Excellent article. I appreciate the author's take on Bitcoin. I like bitcoin, gold, real estate, land, hard assets, etc but think something that is particularly missing in the bitcoin community is trust. So much of it is atomized and anti-social. One thing to mistrust faceless governments/corporations but we need to be able to trust our neighbors, friends, associates. Think the author does a good job arguing for such people in the network.
You’re right, when saving becomes impossible and inflation eats time, family formation collapses, and people start making “rational” but ultimately destructive life choices.
That said, I’m more cautious on how often “nobility” and “power” get idealized in this piece. Having money and building legacy don’t always go together. Plenty of people chase Bitcoin with the same short-term, high-time-preference mindset as they did fiat wealth. A new monetary terrain doesn’t automatically build new character.
Still, I agree with the larger point: if good people stay poor or disengaged, someone else will take the wheel,and they won’t be building anything worth inheriting.
It is not addressed as much in this piece, but Svetski does talk a good bit about channeling thoughts on wealth into thinking about legacy, with the idea that Bitcoin helps with getting people to think about time horizons. His book focuses heavily on the virtues necessary for that. But yes, one doesn't automatically lead to the other. As always, virtue must be cultivated
I think the challenge is that even with Bitcoin shifting time horizons, we still live in a culture built on dopamine cycles. So unless something deeper changes,family ties, local responsibility, maybe even ritual,I’m not sure time preference alone gets us there.
In other words, monetary reform can open the door, but character still has to walk through it.
Family though is more important than money. That said there's a way to use family to advance all while not succumbing to the lure of greed, as the Capetiens did in the Medieval period and the Carolingiens before them.
A balance of morality and pragmatism as you pointed out are necessary. This is the sort of thing I try to portray in some of my darker fantasy serials.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I did not see an acknowledgement of the plan by Wall Street and Bessent to use BTC and a smattering of stablecoins as a weapon to subsume the national debt—along the lines of the warnings being offered by Whitney Webb.
BTC offers very little true privacy and could very easily serve as an overlay for the surveillance state.
I would be happy to hear Webb’s position countered, but most information about BTC—even in right-wing forums—is just maximalist repetition.
If I was the CIA, I would invent BTC and the stablecoins so that no one would be able to do anything without the knowledge of that big computer facility the NSA runs out in Utah.
BTC is not private and it’s going to be used by Wall Street and Treasury to disappear the public debt at the expense of anyone who doesn’t hold it.
The stablecoin issue is a real one, and you are spot-on there, though I think Bessent is more trying to deal with the debt rollover issue than nefarious. But some certainly are
However, the surveillance issue is already true of most electronic payments
I don't think BTC is part of the surveillance state in the same way
Stablecoins, just like any other crypto that are "issued" by someone (and for that matter any digital money issued by any organisation, foundation, etc) are subject to the same 'surveillance' problem.
Bitcoin is not issued by anyone or any organisation. It's just a program that runs. Think of it like a digital constitution. The rules are the rules, and the network is made up by virtue of the fact that each node on the network runs the EXACT same set of rules.
A node could log and change the rules, but that would only impact them, and they would thus be out of sync with the network and self-select themselves from it.
As such, the core "chain" on Bitcoin is inviolable. The ability to transact is reliant only on the ability to sign a transaction with your key. That's it.
Now...can the transactions on the blockchain be "viewed" by everyone?
Yes. But that's a necessary trade-off made by Satoshi in the beginning the deal with the inflation issue.
There is only one way to ensure that someone else isn't printing more units of the money you're using - you need to verify every transaction everyone makes at all times, and be able to check all past ones too.
Turns out, there is only one viable way to do this. By running a Bitcoin Node. Anyone can at any time, quickly, simply and easily verify all transactions, withOUT knowing the identity of who made those transactions.
This last piece matters. Bitcoin transactions are associated to cryptographic keys, NOT your real identity. Where it gets connected to you is when you are sloppy with how you purchase it, and where you disclose addresses that are associated with your real world identity.
This is why privacy, is something you need to actively maintain - in just the same way you do in the real world.
Bitcoin *can* be used perfectly privately. But like all things, you need to know what you’re doing. I’m putting together an essay on this now. Will publish in the next 2wks
I would say that this shift from aristocracy to bureaucracy happened first and most dramatically in the American North. It has become a great misfortune that Northerners became universalist in their mindset, acting as sculptors of a global system rather than straightforwardly advancing the interests of their own families. Read more here:
That was a very well reasoned article. I think that the decline of the gentleman has had far-reaching effects on other human endeavors as well. Here is my article regarding the effects of this change upon science:
Thanks for writing this! Really enjoyed it
Excellent article. I appreciate the author's take on Bitcoin. I like bitcoin, gold, real estate, land, hard assets, etc but think something that is particularly missing in the bitcoin community is trust. So much of it is atomized and anti-social. One thing to mistrust faceless governments/corporations but we need to be able to trust our neighbors, friends, associates. Think the author does a good job arguing for such people in the network.
