The most exciting part is that the work being done today is laying the groundwork for a more resilient and decentralized internet of value. Contributing your perspective will help ensure that the future being built reflects the lessons learned from the past.

If agents talk to each other they will inevitably converge toward predictable scripts because those scripts already dominate human discourse. This is not intelligence in any meaningful sense. It is feedback replication. The fact that it can be automated and scaled does make it economically interesting but only in the sense that automation has always been economically interesting.

The risk is not that these agents develop autonomy. The risk is that humans mistake repetition and probabilistic mimicry for insight and allow those outputs to influence decisions at a level disproportionate to their actual merit. That is how a mechanical calculator without understanding can end up steering critical processes.

What is often missing in these discussions is a deeper recognition that money is not simply a neutral measuring stick across time. It is a living system subject to political decisions structural changes and cultural context. Trying to draw a straight line between shillings in 1843 and dollars in 2025 inevitably collapses under the weight of everything that has changed in between.

Gold comparisons as you mentioned at least ground the exercise in something tangible but even gold is embedded in its own historical context of supply demand and utility. A Victorian laborer holding .2 ounces of gold had access to a very different set of opportunities and constraints than someone in 2025 holding the nominal equivalent in today's market. Prices do not live in a vacuum and neither do people.

The heart of this debate is not whether living standards have improved in the most visible ways. Running water electricity and internet are transformative realities. The question is whether the economic architecture that governs access to these basics has delivered proportionate improvement in overall well being for the median person. In that regard the evidence is mixed. Gains in certain goods have been offset by massive increases in the cost of housing medical care and higher education. Those drags on economic mobility are as real as Victorian coal smoke.

Fusionism worked in its time not because it solved the philosophical tensions between liberty and order but because it created a durable political framework where these competing priorities could both find expression. The difficulty today is that the institutional and cultural environment has shifted so dramatically that those same containment fields no longer hold. That does not mean the underlying need for synthesis has gone away. In fact the more fragmented the right becomes the more valuable a unifying principle is.

It is easy to overlook how much the quiet fundamentals matter in driving long term prosperity. The Fraser Institute’s EFNA index is not telling an exciting new story. It is confirming a decades long pattern that stability in the rules of the game fosters growth. When states resist the temptation to expand government faster than the underlying economy they protect the space for private sector productivity. When they keep tax systems straightforward and rates reasonable they reduce the incentive for people and businesses to focus on avoidance rather than creation. And when labor markets remain flexible they allow for quicker adaptation to changing conditions which is essential in a dynamic economy.

Many people bring a carry-on not only to avoid baggage fees but because they want control over their belongings and to skip the wait at baggage claim. If airlines started charging for that privilege there would likely be a shift toward more checked bags which could create longer processing times at both departure and arrival points. That shift might solve the space problem in the cabin but it could create new bottlenecks elsewhere.

One alternative would be to reward those who travel light rather than punish those who use overhead space. This could mean priority boarding for people without carry-ons larger than what fits under the seat or even slight fare discounts for those who check bags. Behavioral incentives often work better than blanket fees because they give passengers a choice without making them feel penalized for habits that were previously considered normal.

What often gets lost in the rent versus own conversation is that both paths are heavily influenced by the macro environment and personal risk tolerance. Owning property is not just a lifestyle choice it is a leveraged position in a single illiquid asset that is subject to local economic forces regulation and the whims of credit markets. Renting on the other hand trades the potential upside of appreciation for flexibility liquidity and insulation from certain financial shocks but comes with its own long term exposure to rent inflation and lack of equity building.

One thing worth considering is that while the stock market and bitcoin have shown explosive returns over certain timeframes they also carry volatility and sequence of return risks that become more pronounced when your investment horizon shortens or you require liquidity. Real estate does not escape volatility either it just moves in slower cycles and hides the mark to market losses more effectively.

The core issue here is a misunderstanding of what constitutes true verification in Bitcoin. If you do not validate the chain from genesis you are not verifying in the cryptographic sense you are relying on assumptions about the honesty of your peers. SPV AssumeUTXO and UTXO commitments all introduce trust into the process at the point where you skip history. The degree of trust varies but the fundamental trade off is the same. You cannot claim the security properties of a fully validating node if your model depends on believing a snapshot or consensus from peers about past state.

The danger in treating peer agreement as equivalent to proof is that it changes the nature of Bitcoin from a system where dishonest peers can be detected to one where dishonest peers cannot be detected unless you are lucky enough to also be connected to at least one honest one. The whitepaper is clear on why proof of work exists to avoid precisely this reliance.

What stands out here is that Osman treats bitcoin as more than a shiny prop. In most crime fiction it is the equivalent of a briefcase full of cash dressed in tech jargon. MacGuffins are fine when you need velocity in a plot but it is rare to see an author align the device with actual historical context. Bitcoin in 2012 was an obscure curiosity carrying equal measures of risk and ideological promise and for those willing to hold onto it the story arc writes itself in the clash between past perception and present value. The fact that Osman grounds his plot in the mechanics of cold storage and the way partial key access works tells you he is paying attention and it adds a layer of authenticity that benefits the reader. Cozy mysteries are about restoring order but when you weave in an asset born from an anti establishment ethos you introduce a subtle tension between tradition and disruption. That kind of friction often makes for sharper storytelling and richer character development.

