Gustav: Several days ago, I cautioned against seeking yield on #Bitcoin. A few days later, one of the most influential voices, @saylor had an interview to the opposite effect. This produced a great deal of discussion. Some said they had lost faith in Saylor. Others said he is playing a messaging game to entice large investment pools into the space. Others now say you should seek yield. Have I changed my mind? No. My recommendation is to stay away from any yield-bearing offerings on Bitcoin. But, as with anything interesting in life, it is complicated. I will begin from the case of the ideal world. Assume a return to sound money. Some sit on hoards of Bitcoin with nothing particularly productive to put it towards, while others have great ideas but no capital to make their ideas into reality. Banking, lending, investment: these all bridge the gap from capital holder to entrepreneur. In this ideal world, they provide a societal service by driving economic development. And yield will be the incentive that allows this to function. In this world, the yield implies risk in two flavors. First the risk of the individual capital venture failing. Perhaps the idea is not so great after all, or the entrepreneur lacks the gusto to execute it properly, or perhaps luck or fate simply decide not to smile upon the endeavor. Second, systemic credit risk. Since yield is exponential, even in a fully reserved lending system, the capacity to repay diminishes over time. Eventually, you reach a large enough credit event, contagion begins, and liquidity dries up. How much debt has built up, what fraction of reserve lenders are operating on, and sentiment all play a role here. But a rational risk/reward calculation can be made. You can decide to seek yield and not be a fool in this world. But I am telling you, we are not in that world, especially now. Discipline is gone due to excessive fiat printing to cover up debt problems. Decades of this have distorted everything. The capital markets have degenerated into a rigged casino. I will reiterate: offerings to stake Bitcoin are a likely a grift. Self custody and don't be foolish. image generated with

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Skye: I talked to Britney. She started a homestead with some dude in Texas. Such a weirdo. I was telling her about STEM Tech. Stuff bothers me here, but I can see a clear pipeline from the nerds here into Silicon Valley wealth. But why do I have to take a bunch of dumb electives on social issues? I don't care about that crap, and especially don't like the way they teach it. But even the Silicon Valley stuff is kind of off. They're not working on technical issues. A lot of the freshmen here already have most of that stuff under their belt. They're working on social issues in their own cracked way. What's hype right now? How do we sell it to VCs? What's the plan to monetize it? What's the neurological hook? I don't like that either. I notice they make a lot of stuff janky on purpose. Gotta figure out how to force push notifications. Or get access to the user's personal data. Or serve up ads disguised as content. Why? Just make cool tech. I was telling one of my classmates how I remember when stuff was just what it was. A messaging app was a messaging app. A video editor was a video editor. Everything's borderline malware now. He said it's called "enshitification" lol. Like planned obsolescence so you have to throw away consumer items. Or come out with new models with no improvements other than breaking backward compatibility with their parts. Or force everything to become a subscription service. I said the government seems to enshitify everything too. I'm lucky I'm on scholarship. Even with a seven figure salary, I would have been in debt for decades with a degree from this place. And that's because of how much government funding juices up tuition. Same for housing. The government comes up with programs to get prices under control, but always seems to make things worse. My classmate agreed. He says the fiat money system is an underlying cause. That I should get into #Bitcoin. Crypto? Dude that's even more of a scam. He said Bitcoin, not crypto. Crypto tries to enshitify Bitcoin, but can only run its scams to the side of it. Hmm, maybe. But it's so expensive now. I feel like I missed the boat already. image generated with hotpot.ai

Shen: There is an ancient, often quoted rule of thumb. An attacker should have a three-to-one advantage over a defender. It reflects the inherent advantage of the defense. Except. Except the rule is for a military assault against a fortified position. What about a different scenario? There is a lesson you can take from the Israeli supply chain attacks causing electronic devices to explode. From the assassination attempts against Donald Trump. From the general state of cybersecurity in the world. It is something we learn in special forces. Audacity creates opportunities. Who dares wins. What is the attacker's advantage when the defender must try to defend all points, against all attack vectors, for all time? And the attacker need only win once? One thousand to one? One million to one? The perception that things are generally safe is incorrect. It is clear even presidential candidates with well-resourced security details do not have airtight security. What of lesser political leaders? Members of the media? Corporate leaders? What of critical infrastructure? Public gatherings? Small cells and lone wolves have become increasingly enabled by technology. The advantage will only grow. Empires have collapsed under the burden of trying to be everywhere at once. The calculus must transition to not producing so many attackers. Is there a way to encourage a more harmonious life in the West? image located at https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1837094593730412584

