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725 sats \ 11 replies \ @blocktock 30 Oct 2023 \ on: Ray Dalio's Changing World Order – thoughts? bitcoin
He's done a great service to bring the topic of the demise of the West and to open people's eyes to this volatile world we now live in. Doing so in an easy to understand format, with great illustrative work.
That said, what I believe he misses, is that it is likely to be the growth of the Internet and its native currency, not China, that will surpass the US dollar in influence.
Quoted from The Sovereign Individual...
Yes, the rising empire is not an empire but sovereign and free peoples
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I couldn't finish The Sovereign Individual. It's so detached from reality. World is built with physical resources and somebody is gonna fight for it and one individual will never win an army.
Cybereconomy is a real thing but it's not the whole economy.
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I started it once, and couldn't get past the first couple chapters.
Then when I kept on hearing people talk about it, I gave it another try. I ended up very impressed, couldn't stop reading. People who can predict the future to a certain extent, like the authors of The Sovereign Individual, are well worth listening to.
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Good reminder. It really starts to get going around Page 200 if memory serves. Too much detailed history in early chapters.
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It isn't perfect. It makes clear that the majority (billions) cannot benefit, at least not initially. Only be the most able and well-informed.
“Tens of billions, then ultimately hundreds of billions of dollars will be controlled by hundreds of thousands, then millions of Sovereign Individuals. These new stewards of the world’s wealth are likely to prove far abler than politicians in utilizing resources and deploying investment. For the first time in history, megapolitical conditions will allow the ablest investors and entrepreneurs rather than specialists in violence ultimate control over capital.”
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Reminds me of Timothy May's various essays. powerful.
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They do, actually. The book actually does cover some of these aspects, without being overly doom & gloom. I haven't read the authors' other books around that time - The Great Reckoning & Blood In the Streets, but I assume that detail is saved for those.
The Sovereign Individual says that nation states won't have enough / any income to be able to pay for these services & infrastructure. That places that did not participate in the Industrial Revolution will be in an advantaged position, of being able to offer far more competitive and friendly jurisdictions for business and for the individual. To be able to build-out more efficient infrastructure.
“Were the streets of London to be lighted and paved at the expense of the national treasury, is there any probability that they would be so well lighted and paved as they are at present, or even at so small an expense?”
They authors mentioned that there will be a vacuum from the erosion of infrastructure no longer being able to be maintained, and that this will lead to intense volatility & spiteful behaviour in society & in particular in cities. Starting with a 'fiscal crisis', continuing with infighting and leading to organised crime filling the void that Governments leave behind.
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Good point, he is really mostly working within the framework of nation-state power relations. That said, the "internet" also isn't only a decentralized network – state actors exert huge influence over it and exploit it to advance their goals. The sort of naive Y2K view of the internet as a tool for freedom has been intensively questioned by its use by authoritarian regimes, not unlike to how bitcoin's price is still swayed by whales.
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Absolutely. But tools will continue to exist for those that need them. Plus it's a far more attractive proposition than letting China and its regime run riot over the world 😄
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