Messy Times

The conversation that follows is the result of Ray's saying yes to that invitation. Ray is a deep thinker with wide-ranging international experience and a persistent curiosity which drives him to learn more and to express what he learns in his writing. Beyond or as part of his writing, he's spent a great deal of time examining how information flows - or fails to flow - in society, and the implications that has for a healthy town square in which people of goodwill but differing ideas can engage in robust debate. Enjoy!

You can find more of Ray's work at www.raynayler.net.

After getting a fresh dose of #Enlightentainment from our discussion, might we suggest that you check out CoinGeek's ⁠Bitcoin 101 free course⁠ offering? It is more important than ever that you get a clear handle on this whole Bitcoin Thing: ⁠https://tpow.app/ebc70fcc

If you're picking up what Messy Times is laying down, you're welcome to provide whatever support you can via our crypto tip jar: HandCash: $MuddyWaters

We are delighted to have Dr. Ken Dekleva join us for a deep and wide-ranging conversation across his areas of expertise. Ken covers a lot of intellectual and practical ground in his second visit to the studios.

A prolific author as well as a Senior Fellow at the George H.W. Bush Center for U.S.-China Relations, Ken's experience spans the globe. His deep experience is not only represented in historical knowledge, but directly in current international affairs and innovations in healthcare, not only for military veterans but for patients of all kinds. We discuss a few of the #mental_health advances he champions, including #telemedicine which he already uses in his medical practice.

That is just scratching the surface - please grab a soothing beverage and settle in for a great discussion.

In addition to the range of sources discussed in the episode, we remind our listeners to check out The Cipher Brief for the best reporting and analysis on national security issues.

After getting a fresh dose of #Enlightentainment from our discussion, might we suggest that you check out CoinGeek's Bitcoin 101 free course offering? It is more important than ever that you get a clear handle on this whole Bitcoin Thing: https://tpow.app/ebc70fcc

Florida is already the Last Free State in America. Because of that, it is attracting talent from all over the other 49, which is making it a bastion of free market innovation. It's obviously the best place to be, which is why  @MessyTimes  would never consider broadcasting from anywhere else.

Aside from hosting rampant innovation in Enlightentainment, up and down the peninsula, many towns have become blockchain and tech boom towns. Charles Hwang shares how he became involved in Bitcoin (BTC), what Lightning Capital is doing with Layer 2 networks and how he sees the cryptocurrency space developing.

In the course of our discussion, Charles provides the most cogent defense of the Small Blocker position your Glittering Host has yet heard.   After the usual admonition to hit Like and Subscribe, we'd love it if you provided your thoughts below on the Small Block v. Big Block debate. It's not quite 1990s East Coast - West Coast beef, but potentially far more impactful to us all than Tupac and Biggie were.

China wants the world to accept the renminbi as a reserve currency. What are their reasons for suggesting an alternative to the US Dollar? Was Bretton Woods a mistake? Is Purchasing Power Parity a reasonable way to value a currency? Money is international but a currency is national; how many people care about that distinction?

Has anyone ever gotten a date by using monetary theory as a pickup line? Is the paradigm of a "cold war" drawn from the Soviet-American 20th century headbutting a useful frame to examine the actions of the Chinese government? Has the Dollar's role at the core of the international financial system been a net positive or negative for the United States?

Tune in to hear James Fok's highly informed take on these important issues and Your Enlightentaining Host’s nostalgia over the bezant.

It's a weird thing about history. One can visit, say, ancient European city centers and marvel at the architecture, in full knowledge of horrific war crimes and atrocities committed on the very streets one is currently strolling on, nibbling pastries and snapping selfies. All that happened a long time ago, so - to steal a line - at this point, what difference does it make that babies were snatched from their mothers' arms and dashed to the pavement right here where I'm dropping powdered sugar on my sweater?

When war is happening in the here and now, however, it seems somehow tasteless to express any concern about urban design and respect for tradition. Private-jet-setting-on-the-taxpayer-dime Climate Nag John Kerry in a supreme fit of tone-deaf absurdity urged Vladimir Putin to "be aware of Russia's carbon emission / climate commitments" while he began his evil invasion of Ukraine. This came as Russian planes were bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol.

So if the Carbon Gadfly can burn jet fuel for thousands of miles while hectoring people about the supposed existential threat posed by carbon emissions and express a preference for clubbing Ukrainian children to death rather than running tanks over them, I think it's okay to ruminate on architectural issues in a postwar Ukraine. Urbanist and architectural traditionalist Michael Diamant joins us in the  @MessyTimes  studios to discuss his deep convictions about the destruction of Western architecture being caused by the same underlying root cause that leads to the rampant idiocy around "pronouns" and other, bizarre-to-normal-people social phenomena.

How, you might well ask, does a commitment to urban renewal along the lines of building things people like to live in rather than brutalist Soviet silly boxes, play into a consideration of the war ongoing in Ukraine? Tune in to find out!

