1. People prefer 10 comfortable lies to 1 uncomfortable truth.
I'll try to explain why and what might follow from this and a few more insights:
2. Ideas that feel comfortable release dopamine when you think of them, while ideas that feel uncomfortable release cortisol.
3. Actions that follows from these ideas typically produce the opposite results.
a) actions that ignore false beliefs release cortisol.
b) actions that respect truth release dopamine.
4. The reason for No 3 a) and b) is that economic, social and natural laws punish you for ignoring false beliefs, while they reward you for respecting truth.
5. Although people aren't concious about these principles, they aren't stupid.
6. The way people adjust, however, is that they stick to thinking about their comfortable lies without implementing them as actions - they become passive.
7. Passivity is amplified when people have high time preference*.
8. When people suffer from inflation they get high time preference, meaning they are more likely to stick to the comfortable lies and become passive.
9. The few who benefit from inflation (the Cantillionaires**) get low time preference, meaning they are more likely to take action.
10. Because passivity results in a lack of learning, while activity stimulates learning, the gap between those who suffer from inflation and those who benefit from it widens.
Feel free to discuss.
---
*A person who heavily prefers current consumption to future consumption has a high time preference as he places a heavy premium upon satisfaction as soon as possible. By contrast, a person who does not place a heavy premium upon instant satisfaction has a low time preference
** A "Cantillionaire" is a term used to describe individuals who gain wealth through the "Cantillon Effect," which refers to the uneven impact of inflation on different parts of the economy. This effect benefits those closest to the source of new money, often central banks and their associates, who can spend before prices rise, thereby gaining financial advantages. The term highlights the perceived unfairness in the fiat monetary system where these individuals accumulate wealth not by creating value but by exploiting monetary policy.
Misinterpretated your post :-) But yes, they need that measure, because high level decentralization of bitcoin adoption indicates that it's shorter time to adopting bitcoin as means of exchange, which will be a major driver for bitcoin price
Yes, this is important. Not having a centralized institution that "taxes" the posiitve externalities from the network effect - away from the majority in the network to a small minority and the owner - means that a greater share of the users in the network get stronger incentives to create good content and thereby contributing to the growth of the network.
Important insights relevant for all nostrians
👇
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Did you ever reflect over this?
👇
The reason why monetary monopoly is such an enormously centralizing political tool is that the Cantillonaires (those who benefit from spending money created out of nothing) get positive compound interest from inflation, while the rest of us get negative compound interest.
It blows up the gap between the two groups in no time at all.
Do you want to make it easier to see through the fog of complexity?
Do you want things to make more sense?
And do you want a better life?
Well, lean on me for a moment, my friend, and we can walk the first few steps together.
https://image.nostr.build/912e59f65f0a7ac0f33971557ba751a51bed467fa6d0c3b3e90f16b3c2000059.jpg .
Here are some basic ideas that can help us on our way:
1. The belief system (our ideas) that dominate society is layer zero, and dictates which monetary system (layer one) we get.
2. The most basic belief systems are:
a) "People are in general kind, I am a free man, and we can play and cooperate" (free man mentality)
and
b) "People are in general evil, I am a slave and an NPC, we need a master to play us so that we don't rip the throats out of each other" (slave mentality.)
3. We only have two types of monetary systems to choose between:
a) monetary freedom, which means that everyone must work to get money and compete for scarce resources on equal terms.
b) monetary monopoly, which means that a monopolist can create money out of nothing and outcompete everyone else in a hunt for scarce resources.
4. If type 2 a) ideas (free man mentality) dominate society, we get type 3 a) monetary system (monetary freedom.)
5. If type 2 b) ideas (slave mentality) dominate society, we get type 3 b) monetary system (monetary monopoly.)
6. The monetary system, dictates how everything else in society (layer two) develops.
7. People produce children and build capital.
8. The state produces bureaucracy and destroys capital.
9. Introduction of type 3 a) monetary system (monetary freedom) quickly makes it possible for the people to dominate the state, enabling us to produce ever more children and ever more capital.
10. Introduction of type 3b) monetary system (monetary monopoly) quickly makes it possible for the state to dominate the people, enabling it to produce ever more bureaucracy and destroy ever more capital.
