This is the Unsanctioned Fan Account of NSmolenski. The real @nsmolenski is an executive and social scientist working to build a freer, kinder, more prosperous world. You can think anywhere--even in public--if integrity has become a habit.
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npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d Profile Code
nprofile1qqsqqqqqqr9vp7qehudq5cxgj8htryujlx8en4yqjz60agx22y7w30spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dszdklxs
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npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d Show more details
Published at
2023-02-21T19:02:17+01:00 Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan In psychology, there is a term called “splitting:” seeing people and things as either all-good or all-bad, and often swinging wildly between the two. Splitting is a characteristic of mental illness, particularly personality disorders. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Protip: U.S. companies are not successful because the government invests in them. They are successful because they make products and services people want, and they have a large (interstate) market to grow in. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Some folks believe we still need a CBDC despite FedNow offering real-time interbank settlement. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “The evidence strongly suggests that small-scale warfare is part of our evolutionary history predating agriculture and sedentism, but that cooperation across group boundaries is also part our evolutionary legacy. . . . our evolutionary history is more complex than one of selection for war or peace; rather, it reflects the complicated lifeways of a highly social and interdependent cultural species for which both cooperation and war were likely important selective forces.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan If you’re looking at BTC strictly from a wealth equality standpoint, the current ownership distribution of BTC ownership is actually far more concentrated and unequal than fiat wealth ownership. Neither is BTC a mechanism of wealth redistribution. That is, in part, why so many hate it and are seek to use the power of the state to curtail adoption. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan A lot can be said about the causes of lower wealth inequality in the U.S. after the Second World War. Many believe that it’s because taxes were higher, but as economic historians have pointed out, almost nobody paid the higher rates. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Important research paper on the economics of migration. The consensus narrative today is that most migrants are the poorest of the poor—people with no economic hope in their home countries. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan As anthropologist Marshall Sahlins once said, “Economics, as constituted, is an anti-anthropology.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan This has been clear to me for a while now, but the Thiel/Rogan interview illustrated again that we need to have a broader cultural conversation about violence, sacrifice, the sacred, and the elementary forms of religious life. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The people saying they’re going to “control prices” are the same people who bailed out the banks, again and again. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I'm excited to join @CatoInstitute for a day-long event: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The world's three largest employers are: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/revising-bank-secrecy-act-protect-privacy-deter-criminals#united-states-v-miller npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan "The crisis of liberal democracy has become concealed by a ritual which calls itself methodology or logic. This almost willful blindness to the crisis of liberal democracy is part of that crisis. No wonder then that the new political science has nothing to say against those who unhesitatingly prefer surrender, that is, the abandonment of liberal democracy, to war." npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “Truth is not the default . . . it is an exceptional, fragile, improbable achievement.” (@danwilliamsphil) npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Sound money appeals to people of all political persuasions, levels of income and wealth, and demographic characteristics. For now, #bitcoin adoption tends to skew young and male, but even that will change as hyperbitcoinization proceeds. Eventually, money is just money. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “We don’t have enough resources” is a familiar refrain in all kinds of organizations. I have heard it from government agencies at every level, from startups, and from multi-national Fortune 500 firms. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Stay tuned for “Towards an Anthropological Theory of Money.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan All authoritarianism is bad. All abuse of power is bad. The question is: whose authoritarianism and abuse of power do each of us actually have some influence over? npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Knowing how to recognize and deploy talent is a hallmark of leadership. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Information is currency. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan #bitcoinveterans npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Legal complexity = technical debt npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (1978) npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (1978) npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Entrepreneurial capitalism has completely different social effects from crony capitalism. Entrepreneurial capitalism rewards entrepreneurs for disrupting existing technologies, goods, and services—that is, for taking risks. By contrast, crony capitalism is when companies who have temporarily “won” in the market try to lock down their leading position by preventing others from competing with them. Crony capitalists hate risk and try to eliminate it wherever they can. There is a great book by Clayton Christensen called “The Innovator’s Dilemma” that goes into detail about how entrepreneurs can become crony capitalists. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Hello @IngarSolty, just caught your piece in @jacobin smearing Friedrich Hayek as an "enemy of freedom," a "neoliberal," a figure of the "radical right," and equating his bottom-up, scientific approach to economy with the policies of specific politicians (i.e. Thatcher and Reagan). npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Every platform, like every state, is or will be weaponized. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Things are dark and they are going to get much darker. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan If “non-custodial software” is a “money transmission service,” then every person holding cash in their house or wallet is a “money transmitter.