Yes, it contains numerous exceptions for crypto to basically not have to adhere to traditional fraud law.

Correct. Assuming BTC holds any real world value is quite presumptuous.

The vast majority of the world attributes no value whatsoever to such digital abstractions backed by nothing but a self-interested temporary network of nodes that waste obscene amounts of energy in a negative-sum, decentralized Ponzi scheme.

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #9 (arbitrary claims)

"**Bitcoin is.. ['freedom', 'money without masters', 'world's hardest money', 'the future', 'here to stay', 'Hardest asset known to man', 'Pristine collateral', blah..blah]**" / "**Crypto Will End War**"

  1. Whatever vague, un-qualifiable characteristic you apply to your magic spreadsheet numbers is cute, but just a bunch of marketing buzzwords with no real substance.
  2. That which can be presented without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.
  3. Talking in vague abstractions means you can make claims that nobody can actually test to see whether it's TRUE or FALSE. What does it even mean to say "money without masters?" (That's a rhetorical question.. our eyes would roll out of their sockets if you try to answer that.)
  4. Calling something "The future" or "It's here to stay" seems to be more of a prayer or self-help-like affirmation than any statement of fact. The technical term is an *Unstated major premise fallacy*.
  5. The argument that a crypto-based economy will "end war" makes zero sense. No war has ever ended because people ran out of money. Instead they ran out of *resources*. And during times of conflict, it's the use of power to acquire resources, not currency.
  6. George Orwell did it better.

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #18 (Few Understand)

"**You don't understand**" / "**DYOR**" / Using an insult in lieu of an argument.

1. This is what's known as an "[Ad Hominem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)" fallacy - aka "attacking the messenger" as a distraction from arguing the core points made.
2. This is what we call, "[Crypto Gaslighting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=571s)." Crypto proponents pretend that we're not smart enough to recognize the value of crypto, therefore there's something wrong with *us* and not the phony reality they're peddling.
3. Almost never does the OP actually explain what it is they understand and we don't. It's merely a way to dismiss any opposing viewpoint without actually addressing it.

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #3 (inflation)

**"InFl4ti0n!!!"** / **"The dollar will eventually become worthless"** / **"The dollar has lost 104% of its value since 1900!"** / **"The government prints money out of thin air"**

1. The "OMG iNfLaTiOn!" argument is a common one put forth by crypto bros. In addition to being fallacious (Tu Quoque, Whataboutism) it's an ignorant and shallow attempt to make people not have faith in fiat, and somehow believe bitcoin would be a reasonable alternative because it's supposedly deflationary and a better store of value. All of those premises are false.

2. Beyond that, crypto bros pretend there's one principal type of "inflation" and that is "monetary inflation" which by contrast makes Bitcoin's scarcity some type of reasonable alternative. In reality, there are [different types of inflation.](https://mises.org/understanding-money-mechanics/monetary-inflation-and-price-inflation) The most common one is "[price inflation](https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/july/differences-prices-inflation-explained)" which has nothing to do with how much money is in circulation. "Monetary inflation" is the least significant type of inflation in modern times, but crypto bros single out this element because it's the best scenario where they can argue their deflationary currency helps, but that's false. The causes of inflation are **many**, and the amount of money in circulation is one of the least significant factors in causing the prices of things to rise. More prominent inflationary causes are things like: [corporate greed & price gouging](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/11/companies-inflation-price-gouging), [fuel prices](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140988322000895), [supply chain issues](https://www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/supply-chain-issues-contribution-to-inflation.html), [war](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-effect-of-the-war-in-ukraine-on-global-activity-and-inflation-20220527.html), environmental disasters, [one-time COVID mitigations](https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2022/03/why-is-us-inflation-higher-than-in-other-countries/), pandemics, and even [car dealerships](https://www.wsj.com/articles/car-dealer-markups-helped-drive-inflation-study-finds-7c1d5a2d).

3. The government does **not** "print money out of thin air"... all money in circulation is [tightly regulated and regularly audited and publicly transparent](https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/audited-annual-financial-statements.htm). The organization that manages the money in circulation is the Federal Reserve and contrary to what crypto bros claim, they're not a private cabal - they [are overseen and regulated by Congress](https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-system.htm). It's a delicate balance between money issuance and the status of the economy. And any attempt to increase debt [requires an Act of Congress to increase the debt ceiling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt_ceiling) - it's neither arbitrary, nor easy to do.

