Joseph Alexander Rein

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I'm attending the #AIExpoDC, hosted by @scsp.ai, to learn more about the future of innovation in AI and emerging technology. Join me May 7-9 in Washington, D.C. invt.io/1txbzy9a64m

@jalexanderrein/Astraliveio-Banking-and-Tip-Tweet?s=app" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">replit.com/@jalexanderrei… ⁦@ASTRALIVEAPP⁩ astralive.io

In this week's episode Ntina Tzouvala and Douglas Guilfoyle discuss Douglas' article "Litigation as Statecraft: Small States and the Law of the Sea" and the wider project on legal statecraft it forms a part of. That, and board games! Recommendations: Douglas Guilfoyle, Litigation as Statecraft: Small States and the Law of the Sea academic.oup.com/bybil/advance-……/brad009/7186911; Small States, Legal Argument, and International Disputes (NUS CIL symposium), cil.nus.edu.sg/blog/symposia/……ational-disputes/; Isaac B. Kardon, China’s Law of the Sea, yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256…law-of-the-sea/; Congyan Cai, The Rise of China and International Law, global.oup.com/academic/produ……law-9780190073602; and Jill Goldenzeil, Lawfare between Russia and Ukraine, cornelllawreview.org/wp-content/u…ay-final.pdf. Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

Australian Statecraft Podcast - Professor Doug on.soundcloud.com/SCj1GnBKvdc9bI…

On behalf of the United States, we are grateful to Pres. Abinader for his friendship and his willingness to host the Summit of Americas. We fully support the decision to postpone the summit and will continue to work together with the Dominican Republic, and other countries in the region, to plan a productive event in 2026 that will be focused on strengthening partnerships and enhancing security for our citizens.

After a second masters, you’d wonder if a PHD is manageable #phd #simulation #wargaming research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/i…

Peter Schwartz: Art of the Long View 👆🖕🤘 Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World Amazon.com: Books @peterschwartz2

A new glow at the Federal Building today. #americafirst

3/ Global trade unleashed potential for every country. Because of the global trade, US could outsource low value manufacturing from poorer countries and focused on high value services. If people in the US aren't assembling iPhones for $1/hour, this is because of free trade. Tariffs threaten to change this.

Momentum must be capitalized

Ask @grok America's de-industrialization began in the mid-20th century, driven by trade policies favoring free trade over protective tariffs, starting with the Truman administration's focus on rebuilding Europe and Japan post-World War II. - The shift to free trade, formalized by the 1948 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), reduced U.S. tariffs, making imported goods cheaper and encouraging American manufacturers to move production overseas for lower labor costs and fewer regulations. - Globalization and the integration into the global economy, particularly after China gained Permanent Normal Trade Relations status in 2000, led to a surge in imports and a decline in domestic manufacturing jobs, with over 5 million jobs lost between 1998 and 2021 due to trade deficits. - The overvaluation of the U.S. dollar, exacerbated by currency manipulation by other countries, made American goods less competitive globally, contributing to the offshoring of manufacturing industries. - Technological advancements and automation reduced the need for manual labor in manufacturing, while policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 encouraged companies to relocate operations to countries like Mexico for lower costs. - Recent trends, including the Trump administration's tariffs in 2018-2019 and their retention under Biden, aim to address de-industrialization, but studies show these tariffs have raised prices, reduced output, and failed to significantly boost employment in protected sectors.

The bitter irony of America’s present predicament is that the very people who cheer for permanent arms shipments to Ukraine also supported the de-industrialization of America. The very things you want us to send are things we don’t make enough of.

18F’s Original Mission: Modernizing Government Tech @USGSA The General Services Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C. 18F is housed within GSA’s Technology Transformation Service. 18F was launched in 2014 as a team of designers, engineers, and digital experts dedicated to improving federal technology and online services . Its purpose was to bring Silicon Valley-style agility into government, helping agencies modernize outdated systems, build user-friendly websites, and enhance data accessibility. In short, 18F aimed to make government websites and services work better for the public by using modern tools and human-centered design. This mission was non-partisan and service-oriented – it was about updating legacy infrastructure and improving how citizens interact with government online, not pushing any political agenda.

