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Balaji Profile picture
@balajis
Feb 26, 2022 • 14 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
Start with four camps.

1) The US is not in decline

2) The US is in decline, but it can be reversed

3) The US is in decline, and it can’t be reversed

4) The US is in decline, and it can’t be reversed, but we can blunt the impact and build a new liberal order on the other side
Camp 1 are those who dispute the US is in decline.

Many people are in denial. Some get mad if you point at qualitative and quantitative evidence.

But only the paranoid survive. Denial of decline means you cannot even diagnose the cause, let alone take measures to reverse it. Image
Camp 2 believes the US has declined, but it can be reversed.

While they have *very* different visions of what that reversal means, both centrist liberals like my friend @Noahpinion and MAGA types want to see America “awake from its slumber” and start kicking butt again. Image
Camp 3 are those who believe the US is in decline, it can’t be reversed, and that this is actually good.

This includes people on the anti-imperialist left, on the paleocon right, and many foreign powers — not just traditional rivals, but others that don’t like US intervention. Image
Camp 4 is where I am. I think the US was on balance a force for good till recently. I don’t think decline is reversible — it’s barely acknowledged. But I also think we’ll miss it when it’s gone.

So: how to defend liberal values when the US isn’t globocop?
foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bit…
The US has now played the role of global policeman for decades. It’s had a mixed record. And the American public has grown justifiably tired of the expense in blood and treasure. Image
Perhaps sensing this, just months after the Afghanistan defeat, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Leading to many cynical memes from Ukrainians like one below. Of course, we must avoid direct US/RU conflict as it could lead to nuclear escalation.

But decline meant deterrence failed. Image
Mearsheimer correctly predicted this years ago.

The US encouraged Ukraine to take a more aggressive stance than it would have otherwise. But the commitment was insufficient to deter.

In part because decline has meant decline in foreign policy realism.
If we are realists, we see that in Hong Kong, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine the US — understandably — is no longer ready to pay any price, bear any burden.

There are limits. You can’t rely on them for deterrence. Other countries are realizing this, and arming up accordingly.
Separately but relatedly there is the question of what kind of order the US can even deliver.

The US way of life was once the best. But globalization closed the gap. Others rose. And after years of political chaos, US soft power eroded. Others now think they have a better model.
Putting it together, the US is in decline. It lacks the will — and manufacturing base — to be the “arsenal of democracy”.

As it withdraws from physical intervention, some countries may grow aggressive. Others may arm up in response. Won’t be fun! But there is a *little* hope…
Many of the ideals the US once imperfectly defended with munitions — free speech, free trade, rule-of-law — we can now imperfectly defend with encryption.

It isn’t everything. And much depends on whether a free internet exists. But it’s a life raft.
bariweiss.substack.com/p/is-bitcoin-a… Image
The four camps are denial, reversal, acceleration and crypto-civilization.
Btw, for the sake of completeness there is a fifth possibility: the US has already transformed into a digital power that is now financially nuking Russia.

The physical in this view is actually just downstream, and we have been weighting it too heavily. We’ll see if this works.

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More from @balajis

Balaji Profile picture
Nov 22
Gautam Adani is an Indian magnate.
He’s built ports, roads — everything.
One of the most prominent men in India.
Now comes the Democrat DOJ.
Indicting an Indian doing business in India.
For some ostensible violation of US law!
Why? Adani is perceived as center right.
And Democrats are now far left.
So it’s just lawfare across borders.
Like their attacks on Elon.
And on Israel’s right.
And on European conservatives.
But…I doubt the Trump admin continues it.
Adani is to Indian ports what Elon is to American space. That’s why Indian leftists hate him.

But the left is too weak locally to attack him, so they whistled for backup to US Democrats.

After the Trump admin takes office, let’s see whether this case is still around in a year. Image
It’s even more than that.
Democrat-run districts are corrupt.
As are the Bidens themselves.
Remember 10% for the big guy?
Or the $100B California train to nowhere?
Whereas Adani has actually built.
Just like PM Modi has built up India.
This is why the far left attacks them. Image
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Profile picture
Nov 12
What comes after wokeness?
Democrats align with Communists.
Newsom shows the way.
He’s lost DC, but has Xi.
So: TikTok becomes the Democrat X.
And California defies Trump tariffs.
It’s unfortunately the obvious move.
And already underway. Image
You might know that Xi visited Newsom in SF last year.

You might not know that Newsom visited Xi before. And promised to be China’s “long-term, stable, and strong partner.”
balajis.com/p/only-newsom-…Image
Blue states like Illinois may follow Newsom in defying any tariffs. They want to keep prices down and stay in China’s good graces.

