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The shocking story of the legal persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the dangerous implications for the whistleblowers of the future. In July 2010, Wikileaks published Cablegate, one of the biggest leaks in the history of the US military, including evidence for war crimes and torture. In the aftermath Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of Wikileaks, found himself at the center of a media storm, accused of hacking and later sexual assault. He spent the next seven years in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearful that he would be extradited to Sweden to face the accusations of assault and then sent to US. In 2019, Assange was handed over to the British police and, on the same day, the U.S. demanded his extradition. They threatened him with up to 175 years in prison for alleged espionage and computer fraud. At this point, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, started his investigation into how the US and UK governments were working together to ensure a conviction. His findings are explosive, revealing that Assange has faced grave and systematic due process violations, judicial bias, collusion and manipulated evidence. He has been the victim of constant surveillance, defamation and threats. Melzer also gathered together consolidated medical evidence that proves that Assange has suffered prolonged psychological torture. Melzer’s compelling investigation puts the UK and US state into the dock, showing how, through secrecy, impunity and, crucially, public indifference, unchecked power reveals a deeply undemocratic system. Furthermore, the Assange case sets a dangerous precedent: once telling the truth becomes a crime, censorship and tyranny will inevitably follow. The Trial of Julian Assange is told in three parts: the first explores Nils Melzer’s own story about how he became involved in the case and why Assange’s case falls under his mandate as the Special Rapporteur on Torture. The second section returns to 2010 when Wikileaks released the largest leak in the history of the U.S. military, exposing war crimes and corruption, and Nils makes the case that Swedish authorities manipulated charges against Assange to force his extradition to the US and publicly discredit him. In the third section, the author returns to 2019 and picks up the case as Ecuador kicks Assange out of the embassy and lays out the case as it currently stands, as well as the stakes involved for other potential whistleblowers trying to serve the public interest.

Now featuring a new preface by Peter Thiel Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the bestseller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization. Few observers of the late twentieth century have their fingers so presciently on the pulse of the global political and economic realignment ushering in the new millennium as do James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestseller, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia and other events that have proved to be among the most searing developments of the past few years. In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries—the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.

Swarmwise (2013) is a tactical guide to changing the world using cost-efficient swarm methodology. It is a leadership handbook that outlines how the Swedish Pirate Party was able to beat the political competition on less than one percent of their budget, and shows how any cash- and time-strapped executive or manager can use swarm methodologies, whether the goal is business, social, or political. That organization, founded by one man without resources, has now spread to over 70 countries using the same cost-efficient swarm methods. Swarmwise will tell you what it takes to found a swarm of volunteers, to organize and energize it, and to lead it to success. The book doesn’t go into theoretical detail, psychology, or deep research papers. Rather, it is very hands-on leadership advice from pure experience – it covers everything from how you give instructions to new marketing assistants or activists about handing out flyers in the street, up to and including how you communicate with TV stations and organize hundreds of thousands of people in a coherent swarm. Above all, it focuses on the cost-efficiency of the swarm structure, and is a tactical instruction manual for anybody who wants to dropkick their competition completely – no matter whether their game is business, social, or political. A chapter overview of Swarmwise: Chapter 1 - Understanding the Swarm deals with the basic concepts of a swarm organization, and explains why the swarm is open and transparent. It introduces the concept of a cost-efficiency advantage of two orders of magnitude. In Chapter 2 - Launching Your Swarm, we learn that the published project plan must be tangible, credible, inclusive, and epic, and what that means in practice. Chapter 3 - Getting Your Swarm Organized gives tangible advice on how to organize a volunteer organization and why. We look at the dynamics of different group sizes and how to build a culture of trust. One of the more counterintuitive lessons is detailed in Chapter 4 - Control the Vision, but Never the Message. It explains how you need to use volunteers to translate your vision into messages that fit a specific social context, rather than using an one-size-fits-all slogan. A healthy dose of classic project management is found in Chapter 5 - Keep People's Eyes On Target, And Paint It Red Daily. We talk about metrics, choosing the right metrics, and causing self-organization to happen when you publish the right metrics to optimize. In Chapter 6 - Screw Democracy, We're on a Mission from God, we talk about conflict resolution mechanisms and how to optimize the swarm for speed, trust, and scalability. Chapter 7 - Surviving Growth Unlike Anything the MBAs Have Seen details how the swarm can grow by 200% in a week when some events play out, and how to handle such situations. One of the more advanced chapters, Chapter 8 - Using Social Dynamics To Their Potential goes into how we can tap into the long tail of people and effectively cross-use online and offline friendships to grow organically. Seeing how most organizations need to deal with TV, newspapers, and radio, there is also Chapter 9 - Managing Oldmedia that details everything from press release processes to TV crews. Finally, Chapter 10 - Beyond Success shares a bit of experience of what happens when you feel at the top of the world, and what to do then. "Your most valuable asset isn't your employees," I told the executive. "Your most valuable asset is the thousands of people who want to work for you for free, and you don't let them." The book can also be downloaded as a PDF from the author's website at http://falkvinge.net/books/.

