One thing I’ve learned over my 54 years on planet earth is it’s important not to try to be “good.” Be truthful and honest, trust yourself wholeheartedly, but let go of “good” like a dog happy to ditch its collar after his last walk of the day.

Rough day for those who think elections don’t matter:

I read that Venezuela's vast oil reserves have not really been developed, and that the regime was siphoning off the 15 percent that it had developed for itself and its cronies, basically transnational criminal organizations, while impoverishing the people. So the US will come in with its oil companies and over a few years get it up to speed and extract/make good use of its plentiful and valuable reserves. I would expect *some* of the profits therefrom to flow to the locals, and conditions there to improve, maybe substantially since it’s starting at a low point. But I very much doubt the locals will see the lion’s share of it — I’d expect most of the wealth to flow to oil companies and the American government entities cutting them in on the deal. I could be wrong about all of this, of course, I get my information from the internet like everyone else. But I see it playing out mostly as a benefit to certain US factions, the US economy to some extent and the Venezuelan economy to some lesser extent. The other big issues with Venezuela are the drug cartel/rogue CIA/foreign intelligence agencies that were benefitting, and if what I’ve gathered is true, they will be disrupted/damaged by this. And Venezuela’s alleged involvement (with rogue CIA and foreign intelligence) in stealing US (and other countries’) elections. If Maduro really does have intel on this and spills the beans, that too would be seismic result of his capture. Draw your own conclusions as to whether this is true, and if so whether that makes Maduro’s capture a good thing. I tend to think it’s net positive and might be, but of course it could also go very wrong.

Don’t confuse weakness or ineffectiveness with virtue.

Today is really the first day of the new year.

The stalest genre of geopolitcal analysis is the one-note retards who see EVERYTHING as “this is a distraction,” “this is another neo-con forever war,” “this is done at Netanyahu’s behest,” “this is more of the same” no matter what happens. That’s not to say that these conclusions couldn’t be correct in any given case — they might, and surely they have at times in the past — but applying them lazily to EVERY case is retarded. The world-weary “I told you so” mantra in the face of ANY development is a tell a person hasn’t looked into what’s going on, and just wants to sound savvy to others. You are under no obligation to pay attention to geopolitics — maybe you’d even be better off hiking in the mountains and swimming in freezing lakes. But if you’re not paying attention except to headlines and hot takes, why make the discourse dumber?

It's obviously wrong to break into someone's home, but if a guy shoots a few people, then goes home, the police are justified in breaking in if he won’t voluntarily go outside and surrender. It’s obviously wrong to break into a sovereign country and capture its leader, but if that leader has done something to warrant it, has been asked to surrender himself and refuses, it would be justified. Did Maduro’s behavior justify this? I don’t know. Government allegations are not proven facts. So we’ll see (or we may not see.) But that the US went in and arrested him isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It might be, and it might not. What would be a bad thing unequivocally is if the US invaded Venezuela and killed a million people because it wanted to get Maduro. That would be very bad. Kind of like what the FBI did in Waco, Texas when they wanted to get David Koresh.

I don’t know whether taking out Maduro was good policy or bad, time will tell. I do know for sure people comparing it to invading Iraq and killing 1M people to take out Saddam Hussein are retarded.

All governments fascist in that they use top-down coercion to achieve their agendas. Legitimate governments use only the minimum top-down coercion to perpetuate conditions for bottom-up prosperity which is the ONLY kind of prosperity. If there is rampant murder and gang violence in say El Salvador, the fascist government uses top-down coercion to remove it and bottom-up prosperity is possible. Unless it goes too far and becomes the impediment itself. So government is “fascist” yet can be necessary the way medicine is, only insofar as it’s used to facilitate natural healing and never more than that. I was thinking this might also apply to foreign intervention, i.e., war. War is always a breach of sovereignty, but is only legitimate when the minimal use of force is used for its objective. The problem with government and war (and medicine) is humans are very bad at limiting force only to the minimum amount necessary. But the alternative is also untenable — not using force even when force is necessary.

Same people who said bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to a ground invasion, Iraq 2.0! and WWIII! are reprising the same tired hysteria to Venezuela. They say bets are a tax on bullshit, and I’m happy to bet some sats on this if anyone wants to take the other side.

Had this thought that someone (funds/nation states) is simultaneously losing money on purpose to short bitcoin/keep the price in this range and buying large sums of it OTC at these prices. IOW, you pay the $10M a day or whatever it costs to keep the price in the 80s, and you buy 1-10K coins/day at a small premium to spot OTC. If you didn’t pay to short the spot price, the OTC price would be much higher. When there are no more OGs unloading OTC, they will pull the short and price discovery will return.

real pandemic starts in 2026, pandemic of cognitive dissonance.

the range-bound price action is fake as fuck

My friend injured his Achilles heel, was walking around in a boot. I asked him: “Would you say that’s your Achilles heel?”

There are no journalists anymore, only party apparatchiks perpetuating narratives and conspiracy theorists testing their hypotheses.