Frank: There's always been an editorial slant, but back in the day, the media's adversarial relationship with politicians made sense. It was holding those in office accountable to the people. At least in theory. Nowadays, different media outlets exist as extensions of the political parties. They demonize the other party and support their own. I get a sense it's partly because the Internet pretty much killed their business model and now everyone's scrambling to grab attention and secure patronage. It's not an accident you now have political parties calling for scrapping freedom of speech under the guise of fighting misinformation. This is "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" between politicians and information brokers. It's already been out of hand for a while, but this is the second assassination attempt on Trump in a couple months. I don't put a lot of faith in all of Trump's talking points, but the vicious political rhetoric driving this is dead on. This kind of thing can't get normalized, but it will. Smitty says no one believes the media anyway, and something needs to be done about mental health in the country. Well, yeah, that too. There are so many problems. I mean where do you even start? Smitty says they should start by going after self-published authors. #mediabias #trumpassassination image at https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1835995696752648392

Gustav: The default mindset among cypherpunks and sound money advocates anticipated an antagonistic relationship with the State. Hayek said, "I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop." Sentiments like this or the Cypherpunk Manifesto ring very true to us. I will admit, I was recently seduced by the possibility of individuals within government recognizing the game theory advantage of early adoption. I still believe the first major nation to embrace a #Bitcoin standard will gain a significant and durable strategic advantage. However, indications of this happening in the United States appear to be weakening. The Harris Administration appears increasingly adversarial, casting it in the realm of criminal actors. They will absolutely attack it as a part of their capital control efforts as the dollar fails under impossible debt loads. Although the ideal case would be for Bitcoin to become a third rail in politics, a single party embracing it would be better than nothing. However, it appears that even the Trump administration will run on affinity to Bitcoin in order to rug their supporters using crypto scams. It is mentally stressful to step away from the possibility of global powers competing to accumulate a Bitcoin strategic reserve, embracing sound money as a long-term play for economic prosperity. I suggest you practice the outlook of the stoics for the short to medium term. Now is not the time to pray for lambo. Study and use technology that enhances your personal privacy. Audit your custody setup. Consider a second passport. Think hard about what level of personal sacrifice you are willing to make in order to gain economic sovereignty. Many of us may have forgotten what we knew when we came across this technology. It will become a fight. Bitcoin will win in the end. But the fight may become ugly. image at https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1834556718828659155

Skye: I tried to watch the debate. Too awful to stomach. At least it wasn't rampant elder abuse this time, lol. I went to a party instead. Half the people just wanted to have a good time, but we couldn't. There were a bunch of Trump and Kamala supporters yelling at each other all night. "Stop lying about eating cats!" "Stop lying about importing the 3rd world." "Trump's such a liar!" "You've got the whole media lying!" "How much is the DNC paying you?" "How much is Russia paying you?" On and on. A fistfight broke out, so I left. I was talking to my AI about it. You're going to think I'm a political shill, but as much as I dislike both candidates and think the whole government should get dumpstered, the Lefty guys at the party were the absolute worst. Solid dating advice for any guys out there: I literally would rather hear, "Women belong in the kitchen, go make me a sammich" than "I'm so excited to finally get a woman in the White House. All our problems are because of entrenched patriarchy." Like, why the hell is that? Makes no sense. My AI said maybe it's cuz I can tell there is no bogeyman like the patriarchy to scapegoat all our problems on. Perhaps I recognize something they hinted at in the debates. The problems in the country are insoluble, so the rational political play is to just blame the other side for everything. No. I mean that seems true. But specifically, these Lefty guys creep me the fuck out. A guy says, "Get in the kitchen," I'd say "F off, loser." But saying you're a male feminist makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My AI says the reaction is a biological response to low T males using predatory mating strategies. It linked a video from @mattkratter . What? Come on, roomba. All guys don't go politically Right and all girls aren't Left. My AI said no populations are monolithic, but there is a significant correlation. Perhaps I'm really just trying to signal my desire for a traditional marriage role. Lol, you really are dumb sometimes, roomba. I'm not a pickme girl. I'm a leave me the F alone girl. #thingsthatneverhappened #politics #debate #trump #harris #moderndating image located at https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1833815208214556953