Frankly, it’s extremely difficult to do business without Chinese parts. So they’ll be making the same argument Raytheon is.

theillinoize.com/articles/pritz…Image
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Profile picture
Aug 25
FRANCE IS FOR CRIME, AGAINST FREEDOM

François asks a good question. My answer is: France doesn't care about crime, they care about control.

1) First, Macron hasn't wiped out crime among 70M Frenchmen with all the power of the French State. So it's completely unreasonable to expect Durov to wipe out crime among 1B+ Telegram users with his minimal power of content moderation.

2) Second, the deeper point is that the French state is deeply uninterested in public safety! They allow violent crime, fundamentalist terrorism, and drug dealing to run rampant in France. Just compare Paris to what it was a few generations ago.

3) Third, is Macron held personally responsible for every beheading, rape, and robbery that occurs on French soil? Is he jailed when traveling for violating the human rights of French citizens by not "moderating" his community hard enough? No, he is not. Even though the tools of the French state are vastly greater than those of Telegram, over a vastly smaller userbase. Again: Macron has ~70M citizens to deal with, while Telegram has almost 1B users.

4) Finally, we already know what a real anti-crime policy looks like. It looks like @nayibbukele. And President Bukele is for encryption, and has invited programmers to build on El Salvadoran soil — an offer they'd be well-advised to take up.

5) So: France is an anarcho-tyrannical regime. It doesn't need sophisticated surveillance to stop drug dealing — because it's all happening in public! They know exactly where the criminals are, and the victims too. They are literally setting up spaces for them to do drugs till they die.

I mean, does France need to imprison the CEO of Telegram to stop this?Image
France has fallen to fascism (again).
Build in a country like El Salvador.
Where crime is low.
And coding isn't a crime.
@EmmanuelMacron wanted founders to build in France.
But why would you build in France?
Why would you even visit France?
Build an app, go to jail.
What a failure for the country of Voltaire.

Image
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Profile picture
Aug 16
THE NETWORK SCHOOL

We got an island.

That’s right. Through the power of Bitcoin, we now have a beautiful island near Singapore where we’re building the Network School. We’re starting with a 90-day popup that runs from Sep 23 to Dec 23, right after the Network State Conference. Rent is only $1000/month with roommates or $2000/month solo. And we have plenty of day passes for visitors.

So, go apply online at ns dot com! Then read more below.

THE DARK TALENT
As motivation, I’ve always wanted to expand equality of opportunity around the world. Because my father was born in a desperately poor country, but with the right opportunity he was able to make something of himself. Like dark matter, he was dark talent. And for more than a decade I’ve been thinking about how to give others who are similarly situated the chance to make something of themselves. That is: I’ve been thinking about how to empower the dark talent of the world.

US universities used to fill this role, even imperfectly, and I loved Stanford when I taught there years ago. But the data shows they’ve declined in recent days. And they’re just not affordable or accessible to most of the world. So, it’s time for a new approach. And thanks to Saraswati and Satoshi, I have the resources to endow a new Internet-first institution: the Network School.

The purpose of the Network School is to articulate a vision of peace, trade, internationalism, and technology…even as the rest of the world talks about war, trade war, nationalism, and statism. To revitalize democracy for the internet era, with digital polities and verifiable votes. To train the next generation to be not just leaders of companies, but inspirations for their communities. And to pursue truth, health, and wealth by leveling up our attendees personally, physically, and professionally.

Let me now describe in more detail how the Network School works, who it’s for, and how to apply.

HOW THE NETWORK SCHOOL WORKS
The Network School is for people of all ages, not just the youth. And it’s meant to be lifelong rather than one-off, with both a structured and and an unstructured component. The structured part is about continuous daily self-improvement: learning skills, burning calories, and earning currency. Meanwhile, the unstructured part is about having fun and hanging out with people of similar values.

For short: learn, burn, earn, and fun.

Learn
The first part of the Network School is about learning technologies and humanities.

As motivation, the existing model of US undergraduate education is broken. You pay $100k+ for a four year degree, and then budget nothing for maintenance over the course of your life. It’s like paying $100k+ for a new car and budgeting nothing for maintenance.

By contrast, the Network School is about continuous education. It’s for remote workers, engineers, creators and digital nomads who want to integrate learning into their lives, rather than stopping everything to be a full-time student.

