Oddbean

I guess bitcoin appeals to a certain type rn. I may be largely “that type”, but I don’t buy all the narratives. More bitcoiners should push back against bitcoin dogma. e.g. it’s okay to be vegan if that’s your thing, even though it’s not my thing

The “staying humble” piece of Stay Humble, Stack Sats is just lost on some, I guess. We are all - every one of us - potentially experts on one thing…and two or three, if we are extraordinary outliers. Most of the off-putting hubris is from online NPCs and it is a reflection of a couple influencer-types who profess to be, or whose attitudes suggest because they have “figured out the money” (read a couple books and can parrot author talking points): their word is the gospel on all subjects. Most Bitcoiners I’ve met IRL are as humble as they come. No one can be a true expert in Austrian Economics, and Bitcoin, and Nutrition, and Politics, and Coding, and Seed Oils, and Fitness, and Human Rights, and Social “Science”, and Biology, and History, and Vaccines, and Literature… The person who puts themselves out there on all these topics with authority is an expert in bullshit, but that’s about it, I think.

I spent most my time in this world feeling out of place amongst people who own btc. At least the online version of them. I’m going to try and not let that bother me. I always assume most folks will mute me anyway.

Identifying as a Bitcoiner effectively circumscribes which financial freedom technologies are available for consideration. Was the discourse more open and more intellectually honest in the pre-Bitcoin era?

I think you can be a bitcoiner and be open to considering various forms of freedom both financial and otherwise. e.g. a lot of bitcoiners are talking about ecash and various forms of stablecoins/stablecash these days. I even know hardcore bitcoiners who are developing stablecoin solutions that touch alternative L1s. this kind of stuff seems to more commonly discussed in private I think there were fewer lanes of opinions considered reasonable pre-internet. There are vastly more lanes that people will express now. That opens up to better discovery of fundamental truths we may have missed before. There’s more tribalism online now than there was pre-bitcoin. The online platforms were much less algorithmically driven pre-bitcoin. I think that’s the biggest change.

Well done, you have nailed my underlying intention with L1 needing to be on the table and tribalism addressed. One thing with L1 is the time factor, as the right L1 could effectively present with faith accompli. Do you have suggestions as to how to access the private discussions? In any event, thanks for this well-considered response, and in particular for the positive note that in fact more lanes of inquiry are now open, and the whole principle that there can be yet more fundamental truths still needing to be uncovered via free discourse.

@TheBitcoinManual what do you think of this overview of current diversity of approaches amongst bitcoiners? Does it ring true to you? It looks like L2, L1, custodial, non-custodial approaches are all being investigated. But somehow, some of the talking has to happen behind closed doors... nostr:note1y5pylqqvkjgm93kpaxqmrfhdh0xcc7xg265z3y6sddmvr4tafg6s0zgrvh

I think there is a lot of PTSD after failed custody in the past, we've seen so many ruggings with exchanges and that was when BTC was cheap as chips to move on-chain now that it's not the case or not always the case its' encouraging the custody model The simplistic answer is every scaling option that doesn't allow full unilateral exit is a shitcoin, but reality isn't simplistic and people are dynamic and can choose the risk they are comfortable with using. In the end opinions are only one part of it, and the market demand is the real test, no one has it figured out, and by trying is how we learn, yes there will be failures along the way and lost capital but that's the cost of doing business

Yeah, it is heart-breaking to think that there could be technologically better solutions available which unfortunately bite the dust due to lack of adoption. Your point about "no-one has it figured out" makes me wonder if that is partly down to barking up the wrong tree! (e.g. ever more convoluted layers built on a fundamentally slow and expensive base layer.)

Its a tough problem to solve, no other blockchain is offering up anything better, LN is so far the best we've got, and even that's pretty clunky to manage on your own, but hopefully future upgrades like convenants, channel factories, eltoo make things a lot easier for the average person to get involved

I feel you are pre-judging other blockchains, sight unseen. Yes, there are a mountain of shitcoin L1s and L2s out there, and it is not humanly possible to do due diligence on a large number of them. However, I feel the more intellectually honest approach is to establish objective criteria which any candidate L1 would have to fulfill in order to be worth considering. It feels especially important to keep this avenue of discussion open given that LN is still largely offering jam tomorrow, at least in terms of the critical aspect of censorship resistant self custody.

How so? I've used other blockchains in the past, I've looked into it, I've read their non-sensical fantastical white papers, why is the burden of proof on me to prove that my claims are backed by something but these altcoins have no burden of proof to back up their claims?

I am not asking you to accept the burden of proof, just that somehow objective criteria need to be set to assess the L1. The burden of proof is then on the L1 to meet those criteria. Also, I don't feel it makes sense to conflate all "other blockchains" and tar them all with the same brush, even if a very high % of them are shitcoins. I have one L1 in mind. But I don't feel to show my hand to those who have concluded that *all* other cryptos than BTC are shitcoins, or in a situation where there are no objective benchmarks and the goal posts keep moving! (And please don't feel these points are in response to you personally. It is just that I feel to lay the ground as best as is possible, given how hard I feel it is for a L1 to gain acceptance.)

I am always open to discussions, and happy to take the time to verify things myself, if you can point me in the right direction, I run my own node, I have my own lightning node, I've tried liquid I actively use these things now I've used EVM chains like ETH, BSC, I've tried out MATIC, I've used TRON they're all pretty much variant flavours of the same flaws. I've yet to see a blockchain that hasn't sacrificed decentralisation and simplicity for throughput

That all sounds exemplary, you are in a position to speak of your first hand experience of the merits/demerits of all those things. Without further ado, here is a taster of what the #Nimiq L1 crypto payment coin offers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA40oyDVtqs