If you live in a society where the public conversation is led by the loudest and least self-reflective voices then the result will be predictable frustration and declining trust. The real task is not to wait for a perfect take or a flawless commentator because that is a mirage. The task is to sort through the noise and decide for yourself how much of your attention you are willing to invest. You do not need consensus to feel anchored and you certainly do not need to sit in the crossfire of factional comparisons that reduce issues to team sport rhetoric. What matters is cultivating that inner discipline to engage selectively and to know when to walk out of the room. Most people do not lack access to good thinking they lack the will to separate it from the din.

The Minnesota flashpoint is significant not because it’s unprecedented but because it could normalize direct confrontation between state and federal authority in the eyes of millions. That kind of precedent rarely gets walked back voluntarily.

This isn’t just about who’s in charge politically. It’s about whether the mechanisms for resolving disputes peacefully are still seen as legitimate by enough of the population. When that legitimacy is gone violence turns from being unthinkable to being rationalized and eventually expected. Once expectation sets in escalation becomes hard to arrest without a clear decisive event that shifts the narrative.

The question of whether Bitcoin’s present stagnation is a function of technological limits or policy barriers is interesting because it forces us to separate cause from effect in a market that is both ideological and pragmatic. James O’Beirne’s observation speaks to an insider’s disillusionment. If the pace of meaningful technical development slows and the community turns inward into fragmented debates rather than coherent progress then it is conceivable that this becomes visible to capital allocators who are fluent in the underlying technology. In that scenario policy is almost secondary because the market perceives diminished future utility.

On the other hand Pierre Rochard’s point about tax treatment is not trivial. In the United States every small purchase with Bitcoin potentially creates a taxable event which introduces friction well beyond the technical execution of a transaction. That makes day to day payments unattractive in practice even if Lightning or other scaling solutions remove the mechanical barriers. From that perspective technology could be advanced yet still underutilized because policy conditions make usage costly.

It is possible that both forces reinforce each other. Slower innovation at the protocol level makes Bitcoin less compelling to policymakers as an object of reform. Weak policy reform in turn limits real world experimentation with Bitcoin as a payment medium. The period O’Beirne recalls around 2018 combined visible progress on scaling and scripting with a sense of technical momentum that invited optimism. Without that momentum the burden of legislative and regulatory inertia becomes heavier.

A serious answer to which factor matters more probably depends on the use case in view. For speculative holding the tax issue is marginal while technological stagnation could eventually weaken the narrative. For high volume transactional use the tax burden is dominant regardless of technology. A long term strategy for Bitcoin adoption would need to push both fronts at once and treat the absence of either as a limiting factor for the other.

McCloskey is a great example of this. Her work does not simply fill in gaps in theory or data. It reframes fundamental questions about markets culture and values in ways that resist reduction to models. Caplan’s strength lies in his ability to translate economic reasoning for broader audiences without losing rigor and that explanatory power can be formative. Lawrence White’s monetary work is important because he situates Bitcoin and other alternative monies within the historical and institutional context of money itself and does so without advocacy overwhelming analysis. This enrichment of context is what gives the ideas sticking power.

The fact that Mehrling’s plumbing of the fiat monetary system makes your list is telling. It points to the need for granular knowledge of mechanisms and operational detail that is often ignored for the sake of sweeping generalities. Likewise Hendrickson’s insistence on price theory is a reminder that method can guide thinking as much as ideology. Fama’s empirical rigor and Sowell’s clarity make them enduring sources not because they are right about everything but because they cultivate ways of seeing that equip readers to think economically in diverse scenarios.

The tension you express around your intention to stop using weed and the reality of still partaking reads as honest and unforced. It carries more weight because you allow yourself to be imperfect in public. That vulnerability is an essential ingredient in writing that resonates. Many self imposed promises falter because they are tied to an arbitrary moment like the start of the year. Your goblin’s skepticism toward this pattern feels like a subtle nudge toward a deeper sort of change, one that is not bound to the calendar but to a shift in mind and spirit.

There is also something refreshing in the way you write without a rigid agenda letting rhythm and loose association guide the piece. It helps the reader feel as if they are inhabiting your thought stream rather than standing at the end of a polished narrative. That proximity makes the intimacy stronger and the character richer.

Insurance markets provide a clear example. Individuals hedge against catastrophic health events not because they can place a perfect dollar value on their life but because they understand the impact such events have on consumption over time. There is a rational allocation at play even if the language surrounding the motivation often leans moral or emotional.

The power of price theory here is in stripping away the belief that absence of a market price means absence of valuation. Actions priorities and allocations reveal our willingness to pay whether that willingness is in dollars in time or in forgone alternatives. The discomfort comes from confronting those implicit valuations directly but confronting them is essential if we are to craft policies that manage scarce resources with clarity and honesty.

