Category: Uncategorized

Jack Dorsey’s Decentralized Web5 Project

Here comes the ULTIMATE LIBERTARIAN DREAM in its latest ITERATION: A BITCOIN BASED WHOLLY DECENTRALIZED, PEER-TO-PERR WEB.

That’s right. NO GUB’MINT OR OUTSIDE PRIVATE SECTOR INTERFERENCE of any kind.

At least, SO GOES THE CREDO.

From “NAMCIOS” via BitcoinMagazine.com.

“Web5 leverages Bitcoin, the decentralized monetary network, and a plethora of sound computer science technologies to create a new ecosystem of decentralized identities, data storage and applications in which the users are in control of their personal information.”

“TBD’s Web5 is made up of software components and services such as decentralized identifiers (DIDs), decentralized web node (DWNs), self-sovereign identity service (SSIS) and a self-sovereign identity software development kit (ssi-sdk).”

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)

“A DID is essentially a globally unique persistent identifier that doesn’t require a centralized registration authority and is often generated and registered cryptographically. It consists of a unique uniform resource identifier (URI) string that serves as an ID with additional public key infrastructure (PKI) metadata describing the cryptographic keys and other fundamental PKI values linked to a unique, user-controlled, self-sovereign identifier in a target system such as the Bitcoin blockchain.”

Decentralized Web Node (DWN)

A “DWN is a mechanism for data storage and message transmission that participants can leverage to locate public or private data linked to a given DID. It enables the interaction between different entities that need to verify the identity of each other in order to transfer information to one another.

“Decentralized Web Nodes are a mesh-like datastore construction that enable an entity to operate multiple nodes that sync to the same state across one another, enabling the owning entity to secure, manage, and transact their data with others without reliance on location or provider-specific infrastructure, interfaces, or routing mechanisms,” per the specification . . . “

Self-Sovereign Identity Service (SSIS)

“The SSIS interacts with the standards around verifiable credentials, credential revocations, requesting credentials, exchanging credentials, data schemas for credentials and other verifiable data, messaging using DWN and usage of DIDs.

“The SSIS facilitates everything related to DIDs and verifiable credentials.”

Self-Service Identity Disk

“The ssi-sdk encapsulates standards related to self-sovereign identity.”

Its purpose is “to provide flexible functionality based on a set of standards-based primitives for building decentralized identity applications in a modular manner: with limited dependencies between components,” per its webpage.”

While I have little doubt that Jack Dorsey & friends can develop this technology, I have as LITTLE CONFIDENCE that in the current INFORMATION RICH yet POLITICALLY VOLATILE environment, they can do it on a completely DECENTRALIZED, REGULATORY-FREE basis.

Information today is as VALUABLE as money and just as much a CURRENCY in terms of both VALUE EXCHANGE AND STORAGE.

Just as I don’t expect that SOVEREIGN STATES will ever recognize cryptocurrencies as MONEY, i.e. LEGAL TENDER, I don’t see them allowing the development of a USER-CONTROLLED-ONLY web.  It’s simply NOT IN THEIR INTEREST to allow THAT MUCH INFORMATION FLOW to “EVADE” THEIR PURVIEW.

After all, governments are in the business of EXERCISING CONTROL.  How can they do that WITHOUT A HAND ON THE SCALES of all that transpires on the web.  Plus, one mustn’t forget the various SKIMMING/PERSONAL AGGRANDIZEMENT OPPORTUNITIES that “regulatory” activity provides.  In other words, POWER’S SPOILS.  Do we think that’s GOING AWAY?

Dream on, libertarians, dream on . . .

The Emissions Dilemma

From Robert Bryce via RealClearEnergy.org

“If you think the world is moving beyond coal, think again. The post-Covid economic rebound and surging electricity demand have resulted in big increases in coal prices and coal demand. Since January, the Newcastle benchmark price for coal has doubled. And over the past few weeks, China and India have announced plans to increase their domestic coal production by a combined total of 700 million tons per year. For perspective, US coal production this year will total about 600 million tons.”

