of both sites, here is what I have found so far. https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft ****The argument for Read.Cash**** **$$$** With Marc De Mesel's recent contributions to the site, the payouts are pretty amazing right now. I've been on the site for less than two weeks, and yet I already can make 30-60 cents a day. On my best day, if payouts were as high as they are now, I would have made a $1.50. That is more than I was making on Publish0x and many times more than I was making on Steemit when my account was that young. If funding continues to increase moving forward the payouts could become truly impressive. Although it isn't making me rich, it's not bad for a very new user to the site who only invested a few dollars in boosting articles. **Boosting articles** On that note, there is a wide variety of options for boosting articles on Read.cash, simply by using the funds you have in your wallet. Those funds can either be earned on site, or deposited from another wallet. You have a ton of options based on the percentage of feeds you want your article to be at the top of and how long you want the boost to go. You can boost for as little as a few cents, or nearly $80, depending on what you want. It even gives you an estimate for how many clicks you'll get, and what the approximate per click cost is. **Bitcoin Cash news and discussion** If you want to discuss Bitcoin Cash, this is the site to do it. It is the topic of more articles than anything else (although other things are often discussed). **The Fund** Most users of Read.Cash are not paid primarily with tips on their articles. Every day there is a fund that is divided among users based on how many "points" they earned. The exact way the points are awarded is not public knowledge, aside from that it is related to performing normal activities on the stite, but it seems to be fair and not very difficult to earn points. Users may tip articles, but for the most part I have been getting paid from the fund. **Diversity of users** I've seen way more women and international users on Read.Cash than anywhere else. This leads to different topics being discussed and a more diverse sense of community and opinion. **Publish When you Want** To be clear, you can publish on either site whenever you want; however, on Publish0x it normally makes sense to wait until the evening. That is because Publish0x provides a certain amount of crypto for tips every day to users for free. However, every upvote is worth less after the last one every day. This replenishes at 8pm EST (midnight GMT). Therefore, to get the largest tips, it makes sense to upload in the evening. For that reason this article will not go live on Publish0x until about 8-9 tonight, but I'm publishing it on Read.Cash at about 5:15. It's annoying to have to wait. **The argument for Publish0x:** **Tips provided by site**: This is the big one. It's awesome to have a certain amount I can tip every day that Publish0x itself pays for. There is no better way to encourage tipping. It feels great to tip a few cents for free, and it helps me get more tips for my writing. **How Well Established the Site is:** Although still a somewhat new site compared to say, Steemit, Publish0x is definitely more established. This leads to a larger userbase, more established users with a lot of followers (and thus more people to tip them), and more certainty that we can trust the site. Trust doesn't just mean it's not a scam. I'm convinced Read.Cash is not a scam. Trust also means that you know the site will work properly. I haven't encountered issues on Read.Cash yet, but they advise users not to have more than $10 in their wallet at any time in case some sort of glitch happens that causes problems. Read.Cash is responsible about this, but it is still nice to know that a site has been around for a while. **Views/Exposure** The userbase on Publish0x is way higher at this time. On here my articles regularly reach hundreds of views, with many over 500. I even have one of 1,000. However, on Read.Cash, I'm probably averaging around 30 views. Read.Cash is growing quickly now, but it has a long way to go. If you want to get a message out Publish0x is a much better choice. **A real (if underused) comment section** Although there are not many comments on the average article on Publish0x, those comments pretty much always seem to be genuine. There are some good discussions that happen. Read.Cash has a ton of spam comments that mean nothing. Here is an example from one of my own articles: **Uncertainty for the future of Bitcoin Cash** Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is currently facing a major battle between two camps of thought as we approach the next update in November - Bitcoin ABC (BTCABC) vs. Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN). This may lead to a hard fork, in turn negatively impacting the value of BCH. **Read.Cash Essentially Relies on One guy for Funding** Marc De Mesel is a good guy, and I appreciate all of the cool projects he backs. He has done a ton for BCH, and as a fan of BCH I really respect him. However, he currently provides the vast majority (95%+) of the funding for Read.Cash tips. If he ever changes his mind about the project and pulls that money out (which he *can* do), the site is basically screwed. https://read.cash/@MarcDeMesel **Purely Opinion:** This section is for notable differences, but I think which one is better depends entirely on personal opinion. **Publish0x has multiple currencies, while Read.Cash has only one.** For some people, especially those of us who like Bitcoin Cash, just getting paid in Bitcoin Cash is fine. However, other people like to have more diverse portfolios. Diversity in a portfolio allows you to potentially use coins for different purposes (ie. donating BAT on Brave browser), but some people do not want to do that. A lack of diversity in a portfolio increases both potential risk and potential gain when the market shifts. It's up to you how you feel about cryptos as an investment and how you weigh risk vs. reward if you do invest. **Bitcoin Cash vs. Ethereum, BAT, etc.** Following from the above point, some users are going to have their preferred currency. Ethereum has a higher market cap than BCH, but BCH has faster transaction times and lower fees. Obviously people have different opinions about which currencies are likely to do better in the future, and have different reasons for owning crypto. I can't objectively tell you whether BCH is better than BAT or Ethereum. **Changing currencies on Publish0x** Publish0x has used a number of currencies in my time here, including Hydro, Bounty0x, DAI, all of which are no longer supported by the site. Now it uses BAT, Ethereum, and Loopring. A lot of people were upset about DAI being dropped from tipping, but again, it's all personal preference I almost put this in negatives because there is always a little uncertainty about what currencies may be supported in the future, but so far I think most of the changes to supported currencies have been positive. I can't tell you how to feel about this. Of course, it is always possible to post content on both sites! It's possible to earn a fair bit of money this way. To join Publish0x follow this link: https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc To join Read.Cash follow this link: https://read.cash/r/AntiSJWLeft
@AntiSJWLeft
