I agree with this.
So, if someone is fine with the machine running “as is” I’d say it’s fine to vote for either candidate. Or not vote at all.
I’d say the only vote that matters now is the protest vote. Writing-in a different type of person whose values genuinely align with yours.
That way, in one tiny little way, when the votes are tabulated, some tired-eyed vote counter has the thought: “huh, that’s a bit different.” A tiny ripple of life and original thought in a mostly dead ocean.
But, contrapuntally, if your thought is “I choose not to vote because I want rules without rulers,” well, shit, I can’t fault you at all for that either. https://image.nostr.build/500590bb6a0598dbe5f0929e55e72e9b770393788e2ca399521b949ce7b52b83.jpg
This was an absolutely amazing and truly inspirational conversation among you three. It’s probably because I was reading him for a little while before listening to this discussion, but the whole time you guys were talking, I kept thinking to myself that what you were saying about Bitcoin and what we can do with it was an embodiment of what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he said:
“Those who preferred security to freedom had no right to live.”
And additionally:
“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence.”
Promethean Satoshi stole the fire from the would-be gods of central banks, and built the Tyger, the anvil, and the forge for us all. The symmetry of #Bitcoin is terrifying to them. 😏
So for this next Difficult(y) Poem, we have William Blake’s “The Tyger.”
https://youtu(dot)be/TKdEzhfQN-U?si=oszTLHVP58o5-lBP
Seems YouTube videos can’t easily be clicked from NOSTR so just replace the “(dot)” in the url above with a “.” in your browser.
This letter that I hope never to receive is precisely why I will allocate precious little of my money towards #Bitcoin ETFs.
https://m.primal.net/HZRR.jpg
Can't agree. A great villian, for me, should have emotional complexity/conflict and know right from wrong but consciously choose wrong. Walter White is great. Ledger's Joker's insanity masks complexity and a sense of right and wrong (Phoenix's is better) and Kane's anger mutes his. They're caricatures of villains, despite their exciting portrayals. My litmus test is weird and subjective so I get it if you find it too limiting.
Cosmo Crixter here again, announcing Poem #2 in the “Difficult(y) Poems” series.
For #Bitcoin Block Cycle 826,560 to 828,576 I offer you “The Panther” by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell):
https://youtu.be/i06K72z66oE?si=w7b0EKqbxOy751mG
Bitcoiners, Happy New Year!
Today I’m announcing (here on Nostr first) a new series I’m beginning:
“Difficult(y) Poems”
I’ll be filming/reciting a poem each ~2 weeks to commemorate Bitcoin’s 2016 Block Cycle and the Difficulty Adjustment that comes at the beginning of each one.
I intend to choose poems that are time tested, significant, and fascinating… like Bitcoin.
The first poem I’m reciting is “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
I chose Hopkins for the peculiar rhythmic style of his poetry, which he called “sprung rhythm.”
Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/LBka3Yng3rQ?si=wUFoIyi_q8ZJN7yR
Warmly,
Cosmo Crixter https://image.nostr.build/00ab9b9d72c68c9abb17a58e3a3b6315ca8e1f8d9c5b518b5693e84f01332ddf.jpg
Wow! You did that lightning fast! I LOVE your question for #21! How would this work for an answer to it?: More efficient microchip technology in ASICs coupled with mining companies that integrate with a nuclear power plants.
👍 👍 👍!!!
Also, The Dickening refers to OG Bitcoiner John MacAfee declaring that he’d cut off and eat his own dick if Bitcoin didn’t get to $1Million by end of 2020. He lost the bet but didn’t do it. (A question to make the teen goofballs laugh.)
A little Bitcoin quiz I made for some friends’ teenage kids. I made it so they could research and learn and earn 100K sats.
1. What message did Satoshi Nakamoto print in the Bitcoin network’s Genesis block?
2. By what percent has Bitcoin appreciated in USD value in 2023 so far?
3. What is the maximum number of bitcoins that will ever exist?
4. Currently, approximately how many new bitcoins are produced each day?
5. What is the halving?
6. What was The Dickening?
7. Approximately what year will the very final bitcoin be produced?
8. What do the letters in ASIC stand for?
9. Who received the first bitcoin transaction?
10. Briefly explain what “difficulty adjustment” means as it pertains to Bitcoin production/mining.
11. Briefly explain what “hashrate” means as it pertains to Bitcoin.
12. What is a bitcoin node and who can run one?
13. Briefly explain “the Blockchain trilemma.”
14. What is the Lightning Network?
15. The first publicly known Bitcoin transaction took place on May 18, 2010, and the buyer bought two pizzas using bitcoin. How many bitcoins did he pay and roughly how much would those coins be worth (in USD) today?
