Tootfinder

Just finished "Orsinian Tales" by Ursula K Le Guin. It's... good, but not nearly as anarchist as a lot of her other work. These are short fiction stories weaving mostly through a fictional Eastern European country during the cold war, although some stretch farther back into history.
As typical for Le Guin a bunch of male protagonists, and a few parts that might seem to excuse sexual assault, which I've always found an odd thing in Le Guin's work (the rape in "The Dispossessed" bothered me too; the lack of strong female characters in "A Wizard of Earthsea" also sticks out to me). On the other hand, I've read from an interview that she wrote "Earthsea" absolutely knowing her audience (teenage boys) and intentionally writing something that would sell, which speaks to true mastery of her craft (I think the opening of "The Word for World is Forest" demonstrates what an expert can do wielding an intimate understanding of pulp science fiction tropes with intent, for example).
In any case, she writes sublime similes and sparse characters who nevertheless seem to embody deep wisdom about the human condition. I feel that often enough just a few words or sentences in a story bear forth hefty wisdom while around them Le Guin constructs something like an austere painting in muted tones, full of rich details that one can easily miss.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Britain is broken, in various ways. Could adopting bitcoin help it bounce back?
Renegade Investor thinks so.
Central banks printing money causes government debt and artificially low interest rates. Their monetary policy is political and done for bankers not for people.
Bitcoin monitory policy is fixed.
Lockdown during pandemic was funded by money printing, and caused a big inflation pump and government debt increase. It caused the current cost of living crisis.
Lockdown could have been impossible under a bitcoin standard.
In pounds the cost of living has gone up lots over the last decade. But in bitcoin it's gone down massively.
He thinks wealth redistribution is taking money from productive people and giving it to those who aren't increasing the country wealth. Here I disagree entirely. Wealth is reality being taken from the workers and given to the capital owners. We are redistributing wealth towards the rich currently. Taking the wealth created by workers to give to idle owners.
I also wonder, would limited government power be good? Did the lockdown save lives? Would it do do under a worse pandemic? Limited government power may be double edged.
Not sure why he thinks immigration is funded by government, rather than immigrants increasing the country wealth. Seems to think bitcoin could reduce immigration, which I find unbelievable and undesirable.
This talk I disagree with quite a lot.
#bitcoin #bitfest #britain