Oddbean

I was moved to tears several times at Bitcoin Atlantis in Madeira. The quality, sincerity, generosity, kindness, respect, and encouragement which characterize the interactions I had is on a level I’ve never before witnessed or experienced. All those people, with a shared passion and dedication for the mission, humbled by all which it represents, interacting with each other as fundamentally equal, but experientially and intellectually unique, creates the best possible foundation for friendship, for mutual understanding, for helping and supporting each other, or for just hanging out and basking in the shared experience, and whatever forces are generating it. It’s become such a consistent occurrence (though more pronounced each time) that it’s easy to forget just how special it is. Bitcoin (only) conferences aren’t ‘industry events’, they are little wormholes to the future that flash open for a few days so people can feel what things are like when we orient and express our actions around such a form of truth - as represented in, accessed through, and propagated by, bitcoin. ‘Number go up’ is great and necessary, and none of this would happen without it, but it’s a ‘means’, not an ‘ends’. What is experienced between people when they are so humbled by the truth, and so lifted and liberated by its presence, is the true nexus of creative inspiration, from which all that is good and beautiful may spring. That is the true ‘ends’, which we might simply understand to be alignment with the generative force we call ‘love’, and the products thereof. Not the phony, wishy-washy, ‘everyone can be right’ kind of ‘love’, but the one which allows for argument and debate, honest feedback and opinion, while remaining grounded in a paramount aim that is movement toward Truth, which subordinates any divisive differences to this, ultimately uniting, shared objective. Anyways, Bitcoin Atlantis just reminded me how incredible what’s happening here really is, and how much of a pleasure and honour it is to be sharing it with you (you know who you are). Thank you. 🧡

Thank YOU John. You are one of the very special people in the space. My only sadness about your current focus on your book (assuming that is why you have gone quiet), is that I greatly miss your podcasts.

Everything around us has gotten to a level of fakeness which is becoming unbearable. From news to mass manipulation to human interaction. Bitcoin is monetary truth, but it awakens the thirst for truth in all aspects of human life.