Here’s a short story I wrote three years ago about our dystopian future that wasn’t…

I’d probably tweak the Lightning section, but the rest holds up pretty well!

***********

A World Without Bitcoin

The year is 2040, and cash is gone. The money you use on a daily basis has fully transitioned into a tool of surveillance and control.

In midtown Manhattan, you tip sidewalk performers with a scan of your wearable, your face, or your fingerprint. Coins and dollar bills are now curiosities—fossils from a forgotten age.

In Beijing, the government-issued Yuan has long since been digitized into the ubiquitous DCEP. Holding old paper notes is illegal, all payments are touchless or biometric, and all transactions are natively linked to your full identification stack. Every time you buy something, your national digital profile simultaneously updates.

Transaction privacy was one of the last freedoms to be stripped away in China. Now, your communications, movements, and interactions with other citizens are tracked with billions of cameras, real-time surveillance streaming from your wearables, swarms of micro-drone recorders, and immensely powerful algorithms, linking everything together in a panopticon.

In Caracas, Venezuela, the recovering economy runs on digital dollars. There is some street bartering, of course, but greenbacks finally became obsolete a few years ago, and other bearer assets like gold remain incredibly rare. If you want to buy something, you have to do it electronically and the transaction will be tracked and linked to your citizen profile.

In Lagos, like in many African capitals, all commerce is carried out on the rails of Chinese fintech, and everyone communicates seamlessly with the latest version of WeChat. The Nigerian economy runs on DCEP and the government and its 300 million citizens basically act as a Chinese satellite state.

At some point in the 2030s, governments around the world made cash illegal. They initially accomplished this feat through a demonetization process where public officials announced a new digital economy that they claimed would not leave anyone behind, would increase stability, and would make it easy to catch criminals and money launderers. Most citizens believed them.

Even in countries where the majority never had a brick-and-mortar bank account, all citizens were encouraged, then forced, to create ID-linked digital currency accounts accessible through their wearables or biometrics. Then, they were given a multi-year time window during which they could redeem their cash for a shrinking amount of digital credits. Almost everyone cashed in and went fully digital early on, when they could get the most credits. After the window expired, it became a punishable offense to carry paper or metal money.

Now, in 2040, there are two dominant currencies in the world: the digital dollar and China’s DCEP. The world is roughly divided: North America, Europe, and some top U.S. allies use the digital dollar, while the rest of the world uses DCEP. Very few other currencies remain.

Some rogue states still produce their own currencies, but these don’t last long and aren’t worth much to anyone else. These regimes tend to inflate their money supply extremely quickly, severely devaluing their currency, and eventually forcing authorities to create new currencies. This cycle destroys trust between state and citizen. Eventually, such governments give up sovereignty in exchange for survival and turn to the digital dollar or DCEP. The common person effectively has no ability to store savings in a way that isn’t controlled by either the American or Chinese government.

There hasn’t been any meaningful innovation in savings technology. Most citizens simply just save up their digital credits, but the value of their credits depreciates against real goods relatively quickly. And then there is autotaxing. By now, taxes are automatically deducted from your credit balance and tax rates rise unpredictably and always, it seems, too fast.

As in previous decades, some poor and middle class citizens still buy things like cattle or sheet metal in an effort to save against inflation, but all (save the 1%) are locked out of premium assets like real estate, fine art, vintage wine, and other scarce items.

Financial privacy has virtually disappeared, and not just in China and the DCEP countries. Along with the rise of ubiquitous surveillance cameras in public places – all linked together with AI-powered insta-analysis – all transactions are immediately linked to individuals. With cash gone, it’s extremely difficult to buy a burner phone or SIM card. Fines for trying to manipulate your credit wallets are harsh, and no one ever invented an alternative digital currency that was able to hold value.

Big data analysis wasn’t always so powerful. But it is now. Of course, humans had credit cards for decades, but unlike those early days, now governments can sift through all financial data with the press of a button.

To get credits, you need to provide ID. To use credits, you need to be loyal. To get the best perks, you need to be a perfect patriot. Around the world, digital currencies give governments unprecedented abilities to control their citizens. If your digital profile doesn’t have a top rating, you’re locked out of many public services and benefits. In dictatorships, if you dare to criticize the government, you immediately lose your financial abilities. Some say being in financial jail is worse than being in actual prison.

Corporations do create their own money. Libra was just the beginning. But all these credits are inevitably pegged to the digital dollar or DCEP, and therefore are surveillable, censorable, and confiscatable. They don’t offer an escape.

There has also been a dramatic increase in the real-time sale of your data and behavior to third parties. There is practically no way to buy something without your government and a range of corporations knowing. Instantly upon purchase, you’re met with a variety of advertisements. Many people have upgraded to smart visors and retinal implants, and they get advertisements there, too. Unless, of course, they can pay for the premium versions. In the DCEP countries, one can opt out of everything except government propaganda.

The public feared the rise of the Orwellian police state, and it came, but they also got the dystopia of Aldous Huxley. In this brave new world, a sophisticated constellation of carrots and sticks built into the financial system encourages and reinforces state-compliant behavior with impressive efficiency. Patriotism is addictive.

The Chinese social credit system, much mocked in the early 2020s, was finally implemented by governments worldwide in the ensuing decade, and with the transition into a fully digital economy, has become incredibly effective at stamping out dissent.

Governments ran sweeping campaigns to locate every single citizen within their borders and connect them to national identity systems. India’s Aadhaar was the first of many, initially promoted as a miracle for the unbanked, vulnerable, and stateless. But later, it became clear that these ID networks were just surveillance and exploitation machines.

Things are more fair for some, but a tiny few control everyone else in a way not even previously imaginable. The benevolent idea of “compliance” has led ultimately to slavery. It is the digital banality of evil.

Even now, governments continue to innovate their surveillance tech. Some citizens are being offered valuable perks for agreeing to install their credit wallets into their wrists or retinas. They say it’s the ultimate in touchless convenience. The program is popular. Some analysts say that by 2050, everyone will have one.

This could be our world.

But thankfully, this is a fantasy. In our world, we have an escape.

In 2009, a pseudonymous programmer by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin, a sovereign financial system.

Over the next few years, this decentralized money project grew. A global community made it strong, and grew a brilliant initial design into an unstoppable force. Over time, there were more nodes, more miners, more users, and more adoption.

By 2020, the separation of money from state had begun.

What was first a curiosity turned into a powerful global phenomenon. Once people understood they could digitally transact in a parallel economy that authorities didn’t control, they wanted to learn more and get involved. Satoshi pioneered a way out of the panopticon with proof-of-work, creating a non-governmental financial system.

Our future 2040 is still a horribly imperfect place, but omniscient tracking and surveillance is much more difficult for governments to achieve, because Bitcoin has enabled the survival of a digital form of cash.

So let’s rewind — let’s describe the year 2040 again, but what it could look like not just with government issued digital currencies but also with Bitcoin.

In the Bitcoin future, privacy has actually improved in some areas. With technological improvements in the Bitcoin software, it actually becomes very difficult for governments or corporations to track the Bitcoin use of citizens who practice good operational security. Bitcoin was at one point hard to access and clunky to use – just like email in the early 1990s – but things got a lot easier in the 2020s.

Governments promised waves of crime and terror if citizens dared to use a currency outside of state control. But those waves never came. By 2040, crime rates are essentially the same as they were for the previous century. In the Bitcoin world, however, it’s much more difficult for bankers to steal your money and for governments to devalue your savings.

Back in 2020, very few used Bitcoin, and even fewer understood its potential. A long hard road of education was to come. But later in the 2020s, universities began offering courses and degrees in Bitcoin. Eventually, one was able to get a bachelor’s degree or even a PhD in Bitcoin Engineering at any top university.

By 2020, tax authorities began asking citizens how much Bitcoin they held or sold, further increasing awareness among the citizenry. But by 2030, most people were using Bitcoin without knowing much about how it works, just as hundreds of millions of young people once adopted email without knowing how it worked.

Governments tried to prevent their citizens from using Bitcoin, but most measures and bans failed or were unenforceable. The permissionless nature of Bitcoin turned it into a virus that infected the surveillance state, preventing it from reaching its maximum potential.

Even in the most restrictive tyrannies, citizens figured out how to send Bitcoin back and forth in a way that was virtually impossible to effectively surveil at mass scale. Yes, governments are still able to police nations and communities, and investigators find most big criminals, but broad-based financial surveillance has been stopped in its tracks.

By this point, the Bitcoin network is protected by geopolitics. Part of Satoshi’s genius was creating an asset that would increase in value due to scarcity. Even bad governments which subsist on authoritarianism got involved in Bitcoin initially because of their greed. But over time, their reliance on Bitcoin shifted their local economy towards it, which in turn hurt their ability to control the money supply and financial system and ended up eroding their control over the citizenry.

The more democratic governments adjusted to life with Bitcoin. For example, many democracies changed the way they taxed their citizens, veering away from an income-based approach. Sales tax, VAT, and “citizen” taxes all became more important. Just as in the 20th century, taxation and the financial relationship between citizen and state continued to evolve in the 21st.

In democracies, the people created laws to allow daily small purchases to be completely private. You can buy groceries, have a small medical procedure, or buy an e-book or podcast without disclosing your identity. Because of this, your digital footprint ended up being much smaller than it would have been had all these events been tracked. Governments still ensure that larger purchases like cars, weapons, and homes require that the seller ID their customer, but for most purchases, your transactions are not uploaded to a national database—just like how things were in the cash age.

Critically, Bitcoin has allowed dissent to survive in an increasingly digital era. Independent media organizations and NGOs are still able to receive funding from supporters, even in the most difficult environments. In mega-cities, one can pay for public transport with Bitcoin-based payments, preventing the authorities from knowing your every step.

Ubiquitous surveillance cameras and data collection from next-gen social media still make privacy in general very difficult to achieve, but at least payments are protected. And Bitcoin becomes a native payment rail for pseudonymous social media platforms, where citizens can still enjoy avatars online, and practice digital freedom. Without a decentralized currency, all of this would be impossible.

I’ve painted two visions here.

On the one hand, an Orwellian dystopia.

On the other, an overly-optimistic techno-utopia. Neither will happen.

How close we get to a more positive and open financial future is dictated by what we do now with the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2020 and moving forward.

In this essay I propose six priority areas for you to consider getting involved with. There are of course more aspects of Bitcoin, but the ones I list here will be most crucial for us to tackle in the coming years.

A first priority area is global education. Only a tiny fraction of people on this planet use Bitcoin, and even fewer properly understand its power. The latest estimates put the total number of Bitcoin users at no more than 45 million people — roughly .058% of the world’s population. I personally interact with many at the top of the wider cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, ranging from executives to journalists to investors. My best estimate is that, at most, 25% of them understand the underlying principles of how Bitcoin works and why digital scarcity is the key to its success. It’s a back of the envelope estimate, for sure, but let’s just say that even inside the industry, the number of people who understand the impact Bitcoin may have on the world is small. There aren’t enough non-technical explainers; not enough university-level courses; not enough (or virtually no) journalists at mainstream media outlets who understand; few if any initiatives to try and bring this topic to the attention of policymakers, philanthropists, and public figures; and no good Bitcoin film or video content on platforms like Netflix. There is much work to do.