***
The rest is mostly noise.
However, two ideas are even bigger than the ones I have mentioned above:
***
11. You have the ability to control your own ideas and your own belief system, and you can be creative.
12. Ideas spread fast, because man is the most efficient and advanced Xerox machine ever made.
***
Choose wisely, and have a nice day ❤️
Scandal
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
It has more than 500 employees and invests in real estate and securities outside Norway.
Since its inception in 1998, the oil fund has lost 4 x the 2024 Norwegian state budget when we compare with the gold price as bench mark, which should be a bear case scenario.
The fund isn't allowed to invest in gold or Bitcoin.
I and a friend will release an article about this in Norwegian newspapers this week.
We might translate it into English and see if we can have it printed somewhere else.
I'm struggling with understanding Michael Saylor's base case of 14 million USD per bitcoin in 2045.
He says that Bitcoin's market cap represents 0.1% of total global wealth today (relative market cap), while his base case scenario assumes that this goes to 7%, which is a 70-fold increase.
If we look at the historical annual average increase of the money supply USD, we know that it's about 7%.
If the money supply continues to increase at this rate, it means that in 21 years the amount of money has more than quadruppeled (≈ 4.3).
Today the price of one bitcoin is 63,000 USD.
4.3 x 63,000 USD ≈ 270.000, which represents the M2 adjusted (monetary inflation adjusted) price over a 21 year period.
Saylor's base case of 14 mill USD represents 52 x today's price, adjusted for the increase of the monetary supply.
I don't understand how a base case of 70-fold increase of Bitcoin's relative market cap translates into just a 52-fold increase in the real, M2-adjusted price.
Wouldn't it be logical that the real, M2-adjusted bitcoin price increased more than Bitcoin's relative market cap?
After all, we're talking about an asset with absolute scarcity, while global wealth, on the other hand, normally would grow.
What am I missing here?
If Bitcoin's market cap goes up 70-fold, M2 continues to grow at 7% and the economy grows, and considering that the marginal cost of buying more bitcoin should increase (since it has absolute scarcity) shouldn't the price be much higher than 19M?
I really would be interested in your take on this 👇
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... and because of this 👇, it's only natural that many choose not to protest when they discover that their half god issues licences to create money out of nothing.
nostr:nevent1qqsy80lxu8k27a2dvrhmj7uk7dwk8z5wk38zvx38jxvesynqrkjk35gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhsygyr9g4nem6tza2vff6h99j2gndkf5v7ma38a3z30x63n599at5pnypsgqqqqqqskxwrz7
The most important thing the government represents for the people is that it it plays the role of a half god who tells them he can make something good out of nothing.
The longer people believe in this idea, and the more money they fork over to the government in the form of taxes, the more difficult it is for them to admit that the idea is false.
For many, the feelings they have for the government is probably different from the emotional attachment to an imaginative nanny who protects them and cares for their welfare.
Instead, I think it's more akin to the emotional attachment they have to their own offspring.
They have cared for the government, paid for it, believed in it, fought for it and nurtured it over so many years, that doubting its motives and abilities is akin to believing their own son or daughter is evil or incompetent.
Which probably is one of the most painful emotions imaginable - something that must be resisted at all cost.
... and because of this 👇, it's only natural that many choose not to protest when they discover that their half god issues licences to create money out of nothing.
nostr:nevent1qqsy80lxu8k27a2dvrhmj7uk7dwk8z5wk38zvx38jxvesynqrkjk35gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhsygyr9g4nem6tza2vff6h99j2gndkf5v7ma38a3z30x63n599at5pnypsgqqqqqqskxwrz7
Good reflections, thx.
Two comments:
- nothing bonds like having a common enemy, and I fear this is were many maxi bitcoiners end up, tightly knit together as a group that loath the state and all it does to family, friends and community
- I see the need for more playfulness, which should enable bonding with people outside our community, others who want to play for incrementally gaining more freedom. That's a more positive thing than focusing on the negative, and also enables us to reestablish a positive connection with the normies we are closest to.
So, rebuild the bonds with others by seeing ourselves as active players in a positive play for more freedom.
