Forum Log

Bozeman, Montana is about as far away from the US urban / coastal cultures as you can get. Nonetheless, urban people displace Bozeman people, not the other way around. I find myself concluding, yet again, that owning a house is no protection against the economic currents of our time. Economic networks are the powerhouse. People hooked into an expanding network simply displace those who are not. So one’s focus must always be one’s network. (Even if you acquire a house, your neighborhood is displaced and restructured, and your kids grow up in the new environment, and themselves are obligated to leave - so you only put off the defeat for one generation.) I think we could think of the phenomenon today as “internal colonization” by different networks. The focus is now Montana instead of the Congo. A model: Networks process transactions. Skills are valuable economically if they allow you to help a network process more transactions.

Korean films say: “You endure because there’s nothing else to do.” Chinese films say: “The individual is a brief interruption in the flow of history.” Japanese films say: “Tragedy is just beauty seen from the wrong angle.” Danish films say: “Even silence has consequences.” --- ^ More ChatGPT summaries.

Tela Network's report-at-large has released the following Special Report: The Great Sacrifice unto the gods of Productivity, Efficiency, and Doing-More-With-Less has begun. From his seat at the Holy Cathedral in Seattle, The Holy Archbishop, Andy Jassey the Productive has offered the livelihoods of approximately 14000 loyal worshippers unto the aforementioned gods. Rumours are swirling that this is to be the greatest, the most substantial sacrifice of souls unto the holy gods. A second wave of sacrifice will commence in January and will be greater still. The loyal followers of the Holy Church of Tech will take comfort in knowing that their sacrifice will make the Holy Church more efficient, more collaborative, more productive, and above all, leaner. This is a comforting thought for those selected for sacrifice. Hail unto the Holy Gods of Productivity, Efficiency, and Doing-More-With-Less. Know that your sacrifice will also increase stockprice.

Goal: Gate user actions (e.g. make a post) based on payment of a token. This is a much larger problem than it seems. Naive idea: User buys credits, check user balance, subtract a token before allowing a post. But: You have to track payments in and credits out in order to keep balances correct. So you need a ledger. A single-entry ledger will break when you encounter double-spending, retries, refunds, and audits. So you need a double-entry ledger. I have looked at outsourcing this. But offering complex custom bookkeeping software to non-enterprise customers is a structurally bad business. Also, your app must make an external API call on every gated user action. This indicates that you need to build and maintain an internal double-entry ledger system. This is why most apps: 1) Charge a subscription or 2) Charge for usage afterwards (no real-time gate) But neither of these models produce the user experience incentives that I think are required for a good version of the future.

- Man needs a faith. - (Which do you practice ?) - I practice Christianity. - Jesus is the right man to follow. - The worlds that flow from following Marx, Mohammed, Mammon, or Moloch ... are wastelands. Nothing grows there. - The world that we live in grew from Christianity. - Atheists still believe in Christian morality. They do not really want to live in a world without it. They would mostly not survive. - Am I a good Christian ? No. - Do I believe as a Christian should ? No. - Do I try to believe ? Yes. Sometimes. - And sometimes it seems as though it could be real. Sometimes God is sitting on a bench nearby, just outside the frame. - Is it the correct faith to try to believe ? For a European, yes. - But be as wise as a serpent. A man is hated most for his weaknesses. - A man should read the Greeks, Schmitt, the Buddhists, Sun Tzu, etc. Truth emerges from the tension of opposites. - Which rituals should you teach your children ? Correct action, communion, penance, forgiveness.