Mattress Girl - A Saga of False Sexual Assault Charges and Blind Faith (Part 2) A lot of people seem to think that skepticism is a vice - and certainly not a virtue - but these people overlook the societal good that comes from skepticism. Skepticism doesn't mean not believing in anything or having no values, it means acknowledging the limits of our knowledge - knowing that we all have something to learn and that we can never assume that our first impression is right. It is about making sure that we do not hurt people and spread lies because they are convenient or fit a narrative we want to believe. It is about seeking out, and demanding, evidence for claims. It is about educating ourselves. It is about fact-based beliefs and policies. Imagine how much better off society would be if more people followed this worldview. The following is a case where skepticism was thrown to the wind, and an innocent man had his life destroyed because of it. (Check out Part 1 of this story here: https://www.publish0x.com/left-antisjw/mattress-girl-a-saga-of-false-sexual-assault-charges-and-bli-xznxmq?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc) After Columbia University had found that there was no evidence to support her claims of having been sexually assaulted, Emma Sulkowicz decided to use the national platform given to her by Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) and feminist media to push for a federal law that would reduce the amount of evidence needed to punish people accused of sexual assault on college campuses. When allowed to give a speech at the State of the Union she said that "Sometimes it takes a federal hand to make colleges listen", as if her college had not listened and thoroughly investigated her case. Gillibrand labeled Sulkowicz "A woman who got no justice" despite the fact that Paul Nungesser had been investigated and found innocent. Sulkowicz clearly was not going down without a fight. (Gillibrand, who tried to run for President in 2020...and polled less than 1%) In theory this law, which had bipartisan support, *could* have been a good thing. There is no reason to deny that there have been cases in recent history where colleges have not given appropriate support to survivors of sexual assault, and at times have not followed up on all possible evidence. Remember, skepticism is about looking for evidence, **not** just refusing to believe. However, in practice this law has shifted the standard at colleges from being close to "Innocent until proven guilty", to "a plurality of evidence shows they *probably* did it". Some people point out that colleges are not the judicial system, and so are not obligated to live up to judicial system standards. However, these standards exist for a reason. False accusations do happen, and false convictions can destroy an innocent person's life. Additionally, if the public learns of widespread false convictions, they will rightly lose faith in the process. Imagine a world where you meet a man who was expelled for being a rapist, and have to say to yourself "I wonder if he really did it. There is a serious chance he is innocent" instead of "Well that basically means he definitely did it, this guy is evil". When this law could reduce the stigma of being found to have committed sexual assault, it becomes important to consider if it is worth it. Sulkowicz continued her battle on the popular opinion front as well by making her senior art project a national feminist rallying-cry. She would carry around the mattress she was supposedly raped on until Nungesser was expelled, hence earning the moniker "Mattress Girl". Of course, he never was expelled, but the display attracted significant media attention. Even a UN ambassador referenced it. However, a counter-movement was brewing. Nungesser had received far less media coverage, and of course many of the pieces were not positive. Nonetheless, his lawyer had been fighting for him, pointing out that he had been found innocent and that the police had refused to look into the case for lack of evidence. Eventually, the New York Times covered what Nungesser had been put through despite being found innocent. He reported that former friends crossed the street to avoid him, and that posters were constantly put up around campus with his face and name labeling him a rapist. Not only was Sulkowicz getting course credit for her mattress project, but Columbia seemed to be doing nothing to combat the metaphorical lynch mob that had formed against him and constantly defamed him. No students were punished for the posters or graffiti labeling him a rapist, at least as far as is publicly known. He said that the charges against him were the result of a campaign of collusion and revenge, and pointed to how they had all been filed over a short period of time. It seemed he would be pushed into leaving Columbia through bullying, since expulsion did not work. It was clear that, despite a lack of evidence, and even being found guilty, none of that mattered to most people in the media, or to Senator Gillibrand. To them, he might as well have been found guilty. They acted like he had been, but just hadn't been punished. Shockingly, during the investigation that found him innocent he had not been allowed to bring up evidence that he had. For what reason is unclear. For example, he had not been allowed to show text messages between himself and Sulkowicz. When these texts became public they should have changed the entire conversation. The Daily Beast writer Cathy Young was, as far as I can tell, the one to break the new story and reveal the new evidence. Her article can be found here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/columbia-student-i-didnt-rape-her Facebook messages revealed a months-long friends with benefits relationship between the two. Sulkowicz herself confirmed that the texts were genuine and accurate, although she said that she would annotate the messages herself to explain the context and why they did not prove she was lying. Later, she said that she would not do this, citing "emotional labor". Despite the fact that The Daily Beast is a very (American) liberal publication, Sulkowicz, in an interview with the also liberal Mic.com, accused Cathy Young of being insensitive and anti-feminist. As is the case with many people who have been exposed as liars, she attacked the author of the piece exposing her, rather than the content of the piece. So what did the texts say? Aside from revealing the romantic history of the two, they showed Sulkowicz actually *pressuring Nungesser* into sex when he was reluctant, including on the night of the alleged assault. She requested specifically that Nungesser "fuck me in the butt", which he was clearly uncomfortable with and refused. Emma later denied this until the messages became public. There were multiple times when she would message him about having sex between 5-10 times without getting a response. She continued to message him, including messages with a sexual subtext, weeks after the supposed rape. Two days after the alleged rape she was texting with him about going to a party together and bringing some of her friends along because the ratio at the party was too male. Rape/assault was never brought up in the texts, nor where any references to her being upset with him. I actually had to double-check which night she alleged the rape happened because there was no indication in the texts. It was only months later, after Nungesser broke off their open relationship, that she made the allegations. Now a proven serial liar, Sulkowicz still persisted in her campaign to ruin Nungesser's life for breaking off an open relationship. She planned to bring her mattress stunt to graduation. The school sent an email stating that large objects could not be brought to graduation, and would have to be left outside. This is common practice at graduations to prevent people from being disruptive things like beach balls (or even sex dolls) to graduation as a joke. She brought the mattress anyway with some of her friends. In response the President of Columbia did not shake her hand as she crossed the stage despite that typically being the tradition when a student graduates. Feminist media ran with this as further evidence that schools just don't care about assault. However, video shows the mattress crew quickly walking past the president, which may have been what actually led to this incident. Regardless of the reason, this author stands with the President of Columbia University. Shortly after graduation, a male friend of Sulkowicz accused Nungesser of sexual assault. However, police found numerous flaws in this story as well and soon dismissed it. Interestingly, feminist media did not pick up on this story of a supposed *male* victim of sexual assault. Soon, members of the public began to rally, to some degree, to Nungesser's