I did not know that Saifedean Ammous, the most famous writer on Bitcoin, actually is Palestinian in nationality. He lived in the West Bank through his high school graduation.
He describes what it feels like to live in a place where those that run the place intend to make you miserable enough that you “chose” to leave.
He does a podcast discussion, not about Bitcoin, but about his life in occupied Palestine.
He frequently posts on Twitter about this injustice.
So, when uncontrolled balls of pure pulsating energy ricochet through Citadel’s “Deep Thought “ nano computer some day, and the ozone smoke clears enough to question “Deep Thought,” will his last words be “42?”
One can condense what Chris is talking about into a few words if we stand away from it and see the larger system. He is talking about money lending at interest which, as he points out, is getting something for nothing. As there is no free lunch, others must always pay. In a moral universe, this is called cheating, which is why it used to be called usury, a sin against God/nature. From the 15th century in the Western world, capitalism came to be the dominant social system. The quintessential core value of capitalism is usury, a crime normalized in the culture (collectively held beliefs and values) of capitalism and hidden as “investment”. Thus it is indoctrinated in the public mind as at worst innocuous and at best essential to the maintenance of capitalist economies.
Hence, what Chris calls skimming is embedded in the operation and values of modern Western society. Cheating is how our economy works. It did not used to be that way.
In Judaism, lending money for profit is allowed (though the interest rate must be reasonable for the times and not repressive". I know it’s frowned upon in Christianity, but not sure if it’s strictly forbidden, is it?
In Islam, it’s banned.
Christianity and Islam forbid usury both as a lender, and a debtor. Christians don’t enforce it, and countries like Saudi Arabia have tricked their god by calling their usury shares in the bank, or something. Basically by spreading the sin around where everyone profits so it’s not as bad or something. I don’t really know since I’m not Islamic, and don’t care.
The only Christians I know that find usury vile are Mormons, but they still buy houses with mortgages, they just don’t like having to participate in that system. I’d guess the Amish, Quaker, Mennonite types strictly enforce usury rules.
From where did you get the reference about Goyim being closer to animals? I looked at the page you linked and searched for both “Goyim” and “gentile” (the English translation) and didn’t find either.
What I did find on the page you linked is the following:
They explain that the reason Torah prohibits ribit between Jews is simply because your fellow Jew is family. It’s just not appropriate for family members to help each other out on terms of interest. The Jewish nation is meant to behave as a cohesive unit, like a single organism, each one concerned for the other’s benefit as much as with his own.
…which is very different than what you wrote.
Also, when quoting Jewish law, I suggest you be very careful about your sources. Chabad is a rather radical, somewhat fundamentalist minority sect of Judaism and does not necessarily reflect the culture as a whole.
Their interpretation of the Torah tends to be very literal in many ways.
I was born and raised Jewish and they don’t even consider me a Jew. That should give you an idea how different than they are than some mainstream, less radical folks.
I thought goyim being closer to animals than jews under the torah’s teachings was common knowledge. The link was to reference the torah saying it’s okay for jews to charge goys interest(because they’re of lower value), but not other jews.
This seems to explain it fairly well. https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/5200 " The non Jew does not had or have this opportunity, even if he or she behaves in righteous way. Looking forward to explain himself he says that, in questions 31 to 43, as is established in nature, plants have a lesser soul than animals do, as animals has lesser or inferior soul compared to humans. I wonder if not this was the way of thinking of the Ramchal. Accordingly, the Jews should be a kind of above-human class, as is “proved” by the miracles occurred to Moses (being without food for 40 days, walk in fire inside Sinai and others miracles) and to the Israelites in the desert. This should be considered as example to the inherently spiritual superiority of all Jews." They think the goys have a lesser soul than the jews.
I don’t care about the validity of the sources. I care about the actions of the Israelis. They purposefully bombed the USS Liberty to try and draw the USA into a war with Egypt. Israel sees the United States as its farm of soldiers to fight their wars for them, and they should feel that way since they never get any repercussions for their actions from the shabbos goys that run the USA.
Here’s a data point. Morgan Stanley Shareworks now has a menu item on their phone system for you to track down missing shares. And they have an investigations department. I discovered this because in 2021 I initiated a transfer that never completed. I was told to contact another company related to using the DRS (Direct Registration System). It wasn’t enough shares to focus on and it’s been on my to-do list for a while to follow up again. Doing that now. A complex system.
