Bitcoin as a Portal of Ideas


The Free Trade Hypocrisy



When Friedrich List wrote these paragraphs in The National System of Political Economy in the 19th century, the U.S. was a newly industrializing nation. Today, it is at the pinnacle of technological achievements. Here are the hard truths about national economic development: climbing your way up requires unorthodox tools; staying on top takes hypocrisy to deny latecomers those very same tools.

Abridged Chinese Classics

John Atkinson created irreverent summations, in the fewest words possible, of some of the most famous works of literature. Here are my own for the Four Great Classic Novels of China:

  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Empire splits into three parts. Then reunited.
  • A Journey to the West: A monk, a monkey and a pig take forever to get to India.
  • The Water Margin: 108 outlaws vs. government. Government wins.
  • The Dream of the Red Chamber: A rebellious rich kid is spiritually awakened.

Freedom by Coercion


Fanatical experiments cannot be sustained without creativity. To paraphrase a wise man from the last century, the way the Nazis or the Communists sell their holy causes is no different from the way capitalists advertise their Gucci bags or cigarettes. The techniques we found in the imperialistic tendencies of the Nazis and the Communists are in fact based on the methods of industrial enterprises.

Today, when theorists in Beijing talk of socialism with Chinese characteristics, they are perhaps admitting that the success of the authoritarian experiment will always depend on the creativeness proceeding in the outside non-authoritarian world. If there were no free societies outside of China, they might have found it necessary to establish freedom by coercion.

Borges on Bitcoin Forks

How I imagine Jorge Luis Borges would write about Bitcoin:

In Bitcoin we find the idiosyncrasies of each of its forks to a greater or lesser degree. Every fork modifies our conception of the original Bitcoin, as it will modify the future. If the forks had never existed, we would not perceive the qualities in Bitcoin. In other words, Bitcoin would not exist. The fact is that the sum of all the forks creates Bitcoin. Bitcoin is faithful to its own forks.

Skin in the Game






Skin in the game is something to aspire to.

Architecture in a Post-Truth World


Büro Ole Scheeren took the needle of the tower and bent it back into itself to create a loop. There is no beginning or end. Walk around the base of the tower, and you see it go from strong and imposing to unstable and fragile. It’s the perfect symbol for a post-truth world.