side. An anonymous Twitter account was set up mocking Sulkowicz with a bio describing her as running an "astroturf" campaign (a term borrowed from politics for a campaign trying to make it look like they have grassroots support they don't have, often by using unethical methods like bots). The account also tweeted out evidence she was lying and used hashtags associated with her movement so her supporters would see it. Soon, posters began popping up with an image of Sulkowicz carrying her mattress with three big words printed over it "PRETTY. LITTLE. LIAR." A taste of her own medicine. Surely at this point Sulkowicz would quietly go off after being so completely exposed, right? I suspect the reader already knows the answer to that question. In reality she quickly launched a campaign to to guilt-trip those who doubted her by acting out a rape scene on Porn Hub, with the explicit goal of making those who doubted her question themselves. More horrifyingly, in 2016 the National Organization of Women gave Sulkowicz their "Woman of Courage Award". The National Organization of Women is a significant and long-standing feminist organization. They also apparently don't give a damn about the truth if it contradicts their agenda. After all, if they admitted the lie, it might lead them to have to address that other accusers could be lying. The only real silver lining in all of this is that Paul Nungesser got some success out of his lawsuit. It ended up in a settlement, but at least he got something. More importantly, this is yet another piece of evidence in his favor. Columbia also put out a statement admitting that they had allowed his life to be torn apart in a disgraceful way. Really, the best outcome of this is in the form of videos (like that from Sargon of Akkad, which largely inspired this article and is linked below), and articles that expose how dishonest the modern feminist movement has become. There is a larger social message to take here, which is that skepticism is crucial, and belief without evidence destroys not only individual lives, but trust in the processes that keep our society together. I want to reemphasize, as I did at the start of part one, that sexual assault is a real, and serious, issue and that it is horrible when survivors are not taken seriously when they ave evidence. However, the dishonesty of how feminists have handled these issues speaks for itself. The SargonOfAkkad video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pwQSnQIPrY Legal settlement: http://www.konbini.com/us/inspiration/paul-nungesser-wins-lawsuit-against-columbia-university-emma-sulkowicz-mattress-girl-rape/
+2 more
@AntiSJWLeft
The Left must stop Denouncing Pragmatism as "Respectability Politics" It turns out that if you are going to get anywhere as a political or social movement you need to be able to convince other people that your points are sound. It turns out, to convince people that your points are sound, you need to provide evidence for your arguments and make them in a somewhat reasonable way. Activities like violence, vandalism, and preventing other people from traveling places or talking to people who they want to talk to only serve to make people close themselves to your ideas. To me this all seems common sense. Most people are not that politically involved or aware, so if you start off your pitch to them by shouting down a speaker or smashing some windows, you have already lost whatever chance you may have had to convince them to join your cause. In a Democracy, and to a lesser degree in other government types, the will and beliefs of the people are going to be reflected in the government. I am not so naive to claim that the government always reflects this will correctly or completely, but there is always going to be some connection because governments can only afford to piss of the people so much. If we woke up tomorrow and 75% of the population totally supported feminism, all sorts of feminist priorities would start getting passed. Convincing people to believe in and join your cause is how change happens. Radicals, especially on college campuses, seem to really struggle with understanding this idea. Perhaps part of it is that they really can't get a majority of people to agree with them because their viewpoints are often poorly supported by evidence and logic. However, it certainly doesn't help when they throw pragmatism to the wind. Let's take for example the now well-known incidences of students on university campuses shouting down speakers they disagree with. I have written an article about a BLM group shouting down the ACLU and I do not want to repeat everything I said in that article here, but suffice to say that such tactics only serve to highlight and promote whoever they were trying to shut down while also allowing them to claim victim status and sympathy. Whenever you tell people they are not allowed to see something, those people naturally become more interested in hearing whatever this forbidden idea is. Here is my article on that incident: https://steemit.com/freespeech/@pirateofthedtube/how-to-destroy-a-movement-blm-shuts-down-aclu-talk-on-college-campus Another great example is when Antifa tried to violently shut down a Sargon of Akkad event: https://steemit.com/sargonofakkad/@pirateofthedtube/antifa-are-complete-and-utter-morons-the-sargon-of-akkad-event In other instances, protesters resort to property destruction to make their points. Take for example a recent incident where some students vandalized fraternity houses while attempting to argue that fraternities should be banned: https://steemit.com/college/@pirateofthedtube/the-idiocy-of-banning-college-fraternities Normally anyone, especially if they are white or otherwise privileged, will be told to stop playing "respectability politics" and that playing respectability politics is racist. While there are certainly disingenuous people out there who only pretend to care about things like how vandalism, violence, or preventing other people from speaking is wrong, there are many reasons why considering how other people will view your methods is important to promoting any political cause. Ironically, stifling discussions about how certain methods might be inappropriate leads to the left shooting themselves in the foot. Because so many radicals live in a bubble (although to be fair we all do to some degree) they end up continuing to engage in tactics that seem abhorrent to everybody except themselves. They end up becoming incredibly out of touch with what the average person thinks, and so they wind up being totally unable to convince anybody of their cause's legitimacy. Shutting down these discussions by denouncing all criticisms of their tactics as racist only serves to drive them further from ideas and methods that would allow them to advance their cause. They just retreat further into the bubble. Every. Single. Time. Somebody does something stupid like vandalism, the whole discussion soon becomes about their methods, not their message. Soon, nobody is talking about the original reason the protest took place - we all end up talking about the actions taken by the protesters, and so the original problem goes unsolved. Follow me on Publish0x Here: https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc
@AntiSJWLeft
During this Bullrush Litecoin maxed out at...$69 Exactly It's hard for me to imagine out community didn't push to this price point as a bit of a joke, but it is appreciated. I was watching when it happened and it stayed at almost exactly $69.00 for a few minutes before dropping. Now it's looking like we might be in for a rough time going forward :/ Still, I'm not above cheap humor, and it looks like a lot of Litecoiners aren't either! I found it fairly hilarious honestly 😂
@AntiSJWLeft
