The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

An uneven and at times repetitive book, but yet a book that absolutely must be read by anyone who wants to learn about Bitcoin and why Bitcoin matters.

Some chapters sing out with a compelling bull case for Bitcoin and offer lay readers an excellent rendering of monetary history. In other chapters the author gets bogged down in repetitive economic hand waving, while blaming everything bad about modernity (and I mean *everything* up to and including Miley Cyrus's twerking) on leaving a sound money standard.

Most reasonable readers--and certainly anyone who's at least ankle deep in learning about Bitcoin--would agree on the value of sound money and the value of holding monetary authorities to a sound money standard.

But for Saifedean the lack of a sound money is a hammer in his hand... and the entire world is a nail. I've found this to be a problem for many Bitcoiners, especially Bitcoin maximalists, hence the often used phrase "Bitcoin solves this" used (only partially tongue in cheek) to address any and all problems of modernity.

One could describe Ammous' near obsession with "stock to flow ratios" as another hammer, and in this case Bitcoin, or rather Bitcoin's future price, is the nail. There's a problem with using a stock to flow analysis to predict Bitcoin's price, because the halvenings (and when they will occur) are already well-known and well-mapped out, thus likely already incorporated in Bitcoin's price. I don't put much "stock" in this method of valuing Bitcoin.

But these are minor criticisms compared to the real value of this book: it gives the reader a complete paradigm for how to think about Bitcoin, how to think about money, and how to think about preserving wealth in an imperfect world of loose monetary policy imposed by centralized and highly fallible monetary authorities.

A few more bullet points:

1) Excellent discussion of time preference, a very useful concept unfortunately not taught in schools, nor understood by the very people who would most benefit from this ultimate cheat code to life.

2) Keynesianism and monetarism, interestingly, are not much different from the democrat/republican paradigm that falsely divides ideology into two opposing factions (but really one-party rule) of modern pseudo-democracy.

3) Ammous creatively (and justifiably) reframes Keynes's famous maxim "In the long run we are all dead" as a high time preference statement of "libertine irresponsibility." He's right! Only a genuine narcissist wouldn't care about the state of the world after he or she was dead.

4) Intriguing thoughts at the end of the book where the author explores potential applications (or rather lack thereof) of blockchain technology, persuasively arriving at the conclusion that blockchain is a lot less useful than people think it is, except it's extremely useful for the specific application known as Bitcoin.

A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young

It's a rare pleasure to find so many insights in such a short book. A modern reader can't help but notice the stark contrast between A Technique for Producing Ideas and most modern books, which might have a few paragraphs' worth of insights, but yet always seem to be fluffed and padded out to at least 200-300 pages. The author gives away a formula for creativity and idea generation that is simple, but not easy. And as a result almost no one will follow it. In the author's own one-paragraph summary, his process is: * First, the gathering of raw materials--both the materials of your immediate problem and the materials which come from a constant enrichment of your store of general knowledge. * Second, the working over of these materials in your mind. * Third, the incubating stage, where you let something beside the conscious mind do the work of synthesis. * Fourth, the actual birth of the Idea--the 'Eureka! I have it!' stage. * And fifth, the final shaping and ...

The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain by John H. Gleason

In-depth (and surprisingly interesting!) analysis of the shifting public and government opinion on Russia during late 18th and early/mid 19th century England, plus a useful (and telling) exploration of the various propaganda and media narratives used to drive these opinions. I've written before on this site, many times, that history rhymes, it doesn't repeat exactly, so you have to know your history--and by this I mean know your actual history, not your country's preferred propaganda narrative of history--in order to see that rhyme to make useful, accurate predictions. It is fascinating to see England in the 1800s applying various forms of the same propagandized and manufactured Russophobia that we see in the United States today. England went from a literal alliance with Russia (against Napoleonic France) to a state of paranoid loathing of Russia in a matter of decades; the USA likewise went from " aren't they our friends now? " after the Soviet collapse to...

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

This looks like a book about foundational concepts of good design, but in reality it's a deep and intelligent book addressing a tremendous range of topics: psychology, cognition, on minding details, on being "meta" about rules and procedures, even how to navigate the modern world. One of the most valuable and interesting books I've read all year. Pair with The Upper Half of the Motorcycle by Bernt Spiegel. Notes: [Warning: Long] 0) Norman's Law : the day the product team is announced, it is behind schedule and over its budget. Ch 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things 1) "Norman doors" confusing doors, or doors that don't work right. "The design of the door should indicate how to work it without any need for signs, certainly without any need for trial and error." 2) "Two of the most important characteristics of redesign are discoverability and understanding. * Discoverability : Is it possible to even figure out what actions are...

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