Congrats Will! Enjoy your honeymoon.
Thank you! Yes, I largely agree!
Thankyou 🤝
There is a lot of that in the community (both trust and mistrust.)
But like all things, you need to find your way to the core
Congratulations! May your union be full of love and happiness.
Thank you very much!
You’re right, when saving becomes impossible and inflation eats time, family formation collapses, and people start making “rational” but ultimately destructive life choices.
That said, I’m more cautious on how often “nobility” and “power” get idealized in this piece. Having money and building legacy don’t always go together. Plenty of people chase Bitcoin with the same short-term, high-time-preference mindset as they did fiat wealth. A new monetary terrain doesn’t automatically build new character.
Still, I agree with the larger point: if good people stay poor or disengaged, someone else will take the wheel,and they won’t be building anything worth inheriting.
It is not addressed as much in this piece, but Svetski does talk a good bit about channeling thoughts on wealth into thinking about legacy, with the idea that Bitcoin helps with getting people to think about time horizons. His book focuses heavily on the virtues necessary for that. But yes, one doesn't automatically lead to the other. As always, virtue must be cultivated
I think the challenge is that even with Bitcoin shifting time horizons, we still live in a culture built on dopamine cycles. So unless something deeper changes,family ties, local responsibility, maybe even ritual,I’m not sure time preference alone gets us there.
In other words, monetary reform can open the door, but character still has to walk through it.
Absolutely
Are you the official account of American Tribune or your personal account?
I’m Will Tanner on X. (@will_tanner_1)
Family though is more important than money. That said there's a way to use family to advance all while not succumbing to the lure of greed, as the Capetiens did in the Medieval period and the Carolingiens before them.
A balance of morality and pragmatism as you pointed out are necessary. This is the sort of thing I try to portray in some of my darker fantasy serials.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I did not see an acknowledgement of the plan by Wall Street and Bessent to use BTC and a smattering of stablecoins as a weapon to subsume the national debt—along the lines of the warnings being offered by Whitney Webb.
BTC offers very little true privacy and could very easily serve as an overlay for the surveillance state.
I would be happy to hear Webb’s position countered, but most information about BTC—even in right-wing forums—is just maximalist repetition.
If I was the CIA, I would invent BTC and the stablecoins so that no one would be able to do anything without the knowledge of that big computer facility the NSA runs out in Utah.
BTC is not private and it’s going to be used by Wall Street and Treasury to disappear the public debt at the expense of anyone who doesn’t hold it.
The stablecoin issue is a real one, and you are spot-on there, though I think Bessent is more trying to deal with the debt rollover issue than nefarious. But some certainly are
However, the surveillance issue is already true of most electronic payments
I don't think BTC is part of the surveillance state in the same way
Stablecoins, just like any other crypto that are "issued" by someone (and for that matter any digital money issued by any organisation, foundation, etc) are subject to the same 'surveillance' problem.
Bitcoin is not issued by anyone or any organisation. It's just a program that runs. Think of it like a digital constitution. The rules are the rules, and the network is made up by virtue of the fact that each node on the network runs the EXACT same set of rules.
A node could log and change the rules, but that would only impact them, and they would thus be out of sync with the network and self-select themselves from it.
As such, the core "chain" on Bitcoin is inviolable. The ability to transact is reliant only on the ability to sign a transaction with your key. That's it.
Now...can the transactions on the blockchain be "viewed" by everyone?
Yes. But that's a necessary trade-off made by Satoshi in the beginning the deal with the inflation issue.
There is only one way to ensure that someone else isn't printing more units of the money you're using - you need to verify every transaction everyone makes at all times, and be able to check all past ones too.
Turns out, there is only one viable way to do this. By running a Bitcoin Node. Anyone can at any time, quickly, simply and easily verify all transactions, withOUT knowing the identity of who made those transactions.
This last piece matters. Bitcoin transactions are associated to cryptographic keys, NOT your real identity. Where it gets connected to you is when you are sloppy with how you purchase it, and where you disclose addresses that are associated with your real world identity.
This is why privacy, is something you need to actively maintain - in just the same way you do in the real world.
Very well put, thanks!
Bitcoin *can* be used perfectly privately. But like all things, you need to know what you’re doing. I’m putting together an essay on this now. Will publish in the next 2wks
Looking forward to it!
I would say that this shift from aristocracy to bureaucracy happened first and most dramatically in the American North. It has become a great misfortune that Northerners became universalist in their mindset, acting as sculptors of a global system rather than straightforwardly advancing the interests of their own families. Read more here:
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/the-northerner
Very interesting.
Here are my thoughts on that, if you are interested: https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/the-death-of-the-gentleman-and-the
That was a very well reasoned article. I think that the decline of the gentleman has had far-reaching effects on other human endeavors as well. Here is my article regarding the effects of this change upon science:
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/the-gentleman-scientist
Thank you! I will check this out when back from my honeymoon! Looks very good
La Multş An!!