Mike Brock

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/it-was-always-an-emergency

It would seem contra what a lot of campist morons said — that Ukraine was fighting a proxy war for the US and would stop the second the US stopped supporting it, has not borne out — proving the kinds of people who like Glenn Greenwald and Tulsi Gabbard are pretty stupid.

The people who spend all day manufacturing moral panics about pronouns and library books are disallowed from lecturing anyone about "moral panics" over data centers. You do not get to invent the genre and then police its application. You are also bad, stupid people.

Say his name. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/a-twenty-year-old-is-dead-because

Kind of funny that a lot of the people who complain about American imperialism in South America historically, fell for Trump's anti-neocon thing hook, line and sinker — and then he took over Venezuela and is now pillaging it. Looking at the Glenn Greenwald fans out there.

I have no eulogy for Lindsey Graham, who has departed us. But I do have some things to say. They are not kind things. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/no-eulogy

On Platner and the right's fake morality. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-great-gaslighting-of-america

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/a-more-powerful-president-over-a

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-room-at-aspen

John Yoo is very happy today. The rest of us should not be. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-spoils-system-returns

My condolences to the anarchocapitalist accelerationists praying for collapse of the US Dollar.

This is my theory of history. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-longest-relay

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/more-perfect

I believe Donald Trump is dead and it is being covered up by the White House, and there is a whole series of negotiation happening between the Vance and Rubio camp. I believe he died yesterday. I believe AI voice technology may have been used to "make calls".

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-economic-royalists

You can't always get what you want.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-sovereign-individual-was-the

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/towards-a-more-perfect-union

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-anti-imperialism-of-fools

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-last-serious-contrarian

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/i-endorse-tom-steyer-for-governor

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-longest-relay

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/there-is-no-ai-apocalypse

TL;DR? I see. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-engineers-who-would-be-philosophers

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-simulation-has-collapsed

This is honestly more interesting than Bitcoin. https://www.taler.net/en/

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-what-a-moral-concept-is

This piece I wrote in April of 2025, aged like fine wine. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-time-of-monsters

You only need a compass — a way to orient through the storm. On guilt, love, the work of release, and the music underneath all of it. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-the-dance

You only need a compass — a way to orient through the storm. On guilt, love, the work of release, and the music underneath all of it. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-the-dance

It's kind of crazy that Satoshi Nakamoto knew Jeffrey Epstein.

You seem like a very stupid person.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-bell

The question isn't what you should do — it's who you should be. Every minute of every day.

Resistance isn't the flower against the tank. It's the refusal to complicit yourself in a thousand small ways, every hour. The cognitive revolution is a habit, not a heroism. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-manifesto-of-the-cognitive-revolution-cce

Trust is not a currency that can be traded. It is not something that can be abstracted away. Trust is, and will always be, an act of faith. Based on love.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/a-republican-judge-just-voided-23

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/we-were-paying-attention

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/how-elon-musk-thinks-and-why-it-is

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/apology-not-accepted-mr-carlson

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-man-who-cannot-stop-talking-about

I was called a "conspiracy theorist" by former friends for thinking that people like Thiel and Karp were plotting a fascist takeover of America over a year ago. It's been something of journey to see the rest of the world come to the conclusion I privately arrived at, before this all started. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america

I want to be clear: I am not anti-Bitcoin. I am a critic of Bitcoin. I am anti-Bitcoin-as-politics. I think this is madness. I have always thought it was madness. Even when I worked on Bitcoin-related things.

I have observed that fascists like Bitcoin. They promote it. Fascists of all kinds. American fascists. The IRGC in Iran. Bukele in El Salvador. And I think to myself: wow. Look at all these very bad people doing very bad things and branding themselves with Bitcoin. And I don't think Bitcoin advocates have passed a moral smell test.

I see them go up on stage with actual fascists, who are actively pushing — among other things, and I'm debating one of these fascists on stage in Las Vegas at the Bitcoin Conference — for ending democracy and returning to a feudalistic world. And they are calling it freedom or "libertarianism."

The notion that people just look past this and say "well, we can disagree on politics and work on Bitcoin together" think they are performing some principled compartmentalization. But that is not a reasonable argument for tolerating this. It is, in fact, quite suspicious that the fascists are very excited about ending democratic control over money.

Now, you might think democratic control over money is a bad idea because of perverse incentives, public-choice problems, the time-inconsistency of political monetary policy, and we can have amazingly interesting philosophical debates about all of that late into the night. But what is it, exactly, that these "liberal" or "progressive" Bitcoin advocates think is going to happen in a world where the government is completely unable to constrain private finance? They think some magical fairy dust of bottom-up enlightenment will push back against those whose goal is to rule you and turn you into a serf? Forever?