A second priority area is usability. Just as the mobile phone and email were hard to use at first, and only popular with the scientific or economic elite, Bitcoin has begun its life as a niche technology. We should try to break this bubble. In order for that to happen, the average user needs to be able to send and receive Bitcoin with a few clicks and a swipe. But this will take time, as all users should be able to easily control their own keys without relying on a third party. Bitcoin usage needs to be simplified without making critical tradeoffs with regard to decentralization, privacy, or sovereignty. Technical complexity needs to be minimized as well, as Bitcoin should be accessible to those who need it most around the world, who have the least powerful devices and least consistent internet access. Thankfully, things are moving in the right direction. Even in just the past two years, Bitcoin wallets have become much, much easier to use. Just as sending email transformed from a complex task to a swipe on an iPad, Bitcoin will eventually simplify. Already, unnecessary details are being gradually hidden from the end user in the same way that Signal, for example, made private communications much easier and more widespread than previously possible with clunkier tools like PGP.

Which brings us to the third priority area: privacy. It is critical that privacy be encouraged, normalized, and baked into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Critically, we want Bitcoin on-ramps, wallets, and payment networks that are open source, decentralized, and relatively private. For example, BTCPay Server is perhaps one of the most important technologies in Bitcoin today. Originally a clone of Bitpay, today it allows anyone to set up their own hosted payment server, allowing them to receive donations or payments in Bitcoin, in a way that is much more privacy-protecting. Each transaction is done via a unique invoice, and can be dumped into a wallet that isn’t attached to your ID. This will prove equally important for mom-and-pop corner stores as it will for non-profit organizations operating under authoritarian regimes. Other key innovations in this space include the upcoming Taproot upgrade, which will help reduce the amount of information Bitcoin transactions leak on the blockchain; innovations in mixing technology like CoinJoin that help camouflage users; and, of course, the Lightning Network, which takes transactions off the surveillable chain into a second layer.

This brings us to our fourth priority area: scaling. All base monies need to be scaled through secondary layers to have a global impact. Consider the gold-based economy, where we invented paper notes to help scale commerce. Or the dollar-based economy, where companies like Visa helped spark growth around the world. For Bitcoin, the most promising scaling solution is the Lightning Network: an open source, decentralized payment system. You can think of Lightning as digital cash to Bitcoin’s digital gold. At the moment, the Bitcoin network can only support around 7 transactions per second. With Lightning, there is no technical upper barrier to how many transactions per second we can do with Bitcoin. This technology is still nascent, but arguably essential for Bitcoin to become usable by hundreds of millions of people in a non-custodial way. If we want to scale Bitcoin to the masses, without them having to trust a third party, Lightning seems to be the way forward. Companies as big as Square seem to agree: there, CEO Jack Dorsey has created Square Crypto, a research group that is building a Lightning toolkit for developers. This kind of scientific exploration is important for other companies and universities to emulate and expand on in the coming years.

A fifth priority area is liquidity. Once the average person can acquire Bitcoin, the following step, at least for the next few decades, is to ensure that it is easy for them to convert their BTC to local fiat currency when necessary. A world in which we pay for everything or even most things with a Bitcoin-based system is far away, and may never come at all. For now, people in distressed or repressed places need an ability to shave off their Bitcoin into fiat to pay for daily expenses and bills. This, thankfully, is getting a lot easier. In most major urban areas on earth, there is some mixture of Bitcoin ATMs, peer-to-peer marketplaces, Bitcoin brokers, and brick-and-mortar exchange points. Expanding Bitcoin off ramps will be key to popularizing the technology in the future. The website UsefulTulips.org does a good job of analyzing Bitcoin’s growing use around the world. More initiatives like this are necessary so we can learn how and why people are using Bitcoin.

A sixth priority area, and one that might really move the needle, is minimum ID. There is a strong need for a platform like Twitter that still allows some level of pseudonymity to adopt a Bitcoin-based payment system that reveals an absolute minimum about the user. If avatars online are to exist in the future, we must be able to operate them securely without fear of our real life identities being leaked. So attaching a bank account or a credit card with our full ID stack on it to our social media account won’t do us any good. We’ll need to use digital assets that don’t require Know Your Customer (KYC) or Anti Money Laundering (AML) compliance. Lightning seems well placed to serve this function. The less we reveal about ourselves in our transactions, the harder it is for Big Brother or surveillance capitalism to grow. There could very well be a future, even a near future, in which an individual can walk into a coffee shop, buy something online, send money to a friend, and make a donation to a cause all while giving up just a minimum amount of information about themselves.

Education. Usability. Privacy. Scaling. Liquidity. Minimum ID.

If developers and investors can focus on these six areas; if consumer protection advocates can lobby for the space for them to grow in our societies; and if users can more easily engage with Bitcoin, then we are well on our way to a more private and free world.

In conclusion, let’s revisit the impact Bitcoin could have on human rights communities if its technology ecosystem grows along the lines we’ve described.

First, consider independent journalists and NGOs operating in authoritarian environments who need to preserve financial independence. With Bitcoin, they are able to collect funds from around the world in a way that is difficult to surveil and impossible to stop. Then they can convert it into local fiat currency on an as-needed basis to pay for program expenses. This is already relevant in places like Russia and Hong Kong where the bank accounts of activists are frozen.

Second, consider the billions of refugees and stateless individuals, who cannot currently access the banking system. Today, you need to prove your identity to open a bank account or use any of the apps attached to the legacy financial system. With Bitcoin, you don’t need an ID or a passport. You just need, practically speaking, a smartphone and access to the internet. This is a great equalizer, giving anyone, no matter their class, education, background, or ethnicity, equality of opportunity.

Third, consider individuals who are dealing with high or hyperinflation. Many countries have been hit lately with double digit inflation, and some have suffered through hyperinflation. Ask any Argentine, Syrian, Turk, Iranian, Zimbabwean, or Venezuelan and they will tell you how rampant inflation can crush economies and vaporize the savings of the lower and middle class. With Bitcoin, anyone has access to a savings technology that requires no permission from a company, and cannot be devalued by a government that decides to print more money.

Fourth, consider the growing number of people who are falling under intense daily financial surveillance. Especially in China, hundreds of millions of citizens are increasingly being watched not just by hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras but also through their texts, calls, and social behavior. Transactions are a big part of this trend and will continue to be increasingly surveilled. Bitcoin provides the infrastructure for a parallel economy, one in which our financial transactions are not natively linked to our identities.

Fifth and finally, consider those who are victims of sanctions. The tragic fact is, individuals who live in sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran didn’t vote for their governments in free and fair elections and shouldn’t reasonably be held responsible for their dictator’s crimes. Through Bitcoin today, individuals inside Iran, for example, can earn income from abroad by working on open source software projects, or can receive money from their family abroad to pay for basic expenses or medical bills at home.

If the Bitcoin project falters or slows, then there won’t be much hope for the billions of people in these situations around the world, especially as cash fades. Private payments will be practically impossible. All daily transactions will become increasing points of surveillance and control. The monetary substrate itself will be watching you, and controlling you—and you won’t be able to do anything about it.

One more thing to keep in mind: the Davos elite who currently run the world are threatened by a technology that separates money from state and provides permissionless access to a premium savings technology. They are used to running things and want the game to be rigged. They want there to be obstacles and barriers to entry. Bitcoin will frustrate them because anyone can access it and use it, no matter who they are. In the progression of the global banking elite first ignoring Bitcoin, then laughing at Bitcoin, then fighting Bitcoin, and then giving up, we are nearing the end of the laughing phase. A big battle is on the horizon.

The good news is, there is excellent momentum for Bitcoin in the areas we’ve covered, and there is growing global adoption. Despite the obstacles, the path to freedom is clear.

In an age of increasing fear over how corporate and state technology will steal our rights and freedoms, we can be grateful to Satoshi that we won’t ever have to live in a World Without Bitcoin.


Anti Money Laundering laws are an attack on property rights.

TLDR: Unless AML regulations can be refuted and abolished, property rights cannot exist and we are back to legalized slavery.

Property rights rests on the bedrock of logic that John Locke formulated in 1690 with his publication Two Treatises of Government.

Locke's ideas were instrumental in the rejection and abolishment of human slavery. He postulated that every human is born free and is a sovereign person who owns themselves and the fruits of their labor.

-------------
"Every man has a "property" in his own "person". This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his."

(Book II, Chapter 5.27, page 130)
-------------

Following this reasoning, slavery becomes a violation of property rights: we can't own another human being since every person is born sovereign. We have no right to what another person earns with their labor. Only voluntary contracts that are mutually beneficial are valid arrangements.

The problem of AML regulations becomes obvious at this point.

First of all, AML reverses the burden of evidence and postulates guilt until proven innocence. Your money is assumed to be laundered - and thereby illegal - until proven otherwise.

This flips the whole Western conception of legal proceedings on its head; the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.

Instead, AML assumes criminal activity as the standard, with no requirement of the government to spend resources to prove a committed crime in a court of law backed by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt.

Under AML, in order to abolish your property rights, the government only needs to raise the bar for what constitutes accepted evidence to prove the history of your earnings. This sets absolute surveillance as the standard.

If the government want to strip you of your property under AML, all that is needed is for the government to reject the history of your property as invalid or inconclusive.

In the case of a banking service that you used in the past, if it no longer exists, or if it no longer have your records, or if you are unable to gain access to those records, your property is confiscated under AML.

AML regulations abolish the right of the individual to own the fruits of their labor, by empowering a third party to determine if your property is valid, without any burden of evidence.

If the validity of your money can be rejected at any point by a third party, your property rights have been abolished, ipso facto.

Returning to John Locke:

".. for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom -- i.e. make me a slave." (Book II, Chapter 3.18)

".. and hence it is that he who attempts to get another man under his power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him." (Book II, Chapter 3.17)

Since AML regulations require absolute surveillance and the individual is at the complete mercy of the third party that determines the validity of their money at any given time, the statements of Locke ring uncannily true.

Locking the fruits of a person's labor under someone else's full power and control, transforms the working individual into nothing more than a slave, chained to the whims and conditions of the controller.

The situation under AML regulations is captured in this statement:

"I have altered the deal. Pray that I don't alter it any further"

Following Locke, we don't have to accept a dystopian future without individual rights and property rights, ruled by neo-feudalism.

This is why Bitcoin is a return to the ideas of John Locke.

On a Bitcoin standard there is no third party that validates your transactions. The money you have earned is yours without restriction. Your money cannot be invalidated. Your transactions cannot be stopped.

