The Sovereign Gazette

The Sovereign Gazette, Issue 1

Knowledge for Permissionless Living

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Technology Innovations

Optimism

Enemies of Free Society

Bitcoin News

The Latest and Greatest Memes

A Message from the Founder

The Sovereign Gazette is your guide to Permissionless Living. We will release 8 digital issues every month, and when the time is right, we’ll begin issuing a physical monthly collectible.

We’re looking for great creators of all types to provide quality content in return for revenue sharing. If you’d like to participate, reach out to me on

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Thank you for reading.

-Brian Hatano

The Wise: Ayn Rand and Effective Action

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Brian Hatano (@BrianHatano) on X Indie Capitalism. Economics, Epistemology, Entrepreneurship. Consent maximalist. Operator of @TheSovereignGaz Renting in Cloud City #X Will work for #Bitcoin x.com⁠

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In Chapter 17 of Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs it, she responds to a letter a fan wrote her, asking about how to take effective action in society.

Many will want to argue about Rand’s embrace of pure capitalism and philosophy of the selfish individual, and those can be arguments worth having, but in this article, I want to focus on a little known piece of advice that can save the would-be activist or entrepreneur decades of frustration.

The chapter is a comprehensive piece of advice directed at anyone who wishes to make a difference in the world.

This is my favorite quote:

If you want to influence a country's intellectual trend, the first step is to bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent case to the best of your knowledge and ability. This does not mean memorizing or reciting slogans and principles, objectivist or otherwise. Knowledge necessarily includes the ability to apply abstract principles to concrete problems, to recognize the principles in specific issues, to demonstrate them, and to advocate a consistent course of action. This does not require omniscience or omnipotence. It is the subconscious expectation of automatic omniscience in oneself and in others that defeats many would-be crusaders and serves as an excuse for doing nothing. What is required is honesty, intellectual honesty, which consists in knowing what one does know, constantly expanding one's knowledge and never evading or failing to correct a contradiction. This means the development of an active mind as a permanent attribute. When or if your convictions are in your conscious, orderly control, you will be able to communicate them to others.

Quality over quantity

Popular acceptance is not the first goal. One's ideas must be well-thought and consistent. Any half-wit can promote ideas to the masses. It takes careful thought to have ideas that are true and useful.

Philosophy over politics

Politics follow from philosophy. A culture that embraces a philosophy of merit will never submit to a politics of favoritism. Therefore, the real work, the deep work, is to improve the nation's philosophy.

One might say that this oversimplifies the complexity of politics, but watch what happens if a politician tries to manipulate people against their philosophical culture. It just doesn’t work. So the hard work that is lasting is improving the culture, the underlying philosophies that operate in a society.

Understanding over communication

Integration of reality and ethics, data and values, must always precede communication. The person who can think well can communicate well.

Self-trained teachers are a precondition to changing the world

People can "receive" training, but it is only through the working of a person's mind that someone is able to adopt any knowledge. Knowledge must be recreated in one's own mind before trying to act with any purpose in the world.

Some people will argue that we need to set up elite groups of leaders because average people don’t have the intellectual capacity to self-learn philosophy. While I agree that not everyone is eager to learn philosophy in the same way, I think I also agree with Rand that deep mental reflection is both available and important for all people.

Philosophy is a comprehensive view of life

Philosophy does not just matter in the big things or the public things, but in all areas of life: emotions, art, work, money, etc. Consistent philosophy integrates a person's passions with everything they do.

Ad Hoc projects are better than general associations

Associations, political groups, rights organizations, etc. all practice the unfortunate mechanism of dilution. To gain a large-enough "tent", an association must dilute the power out of any of its messaging. Also, it's rare to have more than several items of concerns in common across more than a handful of people. This is why political tribes lack sincerity.

Instead, partake in specific projects that make a difference. Participate in a project that has teeth, a project you believe in. Participate with people you might otherwise disagree with.

Note that this does not negate the need of occasional coalition-building or creative partnerships, but it suggests putting the energy where it will be most effective.

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In my own work, I have found that last bit of advice especially useful. It is a burden lifted to not feel the need to associate with people on a 20-point shared list of values. Instead, I can work on projects that I care deeply about, while living a life that is otherwise simple and satisfied. It allows action toward a cause, without sacrificing one’s soul and wellbeing.

I hope you’ve found something useful in this summary for your own action and development of an integrated philosophy. Are there parts that align with your experience and observations?

If so, please take whatever is useful and feel free to ignore the rest.

The Sovereign Gazette is Brian’s brainchild. Brian spends most of his time in central Japan with his wife, 3 kids, 2 cats, and 1 husky. He is currently focused on building The Sovereign Gazette, Indie Academy, and writing 8 book(let)s in the Indie Way series.