While everyone’s focused on Trump, Microsoft created a new state of matter. It's going to change everything. Here's what you need to know about Microsoft's Majorana 1 Quantum Chip:🧵

The New Nationalism in America and Beyond search.library.doc.gov/discovery/full… @lseideas

How identity affects nation states audible.com/pd/B09V88TKJX?…

THE NETWORK SCHOOL We got an island. That’s right. Through the power of Bitcoin, we now have a beautiful island near Singapore where we’re building the Network School. We’re starting with a 90-day popup that runs from Sep 23 to Dec 23, right after the Network State Conference. Rent is only $1000/month with roommates or $2000/month solo. And we have plenty of day passes for visitors. So, go apply online at ns dot com! Then read more below. THE DARK TALENT As motivation, I’ve always wanted to expand equality of opportunity around the world. Because my father was born in a desperately poor country, but with the right opportunity he was able to make something of himself. Like dark matter, he was dark talent. And for more than a decade I’ve been thinking about how to give others who are similarly situated the chance to make something of themselves. That is: I’ve been thinking about how to empower the dark talent of the world. US universities used to fill this role, even imperfectly, and I loved Stanford when I taught there years ago. But the data shows they’ve declined in recent days. And they’re just not affordable or accessible to most of the world. So, it’s time for a new approach. And thanks to Saraswati and Satoshi, I have the resources to endow a new Internet-first institution: the Network School. The purpose of the Network School is to articulate a vision of peace, trade, internationalism, and technology…even as the rest of the world talks about war, trade war, nationalism, and statism. To revitalize democracy for the internet era, with digital polities and verifiable votes. To train the next generation to be not just leaders of companies, but inspirations for their communities. And to pursue truth, health, and wealth by leveling up our attendees personally, physically, and professionally. Let me now describe in more detail how the Network School works, who it’s for, and how to apply. HOW THE NETWORK SCHOOL WORKS The Network School is for people of all ages, not just the youth. And it’s meant to be lifelong rather than one-off, with both a structured and and an unstructured component. The structured part is about continuous daily self-improvement: learning skills, burning calories, and earning currency. Meanwhile, the unstructured part is about having fun and hanging out with people of similar values. For short: learn, burn, earn, and fun. Learn The first part of the Network School is about learning technologies and humanities. As motivation, the existing model of US undergraduate education is broken. You pay $100k+ for a four year degree, and then budget nothing for maintenance over the course of your life. It’s like paying $100k+ for a new car and budgeting nothing for maintenance. By contrast, the Network School is about continuous education. It’s for remote workers, engineers, creators and digital nomads who want to integrate learning into their lives, rather than stopping everything to be a full-time student. Here’s how that works. We set up mini-classrooms where you can drop in to see the problem of the day.5 You solve that problem and a proctor awards you a cryptocredential, a free non-transferable NFT sent to your crypto wallet that establishes “proof-of-learn.” Often your solution will involve putting code on GitHub/Replit (to show you understand a concept), or posting content to your social media profile (to show you understand a new AI tool). And over time, these cryptocredentials actually build up a cryptoresume proving what you know. Our initial material focuses on founding tech communities, as distinct from tech companies. As such it touches on everything from crypto, AI, and social media to history, politics, and filmmaking. It should be useful even if you’re just growing a traditional company or building a following. Over time, of course, every branch of the sciences and humanities becomes relevant when building a community. So if this initial experiment works, we can expand branch-by-branch to build a new kind of university. But we’re intentionally starting with something simple. Our learning is about continuous education, about solving the problem-of-the-day. Burn The second part of the Network School is about burning calories. Longevity is important, but 20th century communities just aren’t physically set up to maximize physical fitness. Quite the contrary: the default mode of Western society is sedentary and sugary. Those who want to escape this need to roll their own nutrition and workout program, which takes time, money, and energy. We’re changing that. I’ve teamed up with my friend @bryan_johnson to set up Blueprint-inspired food and fitness for the entire Network School community. Bryan will be on campus to set up the program, and then his designates will maintain it on a daily basis. Like many of you, I’ve been both fit and fat at various times, so this is a product I want to use myself. Every member of the Network School gets a daily workout slot with a semi-personal trainer, much like a group fitness class. You run and lift in the morning at your chosen time, getting a proof-of-workout from your trainer. Your group holds you accountable for showing up. Then you get a box with your Blueprint-optimized healthy meals and head to work. The whole point is to provide willpower-as-a-service, where the community6 provides the discipline. We’re starting with the basics of running, lifting, eating, and sleeping properly. The initial goal is to hit the limits of your genetics. But if all goes well, the biotech founders that come to the Network School will eventually help us all surpass our genetic limits, to live much longer than we otherwise would. But again, we’re starting small! And so the “burning calories” part is about lifelong health and the workout-of-the-day. Earn The third part of the Network School is about earning currency. We’ll have crypto