Bitcoin Tech Talk #500
Interesting Stuff
Technological Symbiosis - Aaron M. Renn argues that most people who say they want to mitigate the downsides of technology aren’t actually willing to sacrifice any personal comfort, the upside, to get it. Most people recognize that social media, mobile phones and even AI fundamentally have tradeoffs and that we’re deeply vulnerable to the downsides. Yet the convenience, always having something to do and instant gratification are too much to give up in exchange. The article reminded me that Jacque Ellul’s analysis of technology having a purpose of its own causing a deeper and deeper embedding into our lives makes it nearly impossible to extricate. In a sense, we are being hacked by technology as much as we are using it.
Radicalization of Girls - Jenny Holland traces how upper-middle-class white women became the shock troops of progressive ideology, not through oppression but through institutional capture of education and media. These women are the primary consumers and distributors of luxury beliefs, or ideas that confer status on the believer while inflicting costs on everyone else. The results are some shocking poll numbers showing how they hate men, capitalism, are mentally unwell and don’t want children. The mainstream media likes to point at incels and MAGA men as the problem, but the numbers show that it’s actually the single women.
SPLC fraud - Bits About Money dissects what exactly happened with the Southern Poverty Law Center where they used fake invoices and shell companies to launder money to their opposition through the banking system. I didn’t realize until reading this article that the SPLC was the provider of ban lists for banks, where appearing on one of them would make it extremely difficult to open a bank account. There’s also good detail on the banking system’s compliance apparatus and how it’s structured to charge whoever the prosecutor does not like ex post facto. The SPLC ban list turns out to be a stealth way for people on the left to deny banking services to their opponents. That same mechanism ironically caught them doing something pretty terrible.
Rousseau’s Disease - κατακαῖον argues that many homeschooling families sabotage their own efforts by adopting Rousseau’s romantic notion that children are naturally good and will flourish if simply left alone. The result of such schooling is undisciplined children who lack the rigor and grit that actual learning demands. Unfortunately, the Rousseauian idea is very popular because it avoids conflicts with the children who would rather not be memorizing times tables or reading Homer. Real education, in other words, requires real discipline from the teacher.
Unemployed USAID - Yuri Bezmenov documents the absurd LinkedIn profiles of laid-off USAID workers whose entire careers consisted of subjugating countries to globalist domination under their watch. Unsurprisingly, the ultimate rent-seekers are not making anywhere near what they made with USAID. What’s surprising is how much publications like the NYTimes are trying to make them seem sympathetic in this regard. So we should print and waste more money to help these people who can’t do anything else? I think I’d prefer UBI.
What I'm up to
Atomiq Level - I was on this substack live with Chris J Snook and talked about Bitcoin, ProductionReady and a bunch of other things.
Finder - I was on this show produced out of Australia to talk about Bitcoin, how it’s changed and not changed over the past 7 years and what the future looks like for Bitcoin as a Global Reserve Currency. Here is Part 2.
BTC Prague - June 11-13, I will be in Prague for what will be my third time for this conference. It should be a good time
Nostr Note of the Week
