307 sats \ 6 replies \ @antic 9 Dec 2023 \ parent \ on: Weekend Book Recommendations BooksAndArticles
I read that one... I have mixed feelings.
The historical, demographic, and geopolitical bits are interesting, but it’s clear when he gets just a bit outside his wheelhouse (e.g. Bitcoin, and economics/finance in general), he’s just regurgitating surface findings and hasn’t done enough research to use it as a foundation for his arguments. I’m not an expert in history, geopolitics, or demographics, but when he uses the same arrogant positioning to talk about things that I do know about (and about which he sounds like a moron), I start to wonder if he actually knows anything true or if he's just spouting nonsense and getting away with it because nobody is truly a geopolitical expert.
In all accounts, Zeihan seems like he should be a raving Bitcoin maxi, but he brings the most obviously debunked arguments to table to say that it will be worth less than zero.
interesting, does he cover Bitcoin in the book? haven’t gotten there yet if so
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He only mentions it for like a paragraph if I remember. Seemingly out of nowhere he says something like "Bitcoin has no intrinsic value" and he regurgitates a line about bitcoin energy usage that clearly shows he doesn’t know enough about it to know that the mining for the network could run on a single machine and still mine the same amount of bitcoin and process the same number of transactions. He's way outside his research depth but he talks about it like he's the world's leading expert.
He's done some youtube interviews with folks too and it's clear he's just not well studied on it. So I'm skeptical of everything he says now.
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ah interesting. i do wish some of his ideas had a little more research behind them, but they are thought-provoking
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I'd love to see someone organize a debate between Zeihan and Jeff Booth. Maybe that's something you can coordinate on your show :)
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agreed. If it weren't for being at least thought provoking I would have said that book was trash, but I still gave it 3/5 stars just for the brainstorm enhancing bits. Same goes for a lot of books by James Rickards (die hard gold bug and anti-bitcoiner). They are interesting, but ultimately antiquated and out of touch with current reality.
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Spot on re Rickards. Many years ago I found him interesting, but he's a one trick pony and he also pumps his own bags.
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