CMEs. Large solar events. I guess that fear extends much farther than bitcoin. But yeah, our sats would certainly be useless. But then again we’d have much bigger problems.
I recently returned to my home province for my first visit in18 years. I visited my grandfather’s old house in a small rural community where I lived with my mom when I was first born.
I had not seen this house in probably 30+ years. Having only vague memories and pictures to go by, it was truly humbling to see how modest this structure is. The fact that it’s still standing and I was able to visit it, are gifts.
Just up the hill (second photo) sits his old wood shop where he built many beautiful things.
The house is now used as a tool shed for the property next door which was also my great grandmothers house.
#stayhumble
#stacksats
https://m.primal.net/KQBQ.jpghttps://m.primal.net/KQBx.jpg
Some reflection:
I left my home country of Canada one year ago to travel the world, and more importantly, research where I wanted to call home.
Canada has stopped being a place where I feel welcome. The pandemic years, with the absolute vitriol spewing from the prime minister and his media has left a permanent impression on me. And even worse, the same vitriol that came from people I once called friends.
I was labelled as dangerous. That and whatever flavour of bigot was popular to label someone that week for choosing to exercise autonomy over their medical decisions.
This, not to mention the crippling level of taxation, and ever-rising costs of living, were enough to drive us out into the world to find another path. It felt as though there were no hope to purchase a home, or prepare for retirement. When the government extorts you out of more than a third of your income, and then expects you to happily stay on waiting lists for doctors for years at a time, what are you paying for?
I don’t know where I’ll land for good, but I don’t feel like Canada is a place of opportunity for me anymore. Perhaps one day it will be again.
https://m.primal.net/KPbk.jpg
This account is temporarily a Newfoundland appreciation account. But I mean, just look at this place.
Twillingate, Newfoundland.
#travel
#newfoundland
#canada
https://m.primal.net/KChb.jpg
I currently live in a millennial trailer park in Costa Rica, otherwise known as a park full of shipping container “tiny homes”. One of the perks is almost all my neighbour’s have friendly dogs. This guy visits me almost every morning. GM.
https://m.primal.net/IIRn.jpg
Bitcoin is our cathedral and I think it will orient us towards building other cathedrals as well.
I wrote an essay about how Bitcoin incentivizes action toward long term goals from a cognitive science/philosophical standpoint, if anyone would care for a Saturday read.
https://invisibleenvironment.substack.com/p/affording-cathedrals
On gratitude: Why gratitude lists fall short.
A friend recently pointed to the conditionality inherent in gratitude lists. While it is not fruitless to recognize your blessings, material or spiritual, it does not provide a steady ground to walk on. For if your gratitude is conditional on your house, your fridge being stocked, your family being present, then you will struggle to be grateful should those things come to not be.
The awe and the wonder of being itself seems a more fruitful ground floor in the palace of gratitude.
The absolute bewilderment at your existence. How intensely bizarre it is that you are here at all, and how wonderfully beautiful it is that you are.
Engaging the world with your senses, however complete or incomplete they are. Letting the world in, and you into the world. Stepping back, in child like wonder at the sun hitting your skin on a warm beach, or the sub-zero winds stinging as it whips your face.
How insane is it that you get to be here at all? What strange psychedelic trip have you been birthed into?
This is where gratefulness starts for me. When I practice remembering it.
You have to practice remembering it.
Because the car breaks down. The rent is due. Yet another war breaks out, orchestrated by those who refuse to remember the gift of being.
The world is not always aware of the wonderment we all carry and so it will pretend it does not exist, because the world has not practiced remembering.
From this grounding in the gratefulness of being, everything layered on top of it is sacred. The coffee is sacred. The book. A smile. A moment of kindness. Even a moment of anger, and your recognition and examination of it, is sacred.
It is natural that we will forget this.
But it is imperative to continue to practice remembering.
To encounter wonder at every opportunity.
I aspire only to continue to remember.
#gratitude
#philosophy
#writing
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."
- Edward Bernays
https://invisibleenvironment.substack.com/p/the-illusion-of-dialogue?utm_campaign=email-post&r=2k3fo7&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
#writing
#propaganda
#philosophy
#cognitivescience
#invisibleenvironment
My vote is A. Its more concrete. I feel like inflation is still a nebulous word to some normies, who are still susceptible to it being explained away by corporate greed, Russia, etc. Dollars losing value may get them digging deeper! Love it!
How do you know you’re doing good in the world?
It may seem self evident that you’re internal barometer for good will lead you toward it. But most, if not all evil committed in the world was in service of what was thought to be the “good”.
It feels like an easy question, yet we’ve tripped over it our entire existence as a species.
Shoutout to @BitcoinJungle wallet and @FRANCIS for the SINPE integration. I arrived in Nosara, Costa Rica late last night and realized I had no cash to tip my driver. Like magic I sent sats and he received colones. No KYC. A beautiful tool to move toward a bitcoin standard, and to start conversations about accepting bitcoin all across this beautiful country.
He always says it’s used for “anti-money laundering” when he means to say money laundering. Okay, you’re right Jamie. A transparent ledger is a good anti-money laundering tool.
I just did my 90s self a favour and bought tickets to their tour next year for the Nashville stop. I was obsessed with every album up until Nimrod but have never seen them live.
Yes, yes I did. Scholastic book fairs at school were pretty hype. Our elementary school put a ban on doing book reports on goosebumps books because it was all kids would read.
His work and talks on Nietzsche and Jung, and the biblical series are enough to secure his intellectual legacy. I’ll admit, in 2017 I was on a Peterson tip. I was in Toronto at U of T and going to see him speak (when it was still $5-$10 to get in). I think he worked as an intellectual gateway for myself and a lot of people. But most of the people I speak with agree that he has gone off the rails. His obsession with the culture war is too much. If at this point you’re still a fanboy then I think you’re under a spell. But I still respect the man.
I will never understand the desire to be seen as important or gain influence through fraud. And to continually double down on that fraud.
It’s nihilistic. It’s meaningless.
#Bitcoin represents truth, meaning, and hard work.
You will not find meaning in what is not real. Imagine approaching the end of your life, looking back and having to face the fact that you were never real.
I’m sympathetic to the vegan cause because I think fundamentally there’s a disdain for the practices of the food industry behind it. I was vegan for a few years, and vegetarian before that for even longer. There are definitely returns on eating less processed foods, but those returns seem to be diminishing after the first year or so. Seems like a lot of people are realizing this as I’m seeing a number of people I know moving away from veganism.
For me, I think it was the bioavailability of protein and nutrients. I feel much healthier with meat as a big part of my diet, and often get comments on how much healthier I look now compared to before. Of course exercise is part of that too.
I still think our food system is fucked. I found a local regenerative Buffalo farm where I am and I’m happy to support them. I can’t always eat like this, but I’m trying to be more aware of the food systems I support. So I think that’s something vegans and carnivores probably have in common.
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