10 sats \ 0 replies \ @chungkingexpress 18 May \ on: What do you think about writing a personal diary? alter_native
Yes I have kept a digital daily diary for years. I highly recommend it. It can be as simple as a couple of lines about where I went or what I did did, through to extensive personal essays breaking down what I thought about something or my impressions. I keep it open format and mix prose-like writing with bullet points, or pasting in images or screenshots.
It is excellent to go back and be able to see moments or feelings and the evolution of ideas and thoughts. Without it I would somehow feel the days are just blending into each other!
🎧 Latest episode is out: Infrastructure, Broken Money, and Local Currencies with Andrew L. Wilson
I speak with Andrew L. Wilson, Author and Professor of History of Christianity as well as a Bitcoiner and host of The Disentanglement Podcast, exploring privacy tech and the surveillance state.
We talk about infrastructure, AI, money, and democracy: the challenges of our generation.
We also discuss an article that Andrew wrote from before he knew about Bitcoin, about local currencies and circular economies that has some interesting parallels.
Shout out to the New Zealand publication, Takahe.
I just watched The Grapes of Wrath (1940). An incredible piece of cinema, perhaps one of the greatest films of the 20th century. It tells the story of depression-era US and a family pushed to the limit and forced out of their home.
From the first scene it had me captivated with a kind of mise-en-scène and dreamlike artistry that only black and white can deliver.
As a pairing with "Citizen Kane" (1941), the two films tell the story of the New Deal, of the struggle between urban and rural America, of a world of financial collapse and great depression. Perhaps we are beginning to relive aspects of this now almost 100 years later?
There is nuance to the film: the FDR-type figure in the clean white clothes helping the family, red scare, unions, charity, god. The references are perhaps too subtle for modern audiences and I wonder if people back then were more "street smart" in watching this kind of thing.
Seems the real Bitcoin halving does not happen until those fees go right down. I look forward to the analysis over the coming days as to what mining pools are passing the fees on to the workers and which are being greedy.
Yes I must of edited my comment to be more precise after you replied, sorry. I don't believe the narrative of greedy businesses price gouging, but more likely the supermarkets would "take the hit" to maintain a stable price and either reduce the quality in the least damaging way possible or otherwise cut costs elsewhere while maintaining high standards.
E.g. in my experience if word got out that a place is "expensive" it would kill it and someone else would come in and work harder to undercut them.
One could probably write a book on the dynamics of "Japanese society", but there are expectations around price and quality and a very strong anchoring bias as the place has not had inflation for 30 years. That may change soon, you see stickers with new prices written in restaurants etc, but price increases are still emerging as a "thing".
I live in Japan but am lucky to have a mix of local and overseas income.
Overall wages are low compared to my home in New Zealand or USA etc. Minimum wage of ~¥1100 per hour, $7USD, most white-collar jobs pay way less than West. However cost of living is also relatively cheap. You can have a decent lunch for ¥900 and a comfortable apartment in Tokyo can be in the range of 80,000 - 160,000yen per month. Insurance and healthcare are also very cheap.
There is a sense that most companies try to keep their prices as similar and stable as possible due to lots of competition but there is also maybe a cultural component. If a company was seen to raise prices explicitly then I think people and media would come down very hard on them. There are expectations of what things should cost and it is hard to step outside of that unless the whole industry raises their prices at the same time, which has happened over the last few years.
The only time I have heard Japanese people experience the weakness of the yen is when they have tried to go overseas for travel.
There is more to it as I think the pernicious effect of a weak yen is manifesting in other places, but honestly my lived experience here even if I was earning only yen locally is much better than New Zealand. Housing and food in particular is super cheap compared to what I get back home.