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allen farrington Profile picture
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23 Mar, 5 tweets, 2 min read
now that @real_vijay is my hype man, this is the perfect opportunity to pump my least read medium post, by far.

if you don't read this, it's almost like you don't think genomes, sex, or math are interesting. I don't know what else to tell you ...

allenfarrington.medium.com/one-in-a-billi…
if you do read it, I (probably obviously) highly recommend the two books and essay of which it is a favourable mashup review:

amazon.com/One-Billion-Vo…
amazon.com/Billion-Wicked…
and:

stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Pa…
full disclosure, this has nothing to do with #bitcoin.

it's about the philosophical significance of numbers too big to be comprehended by humans popping up in a variety of domains of human action and that we hence need computers to manipulate- HEY WAIT A MINUTE!

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More from @allenf32

allen farrington Profile picture
25 Mar
thanks so much to @EpsilonTheory for indulging such degenerate plebs as @AleksSvetski and me.

I want to do a thread while it's still reasonably fresh on trying to steelman Ben's "Wall Street swallows Bitcoin" thesis, as I have a newfound appreciation for it after our chat. Image
okay, so first of all here's a strawman, which I will admit is more or less what I thought going into the chat:

"investment banks comes to control so much of the circulating supply they can do all kind of annoying forky statist shit and it will become unusable for the good guys"
that's NOT what he means!

what he means I think is much subtler and more sophisticated. I'll say upfront I don't agree with it (assuming I've even captured it properly) but I do think it is amongst the best articulated threats worth being aware of.
Read 16 tweets
allen farrington Profile picture
18 Mar
I had an important realisation today that may be of particular interest to @ktlannan, @MartyBent, @saifedean, @FractalEncrypt, but more too, I'm sure.

Bitcoiners should learn about and champion Roger Scruton.

1/
now that it's clear bitcoin will win as money, we should take inspiration from those I tagged above and be more imaginative about the knock-on effects.

in this case: beauty.

2/
vimeo.com/128428182
Roger Scruton had two major projects of passion in his professional life: to subvert and destroy the Soviet Union with the power of ideas and rational discussion, and to restore an appreciation for classical standards of beauty to pride of place in Western culture.

3/
Read 21 tweets
allen farrington Profile picture
13 Feb
#Bitcoin is Ariadne. #Bitcoin is Halal. #Bitcoin is Gravity. #Bitcoin is Logos. #Bitcoin is Techne.

#Bitcoin is Venice.

No one knows what it means, but it's provocative! It gets the people GOING!

allenfarrington.medium.com/bitcoin-is-ven…
thanks to @giacomozucco, @saifedean, and @obaidkav.

h/t to @joelkotkin, @parkeralewis, @pmarca, @ktlannan, @PrestonPysh, @JackMallers, @pierre_rochard, @Croesus_BTC, @balajis, @nic__carter, and @gwern.

plus @Alex_Danco just for shiggles.
"Bitcoin is simply an alternative; an exit valve; an opt-out. It is competing only insofar as it is proving to be a far superior alternative. It is not a sword for Theseus to fight the Minotaur, but a thread to follow to exit the labyrinth. Bitcoin is Ariadne."
Read 11 tweets
allen farrington Profile picture
17 Dec 20
how to value #Bitcoin

👇
Bitcoin’s value as money will naturally be determined by how easy it is to use it to buy things. Luckily, Bitcoin has what is called a “difficulty adjustment” which is known to vary based on the proportion of Bitcoin transactions that start with zero.
This is because if it is too difficult for somebody to transfer Bitcoin, but they have already committed to a transaction by proving the transaction works, they tend to just transfer zero and use PayPal instead.
Read 21 tweets
allen farrington Profile picture
30 Oct 20
people seemed to think the inline thread was "good" or something 🤷‍♀️

so here’s another attempt to improve understanding and shift our broken thinking about what "money" is.

THREAD

there is some splendid semantic chicanery going on here because there are three distinct, specific meanings of "deficit" under one general meaning.

first, Kelton invokes the connotations of the third specific meaning, "a deficiency or failing" ...

... then she gives an example using the - completely different - second specific meaning ...

Read 47 tweets
allen farrington Profile picture
18 Apr 20
tfw when you accuse somebody of being a liar, a fraud, an idiot, a charlatan, a bullshit artist, and a cult leader, and his acolytes' only comeback is, “it’s too long.”

it’s long because of just how much stupid bullshit he has done, you morons.

I was thorough.

🧵/n
I’ll try to put the highlights in a tweetstorm trailer. somebody asked for the medium version, this is it:

he chastised somebody for failing to have read a book of his that hasn’t yet been published.

2/n
he wrote a foreword to a book he hadn’t read about a concept he doesn’t understand.

he revealed as much by slandering a world expert in *something else* he doesn’t understand, who was mentioned in this book.

3/n
Read 18 tweets

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