Subnostr

An aspirational goal for Civ Kit

Observation

A large or majority portion of people I interact with engage in illicit trade of some form. For some, this is buying drugs, for others its streaming/torrenting pirated movies, still others are interested in or have purchased 3d printed gun parts. I know multiple people who sold drugs on the silk road for bitcoin, still holding that bitcoin today despite not having a particular ideological conviction to it. Many of the younger crowd are buying/reselling the "flipper zero", and are already familiar with crypto.

Analysis

This activity is not going anywhere, and is a more organic market than I think can be provided by a pure maxi crowd. These goods and services are always in demand, and while you may lament their prevalence, the state has no business in regulating them. Just like bitcoin is most needed by dissidents, so too is a censorship resistant marketplace. If your plan is to sell a hand carved chair, then more power to you, but Craigslist works for that already.

An aspirational goal

Civ Kit should support the same goods and services as the silk road, with all the lightning integrations, federated relays, and tech goodness that we have to offer. Users should be able to shop around using a movie name or magnet link, with relays offering competitive freemium models, where ads for 3d printed guns and drugs can be inserted into a movie stream.

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Discussion

Geist 2y ago

Attract the culture where they are, not where you want them to be.

#[1]

Pablo Xannybar 2y ago

The Flipper Zero isn't illegal. But I have to say I respect the hustle of anyone who can get away with selling them for 3x retail. No idea why people are willing to pay it but hey the market sets the price!

The idea of an unstoppable decentralised Silk Road sounds amazing. That's agorism at its finest.

Banning drugs objectively does not work. It's a failed policy. If I can order pretty much any drug I want and have it drop through my door the next day, the laws don't work. If I can text my dealer and meet him in an hour to pick up a few grams, the laws don't work.

Supply will always meet demand and the state's attempts to prevent market forces will remain as futile as trying to regulate the direction of wind.

Free Ross. Fuck the state.

Geist 2y ago

I think its a fair concern that not using bitcoin means not increasing public adoption. FWIW, there are plenty of people selling bitcoin because otherwise the price would go exponential; but if you are looking for things to trade then we should focus on places it makes the most sense.

On the mundane, buying your VPN sub with mixed coin is a great move, and I'm making full use of the email/aliasing and file storage proton includes. There is a farm near me that grows regenerative agriculture and sells to the local community, when my daily life sorts itself out a bit I'd like to convince them to accept bitcoin as a matter of food security. Zaps make sense, for all the reasons we have seen on nostr.

On the serious, every country has goods they consider illicit, maybe that's drugs, maybe that's raw milk, food in countries with rationing. In countries with very high inflation it starts making sense for sellers to only accept bitcoin, like many central/south american and African countries.

#[3]