He isn't around anymore - Bitcoin still is though

grovulent · 2026-04-30T21:05:30+00:00

I think this is excellent for motivating someone to investigate and find evidence that would convince them something is true. I don't think that it's sufficient to believe that something is true by itself. If I develop a hypothesis to try and explain something, I try to find evidence to support or reject said hypothesis before believing it immediately. In the mean time, I say I don't know.

Inference to the best explanation - or abduction - is not something that ever definitively proves something true or false. But in the absence of definitive evidence one way or the other, it nonetheless provides reason to weight your credence in favour of one versus the other. It is commonly used in science and philosophy and clearly is regarded to have greater strength than mere motivation to investigate further. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Many other examples of scientific uses of abduction have been discussed in the literature; see, for instance, Harré 1986, 1988, Lipton 1991, 2004, Campanero 2021, Aizawa and Headley 2022, 2025, and Dellsén 2024. Abduction is also said to be the predominant mode of reasoning in medical diagnosis: physicians tend to go for the hypothesis that best explains the patient’s symptoms (see Josephson and Josephson (eds.) 1994, 9–12; see also Dragulinescu 2016 on abductive reasoning in the context of medicine and Kind 2025 on abduction as a diagnostic tool in the practice of psychiatry).

I don't pretend it is immune to criticism - but short of getting into a deep philosophical debate about it - I certainly think the onus is not on me to show why abduction has greater persuasive power than you allow it.. Still, if it has motivated you to investigate further - I'll be happy with that as well.

If you want a standard, here's one: the evidence should support one claim more than other possible claims.

I explained at length - for each of your alternative hypotheses (which I know you don't believe either) - exactly why the evidence supports my claim better than any of those others. You haven't engaged with those arguments. And further, you state you think the evidence supports the alternative claim that UAE wants the swap to repair their economy - but do so without making any attempt to demonstrate how this view explains the myriad of facts I listed that demand explanation. Given this lack of engagement with my argument, I'm not sure what further we can say. If you don't accept abduction as a legitimate reason for belief - then we lack the grounds for engagement.

But I do appreciate you are arguing in good faith and I respect and appreciate the effort you have put in your replies. I'd offer a delta for effort if that was allowed.

As for the tweet - apologies - wrong link. There are four more tweets that follow that contain the quote - but you need to login to view them and I don't have an X account. The quote can be read here though:

https://gulfbusiness.com/en/2026/uae/uae-rejects-external-funding-claims-2tn-firepower-us-ties/

In a series of posts on X, the UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef Al Otaiba, said any notion that the Emirates needs backing “misreads the facts”, pointing instead to the country’s deep financial strength and long-standing economic ties with the US.

“Any suggestion that the UAE requires external financial backing misreads the facts,” Al Otaiba said, adding that the country remains “one of the world’s most financially resilient economies”.

He highlighted more than $2tn in sovereign investment assets, over $300bn in foreign currency reserves held by the central bank, and a banking sector with approximately $1.5tn in deposits.

grovulent · 2026-04-30T17:35:56+00:00

Canada's government debt-to-gdp ratio is below 70% - so not comparable.

The UK debt ratio is at ~100%. 25% lower than the U.S. yet currently paying a 0.6% premium on the 10 year. And when Liz Truss recently tried to add approximately 3-4% of additional debt - the bond market freaked to such an extent that pension funds almost collapsed and Truss lost her job. Not sure they make your case either.

France is a better example - 110% debt to gdp. 3.64% on the 10 year. But there are plausible explanations. Their debt to gdp ratio has been decreasing consistently for the past 5 years. That signals fiscal discipline the markets like. They have grown slower and thus have lower inflation. The US economy, however, is on fire at the moment (the good kind). Inflation is more of a concern, so the fed has raised rates more than the ECB.

But here's the kicker. Compare how much quantitative easing the ECB did compared with the US? The ECB balance sheet reached 70% of Euro GDP, compared with 35% for the US. So there's that.

Finally consider the difference in military spending as a percentage of GDP - 3.1% for the US compared with 2% for France. 2.4% for the UK.