Under a Bitcoin standard, criminals will have to be found guilty in a court of law, based on evidence.

Bitcoin is a return to justice and property rights for all.

Further on John Locke:

nostr:nevent1qqsgpn0mnvezh6gdepp2lm7unqp32h5fcpur0k75902s25zpx7pwgdqppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5pzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqyv8lnza

nostr:nevent1qqsxzu0n84dentet44zjv0e6salld898w4f0k385ha7vtgx7pce2cvgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq3afyu5vyjc2urvw2gg5h3eqnu4zal2ppasxtwmlnfgvgcyclvcxqcyqqqqqqgl7pr5f

nostr:nevent1qqswjd76ay6k3jez8r9n5zjpvlppzy2sp9jy5z404d6756a8nfwr6rgppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5pzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqytum55z

#Bitcoin #JohnLocke #Locke #AML #KYC #FreeMarkets #Voluntarism #PropertyRights #IndividualRights #Libertarianism #Libertarian #Liberty #AntiSlavery #Capitalism #FreeMarketCapitalism #Philosophy #Sovereignty #AynRand #Objectivism #Individualism


Anti Money Laundering laws are an attack on property rights.

TLDR: Unless AML regulations can be refuted and abolished, property rights cannot exist and we are back to legalized slavery.

Property rights rests on the bedrock of logic that John Locke formulated in 1690 with his publication Two Treatises of Government.

Locke's ideas were instrumental in the rejection and abolishment of human slavery. He postulated that every human is born free and is a sovereign person who owns themselves and the fruits of their labor.

-------------
"Every man has a "property" in his own "person". This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his."

(Book II, Chapter 5.27, page 130)
-------------

Following this reasoning, slavery becomes a violation of property rights: we can't own another human being since every person is born sovereign. We have no right to what another person earns with their labor. Only voluntary contracts that are mutually beneficial are valid arrangements.

The problem of AML regulations becomes obvious at this point.

First of all, AML reverses the burden of evidence and postulates guilt until proven innocence. Your money is assumed to be laundered - and thereby illegal - until proven otherwise.

This flips the whole Western conception of legal proceedings on its head; the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.

Instead, AML assumes criminal activity as the standard, with no requirement of the government to spend resources to prove a committed crime in a court of law backed by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt.

Under AML, in order to abolish your property rights, the government only needs to raise the bar for what constitutes accepted evidence to prove the history of your earnings. This sets absolute surveillance as the standard.

If the government want to strip you of your property under AML, all that is needed is for the government to reject the history of your property as invalid or inconclusive.

In the case of a banking service that you used in the past, if it no longer exists, or if it no longer have your records, or if you are unable to gain access to those records, your property is confiscated under AML.

AML regulations abolish the right of the individual to own the fruits of their labor, by empowering a third party to determine if your property is valid, without any burden of evidence.

If the validity of your money can be rejected at any point by a third party, your property rights have been abolished, ipso facto.

Returning to John Locke:

".. for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom -- i.e. make me a slave." (Book II, Chapter 3.18)

".. and hence it is that he who attempts to get another man under his power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him." (Book II, Chapter 3.17)

Since AML regulations require absolute surveillance and the individual is at the complete mercy of the third party that determines the validity of their money at any given time, the statements of Locke ring uncannily true.

Locking the fruits of a person's labor under someone else's full power and control, transforms the working individual into nothing more than a slave, chained the whims and conditions of the controller.

The situation under AML regulations is captured in this statement:

"I have altered the deal. Pray that I don't alter it any further"

Following Locke, we don't have to accept a dystopian future without individual rights and property rights, ruled by neo-feudalism.

This is why Bitcoin is a return to the ideas of John Locke.

On a Bitcoin standard there is no third party that validates your transactions. The money you have earned is yours without restriction. Your money cannot be invalidated. Your transactions cannot be stopped.

Under a Bitcoin standard, criminals will have to be found guilty in a court of law, based on evidence.

Bitcoin is a return to justice and property rights for all.

Further on John Locke:

nostr:nevent1qqsgpn0mnvezh6gdepp2lm7unqp32h5fcpur0k75902s25zpx7pwgdqppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5pzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqyv8lnza

nostr:nevent1qqsxzu0n84dentet44zjv0e6salld898w4f0k385ha7vtgx7pce2cvgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq3afyu5vyjc2urvw2gg5h3eqnu4zal2ppasxtwmlnfgvgcyclvcxqcyqqqqqqgl7pr5f

nostr:nevent1qqswjd76ay6k3jez8r9n5zjpvlppzy2sp9jy5z404d6756a8nfwr6rgppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5pzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqytum55z

#Bitcoin #JohnLocke #Locke #AML #KYC #FreeMarkets #Voluntarism #PropertyRights #IndividualRights #Libertarianism #Libertarian #Liberty #AntiSlavery #Capitalism #FreeMarketCapitalism #Philosophy #Sovereignty #AynRand #Objectivism #Individualism


"Gold and Economic Freedom", Alan Greenspan, 1966. Source: https://constitution.org/1-Activism/mon/greenspan_gold.htm

This article gives a deep insight into why Bitcoin is opposed by the establishment and by hysterical socialist proponents such as Elizabeth Warren.

A few excerpts:

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In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold.
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The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
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This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
--------------

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"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other."
-------------------

#Bitcoin #AlanGreenspan #AynRand #Objectivism #AustrianEconomics #Austrian #Economics #AustrianEcon #FreeMarkets #Capitalism


#Memes #Taxation #TaxationIsTheft #Tax

https://image.nostr.build/292847948ebc12d8f4a905a9e218e67168dc10bb6314d122f8c0146c0726d53a.jpg


"Libertarianism: the radical notion that other people are not your property."

#Memes #Voluntarism #Libertarianism #Liberty #Bitcoin #PropertyRights #JohnLocke
 https://image.nostr.build/2760e19a29939f9705225853297b12a67ce6f9eadd9593872c92a42a588fa850.jpg


Even distribution of a scarce asset is incompatible with free agency.

We can test this by considering a computer simulation of a free market where simulated individuals interact with free agency and varying degrees of knowledge.

There is no outcome under the sun in such a simulation where a scarce asset would end up evenly distributed.

Even if the asset was given away for free, it would be sold by those who didn't understand or value it, to those who did.

The logical expectation of a decentralized, scarce asset is that it cannot be evenly distributed because it is decentralized.

Attempting to make a scarce asset evenly distributed would require absolute central planning, and even that would fail due to the reasons already stated.

The best approach to improve the distribution of Bitcoin is by sharing knowledge and developing or spreading practical tools.


I'd say that the takeaway from Bernays books is that they help us expose government propaganda.


Absolutely!
It is about our life time, less about money, value or anything else!

Bitcoin fixes this !

nostr:nevent1qqspvut88k92263u0ar8datznda7lcl3gkgdhw60fzkf3rk7698pssgpz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wcpzq634npfz8rwfq2hdr8am76s9t7dt7gwpe2y3t5wyufl4phe09yxeqvzqqqqqqyks49y5


Yup. It's a short book and gives a good background to how modern governments operate.

Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
Propaganda (1928)
The Engineering of Consent (1955)


Options is the way to go.

I would add that scroll lists become useless once the list is too long. For long lists it would be better to divide them into pages with X number of posts per page. This is how I would approach designing a following list for example where I would expect thousands of entries.

[Edit] typo


Options is the way to go.

I would add that scroll lists become useless once the list is too long. For long lists it would be better to divide them into pages with X number of posts per page. This is how I would approach designing a following list for example where I would ecpect thousands of entries.


Bitcoin is akin to a minarchist constitution that only serves to uphold property rights for all and nothing else.

The beauty is that wherever Bitcoin is voluntarily adopted, it brings a competitive pressure - the jurisdiction that alllows most individual freedom and individual rights will attract most capital + entrepreneurs.

Similarly, an authoritarian jurisdiction will bleed its capital and competence to Bitcoin-powered jurisdictions. It is in this process of competition and game theory that centralized power is counterbalanced.

This is how minarchism can benefit every jurisdiction and allow full local sovereignty in regards to every other policy except for the non-negotiable civilizational standard of full property rights for all - i.e. Bitcoin.

#Bitcoin


Ouch. I recently consolidated 20+ inputs into one output. It wasn't picked up at 8 sats/b so I raised it to 16 sats/b. You could probably get it done at 12 sats/b I suppose.

In your case perhaps $20 or less I would guess.


And a few hours after I bumped a fee from 9 sat/b to 16 sat/b. 😄


#Bitcoin UTXO management time.

https://image.nostr.build/1df451d53a1c90b8542968ed29601dae349e2f36e7f013f8146d03999023892b.jpg


Yep. Public ideological art have a distinct historical pattern of being cringe.


When collectivists tell you that your opposition to bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded public art is an attempt to censor art, then ask them:

- Who is the dictator here deciding what the public art should be and who should produce it?

It's the bureaucratic dork *forcing* that taxpayer-funded "art" upon us with stolen funds.


When collectivists tell you that your opposition to bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded public art is an attempt to censor art, then ask them:

- Who is the dictator here deciding what the public art should be and who should produce it?

It's the bureaucratic dork *forcing* that taxpayer-funded "art" upon us.


When civilization is synonymous with regulation, then over-civilization is a state of over-regulation.

If barbarism is the bane of over-regulation, then some measure of barbarism as a medicine of non-compliance may be prescribed under times of tyranny.


"Light of Arrival", 2017.
- Scifi scene. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/D6J4A

#Art #Scifi #Sciencefiction #BookCover #Bookcover #Book #Illustration #Writing #Writers #Artwork #HumanArt #NoAI
 https://image.nostr.build/1920b96e540428036116319b1f17d4e4d60154e0e92bf1559fd7a00a72a733bf.jpg


"Crystal Rocks", 2021.
- Digital painting in Rebelle. I didn't have any particular goal for this one so it went toward abstraction. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/48JwRk

#Art #Scifi #Sciencefiction #BookCover #Bookcover #Illuatration #Writing #Writers #Artwork #HumanArt #NoAI
 https://image.nostr.build/e8fb3faf37ce8442dd7f977da19d384c352e981f6479e594fdb5db6af02032a7.jpg


"Tribute to Frazetta", 2016
- Conan scene I made in 2016. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g1ONE

#Art #Fantasy #Conan #BookCover #Book #Bookcover #Writers #Writing #Illustration #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/42b72498779221bcbd0eef3d6bdc21fe7b552b7b5d2329f65feef40369fa13d3.jpg


"Buccaneer Winter Chase", 2017.

Another scifi fan-art piece I made in 2017. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qGO8z

#Art #Scifi #ScienceFiction #BookCover #Bookcover #Illustration #StarCitizen #Starship #Spaceship #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/f78bc034a587be3e64410725dd1a6a32342240b99b6929b8e384d05b87355d42.jpg


"Buccaneer Winter Chase", 2017.

