Nostr Web Client

The way I was reading it, the tool in question is one that manipulates/abuses the followers. By the nature of what Twitter is and how the algo works, the influencer, by using the tool, is putting more negative energy and cyclical abuse into the world. Whether they stack sats with the income, or buy a new car, their income is earned from an activity that feeds a system of harming one’s fellow human beings. The influencer may be acting (somewhat) freely, “using the tool”, but the follower is being manipulated and further trapped in the system, and the influencer’s wealth is extracted from the attention of addicted individuals. So the influencer isn’t the master - they are the slave driver - profiting from a system that they too are stuck in, but that places them in a higher “class” than their peers. Something like that…

Lauren of Light ☀️ 1y ago 💬 1

I get where you’re coming from, Boston, but respectfully, the idea that influencers are inherently “slave drivers” misses the nuance. The real problem is that we’re born into a system where survival means navigating broken money and distorted incentives. This system drives manipulation, because people are forced to figure out how to thrive in a rigged game. The tool may be built to manipulate, but individuals still have the freedom to decide how they use it. If someone stacks sats while leveraging X, that doesn’t automatically make them complicit in harm.

Bitcoin shows us there’s a way out, realigning incentives with sound money and decentralization. Instead of rejecting tools outright, we should focus on mastering them, shifting the energy toward freedom, and helping others see the path to bitcoin, nostr, health, mental wellness. Influencers can choose to add value, not feed addiction cycles. The issue isn’t just the platform, it’s the broken system we’re all trying to escape. Intention is what makes the difference.

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🇩𝔢𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔱 🇼𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪 1y ago

Good views on both sides that lead one to wonder if intention is more important than the action.

Do current actions not matter as long as your intentions are pure, and perhaps focusing on using the system to change the future is the focus? What if more people are lost in this path with pure intentions? Maybe at the end they may be found after ghe intention is accomplished?

Essentially, does the end justify the means?

boston wine 1y ago

I appreciate the reply 🫂 There’s definitely important nuance here. The quality of an influencer’s content, for one thing. Earning money for sharing media that helps other people to get free is arguably a positive action. (It’s also tricky, and I feel like it’s safe to say that the quality of most influencer content is in fact tailored to keep others stuck).

I definitely get the idea of working from within a restricted/rigged system to try and change it… but my gut feeling here is that there’s something still problematic here, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s around earning money (regardless of what the money is later spent on) by using a tool that has so many negative externalities. It feels like utilizing Twitter in this way, even when good content is shared and sats are stacked, comes with its own problems... the incentives are so distorted that even a well-intentioned user can easily fall into toxic habits, generally creating more Karma, more attachment, more stuck-ness.

The sats are often earned at another human’s expense, and not because they willingly and knowingly exchanged value for value, but because the influencer used a skill set to manipulate other users’ behavior in the pursuit of clicks and views, often doing harm to those users’ psyches in the process.