All Things Alt-Tech

With all the looming quarantine and lockdown measures in place, we’re about to see some rather pronounced changes in our world, and some of them could even turn out to be long-lasting. First off, we’re about to see a grand experiment in working from home. Disclaimer: this is not financial or trading advice!

Are most people going to be productive? Not necessarily, because these are special circumstances. Currently, a lot of people are going to be spending a lot of time reading the news and staying in touch with family. Building up a capacity to focus, stay disciplined and maintain a routine, all takes time. Uncomfortable phone calls with clients or partners is probably something everyone will do better at, when no one else is listening in. If you’re working against a tight deadline, you can probably do without the distractions that come with a regular office.

In the previous episode, I mentioned that I expected financial turmoil, and we certainly got it -- and I don’t think we’ve bottomed yet. You might get some interim legs up (and bear market rallies can be quite extreme), but the prevailing trend I believe is down. Full disclosure: I have closed out some of my short positions in the S&P and Euro Stoxx 50.

One asset that really got creamed over the past week, is Bitcoin — and the greater crypto space. I’m a cautious buyer at these levels, but we could go back below $4k (but that would be a very quick return trip). How the financial scenarios play out, all comes down to the response from the Fed and the ECB. The Fed announced more funbux coming. So far, the markets have effectively shrugged this off, which is a bad, bad sign for the efficacy of monetary policy. But that does not mean they are going to stop. The trillions will keep coming, and that could help drive stocks artificially higher.

It’s fairly obvious at this point, that the business cycle peak is behind us, and that’s not going to be reversed any time soon. Are you working from home? Are you short the market? Are you buying gold? What else do you think I should be talking about in this new post-apocalyptic economy? Email me on [email protected]!

Supporters of taim.io.

As with every key issue in the Internet age, there are two diametrically opposed views that are starting to form; two warring tribes that draw different conclusions and relentlessly mock and ridicule each other. Global warming believers vs. deniers, pro- vs. anti-Trumpers, Bitcoiners vs. anti-Bitcoiners, Tesla vs. TeslaQ, etc. -- they all essentially represent dichotomies. In this case, we are looking at doomsday preppers vs. the it’s-just-a-flu-bro group. It’s true that the common flu does kill a lot of people; most of which are elderly or frail. It’s also true that, it’s a very similar picture with the coronavirus, only the coronavirus still (luckily) is only around on a smaller scale. We don’t know exactly how it will pan out yet, but I’m still more concerned with the panic and disorder than the actual virus. Panic kills. Overwhelm of basic services and a scarcity of necessary goods & services, kills. And this all starts when a certain narrative starts to spread — so let’s look into the media aspects of the virus reporting and the social media hullabaloo that’s continuing to build.

There’s a phrase that goes bad news travels fast, meaning news about misfortune and trouble circulates quickly; probably more quickly than good news. Also, bad news is difficult to retract. Finally, bad news is lucrative. There’s a reason for some of the fake news you see out there. Nothing attracts traffic as effectively as a real killer of a story. There was a story circulating that the Pope had contracted the virus, and it was starting to gain traction. That turned out to be false. Nevertheless, if you’re the first to this story, you’ll be garnering a lot of clicks — and sweet, sweet ad revenue. (Forget about whether or not it is actually true). That’s part of the reason why the news media revolves so much around the very latest speculation and pontification; it’s bordering on rumormongering and actual falsehood, as it brings in viewers, listeners and readers. Bad news sells. But the revenue is only one component — and when it comes to the news media business, there’s always an underlying agenda to boot, i.e. the bad news are used as means to an end. 

In this case, the agenda seems to be to keep the population calm, and to lull people into a sense of security and normalcy. The established media are being so obedient in towing the official line (of everything being under control), that it’s becoming obvious that the information we’re given is false or deliberately misleading. For instance, that masks do more harm than good, that US cases will soon drop to 0, that this is less of a threat than a flu, that there’s no risk at all to continue to gather in large groups, etc; there’s no need to stock up on groceries or medications, etc. It’s to the point now where the CDC’s actual advice does not match the official story anymore. So in this instance, the agenda is to squelch the worry; to calm the masses — so much so that the official advice is not sound at all.

