In case it could help someone, Simple Privacy Tips . com is online.
It contains structured tips (mostly step-by-step video guides) on private & secure computing and bitcoining.
It also contains a section on theory, with concise synthesis of the basics of economics and freedom.
SimplePrivacyTips.com
ParanoidBitcoinAnarchist.com
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stunning-letter-congress-zuckerberg-admits-biden-harris-pressured-facebook-censor-content
"I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it," reads the letter. "I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today" (Mark Zuckerberg)
For Zuckerberg to claim that, if yesterday he had had the information that he has today, then he would have made different choices, is no different than for a central planner to claim that, if yesterday he had had the information about scarcity that he has today, he would have fixed different prices. In both cases, there is an inversion between cause and effect.
The reason to have free market prices is precisely the fact that they (and thus the process of competition) are the only way we can discover information about scarcity that cannot be known beforehand: this information cannot be available before free market prices are formed. This is why collectivist systems fail.
Similarly, the reason to have a free market of ideas (and of information, and of representation of facts, and of offences as well) is precisely the fact that only through the process of such competition can one arrive at the truth. A truth that is established by an authority before the competition process play its magic is by definition just propaganda. This is the reason why Zuckerberg failed.
In short, in apologising for his mistake and trying to justify himself, #Zuckerberg shows that he did not understand what his mistake was, and therefore confirms that, in a similar situation, he'll do exactly the same mistake again. Like many people who don't understand the basics of economics, he is like someone who wants something but without the work that's necessary to get it, because he doesn’t know that that work (the free market competition process) is necessary to get it and there is no possible way around it.
https://x.com/marcelvanhattem/status/1829729347873227190
Democracy is three wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner, or who can speak.
In this case, the Brazilian citizens who desire freedom of expression are the sheep.
The sheep challenging the 3 wolves is heroic. However, are you sure she should do it in the name of what allows them to eat her legally and in the name of the 'public good'?
You are making a dangerous confusion between freedom and democracy, my friend.
Since you are fighting and resisting at great personal risk in the name of principle, wouldn't it be better doing so in the name of a non-arbitrary (logically deduced) idea of freedom rather than in the name of what is taking freedom away from you?
As we can see in the UK, for example, in a statist system the judges are independent from the government more or less in the same way central banks are. In other words, they are not.
Elon Musk: "America right now is a perfect example of what happens to a successful business when you hire all of the wrong people!"
This.
This fundamental, well-known, logical, and independently verifiable mistake is the essence of collectivism in any form: from communism to Nazism to totalitarian democracy (I use this redundant term for tactical reasons). All human suffering caused by the state ultimately stems from this crucial error: considering society as a whole as if it were an organization, and thus believing that good management of it makes it prosperous.
In an organization (let's take Tesla as an example), there exists a unitary hierarchy of ends: all people working for that organization (the employees) work towards achieving that end (in this example, the production of electric cars). This end is set from the top: that is, by the owner of the organization (let's say Elon Musk) based on his subjective value scale. This system (the organization) is the only way things (from electric cars to musical concerts) can be successfully produced. It's the result of human action (the people working at Tesla) and human design from the top (management).
An organization (any organization) operates within a society. However, despite being complementary, the two are structurally, fundamentally different.
For a society to succeed (as much as it can), it must not be converted into an organization. If it is converted into an organization, society fails: either in absolute terms or in relation to what its prosperity could have been otherwise.
The reason for this is scientific.
If a society is not converted into an organization, then there is no unitary hierarchy of ends. Within non-arbitrary (logically deduced) ethical rules, everyone (including Tesla and Musk) can work towards their own ends and is not forced to work towards ends imposed by someone above: again, there is no owner of society who can impose that everyone living in it must work (in one form or another, to one degree or another) for the ends he imposes. The reason this produces success (in addition to freedom, non-arbitrarily defined) lies in the fact that economic value is subjective, not objective: when everyone can work without hindrance towards their own ends, value is created through free exchange (win-win) and communicated through prices. In this way, prices transmit information about scarcity (i.e., subjective value) that guides the successful economic process. Without this information, it would be like navigating in the dark without instruments or stars: economic failure of society would be inevitable.
