Oddbean

FREEDOM TECH HITS WAY HARDER THAN ANYTHING ELSE I HAVE COME UP WITH. OF COURSE CHARLATANS HAVE CLUNG ON TO IT. HAPPENS WITH ANY PHRASE THAT BANGS. UNAVOIDABLE. IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING BETTER IN MIND LET ME KNOW.

I’m old enough to remember when people actually worked on and talked about Bitcoin but instead we have OpenSats putting more funding into nostr than bitcoin. We have devs fixated on nostr. We have Max Hillebrand spewing nonsense about how nostr is more impactful than Bitcoin. And it all just sounds like people pumping their bags because they invested in nostr projects or they don’t wanna have to work a fiat job to stack sats so they shill nostr to fleece people. Nostr is fun. It’s good for censorship resistance. People making it out as more than it is just reeks of corruption. No one talks about the fucking privacy nightmare that is Nostr. It’s literally a fucking panopticon. It takes one fed running a popular relay to completely undo people’s Opsec. We have people using DVMs which broadcast your data and metadata to the whole fucking world. And the so called privacy people shill it nonetheless bc they either don’t review the code or they can’t and they’re just blindly following. And instead we just have people unequivocally shilling the shit out of it. It’s insane. And it’s blasphemous to say that Nostr is anywhere near as impactful as bitcoin. It’s the definition of affinity scam. If the devs put their heads down for the next half decade it’ll be 1/10th as impactful. And that’ll be pretty good and I’ll tip my cap. When people say shit like nostr fixes this or “freedom tech” I just hear pure grift from people trying to profit off of the Current Nostr Thing. Just be normal and shill it one out of every five posts and I won’t say anything. We need our eyes on the prize which is hyperbitcoinization.

That’s a funny deflection Matt. Nobody said you’ve not done enough for bitcoin. I have concerns about your motives and they’re valid. You’re the guy that calls everyone out for being corrupt and yet I’ve never heard you explain why OpenSats funds more Nostr science projects than Bitcoin projects. I’ve never heard you explain why the fuck you’re calling out Swan publicly saying their financials don’t make sense when you’re an investor and you have the legal right to look at their books whenever you want. Sorry I’m not kissing your feet dude. I didn’t get into Bitcoin for that. It’s not pleasant but this is feedback you need to hear. I still have hope your heart’s in the right place and your intentions are pure but your smarmy response and public behavior have not engendered confidence. Sincerely One of Your Fans

Thanks for showing me this Matt. Definitely helps assuage my concerns. For what it’s worth these points were raised from serious conversations from honest Bitcoiners I know that both of us respect but in hindsight I see that those people probably don’t have the full picture encapsulated in these responses.

why? people use short phrases (slogans) to quickly and easily convey really important messages. ones that are good and need to be remembered and internalised by a group we've been doing it forever, 'not your keys. not your coins', 'don't trust. verify' I like this slogan. it reminds me that current mainstream technology which is closed source spyware and not ever going to get better, only darker and more dystopian, has alternatives