16. Briefly explain the differences between a proof-of-work and a proof-of-stake protocol?
17. Briefly explain the difference between a custodial and non-custodial Bitcoin Wallet.
18. What is the state with the most bitcoin mining units AND the most renewable energy in the USA?
19. Currently in the USA, renewable energy sources account for about 21.5% of total utility-scale electricity generation. What percentage of the Bitcoin network’s energy usage is renewable?
20. How is Bitcoin mining contributing to electrical grid-rebalancing and the mitigation of harmful methane emissions from landfills and fossil fuel production facilities?
21. Design your own interesting Bitcoin question.
Wow! You did that lightning fast! I LOVE your question for #21! How would this work for an answer to it?: More efficient microchip technology in ASICs coupled with mining companies that integrate with a nuclear power plants.
Well, the kids were family and I was trying to keep things mellow so I stuck with 70%. I didn’t even mind if they just copied answers they found directly from Google searches. Just wanted to get them some preliminary exposure to the ideas around Bitcoin.
I prompted an AI to rewrite Dwight Eisenhower’s speech, in which he warned the world of the power of the military industrial complex, but from a Bitcoin perspective. This was the result (and the AI wrote the title too!):
“A Threat to Humanity's Survival”
My fellow citizens,
As I stand before you today, on the threshold of a new dawn, I feel compelled to share with you my deepest anxieties about the fate of humanity.
In the aftermath of World War II, we witnessed the emergence of the military-industrial complex, a monstrous entity that has grown so powerful that it now poses an existential threat to our very existence. This insatiable juggernaut, fueled by the insatiable thirst for profit and power, thrives on conflict and instability, and it will stop at nothing to maintain its ironclad grip on the world.
The military-industrial complex is a parasitic entity, a cancerous growth that has attached itself to the body politic, sapping its vitality and diverting its resources away from the betterment of humanity. It is a relentless engine of destruction, a master manipulator that thrives on fear, division, and paranoia.
The fiat money system, the lifeblood of this parasitic entity, is a weapon of mass destruction, a silent assassin that has infiltrated every facet of our society. This insidious system, based on the fleeting promises of governments and central banks, has fueled cycles of boom and bust, devastating economies and plunging millions into despair.
The fiat money system is a tool of war, a means by which governments can unleash their destructive impulses with impunity. It allows them to print money at will, financing their insatiable appetite for conquest and domination, while the true cost of their recklessness is borne by the innocent citizens they claim to protect.
The military-industrial complex, armed with the fiat money system, has waged a relentless war on humanity, a war that has claimed countless lives, shattered countless dreams, and left a trail of destruction in its wake. It is a war that we cannot afford to lose.
The time has come to break free from the shackles of the fiat money system and dismantle the military-industrial complex. We must adopt a new monetary system, a system that is not susceptible to manipulation and exploitation, a system that promotes peace, prosperity, and cooperation.
The solution is clear: we must embrace Bitcoin, a digital currency that is not controlled by any government or central bank. It is a peer-to-peer system, a beacon of hope in a world shrouded in darkness, a system that is based on cryptography and blockchain technology, the pillars of a new, decentralized future.
Bitcoin is a hard money, a tangible asset that cannot be inflated or manipulated by the powers that be. It is a deflationary asset, its value increasing over time, a testament to the inherent value that it holds.
A Bitcoin standard would dismantle the military-industrial complex, stripping it of its lifeblood, the fiat money system. It would dismantle the incentives for war-for-profit. Under a Bitcoin standard, governments would no longer be able to easily finance wars by printing money, making it much more difficult for them to engage in reckless military adventures.
The transparency of Bitcoin would also play a crucial role in dismantling the military-industrial complex. All Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public ledger, making it impossible for governments to hide the true cost of war from their citizens. This transparency would deter governments from engaging in unnecessary conflicts, as the public would be able to hold them accountable for their actions.