As an organisation, a free society is the product of human actions: in this case, individual exchanges. On the other hand, unlike an organisation, a free society is not the product of design by man at the top (by definition, there is no top). This fact often makes understanding a free society and a market economy difficult. Indeed, while everyone is familiar with organisations and the observable fact that they produce things, very few are familiar with the concept of spontaneous order and the non-observable but logically deducible fact that this is the necessary condition for widespread prosperity. Many people believe that, in the absence of management, society would descend into chaos: this is because, in the absence of management of a company, it would descend into chaos.
However, it can be logically demonstrated that the opposite is true. If a society is converted (in one form or another) into an organization, then there exists a unitary hierarchy of ends. The rules within which humans (and companies) can act are necessarily arbitrary. Everyone must work (in one form or another, to one degree or another) towards ends imposed from above, not for their own ends. The more this happens, the more free exchange is hindered, and with it, the ability for prices to transmit information about scarcity, and thus subjective value. Value is destroyed. The more this happens, the more structural distortions are produced in the productive structure; society navigates in the dark and fails economically: either in absolute terms (e.g., the Soviet Union) or in relation to the success it could have had otherwise (e.g., today's USA).
In conclusion (and apologizing to the reader who has made it this far for the length of this post), an organization (e.g., a company) thrives within a society. Despite being complementary, an organization (a positive order) and a free society (a spontaneous order) are fundamentally, objectively different. Due to this fundamental difference, their success comes from opposite approaches. For a company to succeed, it needs good management. For a society to succeed, it needs the absence of management: it only needs the defense of non-arbitrary (logically deduced) ethical rules. In other words, for a company to succeed, it must massively use the centralized knowledge of those at the top (especially knowledge related to value). Conversely, for a society to be prosperous, there must be no obstacle within it to the use of knowledge (especially related to value, including that of time) that is decentralized and dispersed among all individuals, constantly changing, intimate, and to which no central authority can ever access.
#Bitcoin is also, amongst other things, a benign virus spreading the awareness of this mistake in ways economist cannot do. When awareness of this fundamental error is sufficiently widespread, prosperity will be inevitable and unstoppable.
Il "fallimento dello Stato (...) avviene quando un intervento governativo causa un'allocazione dei beni e delle risorse più inefficiente di quanto lo sarebbe stata senza tale intervento" (Wikipedia).
Non condivido il termine 'fallimento dello Stato', per diverse ragioni. Fra queste, la principale è che questo termine presuppone che lo Stato sia un'organizzazione ben intenzionata: è costituito per fare del bene ma a volte (come capita a tutti) fallisce in questo tentativo.
Nei limiti in cui si è a favore del principio di uguaglianza davanti alla legge (e quindi si ha un'idea non-arbitraria di libertà) la logica obbliga a riconoscere lo Stato come un'organizzazione criminale. Esso è costituito per fare del male e ci riesce perfettamente. Non fallisce affatto. Al contrario, lo Stato è l'organizzazione di maggior successo in relazione alla sua ragion d'essere. Molto più di successo della mafia, che è il suo concorrente naturale.
Da un punto di vista strettamente economico, data la teoria soggettiva del valore, l'intervento dello Stato, essendo per definizione coercitivo, comporta necessariamente un'allocazione delle risorse inefficiente. Le informazioni necessarie agli scambi di successo (quelle sul valore), sono in ogni istante perfettamente decentralizzate e non sono disponibili ad alcuna autorità centrale: l'unico modo per utilizzare queste informazioni, e quindi per avere scambi di successo, è ricorrere al processo di mercato, che non può esserci in presenza di Stato (a partire dal settore del denaro).
Try and ask a central bank official or #AskECB the following question: If given the choice, would you prefer to be paid in a form of money that looses purchasing power over time (a) or in a form of money that doesn't? (b).
If the answer is (a), you'll know that he/she is lying to you (you can independently verify this fact using logic, in addition to common sense).
