submitted by jwithrow.
Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Musings of a Wayward Philosopher
August 4, 2015
Hot Springs, VA
The S&P closed out Monday at $2,091. Gold closed at $1,089 per ounce. Oil checked out just under $46 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.21%. Bitcoin is trading around $278 per BTC today.
Dear Journal,
We launched the inaugural volume of Musings of a Wayward Philosopher yesterday with relative success. The ebook is currently ranked #1 in Economics>Commerce and #3 in Education&Reference in Amazon’s Kindle store. The paperback is ranked #127 in Economics>Commerce after day 1.
I am slowly learning how to market online, and I must say it is extremely uncomfortable. I started day one of the book campaign off by running a Facebook Ad. I stopped using Facebook personally more than three years ago once I learned that their entire business model was to take your personal information and sell it to the highest bidder. Then I learned they may or may not be handing your personal information over to the Feds for free also. Needless to say, I don’t care much for Facebook and yesterday I paid them to run an ad for me. I’m not too proud about that, but I can’t dispute the fact that it is a medium for reaching a lot of people. Facebook told 7,688 people about my book for me. They may also tell the good folks in our intelligence agencies about my book at the end of this month, I’m not sure. I suppose they are welcome to pick up a copy also.
After setting up the Ad, I spent the better part of yesterday submitting my book to a multitude of online directories geared towards independent authors. I paid a handful of them a few bucks for a guaranteed spot on their feature list. Though tedious, I didn’t mind this method of marketing as much. These directories have built a following of people interested in self-published books and they promise to tell their following about your book for a small fee. That’s a win-win.
Next I promoted the book in a few forums over on Reddit. I have found Reddit to be useful and informational over the past few years, but I swear it is haunted by the ghost of Karl Marx. I have asked some questions and got straight-forward answers in a few great AMA’s on Reddit and I have networked with like-minded people as well. As soon as I started promoting my commercial product in forums specifically designed for that purpose, however, I was told essentially to stop “spamming”. I have seen such hostility towards honest self-promotion over there numerous times before.
After giving this some thought, it occurred to me that hostility to self-promotion actually seems to be a cultural thing here in the U.S. Generally speaking, we tend to be offended when someone approaches us with a product or service to sell. We don’t mind the million dollar commercials that constantly run on our television screens and subtly program our thinking, but we tend to get downright angry when an individual promotes their business to us. Yet we claim to believe in free markets and free enterprise.
Taking this one step further, we are generally opposed to free market style transactions here in the U.S. also. We turn our nose up at places like Greece and Argentina where much of the economy operates on the underground market because their governments have wrecked the official economy. We call them tax cheats as if there is something noble about paying taxes to a gang of thieves writ at large.
But the winds are shifting and we are gradually shedding this free market hostility. Technology has enabled individuals to connect with one another regardless of physical location and the peer-to-peer economy is growing tremendously. And guess what? The establishment is scared to death of the possibilities. As Truth In Media reported, Hillary Clinton is out on the campaign trail blasting the peer-to-peer economy that is enabling people to work largely on their on terms. Hillary said peer-to-peer companies are stealing wages from people.
As always, the exact opposite is true. The peer-to-peer economy is preventing Hillary and her friends from stealing wages from people like they have done for a century now. Traditional wage-earners have taxes deducted automatically from each paycheck before they ever see a dime. They are forced to pay the government first. Independent contractors are paid for their services and they deduct all business expenses themselves. They are taxed on whatever is left over (hint-hint). That’s how the U.S. tax system works – it absolutely pillages the wage-earners and provides loopholes for the business owners. The Feds have been fine with this system for one hundred years because wage-earners have made up the vast majority of the economy and they have made friends with the big business owners who now fund their election campaigns. This dynamic is changing.
We’ve got their attention, and for good reason. How can you continue to prop up all of the special interests in an economy where a guy sitting at the very end of a gravel road way up in the mountains of Virginia can write a book and tell ten thousand strangers about it in a single day? That’s double the population of my nearest city! Now factor in peer-to-peer payment networks like Bitcoin that bypass the financial system entirely and the zombies in DC really have a problem on their hands.
Decentralization is no longer the future, it is the now. The cultural shift is already in motion. You won’t see this cultural shift on your television or in the 2016 campaign cycle, but it is clear as day in the peer-to-peer economy and the independent media. It will be a bumpy ride as the corrupt 20th century legacy systems continue to collapse in on themselves, but the light approaches. What an exciting time to be alive!
So if you haven’t already, begin to disintermediate the domineering third parties from your life. Store some precious metals overseas, get a few bitcoin wallets, take an Uber next time you go out, consider an Airbnb next time you travel, print your own gun for home defense, and pick up a copy of Musings of a Wayward Philosopher: Volume 1. It’s free until Saturday. If you grab a copy, please leave a review on Amazon. Peer networking and peer reviews are how independent works circulate.
More to come,
Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher
For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the decentralization of society please read “The Individual is Rising: 2nd edition” which will be available later this year. Please sign up for the notifications mailing list at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/.