4. Crypto bros use "cash" as an example of wealth storage, but most people do not store their wealth in fiat. [Currency is meant to be *spent*, not hoarded](https://medium.com/change-your-mind/money-is-meant-to-be-spent-not-saved-9618edec676f). A dollar today will buy what it buys. If you hold a dollar for 90 years, of course it won't buy the same thing decades later (although it might actually be worth significantly more as antique money). Crypto creates no value and makes a lousy "investment."

5. If you are looking to "invest" you don't keep your value in cash/currency/fiat. You put it into something that can *create value* like stocks that pay dividends, real estate, interesting bearing accounts, and other personal property that allows you to be more productive (thereby creating additional value) as well as helps stimulate the economy. Crypto does none of that.

6. Bitcoin also [hasn't proven to be a hedge](http://prasad.dyson.cornell.edu/doc/WSJ.08Oct23.pdf) against anything, least of all monetary inflation. There are more and more studies that show [Bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation](https://www.bitget.com/news/detail/12560605033512) . Some argue [bitcoin is a liquidity barometer](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/10/26/bitcoin-shines-as-a-liquidity-barometer-not-an-inflation-hedge-nydig-says) and not a hedge.

7. Some inflation is a by-product of a healthy economy: Over time more money is put in circulation - some pretend this is a bad thing, but it's not done in a vacuum. The average annual wage in 1900 was less than $4000. In 2023 [it's more than $70,000](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/)! There's more people out there and the monetary supply grows appropriately, as does wages. You can't take one element of the monetary system completely out of context and ignore everything else.

8. Sure there may be some nations that have caused out of control inflation as a result of their monetary policy (such as Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela, Sudan, etc) but comparing modern nations to third-world dictatorships is absurd. The real problems these countries face are a more complex function of poor leadership + other political/environmental factors, not monetary systems, and crypto doesn't fix any of that.

9. If bitcoin and crypto was an actually disruptive, stable, useful technology, you wouldn't need to promote lies and scare people over the existing system. The *real* reason you do this is [because nobody can find any legitimate reason to use crypto in the first place](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/).

10. Crypto ironically has more inflation in its ecosystem that is even more out of control, than in any traditional fiat system. At least with the US Dollar, money is accounted for and fully audited and it takes an Act of Congress to increase the debt. In crypto, all it takes is a dude printing USDT, USDC, BUSD or any of the other unsecured stablecoins to just print more out of thin air, and crypto-morons assume they're worth $1 of value.

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #1 (Decentralized)

**"It's decentralized!!!"** / **"Crypto gives the control of money back to the people"** / **"Crypto is 'trustless'"**

1. Just because you de-centralize something doesn't mean it's better. And this is especially true in the case of crypto. The case for decentralized crypto is based on a phony notion that central authorities can't do anything right, which flies in the face of the thousands of things you use each and every day that "inept central government" does for you. Do you like electricity? Internet? Owning your own home and car? Roads and highways? Thank the government.

2. Decentralizing things, especially in the context of crypto [simply creates additional problems](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=1157s). In the de-centralized world of crypto "code is law" which means there's nobody actually held accountable for things going wrong. And when they do, you're fucked.

3. In the real world, everybody prefers to deal with entities they know and trust - they don't want "[trustless transactions](https://www.vox.com/23752826/binance-coinbase-sec-crypto-investors)" - they want reliable authorities who are held accountable for things. Would you rather eat at a restaurant that has been regularly inspected by the health department, or some back-alley vendor selling meat from the trunk of his car?

4. You still aren't avoiding "middlemen", "authorities" or "third parties" using crypto. In fact quite the opposite: You need third parties to convert crypto into fiat and vice-versa; you depend on third parties who write and audit all the code you use to process your transactions; you depend on third parties to operate the network; you depend on "middlemen" to provide all the uilities and infrastructure upon which crypto depends.

5. If you look into any crypto project, you will ultimately find [it's not actually decentralized at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=2557s).

