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.