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Now seems as good a time as any to revisit one of the classics of American political theory: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “When the devaluation of the mark started during the war and especially during the postwar period, only a few people thought of the consequences which resulted for the affairs of learning. And yet it was after all perfectly clear that the foundations of German scholarship rest not only upon the researchers’ idealism, but just a much upon the solid rock of a gold currency and an active balance of payments. But what has been built with gold marks cannot be maintained or yet extended with paper marks. For all learning and all science requires progress to give it content and to enrich and stimulate it. Years of paper currency therefore mean no more and no less than the distress of learning and, if the sickness of the currency lasts a long time, the death of learning and science. Such meager years bring about the dismantling of our culture, which in turn leads to pseudo-culture.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan These are the new PNAC guys: PNAC 2.0. They will smile and chuckle and “aw-shucks” their way to complete global destruction as they cheer on “regime change” in countries far more powerful than Iraq was in the early 2000’s. When they—inevitably—fail, they will disappear with whatever they’ve been able to grift as their countrymen die and have their livelihoods incinerated as the “collateral damage” of their literally, descriptively stupid power games. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan It should be obvious that there is no way for America to “win” in the world if her adversaries “lose.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I am often asked by people new to #Bitcoin , “What about its volatility?” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The state has to be aware that if they push, society will push back, and that creates the opportunity, the opening, for freedom. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Congress is using their displeasure with specific types of protest as an excuse to give the administrative state more unchecked power. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Just wondering if any of the “AI alignment” people have solved the problem of “human alignment?” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan #nevent1q…j22l npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The questions this poster is genuinely asking Alec unfortunately reflect profoundly FALSE but widespread beliefs underpinning the tragically popular “degrowth” movement: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan A few dozen, largely unknown, functionaries of humanity quietly keep the world's internet infrastructure functioning. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan As the world moves increasingly toward identitarian nationalisms, countries that display a commitment to being multi-ethnic, multi-religious republics with no legally privileged racial or religious classes will have an advantage. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The world is perhaps only now beginning to appreciate the uniqueness of the American Bill of Rights. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan To be a peacemaker, you first have to have moral courage and conviction. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan This should go without saying, but democracies don’t pass “secret” laws, and they don’t pass laws based on “secret” (classified) information. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “Now clearly there exists the distinction between energetic thriving and atrophy, that is, one can say, between health and sickness, even in communities, peoples, states. Accordingly the question is not far removed: How does it happen that no scientific medicine has ever developed in this sphere, a medicine for nations and supranational communities?” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://x.com/ProofOfMoney/status/1777763701392802203?t=g8o1epxLxAXzG3HFiRKy4w&s=09 npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan We just wrapped up the “Bitcoin and Political Economy” panel at the #BitcoinPolicySummit in Washington, D.C. I asked my colleague @avik about the relationship between Congress and the administrative state (esp. federal regulatory agencies) and how that impacts American democracy. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Just replace the words “bank” or “financial institution” with “a male relative or guardian” in any AML/KYC/CFT laws and treaties to internalize how deeply offensive third-party doctrine is. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I was reminded at dinner in D.C. this evening that the “national security state” and the “great powers conflict state” actually represent two different worldviews and sets of political orientations. Sometimes they overlap, but often they don’t. This is something @matthew_pines also pointed out today during his panel at the #BitcoinPolicySummit. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Obviously engaging policymakers is important. I wouldn’t be at the #Bitcoin Policy Summit if I didn’t think so. But “policy”—that is “law”—is something that needs to be kept on a tight leash. Law is not fundamental. It is way downstream from the primary social relationships that constitute the society for which law can be meaningful. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The year is 33 AD (CE), although the Empire does not know it yet. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Redactions just lifted in nine unsealed plaintiffs briefs in private antitrust lawsuit. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Adam Smith, "On the cost of Empire," the closing passage of The Wealth of Nations (1776) npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Warning: Meta apps engaging in man-in-the-middle attacks by placing rootkits on phones to intercept and decrypt traffic by breaking SSL. (Enabled by their acquisition of spyware company Onavo.) npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The criticality of serendipity in spurring creativity and innovation is why the development of a “scene” is the one of the most important contributors to rapid progress in any human endeavor. A “scene” is much bigger than whether people work remotely or in an office; it is the social condition of possibility for rapid breakthroughs that create cultural inflection points. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan At this point, the words “ethics” and “governance” basically mean “politics.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan So many destructive social and political movements happen when people desire greatness and excellence but allow it to make them snobs, supremacists, or otherwise look down on other people. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Relationships are the bedrock of human life; they are both what makes life worth living and the seeds of innovation and progress. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Worth reading these highlights from President Thomas Jefferson's first State of the Union address in 1801: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan While there has been a lot of reporting and political outrage about illegal border crossings into the U.S., few journalists or policymakers have spoken to migrants themselves. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Mad respect for Rebecca for demanding respect to the bully’s face, in the moment. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan We are seeing who actually believes in human equality and meritocracy and who is just using those words to disguise and advance their own supremacy. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan As Peter Boettke points out, the main distinction between schools of economic thought that fall into error vs. those that hold over time is whether they accept and build upon the reality of scarcity. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I have more thoughts on this. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan We ensure the flourishing of future generations of humans precisely *by* loving and caring for those dearest to us—our family and friends—courageously and above all other humans that we come into contact with. Not because they are “essentially” more valuable from some God’s-eye view, but because they are uniquely *ours* to love and to cherish. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The manufactured “critical national security issue” memo, the Palantir CEO’s op-ed in Time, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s public statements all failed to get them the votes they need to reauthorize warrantless domestic spying, so they are suspending the legislative process. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Monetary policy always picks winners and losers. The arrangement of power in a society largely determines who those winners and losers are. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan It’s almost as though when we “declare war” on something, we hyperaccelerate the proliferation of that thing. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan It should go without saying that the American people, like any other people, cannot pay the costs of the collapse of the system of international law. Even if they wanted to, it would be materially impossible. This is not about Israel, or Ukraine, or any other country. It is about the fact that the American people and the U.S. government simply cannot appropriate and create enough money to single-handedly finance the unilateral, violent “containment” of the collapse of the global system of national sovereignty. That work has to be done diplomatically, over generations. And it requires leadership with a kind of character that has been absent for a long time. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Reasons the Geneva Conventions prohibited the annexation of territory by conquest after the Second World War: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Now more than ever it is important to make the *positive* case for peace. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan We don’t have a “Plan B” for the people and things we love. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The most important thing Americans can do to stand for liberty and prosperity here and abroad is curtail the power of our own government. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Part of the controversy around Bukele is that many observers don’t seem to have an account of when criminality shades into warfare. A few teenagers holding up and robbing a store is a crime. The occasional kidnapping and homicide is a crime. Institutionalized gang warfare, lasting generations and effectively strangling civil society and driving a refugee crisis, is really closer to war. Which makes sense, given the origins of Salvadoran gang violence in the Salvadoran Civil War. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan What makes them universal is that any human being, in any culture, has the rational capacity to justify these values from their own self-experience. Anyone can adopt a "theoretical attitude" that enables them to suspend the cultural realities they have grown up with, critique them, and arrive at ideas (theories) that hold across time and place. This is the basis for both a science and an ethics that can be shared among different peoples. The actual implementations and applications of that universal science and those universal ethics may of course differ profoundly between different communities. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan A lot of big talk recently from people appointing themselves defenders of “the West” and “Western values.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Civilization is constituted by the productive tension between: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Introducing Symbolic Deduction Engines npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Some (rare) societies like the “idea” of entrepreneurship. This is good and must be preserved. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://unherd.com/2024/01/why-american-cities-are-squalid/ npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The debate, as always, hinges on what is meant by “national emergency” and “the U.S. is under imminent attack.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan The ultimate risk management strategy is truth. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan It’s not crony capitalism or mercantilism that sustains and uplifts billions. Parceling out monopolies and privileges is not how social mobility is achieved. People must have the freedom to invent, to disrupt, to unsettle settled hierarchies. That is how progress accelerates. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Luke Gromen nails it. Many people would rather be certain that they will lose money slowly (by pretending monetary debasement doesn't exist) than take slightly more risk to make money slowly (by waiting through volatility). npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I like when people clearly state what their assumptions are so that those assumptions can be directly engaged. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan I want to take a minute to respond to @elonmusk ‘s claim that the difficulty of mining #bitcoin on Mars is some kind of limitation of the protocol. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://www.statista.com/statistics/1055948/value-euro-since-2000/ npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Minimum wage was worth the equivalent of $25 per hour in 1963. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/indias-food-security-problem-is-the-worlds-too-07adc926?st=owssv0y6d3s9r1u&reflink=article_copyURL_share npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan We have inherited a culturally-dominant ideology that private currencies are always unstable and lead to financial crises. In fact, history has shown that the opposite has often been true. Private currencies have often been remarkably stable and sound—and as a result, they were key opponents that governments had to defeat as they sought to fund growing expenses (most pressingly, war) by monopolizing currency issue. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan “The coin is a delicate meter of civil, social, and moral changes.” npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan A lot of people look at increased government intervention into economies worldwide and conclude that a “spectre of communism” is once again haunting the world. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan European anthropologists strove to understand what "the human" is in both its unity and its diversity precisely at a moment in which humanity was homogenizing--linguistically, culturally, and politically--as it never had before. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Anthropology--the study the human (the anthropos)--has a complicated relationship with itself. npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels call for "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Chartalism & MMT have become so identified with "the left" today that many would likely be surprised that Marx had this to say about money: npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan https://shoutout.wix.com/so/4bOn_DJL_?languageTag=en&cid=b2ee29f9-4813-4de1-b275-7af8e15a86c5 npub1qqqqqqx2crupn0c6pfsv3y0wkxfe97v0n82gpy95l6sv55fuazlqfy354d NSmolenskiFan Combine world-historical mission, high risk, and top talent, and you get civilization-defining outcomes.