I think these are serious observations. I have not heard an answer yet. I am still waiting.

If the market rallies after every fake declaration from Trump are not proof that the market is irrational, and challenge your faith in efficient market hypothesis, then I am prepared to characterize you as a very foolish, painfully deluded person.

It's fun to think about how I became unemployable in Silicon Valley because I insisted on saying bad things about Donald Trump on the internet. And now I get to narrate their comeuppance. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-capital-is-misaligned-and-the

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-capital-is-misaligned-and-the

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/i-hate-the-internet

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-neo-confederate-party

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-boiling-point

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/nobody-manages-the-economy

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/he-has-never-been-playing-chess

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-first-domino

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/21-hours

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-fire-next-time

It’s still incredible to think back to last April when I wrote this piece and most of my friends and family saw me as a little bit unhinged and overly alarmist. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-time-of-monsters

My critique of the cypherpunks. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/show-your-face

For what it's worth, my best guess, using my most disciplined guestimation, that it is 70-80% likely that Adam BAck is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto. This includes my sense derived from personal interactions with him, strong buttressed by Mr. Carreyrou's reporting.

✅ Supposed human rights activist celebrates IGRC collecting extortionate toll payments in an international waterway that will be used to fund its brutal repression.

Ah, yes, see... the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is now adopting Bitcoin! This is it guys! The world will now see the beauty and potential of Bitcoin! A murderous regime that massacred 35,000 protesters in the streets in January has been orange-pilled! (corrected)

Seeing some former friends literally giddy with excitement that Iran will be using Bitcoin for paying tolls for the Straight of Hormuz as some kind of validation of the goodness of Bitcoin is very special. It confirms my worries about their fascist sympathies.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-window

On what I would do if I had the power. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-moral-imagination

I wrote this back in April. Back when my TDS was at its worst. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-time-of-monsters

I understand people may think lowly of me for the unrelenting humiliation against my former friends which is on the spoke, but they betrayed me, you see. And I was made to suffer for insisting on truth. So now you must be made to suffer for insisting on lies.

The people who turned their backs on me, said I had TDS, said I was too toxic with my public disapprobation of Mr. Trump. Boy, am I now going to make their lives hell.

And the ballad of selfish fraud plays on to the stupid people who would believe him benevolent.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plaque

Yes, I have earned the right to rub shit in your face if you have—at any point—said to me that I have TDS. I have a long memory of such things. And if the world is to burn, I shall at least, get to humiliate you.

See you stupid former friends who called me a neocon for supporting Ukraine. I’m opposing this illegal fascist war, while supporting Ukraine fighting fascists. I’m consistent. That’s how it works. It’s called not being a stupid coward. And have discernment.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/into-the-abyss-we-go

I am looking for an expert on "Trump Derangement Syndrome" for a piece I'm working on. I wonder if any of my former moron friends who diagnosed me with it, could break down some of the features of the pathology, so that I may accurately describe it to my readers.

I think most reasonable people can agree that participation is the price one must pay to be taken seriously. Advertising that one has taken the black pill is therefore, an admission of unseriousness. Of cowardice. Of selfishness. You are not wise. You are aloof! https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-ballad-of-the-black-pill

To the "black-pilled" among us. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-ballad-of-the-black-pill

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/a-discussion-about-the-unserious

If you want to understand the world you are living in right now, you should read this. I promise it's worth your time. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-world-blinks

We're coming for you! https://joycemstrong.substack.com/p/were-coming-for-you-a-song

There should be public hangings. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/what-should-come-after

Must be pretty uncomfortable to be one of those executives who took a knee to this White House. Must be particularly worrying if you're a general counsel who oversaw what amounts to political bribes in exchange for favorable regulatory treatment. You thought this was the new order. You had to go along to get along. But now you sense it isn't so firm. And you should be afraid. When the public comes to fully understand the nature of what you did — when the word sedition stops sounding hyperbolic and starts sounding like a charge — you will have no one to blame but yourself. You betrayed your country for profit. That bill comes due.

The truth is that classical liberalism doesn’t have a materialist metaphysics. Like say right-libertarianism and Marxism. The socialist-capitalist argument is about placing material conditions as primary in a political order. Collective versus individual ownership of stuff. I think this is very confused. Marxists and libertarians therefore, both have more in common than they do with classical liberalism.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-philosopher-kings

Libertarians who voted for Trump as the lesser evil might be the most politically stupid (and selfish) people on the planet.

How are the "at least Trump isn't a necon/warmonger" folks doing these days?

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-the-measure-of-a-man