What’s this all about?

Hi, I’m pourteaux, nice to meet you.

A bit about myself:

I am a surgeon based in Manhattan, New York City. Outside of medicine, I have a huge breadth of interests and a knack for falling down rabbit holes.

I am a strong proponent of competent institutions as the basis for a flourishing society. I developed an “institutional alignment” framework in the style of a political compass, and have offered this as both a way to understand current politics and as a novel “reformer” route to a Network State. I presented this concept at Zuzalu and Edcon 2023 in Montenegro and published it first on this newsletter. In a similar spirit, I’ve championed decentralized social media as a basis for a new digital “town square” in a way that centralized alternatives like Twitter can’t accomplish.

I comment on geopolitics due to my converging interests in human rights and societal issues, and the opportunity I’ve had to travel to remote places. Each year, I write an article on countries to pay particularly close attention to in the year ahead. In April 2023, I visited friends in China and wrote about the unfortunate interpersonal loss associated with the deteriorating US-China i relationship.

I love contemporary art and subcultures, and explored the transgressive subculture that has emerged from New York City’s Dimes Square neighborhood as a new kind of punk rock for the modern age. I am a long-time bitcoiner and advocate for decentralized systems to protect individual autonomy and human rights. I helped popularize NFTs on bitcoin due to a viral article that I published right here in my newsletter. I’m also well known in the bitcoin community for publishing various human rights advocacy directly to the bitcoin blockchain (using OP_RETURN) where it can’t be censored anywhere in the world. I advocate for a more welcoming and inclusive bitcoin culture.

Paid subscribers help me continue my work on all of the above, and I am grateful for your support. Free subscribers are also cherished. I’m happy to have you here either way, and I intend all my posts to be free.

Those who wish to contribute can subscribe to my newsletter or contribute in other ways. I’d also love to hear from you!