"my top priority is as it always has been: to separate money from state." (#1586841)

...speaking of which, here's my fav(-ish?) European writer and educator, whom most Americans might not know: Josef Tětek. (I've had him write some incredible stuff for BM back in the days.) His masterpiece is an unknown book called precisely this:

It's part of the Braiins collection of short, digestible books (Amazon states 120 pages), but this one is faaaar from marketing/overview/shallow (e.g., here: #1586090)

Highly recommend.

The review that ran in Bitcoin Magazine Print's The Primary Issue in late 2023, the mentioning of which was a condition of me republishing the reviews on SN.

A bitcoin analyst at hardware wallet maker Trezor [not anymore: Now Josef runs Trezor Academy, focused on adoption in Africa], Josef Tětek has written what may be one of the best Bitcoin books of the year. It’s short, it’s clear, and it’s radical. The downside is that only those who already agree with his political views are likely to buy its premise. 

What Tětek tries to convince us of in five short chapters is that money is the next state-controlled institution to fall. Pointing back to prior revolutions in religion, commerce, schooling, and media — that were all once run by government officials — Tětek suggests that the next societal institution to remove itself from the filthy hands of the state is money itself.

A-MEN, brotha!!

I’m not even exaggerating that kind of language: Tětek doesn’t mince his words about this invasive creature that most people treat either with the inevitability of gravity or the reverence of Jesus Christ himself. If the thesis is too radical for some readers to accept, Tětek patiently spells it out for them: The state isn’t a monster — or a savior for that matter — but “simply the designation of a privileged class that lives by political means and seeks to maintain its position with the aid of mythology (from divine mandate to theories of the social contract and pseudo-economic considerations of public goods)” (pages 72-73).

Fuck: Den used to be eloquent... now he just shitposts angrily about boomers et al in exchange for CCs and sats -.-

And he doesn’t blame you for thinking that the state must always exist, or must always be in control of the monetary system: “Every historical instance of institutional separation from the state must have been unimaginable at first, seeming like utter heresy to most people” (page 101). Before every such institution fell, “there must have been many who argued that the given institution had been linked to the state throughout its entire history”.

The time preference chapter should seem familiar to most readers, even if they never encountered the carefully assembled arguments here presented. Bitcoin is a salvation from fiat degeneracy: It ups your time preference, makes you reconsider your spending patterns, makes you gaze further into the future. Nocoiners sometimes ridicule Bitcoiners for merely having adopted a new religion, and to a very specific degree that’s correct: Our lives and mindsets have been radically transformed by holding, acquiring, and learning about this most fabulous of mankind’s discoveries.

Even though the book just came out in English around June this year, launched at the inaugural BTC Prague conference, Tětek, a typically prolific Bitcoiner, has already written another one: Bitcoin: Return of Sound Money, which is so far only available in Czech. Until it comes out in English early next year, enjoy this one!"

eeeeh Josef... where's this title at?!

Selected quotes: 

• “Socialism is a barbaric idea. It never worked in any industry, wherever or whenever it was applied... Central banking and fiat are just as pernicious as the Soviet Gosplan” (page 83)
• “to save means to hold on to monetary units without any counterparty risk or a risk of an investment failure” (page 99)
• “the purpose of blockchain is to enable the existence of non-state money without dependence on a trustworthy third party” (page 104)
• “We don’t need a new central bank; we need full separation of money from state and from central planners” (page 110)

BOOK on BOOKS Archive

The Bushido of Bitcoin, by Alexandar Svetski (#1584380)

A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin by Jason Maier (#1574659)

Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy, by Vijay Selvam (#1573664)

Better Money? Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin by Lawrence White (#1556942)

I Am Not Your Bruh: 21 Keys to Sound Parenting, by George Mekhail (#1548087)

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (#1540851)

Gradually, Then Suddenly: A Framework for Understanding Bitcoin as Money, by Parker Lewis (#1536970)

Fiat Ruins Everything: How Our Financial System is Rigged and How Bitcoin Fixes it, by Jimmy Song (#1530254)

Bitcoin One Million, The Final Chapter of Fiat, by Fred Krueger & Ben Sigman (#1521960)

Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC, by Roger Ver (#1525907)

The Philosophy of Bitcoin, by Álvaro D. María (#1517354)