My first review for #bookstr in 2026 is the thoroughly enjoyable “The National System of Political Economy” by Friedrich List. Written in 1841, it provides an excellent snapshot of thought in his day. His background (itself very interesting) shines through his ideas, and reading his thoughts on the future of the new nation of Texas, matter-of-fact views on slavery, talk about cloth manufacturing like people discuss Nvidia today, international competition, and his disputes with Adam Smith’s laissez-faire is very interesting. List belongs to the Historic School of Economics which no longer really exists in Western thought since the Methodenstreit out of which Menger birthed the Austrian school. Book One is List’s history of a bunch of important nations and I found this particularly fascinating. His discussion of the Hanseatic Leagues and the interplay with a burgeoning England is super interesting, and about the ebbs and flows of Portuguese, Dutch and French power, and his The Germans section is simply excellent. History buffs with an interest in economics would enjoy Book One as a standalone, it’s truly excellent. If I was to sum up List’s main arguments I’d say it’s twofold. One, he takes issue with Adam Smith not differentiating between agricultural and manufacturing productions. Smith’s classic example of Scotland growing grapes for wine says List, is stupid; no-one thinks they should - they should trade for agricultural products their nation is unsuited for. But they should make that trade by developing higher order manufacturing, not by trying to trade commodities for commodities. He focussed a lot on this split. Which brings us to his second point that nations are at different stages of development - it’s fine for Britain (and Smith) to argue for free trade because they stand to benefit most from it being the most developed country on Earth at writing, but if other nations hope to compete then they must protect infant industry by way of tariffs and balancing trade such that they can develop enough to eventually compete. This thinking is what has dominated Asian economics; it’s why China are where they are, it’s why Worst Korea and Japan have conglomerates like Hyundai and Mitsubishi. And it’s also behind Trump’s hard-ons for tariffs in 2025 (albeit Trump’s influence is from American thinkers influenced by List; not List himself). So just from an understanding of what’s happening in the world today, I’d highly recommend this book. You’ll gain an appreciation for the economic thinking influencing modern policy makers on protectionism, and a more nuanced way to think about laissez faire which I think is well worth considering. If you want to read beyond Austrian school economics and broaden your perspective, this would be worthwhile to at leash challenge your own notions.

Watching my baby girl grow and develop every day, whilst my old dog struggles more every day, is such a weird mix of emotions. I’ll go in one room and be absolutely lit up, then go in another and feel immense sadness; and I equally want to spend time in both. Feels good and bad man.

