Damus’ new “who to follow” feature is as offensive as YouTube or Netflix or Amazon’s watch recommendations. Algorithms that guide thought inhibit personal exploration, and consolidate opinions into a unified groupthink. This is the proof of stake model…those who have the most (dollars or followers) encourage governing algorithms to boost their product selectively over the products of others.

In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, he describes being struck by the poverty of the northern people that he met upon his arrival in Newport. His conclusion was that without slavery as he had known in the south, there can be no wealth. In the modern world where half of the wealth is owned by 0.1% of the population, where 3 billion live in poverty, where a single country siphons away the resources from most of the third world countries, and where the predominant economic model keeps the masses in a perpetual state of wage dependence and debt peonage, the injustices of slavery persist.

“The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in actual production in the most dangerous manner - and this crew know nothing of production and have nothing at all to do wish it.” Citation: Avoid the ad-hominem fallacy to which you would likely fall victim. You don’t know the man because you haven’t evaluated his words. You only know what you have been told about him.

Sometimes I like to throw out a quotation without a citation… an excellent thought with which most people interested in delivering humanity from enslavement by the financial industry will agree. But when attached to the source, some of the best ideas are overlooked because so many of us submit to ad hominem fallacies… and assume we know what an author should say…while ignoring what he did say.

I had a client with a Bitcoin tattoo this morning. The conversation quickly went from the business at hand…to the business of saving mankind.

Good hash day Bad hash day Like playing the lottery. Without the irrationality

My fiat job a delight. I do twenty minutes of work, then sit back with my coffee and a Noam Chomsky lecture, to delight in a wealth of understanding about power and oppression. Few people have done more to elucidate the inequities of modern society than the Professor. If he’s new to you, consume three lectures or read one book, and see if your world view isn’t vastly altered for the better.

I can’t wait, Professor

If your government and their media ask you to: Hate China. Ask why. Hate Russia. Ask why. Hate Immigrants. Ask why. Hate Communism. Ask why. Hate Gaddafi. Ask why. Hate Iran. Ask why. Hate Bitcoin. Ask why. The reason is always that these things fail to serve the financial interests of those that pull the strings.

What is progressive taxation? It concentrates the burden on those whose wealth comes from rents, and minimizes the burden on those who labor. Rents from assets are the same as Etherium managers siphoning off value just because they own. Bitcoin is a progressive system that does not reward anyone unless they put in work. The US tax system should also be.

Ah…new cars. Borrow money at interest… To buy an asset that requires maintenance… And that depreciates rapidly over the first few years. Sounds like a winning financial decision. I’ll stick with my beater.

“…freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the power, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.” Daniel Guerin Anarchism

The only art form that we ever created and perfected was the television commercial. We have nothing else to our credit as a civilization. To try and persuade people to buy things they don’t need that are probably bad for them and may blow up in their face… why not sell the next president in the same way and make him just as phony as detergent? Gore Vidal. Interview with Paul Jay

A few days until Block 800,000. Where’s the party? 🐿😎🎉🎉

The Romans conquered the Middle East to “civilize the barbarians” The British conquered the world to “spread Christianity” The Nazis conquered Europe to “spread German ethnicity” The Americans conquered the world to “spread democracy” We conquer for money and resources. If you think you’re on the moral side of imperialism, think again.

I don’t go to psychics, and I don’t entertain PlanB’s endless forecasting about future values. Exciting predictions bring in likes on YouTube…but provide no value to an asset that needs to be appreciated by its users. Irrational exuberance doesn’t help Bitcoin.

“The core of anarchist tradition is that power is always illegitimate, until it proves itself to be legitimate… …It is the responsibility of those who exercise power to show that somehow it’s legitimate. It’s not the responsibility of anyone else to show that it’s illegitimate. It’s illegitimate by assumption… Harry Kreisler interview with Noam Chomsky

“Although various rationales were given for these wars, each was undertaken primarily to expand worldwide US military hegemony by gaining permanent American military bases in these countries. The delusionary impetus of these costly and destructive enterprises is captured by the definition of the philosophical phrase reductio AB absurdum: "a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequences is absurd or contradictory."”

Antiwar.com

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Now Ukraine: Reductio ab Absurdum - Antiwar.com

The recent 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has caused me to reflect on the two years (2007-08) that I worked as a field-level c...