Jer979

AI is like a hypersonic weapon capable of totally destroying the analog institutions of 3rd-party provided trust. What has been eroding is, in my opinion, now past the tipping point. It's like we're on the verge of ecosystem collapse. From my vantage point, the only thing that I can see which can restore some semblance of confidence in a shared truth, which is the foundation of a healthy society, is a decentralized, permissionless blockchain. I don't know if Bitcoin is the answer to this or n...

Paraguay is currently leaving a mountain of cash on the table, and it's not because they lack the goods. After my recent visit, it's clear this country is sitting on a goldmine of potential that most investors can't even see through the fog of skepticism. The Powerhouse Trio: Stability, Momentum, and Spark Paraguay's narrative needs to be sharpened into three pillars: Stability, Momentum, and Ready to Take Off. The data is there, even if the story is currently as diffuse as a bad radio signal...

Life has friction. It's inevitable. But there are two types, it seems to me. Unnecessary friction. Necessary friction. Unnecessary friction dissipates value without transforming. Necessary friction transforms value. An acquaintance said to me that one of his life's lessons was "Do Hard Things." That's the kind of necessary friction that transforms. The other kind? Remove or seriously reduce.

It has two types of invaders within. The Islamists who want to impose Sharia law everywhere. The Socialists/Communists who want to destroy free market capitalism. The sad thing is that, by the time most realize it, it'll be too late.

We stopped in places like Port Orchard, Purdy, and Tacoma. Along the way, we visited the Salmonberry bookstore, the Local Boys fruit stand, the pagoda at Defiance Park, the Washington State History Museum, and the Tacoma Art Museum. We met a mosaic artist, members of the Pierce County Iris Society, a retired navy sailor from the USS Carl Vinson, and a retired sea captain who had lived in pre-revolutionary Iran. We also visited the Navy Yard museum in Bremerton. In a million years, we never wo...

I saw a beautiful quote yesterday. We look around and we see, we notice, and we admire intentionality. Or, at least I do. Oftentimes, however, it's directed at physical items, space creation, experience design. And yet, this one, so simple, so elegant. So pure.

The first part of my life was spent acquiring. Knowledge, credentials, assets, frameworks, stuff. Now, I see that the essence is obtained by removing much of that. Clearing out the debris, the clutter, the noise. Creating the space for the signal to emerge. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in Terre des hommes: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

There's a version of self-improvement that looks like this: read the right books, adopt the right frameworks, build the right routines, and eventually the difficult parts of your life will yield to the effort. I believed this for a long time. I still believe parts of it. But somewhere in the past few years, I've been learning something harder and more useful: that some things don't yield. They just have to be lived. I'm in my fifties. By most external measures, life is good. I'm healthy. My k...

Every choice I make is a two-way signal. How clear that signal is, is a different story, but the intention of the signal is to align my inner state with my outer state. I am trying to communicate with my soul, my essence to create a resonant harmony between my inner and outer self. And, at the same time, I am seeking to amplify that signal to others so that they can align to my frequency, like turning the knob on an old school radio, and tune in to my unique frequency. The challenge, as I see...

After a few weeks of doing therapy sessions with AI (both LLMs and via a HIPAA compliant solution connected to my therapist), I asked the AI: "Based on what you know about me, which artist or musician should I explore that would align with where I am heading right now, but also help me grow along the path?" It recommended Kandinsky. Eventually, I found myself at the Philips Museum in Washington, DC staring at, and meditating on 3 of his works. The one that really grabbed my attention was "Suc...