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I agree about the food, but what on earth does it have to do with Fiat? I have 0 inkling how everything that is wrong with the world can be called Fiat and that Bitcoin fixes it.

ChipTuner 6mo ago

I've spent a whole lot of time thinking about this topic in the past few years. I do think it's fair or possible to point out a mutual exclusion. To say the "fiat" (agreed, everything wrong with the world) problems are _solved_ with bitcoin. I'm not almighty enough to determine what solution WILL solve what problem.

What I do often think about is the idea that to function "in a modern society" requires a consistent tolerance for increasing pressure and responsibility on the individual, from the collective, and a large target I can point to is inflation. This of course is can be greatly over-simplified for online chat. This idea is enough to write a novelette about.

I just mean that it seems like there is more requirement to work harder than anticipated to achieve the same results you could have had a few years prior, that is continually disappointing, and continually requires reshaping your own perspective to tolerate the "things you can't change".

I'm sure you could counter again with perspective, and that's not lost on me. But the idea that myself and everyone I knew grew up with, didn't include the concept that you will need to work harder, and earn more every single day, just to afford the same thing you had the day before. That's a pretty black-pilling concept. I think the cognitive dissonance this causes, explains this exact topic. There is too much discomfort between the ideal (the perceived stability we had yesterday) and the reality, and people can't cope, and they surely can't take on new responsibility.

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liminal 🦠 6mo ago

I'll clarify, because while the community often interchanges the terms, they're not equal. It's more fiat as in "by decree". Fiat money coud be seen as an instantiation of fiat, the incentive structure, working based on some principles by an authoritative command. Bitcoin points to a certain lifestyle and mentality that isn't fiat, to which Fiat Money points to lifestyles and mentalities that are. To that end I'd agree the fix isn't guaranteed by Bitcoin. But it's a different incentive structure, and helps bias the resulting outcome.

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

I understand what you are getting at, but it is on some level, nonsense. I mean that in a literal sense. There is no logical connection between Bitcoin and certain lifestyles. It is an assertion that is accepted as true.

You might say that the elective participation of Bitcoin attracts users who value making independent choices in other areas of their life. But that presupposes that bitcoiner opinions on other lifestyle matters aren't yet another herd mentality for people looking for a place to belong. No different from the kids in highschool who express their individuality by all wearing Goth get up.

I like Bitcoin, but I don't think it fixes anything, much less everything. Human nature is simply what it is, and the structures we build to deal with that have coevolved with us. They have problems but I trust the problem more than the "fix". The whole 20th century was death by fixes. Not saying we shouldn't fix it, but I am very wary of catch-alls.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 6mo ago

we live in times when evil people have organised the corruption of humanity on every level of its existence to such a degree, the biggest vulnerability that they exploit is trust. and the second thing they do is degrade people's ability to think by filling their minds with contradictory, false nonsense, and normalize fallacies as being "common sense".

money is part of how they achieved this, by the use of fiat currency issuance controlled by a privileged few and ensuring most people don't understand how this acts as a funnel to move the wealth to them by stealth and deceit.

bitcoin pushes back a bit on that, because its issuance is not controlled by anyone, it was set up, in a protocol that was designed to be very hard to change because of self interest.

the other thing is that the community around bitcoin has a attracted a lot of people with questions and inccreasingly are deprogramming themselves of the illusions.

but it is naive and silly to say that it fixes everything. it's just one thing that is a bit better, meanwhile everything else has gotten so bad we are practically at sodom and gomorrah stage of corruption in most of the world's large population centers. i don't think we can do anything about them.

what i do think that bitcoin fixes though, is enabling some people, who are waking up to this, to have the power to move themselves into a position where they are buffered from the influence of the babylon system. that's the value i see in it.

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

I basically agree about today's level of corruption and lies. What I disagree about is that today is any different from other points in human history. There will always be a certain percentage of folks who prey upon everyone else using whatever tools the age presents them. In a trusting age they use trust but they are also happy to wield fear over the fearful, wealth over the greedy, pride over the prideful and so forth.

I also agree that Bitcoin has some directionally correct features, but it also engenders greed giving the unscrupulous another locus of control. Look no further than every crypto scam ever.

The only thing that can move the needle is the practice of heroic virtue. That is the only thing that sets you free. This is not, of course, a new revelation. We have simply found new places to misplace our hope. This is what makes the first commandment absolutely genius. "Have no Gods beside me." Keeps the one who follows it on the path of chasing freeing virtue and prevents them from accepting the slavery of each new (old) fad.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 6mo ago

the evil ones don't always have the levers on the highest levels of power in society, though. throughout history there has been periods where there was genuinely good societies existing, but who eventually were infiltrated and usurped.

i see bitcoin as a tool and a sign of coming intervention to flip the script on the evil that dominates our world at this time, just as the angels told Noah to build his boat, that good people survive while the evil ones fall to their deserved fate of extinguishment, bitcoin is given to us to help us gather our oil for the wedding.

liminal 🦠 6mo ago

You're still missing my point. Bitcoin only has an association with this in the sense that its stated on a community focused on Bitcoin with strong associations between Fiat money and fiat. Again, there's a higher form of fiat that's different from Fiat Money, just as there's a higher form of non-fiat that's different from Bitcoin, the non-fiat money. I also said Bitcoin "points" to a non-fiat life, which is just about as loose an association that you can get.

Even still, whatever the association there is, its enough to attract the interest of nostr:nprofile1qqspxw8hwq2356rcjcwe5vt3rmlpsdveq49ptkfncfu8vgu7sznlqxcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcwxqmwj, a professor in working in public health to both look into this association for research create and build towards an institution focused around how individuals who go down the Bitcoin path tend to also change their health habits.

