Replying to Avatar Gigi

Some Thoughts on Adoption (and other nonsense).

There's this old Louis C.K. clip—recorded long before he was cancelled—that summarizes our modern conundrum well: "Everything's amazing and nobody's happy."

As I was walking towards the hospital today—after a way too early 5:30 rise—it dawned on me that wide-scale nostr adoption (and "proper" wide-scale bitcoin adoption, for that matter) is probably not going to happen. The good news is that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The bad news is that lots of people will suffer.

"Why so bearish?" I hear you ask. If you know me just a little bit you'll know that, even though I do have many faults, being bearish isn't one of them. I'm still incredibly optimistic when it comes to the adoption and proliferation of freedom tech. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I do.

Here's what dawned on me, though: People aren't even interested in their own health, why would they be interested in healthy money? Yes, everyone wants to be healthy. But doing what is necessary to live a healthy lifestyle? Not interested. Not in the least. Usually something really really bad has to happen for people to change their ways. And even that doesn't move the needle in some cases, as plenty of drinkers who still drink after their liver gave up, or plenty a smoker who still smokes after being diagnosed with lung cancer can attest to.

Which brings me to bitcoin treasury companies. Are most of them interested in taking the responsibility of holding their own keys? Are they interested in providing real value while staying humble and stacking sats? No, of course not. They are interested in paper gains, not in a full-blown reorientation that leads to a healthier lifestyle. And I mean that literally: if you truly and fully adopt bitcoin, the responsibility that is entailed by that will result in a reorientation, a re-alignment of values, which will—down the line—lead to more long-term thinking, healthier business practices, more honest value generation, and so on.

To me, this is what "capital B" Bitcoin is about. Change. Real change. A ridiculous proposition to the balance sheet brain.

...which brings me to nostr.

A short stroll through the current iteration of the internet should make clear that the platforms that most people spend their time on are incredibly mis-aligned with humanity. The outrage-machine that we've built for ourselves is keeping us like rats in Skinner boxes, hitting the dopamine button with every swipe and every scroll, no matter what. We've built a machine that is parasitic on humanity, instead of synergistic. We are optimizing for engagement, which means that we are maximizing addiction by shoving a mixture of uppers (porn) and downers (rage bait) down our collective throats. The machine is catering to our lowest selves, as opposed to our highest selves. (We could also optimize for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, you know. Is that too much to ask?)

But who is to blame for all of that? (And is it worth blaming someone in the first place?)

It is clear to me that the whole military-grade industrial advertising complex that profits from running large-scale and nonstop psychological experiments on the whole fucking population of the earth wouldn't be profitable for long if we would all get our act together. But that won't happen, of course. There won't be a magical finger snap that suddenly shakes us awake from our slumber; that stops us from sleepwalking into dystopia. Just like there won't be a magical finger snap that stops us from our bad habits and unhealthy lifestyles.

Adopting a healthy way of living is hard. It means saying no to the constant onslaught of sugary snacks, fast-food around every corner, and social pressures to indulge. It means taking responsibility for your decisions, cultivating discipline, taking care of your body, your psyche, and yes, also your soul.

A wise man once said that "he who has a 'why' can bear almost any 'how'." And that's what most of us are missing: a strong enough "why." Why go through the trouble of living healthy? It's hard! Why hold your own keys, if someone else can do it for you, and there's even the apparent safety of some insurance? Why cultivate a less destructive relationship to the internet, if you can just autoplay & chill, whether it be with Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, PornHub, or something else? Why not write the snarky comment and trigger a whole cohort of people at the click of a button?

Because it's not healthy, that's why.

"Everything's amazing and nobody's happy." That's the state of the world. Always has been. And I'm to blame too, of course. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, writing these lines, bitching and moaning about the internet, this amazing series of tubes that I so love, warts and all.

But yeah, the internet won't heal itself over night. Neither will the economy, nor the rent-seeking zombie companies that don't provide value, nor the underlying fiat system that broke it all in the first place. It will take lots of time, lots of courage, lots of faith, and lots of responsibility.

It will be hard, but it will also be worth it. And it starts with you.

As genius, And as clear a solution to many modern problems, You can bet the end result on the lowest percentile of users. 60% of the world lives on 5$ a day, Of that 20% live on 1.50$ and what they can domestically produce. Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, A 67 year old grandmother will grow a crop of tomatoes to trade for 40kg of rice and a couple chickens. Her primary income is sustained by her physical efforts, Not her digital value. There is a tipping point where the 60% adopt bitcoin instead of a bank account. Sadly the most influential people in the Bitcoin community are more concerned with spam blocks and MEV, Than helping the poor. The most direct impact Bitcoin can have on global poverty would be to bitcoinize the coltan trade. In Kolwesii, DRC, Children, Like 12 year olds, Work for this 1.50$ a day. The average lifespan is 35 for males, And people typically have families of up to 8 because so many people die young there. No coltan, No bitcoin hashrate progression, No mining industry. Fuck your Tesla, End generational poverty in the DRC first. Fuck your spam block, End generational poverty. Fuck your code bro. Change the world.