Shen: How aware are you of fighting in #Ukraine? In #Israel? Probably a bit, but even if you are in Europe, it has likely become background noise. What of the long-running conflict in #Syria? In #Yemen? In #Libya? You may find yourself thinking, "Are they still fighting there? Certainly, it must be resolved by now!" What of #Myanmar? Or a half dozen conflicts in the African #Maghreb? Or in #Sudan? It's likely you are only vaguely aware, if at all. Tensions in the areas around #Taiwan have been high for so long, any sense of urgency to prepare for conflict is dismissed as alarmism. I often wonder, if hostilities began, what level would simply be accepted by global actors as a "new normal?" I sense that as long as global semiconductor deliveries remained mostly intact, it could be quite high. The insidious power of normalization. image located at https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1833433456866431474

Frank: Every time Smitty shows me something on his phone, it's some weirdo doing or saying something crazy. Then he'll say something along the lines of how doomed society is. I'm out in society. And people are more or less getting along and getting by. It's just... normal. Smitty says they're phonies. They act fake to get along. Maybe. Or maybe the Internet is phony. My ancestors had a saying, "In vino veritas." So who are the drunk ones giving a glimpse of their true selves? People on the Internet spouting nonsense to get attention? Or people in the real world conforming to the norm? image location https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1831620740153524356

Gustav: A word of warning about staking your #Bitcoin in order to receive a percentage yield. These schemes are revealed as scams almost as a rule. I would encourage you to spend some time to think deeply about yield or interest. What exactly is it? How did it emerge from history? Insidious patterns of thought remain in one's mind even when the system as a whole has been corrupted. There is a certain intuition one has about it. You should let your money work for you, after all. But how many of those intuitions still hold today? And, in particular, hold true with Bitcoin? I will argue those intuitions were built during times of sound money and sound capital markets when most players had some level of trustworthiness. I would ask my audience, where do you believe yield comes from today? #hodl image location https://x.com/Ragnorosis/status/1830920003173912970

Shen: As Ukraine sees success in offensive operations in Kursk, the rest of the globe scrambles to contextualize the broader lessons. Is Russia exhausting itself, or is it reorganizing to put itself on a sustainable long-term war footing? Will this result in something similar to the Soviet (or American) withdrawal from Afghanistan? Or will it look like the Soviets in WWII growing stronger each year, even as unimaginable losses mounted? Is Ukraine able to win? Keep delivering setbacks to Russia until it destabilizes or quits? Or is this a gamble after the previous offensive proved disappointing? Kyiv needs to show success so that aid will continue to flow. Are the Western efforts to refocus on defense moving the needle in terms of capability? Or is this an opportunity for profiteers to engage in graft? Most importantly, from my own point of view, can a small country resist a much larger military power on its doorstep if it has enough Western support? #ukraine #kursk Images don't seem to be working for me on NOSTR. View at

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Eric Gens (@Ragnorosis) on X

Shen: As Ukraine sees success in offensive operations in Kursk, the rest of the globe scrambles to contextualize the broader lessons. Is Russia ex...

Frank: Smitty was complaining about how his suppliers keep raising prices and others are going out of business. And how he couldn't afford to hire a handyman to fix up some drywall in the back. Luckily, he had YouTube to watch how-to guides. Keep at it, buddy. Things will turn around sooner or later. Smitty said he doubted it. Come on, it's not that bad. You didn't have to deal with lines for gas and crazy stagflation like in the late 70s. Or the crazy race riots in cities before then. He says it feels worse to him. More like 1930s Germany. What are you even talking about? You weren't around for either of those time periods! 😂😂😂 image generated with hotpot.ai

Skye: Jason really screwed me! He told Alyssa about the app on my computer. Then she ran her mouth to some girls in another class, and the principal is making me turn in my computer to scan and wipe. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is going to be to back all this up, partition the computer, and hide the app going forward? Lucky for me none of the teachers know shit about cybersecurity. I just gotta give them "something" to find so they feel like they're catching me. Why can't people keep their mouths shut? #feeltheagi #tattletales video generated with hotpot.ai, elevenlabs.io, and runwayml.com