Another scifi fan-art piece I made in 2017.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qGO8z

#Art #Scifi #ScienceFiction #BookCover #Bookcover #Illustration #StarCitizen #Starship #Spaceship #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/f78bc034a587be3e64410725dd1a6a32342240b99b6929b8e384d05b87355d42.jpg


"Sunset Buccaneers", 2016.

I made this as a fan-art piece for a science fiction game in 2016. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aqzxL

#Art #Scifi #ScienceFiction #BookCover #Book #Writing #Writers #StarCitizen #Starship #Spaceship #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/d5e711f742f6a4396b19d8ed4c0df528af5bc2e9e46303e4069067b348b46680.jpg


"Sunset Buccaneers", 2016.

I made this as a fan-art piece for a science fiction game in 2016. No AI.

#Art #Scifi #ScienceFiction #BookCover #Book #Writing #Writers #StarCitizen #Starship #Spaceship #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/d5e711f742f6a4396b19d8ed4c0df528af5bc2e9e46303e4069067b348b46680.jpg


"Shoreline", 2019.

When I created this piece I was inspired by the painting "The woman, the man and the serpent" by John Liston Byam Shaw. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Pm5LXZ

#Scifi #Art #ScienceFiction #BookCover #Book #Bookcover #Writing #Writers #HumanArt #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/f6ad6e369a17999fadc0b2408f45bb74377616a9120b204c38da230b0b680377.jpg


"Exploration". 2019.

This was an idea I had for a Scifi book cover. Workflow: 3D modeling and digital painting. No AI.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OyzPRK

#Scifi #Art #BookCover #Book #Cover #Bookcover #Illustration #HumanArt #NoAI #Writers #Writing

https://image.nostr.build/6dc3255f34de0cd5c8983a1e734f5b838a5436184ad59a04fb5f3193a7907ac8.jpg


Welcome to Nostr Jen! If any writer need a book cover I have a portfolio of artworks I've made over the past decade. (No AI stuff)

https://www.artstation.com/leofernevak

https://image.nostr.build/6dc3255f34de0cd5c8983a1e734f5b838a5436184ad59a04fb5f3193a7907ac8.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/98081b7909064e32b641dea54c19be972c1a873ecba4d490516eb91ff030681d.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/f78bc034a587be3e64410725dd1a6a32342240b99b6929b8e384d05b87355d42.jpg


🎙"#Bitcoin is a paradigm shift"
nostr:npub1cf3zeytdnwgwzz5pk2ax0vvmmlzad03xcft4d50ejrfhsh8pxcdsefx7gk on “You’re The Voice” podcast.
https://m.primal.net/HlJG.mov


Cliimate communism in action.

#ClimateChange #Agenda21 #Agenda2030

https://image.nostr.build/c6ededf3c5b750857a4a3d38e93851d7acba62e979861de71287e694f01de6d9.jpg


😄

#BSV #Shitcoins #Faketoshi

https://image.nostr.build/038fa5b40e2337aa7985419e363330fcd7de40c29fbd8893b5c8f08b8381525d.jpg


There is poetry in truth.
Craig is a fraud.

#Bitcoin #Satoshi #SatoshiNakamoto #Copa #CraigWright #Faketoshi

https://image.nostr.build/1395ce3fd12b450001498b5a6b419a2a91150b3488fd9bda94a6ad1e8940bc34.jpg


Thanks. Hope you are not going broke here.


Here's a short post where I summarized a few quotes of John Locke on the subject of self defence:

nostr:nevent1qqsddaxy423zha8j9q3g6f759egz8dpupmc3ww4muuu9kgr3g8nv9pgppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5pzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqyt03j2s


Yes.

Bitcoin is less likely to be rejected in the supermarket example vs Monero and there would be ways to get around tainted addresses.

Yet, at the end of the day, if a jurisdiction is hell-bent on not allowing Bitcoin and Monero in supermarkets, transactions would have to move to the black market. Such supermarkets would also not accept gold.

Both Bitcoin and Monero are better payment systems vs gold in a crackdown situation.

The ideal food shopping will be purchases or orders directly from farmers, for a number of reasons, food quality included.

I can see a number of reasons why farmers would *likely* prefer payments in Bitcoin over both gold and Monero. It is possible that some farmers might prefer Monero, but every extra step of barter where people have to exchange from Bitcioin to Monero and back is an additional obstacle.

Bitcoin has a benefit of being both a globally accepted store of value while simultaneously having a wide spectrum of security options, from lower to higher depending on tradeoffs.


Yes.

Bitcoin is less likely to be rejected in the supermarket example vs Monero and there would be ways to get around tainted addresses.

Yet, at the end of the day, if a jurisduction is hell-bent on not allowing Bitcoin and Monero in supermarkets, transactions would have to move to the black market. Such supermarkets would also not accept gold

Both Bitcoin and Monero are better payment systems vs gold in a crackdown situation.

The ideal food shopping will be purchases or orders directly from farmers, for a number of reasons, food quality included.

I can see a number of reasons why farmers would *likely* prefer payments in Bitcoin over both gold and Monero. It is possible that some farmers might prefer Monero, but every extra step of barter where people have to exchange from Bitcioin to Monero and back is an additional obstacle.

Bitcoin has a benefit of being both a globally accepted store of value while simultaneously having a wide spectrum of security options, from lower to higher depending on tradeoffs.


El Salvador is incredibly fortunate to have such a great leader guiding them through these chaotic times.

He is perhaps the only politician I truly respect, not just for his advocacy of Bitcoin, but also for his significant improvements to the lives of his people. Living Legend
https://image.nostr.build/748fe15e355e951307baa7a96b44c8d4dea9215ddd5cda4aeff5d738fca17f38.jpg


Discussion on the blue bird with a Monero proponent:

- What if someone's Bitcoin are flagged in a supermarket and rejected?

Me: If a Bitcoin payment is rejected in a supermarket then your Monero is probably not being accepted there in the first place. You mean that they would not receive a confidential Bitcoin transaction via Liquid Network, but somehow they would love your confidential Monero transaction?

Make it make sense.

At least Bitcoin is an attractive store of value that jurisdictions will compete to attract, providing game theory pressure: jurisdictions that flag Bitcoin transactions will lose capital, skills, businesses and entrepreneurs. The same pressure does not exist for Monero.


I think he just earned himself a Darwin award. Or le Prix Darwin in bad English I suppose.😄


🎙"Here's the thing about Bitcoin: It teaches you about sovereignty. It teaches you about taking responsibility,  because most of us have given our power away to a bank or to a government or to someone to store our energy and value for us. Once you get into Bitcoin, you understand, okay, now it's on me, I have to realize how I safeguard my value."

Recently on TNT Radio (UK), watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/CdwWKWDYjIM?si=odLyVpB8mXWhIuWN
https://m.primal.net/HktU.mov


Money is the Operating System of the world.

#Bitcoin  gives us an OS that cannot be hacked.


Back in the 1980'ies and 1990'ies, actual autism was rare.

Since I've never had autism symptoms I was curious to take a few online tests. My impression is that some of the tests falsely equates introversion with autism, thereby risking to misdiagnose a high percentage of a population.

When a preference for not going to parties is registered as a mild form of autism it becomes clear that this is not a scientific or meaningful test. It tells me that the purpose is to misdiagnose individuals with a condition that they have no symptoms for.

I find it very concerning that children might be misdiagnosed with a rare condition for simply enjoying and preferring productive and creative activities over going to parties.

When did creativity, the individuation process and setting boundaries become a condition? And what is the point of defining a condition without symptoms?


Well done. I quit caffeine in late 2023 and my sleep appears to be better since. I rarely drink alcohol but a few glasses of Martini Asti per year is allright.


No one is responsible for the emotions or actions of others. Unhealthy boundaries are often the root of the desire to destroy freedom.

You are free to protect yourself from a virus by staying home or wearing a hazmat suit or taking experimental medications. But you cannot force others to bear the cost of addressing your fear by forcing THEM to stay home or wear masks or take experimental drugs.

Similarly, you cannot force someone else to manage your discomfort by controlling what they say. And both freedom & with it society as a whole are destroyed to the exact degree that people fail to understand these basic things.

https://image.nostr.build/25216e1a6db7bd882e32ee3cd47f64a25dc4b8798c4635cabcca7dbc63a16694.jpg


Every single one of @AquaBitcoin's features serves a purpose. Among those is giving people an easy way out from the 💩coin networks, because we know they're going to crumble eventually. Read more on the current market outlook here:

https://u.today/altcoin-crash-imminent-1-million-for-bitcoin-advocate-samson-mow-warns


Interesting. I don't really have an opinion about the design until I've tried it.


“If we look in the top left, we can see id4516 and it had internal metadata showing a creation date. You can see a little bit down the page of 11th of November 2002 with a last saved date of the 30th, November 2002 At 8:34. It has an edit time of four billion, 287 million, 839 thousand, 420 31469 minutes. Which is over 8,000 years now.
You would have to have a literally Neolithic computer for it to be running for eight thousand years! And my vague understanding, is that archaeologists have found evidence of cheese making in Poland at that time, but no evidence of Citrix. “

- COPA lawyer on a piece of Craig Wright’s “evidence”


I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that Craig Wright is on the payroll of some government. In either case, he's done as a Dodo.


Some choice words from COPA's closing arguments:

"it is clearer than ever – clear beyond doubt – that Dr Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto."

"Dr Wright has been shown to have lied on an extraordinary scale, and it is difficult to think of a precedent for what he has done."

"He has invented an entire biographical history, producing one tranche after another of forged documents to support it."

"Even when the extent of his dishonesty and forgery was exposed to him in cross-examination, he doubled down, forging further documents during the trial"

"In short, he has attempted a very serious fraud upon the Court. To give fair warning, COPA will ask after judgment that the papers be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration of prosecution for the offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice."

Judgment and consequences are coming. https://image.nostr.build/4c4d0c8ea62c2e297606b7a608b71c1f6bff728ceb3ff1847213dd907758953f.png


While everyone was calling bitcoin a tulip bubble craze, the actual scam blowing up in front of everyone’s eyes was ESG.

A completely nonsensical investment strategy that made everyone believe they could make money by neglecting reliable energy and pushing diversity quotas.
https://m.primal.net/HjxV.jpg


Governments always seek to regulate everything to further their ideology and power.

In China, the social credit score works by rewarding compliant citizens while shutting out the non-compliant.

I would not be surprised if many powerful AI tools will end up behind a digital ID + social credit score wall here in the West.


