Interesting Stuff
UN Waste - The multinational body that’s much better at creating bureaucratic sinecures than actually getting done isn’t just a gigantic waste of money, but something far more sinister. The article is about UN operations in Sierra Leone, the West African country that once was prosperous, but fell into civil war. As the article shows, the military intervention of the UN was worse than useless, and the soldiers supplied by the participating countries, also worse than useless. What’s particularly galling is that it’s usually governments from the west that have to intervene to fix the mess that the UN creates, and oftentimes, this is done through private military contractors like Blackwater. The whole thing is infuriating as much of the funding comes from fiat money, and thus stolen from dollar holders.
- has this thought-provoking essay about the reality of getting fiction published, distributed and read in a decentralized way. As he points out, centralization is at multiple levels, like gatekeeping, ideology, and privacy. But the most practical aspect is the discovery and distribution, which centralized platforms excel at, and decentralized platforms don’t really do well. As he points out, a permissive centralized platform like Substack is in that way more preferable than a decentralized one like Nostr simply because of the benefits like the minimization of friction. This is worth considering as we head toward a post-fiat subsidized world.
- has this article on the economics of nursing homes and how exploitive they are of the old people that populate them. There are tiers to these places, and nice ones apparently cost $10,000/month whereas the cheap ones are paid by Medicaid ($5000/month). As you might expect, the Medicaid nursing homes are far worse, even taking into account the price differential, and are minimalist operations where they cut as much cost as they can. Yet the nice ones aren’t much better as they essentially drain the accumulated wealth of the residents month by month, leaving very little for their heirs. The article compares these places to prisons, a disturbingly accurate comparison.
- has a long and insightful article about the current administration’s actions, which he calls Poastocracy, that is, rule by poasting. Right wing meme culture that he refers to, has, in a sense, grown up and found some traction in the Trump administration. As he notes, a lot of the ideas from the administration seem to be coming from few-thousand follower X accounts, which are boosted by more popular X accounts until it gets to Elon Musk or someone similarly higher up. There are many drawbacks and benefits to this approach as the article is quick to point out, but it is meritocratic, and perhaps an indicator of how politics will play out in the future.
Starting Strength - I recently discovered
and , a married couple who review various books and discuss them in a blog post format. The book they’re reviewing is a classic in the powerlifting world, which is Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. But the review isn’t so much about powerlifting per se, but about the utility of strength. As they point out, there’s something fundamentally different about how you relate to the world when you’re strong versus when you’re weak. They get into not just the mental benefits of strength, but the general mismatch between what our bodies are designed to do versus what we actually end up doing. It’s a delightful review and if it gets you to lift, so much the better!
What I'm up to
Knots vs Core - I did two episodes over the week on Tone Vays’s channel about the OP_RETURN controversy, having Adam Back on the first episode and Mechanic/Luke Dashjr on the second. It was mostly asking the guests questions about their perspective. There’s about 5 hours total of video here, and what’s crazy is that we didn’t even get through the issue that thoroughly. Still, hearing from these guys definitely gives a better idea of where everyone’s at now that Core v30 is out. There will perhaps be more videos, with even more people so if you liked it, stay tuned.
Bitcoin Historico Spaces - I spoke with Stacy Herbert about the conference coming up on November 12-13. As I spoke about in the link, this is a very different conference than any others that I’ve been in. There are general Bitcoin conferences, altcoin conferences, technical conferences, financial conferences and even ones focused on moral and spiritual aspects (like Thank God for Bitcoin). But this one is focused on the long-term societal change, and the speakers will be talking about that. I’ll have a talk on noblesse oblige, particularly the moral obligation of the elite that Bitcoiners will become.
Lugano Plan B Forum - I’m traveling to Lugano this week for the conference on October 24-25. I will be doing a debate with Peter Todd about using filters for spam mitigation. I will not, however, be doing a workshop as originally planned. There will be some books that I will bring for you to purchase if you’d like a signed copy.
Nostr Note of the Week
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