11 thoughts on “On Oil and Crypto”

1. Trump's self serving verbal diarrhea ("I'm great – blah-blah-blah – I'm great – blah blah blah….on infinite repeat") reminds me of Chris Hedges' The Rule of Idiots

   The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.

   Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives as revolution brewed in the streets.

   In “Hitler and the Germans,” the political philosopher Eric Voegelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism, but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures,” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiot, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist, its collective departure from a rational world of verifiable fact.

   These idiots, who promise to recapture lost glory and power, do not create. They only destroy. They accelerate the collapse. Limited in intellectual ability, lacking any moral compass, grossly incompetent and filled with rage at established elites who they see as having slighted and rejected them, they remake the world into a playground for grifters, con artists and megalomaniacs….

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   • I tend to be pedantic: Hedges’ argument may make sense but his knowledge of history seems dicey.

     The Emperor Nero died in 68 AD. The “Fall of Rome” was in 476 AD, though one can argue that the Roman Empire finally fell in 1453 AD with the fall of Constantinople.

     According to Wiki, Qin Shi Huang was the first Emperor of China; the Qin dynasty only lasted 14 years which seems to suggest some problems other than decadence.

     As far as I can remember the Mayan civilization consisted of a a number of more or less constantly warring civil states much like ancient Greece. 

     He may have something of a point about the Russian Empire though I’d say his explanation seems just a bit facile.

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     • It is a bit facile, I agree.

       What I think about, is how history is littered with empires that rose and fell, more or less permanently, vs a cyclical view of US history presented in works like "The Fourth Turning". Spring is just around the corner, in the latter view. 

       But I don't think anyone would disagree about where we are vis a vis late Rome – where self-absorbed idiots are doing their best to send us into oblivion.

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       • I'd never even heard of  "The Fourth Turning".  

         OTOH, I'd agree there may be some similarities with 4th & 5th C Rome.  Or possibly late Ming China? 

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2. “Why does he need to keep doing it? He’s literally a billionaire. Like, how much more money does he need?”

   Someone doesn't understand billionaires.

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3. He’s about to have another meme coin dinner, pretty sure that there are still plenty of useful idiots out there hoping to cash in on the pump and dump.

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4. “I understand some of these people lost significant amounts of money. I feel bad for them“

   I have zero sympathy.

   And I’d like to see all crypto priced at its true value.

   Zero.

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5. above…“Why does he need to keep doing it? He’s literally a billionaire. Like, how much more money does he need?”

   I have a theory. It's quite possible I didn't invent it, but I don't recall hearing about this specific angle:

   The reason that all of these billionaires keep doing this stuff is that they are literally addicted to personal accumulation of money. They get endorphin rushes every time they rake in more money.  And this pathology, for these individuals, goes deeper: they get a stronger endorphin high from "ill-gotten gains" because part of the pathology is the thrill of getting away with something society disapproves. In their addiction, they are no different than a homeless heroin addict or oxycontin addict.

   Not everyone who is wealthy has this addiction.  But every addict behaves as described above because they are controlled by their addiction.

   This analysis does nothing to help us deal with it, other than encouraging us to avoid wasting time trying to make sense of their behavior.  We should just focus on protecting general society from their depradations.

   Sort of a minor shifting of gears here: I heard a TeeVee commentator make the following point, which I think is on target: It is better for all of us to everything we can to boost the turnout of voters who will vote against the R's… better specifically because margins matter; larger margins of winning are way better everywhere we can achieve them.  The message is stronger, and the likelihood of getting away with shenanigans is lower. MORE ANTI MAGA VOTES EVERYWHERE.   One more month.

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6. It’s unusual for him to be directly quoted in print without his rhetoric being cleaned up. 

   At first I thought it was a display of courage from Time magazine, but then I wondered if they are simply concerned about a lawsuit if they alter a single word.

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7. We are all dogs, Pavlov's dogs, in training.  As our emotions are being conditioned with political ads that range from really bad to grossly objectionable.  It's working.  I now get waves of ecstasy when I hit the off button on my remote control.  What a giant waste of money, other than turning my remote off button into near orgasmatron of course.   According to copilot Motorhead had a song by that name that:

    The song portrays the Orgasmatron as a symbol of manipulation and control, with lyrics depicting religious hypocrisy, political deceit, and the glorification of war .

   How fitting.

   As to the un-sane-washed copy of the demented one, I'm with those who are going with frontotemporal dementia at about a stage four or five.   Mayo Clinic gives the speech and language symptoms as:

   • Increasing trouble using and understanding written and spoken language. People with FTD may not be able to find the right word to use in speech.
   • Trouble naming things. People with FTD may replace a specific word with a more general word, such as using "it" for pen.
   • Not understanding the meaning of words.
   • Hesitant speech that may use short, simple sentences.
   • Making mistakes in sentence building

   And he said   "There was no negative number."   That is my favorite.    It's like his…we only have good poverty.  It could well be a brain on FTD.  Whatever is going on he seem totally oblivious to what we can all see quite clearly.  To his credit, he still seems to be functioning better than Mitch McConnell, but Mitch does have a couple of years on him.

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8. He's a man who eats your soul, bit by bit…. George Conway on Trump's superpower: his ability to corrupt others. But people get to a breaking point with him and the deception they agreed to, and that's where we're increasingly at.

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