I get this alot "well its all just speculation, its all just a meme" Everything that frames our world is a meme and speculation Governments, bonds, money, marriage etc are all just mutually agreed memes with some that are better than others So what matters is are the memes we use based in first principles and are they tied to the fabric of reality aswell as are they able to be the greatest meme The way bitcoin is able to operate both at the physical layer tied to energy but at sametime can operate at the symbolic meme level of money is testament to how well made it is In the meme concept of stocks even though you dont get a dividend from most companies you buy just to sell higher later - this meme is based on the principle that technically if the whole company started paying profits to owners that you have claim to income Now in the speculation and memes of most "alts" as we know them today are based on the meme idea of tech platforms and value accrual to tokens - they have no tie to physical world in energy and most further fail on the realm of the meme of money and so they are much more in the realm of speculation in the pure sense of the word since most dont have good token value accrual nor enough usage nor revenue "Its all just speculation or meme" is knowing just enough to hurt yourself If you want to learn a topic and furthermore you want to invest a large percent in an area you have to understand these things deeply otherwise you will end up exit liquidity - if this is you i recommend you focus on work and then diversify across multiple asset classes (you should do this anyway but even more so)

How do you know if a person has good character? Look for when they do something opposite to what would have been their normal bias based on ethnicity, their bias in where they lived, culture etc and instead based on wisdom The ability to stand outside themselves Il give a few examples -A jewish man who is pro Israel but against whats happening in Palestine -A person who trained to win a race but stops to help a fellow athlete who is suffering from body breakdown -Someone who accumulates wealth but then spends it on deliberate philanthropy without fuss without status Good character means ability to act outside of pure self interest and act in a manner that if replicated would solve societies issues Hence the idea - Be the change you seek In opposite if knowing where they grew up, what their religion is, what their ethnicity is you can basically just draw up a general image and they act in that manner - even if they are nice - that doesnt mean they have good character - they just have not been tested Whether you realise it or not the way people try to raise kids is to try keep good character by avoiding being tested ie location/schools/etc which I can understand but it needs balance Hence for kids id recommend they do activities that test character - ie tennis where they need to learn to lose well, when an opponent hits a shot that hits the line that they acknowledge it rather than cheat to call it out etc

If you want to think outside the matrix dont search for peoples views search for their thought process When i see a persons view and want to see the validity of whether to think about it more or not I look at their views and thinking across other topics to see if they have a nuanced balanced take or if they are the broken clock right twice a day We are all guilty of this to some extent - Bitcoiners who follow someone who basically all they do is talk about bitcoin going up The most dangerous people to follow are ones that you have no insight into their thought process Thats why even for Saylor I watched 20 hours plus of his interviews not talking about bitcoin itself but about how he thinks about history, tech, business, engineering, philosophy etc to see which foundations his thinking comes from If you look at people you follow and you have no idea what they think about anything apart from a certain asset where there view is "its going up" you are doing yourself a massive disservice If you listened to the things the people you follow thought about outside of the one thing they always shill which makes you feel good youd probably unfollow 80%

Most new companies today are capital light even the physical ones relative to the past due to technological innovation Its created a dynamic where profitability only matters if there is viable competitors If a leader with little competition is losing money they continue to exist because a company doesnt go bankrupt when they are not profitable or have no money they go bankrupt when capital markets are no longer willing to fund them An investors and markets especially in todays dynamics of fiat are willing to fund novel players into infinity Think about Uber a company whos numbers if was in a perfect competition business would be bankrupt by now but Uber has no viable global competitor and so it gets funded whenever needed This doesnt mean they will end up winning in the end but its useful in situations when the market is early to focus owning monopoly possibilities until viable global competitors show up - once they do you do have to focus on profitability as without it capital markets view the same reason as why you were growing to why you are dying Nokia, Blockbusters whatever you name it never had trouble getting money when they were the leader even when losing money but once they are perceived to actually be losing the same issues become a death sentence If you understand this youll understand VC investing, growth investing, value investing dynamics much more clearly

If you hope to profit off a speculative "alt season" you are the perpetrator who calls themselves a victim in loss When someone wins we say "they made it out of the trenches" like its some kind of glory or moral reason they got out while we call people who lost money idiots who deserved it They are one in the same people The same as the person who says real estate is too expensive while you raise rent on your tenants just because you can Anyone who engages in promoting speculation cannot claim victim by the actions that speculation causes as they are one in the same - they equally cannot claim moral or superiority in profiting So think about it carefully before you engage - as you are your own police and prison