The Biden administration and its allies throughout the federal government do not actually care about the facts. They are intentionally ignoring them because they get in the way of the ultimate goal; suppress bitcoin and make it as hard as possible for American citizens to leverage the most liberating network humanity has ever come into contact with so that they can usher in a CBDC to usher people into a tightly controlled digital panopticon in the wake of the crumbling of the incumbent monetary and financial systems as well as the loss in confidence in the institution of the federal government itself.

https://www.tftc.io/biden-administration-30-percent-excise-tax-on-bitcoin-miners/


If you could get 5 years fully paid to build anything you want, what would you build?


My Bitcoin savings will enable me to 100% finance my art so I will not need external funding. When me and my wife relocates from Europe to a more permanent place of residence I will set up a 3D printing workshop.

In the workshop I will print, assemble and paint sculptures, busts and commissioned art that I model in 3D. I miss sculpting in clay so I might get back to that too once I have a proper studio and somewhere to store my artwork. A few of my 3D models below, plus a work-in-progress bust/torso.

https://image.nostr.build/2b7e27bf61a6b03063d076113fa234c59df45c8c14b2dce9e6e53621b0e59af8.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/fb59d12fc3c92831e92229a8d3546015a1a3b945eb278d13b4c7aff53224eec1.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/1a052455a0b0c1ed67c31e7df539a973043265a012bb7241baa17cb38956e8c7.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/5ad7e100f10ff7c83e1d22b001830414c39f675eb0a0f3814556e996d49bd214.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/1e5e771d87e411ceaf16c8b7951035018207529c5f1a963f0f4d718a585ecc7f.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/821e100d66e0c30ce4287988ef08295cea3233e909c475ed2a6edb5a3e81edc0.jpg


https://image.nostr.build/1b73f34a7c5d9c5dc9c33d1051741bc2e5bf3e952f0bc150fb98ed2221d62140.jpg

Reposting quotes from John Locke.
Source: "Two treatises of government", 1690.
(Book 2, chapter 3)

".. it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction." (Chapter 3.16)

".. and hence it is that he who attempts to get another man under his power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him." (3.17)

"For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom -- i.e. make me a slave." (3.18)

".. so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me." (3.18)

"This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him;

Because using force, where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretense be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.

And, therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me -- i.e. kill him if I can; for that hazard does he justly expose himself whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it." (3.19)

#JohnLocke #Philosophy #PoliticalPhilosophy #PoliticalScience #Liberty #PropertyRights #Freedom #AntiSlavery #Capitalism #FreeMarkets #Bitcoin


https://image.nostr.build/1b73f34a7c5d9c5dc9c33d1051741bc2e5bf3e952f0bc150fb98ed2221d62140.jpg

Reposting quotes from John Locke.
Source: "Two treatises of government", 1690.
(Book 2, chapter 3)

".. it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction." (Chapter 3.16)

".. and hence it is that he who attempts to get another man under his power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him." (3.17)

"For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom -- i.e. make me a slave." (3.18)

".. so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me." (3.18)

"This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him;

Because using force, where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretense be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.

And, therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me -- i.e. kill him if I can; for that hazard does he justly expose himself whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it." (3.19)

#JohnLocke #Philosophy #Poliitcal Philosophy #PoliticalScience #Liberty #PropertyRights #Freedom #AntiSlavery #Capitalism #FreeMarkets #Bitcoin


The History of Money with Nick Szabo.

https://youtu.be/RbvpMsdaQqw?si=PvdxndGp0z0h33D4


What has Julian Assange really done? He is literally being punished for engaging in real journalism.

He reported about despicable war crimes committed by the US and other countries, and now they are making an example out of him.

It's happening in front of our eyes, and we are not able to do anything about it. It's an absolute shame.
https://video.nostr.build/5edecee81fc787b5269947a95b762b18aa7bb02db9f72198a09f9bd74919933a.mp4


Citadel Islands.
Bitcoin vacation scifi art.

Music by nostr:npub1jw63d0ykym7rpd3n6cme7p3rghc77se3ql8drg78p55c5xe3npdscrh29m (Jeroen Goeijers)

#Bitcoin #Citadel #Seasteading #Vacation #Art #Scifi #ScienceFiction #HumanArt #NoAI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=ptSmpBownz4


The third and winning option in the poll:
"Who cares, I own Bitcoin" 😄


😅🤣

#Bitcoin #Gold

Source:

https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1766157393262436512

https://image.nostr.build/e05e01cb1bad4bfc4611fafbc6d72ce741a1003a6c1fb451fe07df693d700c3b.jpg


#Memes #Covid #Humor

https://image.nostr.build/ea25e7fbb38b38e2166d0f536cd701003ba6010f1b3534ef6320ea969535556b.jpg


It is interesting to consider that those who are targeted by governments for speaking out will turn to Bitcoin and become wealthier and freer over time, while those who support or just go along with the corrupt system become poorer.

Bitcoin acts as a balancing mechanism inverting the social and economic hierarchy of society, bringing down the corrupt and elevating proponents of individual liberties.


As the regime loses control it reacts by cutting people who exhibit wrong think off from the financial system.

On a long enough timescale any ideas that don’t support the regime will be labeled wrong think.

Wrong thinkers need an alternative.

Hyperbitcoinization is inevitable.

https://m.primal.net/HjBd.jpg
https://m.primal.net/HjBe.jpg
https://m.primal.net/HjBf.jpg


When I listened to this episode of Joe Rogan with Andreas Antonopolous in 2016 it made sense because I was new to #Bitcoin

But now in 2024 we all can see that Andreas was 100% right. This is exactly what's happening in our society right now.

https://m.primal.net/HXtk.mp4


Testing out armor ideas in Zbrush for my Darth Bane bust. Still at an early stage in the modeling process. Haven't decided if the final piece will be a full torso or not.

#Sculpture #3D #Art #Zbrush #DarthBane #StarWars #Bust #Torso #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/1e5e771d87e411ceaf16c8b7951035018207529c5f1a963f0f4d718a585ecc7f.jpg

 https://image.nostr.build/5ad7e100f10ff7c83e1d22b001830414c39f675eb0a0f3814556e996d49bd214.jpg


Testing out armor ideas in Zbrush for my Darth Bane bust. Still at an early stage in the modeling process. Haven't decided if the final piece will be a full torso or not.

#Sculpture #3D #Zbrush #DarthBane #StarWars #Bust #Torso #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/1e5e771d87e411ceaf16c8b7951035018207529c5f1a963f0f4d718a585ecc7f.jpg


Beautiful to see Egyptians escaping the Faraoic decree of monetary debasement.

Go Egypt!


Gee I bet Egyptian Bitcoiners are really regretting holding the first and only absolutely scarce asset on the planet.. https://i.nostr.build/BPew.jpg  nostr:note1fquvmzzgal5vzsygu6flmzqaaqe0k5v0nf7e4x3ghy45epl2kkes9fc827


Aristotle, art and poetry, based on his book Poetics.
[Long format repost]

The below quote is from Will Durant as he attempts to encapsulate Aristotle's view on art:

https://i.imgur.com/tJYuxa6.jpg

Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, which brings continuity from Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle.

Plato:

-----------
'And when someone honors beauty more than virtue, this constitutes nothing other than a real and thorough dishonoring of the soul'

/ Plato, Laws, Book B, 727d.
-----------

Socrates and Plato held an often times contemptful view of the poet or artist, expressed at several occasions in Plato's Republic.

This is likely because the artist was viewed as an imitator. Reality is naturally of higher value than any imitation. Add to this that Socrates was ridiculed by contemporary poets and it is possible that he held a grudge.

Aristotle:

-----------
'What aims at reality is better than what aims at appearance'.

/ Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I, 1365-b.
-----------

From this we can notice a clear difference between Plato and Aristotle. Plato is mainly concerned with ethics and what should be morally permissible or not, whereas Aristotle is more analytical in regards to substance. Aristotle also values ethics highly, like Plato, but he is keenly interested in studying matters deeper, tending to be less judgmental.

Aristotle continues:

-----------
'What a man wants to be, is better than what a man wants to seem (to be), for in aiming at that he is aiming more at reality'.
-----------

Here Plato would focus on the ethical reasoning of *being* rather than *seeming*, while Aristotle is primarily concerned with alignment to reality. It's not that Aristotle overlooks Plato's point, he just expands upon it and focus on the realism aspect.

-----------
'And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation.'

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 3, 1448-b-9
-----------

Aristotle's remark here relates to delighting in realistic representations of things. He points out that we learn something from observing a realistic imitation. Aristotle continues by observing that learning is the 'greatest of pleasures'. Reality adds something to our understanding.

Aristotle expands his argument to say that 'gathering the meaning of things' is a part of what he is referring to by learning.

There is a focus on substance in Aristotle that isn't isolated to exterior appearance, but instead, to bring an understanding of what we are observing. Not merely outward expressions.

In the artform of Tragedy, Aristotle counts six parts, where he highlights the Plot.

-----------
'And again: the most powerful elements of attraction in Tragedy, the Peripeties and Discoveries, are parts of the Plot'.

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 6, 1461-33
-----------

Aristotle continues:

-----------
'We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot'.
-----------

Aristotle then lists Characters as the second most important part of the Tragedy art form:

-----------
'Characters come second - compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait'.
-----------

There is in Aristotle a focus on actions, on meaning and realism. Beautiful, decorative details are less important in his view than capturing the true essence of something.

It is the plot and characters that makes the story significant to us, not the dramaturgical expressions on a stage; the Spectacle.

-----------
'The Spectacle, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts, and has least to do with the art of poetry. The tragic effect is quite possible without a public performance and actors.'

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 6, 1450-b-16
-----------

-----------
'From what we have said it will be seen that the poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen.'

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 7, 1451-a-35
-----------

There is here a focus on realism in the sense of artistic plausibility, not exact imitation.

Aristotle continues:

-----------
'Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars'.
-----------

Art builds upon universal principles that are open for all kinds of reference and reflection, whereas history is locked into specifics.

-----------
'It is evident from the above that the poet must be more the poet of his stories or Plots than of his verses'.
-----------

Again, Aristotle is looking at the meaningful significance of actions, plot and characters, rather than the format or minutiae structure of the verse.

-----------
'Of simple Plots and actions, the episodic are the worst. I call a Plot episodic when there is neither probability nor necessity in the sequence of its episodes'.
-----------

Here Aristotle reveals his lack of patience for improbable elements in a story. This is also an extension of his realism.

-----------
'The Plot in fact should be so framed that, even without seeing the things take place, he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents.'

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 14, 1453-b-3
-----------

This is yet another example of Aristotle's focus on the inner workings of a story or plot, over the outward expression.

His realism then, is highly atuned to inner, psychological motivations and plausible depictions of these, rather than merely ornamental or visual effects.

-----------
'The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to produce it by a work of imitation'.
-----------

The imitation he is talking about is understandably an alignment with realistic internal realms, and how those can extend to the audience and create a meaningful experience. He is not using the term 'imitation' in a negative sense, like Plato would. Reflecting reality is a positive value for Aristotle.

