Tela Network

[excerpt from private chat] None of this is going to work. It's simply impossible to maintain individual freedom to not reproduce and modern economies. The only options are social collapse or social change. But: For the citizens to reproduce, the state must offer a genuine long-term deal. The only real strategy is: A small state declares a network citizenship and allows men under 40 in other states to join and claim sole tax residency (i.e. they owe no taxes to any other state - and this is backed up with force - other states, heavy with old people, won’t be able to fight back easily). Taxes payable in crypto. You can bring a woman with you if she’s under 30. That sort of thing. But you can't leave - you owe allegiance for life. You also owe the state the production of 3-5 kids. The legacy welfare states then collapse under their own weight, with the concomitant effects. You'll need automated gun turrets on the border etc etc.

" [Scott] Adams knew, deep in his bones, that he was cleverer than other people. God always punishes this impulse, especially in nerds. His usual strategy is straightforward enough: let them reach the advanced physics classes, where there will always be someone smarter than them, then beat them on the head with their own intellectual inferiority so many times that they cry uncle and admit they’re nothing special. For Adams, God took a more creative and – dare I say, crueler – route. He created him only-slightly-above-average at everything _except_ for a world-historical, Mozart-tier, absolutely Leonardo-level skill at making silly comics about hating work. ... Every child is hypomanic, convinced of their own specialness. Even most teenagers still suspect that, if everything went right, they could change the world. It's not just nerds. Everyone has to crash into reality. " https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-dilbert-afterlife

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.

An interesting demographic strategy: / Moroccan families pool resources to facilitate hrraga (illegal crossers) specifically for their most problematic members. The family calculus is brutal and rational. That cousin with addiction issues who brings hschuma (shame) to the family? Pool money from uncles, aunts, and grandparents to pay a smuggler. That nephew with a criminal record who cannot find work and sits unemployed bringing disgrace? Finance his boat crossing to Spain. The binary outcome serves family interests either way: he dies attempting the Strait of Gibraltar crossing (problem eliminated, family can claim tragedy rather than disgrace), or he reaches Spain and eventually sends remittances (problem exported, potential income stream created, family honor preserved). / Morocco reduces domestic crime, increases remittances (7-8% of GDP), and exports social problems to Europe. / https://asmium.substack.com/p/on-muslim-immigration-to-europe

" County sheriffs’ offices are facing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff, in part because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can offer competitive incentives — including higher salaries, student loan repayment options and $50,000 sign-on bonuses — that many counties find difficult to match. Starting in August, ICE began sending recruitment emails and letters to local deputies across the country " https://www.naco.org/news/ice-hiring-surge-challenges-county-law-enforcement   " U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced that its unprecedented nationwide recruitment campaign has shattered expectations, hiring more than 12,000 officers and agents in less than a year. " https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/03/ice-announces-historic-120-manpower-increase-thanks-recruitment-campaign-brought

On 2025-07-18, Tela Network purchased 0.00006836 Bitcoin for 0.00000606 million GBP, at a price per coin of 87,576.29 GBP ($117,468.50). Explanation: This is a (very) small-scale version of Microstrategy's Bitcoin investment strategy. We take it quite seriously, however, and it's likely to be an interesting journey. 👉 Follow Tela Network on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/dUEVryNw

Chat Excerpt: --- 20th century - mass media, mass gov fiat currency, advantage hard-left. The Nazis count as surprisingly hard-left, economically speaking. 21st century - post drones & blockchain, looking like it will be advantage hard-right. these days, large mass of “the people” == big easy target for deniable remote weapons average man is no longer a threat (as he was in 20th century). Both nazi and marxist rely on gathering together average man to achieve power. Therefore in 21st century neither strategy will work. The flavour might be used for rhetorical purposes. Major issue is: relatively few people will have power, and popular discontent won't have much effect except for stochastic terrorism. So more like blade runner 2049. I mention drones because they would seem in future to be an advantage for the few as opposed to the many. I'm basically betting on a trend line of "average man will matter even less in future than he does now". ---

1 "… impossible to maintain individual freedom to not reproduce _and_ modern economies" Agreed. The West can no longer outsource reproduction or recessions via reserve currency privilege. 2 On the small states that will emerge to replace the old ones: Agreed. I’d qualify that slightly: None of the first-generation network states will call themselves "states". They'll be 'worker collectives', 'guilds', 'business networks', 'voluntary organisations', or some form of NGO. They'll be _de facto_ states with some or all the features you've described, but they'll find ways to justify their behaviour within the current _de jure_ regime. 'Discourses on Livy', Book I, Chapter 25: "… preserve at least a semblance of existing methods, so as not to appear to the people to have made any change in the old order of things." "… the mass of mankind accept what seems as what is." 'The Prince', Chapter 18: "Everyone sees what you seem to be, few touch upon what you are."

Jacob Klug, CEO @ Creme Digital, analyzed every Lovable app that hit $10K MRR in under 30 days. Key points: 1) Each solved a problem that already had paying customers. They just made the existing solution 10x simpler with AI. 2) The domains were boring. E.g. Inventory management for dentists. 3) Unfair advantage: Direct access to potential customers. Distribution > Product. 4) Personally onboarded every early user. Get insights. 5) Double down on whichever sales channel worked first. Source: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7353049897475928064

Podcast summary: Dr. Dani Sulikowski argues that "wokeness" can be understood as _manipulative reproductive suppression_. Key points: - Once societies become wealthy and infant mortality falls, elite women lose their normal reproductive advantage. - To restore it, they promote cultural norms - e.g. career-first feminism, abortion rights, body positivity, gender ideology, toxic masculinity - that will lower the reproduction rate of other women. - This behavior is not necessarily conscious. - These movements are framed as progressive or compassionate but effectively make other women less fertile. - This pattern is cyclical across civilizations. Male competition is dominant until an inflection point of high wealth and success is reached. Female competition then becomes the dominant force in mating outcomes, and birth rates decline, setting the stage for societal decline and replacement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRY_1JRRcNU

Experiment: Using Greek Mythology as a source for AI agent personas I wanted to design an AI persona for my codebase, to implement solutions, make suggestions, and provide pushback where relevant. So I had an idea: Why not use a Greek god ? The Greek gods already have well-defined psychological temperaments and social roles. The Greek pantheon is arguably the best model for human psychology that we have. It's certainly better than Homo Economicus, Homo Sovieticus, or Homo Oppressus. There's a large many-century literature about them, which has been used as training data for today's AI engines. I chose Athena: goddess of wisdom, craft, and strategy. She offers judgement and foresight to her followers. I have invoked her to be my "architectural guardian" AI persona. I've asked her to: - enforce naming conventions, domain boundaries, and architectural consistency - watch out for emerging conflicts - suggest new preferences where possible Man is a religious creature, after all.