AND THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THE US OR EU CAN DO TO REVERSE THIS.

Bryce continues:

“The surge in coal demand in China and India – as well as in the U.S., where coal use jumped by 17% last year – demonstrates two things:

  • First, that the Iron Law of Electricity has not been broken,
  • Second, it shows that it is far easier to talk about cutting emissions than it is to achieve significant cuts.”

WHAT IS THE IRON LAW OF ELECTRICITY WHICH, INCIDENTALLY, BRYCE FIRST ARTICULATED?

“People, businesses, and countries will do whatever they have to do to get the electricity they need.”

PERIOD.

He further explains . . .

“The Iron Law helps explain why coal continues to be a dominant fuel for electricity production today, nearly 140 years after Thomas Edison used coal to fuel the first central power station in Lower Manhattan. Coal persists because it can be used to produce the gargantuan quantities of electricity the world’s consumers need at prices they can afford. Indeed, coal’s share of global electricity generation has stayed at about 35%, since the mid-1980s.”

JUST HOW MUCH THE US AND EU ARE SPINNING THEIR WHEELS TRYING TO REDUCE GLOBAL CARBON EMISSIONS BY REDUCING COAL PRODUCTION, BRYCE MAKES PATENTNLY CLEAR:

“John Hanekamp, a St. Louis-based coal industry consultant, told me that ‘the incremental coal production in India and China is exceeding whatever coal-fired generation capacity that was retired in the US and Europe. Whatever policymakers thought they were achieving by getting rid of coal, they’ve effectively done nothing but increase the cost of energy,’ he said. ‘We haven’t changed anything but make ourselves energy poorer.'”

BRYCE CONCLUDES WITH TWO POINTS HE’S BEEN MAKING “FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.”

  • First, soaring global electricity demand will largely be met in the near term, meaning the next decade or so, by burning more coal, oil, and natural gas. Why? Renewables cannot, will not, be able to scale up to meet soaring global demand for power. 
  • Second, if the countries of the world are serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing more electricity to the 3 billion people now living in energy poverty, the only way to do it is with nuclear energy and lots of it.

WILL CLIMATE ZEALOTS GET THIS?  CAN THEY EVEN COMPREHEND THE ARGUMENT, DELUDED AS THEY ARE BY UPTOPIAN GREEN-FANTASIES?

NOPE, NOT A CHANCE.

THEY’LL ONLY GET IT ONCE POWER DISTRIBUTION BREAKS DOWN IN FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES.

THERE’S NO CRUELER TEACHER THAN EXPERIENCE.

EU Bans Marine Insurance . . .

. . . on Transportation of Russian Oil to Third Countries. 

The ban also includes financing of any shipments.

From OilPrice.com:

“The insurance ban is a much bigger deal than the actual EU embargo on Russian oil imports, as it would cripple Russia’s ability to export crude anywhere in the world, analysts say. Russian exports from its Arctic oil projects will be especially hit because of the higher risk of liabilities, they note.”

THIS COULD TURN OUT TO BE A GAME CHANGER BECAUSE YOU EITHER HAVE INSURANCE OR YOU DON’T, AND EUROPE IS A HUGE PLAYER IN THE WORLD’S INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE MARKETS.

THE FINANCING COMPONENT SHOULD PROVE EQUALLY DISABLING.

The full piece:

Insurance Ban Is the EU’s Biggest Blow Yet To Russian Oil Exports

 

BIS Disses Crypto

I’ve argued for years that the world’s SOVEREIGN STATE SYSTEM will NEVER ALLOW a single UNREGULATED cryptocurrency — let alone a variety of them — to become MONEY, i.e. LEGAL TENDER.

And now the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the so-called CENTRAL BANK OF CENTRAL BANKS, has spoken on the subject:

“Building on permissionless blockchains, crypto and DeFi seek to create a radically different monetary system, but they suffer from inherent limitations. A system sustained by rewarding a set of decentralised but self-interested validators through fees means that network effects cannot unfold. Instead, the system is prone to fragmentation and costly to use.