Mattress Girl - A Saga of False Sexual Assault Charges and Blind Faith (The Columbia Rape Case) Sexual assault is a real, and serious, issue. Sometimes accusers are not taken seriously enough, but that doesn't mean that all accusations are true, or that the accused should be punished without a fair judicial process. The following is one such case where a witch hunt ensued and seriously damaged an innocent young man's life. It began in the frigid winter of 2013, when an article came out in a Columbia University school magazine, the Blue and White, when they published the article "Accessible, Prompt, and Equitable? An Examination of Sexual Assault at Columbia". In this article there were descriptions of two different accusations of rape, although for now all of the names were hidden behind pseudonyms. The woman was known as "Sara" and the man "Tom". This particular account described a couple who had been friends with benefits and had hooked up multiple times in the past. One particular night, the accusation goes, they ran into each other at a party and went back to her room together. When they had sex, he supposedly grabbed her hands to hold her down and began engaging in anal sex with her, even though she had only consented to vaginal sex and did not want to engage in anal. She says that she told him to stop, but that he kept going anyway and simply left the room when he was done. She never went to the police or a hospital to have a rape kit done, only telling a couple friends about what had happened. She said that the emotional strain of making a report, or even talking to a therapist was too much. However, she did eventually file a report with the University against "Tom" in April of 2013 after she learned of another girl, called "Natalie" in the story, who claimed to have been raped by "Tom" as well. In Natalie's case Tom apparently held her down during sex throughout their months long relationship, which often upset Natalie. Natalie felt months later that their relationship had been unhealthy and she had been manipulated. Eventually both women made reports to the University's Title IX office. Although the University opened an investigation, after only a couple weeks they concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to take any sort of action. So that's the end of the story right? It's just one person's word against another. In reality, that was when all Hell broke lose. A group calling itself "No Red Tape Columbia" began to go around covering their mouths with red tape to symbolize how "Sara", who by now had revealed herself to be a woman named Emma Sulkowicz, was being silenced by Columbia. It is still unclear how launching a two week investigation was a way of silencing her, but the campaign persisted none-the-less. It gained steam in part because in 2016 U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York (now a contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination) was seeking $100 million in federal funding to help enforce rules regarding sexual assaults on college campuses. She was soon joined by the more moderate Democratic Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill. Looking for a national story to help get her cause into the public eye, Gillibrand soon found the Columbia Rape Case. Gillibrand went to Columbia to give a speech, and although she did not mention Sulkowicz at the time, a the local CNBC affiliate covered the speech and interviewed Sulkowicz. In that interview she claimed that Columbia had thrown out the case entirely without hearing what she had to say, which is most unlikely, and failed to mention the multi-week investigation. That platform, given to a woman whose case had been thrown out for lack of evidence, reignited the whole controversy and highlighted it as a national issue. Sulkozicz' platform would only grow as mainstream and feminist media picked up on the story. Soon, hundreds of media stories were published covering these accusations, and feminist media in particular was demanding action. The New York Times noted that many of these activists were working together, particularly in regards to sharing their own experiences trying to get their own schools to act and to figure out how to best pressure Columbia to re-open the investigation. Soon, bathrooms and public spaces on campus were being graffitied with "rape lists" of supposed rapists. One of the names was Paul Nungesser, the man falsely accused by Sulkowicz, so it isn't too hard to guess who might have been writing these lists. Soon a student publication published one of these lists. One would think that a bunch of Columbia students would be smarter than to publish an article based on names scribbled on a bathroom wall, yet here we are... After Sulkowicz finally took the case to the police, and the police responded by not doing much due to the lack of evidence, the decided to launch what is now known as the famous "Carry that Weight" endurance art piece. This is when she carried around the mattress that she was supposedly assaulted on and became known colloquially as "mattress girl". She began this to fulfill a requirement for her senior art thesis, and said that she would continue carrying it around until her "rapist" was gone. Soon she was getting interviews about her new art piece, and there was talk of putting a display of her carrying the mattress, or even just the mattress, in a museum. In January of 2015 she was invited to attend the State of the Union address. She was the personal guest of...Senator Gillibrand. 2. Update: Part 2 is up and can be found here: https://www.publish0x.com/left-antisjw/mattress-girl-a-saga-of-false-sexual-assault-charges-and-bli-xnxdng?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc (This article was largely inspired by Sargon of Akkad's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pwQSnQIPrY)
@AntiSJWLeft
A Dishonest Feminist Meme - Common Sense Disproves it Not long ago I was scrolling through Facebook, as I am wont to do, and unfortunately I stumbled across a very dishonest SJW meme that probably should go on the r/thathappened subreddit if it isn't there already. It is clearly a fabricated story, or a story of a woman who found a rarely and exceptionally disturbed man, that is used to bash all men. Without further ado, here it is: There is so much stupidity here that we need to break it down. Let's just go from beginning to end. First, of course the author sets herself up as this knowledgeable person who people come to to ask all of their questions. She also seems to have a sort of "nice guy" who listens to her, but she proceeds to totally disrespect. Next, why on Earth does the guy hand over his phone? If somebody asked me to do that I would just say no...and I don't even have anything bad on my phone! Why on Earth would he agree? Especially when he has things like that on his phone. I would also point out that if "all" men are trash, why does she need to see *his* phone? Shouldn't there be millions of readily available examples not related to him anyway? Finally the meat and potatoes of this story - the gif and the men's unanimous reaction to it. First off, I don't know if I know anybody who is in a group chat with 20-50 people (also that seems to be a strange range...if she looked at it closely enough to estimate the number of group members, why doesn't she have a more precise estimate?). Who even makes a group of 20-50 dudes anyway? But the bigger question is, if this gif is real, ***how could she possibly know it was of rape***? That makes no sense! You can't tell if consent was given from a gif! This should be obvious, yet thousands of idiots didn't think of that and shared the meme anyway! Finally, how did none of these men reactive negatively to this gif? I know I would certainly be disturbed if a friend showed me actual rape porn. I get that it is roleplaying, but that is not my thing at all. I don't like anybody showing me porn - I do that on my own thank you! I don't think there is any group of men who wouldn't have somebody object or just walk out in this situation. If this story is true, and this is a group chat like this, I have news for her - these are not normal men. You have stumbled across some sort of cell of deeply disturbed sex offenders. But let's just keep it real. This story is made up. It is disturbing that there are some feminists who hate men so much that they not only use anti-men hashtags, but even make up stories to justify themselves.
