I do not believe Bitcoin removes governments coercive power.  Is there proof that the world’s most resourced nemesis could not destroy the blockchain?  I do believe a growing group of likeminded thinkers sharing trust, community, and subsidiarity might be a foe to that institution, but whether they will become powerful enough to subsume the coercive powers of government itself remains to be seen.

 #liberty #libertarian #asknostr 

 Related to that, it seems to me the biggest weakness of Bitcoin is that it is not a tangible asset.  Bitcoins exists purely in digital space, which is removed from the physical reality in which we daily live and move.  It appears to be a good digital solution for a digital world, but I'm not sure it's the end-all and be-all.

Decentralizing the Internet makes it harder to control, but that doesn't stop a jack-booted thug from knocking on your physical door.

#asknostr #bitcoin 

 There's a tangential question here about what sort of reality the digital space actually possesses, but that's a different discussion for a different time 

 This question is actually at the core of what Bitcoin had to solve

https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/ 

 Of the questions you reference about reality, digital space (cyber reality?) and what is at the core of Bitcoin (time?), can you help me understand what core question Bitcoin solved?

It makes sense to me that money is a store of work.  It doesn’t make sense to me that money is a store of time.   My professor told me that slow workers think work takes time.  The definition of work is the actualization of the possible. How quickly that occurs - with every change. Yet as with instantaneous velocity, we also make up words for instantaneous change (big bang?)

Nevertheless.  It seems to me that if the blockchain were allowed to operate as intended,  we would have a different outcome than otherwise.  I can’t rule out the set of {otherwise} being null.

#bitcoin #asknostr 

 It isn’t helpful to go fly lower than 10,000 ft on this one ✈️:

Only 2 truly finite resources in the universe…
-energy
-time 

BTC is the monetizing (read:encapsulating) of energy and time. 

The (near) perfect encapsulation of the finite is something like immortality (read:timelessness).

To be timeless is so be pure (energy). 

🤝 

 In my experience, I have run into many more finite resources than time and energy -  breakfast and whisky being only two.  You also say, on the one hand, that time is finite, and on the other hand, you seem to say it is unlimited, without border, timeless, immortal.  I can’t reconcile this. Can you help?

Energy, from the greek, ‘energeia’ is activity, being at work.  As a first principle, we can accept energy might be limited, but that doesn’t prove it.  
Imagining a world completely actualized, with no remaining potential for actualizing, might be best for one with a theology other than mine.  Aristotle taught that God, the unmoved mover, was also pure energy.  It too is a lesson for one with a theory other than mine.

Do you believe that change itself is limited?  In my understanding the concepts of potential and nothingness remain related and muddled - pure potential being nothing actual. 

In the grand scheme of things, I believe I am too, in my being, encapsulated within time and change.  On the one hand,  does not give me a sense of immortality, while sometimes I wonder.

#bitcoin #asknostr 

 There’s a lot there. So I’ll speak to part of it.
Again, 10,000 ft remains helpful here ✈️:

“You also say, on the one hand, that time is finite, and on the other hand, you seem to say it is unlimited, without border, timeless, immortal.  I can’t reconcile this.”

Time is finite. But if you can put it into a perfect vacuum it lasts forever ♾️. That’s the idea.
There’s no creating more time or energy, there’s only the potential preservation of what is. 
A small amount of “time” (near) perfectly preserved for a very long time (read: infinitely ♾️) is “something like immortality.” 

^I chose those exact words carefully in my original message, and I stand by them. 

We aren’t arguing semantics. Those are two very different distinctions.

🤝 

 The concepts we use for time might be different.  I think of it as a medium, the means of expressing, work or change.   When you say it is finite, it seems to be more of an assertion than a proof.  I don’t know the truth of it, but if I assume is is finite, then I get to prove different things with my deductions and observations than if I assume it is not.  

Would a small amount of time be a duration wherein little change occurred?  Or would it be some arbitrary quantity of a crystal’s vibrations?  I think they are experienced very differently.  An that experience makes them fundamentally different.  I understand the world as change more than as time. 

#bitcoin #asknostr
 

 Ill be clear, I’m not a quantum physicist.

I suppose I should have said *as far as I can tell* time is finite.

