After nearly a year of not checking any of my website analytics, I might take a moment to actually reinstall some of them since they broke down a while ago.
What I learned was, I’m not locked in with my analytics. My analytics are locked in with me. I’m not even sure when they stopped functioning, since I didn’t care.
I literally don’t know how many people came to my website in the past six months other than “a lot”. I do know the number of paying members and my overall research revenue, but not the number of visitors to public pages as I used to.
So now that I don’t give a shit about my analytics anymore, I figure I might as well take the time to reinstall them and see what they are.
Feels like a line from Fight Club. Only once we lose something do we begin to care for it. In my randomness I randomly decided that it would be nice to know the number of readers per post again, after having spent a long time of not caring or measuring by accident and apathy.
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One of my to-do lists is to fix Google Analytics on my website since it broke down a few months ago while I was traveling.
Normally this is a crisis but I was too apathetic to care. I posted the best articles I could write and didn’t care for analytics.
Naturally I should get this back and setup, but I found it interesting that 1) I didn’t check the numbers for 6+ months anyway and 2) it broke and I didn’t care for my website in 3+ months, before ultimately now I was like “okay let’s get analytics back, holy shit.”
I’ve met Peter Schiff in person a few times.
He is super chill, friendly, usually sun-tanned on vacation with chad vibes, etc. He’s trolling us.
He might be our industry’s most prolific troll, but ultimately he is just that: consciously trolling us.
His only argument is that bitcoin has no “intrinsic value” while meanwhile I’m active in two continents and am thankful that my multi-signature money isn’t attached to either one of them like gold would be. He has no answer for this. Bitcoin is the best at what gold can’t do: be globally accessible.
He’s famous from two decades ago, is rich and happy, and wants to sell gold. He is closed to Bitcoin intellectually but is happy to engage with bitcoiners that give him marketing. He’s a Puerto Rico chad. That’s who bitcoiners debate against; someone who is going for marketing and is happy for the engagement.
https://m.primal.net/KHaF.jpg
@jack mallers consider approaching Peter like he is a gold chad, fresh off the beach, who doesn’t give a fuck and who is just there for marketing, happy to win or lose the debate. He’s part of the joke, trying to benefit from the engagement happily. Probably the best argument is that Bitcoin is globally portable while gold is stale and domestic, and dunk on that. Peter is always worried about American collapse but be like, “if America collapses wouldn’t you want portable capital rather than domestic metal?”
The funny thing is that Twitter Lyn is totally natural and only based on vibes. But then she got so big that she was like, “eh…” when posting. So sometimes I post random shit, and sometimes I ask what is appropriate for 700k followers.
If the Dark Side didn't give immediate results, then nobody would take it. It does have its merits. For years at a time. The Dark Side isn't retarded. Rather, they're rich.
Algorithms work because they base themselves on the weaker aspects of human nature. They get faster numbers while hurting their long-term credibility. The become wealthy but not respected.
If I aimed to build a business for the next 3 years only and cared not for things beyond that, I'd aim for the YouTube algorithm.
But if I aimed to build a business with longer-term aims, I'd be more cautious against clickbait and optimize for personal brand integrity.
Walker has high integrity, so much so that even as he messes with clickbait for experiments, I still know his integrity. His integrity is what led me to happily be on his show, for example. I like him as a person. Ultimately, I do vibes-based appearances. Walker has good vibes, so I joined his show over others that had 10x or 50x the following.
There is some balance between the forces. There's the hybrid approach of marketing clickbait + substantive high-integrity content once they click. Like, "I caught you with my clickbait, now let's talk philosophy!"
But at the end of the day, the more we stretch for audience reach, the worse we likely suffer in terms of audience substance.
And in the long run, it's nice to have a really based audience who understands us. Because we presented ourselves honestly from the start.
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If the Dark Side didn't give immediate results, then nobody would take it. It does have its merits. For years at a time. The Dark Side isn't retarded. Rather, they're rich.
Algorithms work because they base themselves on the weaker aspects of human nature. They get faster numbers while hurting their long-term credibility. The become wealthy but not respected.
If I aimed to build a business for the next 3 years only and cared not for things beyond that, I'd aim for the YouTube algorithm.
But if I aimed to build a business with longer-term aims, I'd be more cautious against clickbait and optimize for personal brand integrity.