@AntiSJWLeft
What Steemit Must Change to Stay Competitive Will Steemit's competitors like Publish0x kill off Steemit? The possible death of Steemit, and the collapse of the value of STEEM and Steem Dollars (SBD) has a lot of Steemit users, including myself, feeling very worried. Let's just say I'm glad that I diversified and started publishing on Publish0x and read.cash in addition to Steemit. https://www.publish0x.com/?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=p1 https://www.publish0x.com/@LeftAntiPC?a=pnel78MdKB First a little background - I started blogging on Steemit back in early 2018. I still post all my articles there (https://steemit.com/@pirateofthedtube) and plan to continue doing so. I have over 300 followers and a decent idea of the workings of the site, associated controversies, Dapps associated with it, etc. However, over the course of my two years on the site, I have noticed a number of significant issues. Unfortunately, many of them seem to remain unaddressed. First, let's talk about the immediate crisis you'll find most people on the site talking about: STEEM has fallen from being worth over $7 to being worth around 25 cents. At its lowest it was only worth around 12 cents. SBD, which is supposed to be pegged to the U.S. Dollar (ie. one SBD should always be $1) fell all the way to about 60 cents. This is a serious problem. More disturbingly, despite my bullish predictions last year, STEEM has not recovered, even as other cryptocurrencies have! To me this is the most disturbing problem of all: If STEEM is not increasing as Bitcoin, Etherium, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and pretty much every other coin have been trending up in recent weeks, then when ***will*** STEEM gain value? And what will happen when the market becomes bearish at some point in the future? My fear is that STEEM will not be helped much by market upturns, but may still be impacted by downturns, leading to a damaging cycle. **Work Like a Normal Website** My Publish0x readers who are not also on Steemit are probably deeply confused at this point. Many probably do not even know what STEEM is, let alone SBD. Simply, Steemit is a blogging platform built on the STEEM blockchain, and payouts on the site are in the form of STEEM and SBD. Although payouts may also be in the form of STEEM Power, which is just STEEM but put on the account in such a way as to make it difficult to access. Why would anyone want STEEM Power in that case? Well the more SP a user has the more their upvotes are worth. Of course, the value of STEEM/SBD also impacts what upvotes are worth. Think of this idea as some what similar to proof of stake - The more one is invested in the site/currency the more they are rewarded. There is a delay to turn SP back into normal STEEM so that a major holder can not just tank the entire currency by suddenly putting it all on the market. If this still seems confusing don't worry! It is confusing to most people and many users do not fully understand it. More advanced Steemit users will undoubtedly take issue with some ways in which my explanation was oversimplified and general. But to be fair, users will have anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to read up on the currencies and site, since that is how long it takes for accounts to be approved. Then we have the bid bots and bought votes, which are generally accepted on Steemit. I have become more open to this idea over time, but many newer users are turned off and confused about how bidding for votes could be acceptable on the site. It is mostly because this is one of the only ways to grow when you are a small creator, and these votes can be slightly profitable for the user. Obviously this unusual way in which payouts work, and the length of time it takes accounts to get approved, is a major turnoff to casual users. When it comes to a blogging platform this is especial unfortunate, as people will join and stay on the platform due to the community. Blogging platforms are almost always aimed at attracting as many users as possible to build community, but the way the site runs is anything but friendly to mass usership. To be this whole process reeks of an unfortunate attitude in the crypto community - usability is secondary and it doesn't really matter if most people struggle to understand it. As cryptos try to go more mainstream this attitude is going to become more of a problem. **Lack of Basic Blogging Features** Why on Earth can I not save a draft on Steemit? How does a blogging platform not allow users to save multiple drafts? Have fun having to focus on only writing one thing at a time, even if it is an in-depth article, since you can not save your progress and start on something else. Now, if you do have a blue screen or your browser crashes or something you should be fine with your one article, as Steemit does automatically save a draft of the one thing you are writing. However, the inability to save multiple drafts means I now always write on Publish0x and just copy and paste things over to my Steemit blog. When it comes to a longer post like this one I will pretty much always want to save it and put out another, shorter, story while in the process of writing the longer post so my readers are not left without content for an extended period of time. Steemit's editor also leaves a lot to be desired. I have to give it credit for allowing users to simply copy and paste images (a feature I wish Publish0x would add); however, the lack of formatting features like underlining, bold, italics, and changing how paragraphs are aligned is deeply disappointing. Yes, it is possible to do all of those things manually, for example through the classic (*) on either side of a word method and liberal use of the tab key, these things are unnecessarily difficult. Why not just have a button to press like every other site. How has Steemit been around for years, and yet hasn't managed to implement these features? **Lack of Progress/Updates** In fact, Steemit has really not improved much in my time on the site. To me this is the most damning statement I can make about the site. All sites have issues starting up, and I want to give them some slack since cryptoblogging is such a new idea, especially when Steemit started up. However, it is worrying to see a lack of progress on the site in terms of usability. Change comes slowly, even in emergency situations. in fact, some updates have created emergency situations. The most infamous of these updates was Hardfork 20 - a phrase that will make almost any Steemit user who was on the site in 2018 shudder. The entire site became essentially unusable for about a week. They introduced a system where users can only take so many actions on the site within a certain period of time. This might seem fine, but the number of actions was so low that people were having to choose between upvoting articles and being able to upload their own posts or comments. If you left a few comments on other people's articles, you might be unable to give them an upvote or make your own post. The amount of actions allowed was based on SP (I believe), so newer users with less SP were sometimes unable to take more than an action or two on the site. There was a day or two where I could not even log in. Imagine you waited a week to get approved for the site, only to log on and find you are unable to do anything. Those people left for the week+ it took to get this fixed, and they never came back. In my eyes this might have been the killing blow against Steemit, as the number of users fell off a cliff, and I suspect many of them realized that the site is a pain to use, STEEM wasn't worth as much as it used to be, and their time was better spent elsewhere. When those people left they simply did not come back. Shortly after HF20 I wrote the following article about how the site was failing to recover its userbase: https://steemit.com/steemit/@pirateofthedtube/steemit-is-only-just-now-recovering-from-hardfork-20 **Declining Popularity** When I wrote that article in December 2018 I was horrified to see that Steemit had fallen from being in the top 1,000 sites in the world all the way to barely being in the top 4,000. Today being in the top 4,000 would be a dream. As of today Steemit sits at around 27,500 in the world. That is the sign of a dying site. I don't want to believe that, but what else could I reasonably conclude? Of course, the recent controversies and HIVE hard fork have contributed to this decline as well. