Give away your money and build a new company if that's the purpose you need to fulfill in life.
Being altruistic can be immensely rewarding.
You have tremendous privilege. Go help some people with that money.
Don't just think of yourself.
Try taking up meditation. Balance your mind. Try to stop your thoughts.
You are super lucky.
Also, consider your death. No matter how much money you have, you can't take any of it with you. One day you're going to die. It's all going away. Enjoy what you have now and ideally help some others. That will bring you purpose.
> It's been the same with crypto, for that matter. None of the reasonable people I know ever saw any grand value in crypto. Researching myself, it always just seemed to be a bullshit fractal.
I consider myself to be a pretty reasonable person and I think the value in something like Bitcoin is as a backup or alternative to the traditional system. Similar to how someone would invest in gold. Except Bitcoin is much easier to transfer, requires much less space to store, etc., vs gold. I think 95% of crypto is bullshit though, and there are a lot of scams.
If you look at recent bank collapses, high inflation, etc., I think a reasonable person might question how long modern monetary theory can go on like this. I'm not a gloom and doom person. I still hold fiat, haven't given up on banks, still invest in US treasuries, stocks, etc. But I think holding some in crypto and gold, etc., also makes sense.
I think this only holds if enough other people believe in gold or crypto as a backup system.
If I had some extra zucchini and potatoes, and you were running very low on food, it would take quite a bit to convince me that a piece of shiny metal or numbers in a distributed ledger would be worth the calories I'm surrendering.
Right now, dollars would be worth it, because nearly everyone believes in their utility, despite being a very similar faith-based currency.
> If the current financial system stopped working and for some reason we needed to actually use Bitcoin to pay stuff, it would not be possible.
This is... not true [1]. We'd need to use something like the Lightning Network. The traditional financial system also has layers build on top of it, so it makes sense that you wouldn't only use the Bitcoin base layer.
It's possible CBDC's will only be launched in certain countries. I'm hoping at least America will embrace crypto instead of pushing it offshore (and of course also figure out the regulatory aspects to reduce/eliminate the bad actors in the space). Time will tell.
My interest in Bitcoin (since 2014) has never been because I thought it was private. My interest is because of its potential to transform the financial system. I actually think the public auditability of Bitcoin is one of its strengths as a technology.
I always appreciate reading your comments even though I don't necessarily agree with the position you take.
However, I'm wondering, how would "1. An annual wealth tax on crypto holdings to fund (a) a victims’ compensation fund and (b) an enforcement agency;", make any sense? Why would someone who owns, say, Bitcoin, be required to pay a "wealth tax"? What is the rationale? Just because there are other people who use the Bitcoin system illegaly? If USD is used illegally, should everyone who holds USD pay a "wealth tax"?
In terms of "3. Reporting requirements for crypto transactions, crypto-fiat or DeFi, above $10k, individually or in aggregate. Civil fines for first time violators. Criminal referrals for repeat, large-scale violators.", how do you propose reporting works for personal wallet addresses, or DeFi protocols? It seems to me like the implementation of that would be a nightmare, not to mention the concerns with privacy.
> If USD is used illegally, should everyone who holds USD pay a "wealth tax"?
Don’t we? The FBI and Secret Service are funded out of taxes. I don’t think someone who has never touched crypto should pay for crypto crimes. One could introduce a transaction tax, but that seems messier than counting up your crypto once a year.
> how do you propose reporting works for personal wallet addresses, or DeFi protocols?
Same way it does with cash. Most people voluntarily comply. Criminals don’t, and occasionally get busted.
Bitcoin has no concept of ownership. "Not your keys, not your coins" means exactly that. If you lose your car keys, you still own your car. This is not true of bitcoin.
No concept of ownership is a stretch. If you have the keys to a Bitcoin wallet, you own that Bitcoin wallet. If you lost physical cash or gold, it would be like losing your keys to a Bitcoin wallet. No one would replace your physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, if you lost it. However, that doesn't mean that you don't own that physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, at least while you have it in your possession.
Well, when it comes to bitcoins, you only own them as long as you have them in your possession—which means you don't own them, you only possess them. This is what I mean by no concept of ownership. The bitcoin network doesn't care who is the rightful owner of the bitcoins, it only cares about who has access to them.
I think a sufficiently advanced algorithm can over time.
Bitcoin is an example of a system of trust that has worked pretty well so far (although it requires a lot of electricity, but that is the trade off). There are also people on the Bitcoin core team, so there is some trusted element there.
Crypto will likely continue to innovate on algorithms, given the chance.
I think there can be trust in people, plus algorithms, with algorithms taking over more over time. This is already happening even in traditional finance, i.e. giving more control over to algorithms that participate in HFT. People do monitor those, but people monitor crypto, too, and maybe the failures in crypto so far mean too much control has been given.
I would argue that some more things in finance can be automated, without things being so black and white (i.e. no control vs total control given to algorithms). I do think the trust model given to governments and traditional finance gatekeepers can be iterated on, with some regulation involved too. I don't think we've figured everything out yet.
I've felt it a bunch of times, but I've worked through it with meditation (without drugs)...
I think psychedelics just bring out deeper parts of the mind. I don't do them anymore, but I used to, so I have some experience. I'm not a teetotaler, I still drink alcohol and smoke weed sometimes, but I'm done with psychedelics for the time being.
Yeah, I had been experiencing it for years before I ever tried psychedelics, I just didn't know it was something "real".
Before I knew what it was, if I had an episode of "harm OCD", I would sometimes feel physically ill and excuse myself to the bathroom and repeatedly splash water on my face until the feeling went away. Sometimes I'd keep my hands behind my back on purpose (the idea being that I would harm someone with my hands).
Since learning what it is, I'm more easily able to dispel it when it arises. Simply knowing "oh, this is OCD" is powerful enough for me to get on with my life. For the record, I completely abstain from psychedelics or any recreational drugs now (with the exception of coffee, and light alcohol at social gatherings).
Being altruistic can be immensely rewarding.
You have tremendous privilege. Go help some people with that money.
Don't just think of yourself.
Try taking up meditation. Balance your mind. Try to stop your thoughts.
You are super lucky.
Also, consider your death. No matter how much money you have, you can't take any of it with you. One day you're going to die. It's all going away. Enjoy what you have now and ideally help some others. That will bring you purpose.