When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
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RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary)
Cryptocurrency and AI compute share the same goals; fobbing a fraud onto the gullible .
They're both fool's gold.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/07/the-guardian-view-on-cryptocurrencies-a-greater-fools-gold
Fool’s gold: Trump’s crypto scam – a U.S. trademark
By António Santos The author often covers developments in the U.S. for Avante, the weekly newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party, this one from the May 29 issue. Translation: John Catalinotto. The U.S. is the most advanced and developed capitalist country in the world: historically sp
Workers World (www.workers.org)
Senior economics professor says Bitcoin is ‘fool’s gold’
A senior economics professor has said market performance reinforces his view that Bitcoin is ‘fool’s gold’ rather than a store of value.
Finbold (finbold.com)
Peter Schiff Argues Bitcoin Is 'Fool's Gold,' Not the Real Thing
Peter Schiff discusses the contrast between gold and bitcoin after a recent Federal Reserve rate cut. Learn more about his views.
Bitcoin News (news.bitcoin.com)
Company scrip as employee wages was outlawed nearly a century ago and for good reasons.
https://medium.com/financial-times/cryptocurrency-salaries-are-a-bad-flashback-to-company-scrip-392f4160bbdaIt often was disguised debt.
Coal company scrip paid to miners often left them deep in debt - ADP ReThink Q
The tokens paid in lieu of cash were abundant in remote areas of the U.S. until the mid-20th century, explains history professor Lou Martin.
ADP ReThink Q (rethinkq.adp.com)
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@rysiek It's not that. It's much more sinister. They want to pay you in tokens AND expect you to use them for the work they pay you for. Therefore, part of your payment is required for you to work.
@mms I get into that a bit later in the thread
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If employees are paid in tokens that means employees are *paying* for tokens out of their own pockets.
No different than mining company town folks having to buy (or rent!) boots and work clothing from the company that employs them. At "special" rates, no doubt.
By the way this should tell you all you need to know what class "white collar" vibe coders and broader IT folks are.
Hint: no, you're not running the company town, you're renting your tools from your factory owner.
The only man who made money in the gold rush was the one who sold clothes and pickaxes.
Serfs, the lot of us.
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R relay@relay.publicsquare.global shared this topic
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@rysiek currently tracking down Altman touting this idea of tokens as money in 2024 and again in 2025 on podcasts, lotta excerpts
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If employees are paid in tokens that means employees are *paying* for tokens out of their own pockets.
No different than mining company town folks having to buy (or rent!) boots and work clothing from the company that employs them. At "special" rates, no doubt.
By the way this should tell you all you need to know what class "white collar" vibe coders and broader IT folks are.
Hint: no, you're not running the company town, you're renting your tools from your factory owner.
@rysiek I am constantly thrown off by the "journalism" around the subject.
I can't remember if I have ever read about a "success AI story" that is not narrated by openAI or Anthropic. -
RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary) @rysiek Did Disney ever pay it's staff in Disney Dollars? Wouldn't surprise me. If they didn't then there's probably a law against it, only reason I could think might work. Or unions.
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@rysiek currently tracking down Altman touting this idea of tokens as money in 2024 and again in 2025 on podcasts, lotta excerpts
@davidgerard oh good. Looking forward to reading about it!
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@montar @rysiek ...you must not be from that region and that time.
We even had jokes about stuff we bought and then had to actually make it work.
One was about USA stealing the plans for a rocket, and building truck / train engine / whatever out of it. And then somebody from the USSR would go "oh, you just have to hammer it in shape!". -
@rysiek Can you pay the bills with LLM tokens?
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@montar @rysiek ...you must not be from that region and that time.
We even had jokes about stuff we bought and then had to actually make it work.
One was about USA stealing the plans for a rocket, and building truck / train engine / whatever out of it. And then somebody from the USSR would go "oh, you just have to hammer it in shape!".Q: What is it: does not glow and does not fit in one's arse?
A: Soviet device to glow inside an arse.But I think @montar's point was more about how stuff produced in those factories was at least ostensibly useful.
As in: a washing machine is a useful thing in general, even if a particular washing machine happens to be broken.
Which is not really the case with "AI" tokens.
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RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary) @rysiek aside from the whole "maybe your product sucks if you have to force the employees that make it possible to use it" thing, company town behaviour is also maybe not the best sign of a healthy company or economy
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Q: What is it: does not glow and does not fit in one's arse?
A: Soviet device to glow inside an arse.But I think @montar's point was more about how stuff produced in those factories was at least ostensibly useful.
As in: a washing machine is a useful thing in general, even if a particular washing machine happens to be broken.
Which is not really the case with "AI" tokens.
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@code_disaster @mu they taste like anything you can prompt a slop generator to "imagine"
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@rysiek aside from the whole "maybe your product sucks if you have to force the employees that make it possible to use it" thing, company town behaviour is also maybe not the best sign of a healthy company or economy
@OctaviaConAmore yup, I mention company towns a bit later in the thread.
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RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary) @rysiek @trendsbot scrip has been in USA history quite a bit.
And using it to compensate wage laborers has been outlawed since 1938.
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@rysiek @montar Regarding the edit - yeah, there could be a difference in different meanings of "useful" there.
Anyway, found another joke
Q: What is three stories tall, consumes 20 gallons of diesel an hour, and cuts an apple into three pieces?
A: A soviet machine designed to cut an apple into four pieces.
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RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary) @rysiek anyone who doesn't take cash is a fool
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RE: https://mas.to/@trendsbot/116211553284922724
When USSR was crumbling, factories were also paying workers in products they manufactured.
This is AI bubble companies trying to print own money. Printing your own money only works if you find a way to make it necessary. That's what taxes do, for example (recommended reading: David Graeber's "Debt").
Here:
"printing money" part is paying employees in tokens "taxes" part is requiring employees to use AI in their day to day work (thus making tokens necessary) @rysiek
So, all they need is to make an bio implant in the serfs arm with a nice display of how many tokens a person has left. If this counter went to zero, so is the serf''s life...Those crooks are all into sci-fi just they want to rewrite endings from sad to happy.
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@OctaviaConAmore yup, I mention company towns a bit later in the thread.
@rysiek oops, sorry 'bout that
gonna go properly read the rest of the thread now before nodding off 
