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Balaji Profile picture
Balaji
@balajis
Immutable money, infinite frontier, eternal life. #Bitcoin
Jeremy Pinnix ☧ Profile picture otaria123 Profile picture DA Profile picture Caught the #WokeMindVirus and ... I LIKE It! Profile picture Matthew Stotts (🌊,🌲) Profile picture 525 subscribed
Apr 8 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
REALITY PRECEDES PROSPERITY
I think we agree on one point and disagree on two points.

THE BUKELE ANTIBODIES
1) First, yes, force alone is not the recipe for an ailing country. Ultimately you need community. Latin America suffered from generations of drug dealing and money printing. So now they have developed antibodies in the form of crime prevention and Bitcoin adoption. And Bukele is the incarnation of those antibodies. But society basically has to be ready to turn around before a Bukele can appear. He can wield force against the 1.6% of criminals because he has much of the 98.4% of non-criminals on his side.

I saw this in India as well, after generations of socialism. And in Vietnam, after generations of communism. Those societies finally had the antibodies to fight off the mind viruses that had brought them low. Of course, many societies just succumb. Is Cambodia mounting a comeback anytime soon? Or North Korea, or Cuba? Not really.

This is also the problem in the US. Many in the US have yet to even acknowledge it's declining. Many Democrats are Stalinist Bidenists, whose monthly checks are dependent on mouthing the party line. And many Republicans have replaced G-o-d with G-o-v. They see the US military as a god replacement, in its stern father form, and can't bring themselves to admit the country ain't what it was. They're Soviet conservatives, patriotic to a fault, saluting the worst because they've captured the flag.

I don't think this is true for everyone — people like @realchrisrufo and @davereaboi know what time it is — but it's true for too many. If you still think, like Biden recently said, that his empire is still "the most powerful country in the history of the world" and that it just isn't trying or is like one election away from being fixed — you are wrong in a deep way.

The values that underpin the valuations have been broken. The current society is coasting on fumes. Fixing this is at least a generational rebuild. It's not something one vote will solve.

IT'S NOT RICH
2) We also disagree that the US is a rich country. It has a fake economy, built on debt, with exponentially increasing interest payments, that doesn't have much runway left, and doesn't have factories to fall back on when the money printing stops.

For example:

^ Why are interest payments suddenly spiking? Because the bill for QE is coming due. Either die by high inflation or high rates. Or both.

^ Why is the country issuing debt at emergency levels, without acknowledging it's an emergency? Because that's the only thing that can keep this fake economy afloat through the 2024 election.

^ Why is China the world's #1 trade partner on just about every physical good? Because the US only exports (a) printed money and (b) technology. Anyway, I could keep going, with literally dozens of graphs like this. But X only allows four per post.

IT'S NOT STABLE
3) On the topic of whether it's a country with a "turbulent history of...violence", the level of drug addiction, violent crime, homeless encampments, squatters, road blockages, and massive BLM/Hamas mobs swarming the streets has obviously spiked in recent years.

2020 didn't represent a one-off, it's a preview of what is to come, particularly in Blue America. Crime statistics are systematically faked — in San Francisco, you can actually see some dashboards where things like car ticketing have gone to zero — so we don't have an accurate picture.

Until you see undeniable things like stores closing and people moving out of blue states. And then blue politicians yell at those companies, and try to stop them from moving out. This is systematic: blues always disable the warning lights that tell you we're crashing into the ground, just like the mortgages labeled AAA in 2008, just as a mosquito anesthetizes you before drinking your blood, just as a snake evolves to employ camouflage before it strikes. Alongside lawfare, faking the stats is a core competency of both communist reds and woke blues.

TLDR: I think we just have very different mental models of the prosperity and stability of today's United States. Wokeness is hegemonic and the damage is deep. I wish it weren't so — but agreeing on reality precedes prosperity.

A few more citations follow 👇Image
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Image Here's how SF fakes its crime statistics. The law is not enforced so the crime is not reported.
Feb 17 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I just got back from Prospera.
A startup city on the island of Roatán.
It’s crypto, it’s bio, it’s robo.
And it’s not San Francisco. We’ve started new companies, new communities, and new currencies.

Now we’re starting new cities.
Jan 21 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
We now understand the 2010s.

It’s when legacy media fought a ferocious but ultimately doomed rearguard campaign against the Internet.

That’s why they pushed censorship so hard and constantly thumped their chest about being “journalists.”

It was protectionism.
They were dying.
Image Many journalists spent the better part of a decade attacking the Internet for a living.

You understand it better when you realize it was existential for them. They didn’t just lose money, they lost power.
Nov 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
1) Ban China
2) Be China
3) Beat China

These are the options. I get the logic, but banning signals technological and cultural weakness. Yet so does capitulation of the Newsom variety. The best way is to build something *better* than China, as Elon and others in tech have done.
Image Democrat concern about Russia is similar to Republican concern about China.

I get where it comes from. But the real answer is to build a more compelling product that can win on the global internet.

Otherwise you're giving up on soft power.
Nov 15, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Democrats cleaned up San Francisco for Communists. Newsom admits they removed the drug addicts for Xi.

“That's true because it's true.”
Nov 6, 2023 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Congress blew him kisses.
Journalists gave him applause.
Regulators promised to take no action.
So it was only Crypto Twitter that uncovered his deception.

Read the actual history of what happened with Sam Bankman-Fried, before it gets memory holed.
balajis.com/p/crypto-twitt… Meanwhile, Coindesk's Ian Allison was revealing[1] that SBF had no money, while Axios' Dan Primack was asking[2] whether SBF could cure world hunger.

