Tela Network

I see the term "late-stage capitalism" everywhere online. Its persistence is proof of Marxism's staying-power as a tool of critique, but I question its usefulness beyond that. Because of its symbolic implications. Words shape and reveal our beliefs. And each belief allows us _not to think about something_. "Late-stage capitalism" is fatalistic. The system is spent but can’t die. It lets us avoid alternatives. It aestheticizes collapse. It turns politics into content. Absurdities into punchlines. Organizers into grifters. "Welcome to late-stage capitalism. What did you expect?" Full ironic detachment. It dissuades _action_. I’m searching for other terms - ones that accurately frame what is happening but also ask "What is to be done?". "Techno-feudalism" does both. It breaks the liberal frame of profit through commodity exchange for one of rent extraction. It implies that we rank somewhere in a feudal hierarchy. It also suggests change: feudalism has come and gone before.

Bitcoin is the first modern monetary system that is outside of the political control of any state. In the pre-modern era (earlier than the French Revolution), gold (and to some extent silver) was above the state. If the state issued too much currency, its value would visibly decrease relative to gold. However, tech advancement caused gold to become too difficult to protect on a small scale. Gold centralized into a few major locations inside states. It became impossible for an individual to escape the effect of money printing. Inflation is effectively another tax. (It also destroys the measuring stick that we use for value, and therefore for business.) For most young people, a house is out of reach. This was one of the only remaining ways to escape (somewhat, and badly) the debasement of inflation. For the next 15-30 years, despite the scams / fear / uncertainty / doubt, I think that Bitcoin will remain the most achievable method available to a young person to save for the future.

(Disclaimer: There are no trusted sources on the internet.) It seems Q-Anon / Alex Jones might've been _fundamentally_ correct about the Western elite. Paedophiles, cannibals, vampires. "What is to be done?" This question is now a more fundamental, there-are-monsters-in-the-dark one. Anyone living under the money-printer is living under _that_ moral order. It seems appropriate to frame this apocalyptically, specifically in a Genesis 6:22 way. The choice is now moral. The world is wicked and we must build an arc. I do mean this practically. I don't see a way to raise a family unless you build an arc with others that do as God commands. I also can't stand the idea of not fighting against evil. I'd like a death of the self. Huge pendulum swing. We've gone full self-realization and it's been catastrophic. Time to kill the ego and hear the word of God again. Otherwise, I don't see how we don't get herded, bled, and eaten by vampires.

An intriguing idea. "This often led to similar customs" is especially interesting. Common customs → shared laws → cities → conflicts ( → and, if conditions allowed, empires) Most imperial expansion occurred across similar agro-ecological zones on the same latitude (Rome, Caliphates, Mongols, Imperial China, Ottomans, Spain, Russia, Habsburgs). The historical exceptions I can think of occurred outside of Eurasia (Inca, Zulu, Mali). (Exception: Japan) Empires and conflicts spread most easily where nature doesn’t fight them. When communication became the core of economic activity, we got maritime empires (Britain, USA). (Exception: Athens) Now, decentralised information exchange is the core. Axes of coordination may form through common time zones, because that’s how digital economies are organising. This might mean more physical interaction longitudinally, within a time zone, because the growth of a digital economy might pressure the physical economy to reflect it.

The first wave of Bitcoin Banks have started to emerge in the form of Bitcoin Treasury companies such as Metaplanet, Twenty One, and MicroStrategy. They are all trying to do one thing: acquire as much BTC as possible and use it to generate returns in whatever way possible for their shareholders. In short: they are attempting to bridge the gap between the old Fiat system and the new digital asset system by treating Bitcoin as a stock, not as gold. I don't have a concrete idea of how Bitcoin can be used in finance but I do know that using it to create returns as if it were a stock is unlikely to work in the long term. I believe that a good use of time is to research and experiment with how a group of individuals can come together a collectively grow a stockpile of bitcoin. Step two would then be how to financialise that or issue a token on top of the Bitcoin whoch could be used everyday in a small geographical area.

