arjun
Arjun Khemani

Building Airchat

Public Key

npub179esgzvcfqdukff5556r86hm34h2f3asu87xg4egxpr3leplca7syep48v

NIP-57 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0zucypxvysx7ty5622dpnatac6m4yc7cwrlry2u5rq3clusluwlgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds9yvh89

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub179esgzvcfqdukff5556r86hm34h2f3asu87xg4egxpr3leplca7syep48v

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-09-07 14:17:59

@npub1n5r…0ngn: “The means for learning are now abundant… but it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.
College is a checkbox. And the easiest way to see that is if we say, OK, you can go to college but you wouldn’t get a diploma—would you still do it?’”
https://m.primal.net/KiAZ.mov

2024-09-02 14:21:17

Freedom can never be given, it can only be taken away.

2024-08-19 17:43:23

Meet your heroes https://image.nostr.build/96cf84a28519547ca2f6669344e0f0287651e94bb5c85ef254c17bd503df303e.jpg https://image.nostr.build/bef023acc2503517c5dd977ba024281734c1be423cc5250077028baeed34e6fd.jpg

2024-08-08 18:06:21

“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it.”
— Jacob Bronowski

2024-08-03 01:36:48

Max Keiser: I've always said that Bitcoin has no top, because fiat money has no bottom.
There's no backing for fiat money. It's just paper. And I think a couple of things we're going to see happening.
Number one: People will no longer accept fiat money for Bitcoin. So you're going to try to buy Bitcoin with your fiat money, and no one will take your fiat money. No one will take dollars at all.
So that will be a moment of panic. They’ll be like, "What? It's like, no, here's a million dollars. Here's $10 million. I want one Bitcoin." Like, "No. No way, amigo. We don't want that shit. It's worthless."
So that's going to be panic. Then people are going to have to trade in other stuff for Bitcoin, like gold, or their house, right? And then people are going to be panicked, and they shouldn't be panicked, because the world we live in now is a fake world that's been created with the hologram of fiat money. https://video.nostr.build/ece2c87470fcdd43575f1f6b26cc8089d4203a5cf377526a173bd60c513ca232.mp4

2024-08-02 20:10:54

Chanting “End the Fed” with Ron Paul at Mises U https://video.nostr.build/f888985bbc7742e4103094514ee6546408cbf7539185ba061cf2e81ab678d8f9.mp4

2024-07-31 21:22:57

“DEI is a pervasive system of legalized racial discrimination.”
— Wanjiru Njoya at #MisesU https://image.nostr.build/04ae91d94ae0a8de3f06cf361c576d7d706a54754071e17979bb3c05e148f8fc.jpg

2024-07-29 04:32:17

Renato Moicano spotted at Mises Store https://image.nostr.build/78077deeae1e23abfbaa9878ac1e1d9a6fee3b1568f08caccf6592c522731860.jpg

2024-07-27 12:36:14

The end goal of #Bitcoin https://image.nostr.build/ba4811afa3b0e06c6ec8b99d23c29d241bde35dacb8f1697bc447fe528b2c288.jpg

2024-07-26 10:55:42

“Improving genes by biological evolution requires vast numbers of individuals to die for every scintilla of progress made. But the ability to encode whole new patterns of behavior and to pass them on by cultural means finally disconnected progress from death.”
— David Deutsch

2024-07-26 10:47:50

Free markets produce unequal prosperity.
Socialism produces equal misery. https://image.nostr.build/45ded8a80f7950fde7bc732d9a97c536b0d0524fd1c9bacbe2bc905988f054be.jpg

2024-07-26 10:46:36

I am once again asking you to https://image.nostr.build/30d2ecb80b3921d26a77f4e5ec613354a8ddd0325a8ffc507dd4ed15f81affb2.jpg

2024-07-25 09:29:58

I love this response by Elon Musk to those who say the world would be better without people in it: https://video.nostr.build/bd4778ab6e8b862c77fb3ca0876be84b49c2286214c290deb66cd1d4a6aac076.mp4

2024-07-23 21:27:49

https://image.nostr.build/24c8481938b8f886cc4072ba93887a03ba2f60a52f1dcad9939bd3d4c2adbc14.jpg

2024-07-23 16:51:29

French philosopher Montaigne on quitting books https://image.nostr.build/9b0dc6c23d0abfcfb14283f6781d449069ac5a1977044d29648516ce52ef6e1c.jpg

2024-07-23 15:00:33

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Who’s been in charge all along? https://x.com/arjunkhemani/status/1806600407080145207?s=46

2024-07-23 14:58:19

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Ask not where Joe is now, but rather whether Joe was ever here in the past year or more.

