infinitesunrise

1. These are US electricity prices. Where in the US? They don't say. There are miners in the US who get their electricity for "free" ie they generate it from waste heat or waste gas. So this is de facto a cherry picked number.

2. Most bitcoiners believe that the value of bitcoin will continue to rise in the future as it has for the past 14 years. A $137K bitcoin today could be an insane bargain in several years. Also "untainted" coins - Coins that haven't passed through other wallets yet - Generally trade at a slight premium as there is lower risk of them being confiscated by governments in the future for having passed through the hands illegalized owners.

3. No shit bitcoin is concentrated in a few holders. It's money, under capitalism. The author conflates communist-style distribution of value with the decentralized administration of the network itself. This is like saying that Lemmy isn't decentralized because the majority of posts come from 1% of users. There's no way that rhentorical switchup was accidental, that is a misleading and disingenuous writing choice.

I'm as happy as anyone to criticize bitcoin, but this is trashy clickbait.

Brand New - Daisy

Hey, don't underestimate my stupidity! :P But from your avoidance, I do think I understand what you're suggesting. It's righteous, but I don't think it's viable. Certainly not from a civil society standpoint. Cops are often sad angry people, they often have a lot less to lose than most active and engaged community members.

I really do think that getting more judges to reject QE is a better path, less ability for cops to retaliate and far fewer institutional hurdles to surmount. No risk to existing labor rights for workers in other sectors. And there is already the precedent of several judges speaking out against QE and deciding not to adhere to it. There is also the precedent of most other common law countries not adhering to QE.

So how would you do that? I'm reading conflicting opinions from your comments. One comment back your entire point was that you can negotiate with police unions to end pensions (Strong disagree from me). Now it sounds like you're saying that you cannot negotiate ending police pensions as they will soft strike and stonewall (I do agree with this, they already react this way to much softer demands). I literally thought you were a new commenter just now until I read your username.

So how exactly would you do it? How would you convince police to end their pension programs, ostensibly in exchange for greater accountability for bad behavior?

Well unfortunately in the case of US police unions, it's an anti-labor force using a labor organization as a disingenuous hedge against accountability. And also at the end of the day a police union resisting insurance requirements for it's members actually is a case of workers (Class traitors, but workers all the same) organizing against their employer.

This has definitely been attempted, in fact I would reckon that the majority of police contract negotiations begin on the topic of pensions as it is one of or possibly the largest cost associated with running a police agency. But as no union worth it's salt would ever budge on the one thing that is most important to it's members - Teachers, longshoremen, delivery people, factory workers, none of them have ever given up pensions because it would be wildly against their primary interest - It hasn't happened yet. What would you do differently to convince police unions to abandon their retirement plan (Or replace it with something that can be deducted from or penalized conditionally)?

Well if there's a weapon involved - Unstable person waving around a knife in public for instance, which is fairly common - It's automatically an emergency and PSR isn't involved (Which ironically means it has a much lower response rate, as the cops here are bad at showing up in time for emergency calls). I think the police are opposed to it because 1) It's money that might otherwise go to PPB, who already get millions of dollars in budget expansion every year and more importantly 2) It puts the lie to the myth that you need an intimidating security force with weapons to respond to all incidents when e.g. an unarmed 40 year old woman can diffuse a seemingly violent individual possibly in psychosis by offering them a peanut butter sandwich, asking them when the last time they napped was, and sitting down with them on a bench to talk about their feelings and issues for a half hour.

Police pensions are protected by police unions. Abolishing police pensions would almost certainly require kneecapping their labor rights. Sorry, I realize now that I left explanation of this logic step out of my first comment. What I am essentially asking is, how would you undermine police unions without also undermining all unions, and thereby all labor?

Fire Fest is back on

Here in Portland, Oregon the city has a relatively new agency called Portland Street Response, tasked with responding to non-emergency calls located in public places. They have social work and related training, show up with a big van full of supplies, are unarmed, and trained in de-escalation. Sometimes if the call holds the possibility of escalating, they will show up with an armed police officer who's job is to be on the periphery if needed. The program has been wildly successful and popular, is expending, and it's largest most vocal opposition is... The Portland Police Bureau.

How would you strip police unions of their pensions without also destroying the savings of every other labor union in the US? Dissolving labor rights is not the right way to fight an anti-labor force, it's very "fighting fire with fire".