stacks are eating the world

following a discussion at @yak_collective this morning, I came up with this chart to capture a hypothesis I have that the difficulty of creating communities scales exponentially with the the "depth" of what you're trying to do

thanks @grigorimilov for leading the discussion that sparked this.

The way to read the graph is: each line is a time history of difficulty. It starts dotted, goes through a criticality inflection point, and then crests in difficulty before coming down to a stable plateau.

The inflection points have different names depending on context, but are all topologically similar. They are the make or break moment when a network-effect either kicks in, or fails to. "Product-market fit" in the case of market is the best known such point.

Level 1 is a basic social community, such as a FB group, meetup etc. There are millions of successful ones, and 100s of millions of failures. The "fit point" is what I call a meme-mind fit, when some social object catalyzes a sustainable long-term conversation of growing richness

Almost everything I've helped instigate is Level 1. My contributions to the social-object soup have been things like the vocabulary around sociopaths/clueless/losers, legibility, 2x2s etc.

There are only 3 real challenges to free speech at the tech level a) the need for CDNs at scale b) distortions of net neutrality c) nation-state firewalls.

All other claims are about social governance on private sites, where applying free speech doctrine is a stretch at best

Baseline free speech has expanded modestly since 1776 or whatever your reference point is.

About 20% beyond core case of government-critical speech in formally public spaces and media I'd say.

You can (for example) have more kinds of conversations in a bar without getting punched or kicked out by other patrons or management. You can teach more things in colleges than 100 years ago.

That's a genuine de facto increase in practical, informal free speech/expression.

But online free "speech" is, as @reneed has pointed out, not an expansion of free speech at all, but an expansion of reach. It is like the secondary freedom of the press to print as many copies as they can afford, not primary freedom to say what they want

If a newspaper wants to print more copies it has buy more printing equipment and front more upfront costs. Reach for a paper publication is not "free", but a function of desired circulation, which in turn is a function of demand prediction etc. But that logic is obscured online.

Reading my own old writing from 10+ years ago is rarely pleasant. It’s not that the ideas and techniques are worse/embarrassing by current tastes (though they often are), but that they have a brash energy I can’t vibe with anymore even where I can still stand by the content.

Most of that energy is not mine from a younger mindset personally (though there’s some of that) but a function of the era. 2010 generally had more of a brash energy going. An energy born of a widespread sense of the world making more sense and humans being more agenty within it.

2007-13: Brash energy. The GFC bloodied our noses but we still felt in control of the plot collectively.

2014-20: Angry-anxious energy. Everybody lost the plot. Winners and losers alike. Great Weirding.

2021 - : Mellow sadder-and-wiser energy on macro, brrr energy on micro.

Opening mood for 2021 feels like how a figure skater spins faster by pulling in tighter. Narrower horizons, more concentrated energy, easy to mistake conservation of momentum effects for an absolute increase in system energy. Shows up in everything from stocks to writing.

Its tempting to retreat to narrow horizons with primarily happy domestic cozy energy (these are really good times for anything that taps into domestic-scale psyche energy). But even the happiest broader thoughts are alloyed with that mellow sadder-wiser plotlessness.

Master class on HEAD & SHOULDERS pattern for trading Bitcoin.

A thread.

Comprehensive guide to head and shoulders pattern. Made exhaustive enough for Trading purposes.

t’s a frequently occurring, misunderstood and arguably the most useful pattern.

RT would be appreciated.

H&S is probably the first pattern a trader hears of. Here is what we will cover.

Content
1. Nature
2. Identification
3. Occurrence
4. Historical performance
5. Finding entries
6. High probability trades
7. stop losses
8. Miscellaneous
9. Conclusion

Nature

The head and shoulders top is a reversal, bearish pattern, signifying a prospective drop in future prices.

The formation of pattern with a breakdown from its neckline(base) starts a probable bearish move.

Identification.
A prospective H&S pattern should have 3 distinct peaks. The middle peak is the head. This is the highest point of this pattern, sitting in between 2 shorter peaks, i.e. the shoulders. There must be an overlap in prices of these 3 distinct peaks.

The line where these prices overlap is called the neckline. A head and shoulders pattern is easily visible. So, don’t force yourself into finding it. The more times the prices overlap, the stronger is the pattern.

I am going to be using #bitcoin & borrowing from myself to buy my first rental property.

Want to know how?

Time for a thread...👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

At the beginning of 2020 I set a goal for myself to accumulate as much #bitcoin as possible.

Now this thread isn’t really about whether or not you believe in bitcoin, but more about how to use leverage and other peoples money (OPM) to buy yourself more assets.

Let me explain...

Step 1 - I took all of 2020 to accumulate #btc and put it on an exchange (Blockfi) that pays me interest on my bitcoin.

Not only have I acquired multiple coins this year, but I’ve created a $100+ gain per month in interest as well (another source of cashflow).

I can now utilize this platform to take loans out against my position (which is in the mid 5 figures.)

Double winning:

I can take a $ amount loan out against my bitcoin and use that to pay the 15% down required on a rental property and allow the bank to pay other 85%.

How I am winning #1:

I am borrowing from myself and a bank to acquire another asset.

That real estate 🏡 will be paid for by someone else and produces more cash flow for me.

I will use that cashflow to immediately pay off the loan I took against my bitcoin.

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

So, let's break down the basics of some of the top protocols.

First on deck: Aave (@AaveAave), an Ethereum-based money market protocol.

A 🧵

TL;DR: Aave is a protocol through which any user anywhere in the world can take decentralized loans by collateralizing their assets.

Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.

1/ For years, most crypto assets had no indirect or direct utility.

Users would hold BTC, ETH, and other assets (including many ERC-20 tokens) with no expectation of a native yield or dividends.

ETH, for instance, was long just an asset for transaction fees, as was Bitcoin.

2/ If users wanted to borrow against their assets, they were relegated to centralized platforms—which were few and far between years ago.

3/ Aave, formerly ETHLend, is a protocol allowing users the ability to lend and borrow on-chain, without KYC and untransparent fees.

Users can deposit a variety of assets as collateral, then use that collateral as ammo to borrow other assets to be used in DeFi or beyond.