2024-07-23 13:13:40

Schools kill creativity. https://image.nostr.build/398bdd53659bd391af74116527c261bc93aa82501916105665eb6901ae51e768.jpg

2024-07-23 13:13:16

Oh no… https://image.nostr.build/bf9fef2ab92d48839cc7e63eb3b903f18091c4276064123f791c83a159007b66.jpg

2024-07-23 08:42:44

Riva Tez on crypto’s potential to bypass the administrative state:
I think you have to be quite deep into the technology to understand it.
If people just read about crypto in the news, right, you’ll be like, there’s all these scams, like maybe SBF, you read about prices, whatever, but you don’t understand the general functionality that happens from these decentralized systems.
I have been crypto native now for like, eight years. I don’t have a credit card. All my money’s in USDC ETH. And I see the potential of these tools.
So I do think, and this is kind of what the Mises Institute did say to me, that some of it is slightly generational. And I do understand that a bit because, like, you have to be playing with it. You have to be actually looking at what’s happening at the technology level, not just the price action level.
The mainstream is like, just looking at the price and the news. At the technology level, the potential of the tools, you’ll see how radical crypto is as a tool set to basically bypass a lot of fiscal policy. It really does have the potential to do these things. So I do think some of it is generational. https://video.nostr.build/42ecadf6a21af88ccd179d9080124f7d748b4cd715fab415d81a4c995d77b664.mp4

2024-07-23 04:50:47

“I lost my son essentially. My son Xavier is dead. Killed by the woke mind virus. So I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that.”
— Elon Musk https://video.nostr.build/b9bc0b14677f01d125541fda97c3442ba1475f656691469931b08e1d3dbddce6.mp4

2024-07-23 04:32:19

Peter Thiel: I went to the World Economic Forum in Davos the last time in 2013, and of course, they have the same ideas as the mob. And in some ways, it is a mob.
And people are there only in their capacity as representatives of corporations or of governments or of NGOs.
And it really hit me: There are simply no individuals. There are no individuals in the room. There’s nobody there who’s representing themselves.
And it’s this notion of the future I reject. A picture of the future where the future will be a world where there are no individuals. There are no people with ideas of their own. There’s nobody to say, this is wrong. This doesn’t make sense. And I’m going to think differently. I’m going to think for myself. https://video.nostr.build/77b8e97452db0382ea4b6c1e59c55b096ebb9552e44aca9b26ab615ee6deaab1.mp4

2024-07-23 04:23:49

Has anyone had to move countries or change their residency because of bad crypto laws in their home country?

2024-07-23 04:11:09

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After this reply by Elon, I think my suspension could just be the result of a bug. But still, this wouldn’t have happened on Nostr. https://image.nostr.build/c4130c6e29a2be46400e0e421014956ba79dbad577cf659684dc877f11e76dd5.jpg

2024-07-22 06:00:33

My X account got suspended. I am not told what post(s) or action(s) caused this.
I had over 10k followers.
Necessity is the mother of migration.

