Libertarians and Degenerates
With the rise of the Internet and access to public/private key cryptography and encryption, the idea of a private and secure digital money emerged among some libertarians, Austrian economists and cypherpunks.
However, every iteration of a new digital currency seemed to bump up against the problem of trust and truthful accounting of ownership.
In early 2010, during my study of the fallout from the financial crisis, I joined a community of fellow libertarians and degenerates on a new financial website called Zerohedge.
A couple of pseudonymous characters who called themselves Tyler Durden and Marla, in reference to the movie “Fight Club”, were writing and aggregating blog posts covering detailed financial analysis, the ills of modern finance, and the merits of gold. The site’s ethos is maybe best summed up by the tagline on the top of its page: “On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero”.
The comment section of this hedonistic cesspool was on fire with anonymous characters battling opinions in a wonderful exposé of unrestricted free speech that only the Internet can facilitate.
It was there I first discovered Bitcoin.
I think it was the censorship and monetary deplatforming of Wikileaks that really got me curious. When they came out and said they accepted donations in bitcoin, a seed was sown.
Unfortunately, the pro-gold and anti-Bitcoin attitude of the degenerates in the comment section of Zerohedge initially put me off doing my own research into what the hell was going on with this Magic Internet Money. Bitcoin was constantly ridiculed and labeled a ponzi scheme. Still, I could not help but notice one very prolific Bitcoin supporter talking big with incredible conviction day in and day out, despite all the ridicule and downvotes. Bless you fonestar, hope you still got your coins!
The Flaws of Gold
During my time of escape from the rat race, the discovery of the ills of inflation, and the moral hazard it plays on the back of my fellow man, I was struggling to find hope for a solution outside of politics.
For a long time I hedged myself with physical gold, advocated for a return of gold as primary settlement and monetary reserve asset on central bank balance sheets. I thought if they just allowed the free floating price of gold to balance the books we could right this ship.
Reading the words of Another, an anonymous dude posting on the blog section of usgold.com back in 1997-1998, opened my eyes to the connection between oil and gold and the backroom dealings that were going on.
It made me believe a great reset was just around the corner, which it is.
Gold would be free from suppression and once again show its true colors as the best money in the world, the ultimate store of value. I had the simple view that gold is money and everything else is credit — paraphrasing JP Morgan.
What I never really understood was that the problem of trust, portability, security, transparency, and truthful accounting that lead to the inevitable corruption of gold as money in the first place, hindered its return.
It took some time before I realized the futility of managing a return to a gold backed currency, even with a free floating gold price.
The fiat system was partially held together by managing a discounted price of gold so that major oil trading partners could reinvest some of their petrodollars into real money while they officially held dollars and treasuries in their reserves.
My first article in Citadel21 https://www.citadel21.com/discovering-digital-gold
The one out note17nf0qa9ngsht8w8r0swur5v52zgkf934cw74yyucwdwytgmdc45svnwesx
one zap in one zap out
The separation of money and state is way overdue.
Nostr, email and bitcoin merged into one single internet identifier, your lightning address.
Facebook, twitter, instagram, gmail, paypal et all is now obsolete.
This is a game-changer. A permission-less censorship- resistant decentralized revolution is upon us.
Few understand the ramifications of this.
When are we gone see the first OTA update vehicle hack?
The US is off the rails
I will take unrecorded zaps (private lightning donations not linked to my id and post) over NIP 57 recorded zaps all day long. #[1]
A short story
A short story 
Nip 57 Zapping adds an extra dopamine hit for voluntary entering the brave new nostr surveillance economy.
By thoroughly discussing the design choices and trade off's with regard to existing lnurl implementations, backwards compatibility, added complexity, effect on incentives with regard to centralisation pressures and so forth. Move fast and break things is not a good philosophy in protocol development imo. 
This situation could have been avoided. I am a little sad nostr devs pushed NIP-57 out of the gate disregarding warnings from @fiatjaf and others. #[1]
Nostr is moving fast, and some things may break. You can now easily back up and download your history in nostrgram.co
Ahh found it in settings advanced
I guess we would see an update to stacker news profile where we can add an npub soon then.
Testing stacker.news zap support.