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #4 (scarcity)

"**Only 21M!**" / "**Bitcoin has a "hard cap"**" / "**Bitcoin is 'scarce' and that makes it valuable**" / "**DeFlAtiOnArY cUrReNCy FTW**" / "**The 'halvening' will make everything better**"

  1. It's well established that scarcity is not a guarantee of value. It's very telling that clinging to such an overtly irrational argument demonstrates that crypto people live in a tiny "bubble" where they reject all manner of empirical evidence against their "beliefs."
  2. If there only being 21 million BTC were reason for it to be valuable, then why aren't other cryptos that also share similar deflationary characteristics equally valuable? Why wouldn't something that is even more scarce than BTC be even more valuable? Because scarcity is meaningless without demand and demand is primarily a function of intrinsic value and utility -- *not* scarcity. See [here](https://ioradio.org/i/value/) for details.
  3. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and no material utility. It's one of the least capable stores or transfers of value. The *only* way anybody can extract value from crypto is by coercion -- forcefully convincing someone (usually through FOMO or scare tactics) that this is something they need, and it's often accompanied by unrealistic promises of significant returns. Those returns are mathematically impossible for even a tiny percentage of holders.
  4. Bitcoin also is not scarce. There are multiple versions of Bitcoin, including Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision - both of which are limited to 21M tokens and in many cases are more technologically advanced than BTC. Also, every time there's a fork of crypto, the amount of tokesn in circulation doubles. Crypto proponents ignore these forks because they don't play into the "it's scarce" argument. But any crypto fork absolutely siphons value away from the original version. BTC might be priced higher than BCH, but BCH still holds value as well, and that's a total of 42M just of those two "bitcoin" versions that are out there, among hundreds of others.
  5. The "hard cap" of 21M for BTC can easily be changed by altering a parameter in the source code. Less than 6 people have commit access to the repo so BTC's source code control is centralized. It's entirely possible if BTC existed long enough to the point where block rewards weren't enough to motivate miners, and transaction fees became incredibly high, that influential players in the community would advocate increasing the cap and reinstating higher block rewards. So there are absolutely situations where the max amount in circulation could be increased.
  6. Even assuming BTC is limited in production, when it co-mingles with unsecured stablecoins like USDC and USDT, it is subject to inflation via stablecoin/liquidity inflation in the market. In reality, nobody really knows what the true price of BTC actually is given most crypto transactions at CEXs are done with stablecoins and not actual money. The underlying liquidity has never been accounted for.
  7. The scarcity of bitcoin basically amplifies all the wealth disparity dynamics crypto people complain about in the real world, which means in a world where bitcoin was a dominant store of value, there'd be an even greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Ironically, Bitcoin's scarcity is one of its greatest liabilities. See [this detailed video for a more in-depth explanation](https://youtu.be/g3iqbB6URHA).

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #24 (democratization/transparency)

"**Bitcoin's value is its 'transparency'**" / "**Bitcoin is 'audited'**" / **"The elite/politicians/Soros & Buffet/rich/oligarchs who control banks/money/everything are screwing everybody and crypto will fix that"** / "**Bitcoin was 'fair launched'**"

  1. 99.99 % of most bitcoin transactions do not happen on bitcoin's blockchain or any native crypto's blockchain. Most transactions are on private, unregulated centralized exchanges that are not at all transparent, so the "public ledger" of bitcoin is a useless gimmick.

  2. Furthermore, crypto blockchain ledgers are pseudonymous, and people can operate an infinite number of wallets, so it's easy to hide transactions and intent on chain. At the same time, it's also easy to expose certain transactions since the on and off-ramps do not afford people the same protections.

  3. The idea that crypto will be a hedge against powerful special interests is laughably hypocritical. In fact, the [wealth and power disparity in the crypto market](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wealth-distribution-in-bitcoin_tbl1_357196737) makes all existing monetary systems seem 100% egalitarian in comparison.

  4. It's estimated that 90% of the BTC is in the hands of 2.5% of the wallets. 58% of Bitcoin is in control by 0.1% of holders. If Bitcoin were to become a dominant financial security, it could create an even smaller group of super-powerful oligarchs with significantly less oversight than existing systems.

  5. Other cryptos like Ethereum are just as bad, if not worse. Almost all crypto schemes are conceived primarily as a benefit to its developers and early benefactors, and as such, they almost always have a wildly disproportionate share and influence over the system. It doesn't matter if we're talking about DAOs or SAFEMOON. All the claims about being "money for the people by the people" is a huge lie.

  6. All around the world, people are well aware of powerful special interests taking advantage of others. This certainly is a problem that needs to be addressed, but crypto in no way offers a solution, and in fact would exacerbate those very problems on an unprecedented scale.