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Average iq of the DRC is 64

Nobody’s fixing anything

And how do you solve for low IQ David Cavan Fraser. Please lead me oh blind friend.

No idea

Gradually over time improve quality of life and offer free education resources.

The best hope for natural bitcoin adoption is the Virunga park bitcoin mine, In the north of the DRC. There are already local Congolese people operating a mine owned by a French man named Seb Gillespeau.

People being dumb is not a good enough reason to withhold resources.

What do you mean by “withhold resources?”

I don’t know, Not give them technology? Usually the solution to a low I Q is education, And a MacBook is basically a 3000$ degree in whatever you can apply yourself to. Having the bitcoin to help these people who are living in extreme poverty so you can get rich is pretty much the definition of hypocrisy to me. Kind of like how central banks can just print money and you get to work for it? .1 BTC is a trip to the Congo and a laptop you could give someone. But you know, Bitcoin is all about self promotion and getting rich. Why bother helping poor people when you can shill another shitty ecash platform to preserve “privacy” in crypto? Fuck poor people I’m in the privileged technology class where we are all geniuses and extremely creative and attractive to all basic bitches that have never paid their own bills. I’m here to fuck!

The solution to low IQ is not education

Yeah dude. Fuck you too.

I’m not sure why reality makes you so aggressive but good kick

Luck

It's true yet hard to solve. The volatility is too much for those who can't afford a 10% drop. They'd rather hold stable sats or the stable coin. Organic adoption won't happen soon but there is plenty of room for philanthropy software

I think in extreme situations like this you need people to go to these places, With free computers, Mining equipment, And probably an electric infrastructure grid project, To provide resources to these disadvantaged people. The Bitcoin mine in Virunga park, The north of the DRC seems to be the best chance of local people creating a bitcoin economy, With the ability to explain in a local language how bitcoin works. Imagine doing all that hard work to find out how people are benefiting with no knowledge of the supply chain driving around in their electric vehicles believing they are morally superior while children literally work themselves to death for raw minerals.

What resources are you providing? Mining equipment and knowledge? They way it usually works is your team owns and operates the mine, possibly hiring a few locals, and that's about it except for some money flowing into the economy via food and housing purchases.

Maybe I'm missing something but does your thinking presumes "build it and they will come" ? when the reality is that most people aren't interested, trusting of it, especially when their main culture disregards it . Being a black sheep is for the few, but yes the black sheep exist everywhere and in every culture.

But IMO and based on tipping point theory, the only people anyone should be focused on helping are the black sheep, the few that already get it. From there critical mass builds and eventually tips the rest of them into following....since they will be following in all circumstances

I am looking at this from a developmental perspective, Which most people who are born in a developed economy can not appreciate. How do you explain something as technical as bitcoin to someone who doesn’t have running water or electricity? It’s not impossible, It’s just not profitable from a business perspective in the next 100 years. It’s easy to accumulate capital, Go change the world, Then I will be impressed. Maybe a Kolwesii peaker plant is a good place to start.

Have you gone to the global south and educated about bitcoin yet?

Yep. El Salvador doesn’t need me. Have you tried to live in a developing country full time before? How many times have you been around the world?

Yes I've spent over 1 year in el Salvador, was the 3rd bitcoiner ever to visit zonte in '21. I've lived in other dev country in Asia for 6 months the, been to over 20 countries.

Why doesn't El Salvador need you?

El Salvador is for El Salvadorans. Gringo bitcoin grifters need not apply.

I have visited 30 countries, Spent 1 year plus in three, And of that, At least 20 were developing countries. I invested in a Water purification, Solar electricity, And autonomous internet provider infrastructure startup, The CEO grew up in a Brazilian Favela in São Paulo.

I studied sustainable development through Columbia University, And one of my favorite economists is Jeffrey Sachs, The professor of several of my classes at Columbia.

It’s really just sad to see that bitcoin is basically just financially incentivizing more financial instruments, Instead of inspiring people coming out of the tech industry as they are replaced with neural networks to help clean up the mess left behind by The Federal Reserve and American Corporations. Everyone is concerned about getting rich instead of living a financial revolution.

Bitcoin for Kolwesii.

End generational poverty in the coltan trade!

These are the most important issues the bitcoin “community” is facing. Central banks will use bitcoin to balance their budgets, So essentially building more layers of money technology is just wiping the asses of all the central banks that people in the “core” of the bitcoin “community” hate. The point of world changing technology is to help the most needy, Not to create another layer of an obsolete system that most people cannot comprehend.

I sympathize with your perspective but to be humble acknowledges we don't know the "point" of paradigm changing technology and that will be for history to judge. For all we know Bitcoin could be about fleeing earth in 400 years, without which it wouldn't be possible. It's in service to evolution.