100%
But the play is more fun for bitcoiners if we help others with their fight for freedom, instead of just spending time with them. I mean, other freedom fighters are the lowest hanging fruit for us, and if we help them, they will after a while help us too. It's a more patient way of orangepilling, and we allow them to ask us questions insted of us shoving answers down their throat. For bitcoiners just spending time with normies and bonding with them is something I think makes many of us a lot more restless.
I am working on an idea on how we can make this play fun, both for bitcoiners and normies, let's see how it goes
I asked Grok about research on the link betweeen the learning hormone dopamine, lack of learning in schools and drug abuse.
Have a look, this is interesting:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/684W0iUC5KrdeBTseaGqZSMND
If I was an all-powerful psychopath, I would keep most of the world's people, group A, as illiterate and poor as possible, and extract their natural resources using their cheap labor.
To the extent other people, group B, would benefit from this or from technologies they created, I would gradually tax them to death and steal their savings with inflation, while I in parallel would use their schools to dumb them down as much as possible.
Keeping everyone dumb and docile would be necessary to avoid any counterplay against me.
And if my income from group B started falling because of a collapse in productivity or some destructive event, I would bankrupt them, flood their country with people from group A, and extract group B's natural resources using everyone's cheap labor.
While this went on, I would allow some of the people in group A to develop skills and increase their productivity, while I gradually taxed them to death and stole their savings with inflation.
I would rinse and repeat until the NPCs realized that I was playing with them, and developed strategies to fight back against me.
I would worry about this, because I would know that almost every strategy to fight against me would be a winning strategy for them.
In fact, it would probably be more than enough enough that a small group of NPCs turned into active players.
By f***ing around and trying they would soon find out what worked and not.
And that would be the end of it for me.
Might be, but these fourth turning ideas don't make sense to me. To me these ideas look like people struggling for finding order in the chaos - controbuting to the noise instead of transforming themselves from NPCs to players
Did you know that dopamine also is known as a learning hormone?
When you learn something new, especially if it's challenging or you've been anticipating it, your brain can release dopamine.
This acts as a reward signal, reinforcing the behavior that led to the learning.
I heard this just recently, but it makes sense, in many ways.
Some of the greatest joy I have felt, was when I understood new ideas.
An even better I experience I've had a few times, was when I met someone who had a different idea than mine, and our two ideas melted into a new, third idea.
This felt almost like magic.
I'm pretty sure my brain was showered in dopamine when it happened.
The reinforcement that dopamine creates can motivate you to continue learning or to repeat the behaviors that led to the learning experience.
It's probably addictive.
I suspect that one of the reasons why so many kids turn to drugs these days, is that they learn too little at school.
They need dopamine to be happy, and when they can't get it naturally, they take drugs to get it.
If you are aware of any research that investigates the relationship between lack of dopamine release naturally as a result of too little learning and drug abuse, let me know.
The not to obvious irony didn't go down well with everyone 😁
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https://image.nostr.build/67ef9e57da0df16614dfc61d899cf74e73bef98f3d0b0543097f3262edd1e716.jpg
Most people believe it's lack of information and understanding of the situation that is why things get worse in society.
I think this isn't correct.
First, history demonstrates that you don't need many people to change society for the better.
Second, most of those who are able to change society already know why it's necessary, they are on the other hand sick and tired of the constant whining.
And third, it's all about believing in the best actionable ideas, and making sure that these ideas are put into action by enough people.
I'll write a note today or next week where I present some of my thoughts.
The note first targets the freerider problem, why it corresponds directly with corruption and how deep this corruption runs in modern day's civilization.
These are issues that are extremely unpopular with people, because they see that these ideas force them to confront themselves with their own weaknesses.
Therefore, whenever I mention for instance freeriding in my posts, readers ignore them, don't hit the like or share buttons, and do what they can to avoid being seen as someone who contribute to distributing bad news.
So, how to deal with this challenge?
The answer is to becoming adept at communicating a superior idea.
An idea that strengthens people and motivates them to take positive action.
This has to be an idea which convinces them to connect with likeminded individuals who are prepared to cooperate and disseminate tried and tested methods that promote positive social change.
I call the idea "Sound Rebellion," which also will be the headline of most of my talks in the near future.
Stay tuned - and enjoy your Sunday.
Grear review of Knut and Luke's new book
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