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Showing posts from November, 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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Is A New Libertarian Revolution In The Air For 2020?

To all non-political participating Libertarians, if everything you’ve seen about the LP is a disaster, then I’m sorry you feel that way. You might have a fair point. I won’t go into any silly shenanigans or examples and poke fun at meritless shills, but I sympathize with your point of view. Those guys are typically an embarrassment. I have heard the argument from fellow Libertarians that in the election of 2016, the LP literally couldn’t have been handed a more amazing opportunity than in the past couple of elections. Gary Johnson was just a protest vote against the two worst candidates in history: Donald J. Trump, and Hilary Clinton. There is clear pressure to break from the status quo and they have wasted all of their energy trying to be more status quo, such as Bill Weld running against Trump as a Republican, and Amash becoming a Democrat.


However, this time there is actually something over there worth paying attention to. Is another Ron Paul Revolution in the air?

Jacob G. Hornbe…
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10 Use Cases for Crypto in the Counter-Economy

Blockchain technology has been a boon for counter-economists. Prior to Satoshi's white paper, in order to conduct a transaction with an individual or firm not physically present, a third party was required to verify transmission and receipt of funds. Historically, the state, whether directly or indirectly, has played this role - albeit poorly.

Therefore, most of the items on this list will be new ways to utilize blockchains, fresh takes on existing infrastructure, or entrepreneurial paths to spread the mass adoption of cryptocurrency.

1. Sell Crypto
We're all aware central banking is evil. The question is: What to do about it?

We can cross our fingers & support the Federal Reserve Transparency Act for the 4th time (the bill died in the Senate on 3 previous occasions), or we can use competing currencies to instantaneously liberate ourselves from the cartel.

Using p2p exchanges, you can not only help others make the transition from fiat trash to crypto, but you can earn a …
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5 Simple Ways to Support the Counter-Economy

Even if you aren’t prepared to engage in radical counter-economics, there are small steps everyone can take to either participate in, or at a minimum, support the counter-economy. I’ve assembled a list of 5 simple ways everyday people can participate in the agorist revolution.


Food Trucks


Food trucks not only often have excellent food, but they can also help push back against the state. In what is normally a cash business, food truck operators are better positioned to hide income from the state than other vendors such as chain grocery stores. Also, the more amateur the operation, the more likely the vendor is unlicensed; see the 7 year old NY child-slave, who’s lemonade stand was shut down by emissaries from Emperor Cuomo.

Given the grey market dominance of the food truck business, it’s no wonder we’ve seen the industry blossom over the past couple decades. Food trucks have progressed from the standard roach coach to the present diverse array of taco trucks, grilled cheese trucks, ko…
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How to Survive College as a Poor Agorist

So you've found yourself trapped between not being able to afford private school's cost--driven up by government cartelization--and needing to get a college degree because of unnatural competition in employment--driven by mandatory compensation laws. You'd like to not pay the government, but really you're stuck between a government made rock and a government made hard place.


One thing to consider is simply not going to college. Despite what those government teachers have told you all your life, college is not for everyone. Economically speaking, your competitive advantage might not be in higher education. In laymen's terms, you might just be more productive (and make more money) going to trade school. This sounds like an insult--it is not. Trade School has been largely stigmatized in our society; in no small part by the government that just happens to have a aggressive cartel over the substitute. In reality, trade school is a very viable alternative with low cost …
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Bitcoin Maximalism: A House Divided

Based on the response to The Economics of Bitcoin Maximalism, it's become clear that not only is the maximalist community divided, but that the competing factions are speaking entirely different languages altogether.

I’ve separated the Bitcoin maximalists into several camps based on their ideologies.




The Saifedean School

Approximately half of the bitcoin maximalist community is at least wise enough to accept the validity of regression theorem. However, they falsely claim that the utility requirement of regression theorem is satisfied by its role as a store of value. This fiction was made popular by Saifedean Ammous in The Bitcoin Standard.

I’ve debunked this claim on several occasions (check out this recent episode of the CoinSpice podcast) by reiterating the Austrian position on the secondary functions of money. That is to say, money’s use as a store of value is secondary to, and dependent upon its ability to function as a medium of exchange. In other words, the reserve demand …
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