Maybe there are different ideas about flow. But to me, flow is about eliminating distractions, and being creative without requiring too much pondering.
Our brains are always looking for distractions. Having your phone nearby, or working in an area where distractions are easily accessible prevents flow. Your brain is always looking to be distracted, it's akin to how you are tuned to pay more attention when you hear your name called. Even if you think to yourself: I'm not going to touch my phone while I work, it's always there calling for your brain's attention.
So step 1 to flow is removing distractions. Going to a library helps because you're cut off from many distractions and your brain stops "listening" for a bit.
And then, you must be able to create something from what you already know. Fluent writing, art, programming can then "flow" directly from you into the real world without requiring looking up info, or taking tutorials.
Flow has little to do with the "true nature of things", imo.
This could be valuable advice for someone who is beating themselves up about not being perfect at controlling their focus (if they are ready to hear it).
However it’s also stated in a way that’s disrespectful to the discussion. It’s okay for people to have goals, and to strive and struggle towards them, resisting instinct that could undermine their efforts, and sometimes falling short and being disappointed. This is a natural part of the higher level reasoning we are blessed with.
SAYS Chuang Tsu: Confucius went to the West to deposit his writings in the library of the Imperial House of Chao, and Tsu Lu counseled him, saying:
“I have heard that the officer in charge was one named Lao Tsu, who has resigned his office and lives privately. As you, master, wish to deposit your works, why not go and gain his help? “
Confucius said, “Good”, and went to see Lao Tsu, who refused his assistance, whereupon the other began to give a summary of Spring and Autumn with the view of convincing Lao Tsu. But Lao Tsu interrupted:
“This is all nonsense. What are your fundamentals? “
“Charity”, replied Confucius, and duty to one s neighbor.
Said Lao Tsu: “And do you think charity and righteousness constitute man’s original nature?”
“I do. Without charity the princely man could not be what he is. Without righteousness he would be of no effect. These two belong to the original nature of the superior man.”
Lao Tsu continued:
“Tell me what you mean by charity and righteousness?”
Confucius answered:
“To be in one s inmost heart in sympathy with all things, to love all men without selfishness this is the characteristic of charity and duty to one s neighbor.”
Lao Tsu exclaimed:
“What stuff! Does not universal love contradict itself? Is not your elimination of self a positive manifestation of self?”
I would invest in micro strategy if I cared about Bitcoin because I don't want to mess with wallets or pay someone to manage my wallet.
Banks can do fractional reserve banking to 'pay' for the expense of storing our money. Can crypto wallets do such a thing? Or would they have to borrow money?
Some exhanges like coinbase are basically banks at this point.
You open an acccount, you do a kyc, you declare it to the state, and they are submitted to regulations in your country.
Coinbase is an expensive one, but way cheaper than micro strategy, and is from y combinator s12 so you know what to expect.
Deal with an exhange directly, it's cheaper, and more flexible. No wallet to manage, and you can handle a few millions before even having to talk to a human.
Of course you lose a lot of advantages of crypto, but you were going to with micro strategy anyway.
Or buy an etf if you really like your bank.
Although I would argue now is the worse time to buy. You had to buy last year, or wait until 2 years, assuming the halving cycle is still relevant, which I believe it is.
It is expected from most crypto holders that we are not that far from the top and the usual crash back is near.
Some my friends are still in, but have placed their exit orders already. I'm already out with a 500% profit and play it safe.
You may be able to get some more, but it's getting riskier by the day.
And maybe the cycle will break, but it's really not what I would bet on.
Because you said it is? Come on, let's have some more informed dialog than that.
> As long as the Bitcoin price goes up, that is a viable business.
He's been doing this for 4 years. The price has had some wild swings in that timeframe. He's sold one time (for tax loss harvesting) and bought right back in. Everything is tracked in public, because it is a public security. https://saylortracker.com/
He's never sold because he had to. In that timeframe, bitcoin has also always gone up. It is higher than it was 4 years ago. He has stated in public that he won't ever sell, nor will he have to.
> Gold is 'first place' and has been a symbol of value for most of our recorded history.