 If we should have learned anything from earlier pandemics, it’s that keeping a lid on the truth is about the worst thing you can do. Had you admitted early on, before there was any palpable indications of cases landing in the US, that this is indeed a serious potential threat, you would have had a slight response from the public, but not outright panic. Insisting that things are so much under control, that we shouldn’t have food, masks, water, medications or supplies — while cases are mounting, is a horrible strategy, and one that backfires. Because sooner or later, you see the discrepancy between reality and the official PR, confidence falters, there is no trustworthy narrative, not only is the worst case are assumed, but in the lack of any real information, misinformation spreads. That’s when the real panic really takes hold. It’s better to admit there is the chance of a problem early, act

Alt-Tech platforms seem to have one thing in common, namely that they cherish free speech and open communication, without censorship or de-platforming. In fact, that’s what’s attracting many of the users to the various alt-tech platforms today.

The alt-tech platforms represent a renewed grand experiment, going back to open communication, and it has so far enjoyed great success just like the original iteration of the web. We’ve had Gab.com tainted with the alt-right hate speech brush, but that's par for the course. t’s not that the alt-tech platforms are friendly towards any type of content in-particular: they are friendly towards everything and that's the point.

One relatively new phenomenon is that of sharing block-lists, as a means to ‘clean up’ your experience on a platform. If anything, it leads to even more severe filter bubbles. In traditional media, the problem is exactly that the information is pre-filtered, editorialized, pre-packaged for you. The news, for example is sanitized and angled; some pundits make it on, others with the ‘wrong’ ideas, do not. Ideas of wrong-thinkers are misrepresented, and these wrong-thinkers have little means to retort. Using ready-made block lists enables more of the same, and frankly we don't need this on the 2nd generation platforms.

That said, there has to be some level of moderating content and screening out the blatantly inappropriate or even illegal content. I do like, that on Minds, the process of removing inappropriate content is community-led. In other words, when a post is reported, a small subset of the community ‘vote’ on whether it should be removed. Great. As for sharing entire lists of users that should be squelched altogether — not good. You need a more granular approach, something on a post-by-post basis. Minds.com is setting a good example here.

You can tell that the posts that make it through on, say, Minds.com are of course more risqué, raunchy and daring than on Facebook — but this is a reflection of the audience at hand: who creates the content and who reviews it. Still, nothing too insane is coming through. With platforms such as Facebook, the policies applied also reflects the convictions of a select few, and again, you can tell what these convictions are. Of course, with a large corporation such as Facebook, they are going to err on the extreme side of caution with regards to policing hate-speech or anything even remotely edgy.

That aside, a lot of the policies on Facebook don’t reflect any threats of indemnification. On the Facebook ads side of things, you can really see their policies taken to an extreme, because Facebook do not want to be seen making money off of questionable or inflammatory content. For example, content can be removed because of principles such as ‘fat shaming’: if you use an image of a ripped guy on the beach, it can be seen as harmful, as it promotes an unattainable body image. So, Facebook’s policies are not just rooted in legal threats — it’s the social justice warrior and overt political correctness shining through. They are trying to appease people to safeguard their money-making machine.

Facebook obviously has the option of reporting content, and people on the ground are trying to use this feature to participate in the moderation. They report things they disagree with, and the left seem to use this a lot. Much of what is called hate-speech, is just I-disagree-with-it speech. The worst form of this, is when people brigade together to try and mass-report a user to de-platform him or her. Don’t do this — you are no better than censors if you try it. And in any case, it probably has very little effect if you are wrong-thinker. In fact, reporting content that is actually harmful, fraudulent or incorrect doesn’t seem to have much of an effect.

When it’s a grass-roots de

I recorded a podcast on government statistics and how theRead more  "Narrative control & the coronavirus: are the Chinese authorities chasing wrong-thinkers?"

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It’s time to reassess the coronavirus situation, as there hasRead more  "Lies, bigger lies, and official coronavirus statistics"

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In the past, a common reason to migrate was to look for a job, in other words, you went to were there were opportunities to compete for. This is still the case today, if you want to move to a large city. You’ll have to really want it, and you’ll have to put out, and you’ll have to make sacrifices — namely, living in big cities is expensive. It’s common to earn a large salary in a city, but you’ll also be spending much, or even most of it as the expenses are far higher in a big city.