-----------
'A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.'

/ Aristotle, Poetics, Chap 24, 1460-a-26
-----------

-----------
'Any impossibilities there may be in his description of things are faults.

But from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the end of poetry itself - if they make the effect of either that portion of the work or some other portion more astounding'

(1460-b-23)
-----------

This is where Aristotle shines; he's playing the devil's advocate against his own argument.

He is basically admitting that if the artistic expression benefits from it, you can decide to depart from his strict guidelines. At the end of the day, a compelling result is what matters.

Now, Aristotle is still firmly standing by his stated principles, he just offers the possibility of exceptions.

In conclusion, I think it is fair to attribute the initial quote to Will Durant, as an interpretative summary of Aristotle on art.

The inward significance of art is clearly highlighted in Aristotle. As a summary it does give us a reasonable idea of Aristotle's main focus in regards to art and poetry, with some nuances.

Thank you for reading.
This is a repost from February 2023.

#Aristotle #Art #Poetry #Philosophy #Writing #WillDurant #GreekPhilosophy #Greek #Aristoteles


[EDIT]

I just updated to the new version of Amethyst.

It seems I misinterpreted Vitor. According to him the edit suggestions are not visible until the user has accepted them. This sounds like a reasonable method of implementation.

‐------------- Old message below -----------

I don't see the point to be honest.

If I disagree with someone's statement I can just write a comment. This drives engagement.

When I read other people's thoughts I want to hear *their* voice.

If they fatfingered a couple of words on the phone or misspelled a word or had an editing accident where the grammar ended up a bit off doesn't really matter that much.

There are many self-professed 'experts' that have spoken out against Covid critics and vaccine skeptics in the past few years. They can make their statements in their own posts. No need to encourage them to invade other people's posts.


Ah, I see. Sounds reasonable.


I haven't updated to the new Amethyst so I have not seen what the UI for this looks like, but you alluded to that others could see the edit even if it is not accepted?


I don't see the point to be honest.

If I disagree with someone's statement I can just write a comment. This drives engagement.

When I read other people's thoughts I want to hear *their* voice.

If they fatfingered a couple of words on the phone or misspelled a word or had an editing accident where the grammar ended up a bit off doesn't really matter that much.

There are many self-professed 'experts' that have spoken out against Covid critics and vaccine skeptics in the past few years. They can make their statements in their own posts. No need to encourage them to invade other people's posts.


Many of us will never match our DuoLingo score with the dollar price of Bitcoin. I can live with that.


If you are into metal I can recommend Number One by Manowar.

Great workout track:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls8z_Cx5cL0


Opt out of social credit score 🤡🌏.
#Bitcoin

#Memes

https://image.nostr.build/67f3d7e8c1e998bd435f0247c7995af1e411ca845bc1e12201166cb98f0caa8d.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=960x706&blurhash=%23cJS8c_Kj%3FMzx%40M%7CxtWBt7oeRkMzofxtV%5Bazayt6M%7Ct6oeoxRkayj%5BoeWBx%40azj%5BWBj%5BafoyWCV%5BxtWBj%5Bj%5BoeV%5BayoeaytPoeWBj%5Bayj%5BoeWCafxtayj%40fRayfQkBV%5BkB&x=8240be64ced8175989d6b7331256ffc856ba57def9857c5254fbe3b9a4c0a6e5


Over the years I have learned the value of celebration. Living in the moment is appreciating the journey.


New Bitcoin ATH an hour ago.
(Screenshot from Coinbase)

Next up the inflation-adjusted ATH.

https://image.nostr.build/f60fcbc46be305367fa3e67b16345fe13fe4ca73c75c4ed1523a548b67161c27.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1080x997&blurhash=%3B6S%24ov4nxbxaWBxa%252t7xuD*IVt7ogWVt8t7ofoft7xvR%2BNGofWVfkWBof%7EW%25LIURjoLRiRjWURj%25NxuRjj%5Dt7M%7Caej%5BWAX4g3t7ofa%23WBofoMWBE1V%40xaj%5DWBj%5BoLWBoyD%25RjxuaxRjofbGWBt7&x=baa0fc856f241446dc292bd7ebd86a2c9a1899af34ac781e3a6be147fe3b729e


Yep, have been thinking this for the past 2 years. Peter Schiff is an intelligent man and his position in gold is like 5%. He obviously doesn't care much personally about gold. Instead he gives Bitcoin wide PR almost every day, inviting bitcoiners to win easy slam-dunks.


Or as they say in Poland:

Drugie śniadanie = second breakfast.


It's all part of a process of Joy.

1. Celebrate ATH without inflation correction

2. Celebrate ATH with inflation correction.


Early stages of a bust of Darth Bane I'm modeling in 3D, inspired by the book trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn.

"[He] had become a mountain of muscle with heavy hands and a fierce temper. [...] Whoever worked the mines on Apatros got big - and Des just happened to become the biggest of them all."

#3D #Sculpture #Bust #Art #StarWars #DarthBane #NoAI

https://image.nostr.build/accf431f0c6085c2e9507710d56f008f601849d5a17210bff58d798772ecfbbb.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=918x810&blurhash=%3BCBDWpj%5B00j%5Bt7ayRjj%5BRj00ayj%5Bj%5B%25MayM%7BofxuIUayofj%5B%25MayRjayj%5B%7Eqj%5BIUayM%7BfQayfQWBIUayt7fQWBj%5Bj%5BfQofIUayt7j%5Bt7j%5Bt7ayayj%5Bj%5Bt7ayayayM%7Bj%5BofxuayayayRjj%5BofayWB&x=9cf17a68cd97176407b414e6da185501f283ab759ed259c5b67a8f4d42867a35

https://image.nostr.build/821e100d66e0c30ce4287988ef08295cea3233e909c475ed2a6edb5a3e81edc0.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=816x833&blurhash=%7C9CGS%2Bof00-%3BRjIUIUIUxu00D%25Rj-%3B-%3BM%7B%25MxuM%7Bxuayt7%25MofM%7BM%7Bj%5Bof%7EqxuD%25IURjj%5BRjt7j%5B00Rjxut7%25Mofoft7WBRjt7xuWBWBWBRjWBofofofofRjM%7BWBofofWBWBRjWBj%5Bt7xuWBayt7IUxuxuM%7BayoffQfQay&x=a209f5d3cfa03293fc908e50725ac4fcbd422126a9f43b28f02025bdc064fd1d

https://image.nostr.build/959754cfa1d601a9d566bad4af7af68632cbc5d7e47057847377807cfa37723c.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=785x819&blurhash=%7C7AwF%3Dof00WB%7Eqt7IUM%7Bxu9FRjRjt7t7oft7RjM%7B-%3BRjRj%25MofM%7BRjofof-%3BxuD%25IUxuj%5BWBj%5BayD%25ayt7RjxuxuRjWBWBWBWBoft7j%5BWBRjWBt7IUay%25Mt7M%7BM%7Bt7xuayRjayt7WBWBt7WBj%5Bj%5BM%7Boft7WBayj%5BayfQj%5B&x=4cbd78de6f7af5501e07ab0410b73d80e04bc3dc27d80080fc854695d8391afa


#Memes #ClimateChange #Environment #ClimateScam #ClimateAlarmism #Agenda21 #Agenda2030

https://image.nostr.build/a42ceceab8d04c1fdfdbcaa967e4d4caf0602bd288ee585866a0432736aad0fb.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=512x460&blurhash=%3BlK-nI-%3B9Fxu9FbbM%7BD%25e%3A%7Ept7M%7Bt7M%7CjZRjWBay4nM%7BxbbFxuWBaftRj%5BxuoffkayRjofofV%5BayxtofWXjZWBa%7DbHf6ayE0RjoMbFt8aejZt7j%5BozofjtayWCoLj%5BWCa%7CjYkCf%2BayaybHj%5Dayay&x=a3a8f982db49fa8a80d736bfe6c96a92179fa413cd3597e184352a4fec7f3c00


My response to Erik Voskuil: "value cannot be stored - it's subjective"

Value is subjective at the individual level. As market partipants interact and exchange goods and services, an aggregate of subjective values result in a price discovery process.

A store of value means that the purchasing power is not declining relative to goods and services.

https://twitter.com/fernevak/status/1763840292065591569

https://image.nostr.build/c0273c534a768ea33f8af4b8ac59d596bd27a8455c67ae9bb23447e9ccbfc50e.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1080x1182&blurhash=%7B8SF%3BLITn%24Rj-%3BIoxut79Fs%3AM%7BRi%25MM%7BofWB%7EqxuIUayfQayWBWB-pRjbIt7Rjofj%40j%5BsooftRofWVxuWBay%3FbR*xut7NGxuayjs-%3BM%7B%25MxuM%7Bxuayof%25gRjt6WVRPxuWBoftRWBoLayRjt7WBa%7C&x=1e3b4d45ed7825f4b9bc2e9ff4a568e6518cc97bfe58a0c1068279611c4fde52


Also in Canada’s online harm bill - if you posted something offensive years ago and still have access to that account such that you *could* have removed the offending content but didn’t - straight to jail. https://i.nostr.build/8YqE.jpg  nostr:note14kg48ya66n3k8xhutc2py0mucytnfme873kpnxx4latrqzwqym0sgcssw8


Logo design I made recently for @WokeMoments. From sketch to Zbrush, Substance Painter, render and paintover.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/RymVam

https://image.nostr.build/e09df5180659cad347881f70ea76e0aae09f3d71f28369c4f2ad934532962650.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=800x800&blurhash=UCLFUW%5E%25T0xDyXIV-TRk.79bDi%251%7E9%3FFozkW&x=4f560c37cbc68ca6ff952921d1218a2ce293ad0e0e78889c3895456038fb393f


If I recall correctly, according to Giacomo Zucco, quantum entanglement is restricted by the speed of light.


The business of central banking is usury and tax farming.

They create fake money out of thin air, loan it to governments, charge interest on fake the money, and get governments to collect taxes on average citizens to pay the interest on the fake money.

Like the mafia, they can deploy violence to ensure there is no competition to their priveledged racket.

It's long past time to end this scam of historical proportions.


Exposing crimes is not a crime.

#FreeAssange #DayX https://image.nostr.build/495cc508b87214dbc590436c73a8f43acf1d25474c2364cbee0bc213b355a8dd.jpg


Good quote.

Imperialism is central planning from a distance.

Bitcoin reduces the ability for central planners to force policy, ideology and behavior upon a population since their property rights are secure from government sanctions.

Hence, Bitcoin aids decolonization.

Our nations are colonized by the United Nations in terms of the U.N. Agenda 21 document signed in 1992 by 179 nations in Rio de Janeiro.


