I started learning about Bitcoin in February. Ten months later, I’ve changed more than I could ever imagine changing in a year. Let’s review.
How Bitcoin fixes me: A thread from a class of 2020 pleb.
Ten months after starting this journey, I have more money than I could have ever imagined having as a poor student. I also have less of an urge to spend than I’ve ever had. Except for essentials, I’ve spent less during this year than I used to spend in a month.
This is partly NgU technology and partly a lack of spending. But it’s impacted me on more than the monetary front. I’ve become much less materialistic as a result. I used spend hours drooling over the stuff I could buy. I've never wanted to spend money less than now.
Ten months ago, I was an avid socialist. I just didn’t understand how anyone could vote right, except for selfish reasons. Mind you, this was after six years of both economics and management basics in the highest level of Dutch high school.
Obviously, it was Keynesian economics. We were taught gov. Interference did cause inefficiencies in the market, but without it, capitalism will just make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I never really doubted what I was taught, but in hindsight it’s obvious.
We were never taught the moral case for free markets. I’d heard the phrase taxation is theft before, but never really let it bounce around in my thick skull. Now I realize that it’s more profound than I could’ve imagined. Taxation IS theft. Literally.
I’m parting with my rightful property under threat of literal violence. Of course, you’ll be fined first if you don’t pay up, but what happens after? You’ll be thrown in jail by men with guns if you don’t pay up for long enough.
Freedom and free markets are not only the most efficient way to a prosperous future for everybody, but also the most moral way. It’ll take most people a while to get to that conclusion after years of living in the system, but libertarianism is very well thought-out.
I urge everyone who thinks we need government to read more. Read Mises, not Marx. If you bring up “them bitch-ass roads”, start here: https://t.co/bEonrLmdJA. If you want to know what socialism leads to, start with The Gulag Archipelago
The lower time preference has also made me realize what I’m working for. I used to kinda coast through life, doing only what I had to and spent the rest of my time gaming. This year, I can probably count the hours I gamed on one hand.
I also deleted reddit from everywhere (though Twitter partially took its role), and all the time I save not gaming/redditing I’m now spending working or learning. I’ve read more books this year than ever before, including mandatory reading.
Bitcoin has also brought me to religion and spirituality through people like @jordanbpeterson. My mom took me to church when I was younger and I hated it. I became a militant atheist thinking people who believed in god must be superstitious idiots.
Now, aging has made me less militant, and the Dr. Peterson’s lectures on the bible made me think that there might be something more behind it. After listening to @alekssvetsky’s bitcoin preachers pod, I ordered “there is a god”. Maybe I’ll be a Christian in 2021?
Another 180 turn I made this year is in my diet. I was a vegetarian before. Now, I only eat meat thanks to my fellow carnivore plebs. @carnivoreMD’s book and podcasts have been instrumental in this. This might sound extreme, I know, but hear me out.
At age 21 I was finally diagnosed with ADHD after a whole childhood of obvious ADHD behavior. Since then I’ve used ritalin. I didn’t know how to get through a day without that. Even doing fun stuff I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing without it.
I took at least 10x 5mg pills per day, often more, to feel ‘normal’. Then I started eating meat again and noticed I was a lot less tired all day. After doing more and more research, I cut out everything but animal products.
Believe me, you don’t know how great you can feel. Carbs and sugar are SHIT. I really noticed this during this holiday, when I ate the same stuff as my family. I was much more tired, and got irritated about stuff much more quickly. Nothing except my food changed.
Now, going carnivore sucks for the first month or so. You’ll feel shit. You know what also sucks for the first bit? Quitting drugs. It’s the same deal. You’re addicted to carbs. Just keep a tab on what percentage of your calories come from carbs daily.
Next to that, I fixed my sleep schedule. I go to bed at ten every day, and wake up at 7 every day. I used to take at least an hour to fall asleep, now I’m unconscious in 15 minutes most of the day. I almost always wake up before my alarm.
A regular sleeping schedule and no more eating after 19:00 ~ 20:00 really helps with falling asleep and sleeping well. Sleep is massively important and it’ll help you feel even better.
If you view Bitcoin as a way to make money, you’re right. But you’re also blind to most of the rabbit hole. I don’t believe I’ve explored even close to the entire rabbit hole where I stand now. I haven't even described all of the ways it changed me in this thread.
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Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis argues that it is not always obvious who (China or the U.S.) adjusts best to "turbulent changes."
Bitcoin answers that question.
Thread:
World economies currently suffer four major redistribution challenges:
The most important is increasing government stealth use of the monetary system to confiscate assets from productive actors.
/2
That process is exacerbated by "Cantillon Effect" transfers to interest groups close to government ("the entitled class," public sector workers, the medical industrial complex, academia, etc....), which is destroying much of that wealth /3
The shadow nature (see Keynes) of government inflation makes the process unidentifiable, un-addressable and undemocratic.
The biggest victims (America's poorly educated young) are unequipped to counter generational confiscation tactics of today's wily senior beneficiaries. /4
Government control of the numéraire in key economic statistics (GDP, inflation, etc...) makes it impossible for economic actors to measure progress and liabilities. /5
Bitcoin answers that question.
