I know everybody's excited about the SEC losing in court, and it is indeed an important victory, but it's worth bearing in mind that Gensler knew he was acting outside the law long before the verdict. The largest institutions care less about what is legal than what they can get away with. 

Given how long it takes the courts to rule, it is a reminder that in the context of the government's own misconduct, there are limits to the utility of law. 

 

 Every time I return to this app, it has improved. 

 Some weeks ago I was reading Thoreau's "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" aloud at bed-time to my son, who of course does not understand it but appreciates the sound of the words all the same, when I discovered that its famous title was in fact not the original! The original title was significantly more radical: "Resistance to Civil Government." 

It's quite short, and I would encourage everyone here to read (or re-read) it. It is still tremendously relevant. Re-reading it with the original (un-sanitized) title in mind, it lands even harder. 

These days, Thoreau would probably get his door kicked in. 

Here's a free link to the Project Gutenberg copy: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71-h/71-h.htm

Share your favorite quotes, after reading. 

 People are just nicer here. 

 This is the happy place. 

 Ok, so we failed to topple Venezuela or Syria, have lost any meaningful control over the festering wounds of Iraq and Libya, witnessed 20 years of relentless, gold-plated coalition conquest in Afghanistan get spanked and sent to bed without supper, and now we're supposed to be lining up for war with China? Do I have that right? Does that sound like a good idea to you? Anyone? 

 i once had a friend whose dad had that real charlie munger energy. you know what i'm talking about, that bondholder swagger. he stood out, often forgetting to put pants on in front of guests, and would get into shouting matches with birds that would nurture a grudge each time that he lost. he resented the television, which he called the devil box, and yet could not free himself from its gravity. any child in the neighborhood could give you the measure of the man from a hundred paces, little eyes keen for one haunted by the mungie dungies.

it is only now, with the benefit of so many years' distance, that i see how these two men have always shared a common soul, aside from the fact that my friend's father never tried to persuade us to thank china for banning whatever he had read about with his breakfast. and so i do not expect that our sweet charlie, that poor mister munge, may never find it within himself to voice the unspeakable longing he feels toward the technology that so arrests him, but neither will i hold it against him, for sure as the graven marbles of praxiteles, TICK TOCK HERE COMES THE NEXT BLOCK 

 I've been dealing with Bitcoin since pre-2013, and I've gotta say I've never seen it feel as powerful as it does on Nostr. The instant, effectively-free transactions that spring from having so many people on Lightning Addresses is like arriving on a different planet. 

Most people's experience with Bitcoin payments -- if they even have it -- is a 30-60 minute wait for mining + two-plus block confirmations, and a fee that made it feel dumb to send less than $20. Most people don't want that. They don't need that. They will never care about that. Some do -- I did -- but it's a permanent minority. This is what makes lightning-fast settlements a big deal.

When normal people and businesses realize that global money transfers can be borderless, instant, free, and only take like two clicks, I think things are going to get very interesting. Still need to cover a lot of road on the privacy problem, but this already feels better than everything naked on-chain.

The hardest problem has always been making it easy for people who don't care about Bitcoin to accept Bitcoin (tender resistance) -- without requiring them to start caring about Bitcoin.

The way you do that is by making it "better than money." We're not there yet for everybody, but for the first time in many years, I caught a glimpse of how it might be possible.