10/29/23
Podcast: DarkHorse
Episode: #197 WHO’s Your Daddy
Link to Podcast 1 hour 48 minutes
WHO has released a new document outlining their desired powers to essentially control many aspects of the world in case of public health emergencies.
Game theory of incentives baked into this construct is really dangerous.
This will be gamed.
Think critically about how.
We never voted for this agency, they failed miserably during Covid, and somehow people take stuff like this seriously. A globally coordinated body that is apolitical who focuses on making quality science available to everyone is not a bad idea. The WHO is almost the opposite of all those things.
10/30/23
Podcast: What is Money?
Episode: #384 The Relationship of Money and Culture | Bitcoin is Venice Series #4
Link to Podcast 1 hour 24 minutes
“Capital” is subjective. Based on interpretation of the future usefulness of an asset.
Is the world about matter or what matters? Relevance of everything is an interesting lens.
Capital is a way of amplifying returns on human labor.
What is the relationship between capital and culture?
Capital: Accumulation of useful things over time.
Culture: Learnings built up through trial and error.
Transmitted through stories.
Keeps you from needing to discover everything from first principles.
Culture is another form of standing on the shoulder of giants.
Generations of knowledge distilled into truth.
Two of the four p’s of knowledge: Propositional = knowing that, Procedural = knowing how.
Narrative or mythological capital enables the production of physical capital.
Trying to control the economy introduces lies into the economy. Lies that aren’t punished chase out the truth.
It’s a capital strip mine - eating the seed corn.
Eat first, then ethics.
A culture of saving is very different than a culture of debt.
This sounds simple, but realize that the entire U.S. economy is currently built on debt. That has to seep into our culture. We are surrounded by and swimming in debt.
Debt cultures lead to a breakdown of ethics eventually due to desperation.
Social capital is a precondition of physical capital.
Mythology is social capital.
Teaches us how to negotiate with the future.
Sowing before reaping.
Do not lie do not steal creates a flywheel of progress.
10/31/23
Podcast: The Last Trade
Episode: #022 A New Custody Standard with Mitch Coachman from Bitgo
Link to Podcast 1 hour 29 minutes
20% of on chain Bitcoin transactions go through Bitgo infrastructure.
Bitgo invented multisig. (Multi-signature custodial wallets/framework.)
New custodial structures are being built using BTC’s inherent properties. These should outperform structures that are cut and paste from trad-fi. (Traditional Finance)
Multisig, multi institution, multi geography.
If it isn’t better than tradfi why move?
Billion dollar wallets have to exist and be completely hardened and secure.
Beware anyone providing free custody. You get what you pay for. This is very valuable and important.
Importance grows as number goes up.
Being able to move $1 billion in minutes anywhere in the world is powerful and scary.
11/01/23
Podcast: DarkHorse
Episode: Cluster B World: Joshua Slocum
Link to Podcast 2 hours 17 minutes
Society at large is exhibiting characteristics of having “cluster b” personality disorders (mental illnesses).
What are personality disorders?
Psychology is a weak science: more pattern recognition than cause and effect.
Reductionism and synthesis are two sides of the same sense making coin. Breaking down the parts and combining them rationally.
Personality disorders are disorders of personality. They are personal. It is all about the individual.
Long standing deeply ingrained pathological patterns of mentation, emotional processing, and behavior to yourself and other people.
Pathological : harmful to others.
Who suffers from narcissism? Not the narcissist as much as their victims.
These pathologies are harmful to the whole even if helpful to the individual.
Being a psychopath can give you short run advantages in some circumstances.
We may only catch “bad” psychopaths. The good ones are winning.
Cluster B: dramatic and erratic personality disorders:
(Insecurity at its base and childhood abuse very likely as a cause.)
1. Borderline personality disorder (between neurosis and psychosis) stably unstable. Not bipolar.
2. Narcissistic two types- grandiose and covert (cloaked in empathy)
3. Histrionic: (derived from acting not hysteria)
4. Antisocial: sociopath and psychopath aren’t universally recognized terms. Both are antisocial however defined.
Many people are affected by bits from each 4 categories. ClusterB is an umbrella to help categorize.
Which components at which dose determines where any individual is.
Sociopaths are indifferent to your suffering. Psychopaths delight in it.
We don’t adequately blame parents for the pathologies of their children. It isn’t 100%, but it isn’t 0%.
Psychology focuses on the individual but doesn’t capture the system affecting the individual.
Thinking we can treat this stuff with drugs is crazy. Trying to do it with drugs in kids is criminal. It stops self correcting processes on the way to adulthood.
Woke is cluster b.
Same as a cult.
These pathological tendencies would have been weeded out in ancient history as they wouldn’t have been good partners in tribes. Now we have so much abundance, pathologies can flourish and spread.
Woke is reversed truth. Boys are girls. Racism is anti-racism, etc…
People trying to stop abuse are called the abusers.