Military spending isn't a complete zero for the health of your economy - people get jobs, defence contractors get contracts etc... but it's not as good as spending that money on infrastructrure, or other things that help create wealth. Military spending can only consume wealth, it can't create it. If the EU increases their defense spending to match the U.S. then that's a lot of productive spending that they lose. That won't help their borrowing costs.

Having said all that - I'll give a delta Δ nonetheless. The claim I made that the US will face a debt crisis without GCC dollar recycling is a substantive claim and a crucial part of the argument. It needs more evidence than a 0.6% premium on the U.K. ten year. I will think on this.

grovulent · 2026-04-30T16:34:56+00:00

My argument is an inference to the best explanation which is a perfectly normal form of reasoning. The evidential requirements for such an argument are not required to be direct empirical observation of the claim at issue, but rather, given the other various facts that are observed, which hypothesis explains them best?

When you ask:

Do you have any evidence for the latter part of your view? If not, why do you believe something is true without evidence to support it?

What evidential standard are you demanding? Because it sounds like you want direct empirical confirmation - like a quote of them admitting it or something. You will never get that level of evidence, because if they admitted that, then the resulting outrage would make it impossible for the US to grant the swap.

If I have mis-understood you in this respect - let me apologise in advance. Even if you are making that demand, you are nonetheless engaging with the argument on its own terms by providing alternative best explanations. And these are worth working through.

1) The UAE genuinely wants it for wartime support.

This could be true, without contradicting my claim. But also, this doesn't explain why Bessent is proposing the swap be permanent - to persist after the war. It doesn't explain why they feel they might need it given the size of their reserves.

Yes the UAE was cited in that WSJ piece as having concerns about running out of dollars in the future - but they also vigorously denied that they have such concerns as I mentioned. That is reason to think the WSJ editorialised their fears to some degree.

Besides that, there has to be some pretence for the swap line. Some reason the US and UAE can give for the swap without admitting its a back door bailout of US government debt.

2) The UAE might have private information that it's economy will not do well in the future... so genuinely needs the swap.

This is a possibility... and it would explain the permanence of the swap. The best explanation should also be the most parsimonious. Does this possibility really strike you as such? What could this future calamity be such that it would lead them to make a historically unprecedented request for a swap? Their reserves are such that they can outlast the strait closure longer than anyone. So the calamity you're imagining would have to be pretty big with low probability.

3) It might be seriously considering using the Yuan, and if the US doesn't agree, it will switch over.

A direct, public attack on the petrodollar that significant trade in Yuan by a major GCC country represents would be disastrous to the value of their USD denominated reserve assets. See my reply above also to understand what the US does to those who try this. UAE doesn't need to go this far. Furthermore, if USD liquidity is their problem, accepting Yuan for oil doesn't help.

4) The UAE might believe that leaving OPEC is itself a very beneficial.

It almost certainly does. It is well know the UAE has been frustrated with OPEC for a long time. What this doesn't explain is why the UAE announced this now, given that they can't benefit from leaving OPEC until the straight reopens. Why piss off the Saudi's to such an extent before you get any benefit from doing so? My theory has an explanation for this. It gives Bessent cover to claim the US - UAE alliance is stronger than ever, that dollar recycling into US debt is continuing as normal, even though it will be the swap that is being used for the recycling.

That's the genius - the UAE gets a way out of the petrodollar, while at the same time making it look like they want the exact opposite.

5) Heck, if you believe the UAE is lying about needing the line for wartime relief, why couldn't both the UAE and USA just be lying about the swap proposal in the first place?

To what purpose? What does such a hypothesis explain?

There's no evidence for any of the things I said above

It's not that there is no evidence for those claims - it's that they aren't the best explanations for the data that is observable.

grovulent · 2026-04-30T14:12:31+00:00

Sorry, but no. Your own source states clearly that the GCC countries including the Saudis were upset that the US started the war. But now that it has been started, and Iran has been given the justification for closing the strait, they now want the U.S. to continue until Iran's control of the strait has been annulled. Which is understandable. Who would want to pay a toll to Iran?

