139 - Letter from Hong Kong
🇭🇰 We are back in Hong Kong again. We travelled here during the week after a busy 10 days or so in Bangkok. We now have plenty to do here in Hong Kong. We will be here for a while and hope to catch up with everyone here again - so if you are in HK any time soon, reach out and let's meet or hike!
Despite all the travel, Hong Kong is still home for us and we love to be here, especially in October and November when the weather is perfect. It is good to be back and to see things recovering from the destruction meted out by the Covid Crimes and associated lunacy.
HK airport was pretty busy. We arrived at the farthest possible gate so we got to walk the whole airport! Crowds of people, just like it used to be. Our apartment is in Wan Chai, near the Blue House. This is a great location and we will be heading out to the Peak, the New Territories and the outlying islands like Cheung Chau, Peng Chau, Lamma and Lantau in the coming days and weeks.
Hong Kong has a great sub-tropical climate, fabulous scenery, superb public transport and some of the best and friendliest people that you will meet. With English as an official language it is welcoming and the bureaucracy is easier to deal with than many places. Among other things it is easy to delegate dealing with the machine to others on your behalf - this is one of the many service industries in Hong Kong. As to how useful and sustainable (in the original non-woke sense of the word) this is ought to give you pause for thought.
Bangkok, on the other hand, is very much upcoming and developing. Walk around the streets and you will see young people everywhere. The streets are packed with small businesses and entrepreneurs. Everybody is trying to do something useful and provide some useful service. The streets are full of people until after 10pm at night - plenty of atmosphere. Even now when it is still rainy season and with less tourists the trains are packed to (and beyond) capacity.
Hopefully the powers that be have the solution in hand - it ought to be easy - all they need to do is extend the trains. All of the MTR (and BTS) stations have the extra doors and space already in place. Hopefully the trains have been ordered in advance - did they? For now they have a partial solution; ghost trains that turn up completely empty closer than normal behind a few totally full trains. These help but they aren't a solution and the impact is limited. If things continue like this, when the tourists arrive you'll need to get around by motorbike taxi - that's about the only thing that will work!
This weekend I will be out hiking - if you are in HK on Saturday, join me on the hike. If you want to join me any morning hiking from Central to the Peak, just reach out to me. Wednesday evening 30th October we will be at Happy Valley Races - this is super great fun - they will be in Halloween-mood so come along and join us.
Books of the week
This week since we are still in transit and have had lots to do, I again wanted something light and easy to read. What better than to dip back into The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy. You likely have read it already. If not, and even if you have, this next clip is an excellent summary and recommended watching.
The book introduces the concept of the Restaurant at the end of the Universe - that became the second book in the series. I have reviewed this one too before and it is certainly recommended reading - especially this insight here:
Consider what we discussed above about Bangkok vs Hong Kong and indeed much of the Western world.
More in this issue
- Photo memories - a last collection from Bangkok for a while
- Project Updates - Bitcoin and likely evolution
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - Chad, Chris, Ian and Andrew share their stories
One last collection from Bangkok for a while
🛠️ Project Updates
With the travel this week I have only reading and thinking updates on the projects. Remember that these are all part of the Parallel and alternative systems that we need to build and use. What are you doing?
Insight from 2011
Thanks to one of my subscribers who brought this article to my attention. Written back in 2011 Gwen, the author, shows amazing insight, foresight and understanding eg:
- Worse is Better Paradigm: Bitcoin exemplifies the "Worse is Better" philosophy, where a less aesthetically pleasing and complex design can outperform theoretically superior alternatives by meeting practical needs effectively.
- Historical Context: The foundational technologies for Bitcoin existed for years before its launch, including cryptographic methods and decentralised network concepts, yet it took time for these ideas to converge into a workable digital currency.
- Initial Criticism: Early responses to Bitcoin were largely negative, focusing on its inefficiencies and perceived security flaws, which blinded critics to its potential for success.
- Decentralisation Trade-offs: Bitcoin's design sacrifices some theoretical ideals for decentralisation, resulting in a system that, while flawed, successfully creates a secure and decentralised digital currency.
Gwern Branwen
Click for the full article
- Economic Incentives: The Bitcoin ecosystem is structured to provide economic incentives for users and miners, promoting active participation and investment in its infrastructure.
- Future of Digital Currency: The discussions surrounding Bitcoin's design and its implications for future cryptocurrencies suggest that while Bitcoin may not be perfect, it has paved the way for new innovations and ideas in digital finance.
One other insight worth having is Lindy's Law that states: the future life expectancy ideas and technologies is directly proportional to their current age. In essence, the longer something has existed, the longer it is likely to continue existing. Bitcoin has the highest Lindy value of all digital money.