Here’s how that works. We set up mini-classrooms where you can drop in to see the problem of the day.5 You solve that problem and a proctor awards you a cryptocredential, a free non-transferable NFT sent to your crypto wallet that establishes “proof-of-learn.” Often your solution will involve putting code on GitHub/Replit (to show you understand a concept), or posting content to your social media profile (to show you understand a new AI tool). And over time, these cryptocredentials actually build up a cryptoresume proving what you know.

Our initial material focuses on founding tech communities, as distinct from tech companies. As such it touches on everything from crypto, AI, and social media to history, politics, and filmmaking. It should be useful even if you’re just growing a traditional company or building a following. Over time, of course, every branch of the sciences and humanities becomes relevant when building a community. So if this initial experiment works, we can expand branch-by-branch to build a new kind of university.

But we’re intentionally starting with something simple. Our learning is about continuous education, about solving the problem-of-the-day.

Burn
The second part of the Network School is about burning calories.

Longevity is important, but 20th century communities just aren’t physically set up to maximize physical fitness. Quite the contrary: the default mode of Western society is sedentary and sugary. Those who want to escape this need to roll their own nutrition and workout program, which takes time, money, and energy.

We’re changing that. I’ve teamed up with my friend @bryan_johnson to set up Blueprint-inspired food and fitness for the entire Network School community. Bryan will be on campus to set up the program, and then his designates will maintain it on a daily basis. Like many of you, I’ve been both fit and fat at various times, so this is a product I want to use myself.

Every member of the Network School gets a daily workout slot with a semi-personal trainer, much like a group fitness class. You run and lift in the morning at your chosen time, getting a proof-of-workout from your trainer. Your group holds you accountable for showing up. Then you get a box with your Blueprint-optimized healthy meals and head to work. The whole point is to provide willpower-as-a-service, where the community6 provides the discipline.

We’re starting with the basics of running, lifting, eating, and sleeping properly. The initial goal is to hit the limits of your genetics. But if all goes well, the biotech founders that come to the Network School will eventually help us all surpass our genetic limits, to live much longer than we otherwise would.

But again, we’re starting small! And so the “burning calories” part is about lifelong health and the workout-of-the-day.

Earn
The third part of the Network School is about earning currency.

We’ll have crypto prizes of the day for open source projects, AI content creation, and microtasks. There will be $1000 bounties every day for the duration of the program, similar to the various prizes I’ve posted on Twitter and Farcaster. And community members will post their own prizes.

Next, in keeping with the overall theme of self-improvement, we’ll have office hours to help with your job, your career, your visa status, and your funding. We’re much more invested in you than a typical college career center because our interests are aligned: the more you earn, and the stronger you are financially, the more you’ll eventually have to reinvest in the community.

Finally, we’ll have visitor hours with famous visiting technologists. As my friend Sriram noticed, when investors come through Singapore I typically do a podcast with them. Many will also visit the Network School to meet attendees, invest in them, or hire them. Others will give remote talks. And you can see the quality of visitors from the speakers in our conference and podcast.

So, earning is about constant career development and the prize-of-the-day.

Fun
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, of course. So the fourth part of the Network School is about fun.

This is the unstructured component. It’s most of what you’re here for. It’s just about assembling great people in one place: positive-sum people who believe in technological progress, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s your internet friends, coming from URL to IRL. Stanford introduced the concept of residential education, but this takes it to the next level.

In fact, our initial location is very similar to Stanford. It’s beautiful and sunny, and less than an hour from a major city (Singapore) with an international airport (Changi). That means you can be heads down during the week, head into the city on the weekends for fun, and get to just about anywhere in Asia within the same day. This is convenient for the >50% of the world that lives within the Valeriepieris circle.

We’ll do some group outings too, but most of the fun will be up to you.

WHO THE NETWORK SCHOOL IS FOR
Who is the Network School for? There are four lenses on this: demographical, ideological, professional, and personal.

Demographically
As mentioned, our focus is the dark talent. The more respect you have for legacy institutions, and the more respect they have for you, the less suitable you’ll be as an applicant.

So: the Network School is for Indian engineers and African founders, for makers from the Midwest and the Middle East, for Chinese liberals and Latin American libertarians, for Southeast Asia’s rising technologists and Europe’s remaining capitalists.

It’s for everyone who doesn’t feel part of the establishment. But it’s definitely not only for tech, because a community does not run on tech alone.

Ideologically
Ideologically, the Network School is for people who admire Western values, but who also recognize that Asia is in ascendance, and that the next world order is more properly centered around the Internet — around neutral code — than around either declining Western institutions or a rising Chinese state.

