Correct.

Seen.

censorship is all around us, and pervades all big tech platforms. but because it consists in what is not seen, it is often very hard to see.

indeed

middlemen have their place

(from Tibor Fischer's My Bags are Big; a good read)

All the best evidence supports a sh*t waterfall interpretation. I am bound to the evidence!

I don't always get quoted in my local paper of record. But when I do, I am unable to refrain from saying what I really think about crypto token pumpers

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/life/the-crypto-bros-are-back-the-hubris-never-really-left

Philosophers are thought killers!

"Acquit Roman Storm, and I will end all tariffs."

Wow!

the first time I heard the term 'thought leader', I thought it was a joke and laughed. an insane thing to call yourself. same for 'changemaker'.

little did I know.

This follows from a more general principle.

Gerrymandering illustrates how automation in policy can be better than discretion. If you give a legislature the power to chop things up as they will, they will do so in ways that benefit the dominant local party. A better alternative is for an algorithm to draw districts instead, regularly revising so as to keep seats across a territory in line with popular vote (so that, e.g., when 40% of Californians vote GOP, GOP gets 40% of the House seats for California).

Bitcoin obeys a similar principle. Rather than delegating monetary policy to trusted authorities, it automates that policy in highly predictable ways, and regularly revises (i.e., the difficulty adjustment) to keep things in line with what's expected. The outcomes needn't be optimal for this system to be superior, note; for there is no guarantee that those trusted parties will enact optimal policies, and they often fail in this task! The best argument for automated policy, then, is not that it is for the best always and everywhere, but that it is typically for the better.

politician ::lies::

world ::sighs::

me ::sighs not so::

some people out there don't know who Barbara, Celarent, Darii, and Ferio are, and it shows

There is no guarantee that the miracle will persist. The price of liberty is always eternal vigilance. And more GitHub repos.

The miracle is not over. Rather, it hides, and you have to look closely to detect its presence. Bitcoin, Tor, nostr, bittorrent, e2ee messaging, VPNs — all flawed tech stacks that nonetheless protect us from full disenchantment.

Schrödinger's bitcoin: an asset superpositioned between youthful ('we are still early'), and aged indeed ('bitcoin is here to stay').

We collapse to whichever position is convenient, of course, and return to the superposition when the move is complete.

It is unfortunate that the very protocol that'd be great for recovering addicts is also great for drug dealers.

But that is in the nature of the beast.

Airport calls for "Friends of Bill W" is an interesting use case for bitchat. I could see that finding actual use, and for the good.

For those not acquainted with this subculture:

People in recovery often find airports challenging — this is a place where one is socially permitted to drink at any hour of the day — and call for help there to remain sober. An anonymous location-based, p2p chat app fits the bill.

It is a good day to rise with the sun and to visit the bank branch for a sixth time to see if I can wire out my “own” money to my “own” account.

As we say, furthermore, the other version of the argument requires hyperbitcoinization, an implausible scenario that in its more likely forms actually involves *enhanced* rather than limited state fiscal capacity (through early acquisitions of bitcoin). If states work to dramatically accelerate bitcoin appreciation, it will likely be to their benefit, not their harm.

Rumors that bitcoin will destroy the state are exaggerated (Resistance Money, p. 255) nostr:note1pjql05hq9euuxkfznqyt0aw4n4gtptrw6r76ddkqzvswaxvv9n9q7vrcnw

This has always been what attracted me to bitcoin, and what I still look for on the internet today — something closer to the wild Usenet and IRC and forum experiences I had in the 90s than curated Instagram feeds or censored news and opinion on Twitter. Pirated music. Sharing ideas. An ever-shifting cast of pseudonyms. nostr:note1amqjnf7mqpklwmry3hsczh9v4cmp3sc2ktcn927ng694tp42re6q3cks2q

There’s a bunch of bots that do this now — scrambling and reposting notes. I can’t quite figure out their game. If you do, let me know.

Thank you so much, Jake, for your kind attention and the post!

Fast food is drugs

Nostr isn’t a drug; it’s food

dr. ecash!

The canonical account says that it was rain, alongside something a bit more mysterious:

“When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.”

Noah was a conspiracy theorist. And then it rained.