Author: Jim

crypto

How to apply recursive snarks for a fully scalable, fully private, currency

From the very beginning of bitcoin, people worried that it could not scale to the required size. It does not scale because it is a massively replicated public ledger. Thus any real solution means making the ledger not public. Which means either centralization, a central bank digital currency, which is the path Ethereum is walking, …

war

Russia’s draft Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and NATO

Russian war aims are vastly broader than the Ukraine: In December of 2021, Russia proposed an agreement on “Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” The American reaction was shock, indignation, and genuine surprise. Surprise that Russia had the outrageous effrontery to ask for …

party politics

A retraction

I predicted that Trump would be arrested and Epsteined. With defeat looming in the Ukraine, the future course becomes even more unpredictable. Looking at those in power as the Greatest Ukrainian Counter Offensive fails underneath them, I have no idea what the future holds, and I doubt that they do either. But we are no …

war

War and game theory

Jesus as game theory: In a world of imperfect information, one tit for two tats. Old Testament marriage and family law as game theory: If you are stuck with with each other, the deal is going to generate value even if the value very unequally distributed, but if not stuck, prisoner’s dilemma. Negative sum actions …

Faith

The Logos

Around 350 years before Christ, paganism had died among the intellectuals. Not long after, it died among the common people, for we read writers in the late Roman Republic ridiculing attempts to motivate the common soldiers by appeal to faith. They believed the ordinary soldier was even more cynical than themselves. So the philosophers set …

Uncategorized

Game

On Gab, I noticed a whole lot of wholly blue pilled people, not all of them shills. So, despite my frequent declaration that this is not a game blog and not going to turn into game blog, here comes another game post. It is kind of redundant, because everything that needs saying has been said …