[1]:
[2]:

archive.ph/y7YOi
archive.ph/nlYCj
Sep 27, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The Army War College thinks war with China could cause 3600 casualties per day. So, they're considering a draft. press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Image One decade's worth of casualties in one week.

"For context, the US sustained about 50k casualties in two decades of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In large-scale combat operations, the US could experience that same number of casualties in two weeks." press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Image
Sep 20, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The state is blue. Image The money is blue. Image
Aug 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
COPILOT FOR CORPORATIONS

How do you double the value of cloud storage? Add AI summarization of PDFs, thereby allowing businesses to replace millions in legal bills with thousands in SaaS fees. It’d be like Github Copilot, but for corporations.

As context, every founder and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Some follow up thoughts.

1) In addition to using AI to inexpensively *read* corporate PDFs, of course you also want to use it to cheaply *write* corporate PDFs.

Because if we go back to the analogy of a folder of corporate contracts as a database, right now every interaction… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Aug 3, 2023 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
1942: Build up Russia to fight Germany
1972: Build up China to fight Russia
2022: Build up India to fight China 1942: US funds Russians to fight Germans. ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-a…
Jul 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
HOW THE FED F’ED INSURANCE

It’s quite likely that many insurance companies are underwater. But if so, that’s the fault of the Fed, not Florida.

Why? Well, one of the insurance companies named below is American Coastal. And Weiss Ratings reports[0] they put 77% of their… https://t.co/zNxIiw0DEm https://t.co/99p9GNYqmRtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I recognize that the story above doesn’t fit into the DeSantis/Trump primary battle. It’s much bigger than that.

It’s not really a story of an irresponsible bank, or insurance company, or state government.

It’s a story of an irresponsible *central* bank, an irresponsible… https://t.co/QtHOcWjw6Ktwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Jul 1, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
These incredible headlines don't get enough attention.

The central bank of the fourth largest economy in the world may need a bailout because it bought bonds.

This isn't a tech crisis or even a banking crisis.
It's a bond crisis, a central bank crisis, a fiat crisis. Bank of America alone has $100B in unrealized losses.

Yet what you hear is: no big deal. After all, we knew about this months ago and in any case BofA is too big to fail. Worst case, another Credit Suisse! And we all know the money printer is infinite…
https://t.co/i8tjOshiMcarchive.is/Xv9jS
Jun 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
It's now a trend.

If you’re willing to spend a relatively small amount of money, you can open up discussion on an important topic. My views are probably closer to @AriDavidPaul's on this issue, *but* I do believe that truth should win in an open debate.
Jun 18, 2023 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
A few months ago, de-dollarization wasn't happening.
Now, it's happening, but not fast.
Next, it's happening, but not a big deal.
Finally, it was inevitable, and your fault for not hedging. What would happen if the petrodollar ended?
If major oil exporting countries shifted to the renminbi?
Foreign Affairs now agrees it might happen.
But it's not a big deal... Image
Jun 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
DC is losing control over its satellite states. First Macron declaring strategic autonomy, now Taiwan and South Korea pursuing their own interest. In Europe, the supermajority support for strategic autonomy actually comes in part from a more hawkish position on Russia (as some believe the US will eventually abandon Ukraine) and a more dovish position on China.
Jun 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Even Foreign Affairs now agrees that the unipolar moment is over. But we haven't worked through the implications yet.

One consequence is that DC no longer has a global veto over tech. And given how many red & purple states are defying it, it may not have a domestic veto either. Image In other words, I agree with @jswihart that DC *wants* to build a China-like surveillance state complete with CBDC and controls on "disinformation", for your own good of course.

But they're past their peak both globally and domestically.
lmc.icds.ee/lennart-meri-l…
Jun 12, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
TSMC evidently does not want to send all its technology abroad.

“…most of its valuable chips will still be produced on the island. This is despite intense pressure…” scmp.com/comment/opinio… Many on the island are arguing that it’s not really in Taiwan’s national interest to give up their crown jewels so that they can get crushed in a proxy war with China.

Hence pushback like this.
Jun 11, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
This isn’t a crazy idea.

India has shown the ability to ship national software projects.

An open source foundation model could be the next step for IndiaStack. Image If you aren’t familiar with IndiaStack, imagine if Stripe, PayPal, and Google Auth were all done by the public sector — and actually worked.
Jun 10, 2023 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Obviously, you can’t fight your factory. It’s not just about high tech but low tech. China can screw you by withholding screws.

“All of a sudden, Washington is reckoning with the fact that so many parts and pieces…are being manufactured…in China.” The US can’t become a manufacturing superpower again overnight by spending money inefficiently. It’s like working out — can’t get fit overnight. It took forty five years for China to become what it is.

Reality finally sinking in, perhaps. politico.com/news/magazine/… Image
Jun 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
We can now replace every woke teacher with an AI teacher that shares your values as a parent. This is the complement to school choice and homeschooling.

This is how we replace the teachers’ unions and schools of ed in one stroke.

We scale AI tutors to everyone who wants one.

First K-12, then college.

Finally, a teacher you can trust.
@DeAngelisCorey @realchrisrufo
Jun 3, 2023 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
TOO FAKE TO TELL?
In 2008, the banks were too big to fail.
In 2023, the stats are too fake to tell.

But here's why @DavidSacks may be onto something.

- They "beat" expectations 14 months in a row[1]
- They admit using statistical models to augment[2]
- They have a 600k… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image Here's the streak of better than expected non-farm payrolls. For a good prediction, you'd expect this to be above the number 50% of the time and below 50% of the time.

You wouldn't expect 14 heads in a row.