brockm
Mike Brock

notesfromthecircus.com

Unfashionable.

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Last Notes

2026-05-15 19:16:32 UTC

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

2026-05-14 01:43:54 UTC

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

2026-05-12 18:05:28 UTC

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

2026-05-08 22:30:51 UTC

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

2026-05-05 22:22:58 UTC

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It must be hard having to pretend like you know what you're talking about all the time.

2026-05-02 16:06:14 UTC

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You seem like a very stupid person.
#nevent1q…82g8

2026-04-23 00:20:21 UTC

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

2026-04-21 14:52:50 UTC

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

2026-04-18 21:07:03 UTC

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.

2026-04-09 02:34:27 UTC

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

2026-04-08 17:38:39 UTC

✅ Supposed human rights activist celebrates IGRC collecting extortionate toll payments in an international waterway that will be used to fund its brutal repression.
#nevent1q…eh42

2026-04-08 17:12:27 UTC

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.

2026-03-25 17:45:58 UTC

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

2026-03-25 15:58:25 UTC

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

2026-03-24 18:34:20 UTC

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I'm emotionally weak? Tell me more of this theory of emotional fortitude of yours.

2026-03-24 17:31:13 UTC

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Does it? Is that how it sounds, you foolish fool?

2026-03-24 17:08:46 UTC

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.

2026-03-24 17:03:21 UTC

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.

2026-03-24 16:34:37 UTC

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And the ballad of selfish fraud plays on to the stupid people who would believe him benevolent.
#nevent1q…dfl3

2026-03-24 15:53:20 UTC

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

2026-03-24 14:55:24 UTC

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.

2026-03-24 05:18:27 UTC

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I am using the terms completely correctly. You are speaking foolishly about schools of thought for which you have poor understanding.

2026-03-24 04:53:43 UTC

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.

2026-03-24 00:10:31 UTC

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

2026-03-23 01:18:33 UTC

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I just want someone who can calmly explain this supposed mental disorder I have to me. Surely there’s some good-natured former friend who can help me out!

2026-03-23 00:26:31 UTC

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Can you help, Evan?

2026-03-22 22:28:24 UTC

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.

2026-03-22 17:48:40 UTC

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

2026-03-22 17:25:27 UTC

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

2026-03-21 16:03:50 UTC

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

2026-03-19 00:23:51 UTC

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

2026-03-17 21:14:07 UTC

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

2026-03-17 16:44:24 UTC

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

2026-03-17 05:00:18 UTC

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.

2026-03-15 20:09:41 UTC

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Their respective confusions explains why Marxists mistake liberals for fascists and fascists mistake liberals for Marxists. They are both respectively stupid in this way.

2026-03-15 20:06:37 UTC

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.

2026-03-15 16:16:01 UTC

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

2026-03-09 00:43:00 UTC

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

2026-03-08 23:36:30 UTC

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

2026-03-04 12:06:28 UTC

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I condescend on selfishness and cowardice, yes.

2026-03-04 12:06:13 UTC

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

2026-03-04 11:52:31 UTC

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He said he no longer consider himself part of the US polity. I disrespect that move. I just do. I think its cowardly. Just like I disrespect leftists who move to Canada or Europe. I don't know what you want from me here.

2026-03-04 00:22:18 UTC

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What did I say that is wrong?

2026-03-03 16:48:48 UTC

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*him sorry. Auto-correct got me.

2026-03-03 16:48:32 UTC

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How did I treat me, exactly?

2026-03-03 16:29:07 UTC

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

2026-03-03 14:06:40 UTC

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I thought he would destabilize the world. I was told I had TDS. Me on October 13th, 2024: https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/this-is-fucking-serious

2026-03-03 02:22:54 UTC

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-greatest-story-of-the-west-ever

2026-03-02 01:40:34 UTC

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Of course not. But those who thought Trump would be better for bitcoin because he was favorable to bitcoin regulatoraly, or that they hoped he would bring about the collapse of the US world order, and that would be a good outcome, so they can live out some anarcho-capitalist fantasy upon the ashes, are complete pieces of shit for human beings. As evidenced by all the death and destruction right now.

2026-03-01 22:19:36 UTC

Look at what you accelerationist cretins have helped wrought upon the world. You will not build a bitcoin economy from the ashes. You will be forgotten.

