“The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred.” -Murray Rothbard in “The Anatomy of the State”

This butcherism is ultra high time preference.

Time preference - Mises Wiki, the global repository of classical-liberal thought

Fiaters gonna fiat

The Verge

Can Bitcoin mining really support renewable energy?

It might look good on paper, but reality is more complicated.

*6 years *1 million copies sold *Unknown number of downloads on Library Genesis *And a priceless contribution to the Bitcoin revolution and (Real) Austrian Economic. Congratulations, @Saifedean Ammous

Based @npub15vzu...k4um

“Sadly, the proven secular religion of climate catastrophism, treats Africa much like Europe did in the nineteenth century. It sends in its climate missionaries to dominate policy, so denying Africans the benefit of major development based upon fossil fuel energy.” -Andy West

Also from the same book: “Fiat society thinks it can decree new laws for thermodynamics and override engineering reality by government fiat. The eternal adolescents of fiat want to live in modern homes, easily survive winters, travel faster than walking, use modern electronic devices and medical equipment, and have electricity on demand, but they don’t want to use the substance that makes all of these possible. Any person with a familiarity with the engineering realities of modern life will realize that the policies and demands of fiat people when it comes to energy are as reasonable as the child who wants to go to Disneyland but throws tantrums refusing to get into the car taking him to Disneyland because he doesn’t want to get into the car; he just wants to get into Disneyland. It is difficult to communicate to a child in a tantrum that the car is his only realistic option for getting to Disneyland and that the only possible alternative is walking for days and not some magical teleportation device. This is exactly the plight of trying to explain to fiat people that hydrocarbons are the only reason most of our modern life is possible, that working alternatives cannot be conjured by fiat, and that the only realistic alternative is grinding poverty and a precarious existence, not some absurd Star Trek world where all that we want materializes with the flick of a switch without any combustion taking place. Just like the child who wants to be teleported to Disneyland should present their teleportation device before throwing a tantrum, it is time for fiat fuel enthusiasts to first show the rest of us how they can survive on fiat fuels before demanding we give up the hydrocarbons that are essential for our survival.” View quoted note →

Utteely stupid comic in the propaganda rag The Guardian. At least it’s an opportunity to quote a great passage from @Saifedean Ammous ‘s book The Fiat Standard. “The answer is that in its raw form, solar power is cheaper than hydrocarbons, but in its raw form, solar power can only satisfy the human needs for skin exposure to sunlight and for growing plants. Solar energy in its raw form cannot satisfy the majority of our modern energy needs, since humans do not need large quantities of energy in the aggregate; we require high amounts of energy at the margin, in large quantities over short periods of time in order to produce power (defined as unit of energy per unit of time). High power is the driving force of modern technologies that makes modern construction, industry, transportation, electronics, and many more modern accomplishments possible. One cannot use the rays of sunlight directly to move a car or power a factory, and their absolute quantities are irrelevant. Whereas solar energy is plentiful, being able to concentrate it into high power is a very complex operation that requires significant investment in capital infrastructure through solar panels and batteries. As a form of energy in the abstract, solar is infinitely cheap.”

😍 View quoted note →

“Even today the US, not technically an empire and forever trying to distance itself from anything imperial, nevertheless controls much of the globe and its prime resource, oil, with its military. It also exports its culture in such a domineering way that everyone else confuses their own history with that of the US. Like its military, American cultural narratives dominate the world, and distort everybody else’s. You would think, for example, that there had never been any slavery in history, except for that in America, in the 200 years from when the nation was formed to its outlawing in 1865, never mind that the British outlawed it 2 generations earlier. In fact, slavery has existed since before civilization began and still goes on today, with some 21 to 45 million trapped in it. In just seven years between 1938 and 1945, Germany enslaved a number equivalent to 400 years of Transatlantic Slave Trade. Include Japan and the number is double. American cultural narratives dominate” -Dominic Frisby

We are conquering ourselves

Cultural suicide, self-inflicted conquest and how the west is destroying itself. Your Sunday morning thought piece.