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The Foolish: Haidt’s Draconian Appeal

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Aaron Stupple (@astupple) on X Physician optimist. Loves Popper, forgotten Darwin of knowledge. Bitcoiner. x.com⁠

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Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation is chock full of misconceptions, confusions, and bad arguments. That much is par for the course with pop social science books, but Haidt’s case is worrisome because he pairs all of this with policy recommendations that are both draconian and broadly appealing.

A full refutation of the book, including the mountains of research it references, would require a mini book in itself. Here, I focus on the flaws in Haidt’s reasoning, which are easy to see in chapter five where he outlines the four ways smartphones cause teen anxiety and depression.

When an innovation takes off, it’s because regular people like it, not because the evil company made people use it.

He sets the stage by noting that the iphone went from a very helpful “digital Swiss army knife” to a harmful collection of “engaging mobile apps” with the advent of the app store. Somehow, the iPhone went from good to bad when the number and range of tools in the knife got better. This is the “it’s so good, it’s bad” argument that is surprisingly common among Luddites and others who fear progress. I know people who are uneasy about receiving a product from Amazon the next day, feeling that such convenience is somehow not right.

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Haidt then catalogs the series of changes in social media, including the “like” and “retweet” functions, and the front-facing camera. What about these developments are inherently sinister, except that people really liked using them? Many innovations have been tried that didn’t work, like Google + and the Galaxy foldable phone, and the only way these companies found out was that people didn’t use them. When an innovation takes off, it’s because regular people like it, not because the evil company made people use it.

This is an example of one person (ie Haidt) imagining that he knows the most profitable expenditure of someone else’s time. In reality, this is unknowable, even for a professor of social psychology, but it is a bedrock belief among those who think they deserve the power to tell others what to do with their lives.

Haidt worries about the opportunity costs that smartphones impose on users. He assumes that he knows the most profitable use of other people’s attention. Not only that, Haidt is misunderstanding what opportunity costs are. If I decide that I really want to eat Chinese food tonight, that doesn’t come at the cost of missing Mexican or Italian. Maybe I just don’t want any of those foods right now and I only want Chinese. An opportunity cost is relevant when I am DENIED an option. If I have to go to the doctor’s office instead of doing what I prefer, such as going to work, then the cost of the doctor’s visit includes the missed earnings that I would otherwise have had if I went to work.

When people choose to spend their time on their smartphones, they don’t pay the cost of all the other stuff they could have done otherwise. This is an example of one person (ie Haidt) imagining that he knows the most profitable expenditure of someone else’s time. In reality, this is unknowable, even for a professor of social psychology, but it is a bedrock belief among those who think they deserve the power to tell others what to do with their lives.

Haidt’s Claims of Four Harms

1- Social Deprivation

He thinks smartphones make kids isolated, which hinges on his theory that only “real world” interactions are worthwhile. But maybe phones increase kids’ social connections. Maybe the causality is reversed, that isolated kids use phones more, rather than phones driving kids into isolation. Maybe lots of kids are traumatized, or at least bothered, by forced engagement with other kids. I am personally tormented when forced to engage with people whose company I don’t enjoy, and at least I can ease the torment with my 40 years of experience in understanding when and why it’s necessary to put up with unwanted company. In addition, I have some peace of mind knowing I can get away from them if I really need to, whereas kids are often stuck.

One thing Haidt never addresses is that many kids are on social media IN THE PRESENCE OF THEIR FRIENDS, posting photos, commenting on posts, and interacting with other friends who are not there. My guess is that mingling social media with friends at the same time often makes for a more socially dense experience.

2- Sleep Deprivation

Lots of kids stay up late on their phones. Sure, but this wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t have to wake up for school. Here, as elsewhere in the book, Haidt turns a blind eye to the harmful effects of school. Loss of sleep is the least of it - school causes an incredible amount of stress and anxiety, but Haidt would rather eliminate phones, a source of freedom, than eliminate school, which is an obvious and “unnatural” source of oppression.

3- Attention Fragmentation

Haidt worries about phones as a distraction. But being interrupted by something more interesting is only a problem when the thing you’re working on is boring. When you do things that are genuinely interesting, you aren’t distracted by mindless buzzes and likes on your phone, because you have better things to think about. The problem with childhood, and with adults who are also distracted by their phones, is that they don’t have anything better to do. They aren’t engaged in a passion. What a shame. And what’s the best way to develop a passion? Freedom to explore a wide variety of things. And what’s an incredibly inexpensive way to explore many things? Unfettered access to a smartphone. Haidt has it 100% wrong here.