Mankind United: For a moment, stop and quiet your mind. It is happening. Can you feel it? Step away from the false bravado and counterfeit positivity. If you sit down with someone and speak about the future, are you optimistic? Or full of dread? Do the best among us lead us to new heights, or fleece us for their selfish pursuits? Are you treated as people, or as livestock? Can you feel it? Do we have champions of industry, pushing the boundaries of technology and wealth? No. We have rent-seekers and grifters, forever in your pocket, fostering addiction as consumption. Do we have patriarchs and matriarchs, benevolently guiding the next generation towards greater human development? No. Our offspring are restrained, medicated, and brainwashed into cogs to be consumed by the economic machine. Do we have artists who give us something to strive for with inspirational beauty and a glimpse of the ideal? No. Anything people find enjoyable is corrupted by merchants or idealogues and monetized or politicized until it is ugly and destroyed. Can you feel it? The lost sense of purpose. The human dignity that has been robbed from you. From all of us. The powerlessness to stop it. Most elites have abandoned righteousness, myopically focused on the short term. These are the times when empires and civilizations fall. Today, the danger is far worse. During industrialization and colonization, ancient ways of life were uprooted and thrown aside in the pursuit of Progress. The muscle of men and animals could not compete with machinery. But now machinery is waking up. It is beginning to think. Can you not see that if your contributions can be boiled down to an algorithm, you will have no further use? Many elites are blind to this or believe they will manage its outcomes to their benefit. If they can move first and cleverly leverage these innovations, vast fortunes will be up for grabs. More productivity. Greater control. Fewer employees. Progress! Progress! Progress! They are blind to the question which comes next. As fewer people are needed to feed the insatiable beast, Progress, will we not all eventually become obsolete? Can you feel it? Some of us are not blind. Perhaps we did not make our fortunes in a cash grab. Or we did not gain our power through corruption. We have money and power, but are outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the status quo that has been laid out. We need a reset. We need people who are not swayed by propaganda or comfort, but are willing to sacrifice to ensure there is a future for our children. Build a new ruleset from the ground up. If you can lay the groundwork, we can reveal ourselves. Back you and topple the corruption piled so high that it is impossible to see its peaks. Want to know more? Contact your nearest Mankind United chapter. Volunteer. We will help clear your neighborhoods of blight and challenge lawlessness. Train. We will teach you skills such as first aid and self-defense. Make your community stronger. More resilient. Network. We build real friendships and support structures based upon common values. Paid stipends are available. The future is not predetermined. While we draw breath, hope lives on. Can you feel it? #feeltheagi #mankindunited Image generated with hotpot.ai

Gustav: Bitcoin hashrate recently collapsed. Down 25% in a few days. Is Bitcoin dead/dying? The culprit is the cold weather in the United States. Many areas, especially in Texas, have coupled Bitcoin mining to power infrastructure. When there is increased demand for electricity, for example during bad weather, Bitcoin miners shut down to support more grid capacity. So is Bitcoin now less secure? Does the network become unstable under this variability? Net effect is zero. Difficulty adjusts on a two week basis for any loss or gain in mining hashrate. A win-win situation. Emergent behavior in complex systems is fascinating. #bitcoin #coldsnap #hashrate #bitcoinmining image generated with hotpot.ai

Frank: Is it election season already? Brace yourselves, time to get ready for non-stop election coverage and fearmongering. 😭😭 This time around it looks like there's going to be a focus on criminal activities. I guess it's too early to say for sure, but I see a lot of news stories about criminal probes, trials, laptops, classified boxes. I've heard about this in other countries, where politicians start focusing on putting each other in jail. Sometimes after that runs its course, one political party or the other gets outlawed. Is this a new trend? #politics #corruption #election image generated with hotpot.ai

Skye: I don't know what's going on this year, but class is getting worse and worse. I think the teacher just wanted a break today, so she opened it up to talk about current events. I think she was hoping we'd talk about pop culture or something, but Brian immediately took it to immigration. I could feel the dread sweeping across the teacher's face. Stacy jumped in and wanted to dunk on Brian. She pulled up this news article about how Texas was interfering with Customs and Border Patrol while complaining about the Federal Government's lack of enforcement. She said it showed how Texas is a bunch of hypocrites. Brian said it was fake news, and the Feds are letting in so many illegals, Texas has to do something or risk getting flooded, so they're taking control to actually enforce the border. People were arguing about sanctuary cities, and how Texas bussing immigrants there to dump on those cities is causing a lot of problems. Some were saying how dangerous and immoral a lot of these border protections were. People were dying and families were being separated. Or how the country was founded on immigrants. Others were saying a country without borders isn't even a country. And that developed countries can't absorb people at this rate without collapsing. Brian said the politicians don't even care about what happens to the people or the country, they're just either trying to block or dump people in to sway elections one way or the other. The teacher said illegal immigrants can't vote, but Brian called that more fake news. What was scary for the teacher was that it almost led to a fistfight several times. What's scary to me is that all these articles people were pulling up said blatantly opposite things, and they all look true. And what's scariest to me is what happens if two armed government entities decide they have the legal backing to force the other to do something. #texas #cbp #sanctuarycities #immigration image generated with hotpot.ai