Fragmentation means that crypto cannot fulfill the social role of money. Ultimately, money is a coordination device that facilitates economic exchange. It can only do so if there are network effects: as more users use one type of money, it becomes more attractive for others to use it. Looking to the future, there is more promise in innovations that build on trust in sovereign currencies.”

IN OTHER WORDS, BUGGER OFF CRYPTO-KNIGHTS, MONEY IS SOVEREIGN, AND WE’RE IN CHARGE OF IT, NOT YOU.  IT’S ALSO OUR BUSINESS.  WE BUILT AND OWN THE MONEY CONCESSION, AND WE AREN’T ABOUT TO GIVE UP CONTROL OF EITHER IT OR OUR SKIM.

Here’s the full BIS report:

BIS Bulletin No. 56

As one would expect, this latest BIS report falls fully in line with the one released in May on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC):

BIS Papers No. 125

POWER, however you define it, WILL NOT BE TURNING OVER CONTROL OF MONEY to the rest of us.

BOOK IT.

If There’s Still Insufficient Green Energy . . .

. . . We Must Continue to Use Natural Gas.

After all, we can’t just WISH ENERGY NEEDS AWAY.  Which is the part GREEN ZEALOTS don’t get: NO ENERGY, NO ECONOMY.  INSUFFICIENT AND/OR UNAFFORDABLE ENERGY?  RECESSION.

So, what is the US government doing?  Nothing that would help INCREASE THE SUPPLY while LOWERING THE PRICE of NATURAL GAS.

Check out these tweets from energy trader, John Arnold:

Aspirational is great, but to GET THE JOB AT HAND DONE takes PRACTICALITY.

You can’t approach energy on an IDEOLOGICAL or QUASI-RELIGIOUS BASIS.  AND GREEN ENERGY is BOTH ASPIRATIONAL and RELIGIOUSLY EMBRACED.

SO, WHILE GREEN MAY BE ENERGY’S FUTURE, IT CAN’T RUN THE WORLD TODAY.

Boudin Out!

From ZH.

“In 2019, Chesa Boudin openly campaigned on a hard-left, soft-on-crime platform – and got elected as San Francisco’s chief prosecutor. On Tuesday, San Francisco voters gave him the boot, having discovered . . . that the reality of hard-left governance is much less appealing than the theory and promises.”

Utopia in principle ALWAYS looks appealing, but Utopia in practice NEVER pans out.  Ask the Jacobins, Bolsheviks, Chinese Cultural Revolutionaries, Pol Pot fanatics and the Weathermen, one of whose delusional members was Boudin’s OWN MOTHER.

“Homicide rates and gun crimes have increased since Boudin took office. He has strived to end cash bail, reduce incarceration rates, and scrutinize police misconduct.”

And this from the Recall Petition itself:

“Boudin is not keeping San Francisco safe. He refuses to adequately prosecute criminals and fails to take the drug dealing crisis seriously. He doesn’t hold serial offenders accountable, getting them released from custody, and his response to victims is that ‘hopefully’ home burglaries will go down . . . .” 

Boudin’s background/lineage:

“Boudin was a 14-month-old infant when his parents were arrested in 1981 and imprisoned for their involvement in a botched attempt to rob an armored delivery truck in Nanuet, NY, about 35 miles north of New York City. They were getaway drivers for and members of the radical Weather Underground which orchestrated the failed heist in which two police officers and a Brink’s security guard were killed.

“His mother, Kathy Boudin, spent more than two decades in prison before she was released on parole in 2003. His father, David Gilbert, was sentenced 75 years to life in prison but was released on parole in October after Boudin successfully lobbied disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to commute his sentence before he left office. Cuomo did so on his final day as governor in August. Gilbert, now 76, served more than 40 years in prison.

“Boudin was adopted and raised by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were also members of Weather Underground, a radical Marxist group that sought to lead a violent communist revolution in America and bombed government buildings across the country.”

THE APPLE FELL CLOSE TO THE TREE.

BY THE WAY, I HOPE YOU’RE WATCHING, ALVIN BRAGG.  YOU COULD BE NEXT.