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a source familiar with the matter
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My main investment thesis is "nothing ever happens"

I don't speculate that uranium is going to take off

I do speculate that US devaluation will continue unabated, so I have a variety of positions based around inflation & global diversification

&

I speculate that certain companies which are priced for catastrophe (ie very low P/E despite a strong balance sheet) will not experience that catastrophe (or will encounter it later than price reflects)

The Age of the Enlightenment was The Wold War of Ideas I.

Those who had the best ideas won the war, as they in the 18th and 19th century inspired millions of people to liberate themselves from empires.

Unfortunately they soon lost the peace.

The main reason was that the political elite managed to coordinate their monetary monopolies, by directing this deadly weapon against their own peoples.

Today we are in the beginning of The Wold War of Ideas II.

The odds are IMO favourable for the people with the best ideas.

And Bitcoin makes it difficult for the political class to use the money printers to win the peace.

But they will try hard nonetheless.

I'll give you a few examples of the cost of winning and losing a war of ideas in this thread.

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In 9 AD the Germanic people dealt the Roman empire a blow that ensured the German peoples a long lasting sovereignty and freedom from the empire's oppression.

Their fight in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was inspired by a wish to not be ruled by foreigners.

The cost for the forces controlled by Arminius the rebel might have been about a thousand men per day in a battle that lasted 3-4 days.

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The 80 years war was a series of battles that liberated the Dutch from the Habsburg empire, beginning with a rebellion in 1566.

The uprising was triggered by the decision of the emperor of Spain, Philip II, to wipe out the protestants and make catolicism obligatory.

The liberation gave the spark to what became The Dutch Golden Age, which roughly lasted from 1588 to 1672.

This coincided with the beginning of The Age of the Enlightenment.

The cost in terms of Dutch men that died in these battles was about on average one man per day over these 80 years.

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The American revolutionary wars against the British empire lasted for about six years, followed by a peace treaty signed in 1783.

About 6,800 soldiers fighting for independence died in these battles, which equals about four men per day.

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The Argentine War of Independence against the Spanish empire lasted from about 1810 to 1816.

It's hard to come by data on casualties, but I've read that on the rebels side, 1,200 either died, were imprisoned or wounded.

When I ask Grok, it says it doesn't know but estimates it was "several thousands."

I would assume it can have been on average 1 to 4 men per day over this six year period.

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The casualties on the rebels' side in these major successful wars of independence are surprisingly low.

We can compare this with a couple of examples from how many men died in major battles motivated by the rulers' ambitions to expand their empires.

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When the Roman empire was defeated by the Germanic tribes in the Teutoburg Forest, something between 25,000 to 30,000 of their men died in three to four days.

This means that the Roman empire sacrificed 6,000 to 10,000 men, to achieve nothing but a major setback.

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When the Norwegian inflationist king Harald Hardrada in 1066 AD attempted to take over England, he and some 5-7,000 thousand men died in one day.

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Although these examples are anecdotes, they tell us that the cost of fighting to reclaim freedom in the most successful acts of liberation sometimes have been much lower than the cost of being subjected to ruler's expansionary wars.

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This doesn't mean that I in general support physical uprisings.

On the contrary.

We must understand that we risk losing the battle of ideas if someone resorts to violence without acting out of a situation where physical self defence is required.

This insight partly grows out of historical events were rulers have staged coups against themselves and clamped down hard on them, in an attempt to show the people how risky it is to question the legitimacy of their power.

Therefore, if you want to win The World War of Ideas II, choose your means wisely and timely.

Focus on identifying superior ideas and practice how you communicate and defend them.

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In conclusion:

If we play our game wisely, we can win both The World War of Ideas II as well as the peace.

The "Enlightenment" in most of the world (eg France) was a descent into barbarism

I'm partial to the "two conspiracies" theory in which the US planned to blow a hole in the Pentagon and Israelis heard about this and decided to destroy the twin towers also

Trying to find a date via app in the West and it's like... fat, black, fat & black, single mother, polyamorous, pro-choice...

It seems like the only reasonable women are Christian and I don't believe in ghosts

Replying to Avatar Lyn Alden

A lot of my favorite fiction is written by men.

The female works I've most enjoyed are probably somewhat unusual in their intensity of focus on ideas, things & obstacles rather than feelings, people and relationships.

eg. Ayn Rand, Andre Norton and JK Rowling

So far as I can tell, Harry Potter undergoes no real character development and his only real virtue is bravery. I stopped reading somewhere in the 5th book so maybe I missed out but that was my impression, anyway.

Yes, see the "meteorites" as well as testimony of firefighters who say that for many days afterwards there was "molten steel, like in a foundry"

Both the ballot box and jury box require one man to defend the rights of another, and thus in a society of indoctrination and propaganda some third alternative must be sought (sooner or later)

This actually explains why the dollar appreciation of Bitcoins is not a strong argument in their favor - nobody bought the bottom and sold the top.

I recently have become more optimistic that national divorce can be avoided.

Specifically, I think we are seeing a political re-alignment of neocons to the Dems and liberals to the Reps.

The consequence of this (if true and it continues) will be a Republican "new right" which is a coalition of patriots, (constitutional) conservatives and libertarians. This would be extremely liberal (as in liberty).

The Democrats would become an openly big-government if not totalitarian party. I very much doubt that such a party can maintain political power at the federal level, despite the institutional support it now enjoys.

Perhaps a few of the more... adventurous states would prefer to split off from the Union to pursue a communist or fascist (although they wouldn't call it fascist) mode of government. In that sense perhaps even a reunification of liberals and constitutionalists would fail to forestall a national divorce. However, I suspect that even these states rely on the goodwill and ignorance of large numbers of liberals. Without that goodwill, it's not clear to me that the commies can maintain control of California, New York, etc.