Oddbean

Civilization walks on two feet. One is economics, and the other is politics. The way that I define those terms, economics is the study of financial transactions and politics is the study of human interactions. But at the very basic level, these are two components of the same thing, because every human interaction is an exchange of one or more of the basic resources of civilization. For those who have not heard that concept before, those basic resources are Information, Inspiration, Capital and Trust. The problems in the United States and around the world right now is that we are not building our civilization on a solid foundation. Our money/capital is fiat, existing because those in power declare it so, using rules that they control in order to twist the game of finance in their own favor, or giving that favor to others. Our information distribution is not solid, and not trustworthy, we literally cannot tell fact from fiction anymore. New ideas are either celebrated or attacked, but the direction doesn't depend on the merit of the idea, but from incumbents defending their assumptions and being unwilling to apply critical thinking to make sure that decisions and actions are based on real evidence. And our ability to trust each other depends on those same factors, hearing from other people not just what happened so we can draw our own conclusions, but requirements about how we MUST think or MUST believe about who people are, what their motivations were, and how to treat them. So it's not JUST the money that is broken. Our ability to make decisions and take action depends on all of our resources being built into solid foundations that will allow a real and thriving civilization to be built. Anything built upon a failing or designed-to-fail foundation is going to collapse eventually. We need trustworthy information sources. We need inspiration to be celebrated and then examined to see how it might change our thinking. We need capital that we can prove mathematically so we know who owns what and how much. And we need to be able to trust each other, not based on faith or belief, but based on evidence, understanding and forgiveness. We have solutions, and Bitcoin IS a good solution to the problem of unsound money. Nostr and other information feeds that are not held back or pushed forward by advertising dollars or algorithms can provide us with information we can trust. And being able to speak freely and be responsible and accountable for what we say and do is the only way to really build real trust. When inspiration strikes, put out your ideas. Ask your questions. Dive deep into the evidence to find the answers. And let's build a civilization worth living in. nostr:note1czrgxsp92rm8kkp9yuhdej40pfxzffmkcrmtwxeks7l0ts4u9ykqp92hjr