Still working my way through nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu's check your financial privilege. This quote is absolute 🔥 https://image.nostr.build/a598968acc566d6fbc2f23aa358dea48f1cb88373aa5968d7d2614b776fcdbe5.jpg


In the early Amethyst client there were some formatting bugs that made it almost impossible to write a long note so back then it made sense to write a thread. Since that was fixed, there is clearly no point in writing note threads.


“Democracy is always under a 51% attack” nostr:npub1excellx58e497gan6fcsdnseujkjm7ym5yp3m4rp0ud4j8ss39js2pn72a

https://fountain.fm/episode/zPnotKFlMHPn7RwYKGnJ


“supply will never meet demand”. - nostr:npub1excellx58e497gan6fcsdnseujkjm7ym5yp3m4rp0ud4j8ss39js2pn72a .

Read Michael’s article in U Today here: https://u.today/crucial-bitcoin-statement-issued-by-samson-mow-supply-will-never-meet-demand


"Underlying most arguments
against the free market
is a lack of belief
in freedom itself."

// Milton Friedman

#Memes #MiltonFriedman #Friedman #FreeMarkets #Capitalism #FreeAgency

https://image.nostr.build/976a5d6f3b21e948ea8d3d05e0e4b86cc14e276a51c6d3592c5f036694989fc6.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1080x1072&blurhash=%7CILzdK%5EOzmi%5DROoaNKs%2Bt800%3DqN4i_x%5DbdoIoMnh%7Df-n%2B%3BaJ%24_jXobjEad.9xANLskR%3AozR%3AkDj%5Et%3AI%5EIuS7j%3FWVs%2BoHoHVpWAsjocozbIkWW%3FRk9ZjDo%23bbR.SiR.R*WFn3n%25xZt6W%3FWBbba%23e-%24kwHs%2BbcR*S%25W%3DWCWX&x=fe9a20c5490b29bba7181195623638cb6888dfea59f5f89c4bf61ccec719ae08


My Blixt LN channel was finally closed after ~5 weeks. Normally it used to take only a few days.

If it is possible to request a fee-bump feature for closing channels in the Blixt wallet, that would be a brilliant addition when the mempool is crowded.


Looking good!


There's no freedom on a fiat standard.

"We have outsourced so much of our responsibilities, also our thinking to these guys. They only way to fix that is to do the opposite" - Whitney Webb on #Bitcoin

https://video.nostr.build/ba65688fe70309e74ed0d90562b393ffe7874d768798ffbdb6541fa15f981671.mp4


Someone asked why we should prefer truthful actions over useful actions when truth is often hated.

I don't think the two are actually at odds if your time preference is low enough. But whenever it appears that what is useful is at odds with what is truthful, (people are jailed or censored or persecuted for telling the truth or for asking certain questions) that is an indication that someone or some thing has divorced societal feedback mechanisms from reality, allowing people to be rewarded for the perpetuation of some sort of fraud or delusion. Societal delusions are always unsustainable in the long run, so this is your signal that the herd is headed for a cliff. If you want to have any hope of living in a sane world, and for your kids & loved ones to be able to do the same, then it is your responsibility to communicate or demonstrate what is true as effectively & efficiently as possible. And I think people often wildly overestimate their ability to be truly happy & enjoy "success" gained by renoucing or denying their own faculties or beliefs.

All the aspects of reality that we refuse to embrace will eventually become demons that haunt us from the shadows.


Yeah, this is where I'm at...

There is no reasonable argument for taxation. People are either just greedy & malicious or stupid & afraid, & I suspect there's a lot of overlap between the two.

Believing some good or service is "needed" isn't a justification for the use of force. People NEED food & people NEED shoes, & voluntary transactions take care of those things quite well. Historically, when govts control food production people starve, and yet people wonder why there is so much injustice today when the govt controls the justice system 🤔 it's just not that hard to figure out.

https://void.cat/nostr/42f6175931e50f24f6464b5670bdd5940db6c762c36328894559f42767f54e89.jpg#m=image%2Fwebp&dim=1080x768&blurhash=r68Ec8fi8_j%3FM_j%5BIUayaxxsf8j%5Dj%5BRkfRazf7WB00fQ%3Fbayxuayxuj%5Bj%5BD%25j%5BWBWBxufQj%5Bj%5Bt7%7EpfRIUj%5BM%7BayWBj%5Bay-%3BayofofM%7CfQWBayRj&x=70d7af3c1bf9c7990b093904e5a824e9122c55fde525a58a5e95bc7ad38e9405


There are no diminishing returns when a step change takes place. Bitcoin is not a marginally better $ or gold. #Bitcoin is a 1000x improvement on any monetary technology devised in all human history. Diminishing returns is an irrelevant concept when the entire game has changed. https://image.nostr.build/d6e20bc2b30efc86b85f991a3409435ff1c03746a5384c00d8d9dd1e2151639d.jpg


I am thrilled to share my new essay

"Stranded: How Bitcoin is Saving Wasted Energy and Expanding Financial Freedom in Africa"

I was profoundly moved by what I saw on a recent trip to Kenya and Malawi.

If this essay can show you even 1% of what inspired me, that's a win… here’s an overview:

We begin in Bondo, a small town in Malawi, a country where only 11% of the population has access to electricity.

The nation suffers 6-8 hours of blackouts a day, but the power in Bondo is consistent because of Bitcoin mining.

The town got its first electricity in 2016, and now is expanding its grid, thanks to Bitcoin, which is buying 100% of the electricity that the micro-hydro stations cannot sell, and giving precious capital to the power company so it can expand operations.

At night, demand dwindles, and in remote places like Bondo, there’s no one else to buy the consistent hydro power.

Enter Bitcoin, powered by internet services like Starlink. A datacenter from Gridless now saves the wasted energy and is powering the community forward.

The big realization: virtually all power generation, especially in rural places, wastes energy.

Bitcoin fixes this.

We are told Bitcoin is a waste of energy but the truth is the opposite.

NOT Bitcoin mining is a waste of energy.

And the kicker: Bitcoin miners create heat.

This heat will be used for productive uses.

General heating in cold climates, and in a place like Bondo? Drying tea, fruit, or cocoa.

Profit from mining won’t just be profit - cost, it will be (profit + profit from externality) - cost.

For context: Malawi is a country that just suffered an IMF-led 44% currency devaluation.

Already one of the poorest nations in the world, where most people save in cash, now citizens can only afford 56% of what they could a few months ago. Per the IMF, more devaluation is on the way.

The kwacha is a disastrous wage technology. Once again, enter Bitcoin, a vastly superior savings mechanism.

The first Bitcoin meetup is happening in the Malawi’s capital this month. We are very early with adoption in this region—2020 in El Salvador terms—but this adoption will turn from a trickle into a torrent.

Up north in Kenya, Gridless has geothermal mines, too. I visited one.

It’s a remarkable site: a humming hut on the site of a lake with a Starlink on top, eating all of the electricity that a water pump does not use: perfectly solarpunk.

Kenya is the world’s largest exporter of cut flowers. There are tons of sites like this, generating power for irrigation, all over the country. All of them waste energy.

Geothermal is beautifully consistent, but the demand is not. Bitcoin fixes this.

Gridless operations like these are generally profitable within the first two years. Now there's biomass, where the company has just launched data centers at sugar and sisal processing factories which before couldn't find buyers for excess electricity.

But now Bitcoin is buying.

This sounds great so far…

But for the hundreds of millions of Africans who don’t have internet access, how are they supposed to benefit?

Enter KG, whose company Machankura provides Bitcoin access to people with no internet.

This is done through USSD — a SMS-type protocol.

The user texts a number, then gets a decision tree, and can send, receive, barter, and purchase a variety of things, all without data.

This is a custodial service for now — but KG and team have plan to make SIM cards signing devices and even Lightning touch points so that people can self-custody and be their own bank without the internet.

A true civilizational leap forward.

Critical: there are 700 million women in Africa, but very very few use Bitcoin.

Marcel Lorraine aims to change that.

A Kenyan entrepreneur who has fearlessly helping schools in Kibera, two years ago she launched Bitcoin Dada, a program to educate women and girls about Bitcoin.

Marcel runs classes every week, with several cohorts per year.

The task is huge but she insists on pushing forward.

She argues Bitcoin can give macro freedom for communities and countries, yes, but also micro freedom at home for women who traditionally take a back seat in finance.

Finally: independence from dependence is a key concept

Femi Longe, director of BTrust Builders, is trying to make that happen.

He’s running a program to train African developers and help them contribute to Bitcoin, to take careers in the industry or become contributors to core.

As Jack Dorsey says, if Bitcoin is going to be used around the world, it has to be made around the world.

Femi refuses to accept a future like today, where cars are made in the West and bought by Africans.

The Bitcoin infrastructure needs to be made in Africa.

The way these pieces could fit together is astonishing.

Unlike in the West, where adoption might mean centralized pools and ETFs, in Africa adoption will mean off-grid mining and potentially millions of self-custodying users, powered by SIM cards.

Africans need Bitcoin, yes.

But Bitcoin needs Africa.

That was blazing clear from my visit last month.

At the end of the day, who is going to help bring electricity and high-quality currency — the building blocks of progress — to hundreds of millions of Africans?

Bill Gates? The UN? The World Bank?

No, they won’t.

But Bitcoin might.

Read the full story at Bitcoin Magazine:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/check-your-financial-privilege/stranded-bitcoin-saving-wasted-energy-in-africa?new https://image.nostr.build/c5da77c09bea43b86a45ce22880dac783a055274b045e5be3b6aa29c41383762.jpg


A week ago I was in Oslo and gave the presentation

"Twenty teenty-four
- Centralized or decentralized monetary revolution?"

to a group of some of the brightest financial analysts in Norway.

The presentation covered many things, including monetary history, the problems with debt-based money, CBDCs and more.

I showed them that legal tender gold coins in fact have beaten the Norwegian stock market hands down (when tax adjusted) over the last 50 years.

I went on and said:

"You will have to make a fundamental decision about your future:

Do you want to work for and with

- money that is programmed to lose its value (fiat),

- money that historically has kept a stable value (gold), or

- money that is programmed to increase in value (#bitcoin   )?"

This question is in fact what it all boils down to, not only for people working in finance, but for all of us who work for money.

After the presentation we had a fruitful discussion. They were open, receptive, had good questions and came with several insightful reflections.

I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to do this 👍

https://image.nostr.build/6ad3e1f9efd82c9eb3a901ead44081ecd27b84cb40191d2f98b4b64c4cdbb74d.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1335x910&blurhash=rHJ*L%7CtnI9IUV%40M%7CV%3FM%7BX8KPD%25tR%253bb%252R*ofxt%7EBIpWBNFM%7BR*t7R*M%7C0K-TbIogxuWCofogo0xGR-WAjYR*s%3ARjt6WCaxWAniozagWXxaRjof&x=24d9c359abf3b91b8120bd173029da1eeee31455d310ac2bd396d4ea9eb2c8b3


No amount of selling is going to be able to keep up with #Bitcoin demand from plebs, corps, nation-states, and ETFs. That is the reality people must accept. Some are bearish now and seeking out bearish things irrationally. Be rational. Leave the emotions out and do the math


What would you say are the primary problems with using Liquid Network for scaling?