2026-03-01 18:06:06 UTC

I consider pacifism the laundering of cowardice into the domain of false virtue. It is an empty posture, dressed up as civility. I note that so many of these pacifists saw in Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and even Donald Trump, some kind of virtue. Res ipsa loquitur.

2026-03-01 18:01:36 UTC

2026-02-28 19:48:03 UTC

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That is the question. But who decides what’s moral? The person with the biggest gun. Congratulations, you’re a politically immature fool who has no business opining on civilizational matters.

2026-02-28 16:47:22 UTC

Edward Snowden is a Putin stooge. Just so everyone knows. And his friends are agents of the Kremlin. Just so everyone knows.

2026-02-28 14:06:22 UTC

The insane gaslighting from people who said Kamala Harris would start wars, and Trump would start none, who now defend this, and argue it's constituional is something that nobody's public reputation in politics should be able to recover from. I'm sorry. I don't make the rules.

2026-02-28 13:13:08 UTC

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Ah yes, you think you’re so fucking smart. You see the world with such clarity, whereas I am just so stuck in my left-wing narrative bubble. You are just floating above fray in your little bitcoin world. So morally superior and so better informed than me.

2026-02-28 13:08:19 UTC

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You seem like a very stupid person.

2026-02-28 13:03:10 UTC

This is an illegal war. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/on-this-illegal-war

2026-02-28 12:53:35 UTC

Congress has not authorized this war. This must be said. No matter how virtuous one might think this cause. This is unconstitutional as fuck. I'm sorry. It is. And nobody can ever convince me that right-wing conservatives are the true constitutionalists. Fuck you. Argument over.

2026-02-28 12:51:15 UTC

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Let’s just face facts Evan. The whole bitcoin commentariat is full of shit.

2026-02-28 12:44:25 UTC

To the motherfuckers here who thought Kamala Harris was the neocon, I have nothing but a “fuck you” to say to you.

2026-02-27 19:34:25 UTC

The people who consider me incorrigible are the very same people I consider unserious actors within the project of human civilization. There's something like a conservation law there.

2026-02-25 00:17:57 UTC

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-cathedral-and-the-compass

2026-02-18 02:48:20 UTC

They named their companies after Tolkien but should have paid closer attention to the character who clutched the ring calling it precious. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america-one-year

2026-02-15 15:01:52 UTC

"Heaven must not be a kingdom, but a republic." https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-16

2026-02-13 16:45:24 UTC

The American libertarian argument fundamentally comes down to the notion that Thomas Jefferson erred in restating Locke’s “life, liberty, and property” to the more radical “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” Libertarians believe they are correcting this historical error. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-14

2026-02-13 14:35:00 UTC

Let’s talk about property rights. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-14

2026-02-07 07:58:47 UTC

OpenClaw is incredible. As some know I have a background in software engineering and I’ve played extensively with it. But people should understand how insanely insecure it is. People are going to be learning what a “prompt injection attack” is in pretty catastrophic ways.

2026-01-31 21:49:04 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/1e76ef1b734d109f9dfaff04a8bd2c594fa0733f68e06ae08f3119c72e4e1637.jpg

2026-01-31 20:25:58 UTC

If you’re interested in the backstory of how Silicon Valley got so evil. Well, I invite you to my most-read piece from February. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america

2026-01-31 20:14:34 UTC

I wrote this back in February. A good half of my friends (mostly now former) thought it was TDS. Literally every fear I had came true with deadly accuracy. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/this-is-an-emergency

2026-01-31 20:07:30 UTC

Steve Jobs’ legacy may seem somewhat askew from current events. But given the industry he was once seen as the leader, has betrayed everything he was, it’s worth a little cul-de-sac. He wasn’t a perfect man. But he changed things. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-5

2026-01-31 18:57:45 UTC

Into history, we flow ... https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-10

2026-01-31 17:13:18 UTC

Yes. If everyone knew the same things you knew, and wanted the same things you wanted, and had the experiences you experienced, they’d be on Nostr. Because they’d be you. And there’d be nobody to talk to.
#note184w…08d8

2026-01-30 18:03:57 UTC

Wither, First Amendment. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-9

2026-01-30 17:26:02 UTC

The craziest thing of all is that the vast majority of Americans really have no sense of how critical this crisis is to their interests. Their economic and physical safety is greatly threatened by the regime change attempt being undertaken by Trump and the competitive authoritarian forces around him. People are already dying as a result. This cannot sustain. So it won’t. Eventually, the gravitational field of reality will lead to mass awareness. And through that singularity, I’m not sure anyone can predict what will happen.