Thread:
1/11
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) January 11, 2021
An article worth thinking about: \u201cAs changes to the world structure accelerate, China\u2019s rule is in sharp contrast with the turmoil in the West,\u201d says Beijing.
I agree, but I draw a different conclusion. The world is certainly currently going...https://t.co/ugha7ygqqx
World economies currently suffer four major redistribution challenges:
The most important is increasing government stealth use of the monetary system to confiscate assets from productive actors.
/2
That process is exacerbated by "Cantillon Effect" transfers to interest groups close to government ("the entitled class," public sector workers, the medical industrial complex, academia, etc....), which is destroying much of that wealth /3
The shadow nature (see Keynes) of government inflation makes the process unidentifiable, un-addressable and undemocratic.
The biggest victims (America's poorly educated young) are unequipped to counter generational confiscation tactics of today's wily senior beneficiaries. /4
Government control of the numéraire in key economic statistics (GDP, inflation, etc...) makes it impossible for economic actors to measure progress and liabilities. /5
1/ Welcome to #DeFi Wednesday.
Let's talk about how interest-bearing cash on a blockchain is going to revolutionise boring corporate treasury management that concerns every company is is a larger business than all crypto trading in the world.
Enter the thread
👇👇👇
2/ Blockchain community is often seen as toxic maxis and redditors who shill other their weekly favourite shitcoin in the hope of getting Lambo.
Sometimes we also do things that progress humanity towards the better future and interest-bearing cash is one of those things.
3/ Less chad and more things that actually matter:
My incomplete theory of interest-bearing cash is also available also as a blog post:
https://t.co/uiG0fZiVyu
It is 15 pages. Pick your slow poison or die fast by continue reading here.
4/ First time in the history we have an ability to create interest-bearing cash-like instruments.
Interest-bearing cash ticks up dollar (euro) balance real-time in your wallet.
Here is a demonstration using @aaveaave aDAI, based on @makerdao DAI, and @TrustWalletApp
5/ Interest-bearing cash is not like your bank's saving account. Your money in a bank is not yours, but bank's. There are some flaws in the current banking system causing a headache for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)
Let's talk about how interest-bearing cash on a blockchain is going to revolutionise boring corporate treasury management that concerns every company is is a larger business than all crypto trading in the world.
Enter the thread
👇👇👇
2/ Blockchain community is often seen as toxic maxis and redditors who shill other their weekly favourite shitcoin in the hope of getting Lambo.
Sometimes we also do things that progress humanity towards the better future and interest-bearing cash is one of those things.
3/ Less chad and more things that actually matter:
My incomplete theory of interest-bearing cash is also available also as a blog post:
https://t.co/uiG0fZiVyu
It is 15 pages. Pick your slow poison or die fast by continue reading here.
4/ First time in the history we have an ability to create interest-bearing cash-like instruments.
Interest-bearing cash ticks up dollar (euro) balance real-time in your wallet.
Here is a demonstration using @aaveaave aDAI, based on @makerdao DAI, and @TrustWalletApp
5/ Interest-bearing cash is not like your bank's saving account. Your money in a bank is not yours, but bank's. There are some flaws in the current banking system causing a headache for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)
You may be wondering why @bristoliver rather cryptically RT’d a chart that I posted last night. The answer is not just that he loves quadratic fits on log axes, but that this chart may –and I stress may– hint at a vaccine effect amongst the over 80s THREAD
WARNING: this is a long thread, and it’s a bit of a roller-coaster. We find some apparently strong patterns in the data, and then start to unpick them a bit. So if you start getting excited half way through you might find you’re less excited at the end. But we’ll see…
First we first have to go back a bit. @bristoliver posted a thread a few days ago explaining why, with a constant vaccination rate, a log plot of cases should show a quadratic form. In other words, it should fit an equation like: a + b.x + c.x^2
I meant to link in the model thread there - here it is
the quadratic coefficient – the ‘c’ in that equation – gives an estimate of the % of the population who are being newly protected by the vaccine each day. Please note ‘protected by the vaccine’, not ‘vaccinated’ – as we don't expect 100% protection after the first dose
ok, I lied. but strictly it's not a new graph, just a new trendline (now a quadratic on the log plot). looks um... quite a good fit. so I'd say that was interesting. pic.twitter.com/qkgyMf1ya8
— James Ward (@JamesWard73) January 27, 2021
WARNING: this is a long thread, and it’s a bit of a roller-coaster. We find some apparently strong patterns in the data, and then start to unpick them a bit. So if you start getting excited half way through you might find you’re less excited at the end. But we’ll see…
First we first have to go back a bit. @bristoliver posted a thread a few days ago explaining why, with a constant vaccination rate, a log plot of cases should show a quadratic form. In other words, it should fit an equation like: a + b.x + c.x^2
I meant to link in the model thread there - here it is
Been thinking about where we are, where we might be going, what effect vaccines might have and how to tell. This thread may not happen all at once, and will get a bit mathematical in a couple of places (sorry!), but I will put in pictures. It's yet another argument for log scales
— Oliver Johnson (@BristOliver) January 24, 2021
the quadratic coefficient – the ‘c’ in that equation – gives an estimate of the % of the population who are being newly protected by the vaccine each day. Please note ‘protected by the vaccine’, not ‘vaccinated’ – as we don't expect 100% protection after the first dose
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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.