Bitcoin Tech Talk #461
Interesting Stuff
Why George R.R. Martin Won’t Finish Game of Thrones - If you’ve watched the HBO series or read the books, you’re familiar with the author’s nihilism and many shocking turns which mainly kill off characters that you’ve become attached to. It’s both the best and worst part of this series and the whole ethical framework is examined in this article. The main thesis is that you really can’t “finish” a book based on such a depraved morality simply because there’s no satisfying conclusion possible. So instead of going out with a bang, the book ends in a whimper, with books that won’t and can’t be written. If this sounds familiar, it should, because fiat money has the same ethical basis and ends much in the same way, not with anything planned, but through self-contradiction.
Every Marriage is a Mistake - Believe it or not, a quote from Tolkien of all people, whose marriage lasted 55 years until his wife died. The main idea from the article is that it’s impossible to find “the one” because we are all imperfect human beings and that we have too much sin to be capable of being that for someone else. Which, in a strange way, is a comfort, at least for Christians, because the bond of marriage is not then held up by compatibility, or even hard work, but by grace. It’s a radically different message than the idea of soulmates, which is an Enlightenment era idea, and contains a deeper wisdom than the conventional high-time preference attitudes of being happy right now.
Relating to AI - The complaints about AI are many. It hallucinates too much. It acts evil when the guardrails are gone. It can’t do certain types of very basic tasks. Yet, as this article shows, most of these complaints are due to our attitude toward AI and not the other way around. We have humanized AI and expect ethical and moral behavior that we expect from humans, which is why we get upset when it lies to us or praises Hitler. As the article argues, we have the wrong metaphor. We shouldn’t think of AI as some sort of intelligence but as a “bag of words.” That way, we can see it for what it really is, which is a tool, and not a sovereign being with purpose, which is how we seem to be judging it.
Mamdani, PMC Candidate - If you’re not aware, Mamdani is the Democratic candidate for mayor of NYC, whose socialist stances are getting some national attention. You would think that with views like city-run grocery shops in poor neighborhoods, that he would be a darling of the lower class Democrats, but he was not. He’s also looking to heavily tax Wall Street, so the upper class Democrats don’t like him, either and also voted for his rival. So who voted for him? Mostly white, liberal middle class Democrats making somewhere between $70k-$160k/year. Many of these people are employed by the government or in very liberal industries (book publishing, media, academia, etc), though clearly not at the top of these hierarchies. In other words, it’s the professional management class, or the rent-seekers that are bringing him to power.
Progressivism’s Ideological Contradictions - This is an analysis from a right-wing writer about what changed in 2024 with Progressivism. I find it a little too much wishful thinking, but there are some excellent points made in this long-read. As he points out, Progressivism has always been a coalition of disparate groups whose ideologies often contradict one another and as one side of the contradiction defeats another, more and more people from that coalition end up leaving. Yet trying to win them back while clinging to the belief that alienated them in the first place turns out to be an exercise in rhetorical futility. It reminded me that fiat money has very similar dynamics, as inflation alienates a lot of people, who, once won to Bitcoin won’t turn back.
What I'm up to
Young America’s Foundation Road to Freedom - I will be speaking at this conference in Raston VA (alongside Yeonmi Park and EJ Antoni) to a bunch of college students October 3-4.
Lugano Plan B Forum - A few weeks later October 24-25, I will be in Lugano for the Plan B Forum. There’s probably going to be some sort of Thank God for Bitcoin meetup at the conference as well.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
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