2024-07-19 09:42:52

THE CONSTRAINTS OF MONEY
We typically think of constraints as limiting factors to something we want to achieve. This conception is too narrow. Progress often comes from discovering constraints, and from further refining them. Moreover, the discovery of constraints is just another way to describe the growth of knowledge, and knowledge growth is the backbone of all progress. This is why constraints, when applied non-coercively, are catalysts for progress.
This process is most evident in the history of science, which is a story of successive discoveries of the constraints of the natural world. Another example is poetry: without constraints, poetry becomes prose. So why does anyone ever write poetry? Because working within constraints can paradoxically help the poet be more creative.
But this post is about money. Money is a constraint on transactions. To see how, consider life before money. People would barter goods and services directly. Imagine a shoemaker who wanted to purchase apples. Under a barter system, he would have to find an apple seller willing to trade apples for shoes. But what if the apple seller had no desire for shoes? Or perhaps he did want shoes, but didn’t agree with the shoemaker’s valuation, or didn’t have enough apples to match the valuation in the first place. Economists call this the problem of the lack of double coincidence of wants. Barter economies drastically limited the set of viable trades, even though the constraints of monetary prices didn’t even exist! This is quite unlike today when money accounts for roughly half of all human transactions (excluding barter exchanges among family and friends). Before money, anything could have traded for anything—in principle. Further, any possession could have become its own kind of one-time money, purchased solely to be used in a future trade.
But, paradoxically, when we constrain ourselves to use only one good as money we can do more, and new possibilities emerge.
By limiting choosing only one good to serve the role of medium of exchange, all the participants in an economy can immensely reduce their expenditures in terms of time and effort. That is, when the double coincidence of wants is solved, they can directly produce goods and services for immediate conversion into money.
When we are constrained by the use of a single medium of exchange the crucial pricing system emerges. Now prices—as determined by the value judgments of consumers—can be expressed in a single denominator. Prices enable vast networks of people to cooperate by producing, allocating, and consuming resources efficiently. Prices are signals, and they facilitate the transmission of knowledge about people’s wants in a world of scarcity much as language facilitates the transmission of thoughts. Amazingly, prices potentiate cooperation between people who know nothing about each other’s circumstances. This characteristic is often presented as a negative, casting the entire network of prices as a cold and dehumanizing system of money transactions that commodifies and objectifies. However, the mutual ignorance afforded by money enables participants to focus on their specialty without becoming entangled in various cultural or personal considerations of their trading partners. This abstraction allows for transactions across very different cultures and even between adversaries.
The emergence of money as a constraint has supported gains in every aspect of human endeavor. On the other hand, manipulation of this constraint has likewise impaired productivity.
Prices enable several crucial advantages not present in barter systems, but here we focus on two: supply chains and profit-and-loss statements.
In a supply chain, raw materials are converted into a final product through a series of steps. These chains can become incredibly long and convoluted, with many steps stretching and splitting across the globe, relying on processes initiated decades ago. The mind boggles at the complexity involved in even the most mundane of items. To take a famous example, the construction of a pencil requires coordination between loggers in the Pacific Northwest and graphite miners in Sri Lanka. Since manufacturers approximately know how much consumers are willing to pay for pencils, they can build factories and place orders for wood and graphite years before the final product reaches store shelves. Even though the raw materials for a pencil are sourced from across oceans, they are produced at such a scale that their price is almost negligible.
As implied above, entrepreneurs have to guess how much of what consumers will value in the future when making decisions about the production process. Clear, accurate price signals are integral to these entrepreneurs’ ability to forecast and earn profits, and hence to economic progress in general. And because prices are conveyed by money, an increase in the supply of money will decrease its purchasing power, i.e., the money prices of all other goods and services will rise (all else being equal).
That’s why unpredictable creation of new money causes serious problems for supply chains (and thus the entire economy). In such a monetary environment, entrepreneurs are less able to calculate costs of production and potential returns on investment, facing instead a haze of uncertainty that may last for years.
In the unhampered market, the price of a commodity tends to equalize supply and demand. If the price moves away from this balance point, the market will automatically correct itself, bringing the price back to where supply and demand are approximately equal again. But when the government sets prices at a level different from what they would naturally be in a free market, this equilibrium of supply and demand is disturbed. As Thomas Sowell put it, “Reality doesn’t change when the government changes price tags.” Price control simply hides costs, rather than reducing them.
We’ve seen that the constraint of money can get manipulated via increases in its supply. When the money supply rises artificially, it sends wrong signals to entrepreneurs about what people want. They respond by investing in things that do not match actual consumer preferences. In the gold standard era, technological advances made mining gold easier, thus expanding the supply of gold. As society acquired more wealth, which was stored in gold, this wealth could be used to rapidly extract large sums of gold, destroying much wealth in the process. The story of fiat money is similar in this regard—advances in solving coordination problems (related to political and banking systems) enabled groups to enforce a fiat monetary system and degrade the value of money via inflation.
We need a constraint on trade that isn’t subject to manipulation and distortion. We need Bitcoin.

2024-07-17 16:13:39

What is the biggest thing preventing your friends from using Nostr?

