Subnostr

I have been trying to understand normies mindsets. My neighbour in Ventnor was about to loose his home. He was a tenant and the landlord had to sell the place to pay for his mother’s care.

My neighbour was a former fireman and had also owned a kitchen fitting company, but a serious accident at work during a fire had left him unable to work any physical job. His marriage had broken up, so he found himself renting the home next to mine, funded, in most part, by the government.

I had a lightning bolt of philanthropy and so decided to buy the place and give my neighbour a secure home for life. I also spent a lot of time explaining Bitcoin, hoping that it would help him generate a secure future for him and his adult daughter.

About a year ago, his Father died and he discovered nearly £5K of cash in his safe. This was great, as I believed it would give him one or two years of additional financial support and allow him to invest some, even if it was in more traditional investments. I tried not to preach too heavily about Bitcoin for fear of being thought a scam.

To my dismay, the next time I visited him, I sat in his living room in my very best Primark jeans and t-shirt while he showed me his brand new designer coat and sunglasses and describing the 5 star slap up dinner he had paid for his friends to have at the local posh hotel.

In short, within 3 months, he had spent the lot on flash clothes and fancy dinners. A couple of months later, he would be asking me for a loan.

I am re-thinking philanthropy. I am trying to understand the world I don’t inhabit.

Housepainter 7mo ago

Unpopular opinion coming Up. If you havent lives stressed out of your tiny mind for years under the weight of financial and health concerns, it's hard to appreciate how a shaft of light looks. It is sad the guy blew a few grand which clearly could turn into a way out of his circumstances ( viewed from a point of stability). On the other hand, I get It. To not be weighed down. Its like that Big balloon being forcibly submerged. Pressure off - and boom.

So perhaps theres a different way to structure help that accounts for that dynamic of a blow off top.

If I missed the point, sorry.

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mike 7mo ago

No, please, I want to understand more.

He told me in a conversation that if he ever gets any money he blows it. He can't keep hold of it.

Even when he was earning decent money in the fire service and kitchen fitting business he never had any spare money. In fact that is possibly one of the reasons he had two failed marriages.

Can you provide any more insight?

I genuinely want to understand this.

Thanks.

Housepainter 7mo ago

If you live hand to mouth for too long (without literally any left over for "indulgencies") the minute a breathing space appears AND It only looks like a short reprieve, it's not unreasonable to "fuck It" how hard does Life have to be.

I hate It when people on the dole are castigated by the Lucky over buying cigarettes or a TV, drugs, whatever It is that takes off the Edge. So many people are often really suffering mentally. But for the grace of ....go I

My Mum used to be a debt collector and another dynamic is to be so far in debt that you see no point trying to turn the ship around. That's not just a poor mans POV either, as we can see at the other end of the spectrum the privileged in the Fiat system rob in their own way from a sinking ship.

It's down to Hope. Carve out the space for people with no Hope to regain It. And accept they arent going to be model starving bitcoiner holders until they see why going hungry or without - to stack a tiny breathing space for the future - can actually be a really fulfilling way to live, giving you agency to get yourself out of despair.

That's my observations from both sides of the track.

mike 7mo ago

Thanks for the insights.