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com When so many users leave the site, including some major ones, it leaves us without the community we once had. One of the best writers I found on the site, @ekklesiagora, who wrote extensively and intelligently about Social Democracy and other left-leaning political movements, left the site three months ago. His posts, whether I agreed or disagreed with them, were among the most in-depth and intelligent on the site. Losses like this lead to people no longer coming to the site, simply because their favorite creators are elsewhere. https://steemit.com/@ekklesiagora **The Quality of the Community** As mentioned above, blogging platforms tend to want to attract and retain as many users as possible to build a larger community. However, Steemit's community is infamous for how toxic it is. There are numerous feuds on the site, and sometimes the top ranked articles will literally just be a couple sentences calling somebody else a "piece of shit" or even accusing them of pedophilia without evidence (yes, that really happened). I'm not huge on sites curating their trending content, but something is wrong on Steemit. Then there was the DLive split. DLive is a streaming service that was originally built on STEEM and closely connected to Steemit. In fact, one of STEEM's major selling points was that other DApps could be developed on the blockchain, which would likely increase the currencies' value. However, in a scathing post, DLive's founder announced in September 2018 that DLive would be splitting from STEEM to go its own direction. Reasons given included "STEEM is not sustainable for steaming platforms", and the low number of DLive users who actually came from other STEEM DApps. Ouch. After that, what are the odds that other major DApps will think STEEM is the way to go? https://steemit.com/dlive/@wa7/dlive-is-leaving-steem-and-this-is-my-last-blog-post-on-steemit **Conclusion** I haven't even touched upon other major controversies, such as a site founder leaving, questionable DApps like Drug Wars (which functioned very much like a ponzi scheme), and mass account buying to downvote other users. However, this article only needs to be so long for you all to get the point. Returning to our original question - will Publish0x, read.cash, and similar Steemit alternatives kill off Steemit? Probably not entirely, but that it just because Steemit holds to one single major advantage - the prospect of becoming one of the elite few who get high payouts from the site. As I mentioned, the highest payouts on Steemit are much higher than on Publish0x, even though the average payout on Publish0x is significantly higher. It is in human nature to hold out for that fraction of 1% chance of massive success. However, if things do not improve on Steemit, the community will continue to dry up. If that happens, then those highest payouts will decrease. At that point, it may be the end for Steemit. But that is unlikely to happen immediately. Instead it seems that Steemit is on a slow, painful, decline. More like the end of the Roman Empire than the French Revolution. Is this reversible? In theory I believe it is, as many of the above issues could be fixed to various degrees. Just a more usable site, a more user-friendly way of explaining STEEM vs. STEEM Power, vs. SBD, and the ability to save multiple drafts would go a long way. The biggest underlying problem is that Steemit just does not seem to be making the moves necessary to improve. ------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for reading this far! If you do not already have a Publish0x account it is fast and easy to sign up here, and you can even crosspost your content from Steemit, read.cash (or other sites) to Publish0x: *https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=rc.* Why not make a bit more, and reach a new audience on a growing site by crossposting? https://www.publish0x.com/?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=p1 https://www.publish0x.com?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=p1. If you are on Steemit, my account can be found here: https://steemit.com/@pirateofthedtube
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@AntiSJWLeft
Confessions of a Black Lives Matter Protester This may surprise some of my readers, but I have taken part in Black Lives Matter protests. However, I've also seen a dark side of the movement that I want to denounce. For the sake of my anonymity I may not give exact dates or locations, but this is the story of one event that deeply disturbed me. Now, if you came to this article expected either a full-throated defense of BLM, or a complete condemnation of the movement from a Conservative, you're going to be disappointed. This article is going to have nuance in it. I acknowledge that the average BLM supporter is fighting to correct real injustices in this country, but I also am disgusted with many of the tactics I've seen employed at the protests I've attended. This is almost certainly the first article in a series. Let's start with the immediate event that made me want to write this article. Recently during a march I took place in we walked past a restaurant that had a deck outside. There were a bunch of people outside drinking beers and chatting. This one young blonde white woman was sitting there and she just rolled her eyes and started waving us past and we walked by. The leader of our protest decided to call her out after we had mostly walked by yelling at her "why are you waving?!?", then asking a series of questions about why she was racist, why she used her privilege to keep black people down, etc. A bunch of protesters start to film her and she and the man with her (presumably a boyfriend or husband) start asking to be left alone. She asks to make sure we get her face on camera. By now the whole march has stopped for this one woman. She begins to film the protesters back, at which point the leader says "No, you can't film us! You can't film our revolution!" and asks for a bunch of people with signs to surround her to block the video camera. The woman says this is harassment as she keeps being yelled at. Eventually the woman throws her beer at the crowd (just the liquid, she keeps holding the cup), and a member of the crowd grabs a nearby beer and throws the entire cup at her as she is walking away, almost hitting her in the head. The leader of the protest starts yelling at the police to arrest the woman, which they do not do. To be clear, I think the blonde on the patio probably has some views I deeply disagree with. If a (fairly small) protest is passing you by, just ignore them for like one minute and they'll be gone. They have a right to freedom of speech and assembly. They also do have a right to film you - it is a public place. However, the protesters need to understand this goes both ways. She also has a right to be a dick and condescend to us as we pass by. She also has a right to film us, as we are a public protest on a public street. Instead, we created this big scene because