If the answer is (b), he/she will have admitted that central banking and state fiat money are contrary to the interests of each individual.
Of course, he/she will try to evade the question and to obfuscate ideas with some Keynesian macroeconomic bullshit. Keep him/her on the simple question.
The very fact that something (an opinion, a product, a particular kind of money, a relationship, sex: anything except a non-arbitrary coercive rule) needs to be imposed by force, is in and of itself a sufficient reason to establish, with absolute certainty, that it's wrong.
Central banks, like the ECB or the central bank of Venezuela for example, rely on the fact that most people don't know economic science, nor the science of liberty.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, has rendered such knowledge unnecessary. Thanks to Bitcoin, individuals are progressively drawn towards sound money through a system of incentives and are free to choose it due to its censorship resistance. While Bob may not be familiar with the Austrian School of economics or the logical implications of the principle of equality before the law, he understands damn well what is best for him and his family. Bitcoin adoption does not necessitate knowledge of economic science or the science of liberty. However, it tends to contaminate people with them.
There are undoubtedly numerous reasons why central banks oppose Bitcoin; most are related to safeguarding their privileges granted by the state to extract more money from people through inflation. However, beyond the obvious motivations, it's hard not to consider additional psychological reasons for central bank officials' opposition to Bitcoin, namely:
- shame: they don't want the hoax of 'public' fiat money to be exposed;
- envy: they resent the idea that some individuals are prospering outside the monetary cage in which central banks strive to keep them.
It appears that Javier Milei's government intends to repay Argentina's huge public debt. Is that really necessary? As Rothbard explains, from a moral standpoint, unlike PRIVATE debt, PUBLIC debt should be repudiated (https://mises.org/library/repudiating-national-debt). In fact, while private debt is a voluntary exchange, public debt is not; it is an imposition of the political-parasitic class on individuals who are supposed to repay for generations a debt they did not choose to have. In other words, public debt, just like taxes, is a form of aggression.
From a pragmatic perspective, repaying the public debt is necessary to incur further debt (no one will lend you money if you did not repay a debt). However, is this relevant for a government that intends to unleash the potential of growth with freedom, break with the past and reduce the public sector to an arbitrary minimum?
Javier Milei is the only head of government who acknowledges that the organization over which he presides is a criminal organization. This, along with the scientific analysis on which he bases this statement, makes me trust him
In the real world, the state is strong and the individual is weak. As a consequence, in this world freedom (scientifically defined *) has been always decreasing. In the digital world, the state is weak and the individual is strong. As a consequence, in this world freedom has been always increasing (#Bitcoin being the most important step so far of this trend). With #Milei 's election freedom might be start increasing also in the real world.
(*) https://giovannibirindelli.substack.com/p/the-ethics-of-equality-before-the
Milei's actions on Bitcoin will reveal his trustworthiness. Anything less than immediate and unconditional non-interference of the state in Bitcoin would seriously compromise his trustworthiness. Let's see. But I'm optimistic.
The importance of the Austrian School of economics at a psychological level has been underestimated, I think.
Unlike other unscientific approaches to economics, the Austrian approach sees economics as the logical study of the structure of human action (the content of the actions of different individuals is always different but their structure is necessarily the same: it obeys eternal laws, whose study is the subject matter of economics).
One implication of the Austrian marginal subjective value theory is that value is expressed not by thought, nor by feeling: only by action, i.e. by choice. At a psychological level, the importance of this fact cannot be exaggerated.
The respect of the principle of equality before the law (a.k.a. universalizability) is not only a necessary but also a sufficient
condition to logically demonstrate that the non-aggression principle (NAP) is the only possible non-arbitrary coercive rule.
This means that it is not logically possible to believe in the principle of equality before the law and not be a libertarian (e.g. be in favour of any form of state). Those who are, are objectively mistaken. Either they are fooled by the propaganda or they are part of it.
https://giovannibirindelli.substack.com/p/the-ethics-of-equality-before-the
Oddbean new post about login | logout
Notes by Giovanni | export