2024-07-17 07:53:49

Blockchains over bureaucrats

2024-07-17 05:40:54

Who did this? https://image.nostr.build/5159f4877c8173ad7ce0008767fb2d4394e42c8ff381d1035843cee34549c1ca.jpg

2024-07-17 05:40:13

I love this exchange. @npub1gdu…6nak https://image.nostr.build/f56fda035d56a20f7ead76ee55c64b76b11c594c7768e661616543394c983c48.jpg

2024-07-17 05:37:56

My conversation with Johan Norberg: https://x.com/arjunkhemani/status/1813155503712723258?s=46

2024-07-17 05:34:35

Javier Milei on the assassination attempt on Trump:
“The desperation of the international left is not surprising, as today it sees its harmful ideology expire, and is willing to destabilize democracies and promote violence to screw itself into power.
In fear of losing at the polls, they resort to terrorism to impose their retrograde and authoritarian agenda.”
https://nostrcheck.me/media/f173040998481bcb2534a53433eafb8d6ea4c7b0e1fc64572830471fe43fc77d/d1c3a757f3314ae6382f70244769f57bcf55e822258379ea17064deebd03375e.webp

2024-05-19 04:20:55

Life hack https://image.nostr.build/f9830512104e9b09dd975efeeb5a96df576cb3bfa5a1ba07e34a04b8bd599929.jpg

2024-05-19 04:20:29

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They make it personal rather than focusing on the ideas. If you think you are right, you should be confident enough to correct someone who isn’t an “expert” on a matter. Don’t outright reject them just because they are “not qualified”.

2024-05-19 04:20:19

Credentialism is a disease. It’s sad to see that some people think you have to be qualified by fiat to be able to say anything on a matter.

2024-05-19 04:20:06

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https://youtu.be/NNcG2twuWaY?si=cnJse7XMuHT9ry5n

2024-05-19 04:19:47

“Raising venture capital is the art of younger men seducing older men.”
— Naval (quoting “a very experienced fundraiser”)

2024-03-15 09:21:24

Astrology got one thing right. There is a relationship between stars and people.
But stars don’t determine the fate of people. It’s the other way around.

2024-02-22 11:46:21

Bertrand Russell’s ‘Ten Commandments’:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness. https://image.nostr.build/76b2fc766ab5ca2acd3c3a690f27869c4fed546b55198ca3808d6fa62de73a86.jpg

2024-02-07 09:07:00

"If you think of the set of physical transformations that can be brought about and can’t be brought about, of the ones that can be brought about, the overwhelming majority—and that’s an understatement—can only be brought about by people. By people who create knowledge because they want to bring that thing about.
And if there weren’t people in the universe, this set of things which can be brought about would be tiny, and again, tiny is an understatement. It would be almost nothing."
— David Deutsch

2024-02-07 09:06:25

This is the Anthropocene era. We can people the stars. We can make death optional. We can put an end to suffering. We can do things nobody can conceive of today.

2024-02-07 09:05:56

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Substack saw this first: http://arjunkhemani.com/p/the-not-so-good-old-days
Subscribe for free if you haven't already: http://arjunkhemani.com

2024-02-07 09:05:06

THE NOT SO GOOD OLD DAYS
“[T]he sage gave him the history of man in a single line; it was this: he was born, he suffered, and he died. […] Life was insignificant and death without consequence.”
— W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Contrary to what climate alarmists might have you believe, we are better off in virtually every way today than we were a few centuries ago and all the centuries before that. Life before industrialization was not a utopia. Indeed, there was some equality; almost everyone was equally poor, lived equally short, miserable lives, and had equally limited opportunities. People didn’t have to worry about running out of resources because they scarcely had any resources to begin with.
As Thomas Sowell has written, “Most of what are natural resources for us today were not natural resources for the cave man, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of how these things could be used for his own purposes.”
Nor did our prehistoric ancestors have the luxury of enjoying an “untainted” natural world. They were too busy with survival in an often harsh and unforgiving environment. For most of human history, nothing ever improved significantly; people were born, they suffered, and they died. It was indeed a tragedy.
Intellectuals have squandered far too much time trying to understand the causes of poverty. In fact, poverty is humanity’s default condition. It is wealth and prosperity that need explanation.
The idea of a simple life where humans produce nothing and exist in perfect harmony with an untainted natural world is undeniably appealing to many. However, it is totally unrealistic. Far from alienating us from the natural world, technology enhances our ability to appreciate and interact with it. For instance, without technology, we wouldn’t be able to reach the peaks of the highest mountains, explore the ocean’s depths, or walk on the surface of the Moon.
The “good old days” are a myth. In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years. As recently as two centuries ago, half of the children ever born died before their 15th birthday. Now, only 4% of kids die before the age of 15. One cannot measure the pain of so many parents having to see their children die.
Even though people think of capitalism as exploitative, we are working less than everbefore. As people get richer, they tend to work fewer hours. Today, there are significantly fewer deaths due to natural disasters because we started utilizing our unique ability to master the climate. As Barack Obama said, “If you had to choose any moment in history in which to be born, […] you’d choose right now.”
Progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, however. We are not entitled to anything. Everything worthwhile has been achieved by creating the necessary knowledge to get there. The future is open. The fate of the universe is up to people like us and what we choose to do.