we got annoyed and childish. Actually, most of us didn't take any part in that, but our leaders and a few overly enthusiastic people did. And this wasn't a one off thing. We stopped again to yell at a couple at a restaurant later, although it did not escalate the same way because the people just calmly listened. Finally, we partially surrounded a woman who was filming us to block her phone with signs, until a police escort allowed her to move away. This was all in one day. This was during a small protest in a small city. This is a tactic of this particular BLM group. This is mind-numbingly stupid. So how did I become mixed up in all of this, since I clearly did not agree with it? Without writing a whole essay, let's just say that there is something wrong in a country where black people commonly get killed by the police without a good reason. Especially when this happens disproportionately to black people. There is something wrong in a country where black people get arrested at many times the rate of white people for crimes that are committed equally as often by both groups (take marijuana possession for example, where blacks get arrested about four times as often). There is something wrong in a country where black people who commit a crime are much more likely to get the death penalty for committing the same crime a while person did - even when they have the same criminal history. So in theory, I agree with BLM that there needs to be a lot of reform. Many proposed reforms would actually also help white people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/ https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/race Still, tactics like this are guaranteed to turn people off from the movement, unless the only truth that gets out is highly edited videos. Unfortunately, that will probably be the case, this time. Please follow for more commentary in the near future about my experiences. As always, I am left-leaning in politics, but highly support freed of speech and honesty. If we have to hide the truth we are doing something wrong.
@AntiSJWLeft
Is Past Racism an Excuse to Hate Vaccines? I saw a post earlier that made me think about whether past racism is an acceptable excuse to not take vaccines, or at least the be skeptical of them. Here is the post: Let's briefly examine this. There are two at work here: First is that the history of medical malpractice involving testing unethically on black and brown people is a cause for medical skepticism. That history is real, and I do get why it would make some people skeptical of medicine in general. However, people need to overcome that. Fortunately, I think most people have done that. Anti-vaxxers seem to be overwhelmingly white. It seems like the black community almost universally understands that vaccines are safe and worth having. If nothing else, the fact that white people get the exact same vaccines should help allay any fears. I for one think that black and brown people are logical and reasonable enough to be swayed by evidence, rather than throwing money at them to manipulate their emotions... Second is the reparations idea. I am pretty openly anti-reparations in general. It certainly will not help people feel more comfortable to very publicly give reparations. That will just become an anti-vaxxer talking point in and of itself. In fact it could turn being anti-vaccine into a something of a political message among these communities. If people are already not trusting of medicine, how does giving them money change that? If somebody thinks they are going to be physically harmed, how much do you have to pay them? This really doesn't add up. https://www.publish0x.com/left-antisjw/questions-that-destroy-the-argument-for-reparations-xlzewr
@AntiSJWLeft
Censorship - Facebook (& Other Social Media) Making a Huge Mistake on Political Content As many of you all know, sites like Facebook and YouTube have trending sections that are curated by the site. In the case of YouTube incredibly unpopular videos can get into trending - indicating that it is basically just videos selected by YouTube - while on Facebook the process tends to be slightly more organic, although still politically biased. These measures almost never work as they are intended. They almost inevitably lead to mainstream (and important) political views being censored while some very odd things manage to seep through the cracks. Take the infamous censoring of Conservative voices on Facebook in 2016 (and likely earlier) through the present. Numerous Conservative voices were barred from making it into the Trending section Facebook used to have. However, DURING THIS SAME TIME FACEBOOK ALLOWED RUSSIANS TO FUND ADS ON THEIR PLATFORM. These adds often appealed to Conservatives and aimed to help turn out the vote for Trump. This is a great example of one reason these suppression campaigns are so problematic - they often give people they sense that something is being done about real problems, while in reality those problems are unaddressed. One key danger with false "solutions" is that they lead people to assume that the whole problem has been taken care of. So somehow, according to Facebook, normal or perhaps somewhat edgy Conservatives need to be hidden, but foreign ads that aim to interfere with US elections are fine. I wonder what could have possibly convinced Facebook to allow those ads... As unfortunate as this situation is, it creates a great opportunity for crypto-based social media like Steemit, Publish0x, Minds, etc. Those of us, whether Left, Right, or something else, who want to be able to debate, convince other people, or learn from other people, are going to be pushed more and more towards such websites. This trend will make pro-freedom of speech crypto sites the intellectual battlegrounds of the future. This trend will make crypto social media crucial for the advancement of our society as a whole. Most recently, YouTube and Twitter have been limiting the exposure of Conservatives on their platforms. Although the term "shadow-ban" may technically not be accurate, these platforms have definitely made a mistake by using algorithms to limit the exposure of these accounts. On occasion the sites have also banned important people with unpopular views. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/43paqq/twitter-is-shadow-banning-prominent-republicans-like-the-rnc-chair-and-trump-jrs-spokesman Of course, the sites use algorithms to do this. That is how the RNC chair and spokespeople for major US political figures get limited, while at times blatantly racist accounts are not. Algorithms are just hopelessly inaccurate and make absurd judgements that no normal human would make. Surely it hurts public discourse for the public not to be able to see many of these accounts. Even though I disagree with the right, discourse is important, and in order to understand what I am arguing against I need to be able to see what they are actually saying. Otherwise they will get to talk to undecided voters and convince people to join their ideology without resistance because I wont know how to argue against them since I will not have seen their arguments! On top of that, people will seek out things they aren't supposed to see. This will lead to a Streisand Effect. This whole process is ultimately counter-productive to the Left. No algorithm will ever be successful in this task, so it is better for social media sites to not even try to censor people like this. It will *always* fail. It will always catch innocent people in an overly broad net and let genuinely horrible people though. Please just focus on making a good site, not dictating the views people can see. Good, well-informed, and intelligent arguments will naturally rise to the top. Let the marketplace of ideas work its magic!
