Blows my mind how almost everyone thinks government money is normal and "real". Not just normies, but serious historians, radical politicians and most supposed libertarians too. This is the result of the most effective (and ongoing) propaganda campaign in history.
Taxes are stolen money,
Funding inefficient and ineffective public services,
That enable corruption,
And feed a growing bureaucracy.
You can argue against growing bureaucracy, condemn corruption, and attempt to make public services better, but the core problem is the state's ability to take your money by force.
Minimise the state's ability to steal from you.
#Bitcoin
The quality of my life changed when I switched to reading novels more than non-fiction. Much more interesting, and more rewarding than the endless drivel of management and self-help books I thought I had to read to stay ahead.
Even now as a product manager my peers are always trying to stay ahead by reading the latest business book. I just ignore all that shit and keep reading novels. Most of the "key takeaways" from non-fiction filter through to me eventually. Not saying it makes me better at my job, but not measurably worse either.
That said, there are some non-fiction books that were worth reading. Ones that stand out, that I still use and think about:
- High output management by Andy Grove
- Inspired by Marty Cagan
- Working backwards by Colin Bryer & Bill Carr
The exception here are biographies which I find often have the same complex tapestry as a novel. Some favourites:
- Churchill: Walking with destiny by Andrew Roberts
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
But generally, highly recommend sticking with fiction most of the time.
Great episode about the tragedy of shutting down legitimate scientific debate, and the consequences of bureaucratic dogma in medicine. Send this to your NPC friends as a palatable inspiration to question authority a bit more.
Clear uncontroversial examples about where the scientific establishment was irrefutably wrong for many years: preventing peanut allergies, and hormone replacement therapy etc.
EconTalk: What Modern Medicine Gets Wrong (with Marty Makary)
Episode webpage:
Can you imagine how different things could be if US Republicans nominated someone sane like Rand Paul?
If I had to simp for a politician it would be him.
Honestly with Bari Weiss: Why Senator Rand Paul Hasn’t Endorsed Trump
Episode webpage:
Watching Peter Thiel on JRE: seems like he's just so rich and has so much time on his hands that he spends most of it reading weird shit about pyramids and human ancestors taking magic mushrooms.
Actually makes you wonder about the propensity for billionaires to go down a Bitcoin rabbit hole, or be plebs on nostr. I mean, what else are they doing? Can't spend 100% of your time preparing for board meetings or going to charity balls - and if you were that rich, why would you?
Holy fuck, Christine Lagarde on The Daily Show:
Worth watching as it perfectly encapsulates the situation we find ourselves in:
1. Gets challenged on "why 2%" and has no answer other than "it's not noticed that much", and it "gives wiggle room".
2. Blames recent inflation on supply chain, Ukraine war, Russian interference in energy prices - no mention of ZIRP.
3. Jon Stewart (I like him, but he's very left wing) poses the question about why not more demand stimulus, which gives Lagarde no reason to excuse CBs causing inflation with money printing. Actually encourages it more!
4. Both are into "Global governance" for AI - well, let me just say, GFY.
5. Lagarde thinks that their "analytical models" are now better, implying we won't have runaway inflation again "unless there's another pandemic". The sheer arrogance and incompetence is breathtaking. But also, shit, the moral hazard is terrifying.
We'd be so screwed without Bitcoin.
In London there are often small stickers with QR codes on traffic lights or street lamp poles. Sometimes they're pretty obvious with an image of a marijuana leaf.
When you go to the address it's a full online store with really professionally packaged joints and edibles, and a shipping and return policies etc. They even have Google and Trust Pilot reviews! This is all despite cannabis being technically illegal in the UK.
For one particular vendor I've seen (nila.bz) they accept crypto for payment and even give a 15% discount. Sadly, they do not accept Lightning. My suspicion is that it's some kind of Finance related payment plugin because there's some reference to Trust Wallet.
A couple of interesting notes for me:
1. Because it's illegal there is no regulation, and yet trusted vendors are around to provide a quality service where the market demands it.
2. Vendors want crypto more than fiat (hence the discount), but clearly the message about Lightning hasn't reached them (or maybe they don't know how to receive privately).
Damn, can't boost or comment on @Fountain with Amber signing - getting some "FormatException: Unexpected character" error. Worked a few days ago :-/
@Oscar Merry
Fascinating read about the downfall of Lamba School. I remember occasionally seeing tweets from the founder and Paul Graham and thinking it must be really successful, although the Income Share Agreement model seemed sus. Turns out it was. Classic fiat grift.
When I was younger I naturally accepted that it was good for people to be equal. This was based on my Christian schooling, and the hyper-sensitivity to inequality in post-apartheid South Africa.
As I got older, studied economics, and started voting, I became frustrated with the dominant guilt-driven redistribution narrative since the associated policies were obviously ineffective. I wanted others to be better off than they were, but realised this couldn't be done just by penalizing the wealthy and productive. I started reading more libertarian materials, and associating more online with self-declared libertarians. However, many struck me as callous - it wasn't enough for them to argue that freedom could lead to more prosperity, they wanted freedom for the sake of getting rewarded for their own claimed superiority. They had the attitude that most poor people were deserving because they were dumb or didn't work hard enough. Note that I say "some" of these libertarians only.
This made me an uncomfortable libertarian. I couldn't deny the logic and ultimate moral clarity, but found many fellow travellers disdainful.
Bitcoin and open source gives me hope though. The ideas of capitalistic freedom interact with the ideas of shared resources and goals, without any conflict. I can advocate that a person who works hard and creates value should keep their profits and save it, but also promote the use of free tools, and advocate for helping dissidents and poorer communities. While these concepts have never been theoretically incompatible, I have found bitcoiners to be the community that embodies all of them.
Even my boyhood self could have been attracted to this, which makes me so bullish on this movement even if we remain at $58K forever.
Reading the forward to the 1947 edition of Brave New World. Aldous Huxley writes:
"To deal with confusion, power has been centralized and government control increased. It is probable that all the world's governments will be more or less completely totalitarian even before the harnessing of atomic energy; that they will be totalitarian during and after the harnessing seems almost certain. Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward statism. At present there is no sign that such a movement will take place."
"unless we choose to decentralize and to use applied science, not as the end to which human beings are to be made the means, but as the means to producing a race of free individuals, we have only two alternatives to choose from: either a number of national, militarized totalitarianisms, having as their root the terror of the atomic bomb and as their consequence the destruction of civilization (or, if the warfare is limited, the perpetuation of militarism); or else one supranational totalitarianism, called into existence by the social chaos resulting from rapid technological progress in general and the atomic revolution in particular, and developing, under the need for efficiency and stability, into the welfare-tyranny of Utopia."
Both of these sections of the nearly 80 year old forword are strikingly prescient. They describe the increased authoritarianism we see (overt in places like China, but more insidious in the West - the supranational welfare-tyranny of the EU) that can only be reversed by a movement of decentralisation.
#nostr #bitcoin #FOSSAI