For example, the Network School is for those who understand that Bitcoin succeeds the Federal Reserve, that encryption is the only true protection against unreasonable search and seizure, that AI can deliver better opinions than any Delaware magistrate, and that democracy can be rejuvenated with cryptography. It is for those who believe in technology, harmony, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s for those who want Silicon Valley without San Francisco. And for those who want to found, fund, and find not just new companies and currencies — but new cities and new communities.

Professionally
Our ideal applicant is capable of remote work, or has enough savings to support themselves while at the Network School. For our initial cohort, we’re seeking three major groups of people in particular:

- Writers, artists, influencers, and filmmakers
- Trainers, athletes, coaches, and clinicians
- Founders, engineers, designers, and investors

These are, roughly, the demographics focused on learning, burning, and earning respectively. Of course, if you fall outside those categories but still think you have something to contribute, you should still apply to the Network School.

Personally
I should mention that the Network School is a “product” that I built for the young version of myself — the aspiring young engineer. This is the community I want to live in: a technocapitalist college town, a Stanford 2.0 that’s globally affordable and genuinely meritocratic.

So, I’ll be on campus full time. Bryan Johnson and I are supervising the setup of everything from bench press to French press. And we’ll eventually be recruiting faculty in the form of content creators, fitness influencers, and angel investors for the learn, burn, and earn portions of our program respectively. But all that in due time.

APPLYING TO THE NETWORK SCHOOL
Ok, so how do you apply to the Network School?

Just go to ns dot com and click "apply." We’ve set up a simple Luma page where you can apply in a few minutes. Then, if you pass review, we’ll send a second application where you pay rent. As mentioned, our monthly rent is $1000 (with roommates) and $2000 (solo). We also have daily and weekly rates too, but short-term visitors still need to apply.

The rent gets you an air-conditioned room on a beautiful island, with internet, gym, and access to all courses and community services. You’ll still need to handle your flights and pay for your food, but we think the overall package is extremely affordable. And so the Network School could be an amazing option for individuals or small teams looking to save money, get fit, and level up while living in paradise.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Just fill out the application at ns dot com, also linked in the tweet below.Image
Go apply to the Network School at ! ns.com/apply
Image
Oh, and here's the full announcement with all links and footnotes: balajis.com/p/network-scho…
Image
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Profile picture
Jul 12
Indians will never be fighting for Taiwan because *Americans* will never be fighting for Taiwan.

Reason: the US military is made in China.
Image
Men like Garcetti are fooling themselves about the capability of their military just like they did about the senility of their presidency.

In reality, the US Navy is losing to the *Houthis*, who are China’s proxy’s proxy. They cannot beat China in a conventional conflict. Image
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS FIGHT CHINA

Suppose you were an Indian immigrant and had a drunk American friend that you loved dearly. He’s prone to getting into pointless scraps that cost him blood and treasure, but really does have a heart of gold.

Being an ally means *dissuading* your bellicose buddy from getting into a fight with a ruthless Chinese martial artist that’s been quietly training for decades.

It doesn’t mean egging him on, and it sure doesn’t mean getting killed with him. If the martial artist comes at the two of you first, yes, nothing for it but to defend yourself — and fight hard if need be — but you sure wouldn’t want to *start* a confrontation with someone much stronger than you.

Because China’s physical strength is now beyond belief.

Just look at the graphs: they are #1 in trade, #1 in steel, #1 in rail, and #1 in ships. Then hear from the sitting US Secretary of the Navy in the QT below: one Chinese shipyard has more shipbuilding capacity than the entire US Navy combined!

I haven’t even gotten to the cities, cars (BYD), drones (DJI), and planes (COMAC). Or the mining, logistics, and energy production. On every physical axis China is just up and to the right.

So it is a complete delusion to think the US military is competitive with China in the Taiwan Strait. Because in any conventional war, the country who can crank out the materiel wins. That country is China, easily.

You can’t fight your factory.

And no, the US can’t just click its fingers and return to its World War II shape with some Rocky-style montage! America has spent 45 years deindustrializing while China has spent 45 years industrializing.

That will take literally decades to reverse (if it’s even possible). For the time being, the physical world, including the US military, is made in China.

The point is to recognize China for what it is. It’s just the physically strongest country in the world by far. It hasn’t flexed its muscles yet, but wartime follows peacetime — *they* are now the ones with a huge physical plant that they can convert to wartime production, not America.

I love them dearly, but many Americans are simply irrational on this issue. Just like Biden is irrational about his decline. But when Garcetti is spouting insanity, India can’t afford irrationality.

So, no: India will not fight in Taiwan because America will not fight in Taiwan.

