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You’ll need to find some democracies first. Let me know how that goes

I understand your position. I come from 15 years of human rights practice, so I don't like to use comparisons with the worst countries, but still, what country did you grow up in? Were you persecuted, tortured for expressing criticism of the authorities?

Democracies no matter how weak they are now, still give you privileges to criticize and enjoy freedom, or elect other government representatives, be elected to replace those whom you don’t like.

Of course it is responsibility and just few people ready to go through this pass. But still you have these privileges, even if you don’t use them.

While in authoritarian countries people literally dying to get this right for their families and their future. It is a massive of the perspective and privilege you enjoy.

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Discussion

El Guiri 1y ago

I totally agree but I just sometimes got very frustrated in conversations with people who just didn’t seem to understand how manipulated that and their system was. I was brought up in Italy for a while, during the Craxi period of full mafiocracy and remember my grandmother stuffing her bra full of notes to smuggle out of the country due to currency controls.

Before moving to uk, I had the pleasure of actually being lucky enough to have left the Wimpy in South Africa 5 minutes before one of mister Mandela’s bombs obliterated it (I still consider him one of the leading statesmen of the 20th century.)

El Guiri 1y ago

Sorry, can’t type more in one note on Damus, goes off screen. I’ve been in a few totalitarian places for short periods and got taken to police station in China for simply trying to spend a night at someone’s house and being reported. I think I have a bit of an idea even though never been involved in fights for freedom (slightly educated by mother who was thrown out of her country for doing so), but I can’t help but find the notion of true democracy in many countries to be contrived.

In uk a few years ago, a member of the military said publicly that “if a certain party wins and there’s a chance of their leader being PM, the military may have to get involved”. No comment was made

El Guiri 1y ago

Maybe just a bit too cynical on all states and centralisation. I tend to think governments should be stripped of most powers so that they don’t become destroyers if freedom

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

Lack of governments brings failed states. Try to travel to countries without governments or dictatorships. Apply to their citizenship and “check” what privileges you would have then.

El Guiri 1y ago

Am not saying abolish. I’m suggesting reduce scope. We don’t want mad max but we don’t want tyrannies. It’s a fine balance and always scope for centralisation and extortion that needs to be kept in check

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

That is ideal. We are at the same page now. But someone has to do it, right?

Who should do it if not you, me and others, who care about human rights and financial freedoms?

El Guiri 1y ago

Bitcoiners are correct. First fix the money. We should never forget that WW1 wasn’t taken seriously at the time as the expectation was that treasuries would be depleted in 3 months. The world had been used to a de facto gold standard which wasn’t placed by any central authority. First, we need the foundation in place that no one can corrupt the money supply to favour wars and expropriation. We then need to work on decentralising the more common human requirements. Governments the world over are simply not efficient at anything due to corruption. Fixing that takes time and will be a battle. Anarchy is rules without rulers and the psychopaths are a small percentage. Humanity has great potential but I can’t help but think that working within legacy paradigms where we focus on fake democracy or tyranny of dictatorships is merely distracting us from the fact that centralised power leads to dis functional systems that do not benefit humanity in general. We also need to try to get back to capitalism and stop brain washing people into thinking that corporatism is the same thing. Capitalism in its true form is simply the expression of trade and the development of tools that society has a need for. Slowly slowly but there’s great potential

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

I think only a few, like #SatoshiNakomoto, could have imagined in 2010-2016 that the internet would be so centralised and controlled. This happened because we allowed it to happen while states developed authoritarian style policies towards technologies and its developers, investors.

We delegated the right to abuse power and had no control over the policymaking process in democracies. This should not be allowed to happen again. I'm talking about myself as well: I thought it would be impossible for governments to control #freedomtech. But you see it happening.

That's why we're not talking to you on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We are discussing it here on #Nosrt, which is a hope for an answer to censorship. But it's not being created in authoritarian states. Most of the developers, donors to this startup are in democracies.

To be clear: I do believe, and have experienced first hand, that protecting money is one of the most important issue.

That is why I defend ability to operate in a legitimate way in democracies for privacy payments developers. We have new technologies because there was and still is an opportunity for such people to develop and grow in democracies.

So I'm advocating and want to bring people into the coalition who understand these risks, particularly around financial freedom. People who are willing to have difficult but important conversations with policymakers proactively, not when it's too late.

El Guiri 1y ago

I stopped using Google in 2012 as it was so obvious that it was censoring and narrowing base of results. Now it’s just a joke.

I admire what you are doing and agree there are countries where a greater level of freedom from tyranny exists, allowing development of decentralised tools etc but many devs are still anonymous for a reason. Lack of anonymity in western countries can result in suicide. Whilst I hope that people like yourself can help improve the system, I consider it sufficiently co-opted that it’s a very hard thing to do. Building new systems and opting out of the old potentially diminished centralised power and associated tyranny

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

Not everyone is ready to give up from different things. Why should we give up, but not defend our rights?

Imagine at some point your right to use #nostr or other thing you like to use, invested your time and money will be limited or taken, will you just give up again?

You life will be spent on something you created but won’t be able to benefit.

Why we should give up?

El Guiri 1y ago

Absolutely but centralisation and perverse incentives have created a situation of either fight or create new and better. I cannot think of any centralised system that has given up power willingly.

One of the greatest failings in western society in the past 30-40 years has been the unfettered rise of monopolistic behaviour and companies using political clout and resources to simply destroy competition in the market. Maybe that would be a good place to start.

El Guiri 1y ago

There is another element here and that is perception. Someone who was brought up with totalitarianism may see some of the freedoms in some “democracies” and consider that worth fighting for whereas people within those systems merely see the deficiencies and consider new systems or methods to be more important to pursue

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

It is not only perception, it is about experience and privileges we have and can enjoy or just don’t have access.

Probably for you writing in English is nothing special, at the same time I know a lot of fathers in authoritarian states who are scarified their lives to give at least the basic education for their children.

Corrupt regimes don’t allow to grow personalities. It is not perception, it is our reality and painful experience.

El Guiri 1y ago

That is definitely a big problem. A less educated society is easier to control which is why dictatorships usually purge free thinkers. How to minimise tyranny is a great challenge to humanity.

The education element was so stark in South Africa. After apartheid ended, understandable to give jobs and opportunities to the previously abused black population but the havock it caused due to lack of education was obvious at first. An awfully messy transition that should never have needed to happen.

It is an indictment of centralised power that one calls these basic rights “privileges”. The fight seems endless between those fighting for freedom and rights and those trying to remove them. One would think humanity can do better. At least we have better tools now!

El Guiri 1y ago

And there’s lots of people working on these things and from these perspectives. You’ll find loads on nostr

Lyudmyla Kozlovska 1y ago

If we don’t use our resources and rights in democracies, no one will ever care about our needs and lives.

But if we join efforts and formulate clear demands, use institutions, public opinion- we can and practice show - will build the rules comfortable for our lives.

Democracies give these privileges, authoritarian regimes kill if you just propose or criticize them. So my proposal is not allow bad actors abuse mechanisms of democracies. Don’t allow abuse and take off our privileges. No one will give power. We have to be systematic in our fight for financial freedom and human rights.