2024-02-07 09:04:40

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
— Winston Churchill

2024-01-23 15:38:01

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
— Ayn Rand

2024-01-19 05:38:08

"A successful entrepreneur is a hero."
— Javier Milei, WEF Annual Meeting 2024, Davos #note1suv…qm4f

2024-01-19 05:37:27

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Thus, even unsuccessful entrepreneurial ventures contribute to the market's discovery process, helping to reveal what consumers do not value.

2024-01-19 05:36:51

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Although, that is also not right because these entrepreneurs play a critical role in the market process. Their losses prompt the reallocation of resources, either by the same entrepreneur who learns from the failure or by others who step in to better satisfy consumer demands.

2024-01-19 05:36:34

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It's a dangerous mistake to criticize an entrepreneur for making more profits than others. If anyone should be criticized, it should be those entrepreneurs who make losses because they fail to efficiently allocate resources in a way that maximally satisfies consumer wants.

2024-01-19 05:36:16

There is no such thing as "excessive profits". On the free market, the greater the profits a company earns, the more efficient it is at serving its customers.

2024-01-17 10:52:11

The more we automate with programs and machines, the more we are freed to do that which is uniquely human: to think.

2024-01-17 10:50:08

“If your purpose is to make someone happy, you’re more apt to succeed if you make yourself the object. You’ll never know another person more than a fraction as well as you can know yourself.”
— Harry Browne, How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World

2024-01-17 10:48:30

It's better to speak in terms of individuals and not a "society". It's better still to speak in terms of ideas and not individuals.

2024-01-17 10:48:10

A parochial answer for why a society collapsed could be “because of the weather” but the deeper explanation for its fall is a lack of knowledge.
We don’t want to be like all the societies before us that failed to create the necessary knowledge to save themselves in time.

2024-01-17 10:47:20

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@npub1t89…a5h9

2024-01-15 16:31:00

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English translation of the movie made to promote the book: https://youtu.be/S_gXpfFwf6M?si=ygLIDcp6HCTO8jDk

2024-01-15 16:30:22

Currently reading: Pandenomics: La economía que viene en tiempos de megarrecesión, inflación y crisis global by Javier Milei
[Pandenomics: The Upcoming Economy in Times of Megarecession, Inflation, and Global Crisis] https://image.nostr.build/05092f99abf42e15cab5320f9e60cae978abb8be72175575e70d2465f8998966.jpg

2024-01-15 16:29:39

They think memes are just funny pictures on the internet. https://image.nostr.build/3a28f4b285449539c42564d98f46fddcf2065dd20fb0303b84ecff8980ef8b0d.jpg

2024-01-07 15:13:01

https://image.nostr.build/a565c2e2f006bf04b4b05ed15d238b71c1f2c5a67d50bcefff1afdd98d28e8e9.jpg

2024-01-02 18:49:22

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Thanks for the kind words!
1. I do think that’s true, unfortunately. I was almost suppressed by the system too but I sort of unindoctrinated myself by reading counter-culture books and criticizing the traditional way of doing things.
2. I try to follow my interests wherever I can. I think that’s the only way you can learn anything. Working at a startup with highly ambitious people is great for me too.
3. Yes. I love my freedom!

2024-01-02 11:24:32

Disobedience is good, actually. https://image.nostr.build/6fd74208e966849a0a97d95a7187d7f10f9e2a50e73530382ed55729a2dca0bc.jpg

2024-01-02 06:54:08

My conversation with David Deutsch.
We talk about free-will, Taking Children Seriously, anarcho-capitalism, and much more.
https://x.com/arjunkhemani/status/1741754570814914783?s=46

2023-12-30 16:31:24

Just finished recording a podcast with David Deutsch about free-will, Taking Children Seriously, anarcho-capitalism, and much more. Can't wait to publish this one.

