Bitcoin Tech Talk #454
Interesting Stuff
Degeneracy of Pop Culture - I don’t generally pay attention to popular culture, the way that, say a high school girl does. Neither does the author, but he decided to take a look at what passes for popular these days and it’s honestly pretty frightening. The main things he identifies are the complete lack of sexual morals, to the point where teen girls celebrate someone talking about getting an STD, the complete lack of respect for life with all this talk of war, and, perhaps related, the sedation of the populace through medication, which probably act to dull the effect of the first two. What’s remarkable about these things is that such behavior and cultural values are common in hyperinflating societies.
R’s, D’s Operate Differently - This is an article that puts the trite aphorism that both parties are the same to bed. They may be to a large degree when it comes to certain policies, but the way they’re structured and how people within them gain influence is very different. As the article shows, Democrats are more a coalition of leaders of already existing groups and Republicans are more a party whose constituents are expected to show loyalty to the leader. So, though the fiat quality of both parties is obvious, the mechanism by which they operate is very different and explains why you can have Trump on the right and a Kamala Harris on the left. If you want to understand the mechanics of American politics, this is a must-read.
Rising Entropy - This is one of those ideas in physics which go against all conventional wisdom, but unreasonably keeps sticking around and makes for interesting speculation about the nature of the universe. The main idea is that gravity is not a fundamental force, per se, but the emergent behavior of entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics. There have, of course, been many different theories about gravity, positing different fundamental particles, creating singularities and hard-to-know interactions with quantum mechanics. I like theories like this better than the untestable fiat theories that academia prefers, specifically because it’s testable. We get bad science when ivory tower intellectuals are allowed to rent-seek.
The Ford Foundation Story - If you’re familiar with the robber baron era and the continuing influence the oligarchs from that era still have, you need look no further than the foundations that they set up. Or do you? The story is about the Ford Foundation and how they meddle in all kinds of cultural and political events, often generating them, and you would think that the Ford family of all people would be deeply involved. As the article shows, this is not the case and there’s a bureaucracy that’s built up over the years that have more or less taken over. I’ve seen this dynamic with a lot of charitable foundations, which attempt to last but ultimately get taken over by rent-seekers and almost get a mind of their own and it’s sad to see that it’s a common experience.
Friends - The popular sitcom from the 90’s is the subject of a deeper analysis about how sitcoms have deeply affected that generation. The most useful thing I found from the article was the idea of a “sitcom personality” or life imitating fiat art, in many ways. The hyper-reality of real people imitating fake people leads to even faker people who end up being imitated and so on. We end up with simulacrums of people rather than the real thing, which is not unlike fiat money. BTW, if you’re interested in hyper-reality, this article is one of the craziest I’ve read in a long time. I hesitate to even include it here, but there’s definitely something truly strange about the whole thing.
What I'm up to
All In Pod - I recorded this podcast 6 months ago in El Salvador, but it holds up pretty well. It was a different podcast format where we talked about libertarianism particularly through quotes and how it relates to Bitcoin. We also talked about my history and it was fun going through some significant inflection points in my life.
Seoul - There will be a meetup with the Seoul Bitcoin meetup in the first half of July. A couple of my books have been published in Korean, so it should be a good time.
Tokyo - I’ll also be in Tokyo and we’ll have some sort of meetup in the new meeting space they have there. We’re not exactly sure when that’ll be, but it’ll be in late July and we’ll have more details as the date gets closer.
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