90 - Business in Hong Kong
🇭🇰 I had a few business transactions to complete here in HK this week along with all of the associated administration. As before, subcontracting the admin seemed to be the best strategy if you value your time and sanity. You have got to appreciate the local entrepreneurs who provide these services here in HK; that said (as we discussed last week in Anatomy of the State) you also realise that all of this is overhead and yet another tax, subtracting value from society. State coercion at work, misallocating resources onto non-value-added activities.
Apart from that I did again manage to get out and about in HK every day this week, visiting the Peak and outlying islands and we got to enjoy the superb November weather. V and I also managed another Peak Hike together with brunch at the Peak Lookout - and we got to explore West Kowloon and all the new museum construction (a LOT of concrete) and of course on Friday we had lunch at the windsurfing club.
We also did a trip over to Sham Shui Po to support the local economy. This is a great area to visit. It was historically known as the heart of Hong Kong's textiles manufacturing industry in the 1950s and 60s. Today it has the best market for all things electrical and electronic and there are all sorts of market stalls in the nearby streets. I was happy to support Elvis, one of many entrepreneurs, who did a great job repairing my cracked Pixel 5 screen - thanks! If you need your phone fixed he's the one!
This Saturday I have another great hike with the Eye Opener Hiking group and on Sunday I'm going with friends around Lamma Island. If you are in HK and want to meet up or go on a hike with me, just reach out!
Interview of the week
This week I have got to recommend this interview to you. Even if you do not agree with or trust Elon this interview is fascinating and I do feel it is a privilege to have access to discussions like this. Lex is also a somewhat controversial character but I think he does a pretty good job on this interview and some of the points (and Elon's answers) will make you think. Recall our discussions on Ethical Skepticism.
Click for the interview - highly recommended
I think they do cover all relevant bases in this discussion - even if you do not agree with all the conclusions. WDYT? Links to specific points below:
4:33 - Israel-Hamas war, 10:41 - Military-Industrial Complex, 14:58 - War in Ukraine, 19:41 - China, 33:57 - xAI Grok, 44:55 - Aliens, 52:55 - God, 55:22 - Diablo 4 and video games, 1:04:29 - Dystopian worlds: 1984 and Brave New World, 1:10:41 - AI and useful compute per watt and AI regulation, 1:30:36 - X algorithm, 1:41:57 - 2024 presidential elections, 1:54:55 - Politics and Trust,
2:03:29 - Tesla's Autopilot and Optimus robot, 2:12:28 - Hardships
More in this issue
- Photo memories - around HK this week
- Project Updates - Banks without Bankers and Better Search
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - From 2013: pretty clear for those who wish to see
Out and about in HK this week
🛠️ Project Updates
Recent weeks I have been mainly in study mode on the projects, taking a break from the hands-on things. It is good to take a break from time to time and to stand back and reflect - especially on the bigger picture and what we are building.
The bigger picture and where we are going
For the complete picture, this article is required reading. Listen as Guy reads it to you here and the PDF is here. This is a complete A-Z of the Bitcoin scaling technologies that are in development along with their strengths and weaknesses.
You will learn about Lightning, Fedi and Cashu along with Chaumian eCash and ARK; these are all items on my watch-list. You also get a full view of each of these technologies along with their complexities and challenges like Sovereign Coercion, Proof of Reserves, Settlement Finality and Capacity constraints - to mention just a few.
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The best explainer that you can read for the big (and complete) picture
Eric also covers how Money Markets and Capital Markets will form with incentives that are skewed in a much more ethical and honest direction than what we have with traditional finance today.
So much Signal here
Listen as Jeff Booth explains how the masses are being gaslit into demanding more of the same corruption that has got the world to the mess that is evident all around you today. Also, think back to Dinner with André back in Issue 85.
35:15 - Theft & Financial Repression Is Coming (b/c People Will Ask For it), 41:30 - How We Got Here (The Financial System), 48:50 - The Combination Of Money Printing and AI, 1:06:35 - Luke’s Perspective on The Current Macro Situation, 1:17:20 - ‘Revaluation’ of Gold (as more ‘Financial Repression’), 1:25:25 - The ‘Event Horizon’ for Bitcoin, 1:45:00 - Bitcoin ETF Good or Bad?
Allen is seeking your input
Allen Farrington is preparing another article and he is seeking input via Nostr (what else!). Click to read and participate in the discussion.
Click to read and contribute your ideas and input
This is a follow-up to his previous superb article that we covered back in Issue 37 - "Only the Strong Survive" - check it out in case you have forgotten!