  7. The Brookings Institute produced a great analysis of this that can be found [here](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/debunking-the-narratives-about-cryptocurrency-and-financial-inclusion/) and here's a sample:

  "Similar to how proponents depict cryptocurrencies as a way to “democratize finance,” payday loans were once described as a way to promote the “democratization” of credit. Subprime mortgages were also heralded as “innovations” that would open doors for excluded communities, but ultimately decimated the wealth of Black and Latino or Hispanic communities during the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath."

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #21 (risk)

"**Crypto has no 'Counterparty Risk'**" / "**Crypto gives you 'financial sovereignty'**" / "**Crypto has no 'middlemen'**" / "**Trustless transactions!**" / "**Bitcoin has less 'friction'**"

1. The idea that crypto/blockchain is "trustless" is false. With blockchain [you still need to trust various third parties](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=2557s) -- the difference is there's no accountability.
2. "Counterparty Risk" is defined as the potential for one party in a transaction to default/fail to follow through on the transaction, and is measured in the amount of financial loss/damage that could be caused as a result.
3. Satoshi claimed in his Bitcoin White Paper that one of the motivations behind creating crypto/blockchain was to eliminate counterparty risk by removing "middlemen" from the transaction, specifically financial institutions, which crypto people argue can fail and cause counterparty risk.
4. Unfortunately, bitcoin/crypto/blockchain does **not** eliminate counterparty risk. Even in situations where it's strictly a peer-to-peer digital crypto transaction, there are numerous ways in which that transaction can fail and cause counterparty risk. Here are some examples:
  * Lack of access to hardware necessary to process crypto (smartphones, computers, etc.)
  * Lack of access to electricity (note that electricity is not needed to engage in a P2P fiat transaction)
  * Lack of access to specific wallet/transactional software
  * Lack of access to the Internet (or limited internet access due to firewalls and municipal restrictions)
  * Faulty smart contracts
  * Vulnerabilities or back doors in any of the software being used
  * Not having access to the necessary private keys to execute a transaction
  * Having the system/software/bridge you're using hacked
  * Lack of adequate funding for transaction fees
  * blockchain processing consortium blacklists
  * developments in quantum computing that undermine cryptographic schemes
5. People argue "holding bitcoin" has no counterparty risk. This is also a lie. Just because your wallet is secure, doesn't mean your bitcoin is secure. Here's why:
  * In order to even *exist* crypto is dependent upon an elaborate network of computers running 24/7 - these systems are *not* paid by crypto holders - their participation is totally voluntary.
  * The moment a node/mining operator doesn't find it economically viable to operate, they can cease operations, and if enough of these people do so, the operation of the blockchain ceases, and nobody will be able to access their wallets and engage in transactions
  * In the case of bitcoin, its proof-of-work mechanism requires a lot of energy and resources to operate. If the price of BTC drops below a certain level, it no longer becomes economically viable to operate the network and **all bitcoin disappears**.
  * Yes, bitcoin's mining difficulty will adjust to address people leaving the industry and become more modest over time, but since the primary motivation for even participating in the network is the attempt to make exponential profit, the moment BTC stops consistently moving up, is the beginning of its demise. There's no other reason to operate the network if there isn't growth. And BTC's growth model is 100% mathematically un-sustainable.
  * In short: **There is no guarantee blockchain will operate forever**. There's already 30,000+ dead cryptocurrencies that are no longer in existence.
5. In reality, Bitcoin and crypto doesn't eliminate counterparty risk or middlemen. It simply changes one set of middlemen (traditional, accountable, well-regulated financial institutions) for another set of middlemen (random, anonymous crypto operators and the software and intermediate systems they use, as well as various other local and international communication services). Anywhere in this chain of necessary resources things can fail, either by intention, negligence, legal mandate, acts of god, or randomly, and it can cause a crypto transaction to not go through.

Some people claim that crypto has less counterparty risk than traditional fiat. This is a lie. And they cherry-pick specific "perfect" scenarios where there's minimal counterparty risk in crypto *provided* all of the above conditions aren't a problem. If we're going to fabricate a "nirvana fallacy" you can also have the same conditions apply to any alternate system and it too, will have "no counterparty risk" so this is a deceptive, disingenuous claim.

I bought a Ford F-150 XLT (the full-hybrid pickup) and was very disappointed to find that several of the features (Including Blue Cruise and navigation) were subscription-based with an initial free period of a year or so.

Other than that the vehicle is fantastic - but was very pricey when I bought it, so having to pay over and over for the features was a very annoying surprise. (They quit working rather than quit updating when the subscriptions run out.)