#Bookstr Recap of 2025 Reviews I thought it might be interesting for nostr’s bookworms to recap my 2025 reading list. My first two books “Peak” and “Ultralearning” were both on the subject of expertise, harnessing talent, and methods for learning. If you’re interested in getting better at learning (a skill itself), either of these would be worthwhile (also checkout “Moonwalking with Einstein”) but Ultralearning has helped me more because of its discussion on language learning which gave me some practical insights as I tackled studying Vietnamese this year. This year I read quite a bit of historical law and philosophy too. Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Bastiat, and ~half of The Federalist Papers. That took me down some YouTube rabbit holes too all in trying to better understand the interplay between peoples, language, culture and politics. As I keep reading more on this topic, the more I realise humanity has seen all this before. Modern humans aren’t special - we tell ourselves that we are but the echoes of history show that many smart people have already discussed all the issues we face today. Gustav Le Bon’s book “The Crowd” gave me a really useful lens to think about this - that one is a must read in my opinion. Excellent book. Durkheim’s analysis on the fundamentals of religion is really useful context (and will help dispel any notions you might have of “the noble savage”), albeit quite dry. Parvini’s primer “The Populist Delusion” can help you understand the reality behind ‘The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does’ and would be good for anyone steeped in Austrian/AnCap literature to extend their understanding more practically which is a problem I see amongst many #Bitcoiners. Prince Han’s-Adam’s “The State in the Third Millennium” (recommended by @Saifedean Ammous) is a good counterweight to think forward on these concepts. Glad I finally read this one. Hoppe’s “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism” and Molyneux’s “Peaceful Parenting” were both decent modern philosophy books, more on the junior understanding end but with highlights for everybody. Dartnell’s “The Knowledge” was a good interlude read but don’t waste too much time on civilisation scale apocalypse scenarios. “A Mathematician’s Lament” by Lockhart and “The True Believer” by Hoffer were two short books I really enjoyed - highly recommend these, just knocking over a 2 hour book and coming away learning something is really worthwhile. Particularly Lockhart’s book, it was way out of my regular wheelhouse and has inspired me to read Euclid’s “Elements” in 2026. Now time for some awards 🏆 🍋 Lemon Of The Year: “The Psychology of Totalitarianism” by Desmet. This was the book which during Covid seeded the idea of “mass formation psychosis” to the public. It starts strong by tearing down modern academia and peer review and then goes, absolutely nowhere.. Completely ignoring the Communist-Dictator-Elephant-in-the -Room in favour of heavily lifting from Hannah Arendt and reiterating Hitler demonisation - it’s a total bore. Just read “The True Believer” by Hoffer if Desmet’s title interests you, it’s 1/4 the length and 10X better. 🏅 Most Educational Book Of The Year: “The Rise of the West” by William H. McNeill. The way this was structured, it will fill in big gaps for Western-focussed history buffs. Since finishing, this one has sat really well with me and opened up some new areas of interest, helped me better contextualise a whole bunch of other stuff I’d learned previously, and gave me a much better appreciation for The West as part of The World in the context of history. It strikes a good balance between density and surface-level, giving you enough to understand a point without getting bogged down, but giving you launch points to go learn and contextualise a bunch more. One of the best history books I’ve ever read with how much ground it covered and how coherent the broad narrative weave is. 🥇My Book of the Year: “Critical Path” by Buckminster Fuller. A fantastic book. Inspiring, it re-awoke that drive in me that we could have a better future despite my own cynicism. Fuller was a #Bitcoiner decades before #Bitcoin existed and it was the book that had me wanting more, the most. It’s a pity he was wasted on the Boomers. Definitely recommend all Bitcoiners put this on their reading list though. 🎖️That Reminds Me Award: Not read this year, but the book that came back to me the most in my 2025 reading was “Propaganda” by Edward Bernays. I’ve recommended it before on #nostr but it just kept coming back over and over again this year. If you haven’t read this one, make it a goal for January - your understanding of the world will change more with this one book than any other I listed. In 2026 I’ll be approaching reading differently with Euclid’s “Elements” and Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy & Hope” both on deck (I just read Tragedy & Hope 101 by Joseph Plummer which is a condensed version extracting key ideas). I can’t just churn through a list willy nilly and hope to get the most out of these two books. A takeaway this year was I needed more flexibility in my list as I went in oversubscribed. I think a tighter list of must reads supplemented by whatever comes out of that, and out of life, will be a more rewarding approach for me than trying to drawdown my reading list which only ever expands; I just have to deal with that and put my OCD aside. Join me getting some books into ya in 2026! #HappyNewYear Nostr!

The effect your location has on you is far greater than people give credit to. I can’t stand cold weather, every year for 5-6 months in Melbourne I would just not be mentally right because of the cold. People would mock me for wearing scarfs and gloves and heavy jackets (considered overkill in Melbourne) but I didn’t care because it made something I personally found intolerable, slightly better. Come summer, my general mood and well-being would always be much improved and what I realised to be normal for me. You need to understand yourself to be able to properly grapple with this, but a change of scenery/location can be very reinvigorating.

I’ve seen all sorts washed up on the beaches of Da Nang in #Vietnam A whole cooking school washed away in a flood, a 60lb eel, life jackets, floats of course, but this has to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever found on any beach anywhere. Yes, that’s a bowling ball 😂

Just watched this expose of Minnesota fraud going viral on Xitter with 260K+ likes by Nick Shirley. No offence to Nick but this guy is a Halfwit. The fact a halfwit could expose $110M+ in fraud in one day whilst barely being able to string together a sentence in English is staggering. The amount of people who need to be hanged or guillotined is off the charts. Streets need to run with rivers of blood to clean this shit out and ensure those who come after would never try the same shit again for fear they too will meet their end. I’ve posted plenty about Australia’s NDIS fraud which I know to be comparatively even worse than this, but my god is this bad! I know the Ancap instinct of most #Bitcoiners is to reject the idea of capital punishment but if that’s your reaction - pray tell what you actually think should happen to these parasites? They going to repay their debts to society somehow??