Economics is a science. It primarily examines how decisions are made, which alternatives provide greatest benefits to various stakeholders. Contrary to popular belief, economics is not about money. It has and continues to be about the study of allocation of scarce resources (behaviours). We enforce them through incentives and disincentives (punishments).You don’t need to be an economist or technologist to understand the book. We keep things high-level to digest the information, yet coming from fundamental academic research.The difference between economics (soft science) and physics (hard science) is that economics is continuously evolves because it is a study of human behaviours. As we moved from Web 1 to Web 2 and now Web 3, the economics 101 that we initially understood has changed.While is important to be coding the tech infrastructure of Web 3.0 and having ideas of what Web 3.0 is like, an important aspect is the economics and incentive alignment of Web 3.0 users. It is easy to create a token or currency out of thin air. The token is only valuable when the economics make sense.The aim of this book is to dive into the core foundational principles of economics in Web 3.0. We explore the evolution to economics, the change in principles we learnt in Econs 101, and the new environment that economics will exist in.Then, we explore ways to apply these foundational principles in Web 3.0, with or without a token. We also tap into the general mathematics that defines the economic mechanisms.

What if the world's economic problems are not the result of bad policies—but of a fundamentally broken monetary system? In Bitcoin Is Venice, Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers challenge the assumptions underpinning modern economics, finance, and fiat currency. Drawing on history, political economy, philosophy, and Bitcoin, they present a provocative vision of how sound money could transform capital formation, human cooperation, and the future of civilization itself. Far more than a book about cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Is Venice explores how societies create wealth, how institutions evolve, and why monetary systems shape everything from innovation and entrepreneurship to culture and individual freedom. Through a series of deeply researched and thought-provoking essays, Farrington and Meyers examine: • The failures and contradictions of modern economic theory • The hidden costs of fiat currency systems • The relationship between money, capital, and human progress • How Bitcoin changes incentives throughout society • The future of entrepreneurship, investment, and wealth creation • Whether a Bitcoin standard could usher in a new era of prosperity and innovation Building on ideas from economics, history, technology, and political philosophy, the authors offer a framework for understanding Bitcoin not merely as a digital asset, but as a transformative monetary technology with far-reaching implications for the modern world. Featuring a foreword by human rights advocate Alex Gladstein and praised by leading thinkers including Jeff Booth and Harris Irfan, Bitcoin Is Venice presents a compelling exploration of money, freedom, and the foundations of a flourishing society. All profits from the sale of this book are donated to the Human Rights Foundation. Whether you're an investor, entrepreneur, economist, policymaker, or simply curious about the future of money, Bitcoin Is Venice offers a challenging and insightful perspective on one of the most important innovations of the twenty-first century. Discover why Bitcoin may be about far more than finance—and what that could mean for the future of civilization.

The controversial book linking intelligence to class and race in modern society, and what public policy can do to mitigate socioeconomic differences in IQ, birth rate, crime, fertility, welfare, and poverty.

Seventeen years passed between the moment Robert M. Pirsig burst onto the literary scene with his successful debut "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," and the publication of "Lila." Fedro, the phantom alter-ego who haunted the narrator of "Zen," has exchanged his motorcycle for a sailboat on which he travels alone, still on his personal quest in pursuit of the Metaphysics of Quality, radically distanced from the parameters of traditional moral extremism. "Diecisiete anos pasaron desde que Robert M. Pirsig irrumpio en el mundo literario con su exitosa opera prima, "Zen y el arte del mantenimiento de la motocicleta," hasta la publicacion de "Lila." Fedro, el alter ego fantasma que acosaba al narrador de "Zen," ha cambiado la motocicleta por un velero en el que navega solitario, y persevera en su personal busqueda de un sistema de pensamiento, la Metafisica de la Calidad, radicalmente alejado de los parametros de la maniquea moral tradicional."

Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this book is his most powerful statement on the topic. He explains what a state is and what it is not. He shows how it is an institution that violates all that we hold as honest and moral, and how it operates under a false cover. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well being, all under the veneer of "good intentions."

