But people won't stop accepting the US dollar, because they need it in order to pay their taxes. And even if they absolutely refused to accept it, it would still be worth something. Because if you had it, it could still be used to avoid punishment for failing to pay taxes.
Taxes are what give money value. Because being in prison is tangible.
You could say that those liabilities are made-up too, as well as the laws that produced them, or the authority of the lawmakers that penned the laws, or that words can be derived from the scribbles that pen produces, or the notion of words themselves...
But ultimately, you'll confront the fact that the IRS demands payment in USD or they'll throw you in prison.
Money, therefore, arose out of liability: farmers valued coins because they had a nondiscretionary liability that could only be settled with those coins (their taxes). People who weren't farmers would also accept coins, because they knew that the farmers needed them, and since they needed to trade with farmers, anything the farmers would accept was therefore valuable to all.
Over and over in history, we see examples of money emerging through the need to settle a nondiscretionary liability.
The idea that money comes from liabilities was popularized by Warren Mosler, the progenitor of Modern Monetary Theory. In Mosler's lectures, he illustrates the point by asking, "Who will stay after the lecture to stack chairs and mop the floor, in exchange for one of my business-cards?" When no one raises their hand, he adds, "What if I told you that there was an armed guard at the door and if you don't give him a business-card, he won't let you leave?" Of course, every hand shoots up.
So many great opportunities for light rail around here, especially because of the geographical constraints. If there were big subsidies for doing it, I think the city would get interested.
In these sexual relationships, availability and consent will always be taken for granted, something that’s never taken for granted in a sexual relationship with another human being.
People could get used to interacting in a way in which the other person isn’t taken into account as much, meaning that sexual partners could be instrumentalized for the purpose of having sex. That is to say the ‘human-humanoid’ interaction could be transferred to the relationship between two human beings.
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Unfortunately, however, these advances aren’t being accompanied by deep reflections about the consequences that sex with robots can have.
The fundamental weakness of courts is that their orders have force only if people, including government officials, obey them.
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[T]he increased procedural complexity of criminal contempt proceedings combined with the specter of presidential pardons renders criminal contempt an improbable recourse for the judiciary.
That leaves civil contempt, which, as noted, authorizes the imposition of fines, imprisonment, or both to compel compliance with judicial orders.
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[T]he primary traditional function of the U.S. Marshals Service is to act as the enforcement arm of the courts.
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Should the attorney general order the marshals and BOP not to enforce a judicial contempt order against an administration official, that would be an open repudiation of the rule of law and a plain declaration of presidential dictatorship.
Hubris. Musk is the kinda guy who thinks a plan is genius simply because it’s unconventional. He’s kinda been proven right so far, because he has never been allowed to fully fail.
He is now on the highest wire he’s ever been on, with no safety net, and no awareness of how often he’s needed one.
I was thinking about that while watching a true crime doc the other day.
Perp killed his girlfriend, cops had a hard time apprehending the guy, but eventually he killed himself rather than be captured.
Victim’s family was angry cuz they were denied even the last bit of justice they might get. Perp’s family lost a member permanently instead of being able to visit them. Perp never got a chance at rehabilitation. Victim is just as dead as before — maybe even more, cuz one more person who knew them well is dead too.
And I’m like… Who actually wins here???
You lose a loved one, you know who did it, but you can never get to them and ask why, because contact is life-threatening for them. How do you heal?
But people won't stop accepting the US dollar, because they need it in order to pay their taxes. And even if they absolutely refused to accept it, it would still be worth something. Because if you had it, it could still be used to avoid punishment for failing to pay taxes.
Taxes are what give money value. Because being in prison is tangible.