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21 May, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Decentralization: P2P, internet, domain names, startups, going viral

Counter-Decentralization: MVC, tech giants, usernames, state regulation & censorship, getting cancelled

Redecentralization: CBC, blockchain, crypto domains, remote work & digital nomadism, going pseudonymous
Technical architecture initially favored decentralization, then centralization, and now decentralization again.

P2P: peer-to-peer
MVC: model-view-controller
CBC: client-blockchain-client

See:
The Counter-Decentralization includes ideological & technological measures by centralized states to fend off Decentralization. Xi Jinping Thought is like China's version of wokeness, American social media censorship is the US version of the Great Firewall.
Redecentralization: observe that every state that is *not* the US or China doesn't want a gun pointed to its head.

They all go crypto eventually, if only because they need sovereign communication & transaction channels.

Thus: Woke Capital vs Communist Capital vs Crypto Capital.

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More from @balajis

balajis.com Profile picture
21 May
This is funny.

But the future of warfare is actually neither "based" nor "woke". It's all drones.

WW1 opened with horses, which were cut to ribbons by machine guns. Our vision of the military is similarly antiquated: fitness is great, but muscular men lose to unmanned drones.
Soon, men in combat = horses in combat.

It's all unmanned war, robot war, drone war, information war, cyber war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in…
Btw, to give some credit to the woke, as silly as this specific ad is, they are better at mind control than the based.

That's why they are running the military.

But mind control doesn't work on drones.
Read 11 tweets
balajis.com Profile picture
18 May
Just setting up my bitclout 💎🙌

bitclout.com/u/balajis?publ…
An important moment for decentralized social media: the full Bitclout source was released today. github.com/bitclout/core
I'm an early investor in several decentralized social media platforms, including Bitclout, and am excited for where we are going.

This is a major step towards truly open source, open state, and open execution social networks.

Will be posting more here:
bitclout.com/u/balajis?feed…
Read 5 tweets
balajis.com Profile picture
18 May
Every cancellation is an election: a vote of no confidence in another human being, but with an unspecified numerator and denominator.

The perception is that society has cast out this person, but a genuinely representative poll with secret ballot might prove that wrong.
Numerator: who voted against the person
Denominator: who voted in total

The "decision-making" process for a cancellation (such as it is) appears democratic, with many raising their voices at once.

But an actually democratic process with secret ballot may have different results.
One route for those pending cancellation may be to call for a fully representative secret ballot "election".

A snap plebiscite sent either to all employees, or done as a poll of the general public.

The results would show who is truly out of step with internal or public opinion.
Read 7 tweets
balajis.com Profile picture
14 May
The ethical case for crypto:

- privacy
- free markets
- free speech
- decentralized truth
- computational rule-of-law
- economic alignment > polarization

The next rules-based order is made of code: not nationalist or socialist, but internationalist, capitalist, and fair to all.
I’ve been in the space a while.

@bariweiss has put together perhaps the most substantive public discussion yet between the crypto and fiat communities — represented by me and @profplum99 respectively.

Worth your time!
bariweiss.substack.com/p/is-bitcoin-a…
Why do I say it’s substantive? We’re moving from an era where people pronounce crypto a bubble to one where it’s taken seriously.

Tulip mention notwithstanding, this exchange is a step forward in that sense.
Read 4 tweets
balajis.com Profile picture
8 May
What happens if inflation actually does go vertical?

Digital stays cheap, but physical becomes a premium product. Zoom > flights, Twitter > theaters.

Even more of life would crowd onto centralized tech platforms.

Crypto thus saves us in two ways: BTC and tech decentralization.
The financial crisis & COVID were both stimuli for the digital world.

Printed money & negative interest rates drove funds to higher risk tech stocks.

And the physical world became more expensive (or even inaccessible) thanks to the state.

Inflation will have a similar effect.
The idea that inflation favors the digital world isn’t one I had fully put together till recently.

Basically, a rise in commodity prices is passed through to all physical products. If oil soars, flights are more expensive. But Zoom’s marginal costs don’t increase as much.
Read 4 tweets
balajis.com Profile picture
6 May
Feels like the AI version of this is extremely doable with today’s technology.

The truly personal life coach. Angel (or devil?!) sitting on your shoulder telling you what to do.
Implementation:

- Bootstrap avatar from someone’s photos, audio, and videos
- Implement some kind of speech2text
- Integrate GPT-3 for dynamic conversation
- Add scripts for various moods: working out, focus, etc

Nothing here is impossible, but getting it polished is hard.
Then there’s another version, which is the AI influencer life coach. Train on their podcasts and text and video. Ask for advice at any time.

Maybe the influencer themselves gets a cut for use of their likeness?
Read 5 tweets

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