Walker has high integrity, so much so that even as he messes with clickbait for experiments, I still know his integrity. His integrity is what led me to happily be on his show, for example. I like him as a person. Ultimately, I do vibes-based appearances. Walker has good vibes, so I joined his show over others that had 10x or 50x the following.
There is some balance between the forces. There's the hybrid approach of marketing clickbait + substantive high-integrity content once they click. Like, "I caught you with my clickbait, now let's talk philosophy!"
But at the end of the day, the more we stretch for audience reach, the worse we likely suffer in terms of audience substance.
And in the long run, it's nice to have a really based audience who understands us. Because we presented ourselves honestly from the start.
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It's both people and the algorithm. The dark side can get you more views.
It depends on whether you optimize for 6-12 month numbers or want to build a high-integrity 3-5 year+ brand.
The light side can keep your more in contact with a high caliber group of people that want to interview with you regularly, and you are more respected for business in general. In other words, I interview with my friend Walker despite lower views as a newer podcast because... I fucking like Walker online and in person. I just want to hang out with a friend and chat and the numbers don't matter and I know his thumbnails will be legit. Vibes first.
As podcasts broaden out, there's a middle ground of integrity and good marketing, but it has trade-offs. And if you go the more aggressive route regularly, it's nice to have both options, like a full interview and a conservative clip, so that if an interviewee like me wants to share it, they have the less-aggressive version to share. Like the main interview is more plain and optimistic, while other clips go for the algo.
With my almost 700k followers, whether I share one of my many primary interviews on Twitter or not is frankly based on how it turned out and whether the title and picture are embarrassing or not. I share based on a combo of 1) how much I personally like the interviewer, and 2) title/content/image, etc. I don't share a lot of high-volume Youtube clips from hosts I semi-like, simply because I find their titles and thumbnail embarrassing. They aim for the YouTube clicks so I'm embarrassed to share their title on Twitter.
But the key thing from your end, always, is to be known as a high-integrity interviewer. That's what I come back to four years in a row now for my favorites like Jack Farley. And you're in that category now.
Jack Farley is currently a top macro interviewer. His images and titles are sometimes aggressive, but at the end of the day he's known for pushing hard and being a great interviewer. And yet he doesn't get bitcoin yet. David Lin formerly of Kitco is similar. Natalie Brunelle is an amazing bitcoin interviewer. She's among my top five given how much preparation she does like David Lin does.
McCormack is similar for the bitcoin space. He's charismatic, popular, but will aggressively question things. And if you come at him like Grayscale, he'll rekt you.
For longevity, the interviewer needs a brand, imo. Something they stand for. Not just YouTube image memes. But serious character, which Walker has.
Most websites have Google Analytics installed to help track their details.
I used to do this. It expired on my website some years ago, so I fixed it.
It then expired again. Always updating their tech. I was too busy to give a fuck that second time, so I still haven’t fixed it. My followers don’t care about Google anymore. And we’re not based on advertisers.
I don’t track numbers on my website anymore. I just post based on vibes. I write what I want to and I observe the feedback on any medium that people provide it. And now there’s Nostr.
So I go on vibes. Not numbers.
https://m.primal.net/KHOy.jpg
I mainly like it because it feels good after. There are studies on it but for me it’s mainly about the subjective energy I get from it. I do think it’s worth being cautious about overdoing it.
My shower is retarded in that pressure and the temperature are the same dial. So in order to get the pressure up, I automatically have to bring the temperature up mid-way too. So I literally can’t do a cold shower. Ice bath instead.
As someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons regularly, if I were to participate in a D&D roleplaying livestream, would you watch it?
Like if I play the angsty sorcerer, or the frustrated cleric, or the happy-go-lucky barbarian that has very specific anger triggers, would you find this amusing?
There are a bunch of successful D&D livestreams out there. The best ones are run by theater and voice actor pros.
But what if you had a bunch of public bitcoiners in the event, and most of them are highly charismatic semi-pros, and then some of them like me are autistic but, like, trying our our best as nerds that like the game.
Would you watch that or nah?
When the first new Dungeons and Dragons player handbook comes out in ten years, as a once-in-a-decade-nerd-event, I'm like:
https://m.primal.net/KFMD.png
I've read a lot of sci fi and fantasy novels, and the secret is that there's always someone in the administration that you get to.
