Bitcoin Tech Talk #453
Interesting Stuff
Universities as Modern Monasteries - I learned a lot in this essay, particularly about how wealthy monasteries were before essentially being captured by the state, but more importantly, how institutions that seem permanent have a way of disappearing when the incentives change. Such is the contention of this article about the modern day monastery, the 4-year university. The parallels are uncanny, especially when it comes to the accumulated wealth both held at their peak. But incentives are changing, and these once revered institutions don’t have the monopoly that they used to and as such, they’ll most likely shrink significantly. Which is great for the people that want to use these institutions for their original intention, but not so great for the great masses of rent-seekers that have grown on them.
Zombie Christianity - If you’re a Christian, this is one of those articles that hits a little too close to home. There Christianity, the real thing, and the fiat version, which unfortunately has been largely co-opted by politicians, at first with the intention of carrying out Christianity in the political world, then slowly debasing until we get ludicrous policies that resemble Christianity only in platitudes. It’s a good reminder that the corruption of good things is often worse than the straight-up bad things, as fiat money that was once based on gold is much worse than straight-up fiat money.
Re-Thinking WWII - WWII has a special place in our culture. Unlike WWI, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s very little skepticism about the war, the motives around it and an absoluteness about the moral quality of the war which is not present in other wars. This article attempts to explain why that is and how that has skewed our perspective on history. As the author points out, the Japanese actually committed some greater atrocities than the Nazis did, yet they don’t have the same historical reputation. And unfortunately, the “lessons” of WWII are almost always used to get us into more wars. In other words, the propaganda of WWII never stopped because it’s useful to those in power.
The Art of Love - Enlightenment ideas have deeply wounded society, being the basis for Marxism, Sexual Liberation, and Post Modernism, among other things. But perhaps the most practical consequence is that of Romanticism and the very modern idea that love is about finding “the one.” This article is a good summary of all that is wrong with that frame of thinking, and likens love to something more like art, which requires a lot of practice and even courage. Love requires work, and increasingly, it’s not something people are signing up for, given the myriad of fiat alternatives that exist for both sexes.
Reversible Computing - I had not even heard of this term until I read this article, but it seems that the tech press and academia has started to hype this particular technology. As the article shows, it’s not nearly the revolution the theorists claim and it’s a lot harder to make than it looks. Like most theoretical hype, the engineering is non-existent and unlikely to produce results that much more studied technologies would with more engineering spending. But academia and the tech press worship at the temple of the new, so they won’t be improving what we know can be improved, instead playing around with impressive-sounding woo. Lastly, it turns out that quantum computing needs to be fully reversible, which is yet another obstacle to its being made real.
What I'm up to
BTC Prague - The biggest European conference of the year starts this week and I’m here for it! There are a lot of satellite events which are conveniently viewable on the Satlantis website. Once again, I’ll be debating Peter Todd on the long-term security budget and giving a talk on what sort of valuation metrics make sense for Bitcoin.
Seoul - The meetup hasn’t been set up yet, but I’ll be in Seoul in early July and doing a few things in the city with the Bitcoin meetup. There’s also the launch of two of my books in Korean, Thank God for Bitcoin and Fiat Ruins Everything, which should also be fun.
Nostr Note of the Week
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