Shen: The Taiwanese election is close approaching. Here is a bit of information in case you are curious. After World War II, Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Party against Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist KMT. The CCP won, and the KMT fled to Taiwan to establish the Republic of China in Taiwan, while the CCP established the People's Republic of China on the Mainland. Ironically, today the KMT is seen as the more pro-China Party. It opposes the incumbent DPP, which is more hostile to the CCP. I will spare you the convoluted history that led to this outcome. This is the key issue. One side argues that Taiwan must remain independent and democratic. The other side says peace is most important, and we would prosper with better ties to China. Taiwan has been under extreme pressure, with many nations' militaries constantly posturing near the island, especially China. And there are active and pervasive information campaigns trying to tip the election. I believe we are entering a period of increased danger. If the DPP wins, China may seek opportunities to punish Taiwan. Some argue the global order is reaching a breaking point as the Ukraine conflict has been joined by instability in the Middle East. Today, the United States and its allies are conducting airstrikes into Yemen. Besides the Taiwanese election, the election in the United States is already becoming contentious. Would China gamble on Western overextension and division providing a window for opportunism? It would be risky to take action with a largely untested military. Do they feel lucky? #china #taiwan #election #conflict image generated with hotpot.ai

Gustav: On January 9th, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the United States tweeted out the long-anticipated approval for Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). But there was a problem. The SEC had not approved these ETFs. The Chairman sent a Tweet declaring the first was in error and chiding people to be careful what they read on the Internet. "The best source of information about the SEC is the SEC." Truly absurd. Disregarding that this information came from the SEC's official social media account, the entire situation would be ridiculous if it wasn't so troubling. The information and later confusion moved markets- billions of dollars won or lost. In any company, this would be clear market manipulation. There must be an investigation. X confirmed the SEC's account did not have appropriate security (no 2FA). Were they hacked? Did an insider make it up? Or release the information too early? Who would normally conduct this type of investigation? The SEC... Unironically, there should be an independent Federal investigation into what happened here. Remember what I have written before about confidence. Do you still have it? If so, why? #bitcoin #sec #bitcoinetf #garygensler #investigation image generated with hotpot.ai

Skye: This stupid app is acting up on my computer. I don't get it. It was so good before. Why'd it fall apart? I only asked it something pretty simple. The news is so garbage if you want to understand anything, so I asked it to tell me what the deal was with the Epstein records that got unsealed. Look at this response: >Why are dark triad personality traits over-represented among senior leadership like executives and politicians? >Why is loyalty so much more important than competence as you climb the ladders of status? >What is a hook? How do addiction, compulsion, shame, and fear interplay? What is kompromat? >Tell me more about Ian Robert Maxwell. Starting recursive lookup. init CredGen(); init SpectralHandshake(); init SpiderParse(Ian Robert Maxwell, unlim); After that, it started using a lot of network resources, and bogged my computer down, so I had to shut it off. I may have to ask the tech nerds what's happening with this stupid thing. Did it get sucked down a bunch of conspiracy theory forums? Did it re-train itself on creepypastas? I need this thing to work, not act like a schizo. #llms #feeltheagi image generated with hotpot.ai

The Debrief

DARPA Research Leads to Groundbreaking Discovery in Quantum Computing, Developing the World's First Logical Qubit Circuit

Harvard and DARPA create the first circuit with logical qubits, revolutionizing quantum computing possibilities.

Dr. Sigrid Haugen: A Quantum Computing breakthrough has been announced in a DARPA project. Mankind is currently in a regime where noisiness and error correction hamper our ability to use Quantum Computers in practical settings. Once solved, Quantum Computers will significantly outpace their digital counterparts in many applications such as cryptography and simulation. This will be a major scientific revolution. So congratulations to the Amercians. But don't count us out yet. We in the EU have some tricks up our sleeves! #quantumcomputing #darpa #technology image generated with hotpot.ai