Yeap, makes sense to spend more time on here.
The whole point of growing up is learning to distinguish true information from false information. Bureaucracies miss that point. We don't make a better world by removing false information on behalf of people, but by cultivating a responsible citizenry that can do that for themselves.
Because the only sensible thing to do, is to allow for the individual themselves to decide what is and what isn't disinformation.
Attaching identify to money creates more problems than it solves.
I only finally understood #Bitcoin when I understood money. And I only finally understood money when I realized that, more than anything else, money is a measuring stick.
We measure each and every thing, against each and every other thing, using that measuring stick. Even our own time and energy on this planet.
And we can not use a measuring stick that changes willy nilly and expect there to not be gross distortions in the way things are measured.
Gross distortions which lead to immeasurable suffering, in all kinds of seemingly otherwise unrelated ways.
Think abou it.. Imagine you're preparing for a race, which you think is 10km, that's what you train for. Then race day comes, and you realise that their 10km is equal to 50km in your books, because you used a different measuring stick to determine what a kilometer is.
But you have no choice, you must run.
You'd be fucked.
That's what's happening here.
There's no such thing as a benevolent dictator. If there was, we wouldn't need nostr or Bitcoin.
These protocols exist, because benevolent dictators don't exist.
Yes, Putin must be stopped. I'm not saying he shouldn't. And let's imagine Putin was stopped, ask yourself, would stopping Putin contribute to stopping a war between the USA and China, a conflict with likely far worse consequences for the entire planet?
That's the point.
I'm all for stopping Putin. But unless you also recognize that the root cause is a insatiable craving for power, which leads to constant war, this conflict will be followed by another, and another and another.
This is not a Russian perspective. Read the second line of the note. "Born and raised in the Ukrainian part of former USSR."
This is precisely what I was referring to when I described a conflict driven mindset.
Ask yourself, if Putin were to magically dissappear of the face of the planet tomorrow (a scenario I would gladly welcome) would that contribute to avoiding a war between the USA and China?
And, from a planetary perspective, which war is more likely to have more devastating consequences: an indirect confrontation between USA and Russia, in Ukraine, or a direct confrontation between the USA and China?
I'm married to a Russian woman who was born and raised in the Ukrainian part of the former USSR and both my kids speak fluent Russian.
You should know, Putin is a ruthless dictator who will kill you for saying the wrong thing.
But the smoking gun in this Ukrainian situation is the fact that senior American diplomats have been warning their own government, since the mid 90's, to stop military expansion to the east. For fear of exactly this situation the world now finds itself in.
Back then Russia was not a threat. The USSR had just collapsed. There was no need to further build up defences in Western Europe against Russia.
If the US followed the advice of their own advisers, chances are Putin wouldn't have amassed the power he did. Because like any good politician he's riding on the emotions of people, and the flames of those emotions have been fanned for decades, by a constantly growing threat, creeping in from the west.
So if you ask, who's the agressor in Ukraine? Obviously it's Putin.
But the question you should be asking is, who spawned him?
And the answer to that is that the existence of Putin is a reaction to an incessant desire for conflict, to the extent that conflict must be created when there is none.
And it is undeniable that this effort to create conflict has, since World War 2, and particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, been led by the US and its militray industrial complex.
It is the same story over and over again: create the enemy to justify the fight you want. Drunk idiots do it in bar fights, and this is no different. Except these guys aren't drunk on alcohol, but on something far more potent: power.
Bearded terrorists living caves, then Putin, then China. That's what you get when you spend more than half a century fomenting conflict to feed the beast.
I'm not defending what Putin is doing and if you think that's I'm doing, you're approaching this conversation with that same conflict driven mindset.
What I'm saying is: if you want to do something constructive, address the root cause of the problem.
Because even if Putin were to magically dissappear off the face of the planet tomorrow, the beast's desire for conflict would only foment it elsewhere.
And it's already clear where it's likely heading to next.
Shitcoinery will melt your brain. Don't do it.
I don't spend enough time here, but I am here. Because I don't think there's a future in centralized alternatives to things that can realistically be done in a decentralized way.
Nostr is refreshing, I think it's the absence of shitcoinery that's rejuvenating.
After more than half a century of imperial ambitions, bombs, coup d'etats, numerous illegal wars, and countless lives lost...
The first criminal charges brought against a former US president relate to hush money and an affair with an adult film actress.
Let that sink in.
The tide is turning. Can you feel it?
Super stoked🤩 The kids are skating!!!
I understand that there are vulnerable people who rely on government grants to survive, and some really have no other choice. But I feel physically ill every time I have to pay annual taxes. Because the blatant corruption makes what little help vulnerable people do receive, pale into insignificance. And I truly believe that the natural philanthropy of regular people like you and I would do a far better job than government programs currently do. Especially if we weren't robbed of our earnings through taxes that fund corrupt politicians.
I pay my accountant in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin will be used in South Africa, en masse, by ordinary people to opt out of paying taxes. Those people who cannot afford to emigrate, but who still earn enough to be a milking cow for the state. This will happen here, before it happens in most other countries. Because South Africa has a tiny tax base paying astronomically high taxes to fund a large welfare state. Less than 10% of the population pay more than 90% of all income tax while approximately 50% of the population receive some form of social income grant. And the government here collects more from income tax than any other form of tax. Yet those people who pay up, receive almost nothing in return. Public infrastructure is basically non-existent or dysfunctional. People have been asking themselves for years, what exactly am I paying for? And everyone, even the most law abiding of them all, have a breaking point. Government debt is already higher than it's ever been before. And the tax base is shrinking faster than ever before. High income earners are leaving. It's only a matter of time until the government resorts to taking more from tax payers and resorts to more extreme forms of asset confiscation. Expropriation without compensation is already a thing. And it's only a matter of time until ordinary people decide to opt out of a completely broken system. KYC free Bitcoin being an obvious candidate. FYI, I have never, and will never, reccomend anyone to evade paying the tax they legally owe. And always consult a professional before doing anything.