Now, of course, India should work with the US on matters of shared interest to defend itself from Chinese aggression if necessary. Make itself a hard target, and become a porcupine. But most of the collaboration should be focused on peace and trade, not pointless war.

And for god’s sakes — don’t start a bar brawl with Bruce Lee. Friends don’t let friends fight China.Image
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Read 5 tweets
Balaji Profile picture
Jun 28
CHEVRON DOMINANCE

Technology is about to accelerate.
Because Chevron deference is over.
And regulators can't just make up laws anymore.
So, countless new startups just became feasible.
This is often spoken about in the abstract, so let's do three examples and two visuals.

THREE EXAMPLES

1) Genomics. Did Congress explicitly give FDA authority to regulate genetic tests in a bill like Kefauver-Harris (1962) or PDUFA (1992)? No, it did not. But in the early 2010s, FDA attacked 23andMe and forced them to take personal genomic tests offline. Implicitly, this was under Chevron.

2) Nuclear power. Did Congress explicitly give EPA and NRC the authority to implement ALARA? No, it did not. But these agencies came up with this "as low as reasonably achievable" standard, forcing nuclear energy to become as expensive as other energy sources by spending all the cost-savings on "safety." Implicitly, this was under Chevron too.

3) Cryptocurrency. You guessed it. Did Congress explicitly give the SEC authority to regulate crypto? No, it did not. Cryptocurrencies didn't exist when the 1933 and 1934 acts were written. However, the SEC says it has regulatory authority over crypto, even when Congress is deliberating on bills to the contrary. Implicitly, that claim of SEC authority too was under Chevron.

In other words: if a regulator can't point to the law that gives them the power, they may not have the power. And you might be able to win in a court of law.

So! For technology, the overruling of Chevron could literally reopen innovation in the physical world. This is on par with the 1991 opening of the Internet to commercial traffic. It deprecates the 20th century regulatory state. All the safety theater and security theater that they optimize for sounding good while actually being bad now has to face judicial scrutiny.

TWO VISUALS
How to visualize something as abstract as Chevron reversal? Well, Chevron is the company on which the 1984 Chevron deference case is actually based. And its logo had the arrows pointed down. But now that Chevron has been reversed, we're headed up.

And that's one way to visualize what reversal means: from Chevron deference to Chevron dominance. Because rule-of-law now dominates the lawless regulatory state. If the regulator isn't specifically authorized by statute, they can't invent some regulation to stop your innovation.

But there's a second way to visualize the reversal of Chevron: regulators just got disarmed, in the most literal sense. Because ultimately a regulation is a threat of state force. If you disobey one of a regulator's made up rules, they eventually get a cop to point a gun at you, implicitly or sometimes very explicitly.

^ The photo above is from the 2010 FDA raid on Rawesome Foods for selling raw milk to club members that consciously opted in to eating and drinking foods of their own choice. This may have also been done under Chevron deference because FDA only has the right to regulate interstate commerce, and not commerce within one state (which is all that Rawesome was apparently doing at that time).

To be clear, I don't have a position on raw milk other than I do think people should be able to choose their own foods. In their lawsuit against the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund, FDA strongly disagreed, contending that "there is no generalized right to bodily and physical health" and you "do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” These are real quotes from the now-defanged regulators; see the PDF link below.

Anyway — now you get a sense of how big a deal the Chevron reversal is, and how out of control regulators can get. The Chevron reversal strips regulators of the ability to make up random rules. It calls all their existing made-up rules into question. And it gives you the power to ask where in the law it says they can make up some new rule.

You know that saying — the only way they can stop you is to shoot you? Well, now they can't shoot you as easily. So we're going from Chevron deference to Chevron dominance.

I can already feel the T-levels across tech increasing.Image
Image
Many people encountered insane regulators during COVID. I regret to tell you they've been insane for some time.

As mentioned, here's the FDA's official legal opinion[1] in the 2010 case with FTC LDF[2]. They explicitly contend that "There is No Right to Consume or Feed Children Any Particular Food" and "There is No Generalized Right to Bodily and Physical Health" and "There is No Fundamental Right to Freedom of Contract."

They aren't kidding, it's not quoted out of context. Chevron reversal defangs these guys. Very big day.

[1]:
[2]: farmtoconsumer.org/blog/2010/05/0…
farmtoconsumer.org/litigation/ey1…Image
If you want dozens of examples of how regulation holds back innovation, I compiled a list more than 10 years ago for a talk.

Here it is. Almost everything in here could now be revisited.
github.com/ladamalina/cou…
Image
Read 4 tweets

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