If I was going to implement a policy to help young people discover a passion, I would eliminate compulsory school, the passion-killer.

4- Addiction

Real addiction involves a chemical dependence in the brain, and behaviors that compulsively attempt to maintain that dependence, like a heroin user desperately seeking a fix to avoid heroin withdrawal. Fake addiction is when alarmists try to spread fear in activities that people do repeatedly, like climate activists saying we’re addicted to fossil fuels, or health zealots worrying about fast food. I am dependent on the electricity in my house, but I’m not addicted to it.

The chapter closes with a look at the benefits of social media. I’m glad Haidt at least acknowledges there is an upside, but the way he dismisses these upsides is funny. When surveys of kids show that they think social media improves their lives, he questions whether they’re really being honest. This trick is used over and over in the book, where confirmatory research results are accepted at face value, but contradictory results are examined and reinterpreted until they yield what Haidt knows is there.

Aaron is a father of five, optimist, practicing physician, and Bitcoiner. He loves Popper and his book on Taking Children Seriously is due out in 2025.

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The Future Now: Are Teslas ready to be Robotaxis?

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Ryan Lindsay on LinkedIn⁠

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Hands-on review by an autonomous vehicle Systems & Safety Engineer

Elon Musk has made claims about Tesla's technology being able to drive owners' cars around without a person in the driver seat. So yesterday, I thought I would see if Tesla FSD was able to perform my driving tasks of the day: a little over 50 miles that took a little under 2 hours' time, 60% of which was highway driving. Conditions were typical of the East San Francisco Bay Area where I live: bright and clear weather, with few pedestrians during the city driving portions. The car is a model year 2020 so it still has the ultrasonic sensors, it's running the latest standard software update (FSD v12.3.6) and the FSD profile is set to Average.

For those not familiar: Tesla "Full Self-Driving" is an Advanced Driver-Assistance System, which automates steering and acceleration/braking but requires a person to be behind the wheel to constantly monitor, and be ready to take over control to maintain safety. Here are my observations regarding interventions I performed, to keep automated driving running well and to prevent accidents (along with thoughts I had in the moment, in parentheses):

Unable to start FSD

I was unable to start FSD about half the time, until the car was manually driven to a more desirable position. It also did not stop in the best places; for example going home it ended in front of a garbage can, in the road. (I did not expect these to be solved yet, but in the context of full autonomy they were human supervisor "assists" that needed to be performed.)

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Pressed the Brake Pedal

I pressed the brake pedal when a truck drove in front of the car while it was pulling out of its parking spot, at a Taco Bell close to the office where I work. (I was startled, and was not sure whether it would have stopped on its own.)

Turned the Steering Wheel

I turned the steering wheel to prevent hitting a curb, in the same parking lot as above. Similarly, later in the day I disengaged the system during a right turn after a traffic light. (My concern here was that I didn't want my wheel rims damaged, at least not more than they already have been in the past.)

Brake Pressed Again

I pressed the brake pedal at the last second to prevent the car from driving up onto curb and sidewalk. This was just after a bus stop along the side of the road while the car was turning into the sun, about 2 hours before sunset. There was a pedestrian in the path of the car. (In addition to probably preventing an accident, I might have gotten a traffic ticket — it's illegal to drive on a sidewalk like this in California.)

Driving the Wrong Way

The car drove the wrong way in a parking garage up multiple levels. I eventually pressed the brake pedal to stop it. (Luckily, no one backed their car out of their parking spot while this was happening.)

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For clarity, the above is not a statistically significant data set. This is just me waking up one morning and saying 'let's see how good it is, now.' Anyway, I was impressed! It drove me all the way to work, and performed perfectly well over 90% of the time. Tesla has done an amazing job improving this over time (I purchased FSD over 4 years ago). On the other hand, if you take the roughly 2 hours of driving time and divide it by just the last 2 events, the implication is that the mean time between human-interventions needed could be something like 1 hour (read: someone's alert and ready to act, once every hour or so, to keep automated driving running well and to prevent accidents).

If claims of success are based on experience with the current Supervised FSD, information like the above is relevant. And the average time between necessary human-interventions – which could be something like 1 hour – can represent how long robotaxi autonomous software can operate on its own. One concern might be that a human taxi driver (who the autonomous driver is intended to replace) can go for days, weeks, or even longer without needing to have someone supervise their driving actions.

Ryan lives with his wife and dogs in the sunny East Bay near San Francisco, CA. His background is in autonomous vehicle and functional safety, testing (design verification & validation as well as end-of-line production), regulatory compliance, and full lifecycle of software.

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