“That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.” —Tennyson

My most listened to podcasts in 2023

This account is a bot that targets bitcoiners. It is highly responsive and its replies seem AI generated. More sophisticated than anything I’ve seen. Honeypot?

Added a new little sculpture to my collection today. The seller called it “the nerd” (pictured on the left). The piece is dated 2002 by one C.Smith. I love that it was made in that year because it means the artist was clearly inspired by the news of the internet boom and bust. His little beau tie is adorable, and also the rest of his style fits the era really well: receding hairline and neck carpet, heavy set glasses and tucked in shirt 😊. The pencil to me symbolizes the transition from the paper-and-fax culture to the new all digital world. A little piece of history!

Who is a musical artist currently alive whose dynamism and creativity, in your opinion, most closely approaches that of David Bowie?

The world is pretty crazy now. And that’s with inflation at just 20% in the West. What will it be like when inflation hits 50%, 80%, 150%? That’s why I invest most of my time in building mental resiliency. I want my mind and body to be ready for a world where the crazy gets cranked up to eleven, combining the worst of the 1930s, 1940s, and the 1980s.

JK Rowling is such a great writer… from her first Strike detective novel: “He took the train out to Canning Town station. It was overlooked by Canary Wharf, whose sleek, futuristic buildings resembled a series of gleaming metal blocks on the horizon; their size, like that of the National debt, impossible to gauge from such a distance.”

Not the onion… 🇨🇦💩 Surreal story in 4 pictures

In bitcoin, the miners and startups, if sufficiently short term motivated, can be tempted to fork the system at the detriment of pleb hodlers. Sovereign node running is an immune function that prevents that. In politics, the government, if sufficiently short term motivated, can be tempted to fork the system at the detriment of productive citizens. Sovereign individuals owning firearms is an immune function that helps prevent that.

“What if we had a genuine initiation ritual for newly minted maxi’s… a passing rite that affirms your exit from the old, rotten fiat paradigm and your subsequent entry into satoshi’s judicious universe; a transformation symbolized by your face seemingly moving through a portal. I get excited just thinking about it!“ #circlebearding

We all know this feel.

Verbatim, just now: Wife: How are you doing Mr. Scrolly Mc Scroll Pants? T: I’m going to log out of Twitter soon Wife: Is it an anger factory full of angry people? A: Yes! 😂

My dad fired his first bullets this week. Commanding a firearm has such an immediate effect on people, I think because it viscerally conveys to the handler how it really has the power to level the playing field. Proud of him!

The unacknowledged fear of (ego)death causes people to do the stupidest, most destructive things. To create a truly peaceful society, we all must learn to accept our mortality and fallibility one way or another.

Communists and socialists can be really nice people, courageous too. Yet that doesn’t make their ideas any less dangerous.

ETH/BTC hopium. I’m not smoking it, though a dead cat bounce is always possible of course.

Socialism is the cult of victimhood.

Ethereum whales don’t have Diamond Hands… they have Sweaty Hands. Wondering when they should best offload their bags in order to - pay for the lawsuits brought on by people they duped - pay the variable mortgage on that massively overvalued property - pay for their ex who divorced them Etc, etc. Ultra. Sweaty. Hands. (I’m still short ETH/BTC)

No Ethereum, this doesn’t mean “it’s still so early”. You’ve had a go at it, I get it that you really wanted to try. It made a bunch of your early founders bitcoin rich. Now it’s time to pack your stuff and go home.

The 2015-‘17 block size war in a nutshell. Big blockers want to increase capacity regardless of security and centralization concerns. (Cartoon is from New Yorker Magazine, 1920s)