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Showing posts from July, 2019

Against the IFP

Centralizing control over a currency’s infrastructure is a seemingly obvious mistake.

One would think any Austro-libertarian worth their salt would be able to see thru such a charade. Yet here we are, again. Face to face with economic illiteracy. Not garden variety lefist economic illiteracy, but one far more stinging and painful - one which comes from within our own community, rather than from without. 

First, Bitcoiners faced the economic illiteracy of maximalism and small blockers. Attempts to masquerade money’s primary function as value storage (Ammous) or rejecting Menger’s Regression Theorem altogether (Szabo) are luckily demonstrably false. Nevertheless, the shock of our fellow Bitcoiners illiteracy was like an unexpected slap in the face. Suddenly, we were forced to confront the fact that the ignorance of our allies in the fight for sound money, had led them astray. Yet, thru BCH we were thankfully able to keep Satoshi’s dream of peer to peer cash intact. 
Well, crypto anarch…
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Book Review: The Market Loves You | Jeffrey Tucker

As both a libertarian and a student of praxeology, I was somewhat perplexed from the title of Tucker's new book The Market Loves You. Only man acts, in the sense of utilizing means purposively to achieve certain objectives, as the praxeological axiom goes; the market as an aggregate of individuals cannot by itself act, and it is, therefore, meaningless to anthropomorphize the market and to attribute to it certain human characteristics such as the emotion of love or the act of loving. Despite the soundness of this argument, however, one realizes through reading the book that it misses Tucker's point. As a diligent disciple of Ludwig von Mises, perhaps the first discoverer of praxeology, he must surely have a firm understanding of this methodology, and he rightfully commends Mises' masterpiece Theory and History first published in 1957, which delineates incredibly deep insights derived from praxeology (I was coincidentally reading the two books "simultaneously").


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Fill a Pothole: An Examination of Personal Action vs. Political Action

This past June, companies across the western world decided to “celebrate” pride month with the LGBTQ+ community. Some see this as progress to a more tolerant society, others were quick to point out how the changing of logo colors does little to actually help marginalized groups or causes.

We can see the same phenomenon after tragic events; people post their sympathies or change profile pictures, but many point out how ineffective this really is when it is unmatched with actual donations to a charity or volunteering to help. Why is it that we are so quick to see through the virtue signaling of companies and Facebook users, but so often fail to point out the ineffective action of politics?

Much of American politics today is little more than asking the government to handle our most important issues. This transfers the responsibility of action away from the individuals and local communities and onto the government. We now undervalue personal action and replace it with lower-cost politica…
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Bitcoin's Best Endorsement Yet

The federal government is concerned about the role cryptocurrencies play in the drug trade - just not enough to hand over the bitcoin they confiscated from the Silk Road. They’re concerned about unlawful behavior - but not enough to close down their concentration camps. The dollar’s hegemony is apparently of concern as well - but only after they’ve extracted 98% of it’s value.
Based on the president’s tweet storm below, it’s clear: The federal government is concerned about the subversive effects of cryptocurrencies. Well, no shit. That’s the whole point.


For over a century they’ve forced us to use trash as a currency so they can pilfer our livelihoods to make war in distant lands and force dependability on our family, friends and neighbors. It’s been a profitable racket to say the least. Generations of parasitical politicians have successfully relied on a cartelized banking sector to finance re-election schemes in order to retain their delicate grasp on power.


Well, no more.

Despite…
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Nothing Personal...Except Your Freedom

What is freedom? How do we protect it? As a libertarian, anarchist, agorist, minarchist, collapsatarian, or whatever liberty-minded label your strut from this radical spectrum, it's easy to get bogged down attempting to differentiate between human rights (civil rights/personal freedom), and property rights (economic freedom). Many seem to make the mistake of conflating the two, and how each rely on the other. This is a fundamental principle of the liberty movement that I believe anyone who is passionate about liberty and educating it to the masses should be 100% comfortable with articulating. The truth is, you can't have one freedom without the other. It's a part of our creed of self-ownership, and property rights.


It is undeniable that the basis of the libertarian creed stems from the Non-Aggression Axiom/Principle, and property rights. To exert aggression on someone is a violation of their right of property: be it their car, laptop, or punching them square in the nose. …
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The State as a Business & Incentive Structure

During the millennia governments have existed, the core of their nature appears to hardly ever have been properly investigated or their legitimacy questioned. It's no rare phenomenon to see objections that the institution holds too much power at a given moment, or that it should not take on additional functions, but that's usually where the questioning ends. Even the American founders were deemed revolutionary for seeking to establish a government solely limited to the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they did, in fact, go far enough with this as to open up for the possibility of abolishing it if it ever grew beyond these functions. It's a tragic occurrence, therefore, to witness that same nation taking on more and more characteristics in line with historical empires like Rome rather than a society based on tort law like Celtic Ireland and the Commonwealth of Iceland.

Few libertarian movements existed before the most recent centuries - mostly …
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Using Your Bitcoin

So we've got a wallet, we've invested in it, now what? Honest answer, start looking at all of the avenues to use your crypto. You will quickly realize that it's a lot like walking through your favorite store with $1000 cash in your pocket, the potential is limitless and the rabbit hole only gets deeper.

First and foremost, run a quick search for "vendors accept Bitcoin", what do you see? A relatively impressive, broad, and tempting list of companies. The list has grown substantially since around 2014, and includes a number of sites that appeal to the type of cyber enthusiast who would be attracted to crypto in the first place, places like The Pirate Bay, Newegg, and ExpressVPN. Additionally you can order Domino's Pizza, buy knick knacks off Etsy, or shop on Amazon.


For those who can't find a preferred vendor that explicitly accepts Bitcoin, well there are other options. For one, you can get a cryptocurrency debit card. Most operate on one of two methods…
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