It is clear that we are in an era in which political assassinations are not only more common, but also more accepted. The death of Brian Thompson at the hands of Luigi Mangione has attracted a large number of supporters and general acceptance. Donald Trump, Brian Thompson, NFL employees, and Charlie Kirk are all recent victims of assassinations or attempted assassinations. It is worth noting, in this increasingly unstable world, the requirement for a network of individuals to become politically aligned and active is growing. However, this brings the increasing risk of assassination attempts. Charlie Kirk will most likely become a martyr for his network as assassinations have a habit of entrenching the beliefs of one's followers. Worryingly, this may feed into creating an escalating wave of political violence, not only in the USA, but also further abroad. Any politically aligned network must factor in this risk for the future. Political alignment may attract power,but also enemies

New article: https://telablog.com/children-and-a-shared-vision-of-the-future Excerpts: "... This was in accordance with the ancient belief: man did not belong to himself; he belonged to the family. He was one member in a series, and the series must not stop with him..." "... fertility remains far below any desirable level. The reason, I suspect, is that something more fundamental is missing: a shared grand narrative..." "The most interesting question to me is: What story comes next ?"

Viewpoint = what someone thinks Mythos = the story-world that makes those thoughts feel true / Re: 'silver is an industrial metal and has no monetary value'... The awakening is spreading and everyday people are looking for a place to keep their cash. They are getting priced out of gold - silver is their only option. It is ultimately the people who will decide what has monetary value and what doesn't. / Source: An (edited) comment from: https://youtu.be/tQa6mNXcM4s We can see an underlying doctrine: People can decide the monetary standard. And another one: Gold is too expensive for the average person, therefore it can't be the primary monetary standard. What is most interesting to me is that it is a democratic inversion of the goldbug mythos, which says: 1) People must adapt to the most powerful monetary standard. 2) The best monetary standard will have the highest price. Summary: Goldbug mythos: monetary truth is discovered. Silverbug mythos: monetary truth is ratified.

" Navarra GROWS when we decide from here The Chartered Community (Comunidad Foral) regains control of traffic policing on its road after 64 years Government of Navarre autogobierno.navarra.es " (Found on an A4 leaflet in a local Pamplona newspaper – image: https://postimg.cc/47dwt2ys) 'Foral' refers to the historical fueros - local laws and privileges - granted to Navarre and the Basque Country. Fueros predate the Spanish state. Isaac Piano and I often discuss how regions may re-emerge as Europe’s main polity (https://youtu.be/2EG4Meh-kvA?) Spain and Germany are evolving in that direction. France or Italy may fragment abruptly. Regions like Navarre, Euskadi, and Catalonia are advancing internal autonomy while still linked to Madrid economically and for foreign affairs. Others could follow: León, Galicia, Valencia. The façade of the Palace of Navarre reads: Pro libertate patria gens libera stat. (For the freedom of the homeland, a free people stand)

Agree. Speaking of where things are going, I was reading Peter Turchin today. Excerpt from: No Revolution without Counter-Revolution, by Peter Turchin https://substack.com/home/post/p-162797899 Any revolution is a struggle between the ruling elites and counter-elites. Once counter-elites gain power and attempt to build a new social order, the ci-devant (meaning former, or “have-been”) elites face a stark choice. They can accept defeat and acquiesce to downward social mobility, or they can turn into a sort of “counter-counter-elites” or, in more common terminology, counter-revolutionaries. Historical experience shows that there are always substantial segments of such erstwhile elites who chose to plot and fight.

Young people in the modern world are being asked to act as heirs when they are actually tenants. They were raised on expectations of: autonomy, self-expression, mobility, romance, meaningful work, home ownership, and gradual upward movement. What they got: High housing costs, delayed family formation, wage shrinkage relative to assets, bureaucratic job markets, credential inflation, social atomization, and: an online world that floods them with stimulation and eliminates real status, real community, and real purpose. They are surrounded by immense wealth, advanced systems, and unprecedented flows of information, but they have no prospect of ever owning any of it. Without the old established pathways into meaningful levels of agency + ownership, they cannot develop into social adulthood. History suggests several different outcomes to this situation. One thing is for sure: The current setup is not a stable state and will not continue. It will change into a new state.