2023-12-26 10:24:02

"Nobody is needy in the market economy because of the fact that some people are rich. The riches of the rich are not the cause of the poverty of anybody. The process that makes some people rich is, on the contrary, the corollary of the process that improves many peoples' want satisfaction. The entrepreneurs, the capitalists and the technologists prosper as far as they succeed in best supplying the consumers."
— Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1956)
#capitalism

2023-12-26 10:23:17

Mises on why people ask for socialism in The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1956): https://image.nostr.build/aa98b4ea5bf2ca3208691c4085f8e05a7fae8e2be659888c0ae3b08d6db14e3f.jpg

2023-12-24 11:11:30

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#note12y8…4fur

2023-12-24 11:09:28

Found trending on Twitter earlier today! https://image.nostr.build/b2c5b9971e6ecb099367c6615598fc1da75b60d4c45fe0db0662e1b77ca80b5b.jpg

2023-12-24 11:05:59

midjourney v6 is incredible https://image.nostr.build/ddeb12986328e51bb23602a346dbca32523ff270ba3f40e1f5be380d56066e80.jpg https://image.nostr.build/a19855ebb3e8ba912b2e1bdc57ac5e4d5a0145eb42d8d68ed422909a7bf83bc1.jpg

2023-12-23 16:49:37

This is why I’m working on Airchat https://video.nostr.build/066245b1b1f5d168b2cc1555ad768a8a3c262f0595448146f9f5dc59b8195c54.mp4

2023-12-23 16:46:45

"[The] evolution of memes [is] intrinsically much faster and more flexible than that of genes. During one human generation, which allows only one cycle of variation and selection of genes, there may be thousands of generations of meme evolution. Hence the frequently cited metaphor of the history of life on Earth, in which human civilisation occupies only the final second of the 'day' during which life has so far existed, is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of evolution. A substantial proportion of all evolution to date, perhaps even most of it, has occurred since the arrival of our species. It has occurred in our brains. The whole of biological evolution was but a preamble to the main story of evolution on our planet, the evolution of memes."
— David Deutsch

2023-12-23 16:45:26

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Midjourney v6?

2023-12-22 14:54:04

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https://media.tenor.com/-AMvDF_ATX0AAAAC/geez-thats.gif

2023-12-22 14:07:47

“Every child that gets dragged to school against his will is an impairment on the growth of knowledge of civilisation, and who knows what has been destroyed thereby.”
— David Deutsch

2023-12-22 13:58:52

Are there any e/acc people on Nostr?

2023-12-22 13:53:58

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Twitter was down for ~an hour yesterday—globally. Maybe that’s why?
At least I know that’s why I joined Nostr. 😄

2023-12-22 13:37:15

“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.”
— David D. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism

2023-12-22 13:35:22

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”
— Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

2023-12-22 13:31:45

GM. If we don't accelerate, we're all going to die.

2023-12-22 13:29:29

"Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success in best serving the public."
— Ludwig von Mises, Profit and Loss (1951)

2023-12-22 13:26:23

People who hate capitalism: do you hate the part where you can't decide how others should live their lives or the part where you have to decide how to live your own life?

