Oh nice. How does it prevent actual spammers from writing to it? Or does it not matter because the spam notes are never shown to anyone (so it’s maybe an issue for storage/ddos but not the nostrich’s UX)?
We’ve been great. Spent the weekend in the mountains with one of my best friends and his relatively new wife, and just bonded with them and had a grand old time. Now heading back city-ways to resume the mining of fiat 😁
I respect this.
There are plenty of people living under regimes where the ability to transact with near-perfect privacy *by default* is of greater importance than a doubtless guarantee of supply cap/supply auditability, socially-approved transaction rails, NGU, etc.
I’d rather hold Bitcoin. It feels like Bitcoin will change (and fix) much of what’s broken in our society around money — the hard supply cap and transparent blockchain work to prevent a lot of the government+corporate+central banking fuckery that got us into this mess in the first place. I want to be a part of that movement.
A private digital cash might not solve those problems as well (nor is it intended to). Privacy yields its own benefits — the argument for using Monero is a solid one, and in certain circumstances, the tradeoffs strike me as acceptable.
My two sats.
This is also worth noting.
I do struggle with questions around why people whom I know, love, and respect, might make choices that I disagree deeply with.
I don’t love them any less. I won’t mute or unfollow someone merely on their voting preferences.
But it’s difficult to understand the gap. I have no love for Harris, but to me, Trump is obviously unfit to lead the country, so it’s hard when people I care about and trust are manipulated into believing otherwise.
My hope is that those who will be most affected by cruel policy are able to find Bitcoin and use it to protect their freedoms in a way they never could before.
Long read, philosophers welcome, tl;dr-seekers beware 😉
I’ve been thinking deeply today about the concept of action: of freely manifesting the next instance of reality. This concept takes many forms, but today I’m looking at it in the context of speech and Bitcoin/cryptographic sovereignty…
*Running your own node fulfills the direct peer-to-peer nature of Bitcoin’s original state*
So. It’s easy to understand the practical case for running a Bitcoin node, with benefits like the ability to verify your coins and improved privacy.
But there’s also a philosophical consideration that I’ve been mulling over… and I’d love others’ input.
When running a node, you not only verify and sign transactions; you also broadcast them to the network, where another node (peer) can pick up the electrons (loosely described).
If you use your wallet provider’s node, you depend on them to communicate your desired transaction with your trade partner. By using another entity’s node, you sacrifice the pure peer-to-peer nature of the Bitcoin network.
Likewise, by running your own node and freely broadcasting your own transaction to your peer, you take full control of (and responsibility for) your action and its effect.
This isn’t to suggest that “you must run node to be good bitcoiner” or some nonsense like that (although it’s self-evident that running a node is usually good). Most of us still depend on internet and electric companies to achieve any of this stuff.
I’m moreso contemplating different setups and permutations of sovereignty.
There’s something beautiful about the process of communicating your intended transfer of value on your own terms, permission-less-ly, rather than asking a service provider to communicate it for you.
So, I’m coming to view it more as an expression of the principle of freedom of speech.
We know the code-is-speech case, but that’s a little different. As I understand it, it means that freedom of expression includes the math and language of code, such that code is included among in the types of speech to which we have a right.
On the other hand, I’m thinking about the moment of broadcasting a transaction from your own node.
Taking this action is exercising the freedom *to* speak, to express your intention of transferring value.
To broadcast a Bitcoin transaction, from your own node, is to declare your participation in this global network of near-perfect consensus.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something profound about that moment of action, of doing, of “is-ness”, of the truth and reality of manifesting action in the present moment.
Of course, grokking this profound experience is not constrained to Bitcoin transactions — the beauty of being/doing exists everywhere — but I’m struck today by the freeness of action, and how that action is itself an expression of the right to speak and to assemble.
There’s something exceptional about action - generation, manifestation, creation. When the freedom to speak is overlaid on the significance of action, then the choice to run your own node, and to broadcast your transaction directly to the network of your peers takes on a deeper significance and value.
Thanks for reading 🫂🧡
#plebchain #showerthoughts #grownostr #philosophy
This is beautifully put — I think often about the interplay between choice and “karma” (in reference to fhe interdependent lines of cause and effect, rather than the personalized caricature of karma).
If everything is part of an energetic whole, and our consciousness too is a part of it, then every instance of being is simultaneously chosen and determined/dependent on the prior moment, with no paradox. Panentheism in philosophy, unified field theory in physics, “it’s/we’re all one” in meditation (and psychedelics)… the duality is complete, and the paradoxical views are consistent with one another (a paradox within itself), and it’s an absolutely beautiful thing to contemplate.
Thanks for your reply; thanks for being here 🫂
Cheers to that my dude. And good, I expect the tadpoles to keep you entirely exhausted and on your toes if you’re not shitposting here daily 😉
Wifey’s good too! We’re starting to “think about thinking about” pleblets, although it’ll still be a little while before we’re actually there. Got a bit more growing up to do first (myself at least, lol, she’s on top of it) and a bull cycle would be nice in terms of moneys. But still, it’s exciting to even look in that direction and start feeling more ready for it, as time goes on 🫂
🥹🫂🫂🫂🫡
We have a couple boxes to check off, but we’ve been looking forward to creating plenty of pleblets since we were barely full-grown plebs ourselves
😂🥂
I find people tend to think I’m older than I actually am, but when they meet me in person think I’m younger!
When @AviBurra and I met, I believe he said something along the lines of “your notes seem well-aged, like a fine wine”. The highest of complements 😁🍷❤️
Training - is she in medicine too?! Raising tadpoles and fixing plebs - that’s a power couple I’d say 🤜🤛
We’re in a nice place - excited for when it happens, and taking our time to get there. But surely looking forward to it.
PS: I’ve had this card sitting around for a while, awaiting its purpose. I’m going to load it up with that hearty zap of yours, and someday pass it to the firstborn pleblet (baby wine? grape? Lol) as a gift from Uncle Frog 🫂 https://image.nostr.build/6a7cf79a776f4c00b9e288e1e56bed5a8792c2f85c12ccc77a4c2e97ad3719a2.jpg
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