Afterwards, flush with enthusiasm, peruse Michael's architectural musings: https://twitter.com/michael_diamanthttps://www.facebook.com/groups/Klassisknyproduktionhttps://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturalRevival/

 After getting a fresh dose of urbanist Enlightentainment, might we suggest as a palate cleanser that you check out CoinGeek's Bitcoin 101 free course offering? In an era fraught with architectural disruption it is more important than ever that you get a clear handle on this whole Bitcoin Thing: https://tpow.app/ebc70fcc

City of London politician Mark Wheatley revisits the  @MessyTimes  studios for a brisk chat about The Coronation, current Great Power competition and to sort out who is lying to whom the most in the jockeying for geopolitical domination.

Pomp!  A really old throne!  An MP wielding an impressive sword for hours with nary a wobble!  Geopolitical considerations!  Snubs and divisions!  The manipulation of the Sacred!  Golden bracelets that strike fear into politicians' souls!

Tune in!  We're even broadcasting north of Hadrian's Wall for this momentous occasion!

Statistically normal people are exhausted and bored by the bizarre linguistic preoccupations of a tiny segment of the population, and are baffled by the weird insistence of the chattering classes that they "must" learn 65 new "pronouns" and 97 new "genders." This particular brand of neo-Marxist madness contributes directly to our decidedly Messy Times. In line with the weaponization of language for political control, the government in a wild-eyed, frenzied assault on the First Amendment created a Board of Misinformation, thereby setting even new lows in American political life. Notably, that Board, chaired by a partisan who repeated every lie ever told about Donald Trump, was never actually abandoned. It was just "put on hold."

Amidst the considerably messy maelstrom of modern political screeching - we hesitate to call it discourse - we are honored to have Thomas Buckley visit the studios today for a wide-ranging chat about linguistic distortions wielded for purposeful societal harm and political gain. Thomas is the former mayor of Lake Elsinore, California, a former newspaper reporter and a lapsed bartender. As he says, only one of those jobs made people happy.

Many early use cases of a technology in hindsight look pretty silly.  In 2000, Seventeen "dot coms" spent millions on ads for Super Bowl XXXIV - more web-based companies than have booked ads in the intervening twenty years.   Similarly with "blockchain" which I take a delightful hour to kick around with my guest Professor Michael Mainelli, Chairman of  @ZYenGroup .  

Whenever a tech term becomes marketing faerie dust, look out!   #Blockchain and #BTC (which some call #Bitcoin) come under our strict scrutiny.  We touch on #CHECKSUM, the accurate and less sexy version of a #hash.  If blockchain is not boring, you're doing it wrong!  The era of clever techies selling NFTs of monkeys on a sailboat to people for $75,000 is over, but that does not mean that real world NFT uses are not coming to a global market near you.   Also, Michael was kind of enough to spruik our Host's upcoming appearance on the City of London's FS Club webinar series:  https://fsclub.zyen.com/ webinar series on 15 February.  

We'll be discussing how an innovative #RareEarths mine in #Greenland is deploying commercial sales contracts on the blockchain in an #NFT structure.    Sign up for the webinar here:  https://fsclub.zyen.com/events/forthcoming-events/how-to-nft-a-greenland-rare-earths-mine/ to dive even more deeply into how real adults will be using NFTs for real asset management.

We are delighted to be joined in the @MessyTimes studios for a philosophical and sociological deep dive seen from the point of view of an American #millennial. Justyna Czekaj is a credit to her generation, an accomplished, educated and thoughtful critic of the foibles which contributed so strongly to the madness we've lived with for going on three years.

Join us for a hearty and wide-ranging discussion. We touch on such minor topics as the rapid decay of the formerly great United States, to the vagaries of friendship when confronted with government propaganda, to the stunning speed with which formerly rational people turned into subservient sheeple at the appalling and irrational whims of government officials.

Like it or not for grumpy Generation X, Justyna's crew and what comes after them are crafting the future, assuming, of course, decrepit Boomers will quit running for office. Sheesh - even Gen X knows when it's time to retire.

Have a listen! She gives it to you straight. Perhaps the Union shall endure. Although a whole lot of remedial education regarding the irreplaceable value of Unfettered Free Speech is in order, if what comes next is to resemble the good bits the Founders bequeathed us.

I'm making book on whether that mild endorsement of Free Speech will get this episode cancelled and censored for "spreading misinformation."

Americans are obligated to provide all the assistance we can to our combat #veterans and their families. All who serve in our military deserve our gratitude and appreciation. We owe an especial debt to the members of our Special Operations teams, who go above and beyond the normal risks associated with war.

Those individuals with the drive and commitment who volunteer for the hardships and augmented risks of Special Operations are what differentiates the American military. Their enhanced training and intense qualification process result in highly trained, driven and team-focused warriors.

I am beyond honored and privileged to be a Board member of the Combat Control Foundation, which is the fund-raising vehicle that supports the ongoing mission of the Combat Control Association, dedicated to helping those veterans and their families, whatever the need may be. The Board contains a mix of civilian volunteers and #CCT veterans like Mike West, who took time out of his schedule to visit the Messy Times studios.

Join us for a discussion about the value of service to our nation, and the myriad ways in which all Americans can help foundations like ours to execute our mission, which is to serve those who have sacrificed so much for us all in their military service. To learn more and to donate to the Foundation, please visit: www.combatcontrol.team.