Actually it has not. Not in Mesoamerican civilizations (Aztec, Mayans). Also not for the Chinese, who used silver for currency (and gold for ceremonial purposes). Around the Mediterranean, gold became a currency 'only' around 500BC with the Lydians—which is a very long time after the first economic records we have, which take back to Ur III, the Babylonians (Hammurabi), Ancient Egypt.
And when it was used, there were periods of economic stagnation due to its fixed supply:
See the links in the post about the problems with deflationary currencies. See also the links of events that were made worse by finite/deflationary currencies; reposting:
It also cannot be hacked or tracked like Bitcoin. It works offline and can even survive longer than whole countries. The biggest problems are risk of theft and high taxation.
Bitcoin was supposed to be private and secure, so it more or less failed its mission. It is only presently easier to trade because of various gimmicks to warm people up to the idea of accepting it. Gold on the other hand has a long history of being a currency. Everyone in the world knows it is valuable, even if they don't know how much. The fact Bitcoin wildly swings around in value and requires special computer access and sometimes hardware makes it harder to transact with. If you don't care about privacy and security, and want ease of use, you would be far better served by a credit card than a Bitcoin wallet. And if you do care about those three things, gold is better. The only thing I can say positive about Bitcoin is that it is easier to carry across borders than gold. That plus the modicum of privacy it offers might make it ok for some. As for me, I don't think I could privately accumulate enough Bitcoin for that to be a real benefit to me.
Edit: I hit the limit for now so here's a reply:
>Was it supposed to be [private]? A currency with a complete ledger of transactions available for view by anyone in the p2p network is hardly secure by design
It was intended to be secure and private. That is, people can't steal your Bitcoin (theoretically) and the public ledger gives you some potential strategy if you did want to establish a reputation while dealing with anonymous people. Someone could also deal with you without ever knowing your identity, which makes it private. It would be fairly hard to identify Bitcoin users if their wallets were never linked to their identities, e.g. through an exchange. I don't know how other cryptocurrencies do their ledgers but I assume you are limited to querying the network about specific transactions instead of having access to it all. It could be done by having public yet encrypted transaction records as well maybe. Idk, cryptocurrency never appealed to me. I remember thinking my classmates were insane for buying Bitcoin at $70. The price movement we've seen feels like some insiders using it to embezzle money from reputable institutions who have been sold on the hype. We're in real trouble if the government starts buying it. We will be robbed blind.
Was it supposed to be? A currency with a complete ledger of transactions available for view by anyone in the p2p network is hardly secure by design.
Edit: thanks for the reply. In that sense that you are able to be only identified by a wallet address, that makes sense. I guess I meant that, unlike privacy-focused coins like Monero, there is a way to see who sent what to who (even if who is just an address) and to develop surveillance based on this.
The problem is Bitcoin is being treated as a commodity and not a currency. Its value is measured using paper currency, that stuff you'll actually trade for product and services.
It's difficult to use Bitcoin as currency because its value keeps rising. And when there are no more coins to be mined, when the value stops increasing: do you think everyone will suddenly agree to begin using it as currency?
Or do you think everyone will try and sell Bitcoin to cash out for real currency? What happens to Bitcoin value at that point?
> The problem is Bitcoin is being treated as a commodity and not a currency.
That's because that is what it is. Just like gold. (Which, besides mostly jewelry, has few other 'practical' application—modest use in industry and medicine.)
> It's difficult to use Bitcoin as currency because its value keeps rising.
And this is the problem with deflationary currencies, and was predicted a decade ago:
> And when there are no more coins to be mined, when the value stops increasing: do you think everyone will suddenly agree to begin using it as currency?
When there are no more coins to be mined (even if you want to get into slicing BTCs into satoshis) the value will increase: even more: if the demand for it goes up by (e.g.) 2% every year but your supply goes up 0%, what does Econ 101 tell us will happen? Even now folks are mostly hoarding:
Something is worth whatever someone else is willing to pay.
If everyone thought of Bitcoin the way I do: its price would plummet.
Fiat currency works because it's linked to a county's GDP, its credit (in the eyes of other nations). With such a system, you can put a price on commodity, like gold or Bitcoin.
