Bitcoin Tech Talk #329
Interesting Stuff
Japan Freezing - The article is about Japan and how it hasn’t improved in 3 years. The author seems completely unaware of the monetary policy that created this mess, particularly with the establishment of an independent central bank in the ‘s that fueled the bubble and continued to prop up the economy since it burst. What was fascinating to me was how much the society has oriented toward keeping things the same. It’s a form of radical conservatism, which ironically is more the policy of the left the world over these days. This is how the party comes to an end sometimes, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Tipping Out of Control - As I’ve traveled, I’ve realized that tipping is a canary in a coal mine. A lot of inflating countries rely on tips for workers to make up for the loss in currency debasement. I’ve found that the most aggressive countries in terms of tips are the countries that are inflating the most. It’s really not a large leap to extortion and bribes, which also tend to be prevalent among bureaucrats whose wages are not increasing fast enough. The US has a culture of tipping that has grown with each period of inflation and it looks like we’re seeing that more now.
Axiom of Choice not necessarily intuitive - I was a math major and the Axiom of Choice fascinated me. This is one of the most intuitive reasons to explore a rejection of the Axiom of Choice, which involves descriptions and not having any way to describe any element in an uncountably infinite set causes problems for making a choice. It’s short, but well described.
What I'm up to
Bitcoin Debases Beliefs - This article took a couple months to birth as I had some trouble framing it properly. What really made the article click for me is that in the end, everything in a fiat economy is about money and power, which leaves little room for belief. Tying it in with Toxic Maximalism was a nice way for me to cap the article. The main point is that beliefs in the Bitcoin community are well earned and more stable than in fiat.
The dollar backstop - I’ve been observing many countries that are in various stages of inflationary pressure and I find them fascinating. What’s startling for me is just how normal things appear in these countries, despite the rampant theft of value by the government. What I’m finding is that people in these countries are wise to the fact that their governments are trying to steal from them and use alternatives to store their value, namely the US dollar. In many ways, USD keeps these societies from getting too bad. I don’t think we see hyperbitcoinization until we the dollar starts hyperinflating. Then watch out, because hyperbitcoinization will happen very suddenly.
Naked Marketing - This is an interview I did about two years ago and for some reason got released recently. The content is not something I normally talk about, which is marketing and how to approach it. I’ve always found marketing a black box and hard to really be good at, but hopefully, I had at least a few insights that you can use.
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