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Technological Agorism Part III: AI & the Agora

There are two types of artificial intelligence: the rules-based, & the neural network-based approach. To illustrate the differences, I'll borrow an example from AI blogger Janelle Shane's book, You Look Like A Thing & I Love You, & pretend we're training an AI to recognize dogs.



Using a rules-based approach, we’d create parameters which the AI would then use to determine whether or not the thing it’s looking at, is in fact a dog. Our rules would include things like “must have four legs” & “must have tail,” etc. When all of our conditions have been satisfied, the AI will recognize a dog.

With a neural network-based approach, we show the AI images of dogs & it learns to recognize patterns. The more pictures of dogs we show it, the more accurate the AI becomes. Nowadays, this is usually the preferred approach & will be the subject of this article.

The interesting thing about the neural-network approach to AI - as we’ve already noted, is its reliance …
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Crypto Bans & Privacy Coins





Deep in the heart of New Delhi, among the bustling traffic & hints of curry, lies one of the world’s largest and most powerful criminal organizations - the government of India. Like similar groups of bandits, the Indian government enjoys a coercive monopoly on fiat currency, which they use to siphon wealth off their victims. Overseeing this particular heist, is a section of the gang known colloquially as the Reserve Bank of India.

It’s widely believed that the RBI is behind India’s expected ban on cryptocurrencies next month, although they deny any involvement. Frightened by the prospect of losing their monopoly on money - or rather, their monopoly money - the gang is threatening cryptocurrency users with 10 years in one of their lackluster cages.

It’s worth noting that although this is the first such ban to be proposed, other governments seeking to protect their monopolies are watching the situation in India closely, and if all goes well - are likely to follow suit.

When that day comes, not only will the agorist community be ready, we intend to make a profit. Any such ban will necessarily affect a sharp rise in the value of all privacy coins. Moreover, in a general sense, these coins are particularly well suited for counter-economic purposes.



What is a Privacy Coin & What Makes Them Private?  


One of bitcoin’s wonderful features is it’s open, public ledger. This level of transparency, however, comes with some drawbacks. Anyone can see your wallet, it’s balance and your transaction history. This problem is alleviated a bit in the BTC community by using Coin Joins, for which Wasabi Wallet is well-known, or in the BCH community by using Cash Shuffle on wallets like Electron. Based on my recent chat with Craig Wright, I don’t expect to see the BSV community ever implement any such privacy features. Nevertheless, the fact remains: privacy is not a native feature of any version of bitcoin.

Enter privacy coins.

Privacy coins are cryptocurrencies that utilize features designed to mask data surrounding a transaction. Some concealable data points include the identity of the sender and/or recipient, the amount of the transaction, as well as wallet balances.

Some of the features used to accomplish these tasks include, but are not limited to:

  1. Ring Signatures are used to mask senders.
  2. Stealth Addresses are used to mask recipients.
  3. Ring Confidential Transactions (RCT) mask the transaction amount.
  4. PrivateSend

Monero & Dash are two of my favorite privacy coins currently available for counter-economic purposes. Monero uses features 1-3, making it private by default. Dash makes good use of a secondary layer of masternodes to enable it’s PrivateSend feature. Either one of these options should keep you safe from the prying eyes of the parasites infesting the Indian Parliament.

It’s also worth mentioning there are a host of other privacy coins out there to choose from. Edward Snowden famously expressed support for ZCash:


On episode 42 of The Agora, cyber-security expert John McAffee endorsed Apollo. Apollo’s list of features are indeed impressive to say the least. The project aims to incorporate all of the existing privacy features mentioned above with IP masking, encrypted data transport, an encrypted messaging service, it’s own dedicated, decentralized and untraceable marketplace, uncensorable cloud-based file storage, a token platform, and a decentralized exchange!

The Indian government can go to hell.


Technology is outpacing governments & as they grow increasingly desperate, their actions will become increasingly irrational, just as a thief being strangled will flail and kick as he nears his last breath.

It’s important to remember that we’re ready for this. We’ve been expecting it and have developed the tools necessary to fight the bastards off. Check out the wallets and coins mentioned above, use a VPN & run a full node on Tor.

They can't stop progress.


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