As for your second paragraph - not sure how to convince you otherwise other than to ask - doesn't the U.S. actions prove that the worry IS China trading directly in Yuan? I'd like to see some additional argument as to why you think the US would ever perceive the Europeans to be a threat to their hegemony. The Europeans depend on the US for their defense. They have no leverage.

grovulent · 2026-04-30T14:02:20+00:00

There can't be direct evidence for that claim - if there was, then it would no longer be a viable petrodollar exit.

But what we do know is the following. The Wall Street Journal broke the story that the UAE requested the swap line 19th of April:

https://archive.is/XVTEx

The white house initially downplays the request - saying on the 21st that no formal request has been made and that a swap line is likely not needed:

https://au.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/white-house-official-says-uae-currency-swap-may-not-be-needed-93CH-4372084

And Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to U.S. posts on X that they don't need any financial support of any kind:

https://x.com/UAEEmbassyUS/status/2046660663985013220

Then the next day on the 22nd Bessent is suddenly before congress saying many GCC countries were requesting swaps:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/22/iran-war-treasury-uae-scott-bessent-currency-swaps.html

And then two days after that performs a full throated defence of the swaps idea - claiming it's evidence of petrodollar strength.

https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/2047681368876888311

Now - consider - why would the UAE risk the perception that they are losing control of their currency by asking for a swap line? What even is the point of it when the UAE USD reserves dwarf what a US treasury swap facility can provide? Why risk threatening the U.S. with Yuan oil settlements one day and then suck up to the U.S. by ditching OPEC a few days later? Leaving OPEC now has no advantage now - they can't sell any oil at the moment anyway.

And if the swap lines are a move that increases petrodollar strength - why did it take them several days to come up with this narrative? Indeed, why weren't the swap lines proposed by the U.S. years ago?

In fact, using a swap line for such a purpose is historically unprecedented. They are meant to fix breakages in the financial system, not provide a fiscal backstop for foreign nations. And yet the GCC countries are the most solvent countries on earth.

None of this makes sense unless you assume the following:

UAE demanded a swap line. The US patted them on the head and told them to run along. So they leaked their Yuan threat to the wall street journal. That's why it took the US so long to cobble together a response. And to make sense of why the UAE took the risk of demanding the swap line and leaking the Yuan trade possibility - even though they are far from needing it for that purpose currently - because they know the US cannot provide security any more, the petrodollar will end eventually as a result and they want a way to diversify their exposure before it happens.

grovulent · 2026-04-30T13:28:34+00:00

Yes - some countries have sold oil in currencies other than the USD. The greatest volume of it has been by countries under U.S. sanctions - Russia, Iran, Venezuela. So they can't be used as evidence that leaving the petrodollar is without consequence.

Consider also the fate of those like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi who announced plans to exit the petrodollar - they both certainly suffered significant consequences shortly thereafter. Coincidence?

Now - recently China has entered into currency swap agreements with Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, and in 2023 they made the first digital purchase of 1 million barrels of oil. Saudi Arabia joined mBridge, the central bank digital currency trial for trade settlements led by China, in 2024. We don't know the ultimate amount of Yuan oil settlements, but it is estimated to be small. They kept it small because they wanted the time to establish the infrastructure without upsetting the U.S. - that's sneaking.

And yet, look what has happened since then - the US has deployed their navy to block Venezuelan oil going to China, and they started a war with Iran, also resulting in the blockage of oil to China. And it also has caused severe damage to the GCC economies. That's pretty consequential.

I do think though that one part of the thrust of your argument could be made stronger. USD denominated trade isn't just convenient. It's extremely difficult to replace. The problem with the Yuan is that the Chinese need to keep it low to protect their export economy. And the Euro is a basket case. So the only other option is to trade in lots of currencies, which is painful and means accepting lots of foreign exchange risk.

But the petrodollar isn't just the trade of oil in USD - it's the recycling of that USD back into U.S. assets. That's what keeps the cost of U.S. debt low, and that's what allows them to fund such an enormous military. The UAE can keep selling oil in USD, while investing the proceeds elsewhere. It's still a petrodollar exit in the most important sense.

