Oddbean

One of the biggest problems facing the west today is the blanket accommodation of mental illness. Everyone tip toes around mentally ill people so as not to "offend", whereas in the past, there was no such social prohibition. People were "mean". People were "cruel". This had a twofold effect. Young men faced strict discipline from every corner, and if they had any chance of being and behaving normally, their quirks were beaten out of them, and then they grew up to be polite, responsible, reasonable, capable and normal men. https://x.com/JoshyBeSloshy/status/1840515288996966826 The people who used to be called "retards" were ruthlessly tested until it was absolutely determined that there was no hope for them. They were then either kept secure at home where they couldn't trouble anyone or institutionalized for thier own and society's good. Today, it is not like this. People coddle their children to such an extent, that they never shed the cocoon of childhood and incompletely molt as partially formed, stunted men. In the UK, they call them, "Manlets". Manlets can't take responsibility, can't face criticism or make a value judgement. They're essentially paralysed, and because no one rebuked them for their entire lives, they've ended up crippled by it, whereas if they had faced a sound horsewhipping when young, they could have been molded into true captains of industry, capitalists or even greater. That is what is missing today in many fields; men and women who have the discipline, etiquette, soundness of mind, a firm foundation, guts and ability; fearlessness, all of which are prerequisites to both changing the world for the better and managing the world once changed so it doesn't slip and turn into a mess. Bitcoin, tangentially, is a solution to this terrible problem of a paucity of men of character. By removing the power to control the money supply from the State and putting it into the "hands" of a computer, impotent, frightened and paralyzed men and evil women are forever removed from the equation, and weak men and evil women are excluded from economic decisions that affect billions of innocent people. The answer to, "The Weak Man / Evil Woman Problem" is software, across the board. This extends to robotics. Some very clever man from an American Labor Union has just threatened the entire United States with crippling strikes across all ports. The introduction of commodity robots, both anthropomorphic and not, will put Unions in their place forever. No group of people will be able to claim jobs provided by entrepreneurs are "their jobs", and the cretinous Californian Socialists who think increasing minimum wages are an answer to poverty (they are not) will have no constituency to vote for them. When all fast food work is done by robots, California can either ban fast food or allow fast food. It is a binary choice. there are no more options. If they allow fast food, companies will simply shut down franchises. Prices will be unsustainably high in California, making the slops inaccessible to the poor. In other states, where taxation regimes and employment laws are sane (i.e. where there are none of either) the fast food industry will flourish. If they disallow fast food, then the companies will simply shut down franchises. No slops for California dreamers. The Socialists and Unions cannot win this; there is no scenario where they win. The free market will discipline them; the invisible hand will slap them. This is true of all companies. You can't hide from economics; the market is super powerful and very dynamic, and entrepreneurs, when hungry, are ruthless and lethal. For them, business is not a game or a distraction; it is life or death, and for the best entrepreneurs, who are driven by philosophy, they are doubly motivated. Many entrepreneurs in Bitcoin are like the latter. Winning in Bitcoin is not the fulfillment of a ridiculous unwritten chapter in an obscure book on untested "Game Theory"; it is REAL and the prize is REAL and the stakes are REAL and the users are REAL. When Bitcoin wins, the world will change; the only remaining question is this: Will your name be on the roll of HONOUR of men and women who did good and changed the world? Or will your name be on the roll of SHAME, of men and women who did wrong, did dirty, who dropped the ball, who ran away and hid from the game? It is not possible to know the end of this today, but you can make a good guess on a handful of very famous (in Bitcoin) names. Faketoshi will go down under "did wrong, did dirty". Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Elizabeth Stark: "men and women who did good and changed the world". And so on and so on. I'm sure you can make your own list in your own mind. Right Right Right? https://image.nostr.build/138ec921c24e75ccb254d27475fe627fd6ea6ee1552429be4f614d1ee730660e.jpg