Interesting Stuff
Tribal Conformity - We are all social creatures, and it is very difficult for most people to go against not just the crowd, but their own tribe. That’s what this article is about, which are the consequences of tribal conformity. Specifically, we start to lose a distinction between what we believe and what the tribe believes, and ultimately lose ourselves in the tribe. Ultimately, this means we become a little less ourselves and a little more a generic member of the tribe, which while avoiding conflict, degrades your ability to respond to reality. This is particularly prevalent in political and corporate contexts, which unsurprisingly are some of the most fiat institutions.
Bureactratic Tyranny - This is the story about a greenhouse that someone was building in a small Colorado town. After reading through the laws and regulations, the builders determined that they didn’t need a permit. The town disagreed, and after what looks like bureaucratic tyranny on the part of the town, the owners are being sued so that the greenhouse be taken down. What’s notable is that there’s no racial or class tension here. It’s a small town with mostly white residents. But the bureaucratic flavor is the same, that of petty power games and harassment. Sadly, rent-seeking turns people this way, and of course, rent-seeking is almost exclusively paid for by fiat money.
Fairy Tale Politics - This post is at the crossroads between cultural narratives and politics, specifically, a view of the world that is shaped by stuff like TV, books and movies that find its way into politics. For example, the war in Ukraine is seen by the interventionists as something that’s solved as soon as Putin is killed. This is a naive, reading-too-much-fiction way of looking at things, as if destroying the leader would destroy the entire country. Sadly, the fairy-tale/Hollywood way of resolving difficult conflicts is what a lot of people unversed in real life conflict think is the way to go. In a sense, too many people have too little real experience with conflict.
NK Birth Rates - A city in North Korea is, shall we say, “incentivizing” their unmarried 28-year old women to get married as a way to increase birth rates. South Korea, of course, is known now the world over as the place with the lowest birth rates, but North Korea (1.8 births per woman) isn’t doing so hot, either. In characteristic fashion, they’re putting women that don’t get married on lists for hard labor, and admonishing them to have babies as part of their “socialist duty.” It’s easy to deride this obvious intrusion into the lives of these people, but are the more “capitalist” methods (time off, bonuses, discounts, etc) any better? Maybe it’s all the other government intervention that has created the problem in the first place.
People Pleasing Christian Boys - Christianity and the culture that’s grown up around it are two separate things. They’re related, for sure, as the tenets of the faith shape a lot of the culture, but as the article points out, combined with modern sensibilities, what Christianity has produced are essentially directed much more toward the feminine and has resulted in people-pleasing boys. Sadly, I neglected this article for a couple of weeks and it’s now behind a paywall, but I think most Christians can identify how the feminization of the church has had a bad effect on the boys.
What I'm up to
Hostility - I made this video about the latest revelations in the Core vs Knots node war. Though I think what Portland.Hodl did was nasty, arrogant and malicious, I believe that ultimately, the hardening of nodes that happen through actions like this will be good for Bitcoin.
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. I’ll speak about the trucker protests as a launching point for embracing non-governmental, politically neutral money.
Lugano Plan B Forum - A few weeks later October 24-25, I will be in Lugano for the Plan B Forum. It looks like I may be doing a debate and running a workshop for my open source project, the family Bitcoin banking app.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
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