Let's get to Twitter's AI!
Free enterprise is the default state of affairs. It's a complex and ever-ongoing negotiation of prices between retailers, product producers, commodity producers, employees, and so forth. It is a constantly-adjusting control system sorting toward Truth.
Authoritarian governments and the masses that support them can impede upon prices and thus rekt the ability for natural pricing to occur, which disrupts all trade and makes everything more inefficient and more expensive.
Notably, the handful of countries that have made social democracy work, all preserved the metric of "ease of doing business." In other words, if you examine Scandinavian countries, they do have high taxes and high support for society. That's how these relatively small and homogenous societies have chosen to govern themselves, and they consistently score among the highest global levels of happiness. But in terms of "ease of doing business," they still score very high. They tax and spend, but they don't interference with business operations to generate new value. They tax and redistribute the engines of growth, but they don't impede the engines of growth.
That's the key thing, in terms of variables not to mess with. Don't interfere with the flow of pricing, domestically or globally, which is ultimately just information. Maintain the ease of doing business, let pricing set supply/demand balances, and then sort out what sort of social contract exists independently of those foundational wealth-building engines.
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Is it worth getting back into Magic the Gathering? Haven’t had time to play in 3 years.
I hear they have a lot of power creep lately to maximize profits for Hasbro.
Anyone here been playing it a lot recently?
I used to be a gamer.
-Console games across the board, although Super Smash Bros was the one I put over a thousand hours into.
-For PC, I played a lot of Subspace Continuum, StarCraft I and 2, and Overwatch.
I hardly play any digital games anymore, mainly because I work on my computer all day and want to touch grass in my spare time, although I do play Dungeons and Dragons tabletop.
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The complicated aspect about the Social Security system in the United States is that it was falsely marketed.
It's called an "entitlement" because people pay into it and are supposed to get it back like a pension, regardless of whether they are rich or poor when they retire. And so the Baby Boomer generation views any cuts to their social security as a rugpull, basically. It's not insurance or charity; it's an entitlement.
However, although it was marketed as like an entitlement/pension, that's not how the math worked out in practice. And it's because population growth is slowing. It was based on ponzi math, assuming that every generation will be bigger than the one that came before it. But the Baby Boomer generation was huge.
In addition, when Social Security was created, the retirement age was set near the average life expectancy. Many people would not live long enough to collect it, and most would collect it for a handful of years. Only a small minority of outliers would work for like 40 years and then live off social security for like 20+ years. But then over the decades, life expectancy increased by like 15 years, so the default assumption is indeed that someone can work for 40 years and then have 20+ years of retirement, even though the amount they pay into it doesn't really mathematically cover that. It's not designed for that en masse.
And so Baby Boomers had like a 3.5 worker-to-retiree ratio to support in their peak earnings years, while Millennials will have more like a 2.5 worker-to-retiree ratio or less to deal with. Which means they get a worse deal. Many Millennials don't even think they'll get it at all, despite paying into it.
That breaks up the social contract and sets up inter-generational political conflict. "Fourth Turning" stuff.
It's a big reason why "defined benefit" plans are inherently unstable; they rely on being able to predict the future.
And it's also a big reason why, when speaking about deficits, nothing stops this train.
I think there’s risk of overdoing it of course. However, our modern lives generally have low levels of acute stress (more common is chronic stress) since we have such powerful control over our environments. So we don’t normally fast, get too cold, get too hot, or get enough physical work, etc. Especially white collar workers. So from my research, when not overdone, cold plunges basically just help bring people back toward a natural state of stimulation.
I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of anyone using an electric corkscrew. I’ve never seen it done. It’s so lame I have trouble imagining that they are real.
Hey Nick!
Nostr is smaller and more intimate at this early stage, but high signal. I have found that following a lot of people helps, since there’s less overall activity and having more follows gets the activity on your feed up. You can go through some of your favorite people’s follows and make sure you are following people you recognize for starters.
Also, Nostr tends to incentivize less debating and sensationalism, so it’s a bit less active in the negative sense. It’s more mellow, less addicting.
I tried to send you some zaps but it says you don’t have a wallet set up yet.
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