And that last point, if you like Bitcoin beyond a pure technological curiosity, you recognize that it does something that other systems don't or are less effective at. Going back to the point again, it doesn't necessitate that Bitcoin /fixes/ anything, but rather that it is an alternative incentive structure. Changing incentives does not guarantee any change in behavior, but it biases it.

From Charlie Munger, "Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome." If you change an individual's incentives, you have no need to pursuade anyone to act some specific way.

Emma 6mo ago

Agreed. Bitcoin exposes truth whereas fiat has a tendency to distort it. Once people realize that Bitcoin is an economic system that tries to account for truth, they then question 1) where else in my life have I not been seeking truth or didn’t know about the truth; 2) how can I do better in my life. That’s why there are many anecdotes from Bitcoiners that report changing their health habits after holding bitcoin because they realize they were following diets or advice that was not conducive to the truth of their bodies. Also, they take more personal responsibility over their lives then they did before rather than exporting to others. I find this is fascinating. There is something about fiat money that is indeed unhealthy that warrants more examination and discussion.

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

I am not sure the inflation thing is true. Yes prices are higher, but do we really need to work harder today for the things we had yesterday? Well maybe if you compare two consecutive days, but how about 30-40 years? Some things like housing and education are undeniably more expensive, but how about electricity? It was a major budget item when I was a kid, now it is an after thought.

Also many things that we spend our money on today couldn't be purchased at any price 40 years ago.

So while we can complain about prices we should check if our expectations are actually the same as they were in the past. Maybe those have inflated as well.

ChipTuner 6mo ago

Well I think there is a generational thing here too. Specifically on the electricity thing, our bills have nearly doubled in the past 5 years, and utility usage is on everyone's mind by me. I mean hell, I pay like $200/month and live with other people. The price of electricity went from of the cheapest on the east coast at $.09/kwh to about $0.16 from 2019 to may of this year.

Sure most consumables have gotten cheaper alternatives, but that's it they're cheaper, and arguably have to be replaced more often. I don't really want to get into the quality argument, but if were going to say that the exact same goods have gotten cheaper in proportion to the buying power of the dollar I think it's fair to ask _what_ were buying.

Example:

The pickup truck I daily drive listed at $21,500 off the lot in 1999. The exact same truck now, same options, configuration etc, in 2020 model in 2020 listed for $80,000. That same 2020 pickup used in 2023 with 65,000 miles on it was still priced at $48,000 which I almost bought like a sucker (which was a really good deal at the time). You could argue that my 1999 F250 could almost be replaced with a 2020 F150 in towing capacity, so I wouldn't need an F250 anymore an F150 _can_ almost do the same job compared. Are you getting the same product? Are you getting the same value?

ChipTuner 6mo ago

Yes, the newer one is, safer quieter, drives smoother etc. I understand where some of the price has gone. But I can't get the same thing I had, for the same price. Unfortunately, this was my previous area of expertise, the newer ones cost signifcantly more to own year/year, and are significantly less reliable than the 94-03 configurations were then, and now.

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

As things evolve, biology/technology etc they always get worse on average over the short term, but better on average over the long term. How do today's trucks stack up against trucks from the 70's and 80's? you might have a few well-maintained exceptions, but by-and-large vehicles from that era were complete garbage.

Any random modification to a system is more likely to be detrimental than productive. Thus things are always getting worse. But detrimental changes are less fit and lose out to positive changes over the long run so things are always getting better.

The only way things get worse and stay worse is if people stop trying things or if there stop being sufficient people to maintain them.

I suspect that a time will come in the next decade or two when a truck comes along that is both more affordable than yours and is far better in utility. Efforts like the Slate pickup give me hope. It is kinda trash, but it has really great ideas.

liminal 🦠 6mo ago

Just to note, in case you'd like to explore more: What you're describing is The Baldwin Effect and Hinton & Nowlan's "How learning can guide evolution" - where evolution instantiates systems in some fitness landscape, a global exploration process, and learning has each system explore their local neighborhood. When combined, what results is not that the most fit are selected, but those instantiated in areas with the highest capacity to improve their fitness are selected, while those that may start off with high fitness, a small change can send them into a trough.

So ultimately, the evolutionary process results not in finding the peaks (because it doesn't really help if you're stuck on a massively thin plateau in fitness space), but the places with highest capacity to improve.

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

Hmm. Interesting. I guess I have taken it for granted that this was the case. I don't think we could evolve language without it. Humanity is unique in the amount of information encoded memetically. I take it to be 50/50 with genetic information. Not for any rigorous analysis of information content but as the roughest possible rounding meaning "I don't know but it is a lot"

I haven't actually ever studied evolution so take everything I say with all the salt the sea.

But ...

I define life very generally as information that replicates in it's environment.

So the idea that human replication includes biological encoding as well as educational encoding presents no problem. There is also no reason the information cannot choose the better carrier. Education allows extremely fast and complex adaptation, but it is also very lossy.

I don't think it is possible to completely understand the interplay of different types of information that we have. We can't see all the assumptions that go into the perceptions that allow us to communicate in the first place. We also can't see all the consequences of what may seem silly traditions. Things like marriage that are half encoded in our DNA and half encoded in society.

Then you get to the fact that society is it self an emergent evolving thing. All the information needed to run society cannot be encoded into one individual. I think this where the notion of sheeple comes from. We understand one corner of learned social necessity and assume everyone else who doesn't understand it is a sheep. But they are thinking the same of us as they perform their own critical function.

This is why I don't like labeling things "Fiat." It could be that things that don't make sense to us and appear dictated from on high are simply received cultural encodings that are inhabiting different minds.