Engineer

Retired software engineer
Full-time dad
Student of Austrian economics
Lifter of heavy things

Public Key

npub1wghjj9s7p677smyla2d28t95em3a79hfchycgsz6rvptr30l206qnxt4f6

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8ytefzc0qa00gdj074x4r4j6vac7lzm5utjvygpdpkq43chl48aqpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgqgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqgjwaehxw309ac82unsd3jhqct89ejhxqgkwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxxmmjwp6k6tnrdakszxrhwden5te0wfjkccte9eehgunxwfhkuapwvdhk6qgjwaehxw309ahkvenrdpskjm3wwp6kym754y4

Publishing to

Author Public Key

npub1wghjj9s7p677smyla2d28t95em3a79hfchycgsz6rvptr30l206qnxt4f6

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-01-20 02:06:19 UTC

- reply

My response is here:
#naddr1qq…qg0m

2026-01-20 00:53:03 UTC

- reply

I wrote another article:
#naddr1qv…zznh

2026-01-19 14:07:08 UTC

- reply

Yes, exactly. The entrepreneurial aspect always exists in the real world. It's not possible to isolate the effect of time preference.

2026-01-18 18:27:05 UTC

- reply

1. Don't buy low quality products just because the seller accepts bitcoin. If you're buying the product anyway...
2. Does the business realize they are accepting bitcoin? I'm not a big fan of doing the bitcoin to fiat conversion on your end (gift cards, bill pay services, etc.) where the seller doesn't even realize bitcoin was involved. That doesn't encourage adoption.
3. If yes to #2, spend bitcoin. Don't worry about whether the seller is holding it or immediately converting to fiat. That is their choice. The important thing is that they made a choice to accept it.
4. If no to #2, spend fiat.

2026-01-18 14:34:47 UTC

- reply

I can't see your response either. How will I know what to be triggered about? 😄

2026-01-18 14:21:44 UTC

- reply

What is the source of those images you post?

2026-01-17 14:12:19 UTC

- reply

🎯
#nevent1q…2lun

2026-01-15 17:02:10 UTC

> another test

2026-01-15 16:23:42 UTC

- reply

This is a test.
https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqsywf0gk3tq7eqc85hpl525uhc9za33a7j22lkukxtysfp8zw74vzgtldefl

2026-01-15 16:13:36 UTC

- reply

Strike app won't accept a VOIP number. There is no technical reason for this. May be a policy choice by Strike or a 3rd party service they use. Disappointing. Works fine at River.

2026-01-14 01:16:13 UTC

- reply

Lets put aside the Rothbard vs Mises view of time preference. I'm still on the side of Mises, but apparently reasonable Austrians can disagree. However...
"The hoarder isn't postponing consumption..."
Hoarding a good does provide present utility, but that is not the same as consuming it. A non-perishable good like money is not used up, or worn out, or otherwise diminished in utility when it is held. The hoarder retains the full (present and future) services of the good until it is *actually* consumed or exchanged.
Rothbard recognized that too, as you mentioned above when he refers to 3 margins, not 2; and you yourself refer to hoarding as orthogonal, which would not be the case if hoarding and consumption were identical.
"A purely psychological "orientation toward the future" that never manifests in willingness to lend isn't economically meaningful because it produces no observable market phenomena."
Hoarding is not purely psychological. Hoarding in an exchange economy reduces demand for all other goods and increases the exchange value of the hoarded good. It definitely has effects in the market. This was the point of the 2nd Mises quote in my original reply. Whether those effects are observable is not relevant to economic theory.
"The HODLer who won't lend at any rate has revealed infinite time preference in the only sense that matters economically: no offered future return compensates him for parting with present capital."
The interest rate here is undefined, not infinite. You can't infer from a refusal to exchange present for future goods that the reason was an insufficient interest rate. Observed interest rates are partially explained by time preference, but they are not identical with it, nor do they measure it. There is always an entrepreneurial component.
It's the "stay humble" part of "stay humble and stack sats."

2026-01-13 20:51:05 UTC

- reply

I think Rothbard is not clarifying Mises there; he is contradicting him, and I think he is making a mistake in doing so.
I would say (and I think I am following Mises) it is the proportion between consumption and non-consumption (hoarding + investment) that reflects time preferences.
Again from Human Action:
"He who consumes a nonperishable good instead of postponing consumption for an indefinite later moment thereby reveals a higher valuation of present satisfaction as compared with later satisfaction"
That's time preference, and there is no need to invoke investment or interest to explain it.
If the stored coconuts keep Crusoe alive while he builds a boat...then what? They provide all the same present utility prior to consumption. Are they now an investment rather than a hoard? What's the difference?
There is no obvious distinction between saving and investment in an autarchic economy. There is always time preference though.

2026-01-13 16:36:00 UTC

- reply

"the hoarder isn't actually deferring consumption: they're consuming the money's services (liquidity, optionality, removal of uneasiness) in the present moment."
Are you trying to say that Mises is wrong, or that your definition of hoarding is somehow different than Mises' "plain saving"?
Assuming the latter, I think it would help clarify things if you could explain that difference in relation to a non-monetary economy. (I think you will find that there is no difference.)
"...whether it reveals time preference through the mechanism of originary interest. Mises himself defines originary interest as the discount of future goods against present goods in exchange, which hoarding by definition does not involve since no temporal exchange occurs"
But Mises does not say that originary interest is the ONLY way time preference is expressed. My first quote from HA very clearly says the opposite, in fact.

