aaronwalker

There are many different lenses in which one could look at Bitcoin and say that it’s making humanity more productive.

One that comes to mind especially for Bitcoin is that it “could” act as a global store of value, independent of any one geopolitical power. Many countries lack stable and non-corrupt currencies, and many people in those countries cannot trust putting large sums of money in their economy, for fear that they will be taken away from them. If BTC stabilizes in value sufficiently, people in those countries could use it as a store of value—like gold, but easier to obtain. Id argue that the idea of having a digital store of value does increase the productivity of the world, because people don’t have to rely on inefficiently hoarding gold, or paying fees for buying gold in the stock market.

> Unlike a real piece of art you don’t actually own anything

What is it that you actually own when you buy a physical art piece? Is it the actual canvas and the paint on top? If so then that is definitely not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on its own. Or, more likely, is it the fact that you own the original, and that the artists could never make an exact replica, unlike with NFTs? Even though you can make an exact replica with NFTs, everybody agrees on the original, and therefore the exact replica has no value. With art you could make a near perfect replica, but everybody would still agree upon the original, and therefore the original is the one with real value. IMO NFTs and physical art are still very similar.

Those are examples of relatively well curated internet resources compared to a typical blog post or medium article. Khan Academy has allowed students the opportunity that underfunded schools miss—-for instance, the ability to advance their math skills, without the need of an expensive tutor.

I find that writing helps clarify my thoughts and own them, rather than just being an amalgamation of the content I consume. It also helps keep my opinions and predictions in check—-I have something that I can look back on in future years and see how my opinions have changed, which can be a humbling experience because in the present it is easy to think that you are always correct.

Ive heard conflicting viewpoints on the current crypto crash. Some say that this is different than the rest, and that crypto has already reached it’s all time max, whereas others say that this is just another pullback before an even larger bull run. With crypto, it is so hard to know what it’s actual value should be, since unlike a stock there are no earnings and thus you can’t look at the P/E ratio to determine its pricing. I’m curious to hear what you guys think—-and how you determine the value of crypto.

To add on to the second point, when browsing the internet, you can skim dozens of articles on a certain subject like EU politics need without getting a clear picture of it, whereas all it takes is one we’ll crafted analytical book to get that overview.

I think the reason why they focus on social media is because it is so much more effective at capturing our attention. This is because social media giants know to a high degree of accuracy the profile of their users. Besides basic demographics, stats such as the amount of time spent looking at a entertainment video can give away more information about the user’s interest than they know themselves.

Regarding television being king, According to statistica, the number of social media users in the US is 294 million (https://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-smart...). Whereas the number of television users is about 305 million (https://www.statista.com/statistics/243789/number-of-tv-hous...). Even though these numbers are comparable now, the increased effectiveness of social media and its popularity among younger populations makes it a more effective means of mining our attention than television in general.

The idea of a well curated bookcase beating access to the World Wide Web is not one I’m so sure about. Permissionless access to a massive consortium of information, even if most of it is low quality, has empowered communities to learn concepts that they normally would not be able to (Khan Academy, Wikipedia, YouTube). Id agree that sitting with a bookcase for a long time would lend itself well to analysis because there is such limited information, whereas the way most people use the internet is by consuming in abundance. But the ease of use and accessibility of the web beats books.