... a bunch of cancer progression theories based on cell culture progression had to be thrown out when it was discovered that the cultures were being contaminated by a particularly robust and aggressive cancer cell culture, HeLa, which had contaminated lab equipment like environmental chambers or survived equipment sterilization and eventually took over culture lines in labs.

Right now, we have AI models that are good enough, what we need is for someone to focus on making them affordable, because even the Enterprise level for Github Copilot doesn't let you do anything remotely resembling the level of usage I was at before they changed their business model. I used to talk to Copilot all day long and I didn't really do anything manually anymore, with excellent results. It coded a lot better than I ever did and since it freed me from mundane work I could focus on making an excellent OOP architecture with great performance and security. Including refactoring legacy code to bring it up to the level of quality you can get in minutes. Now instead of minutes everything takes me entire weeks. Ah the joys of old-fashioned artisanal coding. After 3 years I barely know how to code anymore.

microwave labotomy ... We just put the machine against your head here for a bit and those bad urges go away, all better.

Another poster mentioned that it's actually focussed ultrasound.

Still sounds like breaking a piece of a system by stirring the brain with a knife (lobotomy) or burning it out with heat (cauterization), electricity (electroshock) or mechanical shock (blow to the head) - just carefully focused without (substantial) damage to other parts of the brain or its casing.

Ultrasonic destruction of a piece of the brain's reward/punishment/desire/avoidance mechanism rather than persistent unwanted fat.

Scientists have been saying that Europe will cool down with the shutdown of the Gulf stream... as far as I can remember they've been predicting this for at least twenty years. What happened?

Good points, but to be fair, ultrasonic is currently used to break up kidney stones because it is safe to use it to do so.

You might want to read up on how current hybrid vehicles actually work, 'cause it seems you have more than one misconception going on.

I have. For instance, my latest vehicle is the Ford F-159 XLT,, the full-hybrid model of the F-series pickup truck line. Power train is:
  - 6 cylinder dual-turbo engine. (runs low power but approoximately doubles output when a lot is needed.)
  - 47 HP motor-generator "pancake" on the engine side of the ttransmission, to scavenge / return power to./from a 1.5 kWhr lithium battery.
  - 10-speed automatic transmission, working with the lithium battery;s main alternator to fine-tune match the engine/mogen to the current driving situation. Max power of engine plus hybrid mogen; 430 hp.
  - full four wheel drive.

So it's primarily a gas-engine power train with an electric-car motor mechanically coupled to the engine shaft. Many other hybrids, from the venerable prius onward, are similar, with plug-in variants having a big scavaging/peaking battery good for pure electric operation of tens of miles rather than a minute or so and a wall-powered charger added.

What I'm looking for is essentially a pure electric - totally electronic "transmission" consisting of alternator(s) between the batteries and the motor(s), plus a tiny engine-generator able to burn gas and feed some teens of KW of charging power into the batteries when running down the road or parked near it.
 

Do the Waymo batteries use one of the lithium chemistries including cobalt, or a non-cobalt chemistry such as lithium iron phosphate?

Cobalt chemistries have a higher power/weight and energy/weight ratio, which made them the go-to chemistries for vehicle batteries. But they also produce oxygen when the cells overheat, leading to an unextinguishable runaway fire hazard: A burning cell makes enough heat to ignite the adjacent cells, so the whole assembly of them goes. Bad enough when it's a car's worth, but a disaster if it's a shipping-container sized module of a utility energy storage site. (And even worse when the site is a building full of racks, which someone had "protected" from fire with water-spraying, equipment-shorting system, so the whole site burns up, as happened recently with one in California creating a toxic mess.)

That's why purpose-built stationary lithium energy systems use non-cobalt chemistries - heavier, but a shorted cell just kills itself without getting hot enough to light off its neighbors.

I want to see inexpensive plugin hybrids.

But not like the current ones, which are primarily an engine/tranny powertrain with a motor/generator + small battery for scavenging downhill/braking energy for later accelleration/uphill/cruise/power-boost.

I want ones that are primarily a battery-electric with a small aux engine-generator (say 15-20 HP range), big enough to power crusing with a bit left over for gradually charging. That would let you range-extend by the size of your gas tank plus fillups (i.e. indefinitely if only gas is available) or go from battery empty to back on the road in a couple tens of minutes.

The backup engine would only run at max-efficiency speed and could use an atkins-like cycle (see "liquid piston engine") to get the max power out of the fuel. Most operation would use power-grid charging (when available and cheaper than fuel).