Indeed. I've been arguing with my friends here that European leaders should be more strategic, and not just copy-paste what (they think) the Americans do

Instead, I think we should lean into the opposite. Bitcoin and Nostr. Open source AI models. More governments following the French example of moving their government to open source software

Europeans can do a lot of things well, like manufacturing and nuclear tech and energy, and much of the military tech is pretty good too. But changes are needed, especially Germany has problems, and the copy-paste approach isn't always the right one (even if it *sometimes* is)

I guess I agree. I was oversimplifying your position. I think I just wanted to share those particular ideas, and saw your post as an opportunity to rant 😜

Even if you go back just thirty years, the role of banks was very different than it is today.

Then, my bank saw my salary payments and rent payments, but nothing else. Everything else was cash, not because I was a privacy nerd but simply because there was no internet and credit cards were for special occasions

But there is a lot more monitoring today obviously, with central banks often pushing for more monitoring

Also, I think the approach to macroeconomics has changed too. In the US at least, economics was reasonably well managed from the mid-30s until at least the late sixties, because banks were well-regulated in order that retail banks had healthy balance sheets and focused on boring stuff like letting normal people and normal businesses make their payments and investments. Basically, the voters were less dumb then, and they kept some level of control over the banks

(I know that last couple of sentences might seem controversial to some. Basically, I was a fan of the Glass-Steagal Act, and believe it played a huge part in the US economic power for many decades)

My favourite theory is that the collapse of the Soviet Union fucked everything up. The elite in the US no longer had to placate the people(*). Previously, they had to give a reasonable state of living to the people, for fear of soviet-like politics taking hold.

Nowadays, post , the (Epstein) elite can just go straight to the looting stage of whatever form of capitalism we're in today, with the help of the media (e.g. Musk) to make voters dumb. So the (central) banks are playing their role, helping Epstein move his money, and abusing the financial system to stifle opposition

Anyway, I'll stop as I'm ranting again!

(*) And yes, they unfortunately focused on placating the white male. But I think the basic idea still holds

I'm not so sure it'll ever happen like that. In the medium term, defending fiat will require extreme measures due to the expected increases in Bitcoin's purchasing power. And so the vast majority of today's fiat currencies will disappear

But in the long term, when Bitcoin reaches its limit (100x its current purchasing power, for example) then people will be more willing to hold other assets as long as those assets don't lose value too quickly.

If governments continue to demand taxes to be paid in something that is issued by their central bank, then that currency will continue to have some value, and central bankers will still (like today, if they choose) keep the value stable.

So I think it's likely that a small number of fiat currencies survive, and their banker's decisions will matter

It's not quite #40HPW, but I keep a backlog of episodes of Nostr Compass and Bitcoin Optech in reserve for times like this

I'm cutting back a lot on carbs, feeling pretty hungry too. It's a strange feeling

I got pretty strict about a week ago, and had some expected symptoms like a headache, but salt fixed it.

Fascinating topic, how visceral fat really isn't healthy

Whoever is funding their attack is switching their funding to Project Eleven (for the quantum lies) and Paul Sztorc (for his fork)

Luke and Mechanic and Kratter have failed, and are now abandoned

https://njump.to/nevent1qqs9zq6g2pgl2ycus75raf0gh6ukggu539k2k8g2jnd0samll64yswqprpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezucmgv95k6cfwd9hxvme0qgsp9msr6ytgfgf9mkrmapuu9qvsg9d78ua3ajntfmt580t5llvgpesrqsqqqqqpmw2mq5