prizes of the day for open source projects, AI content creation, and microtasks. There will be $1000 bounties every day for the duration of the program, similar to the various prizes I’ve posted on Twitter and Farcaster. And community members will post their own prizes. Next, in keeping with the overall theme of self-improvement, we’ll have office hours to help with your job, your career, your visa status, and your funding. We’re much more invested in you than a typical college career center because our interests are aligned: the more you earn, and the stronger you are financially, the more you’ll eventually have to reinvest in the community. Finally, we’ll have visitor hours with famous visiting technologists. As my friend Sriram noticed, when investors come through Singapore I typically do a podcast with them. Many will also visit the Network School to meet attendees, invest in them, or hire them. Others will give remote talks. And you can see the quality of visitors from the speakers in our conference and podcast. So, earning is about constant career development and the prize-of-the-day. Fun All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, of course. So the fourth part of the Network School is about fun. This is the unstructured component. It’s most of what you’re here for. It’s just about assembling great people in one place: positive-sum people who believe in technological progress, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s your internet friends, coming from URL to IRL. Stanford introduced the concept of residential education, but this takes it to the next level. In fact, our initial location is very similar to Stanford. It’s beautiful and sunny, and less than an hour from a major city (Singapore) with an international airport (Changi). That means you can be heads down during the week, head into the city on the weekends for fun, and get to just about anywhere in Asia within the same day. This is convenient for the >50% of the world that lives within the Valeriepieris circle. We’ll do some group outings too, but most of the fun will be up to you. WHO THE NETWORK SCHOOL IS FOR Who is the Network School for? There are four lenses on this: demographical, ideological, professional, and personal. Demographically As mentioned, our focus is the dark talent. The more respect you have for legacy institutions, and the more respect they have for you, the less suitable you’ll be as an applicant. So: the Network School is for Indian engineers and African founders, for makers from the Midwest and the Middle East, for Chinese liberals and Latin American libertarians, for Southeast Asia’s rising technologists and Europe’s remaining capitalists. It’s for everyone who doesn’t feel part of the establishment. But it’s definitely not only for tech, because a community does not run on tech alone. Ideologically Ideologically, the Network School is for people who admire Western values, but who also recognize that Asia is in ascendance, and that the next world order is more properly centered around the Internet — around neutral code — than around either declining Western institutions or a rising Chinese state. For example, the Network School is for those who understand that Bitcoin succeeds the Federal Reserve, that encryption is the only true protection against unreasonable search and seizure, that AI can deliver better opinions than any Delaware magistrate, and that democracy can be rejuvenated with cryptography. It is for those who believe in technology, harmony, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s for those who want Silicon Valley without San Francisco. And for those who want to found, fund, and find not just new companies and currencies — but new cities and new communities. Professionally Our ideal applicant is capable of remote work, or has enough savings to support themselves while at the Network School. For our initial cohort, we’re seeking three major groups of people in particular: - Writers, artists, influencers, and filmmakers - Trainers, athletes, coaches, and clinicians - Founders, engineers, designers, and investors These are, roughly, the demographics focused on learning, burning, and earning respectively. Of course, if you fall outside those categories but still think you have something to contribute, you should still apply to the Network School. Personally I should mention that the Network School is a “product” that I built for the young version of myself — the aspiring young engineer. This is the community I want to live in: a technocapitalist college town, a Stanford 2.0 that’s globally affordable and genuinely meritocratic. So, I’ll be on campus full time. Bryan Johnson and I are supervising the setup of everything from bench press to French press. And we’ll eventually be recruiting faculty in the form of content creators, fitness influencers, and angel investors for the learn, burn, and earn portions of our program respectively. But all that in due time. APPLYING TO THE NETWORK SCHOOL Ok, so how do you apply to the Network School? Just go to ns dot com and click "apply." We’ve set up a simple Luma page where you can apply in a few minutes. Then, if you pass review, we’ll send a second application where you pay rent. As mentioned, our monthly rent is $1000 (with roommates) and $2000 (solo). We also have daily and weekly rates too, but short-term visitors still need to apply. The rent gets you an air-conditioned room on a beautiful island, with internet, gym, and access to all courses and community services. You’ll still need to handle your flights and pay for your food, but we think the overall package is extremely affordable. And so the Network School could be an amazing option for individuals or small teams looking to save money, get fit, and level up while living in paradise. I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Just fill out the application at ns dot com, also linked in the tweet below.

[Skills] are extremely helpful tools to 1. explore your domain 2. pursue a pre defined path 3. identify your skill gaps 4. prepare for a job each sub-node in a skill contains a sizable database of PDFs, models, books, and other publicly available free-use resources