If you are fed up, do something useful about it
Look around and you will see the awakening of people who begin to recognise that so much of what they believed was untrue. You will see all the other signs of End of Empire times as we discussed John Glubb's paper of nearly 100 years ago, The Fate of Empires - a superb video explainer here byDave Cullen.
In these circumstances it's easy to get discouraged by the overwhelming realisation. Recall our discussion back in Newsletter #13 - Habit number One: How you react to a situation determines how you feel about it - be proactive.
BlissHodl-english
Click for the article - the choice is yours
Instead of reacting negatively, choose to react positively and you will begin to see things differently. Opportunities are everywhere for those who want to take them. Help others to do the same. Parallel and alternative systems.
For some more positive and forward-looking examples check out the Closing Thoughts below.
🔗 Links for your edification
The following are links from my NetNewswire feeds - learn, enjoy and share.
Me neither
I agree completely with Olly's assessment of the Amazon Colour Kindle and the other kindles that they have released seem equally nonsensical. My intuition tells me that they are trying to do two things: firstly to exploit their monopoly position to sell more over-priced readers and secondly to eliminate the older Kindles which do not support their more advanced (evil) DRM. They are clearly trying to prevent anyone from having DRM-free versions of anything on their platform.
I agree too that the Kobo Colour is better alternative at a much cheaper price. More importantly the Kobo devices are open - allowing you to read multiple different formats and they also welcome developers to support and extend their system. Parallel and alternative systems.
Google does evil
Henry explains the latest dastardly plan of the Empire to exert total control over everything you you online. Despite all the verbiage that Google oozes about "your safety and security" the prime motivation behind Manifest V3 and Google's decision to disallow V2 is clearly to allow them to exert addition restrictions and disable ad-blockers.
Thankfully we do have Brave browser and, like Henry, I absolutely recommend using Brave with uBlock Origin installed instead of Chrome. Once you have done this you will wonder how you ever lived without it. Mullvad browser is also a good alternative. Like Henry says, switch to these alternatives and help others to do so too. Parallel and alternative systems.
Google is but a cog in the machine
Big and evil as Google is you might be surprised that it is merely a cog in a much bigger machine. Guy hits all the nails in this explanation. The UN is the third unelected Supranational Governmental body. It was established after WW2. The previous two were The Concert of Europe 1815-1914 and the League of Nations 1920-1949 - each one of which ended with a World War. You may or may not be able to spot a trend.
Do watch and listen to the full explainer - you will find many insights. If you prefer to go to the definitive source documentation the UN has published their evil plan here (note that it is written in DoubleSpeak). Don't say that nobody told you!
You might wonder on what basis these "people" think they have any right, authority or mandate to make any declaration affecting current or future generations.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
This week I am closing out with some interesting people that I "met" over the last weeks. These are all people who, awake to the corruption and nonsense going on around them have taken steps to "exit the cave". Once out in real life, things look a lot different and there is no going back!
If you are intrigued by this and want to know more - click the image above for Howdie Mickoski's book and the first chapter that he will read to you. Are you Most People, a Truth Seeker or are you already outside in Real Life?
Chad's story
In this hard-hitting, straight talking walk-and-talk in the forest, Chad delves into the deceptive narratives that often cloud our paths to life and our personal development and growth.
Discover how to break free from these illusions and embrace the truth that can lead to real transformation. Chad suggests some powerful motivation techniques that empower you to take charge of your life.
If you are interested in more of his insights and thoughts, this next one is a good follow-up. And then this!
Chris - the UK doctor
Chris had been wanting to make this video for a while. He describes his experience working as a doctor for the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, his transition to working as a doctor in Australia and he is now happy taking a break from the insanity and building his own plans outside the system.
As he says: if this inspires just one person, one person to take the leap into pursuing something important and meaningful to them, it will have done its job. His follow-up video is well worth a watch too.
Meanwhile in Glasgow, Barcelona and Beijing
Ian is a very interesting character from Glasgow who is living and working in Beijing, China. He is working towards a life of time-freedom by being sensible with money aiming to be able to have the flexibility to work anywhere in the world. He has embarked on exploring personal development in service of that dream and shares is experiences.
His recent update from Glasgow was great and I loved his bus tour around the town. But see also his recent chats from Barcelona and Beijing.
What did you do on your 40th birthday?
Andrew recorded and shared this video. He does such a video on each of his birthdays. I do encourage you to listen to his latest introspection and retrospection. Such exercises are well worth doing yourself, even if you do not share them.
WDYT? Anything that you would do more or different as a result? Happy to discuss.
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No one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix
- The Architect
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