“The painful upgrade” = crisis that reveals which friends have the character to support or betray you.
There is an entire generation now that thinks the proper reaction to adversity is to proclaim your victimhood, get pity and be supported by others forever.
They don’t see the honor in overcoming adversity and moving on.
We don’t know what we mean by worlds like racism anymore.
Humans aren’t perfectable: you can’t ‘eliminate’ racism, sexism, etc…
Medical transition also can’t magically make you another gender or happy or less anxious.
A belief in a possibly perfect world is the disease.
Trade offs are inherent in everything.
Are we destroying the world to try to save it?
We are on a ship in the middle of the ocean, destroying it in the hope that a better ship will come along.
11/02/23
Podcast: Jocko Podcast
Episode: #410 Rules Can Aid The Wise, But They Are Snares For The Fool. Navy Principles of War.
Link to Podcast 1 hour 43 minutes
Science is a body of knowledge.
Art is the application of that knowledge to accomplish a goal.
‘Principles’ that are fixed rules for victory don’t exist in war.
Learn from history, but test everything and remain flexible to circumstances.
The only true way to learn is through doing.
You need a framework to hang new lessons on.
Deal with things as they are rather than how you’d like them to be.
If you don’t know where you are going, you won’t get there.
Rules can aid the wise, but you have to know when to break them.
Even if your objective changes, you have to have an objective .
11/04/23
Podcast: Bible in a Year
Episode: #308 Little by Little
Link to Podcast 22 minutes
“one is punished by the very things wherein he sins.”
That candy bar is your pleasure but will also be your punishment. Happy Thanksgiving.
11/04/23
Podcast: What is Money?
Episode: #385 The Most Important Question in the World Today | #7
Link to Podcast 1 hour 10 minutes
If money is working, we are completely unaware of it.
Money is a means of exploration..
Having a tradeable asset when going into the unknown is critical.
Money = mobility.
Humans need to interact with other humans to keep from going insane.
Money enables productive interaction and the organization of groups of people.
Profit isn’t something extra - it is a measure of the efficiency of the process. Don’t remove profit!
I love this concept of profit being a measure of how efficient you are. “I work for a non-profit organization.” Oh, you work for a non-efficient organization. I can see that.
You may like something enough to have it, but do you like it enough to buy it? Those should be two separate questions.
“Value is that which man acts to gain or keep.” - Ayn Rand
Money and language are tools we use to adapt to our physical environment and cooperate. Anyone who is attacking the truth or clarity in those two is using the tools of dictators and making the world worse.
11/04/23
Podcast: The Chat
Episode: #35 From Rockstar Dreams to Songwriter Success: A Journey with Brad Warren - Part 1
Link to Podcast 50 minutes
Don’t settle for a line that works, dig for a line that means something.
If you get paid to write, you are a writer, no matter your training and education.
Take writing advice with a grain of salt.
11/04/23
Podcast: The Last Trade
Episode: #024 Market Forces & Fed Reactions with Nik Bhatia
Link to Podcast 1 hour 35 minutes
ISM came in weak. (Index of purchasing volume.)
Glaring signal of recession.
This will there be or won’t there be a recession narrative changes every several weeks right now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much uncertainty for so long. Act accordingly.
Market pumped hoping for rate cuts.
Entire yield curve went down.
The Fed says they have a policy framework of “ample reserves”.
This is meaningless and just means totally discretionary.
What they really care about is the S&P 500 and housing prices.
Higher for longer will stay until those two get hammered. Then the cuts will come.
A slow grind down is the goal.
The Fed always manages through the rear view mirror.
5 sigma events in the market are supposed to happen about once a century.
They are happening more than once a decade for the last 30-ish years.
Are our statistics broken or is the market broken or both?
Markets are leading the fed. Not the other way around.
The Fed is driving through the rear view mirror:
1. Prices go down if the consumer stops showing up.
2. The consumer stops showing up if the consumer’s been fired.
3. The consumer is fired because the business has gone under.
4. The businesses go under when they can’t make their debt payments.
Missed debt payments just started to happen.
Market sizes:
A. Us Treasury market $33 t.
B. Offshore dollar banking: $17t.
C. Foreign exchange swap market $30t.
D. NYSE+Nasdaq $40t.
E. US RE wealth non-corp $60t.
US will pay you back in dollars no matter how worthless the dollar is.
Offshore assets are much riskier.
Bond markets don’t see the same risk bitcoiners do.
Is it because they are thinking within the system? It’s hard to see an extreme danger to a system if you can see no alternative outside of that system.
Interesting book written by this guest -
Last trade 11/4
Excellent step by step of how recession/ depression happens. What are the recent sigma market events ???
What is money 11/4
Profit as a measure of efficiency is a new concept Once understood its eye opening.
Changing accepted meaning for words and ideas undermines our society. Somehow we need to stop doing it and revert to historical meanings