Nostr

Fighting for your right to use Bitcoin won’t be enough - you’re playing into their frame and asking for permission.

No, the system must be built anew from the ground up with Bitcoin at its core and a comprehensive worldview around it.

You can’t fix the world by plugging fixed money into this fiat shitshow. It’s ALL got to go.

I agree, neither stacking nor fighting is enough, both are necessary

Yes. I leave the people who want to fight the system to it because it buys time but I’m under no illusions that they’re going to win and usher in hyperbitcoinisation by assuming power over this system.

We need a new system to supplant this one, creating that is necessary.

Then we can agree to disagree. Building doesn't exclude fighting or vice versa.

Not sure that we do disagree.

Building the parallel system isn’t exclusionary, but time is finite and whilst one is fighting this one they’re by definition not working towards a new one.

Perhaps we disagree that a new one is needed? If so let me make the case for why I think that is necessary.

I don't see it as two separate systems. I see it as an evolution, or building a bridge from where we are to something better.

Concerning fighting:

Some people concentrate fully on building the bridge, others fight to protect the bridge and the builders.

Developing people's understanding of the traditional monetary system and about Bitcoin gives us the moral high ground, which we need in order to build this bridge.

It also fuels the exit from fiat and demand for bitcoin.

My point is very simple: Stacking sats isn't enough.

We agree stacking Sats isn’t enough.

I guess it could be called an evolution, my contention is that bridge can’t lead to a place where today’s systems are simply the status quo with Bitcoin sprinkled on top.

The state isn’t going to wither away. This gigantic bureaucracy won’t just dislodge itself because Bitcoin exists and Bitcoin won’t work in this giant bureaucracy.

Central banks gotta go. Which means banks have to be completely rethought which means all of modern finance is in the bin.

Governments aren’t fit for purpose - the idea we send some representatives to a city to vote on our behalf a few days a year is a laughable joke and leads to what we have today.

The idea they control everything from health to education to social welfare to infrastructure to laws to bin collections to libraries etc - that’s all gotta go.

That has implications. We just made 50%+ of the population redundant; they’re not going to sit by idly with banking/finance/real estate/bureaucracy/education/healthcare/etc stripped out of central planning/funding - they’re going to revolt without a positive alternative to opt in to.

Nation states are a starting point for an easy transition but likely need to devolve into regional or community jurisdictions.

Rules without rulers doesn’t work with a world full of dependents.

Every major movement of the past 500 years had a comprehensive view of the world encompassing not just economics (Bitcoin) but politics, society, culture, religion and law.

Bitcoin alone isn’t enough. We would simply be repeating the Goldbugs mistakes of telling the world about a better monetary system without showing them a better way to live.

People won’t exit fiat unless they can see and feel what a better system is and we haven’t built that yet.

To me, that’s what separation of money and state really means - you abolish the state by building something in its place that people prefer and actively seek out, not by simply telling them their money sucks.

100%

And actually - it's not only about separating money from the state. Bitcoin helps us to separate money from the control of man. Which is what monetary freedom did prior to Bitcoin - as long as people fought for it. When we stopped fighting, fiat hell was brought upon us. It had more to do with this understanding and the morals than it had to do with the monetary technologies themselves.

This is why I love #nostr

We can each put a whole argument forward without arbitrary character limits defined by our subscription level, articulate our differences, find common ground, agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree but actually flesh that out with no-one moderating language or opinions or views and as such we can both make points in good faith and receive them in kind. We opt in to that much like Bitcoin.

This protocol is going to be central for building the alternative for those very reasons.

The digital world is where we will organise and communicate these ideas - meatspace will forever be where we live these ethos but it can be shaped by our unintermediated ability to talk and bring those ideas to life even on opposite sides of the world.

100%

Mike Hall ⚡️ 1y ago

Well said!

To expect others to have a moral obligation simply for using the money of their preference is a relic from fiat.

How long will it be until someone comes along and proposes bitcoiners has a moral obligation to partake in someone else’s idea of «Freedom», that could differ a lot from your idea of freedom?

I disagree wholeheartedly. It has nothing to do with fiat.

It has everything to do with the exact opposite - learning from the history of monetary freedom - meaning - the right to use the money we like best.

One can try to politicize bitcoin, but in the end, it is permissionless by design.

To shame and ostracize those using bitcoin on the most fundamental level, stacking sats, under the narrow construct that this action alone does not live up to a moral obligation, is a step backwards in history.

They are not freeriders, they are simply; free.

The act of solely stacking sats stands on its own.

It is no less an act of free speech compared to other acts.

You say it is «not enough» and that there is «no option» to the obligation you impose. But freedom of speech is a hollow concept without the freedom to not speak.

To impose on someone to act differently out of moral obligation, more accordingly to your idea of freedom, would be to impose an infringement on their freedom.

To stack bitcoin is speech. Stackers practice their freedom of speech at the most fundamental level in #Bitcoin

I find it hard to think of a project that is more political than Bitcoin

People of all political views use it, but bitcoin is apolitical.

There's no need to doubt that creating Bitcoin was politically motivated. This isn't just some stone cold tech.

People can speculate and philosophize around Satoshi’s motivation, even project one’s own political views onto him, but the protocol remains apolitical.

Apolitical is not synonymous to something cold, or dead.

makrokoppen 1y ago

According to you Bitcoin morally obliges us to fight for it. Is that right? How does it do that? Wouldn’t that mean even normies have such an obligation?

Could you elaborate upon what constitutes a “moral obligation”?

I cannot see this requirement. All you need is some sats and private keys. Then you’re ready to go. Bitcoin is amoral and there are no rights to use it. You use it if you want (and if it still works). If not then you don’t. Nobody forces you and you can’t force anybody or impose restrictions on anybody’s use of it other than holding a private key (assuming the network is online).

Then you go on throwing freedom of speech and oppressive state power into the mix. I’m not sure that I follow.

As I see it: you fight and are clearly morally obliged. Which imo is good. We all do what works best for us. But you can’t impose moral obligations on other sovereign individuals. Then you become something closely resembling the State.