2026-01-13 15:18:14 UTC

- reply

🤦 Please read Chapter 18 of Human Action.
https://mises.org/online-book/human-action/chapter-xviii-action-passing-time/2-time-preference-essential-requisite-action
A teaser:
"The theorem of time preference must be demonstrated in a double way. first for the case of plain saving in which people must choose between the immediate consumption of a quantity of goods and the later consumption of the same quantity. Second for the case of capitalist saving in which the choice is to be made between the immediate consumption of a quantity of goods and the later consumption either of a greater quantity or of goods which are fit to provide a satisfaction which--except for the difference in time--is valued more highly."
--> Both plain savings (i.e., hoarding) and investment are expressions of time preference.
On the productivity of plain savings:
"If an individual employs a sum of money not for consumption but for the purchase of factors of production, saving is directly turned into capital accumulation. If the individual saver employs his additional savings for increasing his cash holding because this is in his eyes the most advantageous mode of using them, he brings about a tendency toward a fall in commodity prices and a rise in the monetary unit’s purchasing power....The effect of our [p. 522] saver’s saving, i.e., the surplus of goods produced over goods consumed, does not disappear on account of his hoarding. The prices of capital goods do not rise to the height they would have attained in the absence of such hoarding. But the fact that more capital goods are available is not affected by the striving of a number of people to increase their cash holdings. If nobody employs the goods--the nonconsumption of which brought about the additional saving--for an expansion of his consumptive spending, they remain as an increment in the amount of capital goods available, whatever their prices may be. Those two processes--increased cash holding of some people and increased capital accumulation--take place side by side."

2026-01-08 17:32:42 UTC

- reply

> Time preference is not a moral category, and "lower" is not inherently better than "higher."
Agree.
Lower time preference is *usually* (and reasonably) seen as virtuous, but there are limits, and it depends on the circumstances.
Scrooge is a great example of low time preference as a vice. (You will probably say he has high time preference though.)

2026-01-08 17:11:21 UTC

- reply

Forgoing something is not consuming it.

2026-01-08 14:15:37 UTC

- reply

> If Crusoe just piled up fish and never built anything, he'd eventually eat them. The pile isn't deferred consumption; it's inventory awaiting consumption.
I think this is the root of your mistake: "It isn't deferred consumption; it is merely *awaiting* consumption." ?????
Waiting == deferring, right?

2026-01-08 13:49:18 UTC

- reply

Hoarding (i.e., saving) is literally deferred consumption. That is the definition of saving. Saving is not consumption.
Also, interest rate is not time preference. Time preference is part of human nature. It does not require a loan market or an interest rate or money or society.
That Crusoe is not in a loan market is precisely the point. You say (correctly) that Crusoe is demonstrating low time preference by saving. But then you introduce money and loan markets and interest rates and get confused.

2026-01-07 22:16:45 UTC

- reply

> Only lending or investment expresses time preference; a hoard is liquidity held for consumption.
All deferred consumption demonstrates low(er) time preference. That includes holding cash balances.
> If everyone hoarded and no one lent, interest rates would be infinite, reflecting infinite time preference.
Imagine you are Crusoe, hoarding fish to live on while you make a net. Is that demonstrating an infinitely high time preference?

2025-07-04 13:13:41 UTC

- reply

Some possible mitigations:
- Buy your own modem or modem/router combo for $50-100, if your ISP supports 3rd-party modems (most that I've used do)
- Buy your own router for $50-100, hardwire it to the ISP-provided modem; connect everything else only to your own router. This is possible with any ISP. If the ISP-provided device includes WiFi, disable it via the admin interface if possible
- If you aren't using the WiFi on the ISP-provided device, you can often unscrew the antennas (may not be 100% effective, but can't hurt)
- If you're more technically inclined, and your router sipports it, flash OpenWrt or similar open-source firmware

2025-07-03 16:47:58 UTC

Changing your car's oil filter, and too lazy to remove the plastic engine shield, but also hate cleaning up a big mess?
You can use a flexible plastic cutting board as a sort of funnel to keep the oil from dripping onto the top of the shield.
Tbh, there are probably products designed for this, but I was feeling pretty proud of myself.😁
Pro-tip: check with wife first
https://blossom.primal.net/dcec7a7314196f5424c482fdb758512c3740ed7ee5f302d9f9a031e27dd16ab4.jpg

2025-07-02 15:44:57 UTC

Can anyone help me get zaps working (sending)?
Using @nprofile…nrxl + cashu.me
My first zap worked, but since then my zaps look successful in primal, but never show in cashu.me. After a while they disappear from primal too.
Any suggestions?
@nprofile…rzrk #asknostr

2025-06-30 19:08:10 UTC

- reply

The first part is not necessarily true.
Companies buying bitcoin > companies not buying bitcoin, regardless of motivation
Buying bitcoin to own bitcoin > buying bitcoin to increase fiat market value

2025-06-28 13:59:03 UTC

A guide to automating @nprofile…9vg9 backups (not by me).
I believe this is planned as a feature for a future release, but very nice to not have to wait.
https://community.start9.com/t/guide-automating-backups-on-startos-3-5-1-requires-ssh/3551