Hands on - better and more private internet search
This week I really got fed up with the relatively poor answers that were coming back in internet search results. I have long abandoned Google search for precisely this reason but lately even the alternative (free) search engines are getting pretty spammy. Imagine my joy when I (re)discovered kagi.com
Click to access a much better search engine
I had found kagi originally because of its intriguing Universal Summariser that will summarise any webpage, article or even entire books. After the early days it went paid and the other search engines were good enough so I forgot about it. This week I rediscovered it and how great is that!
For the last week I have been using kagi as my search engine and it is fantastic! I have got to recommend the results - they really are high quality. AND the monthly fee (that can be paid in bitcoin) gives access to their FastGPT (a capable alternative to ChatGPT) as well as the Universal Summariser. You can also make the searching pretty anonymous by registering with a disposable email address - recall that we have discussed doing this with SimpleLogin and there are other good solutions too. Lastly they do have a specific focus on Privacy and gather no logs and do not associate any searches with your account.
- Kagi is a little different from other search engines. Get familiar with their unique features with this Quick Start.
- Your Kagi subscription also includes unlimited access to AI tools like FastGPT and Universal Summarizer.
As an example you can read the summary of last week's newsletter here. To top it off and confirm my good choice, one of my subscribers also told me this week that this had become his favourite search engine for precisely the same reasons!
So - what do you think? Give it a try - they have a free trial that gives you 300 searches (as well as access to the other features) - this should be enough to make up your mind.
Meetup.com alternative
Lastly for this week, another Nostr Application. This demonstrates a couple of Nostr's magic sauces: Firstly your existing keypair works for this and all other applications - there is NO NEED to create an account - you already have what you need; Secondly for paid access and subscriptions these are all done using Lightning. Here again it just works and you are unbothered by all the obstacles of traditional finance.
Flockstr.com - Try it yourself
Meetup.com has long been the "least worst" option for event organising. It lost its way when it was bought by WeWork (no joke) in 2017. It never recovered from this and was eventually sold to Alleycorp in 2020 after the failed WeWork IPO. Alleycorp has done nothing useful with it - the best that could be said is that it seems to be surviving on life support only.
🔗 Links for your edification
The following are links from my NetNewswire feeds - learn, enjoy and share.
Thought for the day
I certainly admire Richard's persistence to remain positive and constructive. He has plenty of worthwhile suggestions in this latest monologue.
..and this rather important follow-up - the letter is here for you to download and send
Meanwhile in Singapore (and coming to you soon)
Thanks to Neil for spotting and reporting on this one that the media will miss and/or misrepresent. See also the links below.
- 06:44 - The Human Right Foundation Is On Our Side
- 10:26 - People Want Cash But They Won't Show You That
- 11:55 - Private Companies CONTROL The Money
You do not need to take his word for it - you can go directly to the IMF website and read the document yourself. Recall that IMF is a privately owned company, for profit. They are have diplomatic immunity and are immune to prosecution - one of several institutions that have this status (as we have discussed before). Can you see it yet?
The view from Asia
Considering all that is going on in the world these days - You might want to listen to something outside your echo chamber. Listen as Nury explains:
The following is an excerpt from the Department of Defense release of the February 18, 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance that was leaked to The New York Times. Below you can see the excerpts that the Times published on March 8, 1992 overlaid on the excised portions of the Pentagon release.
This all leads on from what what we discussed in last week's Closing Thoughts.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
For this week's closing thoughts I give credit to Dr Joseph Mercola. The real agenda of the central bankers is a simple one. It’s to rob people of their wealth and enslave them to this predatory system by creating a false sense of obligation.
"That obligation is false because the private central banking system, by design, creates more debt than money with which to pay the debt. There is no way out, the way it’s set up. It’s impossible to escape as long as you’re playing by their rules. And you need to understand, private central banking is not science. It is a religion.
It’s a set of arbitrary rules created to benefit the priesthood, meaning the bankers, and is supported only because people believe this is the way it’s supposed to be. The fraud persists with often lethal results only because the people are brainwashed into believing that this is the way life is supposed to be and no alternative exists or should even be dreamt of.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Click for the full article and explainer
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars
The common enemy of all human-kind is Private Central Banks issuing the public money as a loan at interest - they will do anything (including global wars) to keep their lock on yours and your children's wellbeing. It is past time to reject this.
Click to watch the documentary - in just 45 minutes
We have talked quite a few times about usury and how the world religions were initially aware of the danger of loans at interest but they have all been corrupted and they too now embrace it. Christianity was corrupted by the Knights Templar who bribed the Pope to allow "renting of money"; Islam in theory rejects usury with Islamic Finance but in practice this is hand-waved away with Theological experts who now justify participation in the worldwide corruption.
Bitcoin fixes this as we have also discussed in Saifedean's recent podcasts and he has direct, first hand experience - as he explained in his interview with Lex - he is Palestinian and grew up on the West Bank. Do listen to this.
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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
You have to see it for yourself.
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