✪TruthIsAbsolute✪ Name and picture from twetch — not on-chain. The signature is; the profile is not.

Given such, it's a totally normal, logical, reasonable reaction to just straight up kill other people. Nobody should ever be shocked or surprised at a murder in the USA. It's baked in to the culture... the USA has some of the worst humans to ever live on this earth. Some of the most economically distressed people to ever live. Given the total superficiality of our species, why then shouldn't those in positions of power lay genocide upon the world? Morality is a complete fiction. Death is a certainty. Humanity is loathsome. Honestly, just Nuke Washington D.C. and do the world a favor. I don't see why not to genocide the American public. Humans are garbage, we do not have pro-social systems. Genocide is a rational action, killing is a rational action. Panopticon surveillance system? No thanks. Millions of people are ready to kill and just wish they could hit the people that really deserve it. The world would be a better place if Washington D.C. were completely obliterated. - They are the worst traitors to ever live on this earth.

China Is Winning Without Fighting America — Carl Zha Explains Why
https://youtu.be/fgyC1nYDon0

If you're drawing a comparison to the Sid Meiers' Civilization game series, there are multiple "win conditions" - War, Science, Cultural, - China is winning a massive cultural victory. The USA is pursuing a military victory, seeking to capture global commerce by controlling opposition through coercion.

The USA tends to see China as communist in the soviet typology which was notoriously lacking art and culture. Stereotypically, China is viewed as repressive, Chinese people as cold, shrewd, and their government totalitarian, allowing no individuality or self-expression.

This couldn't be further from the reality. China has an explosion of Art, everywhere throughout society, the artistry is overflowing. Although there is cultural homogeneity, individuality is live and well. The Chinese government has a ludicrously high approval rate without needing to force it. Their citizen's living standards are increasing in an undeniable way, their ancient society is living through a golden era and the atmosphere is electric. Even those earning mediocre income can afford to live far better lives than people earning comparable wages in the USA. $250-$500 can get you an apartment that would cost $3500+ in someplace like NYC. Prices are scaled to their incomes. An American earning $80,000 USD can struggle to maintain their lifestyle while a Chinese Citizen earning $45,000 can live with much greater economic security and likely a higher quality lifestyle.

China dominated manufacturing, outcompeting on the price floor, operating on thinner margins than anyone else. The USA pursues price ceilings, trying to raise prices as high as possible. Long-term: low margin high volume outperforms high margin low volume. China is self-reliant as a result and having captured most manufacturing industries, they can steadily walk up prices. The Yuan has rose to 15 cents up from 13 cents. Chinese people have increased purchasing power from years prior as the US dollar is sliding substantially.

Most Americans learn a few Chinese stereotypes, hear scary stories about Chinese surveillance, low wage factory labor, consider the Chinese language to be unrealistically difficult to learn, and completely decline to examine the nature of China any further. In reality, China is out-competing the United States by simply offering a high quality living experience to their citizens. China is far from perfect, they've had unparalleled growth in recent decades moving their massive population from agrarianism to the most robust industrial economy worldwide. There are many issues which they can improve on, most of which, they readily acknowledge and are seeking to remediate.

There's a phrase gaining popularity, "China is governed by engineers, the USA is governed by lawyers." This broadly reflects the distinction between these two nations. The USA is dominated by ruthless self-advancement of individuals, it's every-man for themselves. Hyper-individualism leaves little room for consideration for collective needs beyond thinly veiled pandering for marketing purposes. Time and time again, the governing and corporate entities prioritize immediate, individual profit over long-term strategic planning and societal wellbeing.

In the last 26 years China has built multiple cities of comparable size to NYC, LA, Chicago, and other metropolises within the USA. The USA has built none.

I'll conclude by summarizing again. China has an incredible economic upswing with self-sufficient manufacturing, their culture is better-than-ever and they continuously strive for advancement. The nature of life is incompleteness, China is not perfect, but they are far closer to a self-correcting system than the USA. They even have more political parties than the USA and arguably have achieved a greater democracy, the CCP is not the sole party although they are the governing party. Citizens have avenues for remediation of grievances and realistically, the odds that the CCP would escalate and respond to such concerns is far greater than the American Congress or Senate caring about their constituencies. Chinese people are friendly, they appreciate the advances their society has made, and they take pride in their culture. Conversely, the United States is highly dependent on trade, is in no-way self-sufficient with manufacturing, their culture is unanimously perceived as being in decline, doom-and-gloom predominate the narrative. The US dollar is decreasing in value, not increasing. No major infrastructure improvements have occurred in the USA, merely iterative upgrades. The USA has wild, unimaginable criminality, some of the most depraved things that have ever happened in any society in history. Americans trust each other less and less, there is no perception of commonality, prices rise and income stays stagnant as the dollar declines.... Meanwhile the government is trashing the constitution flagrantly by pushing the patriot act while killing for special interests' profit in foreign nations.

China is an enigma to most westerners, digging beneath the surface one begins to see China eclipsing the USA in dramatic fashion by simply providing better living conditions for their population. If you had to live with moderate income, say $30,000-$100,000 per year, you'd rather live in China than the USA, you'd save more and live better. The USA is only for the rich and the wealthy have no plan for elevating their society, culture, or economy. Total oligarchy by people who do not concern themselves with the wellbeing of those they preside over, they don't even bother to pretend to care any more.

