I like to think about in similar terms as the internet and what we now call legacy social media like X. They weren’t perfect and had the current issues baked in from the beginning . But they were far more decentralized then the newspapers and tv news channels of the previous era. Freedom and decentralization is a continual battle and there is no panacea.

Also think that a major issue with big blocks as a scaling solution is that it inevitably leads to centralization because the blockchain bloat eventually means that no one can afford to run a node except large data center operators. Imaging a 1000TB+ chain. So while individuals have a level of autonomy in transferring on chain they trade off privacy and consolidation of nodes and don’t get to chose who operates the nodes.

With layer 2 solutions such as fedimint and cashu an individual gets to chose who they do business with and I believe individuals will do business with a number of them at the same time. Some may be fractional reserve, some may not but the important thing is that they will be auditable in real time and not enjoy protection as banking racket and be based on a sound monetary base. Will the system be corrupted or gamed in the future at some point? probably! But what’s the alternative.

On philosophical level I don’t believe that complete and unconditional individual autonomy is a desirable goal. Humans are social creatures and can really only exist in extended social realities. And it seems those social realities actually define the individuals and visa versa. So I think bitcoiners and freedom lovers need to be less individualistic and form strong social bonds around something coherent to bind them together in order to resist tyranny. Otherwise they get isolated and picked off.

Anyway those are some of my thoughts sorry for the long rant, you asked😂