We have to identify problems before they can be solved.


Yes. The typical 'fix' added in MMO's are money sinks, to cause players to lose money, thereby seemingly counteracting some of the apparent inflation.

Taxes and fees are money sinks that won't fix inflation (expansion of the money supply).


Samantha La Duc’s role was to get “rogue” related to Bitcoin in the Xittershpere so Warren can double down on it.

They don’t control the narrative any more though. https://i.nostr.build/vlg7.jpg


Thanks for the response.

My Blixt wallet is connected to 4 peers. If I press + I have the menu "Connect to lightning peer", asking for node URI. If I type in the node public key of one of the nodes in the list I get an error message saying I am already connected to the peer.

I suspect it's the low fee in sats (less than 1500 sats) that is causing the tx not to be mined. I see RBF is active on the tx so I might have to bump the fee up.


Fellow Bitcoiners!

We finally have the pleasure of announcing the Halving Festival. A two day celebration of the next Bitcoin epoch.

This is an event by Norwegian Bitcoiners for ALL Bitcoiners!

The only requirement for participation is that you can send a Bitcoin onchain/lightning transaction, since we only accept #bitcoin  payments.

What date is it?

Well, we dont exactly know. Because in Bitcoin land we dont follow fiat time.

The event starts at the last mid-day before BTC block 840 000. If that confuses you, dont worry, we’ll keep you updated.

The event will take place at my farm. It’s located 1 hour away from the capital in Norway, Oslo.

The closest train station is Mysen, and we will arrange shuttle bus transport for those not travelling by car. Everyone else can park at the farm.

We havent planned everything in detail yet, but here is some of the content:

- Free meal of grassfed beef and roasted roosters from the farm
- Full roasted wild boar over the fire
- Viking competitions
- Wim Hof experience
- Series of talks about Bitcoin

This isn't your regular conference event.

In the planning of this event we prioritize authenticity above all else.

We dont want it to be about big names or loud music.

We want it to be about celebrating #bitcoin  and sharing values and ideas peer-to-peer.

So with that said, we hope you want to celebrate with us, no matter who you are, where you come from or what you do.

As long as you can send a Bitcoin transaction you’re in.

But be aware: Tickets are hard capped at 210, and the ETF’s are NOT priced in!

To get your ticket, go to: halvingfestival.com


Sounds like a form of determinism. If you do X in situation A, you are bound to do Z in a completely different situation B. Since A and B are the same we can expect a mechanistic relationship.

All fine after a few bottles of wine, heh.

Thesis: women and oranges are the same.😄


Beach boys nostalgia.
1 hour repeat ✅

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ds7DeWbJekc&pp=ygUaYmVhY2ggYm95cyBnZXQgYXJvdW5kIGhvdXI%3D


Now it's been 3 weeks and the LN channel hasn't closed yet. Still saying "Waiting for close". Limbo balance.


Yes, it took me several minutes to find out, never heard about him before. Milei had already said that he would speak up against Agenda 2030 in Davos so I was expecting critical voices.


How to thwart a vampire.😄

#Memes

https://image.nostr.build/485c1b6bde4990e158adfff3adfd0b0e7889d260077455d74c874c3539c455e0.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=708x696&blurhash=%7CEKd*vNGV%40-%3Bs%3BS5%25MX99Z00jDIUxuM%7BWBoeozIp%7Eqs7tSM%7C%25LV%3FxuoetR4mo%23NGRjxt%252adf5a%7D%25Nt79GRjoI-on%24s.V%40%25N%25MNHWAoes.t6f6a%2300%25hxue-xuWBj%3FM%7BWXV%40xafRRjt6ofWCRkof%7EqRPM%7BR*WBozRkozj%5B&x=1f0aa9ae084ef7f9eb0546212f9ff0601686ba66af992a40d379f40ba97bc05b


It is satire but neck tattoos are not unwelcome among globalists. I met a manager with a neck tattoo who talked about "building back better".


Satire but brilliant.

https://twitter.com/damonimani/status/1747388354587463766


Hmm, I'm seeing people say that he is a media content creator and that it is a montage.


Yup, is true. 🙂

https://twitter.com/Davos2024/status/1747400930985660571


Adding a cropped version of the screenshot.

Link to tweet + video:

https://twitter.com/Davos2024/status/1747400930985660571

https://image.nostr.build/8a154cb61acbe44f14ecc056e1b8fe2f79843a090655159f1153995aa4361b84.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1080x1233&blurhash=%7Bj8%7C%3DCobR%3DbIskoKR-WBomawWZa%23s*jsWYazWGaxj%3Bj%3DobbFa%24oMa%5Dofs%25jYf%2Bj%5BoMofa_ayobaxbIfloeoLo%23axj%5Dj%5BWXj%5BoJfiRjj%3FofflfRj%5Bj%3Fa%7Bk7oeoJfkbHj%5Bj%3FayocayjYf7WYj%5Bjsa%23&x=90a63646fc06ea555dca8e0670cf473212b174d0ce6a42dfb8ad9bbe8c55ab01


Speaker at the World Economic Forum tells Klaus Schwab to go fuck himself. 😅🤣

https://image.nostr.build/e0151ae2e446840e970c88bc28b7f074f58adb5232e0d1904451d23b3cefcde6.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=864x1920&blurhash=%5BL6kSpobR%3Da%7EM%7CWBocayIQa%24s%24j%3Dxsofj%5Ea%24omWAR%3Ba%24ohj%3Fj%3BoIW7j%5Ds*axoHWCa%25bIjbj%5DWYfl&x=6125e5c65a6d6e5b9c133078e4b459599fcebc8e75f10883c6e77bce82e499a5


I will never understand doomscrolling but balance in all things is essential. Doom metal is fine though.


Politics is the epitome of the principal-agent problem.

Too bad 99% of people don’t know what that is.. https://i.nostr.build/l7rj.jpg


Have you tried out AQUA yet? Experience the power of Bitcoin, Liquid, and Lightning, all in one easy to use wallet. 🌊⚡

Download AQUA now!
🍎 https://bit.ly/AQUA-iOS
🤖 https://bit.ly/AQUA-Android
https://image.nostr.build/9a2b86a22e268b117f10a84af2e3fab1284a073d03d26914b20146f3708b3042.jpg


Past week on Twitter;
The European Central Bank gets community noted by bitcoiners. 😄

https://image.nostr.build/b753aac9abe2e7a68f2f103e8953543b80d85f38bf1af7a1580041be30d49c6d.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1170x1823&blurhash=%5E48EMQ.8kCxuD%25xu_3t7%25M%25Mj%5B%25MxvWE-%3B%25Mt7%25M%7Eqoft7xuRkxuIUj%3F-%3Bj%5Bofxut6xt%25Mofofxu%25Lt6xukCWBt7M%7BWC%25MogkCt7%3FaadflogWVxu&x=c6a20cc30d419e9405ef8749f03b7a1ee315d129d7209c014cc84ad9e6e99342


To be fair, everything is mindset.

We are responsible for the quality of our feed both here on Nostr and Twitter.


The ECB (European Central Bank) getting community noted on Twitter. 😅🤣

#Bitcoin #ECB #CentralBanks #Euro

https://image.nostr.build/b753aac9abe2e7a68f2f103e8953543b80d85f38bf1af7a1580041be30d49c6d.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1170x1823&blurhash=%5E48EMQ.8kCxuD%25xu_3t7%25M%25Mj%5B%25MxvWE-%3B%25Mt7%25M%7Eqoft7xuRkxuIUj%3F-%3Bj%5Bofxut6xt%25Mofofxu%25Lt6xukCWBt7M%7BWC%25MogkCt7%3FaadflogWVxu&x=c6a20cc30d419e9405ef8749f03b7a1ee315d129d7209c014cc84ad9e6e99342


A bit unrelated, but I closed a LN channel on my Blixt wallet node some two weeks ago and it's still "waiting to close". After the second day I set it to force close, which will take longer time. I am not aware of any setting to adjust the fee; the fee was rather low and hasn't been picked up by miners yet.


Just had a look at the mempool today and the average tx fee is $1.61.


The ingredients of the United Nations Agenda 21 and its next milestone 2030.

#Memes #Agenda21 #2030Agenda #Agenda2030 #Globalism #1984

https://image.nostr.build/d749cedf65f430ccd5f1a548dce354eea566dd28b418dfb76ee251ece024292d.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=720x514&blurhash=r9KUsKrq02K5I%3DOXA0M%7C%7EW00%24L0iNG%5E*%25f9tJCMb00X7%23Mrqogn%2Br%5BNHx%5DE0Kj-4s%3Br%3A%24MVrR4yY4T-%3AO%5DWE%3FGxbrVxCD*rU%24fx%40o%7DOGI%40-%3Bs%3Bv%7E&x=01ecd53ef64b75de09f0fcd6b38679ce5d441ac47f8da6dca70d0ec389035248


It’s not crony capitalism or mercantilism that sustains and uplifts billions. Parceling out monopolies and privileges is not how social mobility is achieved. People must have the freedom to invent, to disrupt, to unsettle settled hierarchies. That is how progress accelerates.


POSIWID. The purpose of a system is what it does. Follow the execution of the code to verify what the program is designed to achieve. Trace ideas downstream to where they lead.

Central banks are architected to siphon wealth, time and life-energy from productive and hard working human beings, to the governments and central banks. Just like vampires, central banks and governments can live for centuries, and they cannot survive the light of day or the invocation of a higher justice than themselves.

Bitcoin is the stake in the heart of the international cartel of vampires. No more sacrifices of coming generations to the dragon perched atop the mountain, threatening to claim more victims every year.

#Memes Bitcoin #Inflation #CentralBanking #CentralBanks

https://image.nostr.build/f6bc92f59a05aa9692aa97a8cd0d1fd8c0b3978067f255391b95df3e374002e8.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=959x1269&blurhash=_HRfd%7EM%7B%25LRk%25Layxu%25MWBR%25j%5Ba%7Cazae%3F%40bEV%5BoeV%5Bj%5BRkRjWBjbj%5Bj%5Bj%5BfjDkWBt7azoyaykBM%7Bj%5Bt7WBofayj%5Bt6ofagayayayj%5Bj%5Dt7WBaxaya%23j%5B%25foefPWVWBj%5BWB&x=682d12ef307b9611bf2d3312401ee92e6c3d0c56da553f354dea578084a3e233


Follow if you're on twitter as well.
https://x.com/nakadai_mon/status/1745624018340741369?s=20


Good.

The more central banks strangle themselves, the better.


Freedom is always "the greater good" because what's best for the individual is what's best for the whole.
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