2023-12-22 06:36:41

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🔥🔥

2023-12-22 06:03:03

PROFITS ARE PROOF OF SERVICE
In a free market, when a business generates a profit, it signals that it has produced something that consumers value enough to pay a price that exceeds its cost of production.
Entrepreneurs are always looking to discover and capitalize on profit-making opportunities. Their actions play a crucial role in setting the prices of the factors of production. Hence, when an entrepreneur succeeds in making a profit, it means that he has not only satisfied the wants of consumers but has done so better than other entrepreneurs. Conversely, losses indicate a misallocation of the factors of production or a failure to meet consumer demands effectively.
Contrary to the common fallacy, profits aren’t “taken out” of anything. Entrepreneurs profit because they enrich their customers, not impoverish them. Profit and loss are simply signals through which consumers delegate the management of production activities to those who are best fit to serve them.
In our society, a prevailing and dangerous moral stance glorifies altruism and, out of ignorance, condemns profit and those who earn it. This widespread view, despite claiming moral superiority by equating terms like “profit” with “exploitation” and “selfishness” with “callousness”, causes a great deal of harm.
By taxing profits (both monetarily and psychologically), people are discouraged from producing goods and services in the most efficient manner. As Mises wrote, “Increasing costs per unit of output, that is, waste, is praised as a virtue.” How can it possibly be moral to use scarce, valuable resources in a wasteful manner?
There is no such thing as “excessive profits”. In a free market, profit isn’t an automatic return on capital; entrepreneurs cannot guarantee themselves a “normal” rate of profit by engaging in a set of default activities. And entrepreneurs are not obligated to “give back” to society. Profit is the natural reward of an entrepreneur’s contribution to society. Equality achieved through the forceful confiscation and redistribution of wealth is unfair and disintegrating for society.
In the absence of a profit motive, the allocation of resources becomes arbitrary and inefficient. Profits ensure that resources are used in ways that create maximum value, as determined by the consumers themselves. Without the need to make profits and avoid losses, people “in charge of production” would not be bound to the desires of the consumers. I put the phrase in charge of production in scare quotes because those people are not really producing. They are consuming their resources by investing in processes that they themselves think are the best way but not those who are the supposed beneficiaries. Per Bylund said it best: “To want to ‘make a difference’ in society yet not in a way that can earn you profits really means you want to change things for others without asking for their approval.”
“Men must choose between capitalism and socialism. They cannot avoid this dilemma by resorting to a capitalist system without entrepreneurial profit. Every step toward the elimination of profit is progress on the way toward social disintegration.” — Ludwig von Mises, Profit and Loss (1951)
Socialists cannot escape economic reality. A society organized without the profit and loss mechanism still faces the essential task of allocating scarce resources effectively. The abolition of profit will only result in continuous losses, leading to a point where there’s nothing left to lose. We can’t let them win.
https://m.primal.net/HUsk.jpg

2023-12-22 05:56:41

Naval on The Unscheduled Life

2023-12-22 02:57:39

My favorite reads in 2023 (so far):
- Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee
- Science and Human Values by Jacob Bronowski
- How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty by Harry Browne
- An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West by Konstantin Kisin
- The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard P. Feynman
- The Machinery of Freedom by David D. Friedman
- How to Think about the Economy: A Primer by Per Bylund
- Principles of Economics by @npub1gdu…6nak
- Profit and Loss by Ludwig von Mises
- Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market by Murray N. Rothbard
- Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less by Alex Epstein
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

2023-12-21 17:24:47

It's not enough to offer a superior product.
Bitcoiners will have to win the ideological war, too.
"If Bitcoiners Don’t Do More, CBDCs Will Win" by Logan Chipkin via @npub1t8a…56yu: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoiners-must-do-more-to-warn-of-cbdc-dangers

2023-12-21 17:17:33

Hiding behind a socially acceptable mask attracts the wrong people into your life.
Advertise your weirdness and always tell the truth to attract those who are right for you and dissuade all who are not.

2023-12-21 17:10:36

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#note1vhd…tlpn

2023-12-21 17:09:56

I joined Nostr today and earned $2.60 in sats already!
I haven’t made that much tweeting for *years*.

2023-12-21 17:04:48

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I guess stories that *inspire* virtue rather than those that make children afraid not to do the “wrong” thing.
Ayn Rand’s books come to mind but they may not be ideal for very young children.

2023-12-21 16:57:09

You are the carbon they want to reduce.

2023-12-21 16:53:07

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Yeah, for an hour or so. Globally.

2023-12-21 16:52:40

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Thanks!

2023-12-21 13:54:13

The growth of knowledge is inherently unpredictable. If we could predict it, we would already possess that knowledge, which is a contradiction.
This makes the future of civilization fundamentally unknowable.
Fortune tellers have always existed. Now, some of them are just disguised in the name of "science". But no method can predict the future growth of knowledge.
As David Deutsch wrote, "Trying to know the unknowable leads inexorably to error and self-deception. Among other things, it creates a bias toward pessimism."
This is because it's logically easier to theorize about potential problems than to formulate both the problems and their solutions. Hence, prophecy (trying to foretell a future that is going to be impacted by knowledge-creation) is biased toward pessimism.

2023-12-21 09:47:53

i joined nostr today because twitter was down
a beginning of infinity