@AntiSJWLeft
My Olive Branch to the Right - Let's Break up the Monopolies Censoring You This brief article is inspired by the following statement posted by a right-wing activist. My own politics, as I repeatedly emphasize, center around supporting freedom of speech from a Left-Wing point of view. I think the issue of media censorship is a fantastic argument for the Left and Right joining forces. Let's start with the Right, since I assume most of the people reading this are probably right-leaning, based on the sites I tend to post on. For you all this should be pretty obvious - these monopolies, especially as they talk to each other, end up shutting down right-wing voices on a regular basis. Look at the number of Conservatives who have been suddenly banned on every social media platform within days of each other. Alex Jones, despite how absurd I think he is, comes to mind, but there have been dozens of Conservatives banned that I've heard about, but I assume there are hundreds I haven't heard about. Clearly the competition that is supposed to exist in a free market just isn't working in this case. I'd add Twitch to that list of monopolies. That is the key issue with monopolies, especially when they work together for political reasons. The only options you all have left are basically Steemit, Hive, Minds, DTube, Gab, DLive, and Publish0x. Some of those sites, like Gab and to a degree Minds, take on a much further right-wing character than most Conservatives. None of them are true replacements for the sites listed above. For some on the Left this issue seems less serious, but there are a few reasons we should care too. First off, let's not pretend that corporations are on our side. Right now Left-wingers aren't censored as much as the Right, but it is starting to happen. Here is an article about dozens of Occupy activists who were banned suddenly by Twitter, but there are many other examples. Anybody who is a Socialist or left of that (ie. anyone who might want to nationalize certain corporations) will be targeted by corporations. Why would Twitter or Facebook want to allow voices that say that Twitter and Facebook should be nationalized, or broken up? They all rely on corporate advertising, so it is also bad for them if banks, industry, health insurance, and/or other industries are nationalized. It is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to them. Corporations have no love for the true left, and will censor them as soon as they finish with the Right. Actually, they have started already. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ban-us-mid-term-elections In addition, most left-leaning (and even some right-leaning) individuals realize that monopolies break the market system and allow corporations to take advantage of customers. I see no reason that same logic shouldn't apply here. In fact, some left-leaning to Left-Wing commentators like Kyle Kulinski have advocated many of these views already. https://twitter.com/kylekulinski/status/1026677136919166976 Breaking up major social media monopolies is the best way to address these issues. The ones that appeal to a broad base, including people of diverse political views, will succeed by having a whole user base that wont consider other options. That will lead to a resurgence in significant social media sites where we can have real political debates without fear of censorship. Let's all work together on this issue!
@AntiSJWLeft
$1,000,000 Question: Is Mining Worth it? Mining has been around the crypto world from the beginning, and yet, it is now out of reach for almost everybody. Mining farms in 3rd world countries with cheap electricity dominate the mining business, increasing difficulty and inconsistent value make it hard to predict whether mining is worth it or not, and different coins are more difficult to mine than others. I've been intensely researching this topic for the last few days and have come to the conclusion that mining...basically isn't worth it for 99% of people. CPU and GPU mining is so slow now that you are going to spend more money on power than you'll get in whatever coin you are mining - often by a margin of 10 to 1. Even ASICs, the computers made to literally only mine, are often not worth it. They are expensive, and as they become more popular coins become more difficult to mine, making their returns quickly decrease in value. The way one Youtuber put it was "If you can get one of the first batch of ASICs - basically in the first one to three months they are out - you might make some money". However, brand new high quality ASICs can run 1,000s of dollars. Now let's talk opportunity costs. Let's say you buy a brand new $1,000 ASIC. Let's also say that you are mining some coin with it that is extremely profitable. You are making $200 a month doing this (nearly unheard of for all but the most expensive rigs). Let's also pretend that, somehow, even though it literally defies the most basic principles of mining, nobody else busy ASICs like this and the difficulty of this coin does not increase, so you keep making $200 a month rather than seeing diminishing returns like you would in real life. In five months, you are back to where you started - you have only paid off your $1,000 machine. What if you had instead invested that $1,000 in just directly buying a coin, like Ethereum? Even if you had only done that one month ago, you'd now have over $1,600 of Ethereum. So would you rather have $0, or $1,600? Don't even get me started on cloud mining - it's basically a scam that takes advantage of people who don't understand how mining difficulty increases over time, and thus the amount they make the first month will drastically decrease over the term of the contract. Think logically - if cloud mining or ASICs made more money than they charge to buy one, then the people who have that hardware would just use it to mine for themselves instead of selling it. I've looked at mining Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and Monero, and so far Monero is the only one where I could actually "make" money mining it. Monero is designed to be ASIC resistant, which I appreciate. They basically want to have people mine with CPUs or GPUs, which I really appreciate. Still, if I could get power for free, I'd only be making around $40 a year on my (admittedly non-specialized) rig. Taking into account the wear and tear on my CPU, which would have to run at almost 100% usage for an entire year straight, it just isn't worth it. Not to mention, it's worth losing $40 a year to actually be able to use my computer to do things I want at a reasonable speed. I wanted to write an article on how to mine when I started looking into this, but I'm afraid I just didn't find any good news to share. To me it looks like mining is essentially dead for everyone who can't get either free electricity, or can set up a mining farm with 100s of GPUs or ASICs. Like I said though, I only intensely researched this for a few days, so there are others out there who know more. Please do comment if you think you have a realistic way of making money mining, I just haven't been able to find one.
