The end of you country is coming because of internet and blockchain.
We know this because it has already happened several times in the past. Each time a new information tech appears, a new type of government appears. 🧵
Consider the Catholic Church in the 1500s
Dozens of movements protesting the Church appear over the centuries. But the Church systematically quashed them. It's easy to burn a heretic and his writings.
At the time, the Church was the most powerful entity because of it monopoly on information.
The clergy was educated, it had access to plenty of books, it could read (Latin, which most books were written on), they learned secrets via confessions, they had a monopoly on the word of God (locals spoke vernaculars), and they had European-wide correspondence.
They always knew better than anybody what was happening.
The secular power, under the feudalist system, had a strong hierarchy and a fractal system like the Church, but it didn't have the same sort of interconnected networks. The result? Less power
Then comes the printing press. Within decades, Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses, which spread like gunpowder: now you don't publish one copy at a time. You can publish thousands. The Church can't stop it.
More generally, they lost the monopoly of information, and hence of ideas. Merchants, academics, lords... All have now access to more information and communicate more.
The Catholic Church, which had risen in power for 7 centuries, splintered in a matter of decades.
What replaced it? Something enabled by the printing press too.
See, before the printing press, in Europe there are areas spoken by Romance languages, Germanic, Slavic...
From Portugal to Wallonia, there's a gradient of change of local vernaculars. The next valley speaks a similar language, but not quite the same. And these changes accumulate with distance.
This stops with the printing press.
Books are printed in the major cities, which have the most writers and the most readers. Publishers publish in whatever will sell best, ie the most widely-spoken vernaculars of the time.
Those close-by will learn to read and understand these vernaculars. Over centuries, entire geographical areas start speaking the same language. They share the same ideas. A brotherhood sentiment emerges. A national sentiment.
So nation-states emerge to displace the feudalism that had been reigning for over 500 years, thanks to the printing press.
The same thing happened with broadcasting media in the 20th Century: they enabled totalitarian political systems, impossible before.
Before them, writing enabled kingdoms, empires, and churches.
In the next articles I'll explore the patterns of this newly-emerging type of government: taxation, decentralization, inequality, SEZ.. Subscribe to get it.
Did you know the West's trade deficits to China are not recent, but started 2000 years ago? This is the story of how silk, porcelain, tea, opium, and silver have determined the history of the world 🧵
The Romans already complained about deficits to China! Mainly because of silk
Back then the Chinese already preferred manufacturing and selling products than consuming foreign products. Chronicler Solinus ~200 AD: The Chinese "prefer only to sell their products, but do not like to buy our goods."
Why did 🇮🇱Israel strike 🇮🇷Iran now, and not months or years ago or in the future?
A unique combination of a dozen factors converged to make the moment unique for 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵 1. No Hamas to its southwest 2. No Hezbollah to its north 3. No Assad threat to the northeast
4...
4. No more Syrian army to attack 🇮🇱Israel's planes: As the new forces of HTS took over Syria, Israel bombed all the existing Syrian military. No more fighter jets or surface-to-air missiles to threaten 🇮🇱Israel
5. Ability to fly over Syria to refuel
This is critical, because 🇮🇷Iran is ~600-1000 miles away from 🇮🇱Israel, so 1200-2000 miles round trip
The range of Israel’s stealth F35 is only about 1,350 mi
To operate inside 🇮🇷Iran, 🇮🇱Israel needed refueling over Syria
1. From Feb 2025 to Jun 2025, it increased its amount of enriched uranium by 50% 2. It now had 400kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for 9-10 bombs 3. This is 60% enriched uranium. Fuel only requires 5% enrichment.
4... 🧵
4. It's easy to go from 60% to 90% (weapons grade), it only takes weeks 5. The only country on Earth with such enriched uranium and without a bomb is 🇮🇷Iran 6. The IAEA (nuclear watchdog) found 3 secret nuclear sites
7. When 🇮🇷Iran didn't respond to this accusation, the IAEA censured it 8. 🇮🇷Iran responded to the censoring by saying it would open a 3rd enrichment site in a secret spot
Now that the 🇺🇸US has bombed 3 of 🇮🇷Iran's nuclear sites, where will the war go from here?
It depends on 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵
🇮🇷Iran never wanted the war, and its forces are being decimated. Its ability to send missiles to 🇮🇱Israel is being degraded every day. If it could sign a ceasefire while saving face, it would
Meanwhile, 🇮🇱Israel has kept striking Iran non stop. Its daily airstrikes didn't go down substantially in the first few days. Its ability to keep striking 🇮🇷Iran remains unabated
Can there be an invasion of Iran? Hardly. Two maps explain why, and also why Iran is the way it is today, whether its regime will fall, what other superpowers will do, and in general why Iran is the way it is today
The only truly exposed area is the southwestern corner of Khuzestan, which is a swamp
The biggest superpowers lie to the west, and there the very broad Zagros make it really hard to conquer Iran. The mountain range is tall and wide, making logistics similar to Afghanistan. Very hard.
Iraq learned it the hard way when it tried to attack there in 1980
Listening to the debate, it looks like 🇮🇱Israel & the 🇺🇸US intelligence community disagreed, but that's not really the case!
Both thought Iran was weeks to months away from being able to develop the bomb
So what's the disagreement?
Here are more facts:
• Tehran had just announced a 3rd enrichment site in an undisclosed place
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had recently produced a report censoring Iran for the 1st time in 20y
• It accused Iran of 3 undisclosed nuclear sites
• It claimed Iran had enough enriched uranium for 9-10 nuclear bombs
• All the other countries in the world who have enriched uranium at the same level also have nuclear weapons. Iran is the only country that doesn't have these weapons yet enriches uranium as much