World trade is mostly done with the US dollar. Others are willing to trade the dollar because of belief in its issuing country's GDP and future economy. I understand that lack of faith in the US dollar and its 'money printer' are part of Bitcoin's rise... But that's a different topic in my opinion.
Anyhow, gold is created in the heart of exploding stars, it looks good (we all love pretty, shiny things), it's rare. It's used in most advanced electronics (it's critical for sure, not sure about practical). Gold has always existed, and there's no doubt it will exist in the future.
Bitcoin is math and ordered electrical charges. It's not being used the way it was intended. Its future is uncertain (quantum computing), and seems to be a big ponzi scheme. How are we expecting the value to keep increasing?
While depletion of mining rewards is very far into the future, it will very soon be virtually nothing, the only reward will be trading fees, and I'm not bullish on that.
Satoshi should have just made a linear minting algo. All early reward was a mistake. We'll see why inflation is necessary. In 80 years will the youngins want a coin that they have no way of minting except begging their grampas for it?
It's a tired trope, but time is money. Fiat currency works because of this idea.
Fiat currency fails when a nation defaults on its loans because people lose faith in the currency.
The money printing scares everyone because of the US's rising debt. If it cannot be balanced at some point, people will think inflation is permanent.
It's difficult to cut costs because the US economy must pay to maintain its status. The only way to reduce our debt is to increase our GDP: aka, sell more shit and do more with less.
That is a property of society, not of the currency itself. Taxes pay for those things, and the US taxes economic activity in all currencies including bitcoin.
I get the argument that taxes might not be a property of the coin (its is, you don't pay taxes in btc, you pay them in usd)
But the ability of the government to print usd to pay for social benefits is 100% a property of the coin.
The argument is simple, Bitcoin has a limited supply and usd has constant minting, therefore btc gives more power to old farts, and usd gives power to everyone (citizens of the us)
I can assure you the printed money is not paying for any social benefits—that is 100% taxes.
If the government were so benevolent as to print money to pay for kids' education, the country would be far better off. Teachers would not be making paltry wages and paying for classroom supplies out of pocket. And bitcoin would not exist. Bitcoin was created by someone who didn't approve of what the old farts did with the money they print, and wanted to give power back to everyone (citizens of the world).
"If the government were .. to print money to pay for kids' education"
Let me cut your hypothetical right there to simplify and ignore the rest. It does, government prints money to pay, among other things for education.
Even in ordinary money creation, yes the government borrows money, but it borrows it to fund state expenses like schools. They are paying interest which they just printed to fund these operations.
Then exceptionally, (if they are ever insolvent or need money), they directly create money. 2008 crisis, 2021 covid crisis, wars.
I don't understand how you simultaneously believe that the government prints money, but doesn't fund government expenses with printed money. Do they just print money to devalue savings and spite you?
> A central bank enacts quantitative easing by purchasing, regardless of interest rates, a predetermined quantity of bonds or other financial assets on financial markets from private financial institutions.[12][13] This action increases the excess reserves that banks hold. The goal of this policy is to ease financial conditions, increase market liquidity, and encourage private bank lending.
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> I don't understand how you simultaneously believe that the government prints money, but doesn't fund government expenses with printed money. Do they just print money to devalue savings and spite you?
"The government" is not a monolithic entity. Money printing is monetary policy. Taxes and social services are fiscal policy. I think you are mixing those two things up.
The arm of the government that prints money is not doing it to spite the citizens (Hanlon's razor). They're doing to maximize employment, stabilize prices, and moderate long-term interest rates[1]. Funding schools is not part of those goals. That happens elsewhere in government, far away from the money printers.
Our brains are always looking for distractions. Having your phone nearby, or working in an area where distractions are easily accessible prevents flow. Your brain is always looking to be distracted, it's akin to how you are tuned to pay more attention when you hear your name called. Even if you think to yourself: I'm not going to touch my phone while I work, it's always there calling for your brain's attention.
So step 1 to flow is removing distractions. Going to a library helps because you're cut off from many distractions and your brain stops "listening" for a bit.
And then, you must be able to create something from what you already know. Fluent writing, art, programming can then "flow" directly from you into the real world without requiring looking up info, or taking tutorials.
Flow has little to do with the "true nature of things", imo.
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