When this gem first appeared in 1963, it took the form of a small paperback designed for mass distribution. We've conjured up that spirit again with this special edition of Rothbard's primer on money and government.Innumerable economists, investors, commentators, and authors have learned from this book through the decades. After fifty years, it remains the best book in print on the topic, a real manifesto of sound money.Rothbard boils down the Austrian theory to its essentials. The book also made huge theoretical advances. Rothbard was the first to prove that the government, and only the government, can destroy money on a mass scale, and he showed exactly how they go about this dirty deed. But just as importantly, it is beautifully written. He tells a thrilling story because he loves the subject so much.The passion that Murray feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject, and tell others. Students tell professors. Some, like the great Ron Paul of Texas, have even run for political office after having read it.Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it. He shows how exchange rates and interest rates would work in a true free market. When it comes to describing the end of the gold standard, he is not content to describe the big trends. He names names and ferrets out all the interest groups involved.Since Rothbard's death, scholars have worked to assess his legacy, and many of them agree that this little book is one of his most important. Though it has sometimes been inauspiciously packaged and is surprisingly short, its argument took huge strides toward explaining that it is impossible to understand public affairs in our time without understanding money and its destruction.

[ MP3 CD Format ] A venture capitalist draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and as an executive at Uber to address how tech's most successful products have solved the dreaded "cold start problem" -- by leveraging networks effects to launch and scale towards billions of users. Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of "the network effect," where a product or service's value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they're messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth. Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them - much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest - to provide unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks successful, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are virally important today.

Perhaps everyone has heard of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. They appear in the media at moments when they are drawing their last breath (the price has dropped a bit) or when everyone is going crazy and buying (the price has gone up a bit). However, only a few people are experimenting with using them in their lives. Can something so volatile be used reliably? And if we don't care about the price, can cryptocurrencies be used in other ways? For example, to fund creators, or for crowdfunding. Can you use cryptocurrencies to take out a loan? How to use them in international trade or to promote your products? How to build a local crypto economy in your social bubble? Can bitcoin be used to expand personal and social contacts? We can even use bitcoin as a form of "insurance" against the failure of the traditional financial system. Juraj Bednár is a serial entrepreneur. He has founded several companies in the field of information technology. He is a co-founder of the non-profit project Paralelná Polis, thanks to which he discovered the potential of cryptocurrencies in life and business. By combining the principle of hacking (ethical hacking, life hacking, ...) and cryptocurrencies, he creates mindsets with which you can introduce cryptocurrencies into your life. The aim of his books is to open the minds of his readers to new possibilities – if we have the courage to experiment.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Never have we had so much potential to do good in the world or literally transform our civilization into transnational gulags. Almost 175 Years have passed since the Communist Manifesto was written and circulated by Marx and Engels. Some statistics point to it being one of the most widely read and distributed works of political science and economics. However, the core ideology has led to hundreds of millions of murders worldwide at the hands of those who fervently 'believed' and 'reformed' society by its decrees. It's about time something was written to help challenge and potentially unwind some of the moral, intellectual, social, and economic damage done since. * Why is it that an idea with a consistent failure rate draws more young people to it than ever before? * What is it about the original book that's so infectious that it continues to influence people around the world almost two centuries later? * What elements of the original text are accurate observations, and what conclusions are drawn ignorant of human psychology and praxeology that lead to devastating consequences? We wrote The UnCommunist Manifesto to answer these questions and much more. We emulated the format and length of the Communist Manifesto, so it is a sharp, concise and lucid read, but the message contained is a reminder for people to reach upward and become better versions of themselves instead of renouncing individual responsibility by classifying themselves into static groups and intellectually validating their desire to bring others down to their level. One goal was to change the axis of the “struggle.” Marx and Engels outlined it as “a struggle between two classes’, whom an individual is arbitrarily assigned to based on their material wealth. We reject this and assert that the real struggle is between individual autonomy, sovereignty, and responsibility versus the collectivist tendency toward group identity politics, rights, entitlements, and co-dependencies. Between cooperation and coercion. It always has been. We hope to see it used as an inspirational text in the years ahead as Individuals seek to maintain autonomy and claim sovereignty, while the collective seeks to coerce. Our longer-term hope is that this text can be a beacon of hope, sanity, and sense in a world being swallowed up by the envy inherently justified by Marxist doctrine. Humanity is at a crossroads. Never have we had so much potential to do good in the world, or literally transform our civilisation into transnational gulags. The siren call of Marxist entropy is stronger than ever. The greatness and sanctity of the individual and the soul must counter it. May this book be not just an answer to the misguided, nihilistic, and often dangerous ideology that is Marxism, but a message of hope, responsibility, and liberty for all. This is the first edition, and we hope that you find deep meaning within it. Aleks Svetski & Mark Moss