Oddbean

The Bitcoin cultists think that Nostr could prevent Biden's handlers from making statements on his behalf. They're totally delusional, obviously. Let's say that Biden needed to use a fingerprint to Tweet. All someone would need to do is take his finger, whether attached to him or not, to make a Tweet "as Biden". And all the delusional drones who think, "signing proves identity." are just that; completely delusional and unaware of how anything actually works: https://medium.com/@beautyon_/beach-boy-bitcoin-64f62bed4c7e Noster can't fix everything, and neither can Bitcoin; and there is a class of Bitcoiner that has shifted this narrative from "Bitcoin fixes this" to "Nostr Fixes this". It's the same Bitcoin Cult under a different name. People who think software services like X, Bitcoin and Nostr are "technologies" betray their complete lack of understanding of what a technology is. Services are not technologies; they are made out of technologies. And if you think a "signing key" will protect the launch procedure from being hijacked, you really don't understand how signing keys work, probably never used GPG, and are ignorant of the history of Cryptography. Which is fine. No one can be expected to know everything. These things are being said because it is important for people who prefer not to be ignorant hear them to reign in the drooling fanboyism that masquerades for insight. They throw around words like "Open Source" and "Centralized" not knowing what these things mean or whether or not practical use can be made of them. They also don't like it when "Open Source" is used against them as intended, when their work is forked and someone makes a copy of it for profit. Publishers of books are the worst offenders in this, breathlessly talking about "Open Source" whilst protecting their books with copyright. One of the rare exceptions is Boldrin and Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly" that you can download for free AND buy on Amazon. Not so clever people think they're being smart by finger pointing Boldrin and Levine for selling their books thinking they're not available for free, only to be silenced by pointing to the URL where they are. How pathetic. http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm Thankfully, Bitcoin can't suffer from the delusions of these people, who are toxic and retarding of the expansion of Bitcoin's use. Once again, if Bitcoiners can't overcome the voices of these people then it was always doomed to fail. So far. It is THEM that are failing, not YOU.

Interesting the distinction between technology and service; giving a quick think about it it'd be hard to find a precise border. A tool acquires its definition at the very moment it became serviceable for the user; but also the need might be what justifies a way to cover a service. Paradox of the measure comes to my mind... Taking current state of X, for example, its service is digital communications, its tech it's internet infrastructure and protocols, —from which also many other services takes advantage of—... then later when looking at internet as a service, its tech might as well be human's ability to expression, —and it's need to increase the reach of preach— Saving the medium article for later; no less than 5 clicks this Medium web service asks to properly start reading 😅

You're conflating the effect of a tool with the nature of a tool. This logic is what leads people to think, "Guns are dangerous" and even more absurd, that AR-15s are more dangerous than any other type of rifle. It's emotionalism and illogic. Using words like "tech" as shorthand is not useful and often misleading, so I would not do that when trying to have a precise discussion. Technology can be used to provide a service. Software can be used to provide a service also. Tools do not "acquire definitions" they are defined by what they are; people develop analogies and superimpose them on tools and services. This is a mistake, and Bitcoiners have suffered from it gravely.

I appreciate the response! Apologies for the slang; internet habits... Reading your arguments leads me to believe I may be positioned schools of thinking apart of yours; to be more precise, in regards of logic and emotions. Even though I agree "guns are dangerous" is an absurd sentence, the fear about its existence is not at all less true. Conceded, this kind of emotions may be what leads to faulty measures lacking of rationality; however it could be argued similar absurd might be to expect for everyone to understand why that sentence is absurd... In any case, I'm intrigued some more about your read as it has the topic of experience in it 👀. Cheers!

I enjoyed the article. I also have questions - maybe just a simple clarification. When I saw yesterday that many were asking some variant of, “did Pelosi lock Biden in a closet somewhere?”, my mind gravitated (as it so often does) to Nostr. We appreciate the significance of the fact that a cryptographically signed message cannot be altered or faked, without implicitly demonstrating that it is no longer the original signer’s message. In the context of “is the tweet real?”, one is left wishing for a way to verify, if one doesn’t trust. With Nostr — generally speaking — the person who owns the nsec can claim and verify that their messages are their own. Scaled outward, cryptographic signatures will allow us to trust, by verifying, that the same individual who has been tweeting is still tweeting… as long as their nsec has not been compromised, of course. As with Bitcoin, I find that there are many — countless — ways that using Nostr in place of the existing architecture would meaningfully improve whatever it is we’re trying to do. Humans are also quick to propose our favorite thing as the way to fix others’ problems. It’s natural. I’m being called for dinner, so I’ll need to cut my reflection short. Anyway, thank you for the “food for thought” ✌️

“As long as their nsec has not been compromised of course” Of course. This is Cult Nonsense and it shows that you don’t understand how anything works. Signatures breaking doesn’t indicate it isn’t the owners message; it simply means the signature is broken. Nothing else can be implied other than that. Anyone can poast as a Nostr user by simply getting their phone. The keys offer no verification whatsoever of who is making a poast, only that a poast was made with a unique key. This has nothing to do with proving a particular individual did anything; this is Cult mythology, not reality, and conflating Nostr with Bitcoin is ridiculous. Signature in Bitcoin are used to write to the ledger so that others can rely on them. In Nostr, signatures only tell you a key was used; the arbitrary messages have no meaning in any context, even in their own context. It’s indistinguishable from white noise. The idea behind Nostr is that no one can stop you poasting; it’s not about authentication, which is an inconvenient means to an end. If I have your car keys I could drive your car away; keys can’t be used to authenticate the signer is who they claim to be, they’re not magic. Any locked door that belongs to you whose keys are accessible to me can be opened by me. This is true on Nostr, which cannot solve this problem. Nostr isn’t interesting for the reasons you think it is, and the world you’re imagining cannot be built on it. It’s nothing more than Cult Nonsense. Here is a list of some of the most famous cults: 1. Peoples Temple 2. Branch Davidians 3. Heaven's Gate 4. The Manson Family 5. The Order of the Solar Temple 6. Aum Shinrikyo 7. Children of God (Family International) 8. The Moonies (Unification Church) 9. Rajneeshpuram (followers of Osho) 10. Scientology 11. NXIVM 12. Falun Gong 13. The Church of the Lamb of God 14. Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God 15. The Church of the Last Testament 16. Bitcoin (Cryptocurrency) And the idea that people constantly being identified is only desired by totalitarian Communists and maniacs. Free people want to transact and communicate privately and anonymously. It is not a good thing that an identity layer is placed over everything. This is why the Ethical people in Bitcoin are so eager to anonymise its use, not wantonly attach identity to everything. The privacy preservers are going to win this by the way. They’re going to win because they know how things work, know how they should work, have the means to make them work, and are releasing these means into the market. They don’t wave their hands around, gush at every new toy put in front of them. They take things seriously…because they’re important matters, and not a game. And thank YOU for replying!