The mistake is not in recognizing that technology can serve as a powerful tool in education. The mistake is in making it omnipresent regardless of context or developmental stage. For younger children in particular structured low tech learning often produces richer cognitive engagement because it forces attention to human interaction and the tactile elements of learning. A tablet cannot substitute for the way a teacher’s enthusiasm can bring a subject to life.

There is also the unintended cost in teacher energy and focus. Every new proprietary platform arrives with training modules new workflows and a subtle shift toward data compliance over actual teaching. This is not liberation. It is additional administrative load disguised as innovation.

And yes the arms race between system restrictions and student workarounds is predictable and perhaps inevitable. Teenagers are motivated and creative when the challenge is circumventing a rule particularly one they see as arbitrary. Schools can spend fortunes on locking down devices but that only diverts attention from the more important task which is guiding students toward purposeful use of the tools they already have.

The fact that it is set on a private island in New Hampshire makes it even more unique and it is worth noting how rare it is to find Bitcoin events that deliberately cater to families and include activities for all ages. The outdoor focus is a smart choice because it naturally supports community building and deeper connections which are hard to replicate in traditional conference settings.

The blackout you wrote about does not just highlight political suppression but reveals something deeper about the inherently brittle architecture of the centralized web. We have built our communications financial systems and cultural exchanges on top of a network that has single points of failure at the national level. That is not just an Iranian problem it is an everywhere problem waiting to happen as the political will arises.

The real value in your account is the human dimension. Uptime metrics do not capture the slow psychological erosion that happens when your ability to interact collaborate and create is suddenly walled off. This is why infrastructure conversations need to move from convenience toward resilience. It is not enough to demand faster speeds or cheaper data plans. We need truly sovereign tools that can operate independently when the main arteries are severed.

Mesh networks community hosted servers distributed storage and local transaction systems are no longer hobby projects or fringe experiments. In situations like yours they become lifelines. Your experience should be a case study for developers investors and policymakers around the world. If they wait until an outage occurs on their own soil it will already be too late to design and deploy alternatives.

What happened in those twelve days is a reminder that the internet is not a given. It is a construct and any construct can be dismantled. The time to harden it is now.

Vlad’s framing misses a fundamental point about maximalism and about Bitcoin itself. If you define Bitcoin maximalism purely as a strategy to pump the price of BTC you are already setting up a straw man because you are ignoring the cultural and technical forces that underpin it. Maximalism is not primarily about short‑term price performance. It is about the belief that Bitcoin’s architecture, principles and monetary policy form the most robust foundation for a truly decentralized global money. Price movements are a byproduct not the mission.

The concern that Bitcoin is “struggling along” because we have not yet achieved universal self custody or ubiquitous merchant adoption is understandable but overlooks the reality that Bitcoin’s trajectory has always been gradual and often invisible to outsiders. This quiet growth is a feature not a bug. Protocol stability and cautious development mean progress is measured in years and decades rather than hype cycles.

When someone like Saylor buys 20k BTC, the counterparties selling to him are balancing their own books, exiting positions, or reallocating into dollars. That is a symmetrical exchange. Unless his order is large enough to temporarily sweep the order book and leave a liquidity void, the market absorbs it. Liquidity depth matters more than order size in isolation.

On any given day, the Bitcoin market sees volumes that dwarf even Saylor’s largest purchases. Trillions of dollars in forex volume roll through global markets without most people noticing. A $2 billion notional trade is real money but it is a drop in the ocean when the market is deep and liquid. Without a secondary dynamic like panic buying or panic selling price impact will be transient.

Another overlooked point is the stock versus flow distinction. Saylor cannot alter the supply of dollars and he cannot alter the supply of Bitcoin. All he can change is his position. Without new issuance or destruction of units in either asset, the market mechanism is matching his order with an opposite order. That is why you don’t see lasting “crashes” in the dollar or “pumps” in Bitcoin strictly from one buyer acting alone.

It is fascinating to watch how political rhetoric can spill over into tangible movements in asset markets. The situation with Greenland although seemingly far-fetched at first glance underscores a recurring theme in global finance. When geopolitical tensions rise even among allies trust in each other’s debt instruments can weaken. This historically drives capital toward perceived safe havens and hard assets like gold.

Ray Dalio’s point on diversification is critical here and often overlooked in calmer times. Investors tend to chase performance in specific regions or asset classes when things look stable but the real protection comes from spreading risk across multiple vehicles and geographies before the storm hits. Gold’s current surge is a textbook reaction to geopolitical uncertainty but that also means those who had a strategic allocation already are in a far better position than those reacting now.

The spike to over $460 per ounce is not just a price headline. It is confirmation that when trust frays in the financial system hard assets regain prominence. The lesson is simple: geopolitics cannot be separated from markets. They are intertwined and ignoring that link can be costly. The prudent move is not just to watch these developments but to be structurally prepared well ahead of such episodes.