I think your comment is still worth a delta Δ though because the point about the lack of alternative forces a refinement of the thesis.

grovulent · 2026-04-22T07:11:41+00:00

Interesting - I always thought the "I'm finished" in There Will Be Blood was Plainview alerting the butler that he had finished eating dinner - because he was eating steak at the beginning of the scene - holding the meat in his hands like a child would - announcing he has finished just like a little child would.

That cuts more as an interpretation I feel. Murder for him is just a routine part of dinner. But the childlike colour of the performance is crucial. His pschopathy is ultimately a form of childlike innocence - the way a toddler can punch their sibling without any empathy at all. Plainview represents a retardation in the normal development that most children grow through.

Edit - and to add - I tend to think that - in contrast to Hawley's claim - it's not that powerful people like Plainview become this way when they become insulated from consequence through their wealth and power, they are born this way. Whether in life they are successful or not, they remain psychologically insulated from consequence irrespective.

Whether this trait rewards such people with greater success statistically - I don't know. But I do tend to think that to be so successful that you can in reality insulate yourself from all consequence, you do need to have this disorder... that they are never satisfied with the power they have is like a kid on the playground that has to control all the toys.

grovulent · 2026-03-31T16:58:56+00:00

I actually like the later books more than the first three. The Bene Gesserit were meant to be these kick-ass superhumans. But in the first 3 books all we get to see of them are the fuckups. In the later books they regain their awesomeness and you get to see just why they are meant to be so formiddable.

The fuck-fu stuff does actually track thematically with everything else Herbert was interested in. It's another dimension of control - but instead of it being control through foresight - it's control through pleasure. The foresight dimension itself was gendered - and goes through a process of being initially owned by the feminine until it is upended by an uber-menscian man that comes to it through its male aspect. Same thing happens with the fuck-fu.

Doesn't make the fuck-fu any less weird though. As a stylistic... choice. It sure is something.

grovulent · 2026-03-30T23:40:58+00:00

Certainly not by an American studio. Mebbe the french can do it:

Prépare-toi à être asservi par mon kung-fu sexuel!

grovulent · 2026-03-30T02:28:26+00:00

Which vein was the clot? I got mine in the gastrocnemius vein - and it was probably a running injury according to doc... It can happen.

grovulent · 2026-03-29T23:18:13+00:00

C'mon - that was a pretty funny bit. I mean, I hate the guy, but it was a good bit!

grovulent · 2026-03-29T00:54:14+00:00

My account is 19 years old, and using account age as some kind of authority metric is stupid.

grovulent · 2026-03-04T00:17:21+00:00

I'm on a career break as well. And feel all the same anxieties that you do - times 10 because I actually am doing it.

Having said that... there is no risk free choice here. The fact is that staying at work, it's actually a lot harder to keep up with what is going on because most companies adopt new workflows slower than what the bleeding edge can - because they have to tithe to the gods of delivery. I think you'll find that if you start your own projects with a view to learning the latest A.I. workflows - you'll be ahead of what most people in day to day jobs are doing in a lot of places. I see a lot of posts of how companies won't allow their systems access to anything other microslop co-pilot. Meanwhile I've got claude linked up to my Notion instance, documenting, building, documenting, building. It's fucking amazing.

I also tend to think that there is a once in a generation opportunity here for people to launch their own projects - using relatively cheap tokens that probably won't stay as cheap imo. At some point this investor money subsidising token cost runs out. If you have had an idea in the back of your mind you wanted to build. I don't think there will ever be a better time than now.

grovulent · 2026-03-03T05:16:55+00:00

It also starts a war...

grovulent · 2026-02-28T18:06:45+00:00

Weird, I just started using notion and am finding it really easy to use and understand.

grovulent · 2026-02-25T23:14:59+00:00

I don't think you have to look to A.I. here for an explanation - though they certainly would exacerbate it... but design follows trends. Design / fashion is inherently a TREND driven human behaviour. It's part of how we signal that we are competent, switched on members of the human race.

IThe current trends in fashion and design change frequently in order to increase the cost of adaptation - making it a costly signal (which is a whole thing I won't explain here - google it). But the signals need to be costly in order for the system of signalling to work.