2026-01-29 19:30:34 UTC

What the hell was the Director of National Intelligence doing seizing ballots? https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-8

2026-01-28 19:40:33 UTC

I mean, who the fuck am I to be the one defending the man’s legacy? One would have thought the institution he built would play that role. Well, it seems the job falls to someone outside the walls. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-5

2026-01-28 19:20:59 UTC

Imagine if these motherfuckers were as aggressive at enforcing tax laws as they are immigration laws.

2026-01-28 19:06:40 UTC

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I am insufferable to your bullshit, yes. Thank you for noticing the firmness of my posture.

2026-01-28 19:06:02 UTC

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I know where my fucking food comes from, McShane.

2026-01-28 19:00:37 UTC

I'm not done with Bari. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-7

2026-01-28 18:43:34 UTC

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I’m just enjoying myself in this little cul-de-sac, Leo.

2026-01-28 18:26:47 UTC

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You failed the little status dominance game you play to implicate my confidence and now you turn juvenile. This is great. Keep going, Leo.

2026-01-28 18:23:41 UTC

I personally don't believe Jeff Thomas committed suicide.

2026-01-28 18:19:07 UTC

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I will stay firmly on my station, Leo. I do not grant you authority over my sense of status.

2026-01-28 18:15:40 UTC

There's this strange posture I am seeing from some in the business world that suggests that "both sides" of this conflict—I prefer to call it a crisis—in Minneapolis, should be de-escalated, and some peaceful arrangement between the parties be established. As if these motherfuckers stand outside as scorekeepers. No, shithead CEOs and VCs, we see your complicity and we are very much coming for you!

2026-01-28 17:47:42 UTC

Some crash out this has been, I must say.

2026-01-28 17:41:33 UTC

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I think we should let him speak for himself. I’m not at all sure what your protest here is all about.

2026-01-28 17:26:50 UTC

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*implication

2026-01-28 17:25:43 UTC

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Like I said, sir, I didn’t want to brag, but you suggested that my efforts for all for naught. That I was irrelevant. I was insulted by that implicated, and I chose to demonstrate the opposite of your claim, because people should see your arguments for what they are: empty.

2026-01-28 17:12:44 UTC

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Even if that were all true, and I don’t believe it is, it wouldn’t run afoul of my point.

2026-01-28 16:46:28 UTC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ4lM9K7__w

2026-01-28 15:49:45 UTC

A friend has successfully convinced me to drop the paywall early on this piece on Apple, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-5

2026-01-28 15:33:57 UTC

The fact that you see this coordinated, desperate attempt to try to make Gavin Newsom a reactionary villain by the reactionaries right now should tell you everything you need to know. They are desperate to distract you. They don't want you looking. Keep looking.

2026-01-28 04:29:28 UTC

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* I tried to fix the grammatical and punctuation errors in that last post. But this Nostr client is very buggy.

2026-01-28 04:28:02 UTC

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Look, I’m not trying to brag or anything. But your attempt to rattle my confidence doesn’t work. I mean, TIME Magazine literally quoted and linked to my little couch that nobody cares today: https://time.com/7358089/ice-minneapolis-tech-open-letter/
The fact you would sit there and suggest that nobody is listening to me. When the truth is that my Substack is actually quite successful.
In fact, if Google Analytics is to be believed, Notes from the Circus is read by more people than all of Nostr every month. So please, keep playing this embarrassingly stupid status dominance game with me.

2026-01-28 04:22:31 UTC

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Considering that I am quite the fond of studying human civilization, I’m curious to know what you might teach my meagre mind about the subject.

2026-01-28 03:25:00 UTC

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I assure you I do not need to touch grass. I feel very grounded, my good sir. Standing firmly, in fact.

2026-01-28 00:51:46 UTC

Building technology is not the most impactful thing that one can do. The most impactful thing one can do is give oneself to a greater purpose, and participate in the love of community. Those are the things that fill the human heart. Those are the things that are remembered. Those are the paths not taken that become regret on one’s deathbed. I say this, with all due respect.
#note19f4…z2zf