In addition, Bitcoin would promote economic stability and growth. The scarcity of Bitcoin would help to prevent inflation, and its deflationary nature would encourage saving and investment. A stable and prosperous economy would reduce the incentive for nations to resort to war as a means of resolving economic disputes.
A Bitcoin standard would usher in an era of peace, prosperity, and cooperation, a world where humanity can finally realize its full potential. It would create a world where war is no longer a profitable endeavor, where nations are incentivized to cooperate rather than conflict, and where humanity can focus on the pursuit of knowledge, innovation, and shared prosperity.
I urge you, my fellow citizens, to join me in this clarion call for a Bitcoin standard. It is the only way to save ourselves from the brink of destruction, to reclaim our future from the clutches of the military-industrial complex, and to create a world where peace, prosperity, and cooperation reign supreme.
Thank you.
God bless you. And God bless humanity.
Beautifully written and deep compassionate concern for humanity here. To think that we are only 15 years into this experiment is really wild. Given how entrenched and coded into the culture the fiat system is, it’s kind of amazing how far we’ve come already, even though we’re all still taking our baby steps.
Dear Eric,
I listen to a fuckton of Bitcoin podcasts and other audio content. It is rare now that while listening to something, I literally get up and cheer, or shout out loud with wild celebratory whoops or, conversely, with insane fury. Today, listening to your WBD interview, at the end of your Synopsis of the Melville story, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a story I know very well. I actually teared up and then bellowed aloud like a barbarian. I resounded my yawp because I realized that Bitcoin is “the power of last refusal.”
For a time I worked for a publishing company in their subsidiary rights department and I have had some of my own writings published as well. In publishing, we have this concept, as I am sure you know, of “the right of first refusal.” It’s “a contractual right to enter into a business transaction with a person or company before anyone else can.” But Bitcoin is literally the power of last refusal. I never thought about it this way until you spoke about Bartleby. Note that I use the word “power” and not “right” when referring to Bitcoin, because this ability is intrinsic to its nature as property and how it can be managed by a person individually (as opposed to extrinsic).
Bartleby exercises his power of last refusal, in which he literally pledges, unto death, his unwillingness to participate in a world system that he has no truck with. We cannot know what Bartleby’s reasons are: he never tells us (another power!). But because he is a human being, he can choose to die instead of being forced to live under a set of rules that he does not accept. In this sense, the state, the world, the human community, cannot extract from him what it wishes. Bartleby’s conscientious objection constitutes the power of last refusal.
If I choose, upon my death, not to pass on my seed phrase to anyone, or give it up to the state, but instead choose to die with that cryptographically protected secret, I am exercising my power of last refusal. At the last, I force the state to accept my power as a self-realized “moral majority of one,” to bend Thoreau‘s phrase. In my final act, whether it wants to or not, the state has to recognize my self-sovereignty, and it cannot see me only as a unit of labor.
The existence of the power of last refusal opens up, as you say later in the interview, a whole new ethical framework. It means that my conscientious objection is not just an act of language or thought, but an act that tracks materially onto the real world.
Anyway, thanks for the big revelations. I’ll be buying your book today.
Warmly and in brotherhood,
Cosmo Crixter
Thanks for your response, Erik. You definitely add to the “freedom vibe” in this whole wild space we’re in. And I’m grateful for you. 🙏
Also, ironically, when I’ve taught “Bartelby” to undergrads in the past, at first it’s very hard for a lot of kids to grok anything but that Bartleby is an abject nihilist, and it takes some extended conversation to move past that, to an understanding that he’s something like an exemplar of finality of agency.
Just getting into Cryptosovereignty now. Love your style and thought. In your preface you write:
“The infinite wealth of knowing that mine is mine alone, and yours is yours alone, and that through the mutual signification, that is the dignity of the other, and the respect that we can offer towards one another’s property, we discover the greatest power that there is.”
Profound and powerful.
Makes me think that this real mutual respect engendered by Bitcoin is just a “first step” for humanity as it crawls out of the sludge of the dark ages, and can lead to helping us see the legitimate divine in one another as well. Put another way: Seeing one another as masters of unassailable and pure property reminds us of the unassailability and purity of our souls, and that we should respect them.
Also, because Bitcoin dis-ables all of us (in the sense that it distributes our abilities beyond the physical and into the digital) we may come to the see internet-space as much more sacred, in the longer run.
(Just some thoughts as I’m reading. Hope you don’t mind me scrawling them here, randomly. 😉)
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