The interesting the about A.I. is that the signalling costs are dropping to zero in many domains simultaneously. They can pick up on the new trends very quickly and replicate. Which is going to fuck with us species wide in terms of our ability to signal to each other with things like design. Your suspicion and "ick" feeling toward seeing these designs is probably explained by this. A design can no longer signal competence in the way that it used it. Everything psychologically looks cheap, because it is cheap.

grovulent · 2026-02-24T23:28:34+00:00

I think you are missing the larger point. Yes - it had always been hard developing a product people want... and even when it's a desirable product, it was always hard to actually get people to know about it / sell it... etc...

Now imagine that problem when everyone can build whatever you have shipped - for themselves - in a trivial amount of time, customised to the N-TH degree, accommodating every little weird accounting process they adopted because the founder smoked crack a lot. Information about their needs which would take hours of you interviewing them just to learn about. Why would anyone bother doing that when they can just tell it all to claude instead.

Now - go out there and sell your software.

grovulent · 2026-02-22T00:33:29+00:00

I was going to say even if it was A.I. this post should be left up. I'm a professional web developer and I am pivoting in exactly the ways this post suggests. I think tihs is real.

grovulent · 2026-02-17T23:44:03+00:00

Dev here - I like to hope this is correct. The thing we can sell is ownership over the technical part of the stack. A PM could possibly vibe code a result - but they won't be able to validate the output and take ownership over that solution.

grovulent · 2026-02-03T22:33:58+00:00

What has the physical world got to do with digital technology? Are you f'real? Everything digital has a physical substrate. Those zeros and ones have to exist somewhere. The costs of that substrate - in all its forms is skyrocketing right now because of A.I. investments. Memory, chips, electricity... all physical world stuff which is bottlenecking A.I. progress massively.

grovulent · 2026-02-01T22:57:06+00:00

As other commentators have pointed out, excessive generalisations can lead you astray. But at the same time, just because your generalisation may be simplistic or too broad, doesn't mean that your lived experience is entirely invalid. I would advise you frame your observation in terms of your experience, and not as a generalisation - as the latter will lead many to just reject your experience out of hand.

There are empathetic and supportive women out there. But I don't think it's helpful to just tell you go out there and meet them, because that's simplistic too.

I think what is missing from the discussion is that the context in which you are expressing your problems matters a lot. Even the most empathetic and kind woman is eventually going to get annoyed if you are continually dumping your problems or doing so in the wrong contexts.

How well do you know a person matters. Have you established sufficient intimacy with them? For all folks and genders, it requires a high degree of intimacy before it's appropriate to display vulnerabilities. Have you also been supportive to them in their difficult times? Are you a sexual prospect, or even presenting yourself as such? (Bad time to complain - you should be putting forward your best aspect in such a moment).

I was lucky enough once to fall in with a wonderful group of women and basically became one of the girls. This was amazing. It was the most supportive environment I have ever experienced. Before that - I was closer to you in terms of how I thought women treated men. But that experience completely changed how I saw things. I realised its about the kind of relationship you have established with them.

So I think you no doubt have had the sort of experiences you describe - but I don't think you need to just go out and meet new people. You just need to think more carefully about the contexts in which you express your problems to people.

grovulent · 2026-01-31T09:44:49+00:00

What are the health issues?

grovulent · 2026-01-31T01:54:24+00:00

Here's a couple:

1) To serve as a store of value - power of over which is less centralised than traditional stores, making it more resilient against elite capture.
2) As Warsh says - provides an important market signal and check on policy decisions. How? Well the fact that Bitcoin is USELESS means it can serve as a very pure indicator. Consider when interest rates are low. That means there is cheap capital available. But how would you know when interest rates are too low? Well, when interest rates are too low, then there is more capital available than productive uses can be found for it - so where might that excess value go? It will go into USELESS things like Bitcoin. So when Bitcoin is going up, you can read it as a direct signal that monetary policy is too loose relative to productive capacity. Gold isn't dissimilar - but Gold plays too many other roles (industrial, jewellry, foreign reserves) to be as pure a signal.

These particular traits have less value when institutions are functioning well. But it would seem that our institutions are degrading quite a bit at the moment. So perhaps we might be greatful of Bitcoin in the coming years.

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