The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 18: Lessons from History
DigiCash, e-gold, and Silk Road failed through centralization and poor OPSEC. Bitcoin succeeded through decentralization, open source, and properly aligned economic incentives.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 17: Decentralized Social Infrastructure
Nostr solves identity capture through cryptographic keys users control. Relays compete, moderation is market-driven, and the protocol extends beyond social posts.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 16: Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Zero-knowledge proofs enable verification without disclosure. SNARKs, STARKs, and Bulletproofs make different tradeoffs. Deployed in Zcash and rollups; broader adoption developing.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 15: Bitcoin: Resistance Money
Bitcoin solves double-spending without trusted third parties. Sound money enforced by code. Base layer privacy requires additional tools like Lightning and coinjoin.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 14: Anonymous Communication Networks
The internet leaks metadata. VPNs help locally. Tor distributes trust through relays. Mixnets defeat global adversaries. Choose tools matching your threat model.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 13: Cryptographic Foundations
Cryptography provides mathematical privacy foundations: encryption, hashing, and digital signatures enable trustless verification. Implementation bugs and human error remain the weakest links.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 12: The Crypto Wars
The Crypto Wars pit states against privacy technology. Mathematics ignores legislation. Developers face prosecution. The fundamental conflict is permanent and intensifying.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 11: Corporate Surveillance and Data Extraction
Corporate surveillance extracts behavioral data for prediction products. State and corporate surveillance are deeply entangled. Markets are responding to growing privacy demand.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 10: Financial Surveillance and State Control
Financial surveillance enables state control through observation. CBDCs complete the architecture. Privacy breaks the OODA loop at observation, making theft unprofitable.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 9: Monetary Theory and Sound Money
Sound money emerges spontaneously from markets, not decrees. Bitcoin implements digital soundness with fixed supply and censorship resistance; privacy requires additional tools.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 8: Capital Theory and Entrepreneurship
Privacy infrastructure is capital requiring present sacrifice for future capability. Entrepreneurial discovery drives innovation. Markets coordinate heterogeneous privacy tools most effectively.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 7: Exchange Theory and Privacy
Privacy enhances exchange by protecting deliberation and enabling negotiation. Surveillance distorts prices and chills transactions. Better privacy means better functioning markets.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 6: Information, Scarcity, and Property
Information is non-scarce and cannot be property. Privacy is protected through self-ownership, physical property rights, and voluntary contracts, not intellectual property.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 5: The Axiom of Resistance
The Axiom of Resistance assumes systems can resist control. Mathematics, empirical evidence, and similar systems support this well-grounded but non-self-evident assumption.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 4: The Argumentation Axiom and Self-Ownership
Argumentation ethics demonstrates self-ownership through performative contradiction. Denying it while arguing presupposes it. Privacy rights follow directly from self-ownership.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 3: The Action Axiom: Privacy as Structural Feature
The Action Axiom proves privacy is structural to human action. Deliberation is internal; preferences are subjective; information asymmetry is inherent.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 2: Two Traditions, One Conclusion
Austrian economics and cypherpunk practice converge independently on privacy's importance. Theory explains why; code demonstrates how. This book synthesizes both traditions.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Preface
Austrian economists theorize but cannot build. Cypherpunks build but lack theory. This book synthesizes both to make the state irrelevant.
The Praxeology of Privacy ~ Chapter 1: The Nature of Privacy
Privacy is selective disclosure, not hiding. Breaking adversary observation through the OODA loop is strategic defense. Cheap privacy defeats expensive surveillance.
The Abundance Cage
What if the most dangerous prison ever built has no walls, no guards, and comes with a guaranteed income? Musk's Universal High Income proposal isn't a safety net but it's the final move in a game where "the technology oligarch who proposes UHI is not a philanthropist; he is the architect of a closed loop." Eight billion people rendered economically redundant, wholly dependent on the benevolence of the men who own the machines, history has a word for that arrangement. It wasn't called freedom then either.