“As far as I can tell is” is something like “truth that’s pragmatic and applicable.”

There’s plenty of theoretical truth that I have no interest in because it isn’t useful (that doesn’t make it untrue, it just makes it unproductive)

I’m not “assuming” truth is finite. *As far as I can tell* based on my lived, experiential reality, my time is running out 🕰️. That feels finite, and that’s enough for me to treat is as such.

🫡 

 I am an old man too.  And there does appear to be an encroaching limit to the things I can experience, but I don’t call that a limit on time.   Nor do I understand it as a limit on change that may or may not continue thereafter.  But I am sure there is a limit to my understanding. 

 Im not saying there’s a limit on time.

I’m saying there’s a limit on MY time. 

Those are two very different things.
The first is theoretical and generally not useful. 
The second is something useful and extremely consequential.

That’s the idea 💡 

The finite and the limitations are the key to a life lived conservatively (referencing the law of conservation of energy).

This applies to both that which can be observed and that which cannot be observed.

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭16‬:‭6‬ ‭

🤝 

 Thankful for your willingness to ask hard questions 🤝

It’s refreshing ❤️ 

 I would say the core problem bitcoin had solve is how to establish digital scarcity.

Something cannot be scare if it is represented directly as information because everything can be copied => you need a ledger.
Something cannot be scarce if a person controls the ledger => it needs to be decentralized
Something cannot be decentralized if you have to trust someone. But there is no absolute time => you need to create your own arrow of time.
Information cannot speak authoritatively about reality. There is no direct link between the two => you need to have proof of work.

That’s why bitcoin is different from a whiskey, a piece of art or anything else which is physical and scarce. Bitcoin is pure information. 

 Pure information as a concept for what informs material reality is an interesting subject.  But in a which came first scenario, the individual or the species, I still opt for the individual.  We are all working as individuals with the same arrow of time.  In my understanding, Bitcoin is using that arrow, not creating it.  The shared reality of digital scarcity that Bitcoin permits is most interesting to me.  But reality changes in ways I don't understand.

#bitcoin #liberty #libertarian #asknostr
 

 Bitcoin's greatest strength is that it's not physical! It makes it impossible (or very difficult) to steal except for the $5 wrench attack (probably up to $20 due to inflation 😂).

I agree that strong community is a huge part of the solution. But trust is earned and a system that is easily corrupted is not to be trusted (ever).

I think liberalism failed because the US Constitution and other documents designed to restrain government power have no teeth. At some point, the system has become overly abusive and the people in charge have no consequences for becoming tyrannical. I think public hanging of any politician or bureaucrat who proposes a law or edict that violates the clear limitations on the government is one such solution. The threat of violence by THE PEOPLE should be clearly articulated by the founding documents! This is how the US was founded... self-defense against tyranny. 

 Deneen's argument is that liberalism is based on radical individualism.  When you pursue that to it's end, you sever yourself from all historical and social support structures, and as a result you end up depending on a totalizing state to provide for your needs.

I appreciate the friendly community and the value for value economy being built on Nostr, it seems like the start of building a system of trust between individuals that isn't mediated by government. 

 It's definitely a competition of ideas. But Bitcoin removes government's ability to extract wealth at will from the people living there. And if the people can exit because of poor treatment, the actions of the government has direct consequences. Human action is what changes the world. Ideas are what motivates this action, but ideas without action are worthless.

I think we're saying basically the same thing. But government power is very likely to be reduced/limited by the existence and especially by the mass adoption (human action) of it by the populace.

BTW - This is a great video by Larkin Rose... https://youtu.be/hw01fB3hqBM?si=EU5s4DsGTUQta-Ft 

 There is no justification with regard to accepting first principles.  First principles come from experience not proof.  I don’t know the proof that Bitcoin removes government's ability to extract wealth.  What principle is it based on?

The principle “Every Human Being owns Himself’ also does not emerge from the knowledge of good or evil, it is something to be agreed on or not in our experience.  The process that has allowed us to formulate concepts of good and evil perpetuates itself by the manifestations of those concepts in the common understanding of our environment.   In other words, I understand slavery is bad because our environment has created understandable concepts that didn’t prevail in history.  Which came first, the success of those concepts, or the goodness of them?