nostr:npub1s277u5rww60te98w9umz6p7pjcxuus96cegdsf4y978qcqvu8jtq88dsym your points are insightful, but pretty entrenched in a deep dystopia. On the whole, our societies are not “there” yet. Whether we “will be” or not and “what to do if” are all fine questions… but these have little to do with “what we build today”. 

My point is: unknown number of causal paths may lead to dystopia. If we keep “narrowing down” what Nostr is for the sake of avoiding these possible futures, then Nostr will be nothing. 

Dumb relays have limited usefulness. And what’s to stop dystopian govt from coming after clients also? So clients have to be dumb? No “content filters” for anyone?

This is just counter productive. If Nostr is gonna grow AT ALL to a scale where Govt cares, then so will bots and bad actors polluting the network with shit content. Without ability for relays AND clients to provide content filtering (and yes… based on “trusted” user feedback mechanisms like follow, mute, trust, report, ect…) then Nostr itself will fail. 

Content filtering is NOT some legacy practice of “centralized” walled garden socials. It is an essential tool for maintaining network health and vitality. 

Perfecting truly decentralized content filtering (where users choose, design, and share their own filters across clients) is Nostr’s game to loose. If we don’t develop these tools today, then tomorrow it may be too late. We need to EMBRACE the fact that nobody notices us yet, rather than LOCK DOWN and prepare for the worst.