If you find it hard to sleep at night, give a try to some heavy non-fiction reading.
Here are four important books that give us tools to make sense of where the world is going in the next decades, given that we are at a juncture where three macro trends collide:- the decline of the nation-state
- the unfolding of the current debt cycle started at the end of the second world war.
- the digitisation of information and money, and in particular the introduction of a state-independent, inflation-proof form of money.
Here are the four books, ordered by publishing date:
The Sovereign Individual (1997, Davidson, Rees-Mogg)
Many recent events were anticipated by the writers: the phenomenon of digital nomads, jurisdiction arbitrage through acquisition of extra residencies and passports, the rise of crypto-currencies not controlled by nation-states. And also: the reaction of nation-states to the increased power of individuals by seizing any opportunity to limit individual mobility (such as pandemics for instance), regulation overreach, the rise of anti-tech populism and the neo-Luddites, etc... The main thesis of the book is that nation-states are becoming less and less relevant with a shift of power towards individuals who turn from being captive citizens to customers of a chosen jurisdiction.
The Bitcoin Standard (2018, Saifedean Ammous)
Dives back into history to show how hard currencies have always displaced softer ones. Denounces the excesses of the Keynes school of thought whereby inflating the money supply is seen as a 'good' thing. Explains the unique properties of Bitcoin as the first form of money with a built-in immutable monetary policy, immune from state manipulation.
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (2021, Ray Dalio)
Thorough look back at history to enumerate all previous world order cycles (around 80-100 years) showing how they all display very identical patterns: crisis > rebuild > prosperity > money printing > debt > crisis. In every occurrence governments have never managed to resist the temptation to abuse their privilege to print money and inflate the money supply, eventually resulting in some form of crisis, reset, coup, revolution, civil war or world war.
The Network State: How To Start a New Country (July 2022 , Balaji Srinivasan ) if legacy nation-states based on geographical borders are becoming less relevant, what do we build in their place? How to assemble a digital community and build a new model of democracy? And is it viable? The book is available online since July 4 and will evolve over time.
Yep, heavy reading.
(John F. Wasik) 
