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Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
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3 Nov, 6 tweets, 3 min read
China is on track to bring back the Henry Adams Curve, the exponential increase in energy production that tapered off around 1970.
See the @rootsofprogress review of “Where’s My Flying Car” for more on the Henry Adams Curve, and the modern tendency to assume that even clean energy production is somehow bad.
China cope is the idea that the country will somehow crash into a ditch.

China hope is the belief that an unchecked CCP will be a benevolent hegemon, or that today’s US can stop it.

China nope is the concept that we should respect their execution, but build something better.
The US during the Cold War understood that if it delivered the goods domestically, it could outlast the Soviets, who instead opted for a posture of ideological and military confrontation.

That’s the right model: build an admirable society.
One of the main reasons conflict has flared up is that the Chinese no longer believe the US has a better model.

And if they don’t envy the economics, or the social conflict, or the infrastructure, they won’t emulate the politics. No respect, no deference.
The right response to this is not warfare, or moralistic arguments, or prideful denial, or arguably even much in the way of diplomacy. It doesn’t get solved in a meeting.

The right answer is to do the hard, long work of once again building an admirable society.

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More from @balajis

Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
4 Nov
Woke Capital incarnate.
From thread by AGM.

I think he’s too optimistic though. The century is still young. And the Gods of the Copybook Headings may return.
The pseudonymous economy is preferable to ritualistic announcements of immutable characteristics. It would be more accessible for the disabled as well.

It’s not everyone’s ideal outcome, but it’s far better than this.
Read 6 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
4 Nov
The thesis of the Sovereign Individual holds up well. But there are three major countertrends.

The Individual Sovereign, and Xi Jinping in particular.

The Sovereign Collective, the leverage of nomadic groups.

The Autonomous Robot, as drones also change the logic of violence.
The Individual Sovereign

Technology matters - but so do founders. A sufficiently motivated founder can change the direction of technology. And Xi Jinping has refounded the Chinese state as a formidable, centralized, militaristic surveillance machine.
reuters.com/investigates/s…
The Individual Sovereign is a problem for the Sovereign Individual. A single man at the helm of a total surveillance state is just a different thing than the US establishment. The latter may well *want* to crush free speech & free markets, but lacks the state capacity to do so.
Read 13 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
2 Nov
God, State, Network.
Theism, Statism, Numism.

Numism, or the study of coins, puts a third Leviathan at the center of it all. The most powerful force in the world is considered to be neither god, nor the US military, but encryption.
sotonye.substack.com/p/if-einstein-…
This is another cut on what @RichardHanania has observed.

There’s a pre-literate group focused on video, on the real world.

There’s a literate group focused on words, on an imagined world.

And then there’s a computer literate group focused on code, a constructed world.
You can cut these as past, present, and future respectively. People who pay at least lip service to God, people who worship the State, and people who focus on the Network.

Breaking out that third category may be key — as it’s global, and differs in key ways from the others.
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
2 Nov
Yes, the future of law is smart contracts.

This is obvious if you have ever negotiated an international deal, and compared it to the on-chain variety.
International corporate law is much fuzzier than we think.

If a company in Brazil tries to buy one in Bangladesh, just getting the list of obligations on both sides is nontrivial. The deal may go through a US or PRC intermediate, a hub that has relations with both sides.
That is, there may not be that many legal precedents for Brazil/Bangladesh acquisitions, but there will be some for Brazil/US & US/Bangladesh. Or perhaps Brazil/PRC & PRC/Bangladesh.

So you go through that hub. It’s the lowest risk strategy. Till ETH and smart contract chains…
Read 5 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
1 Nov
Why would someone start a limited conflict with a stronger power, then not make peace when offered? In a peacetime state they’d be vassals, but in a cold war state they can pretend to themselves they are equals.
This is the yapping dog problem, very common on social media.

The tell is the combination of (a) starting the fight, (b) engaging in histrionics over trivialities, and (c) refusing to make peace or engage rationally.

It actually stems from insecurity. The fight elevates them.
What the attacker characterizes as “punching up” is what the defender views as a yapping dog. Annoyance and bemusement on one side, resentment and envy on the other.

A yapping dog will start the fight & provoke, provoke, provoke…then when they get slapped, cry bloody murder.
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
29 Oct
FaceID scans hundreds of millions of faces per day. Can we articulate a difference between that vs Worldcoin, or any similar opt-in technology for proof-of-human?
If you run any service with more than a few trusted users, you'll immediately discover the need for some kind of proof-of-human. Not necessarily the state's old-fashioned and bureaucratic KYC impositions, but *something*. Otherwise you'll have bots, frauds, trolls, fakes, etc.
If you've ever taught a class, you have a point of view that a perpetual student alone does not.

Similarly, if you've ever built a service, you understand something a pure user does not.

One of those things is founder/user/community disalignment (1/2).
Read 6 tweets

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