I'll bite. Mew, Rocket's MewTwo - both versions, and the SWSH Umbreon. I would predict the rest will be relatively muted desirability.

As an aside, I don't really like trading cards as a speculative investment despite having played trading cards my entire life and having a sizeable collection myself. - Trading cards are meant to be played. Cards can be reprinted infinitely on demand, they can be proxied with nearly perfect oricas produced by anyone with the appropriate printer. The entire valuation proposition is artificial scarcity, older cards are incidentally rare and hold a collectors value in that capacity.

As a player, I enjoy cards for their unique histories, original release scheduling, meta relevance, card art, but I don't assign a particularly high value to that sentiment. If I, an avid TCG player who's played MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, and other games - doesn't really assign a high value to these pieces of history: who does? I'm arguably the exact demographic who would be interested in rare, high priced cards: I'm not.

As a kid, trading cards were a primary portfolio, I have had probably tens of thousands of dollars of fluid value exchange, conducting tons of in-person physical trades growing up. Cards that were worth $5 or $60 per and now see valuations in the hundreds while others have lost their value entirely. It's a convoluted pricing system.

These new collectors cards, designed for collections sake, will likely plateau in my view. There's historical precedent, original baseball cards packaged with bubblegum such as Babe Ruth began selling for tons of money in the 90's - so they massively inflated sports cards printing. Virtually none of those cards have seen that sort of pricing.

First run Trading cards from the late 90's / early 2000's are mildly interesting, but nothing arising to anything more than a, "hey, that's neat". Maybe 30 seconds of consideration, then it's over. How much value can one realistically assign to that? PSA grading is massively deceptive. They charge a serious premium for grading and I've heard allegations stemming back over 20 years that they would intentionally buy their own Graded cards off ebay from alternate accounts to give the impression that the Graded cards had values far exceeding what people would actually pay for them.

Somewhere along the line, it gained massive traction. Now, more people buy trading cards as a speculative investment, each pack released having some form of catch-22. Certain sets are more lucrative than others. Buying one set may be easy money while the next is a near-guaranteed net-loss. X-Rays and Pack weighing are incredibly toxic and ultimately one has to be cognizant that the base price for printing these cards is fixed, a cheap card costs the same as an expensive one to manufacture. None of them costing more than cents per printing.

Competitive pokemon tcg is extremely cheap. The most expensive meta-decks with the highest win-rates cost ~$40-$100 on average. Speculators drive sales, only looking for the most rare, alternate art, 1 in 400 pack or however the odds, type cards to attempt to arbitrage to absurd values. The supply for the cards people actually need to play the game are absolutely flooded, plummeting the cost to pennies. I would guess less than 20% of pokemon tcg products are purchased by someone with an intent to ever play the game.

In conclusion: My view is that PSA grading is highly deceptive. The economy works because of people's belief and willingness to participate. If that's a fun hobby or a lucrative investment for people, that's cool, let them have at it. However, as a player with a complex background in trading cards, the basic reality is that the supply is readily replenishable on demand and people should at least remain realistic about what it is that is actually going on in the ecosystem. Trading card sets could just as easily be sold as board games, with every card in the set, a full playset of 4 or 3 copies for each, at the price of a single booster box, and remain profitable - albeit substantially less so.

Finally: card games seriously suffer from power-creep, new cards are always stronger than the existing cards, and after awhile it becomes difficult to invent truly unique mechanics. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh is most frequently won on turn 1. Magic the Gathering often only lasts 3-4 turns. The actual player base of these games has dropped off due to design issues as the speculative market has increased. Most actual TCG players that I have known in my life can barely afford to play the game, they are the true fans. If they aren't buying - - - it implies the presumption by speculators of an existing fanbase that wants to collect propping up the market more than an actual fanbase seeking to chase rarity. IMO, people pushing speculative valuations are imagining a target demographic that doesn't exist at nearly the scale they think it does. Thanks for attending my TEDtalk.

BSV as an archival service is legitimately great.
With the search function working properly, I can find videos I've posted years ago in seconds.
Many of the YouTube videos I've posted in the past have been taken down, dead links are no longer accessible.
It shows the immediate value of storing information on a public ledger.
Blockchain as an immutable database has a great future, it is the most promising use of the technology as I see it.
Whether BSV captures that space, or something else, data answers the question about what exactly gives digital tokens value beyond mere artificial scarcity.

CSW's talk of law and order drew me in.
It's unfortunate that he's such a controversial figure, his persona has not served the technology well.
Withstanding his peculiarities surrounding alleged forgeries, "stomping the hard-drive", pineapple routers, and other memes.
Craig Wright still tends to take accurate positions surrounding systems, his viewpoints trend toward correct.
Stubborn as I am, I cannot release the argument that BSV is in line with the intended implementation of the Bitcoin technology.

Recapturing public favor, gaining the prestige of being the "legitimate" Bitcoin is a bit of a Hail-Mary play.
Low odds of success, massive leverage if successful.
BSV Association, Wright, Ayre, etc. have fumbled massively.
Aside from this political reality, I am more confident in the fundamental technical proposition of BSV than ever.
Bitcoin was originally intended to be a low fee data transmission system attached to a unit of currency.