I didnt know why I was against victimhood revenge mindset despite being sympathetic but recently clarified this thought An the realisation was im not against victims obviously- only those that define their identity as victims that need retribution Because this type of victim is the same as the perpetrator You watch 2 little kids fight and while one may have shoved the other by the 2nd hit both are no longer innocent Any outcome where both dont take responsibility - any adult would say that the one claiming victim was in the wrong - its intuitive to us An yet as adults taking personal accountability is the last option in almost every domain We say winner writes history - an in history the winner always writes itself as a victim who overcame to come out on top while the loser is always the perpetrator. An its preposterous to say that this is actually true The moralisation and the idea of "the right always prevails" is a myth to clean the conscience If we dont learn this lesson we are bound to repeat history not because we dont learn from history but because we record history wrong and learn the wrong lessons

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result An yet if you watch a documentary on gold they argue that money has to come back to precious metals because thats what the world keeps coming back to over time To me by definition it means it never solved the problem If humans have gone on and off gold for all time what makes them think we will move back to gold and then not end up with the same thing again - it shows that they are fundamentally flawed and unable to meet the criteria needed In these documentaries they also say how you have to hold the physical gold because there is no visibility or transparency by entities and by holding it that it frees you from the system but it does not and you are unable to use the physical gold in person (due to divisibility) or online (since now its not in your possession) If you hold the gold then all solutions lead back to paper gold and then fiat - this loop is the whole problem Its kind of ridiculous - it was insufficient in a pre internet world and its certainly insufficient in our global digital world as money

There is a perverse game that we play today with the concept of inflation that I hope we stop We all know CPI is bs but then when CPI figures come out we debate about how its lower or higher or that Fed should cut interest rates The reality is we are just doing the "we know its BS but this is the game you suggesting playing mr government so we are going to hold you to your BS numbers" But the problem is in doing that we also trick ourselves and it causes people to falsely believe the hurdle rate is lower - you hear people who know better on how TIPs or some bond is paying a real rate when they also know its BS We get stuck with using fake terminology and even Bitcoiners will say things like "inflation is below the fed target rate" so they should cut when we should always be saying that its BS and leaving it at that Based on the official CPI stats in the last 20 years it rose 62-65% so $100 is now same as $160~ (according to this) But if you use pre 1983 inflation measurement then in last 20 years it rose 180-210% so $100 in 2005 is now same as $300~ So even on this inflation is 6-7% a year and even then its too low as it doesnt consider many things The SP500 is only near flat with inflation at about 7.4% a year over the last 20 years - we trick ourselves in thinking buying SP500 is about getting wealthy over time when its just about maintaining purchasing power the way "a penny saved is a penny earned" The reason they will never change the definition back is not due to a conspiracy though its because so many things have CPI adjusted increases in obligations so its not just a definition change but impacts government spending

One of the things that made me very skeptical about the US in particular in politics and what made me feel with intensity the sense that western propaganda was a real thing is the use of the term “anti semite” I’ve said before but no other peoples of any group, country or religion has a term that is “anti” We just call those people racists or haters or whatever general term and in the west you can be anti anything - anti Chinese, anti Canadians, anti Christian and it’s considered an opinion right or wrong. The marketing on the idea of “anti semite” is like you just killed your mother If you think about what this means it means that the term was created out of marketing and not only that - it means that out of all people, that people are saying that one peoples are above all others An it’s only becoming more obvious that this is just the tip of the iceberg

Tether by far is the largest stablecoin issuer and Paolo the CEO has said multiple times despite stablecoin success on multiple chains that he is a Bitcoiner and doesnt like any other chains as rails They are already creating a chain just for stablecoins with fees in kind and this goes hand in hand with creating a US domestic stablecoin Due to Genius Act even Tether needs to create a new US domestic market stablecoin due to kyc/aml, card banking rails etc ability to freeze etc As ive said before US adoption of stablecoins is not going to look anything like what degens imagine - this is not a shitcoin rail free for all - its heavily regulated and controlled and the goal is not decentralisation I recommend people look into this to have a more balanced view