With the emergence of digital nomadism and the digitalization of jobs, you now have a new generation of people seeking to maximize their standard of living by seeking out lower cost locations. If you are fortunate enough to secure an employment opportunity in a large, Western city, you might be better off to just take your job and go somewhere else altogether!

Many techies today, are therefore looking for slightly less competitive, saturated places. Therefore, you see places like Chiang Mai (Thailand), Ubud (Bali), and Prague (Czech Republic), Berlin (Germany) seeing a steady inflow of digital professionals looking to enjoy life, maximize their purchasing power and just take in new places.

This phenomenon does lead to something of a parallel economy in the nomad hotspots. Yes, the nomads will bring in money to the local economies, but it might go into relatively few hands. Meanwhile, some of the most obvious nomad hubs are downright getting undesirable as these pockets of value-for-money start to saturate.

Meanwhile, there’s also an entirely new sub-genre of people who are outright seeking to live off the grid entirely. Is this feasible? If you are fortunate enough to have an occupation that lends itself to the digital economy (and you have some wanderlust), should you take the plunge? Take a listen.

Supporters of taim.io.

Everyone would have certainly heard about the corona virus byRead more  "Viral media: is the press providing information or spreading panic about the Corona virus?"

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In this episode we talk about different way you can monetize a sites and social networks: the obvious and not so obvious ones. Ads, subscription fees, micro-transactions, what else is there?

We also look at some recent monetization within alt-tech; namely, Minds.com have recently launched their Pro pages. Charging $50 per month, they now let you customize your channel more, and use it more as a… website?

Minds will pay you 25% of the payments from users who you referred to the network and who purchase Tokens or subscriptions to Minds Pro. Minds also will pay you $0.10 USD for every active user you refer to the Minds network. Not a bad deal at all — if you can do it at scale!

The RPM's on offer are not shabby either — Minds will pay you $1 per 1000 views you generate, and it ranges all the way up to $5 once you exceed 100k page views/month.

Is it true, that as people mainly hang out on social networks, we don't need proprietary sites anymore? Take a listen and find out.

Supporters of taim.io.

This week we talk about the increasing difficulties with preserving your digital sovereignty and staying off the surveillance grid. We also dip into how the digitalization of currencies ensure there's a permanent record of your transactions. Can this be used against you, and do you have anything to worry about?

The REAL ID Act of 2005 is approaching, and that it’s coming into play in October of 2020. It’s a law that is meant to “establish minimum security standards for license issuance and production. It also prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for certain purposes certain licenses and ID cards not meeting these new standards”.

So what does the compliance mean for ID issuers? On the DHS website, they explicitly say that “REAL ID is a national set of standards, not a national identification card. REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information”. Meanwhile, the Real ID Act specifies that states must share their databases both domestically and internationally.

Of course, the standardization of ID’s is just one aspect of how government uses technology in their enforcement efforts. Another substantial movement in this direction is the digitalization of currency. And what's not to like about a fully digital currency? We’ll never have another bank run, never again need financial anonymity, because there is no intrusive government surveillance and we’ll never have issues with large banks de-banking wrong-thinkers! No Sir!

Supporters of taim.io.

In this episode, we talk about a different kind of alternative technology; not software, but electric cars, and specifically, #Tesla. The red flags abound with this company, and we take a look at what this company actually puts out there vs. what it has promised to deliver in its countless product ‘launches’. 

First odd thing you’ll notice is how there are a lot of promises, but few of them are fulfilled. It’s useful to look at the various product announcements — for instance, the Tesla Semi, the Roadster, the model Y, the Cybertruck. Also, let's not forget the solar tiles! Looking beyond the cars, what happened to Tesla’s Solar panels? These are still being cross-sold to you when buying (ahem, reserving) a car online. 

Why so many new launches? To keep the hype up, generate reservations, boost the stock price which in turn boosts Musk’s remuneration that is tied to stock options. It’s a downward spiral of fraud, and fraud begets more fraud. 

So how do they get away with it? Musk is the poster boy for the green business, a beacon of sound success for many. Legislators and authorities have been very lenient regarding his missteps, to say the least. In august of 2018, Musk tweeted that he might take the company private — had the funding secured.

This is an incredibly flagrant breach of securities law, and Musk got off with a tiny slap on his hands. Martha Stewart went to prison, for way less. A lot of people in positions of authority, clearly do not want to see Musk fail or brought to justice.

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