Can I pay for 'premium' for nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg with #bitcoin?

I wanna support the service ... but with sats

I didn't see that option

this is last week's news but it's worth repeating since it seems some bitconers have forgotten and have been cheering on getting 'better terms' from a dying, dysfunctional world rather than building a new one

the IMF is the enemy

save the date

April 10th @ nostr:npub1theparkprcs70dcs437ke9zzwsr6u60f8flu7rg28m30438aep9sd94dha

nostr:note1gu45k08mdq44sdryn7zk749264zpqqcra5aj6ygzxjxkcc0a672qsyumxe

good morning from Bitcoin Country!

it's good to be home :)

#ElSalvador

now scheduled for 3:55

see you in an hour!

nostr:note1wf8lvf7c88mk6jkpm6eft2523nq684fp5jeslxpktl07lk0ts2mq4sle6l

see you at 3:30 today!

nostr:npub1dtvscxrhj224un2yeqvca5y4tp8ly02u2ndpeggzl4xf63c5c6ws53wc6t

nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3

#abc24

'we need to own the protocol layer. we need it to be permissionless'

nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m at nostr:npub1dtvscxrhj224un2yeqvca5y4tp8ly02u2ndpeggzl4xf63c5c6ws53wc6t talking about Nostr

THIS is what's it's about--empowering individuals to define their own destiny, to write their own stories, to be in control of their own lives

good morning from Nairobi

Day One of the African Bitcoin Conference today!

I'll always remember the day Bitcoin crossed $100k

I was on a plane in Kenya, on the way to a Safari. My son fell asleep in my arms, as we flew over the savannah

And I started to cry

Ever since I could remember I wanted to go on a Safari, but the cost was always too high

I'm in Africa to speak at a conference & to meet activists and educators using nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 materials and after some last minute visas my partner and our son joined me. To be speeding toward a lifelong dream, my son asleep in my arms, while also here to push forward a revolution that will reimagine the world was overwhelming...in the most incredible way

I talk a lot about changing the world

...but I am everywhere I want to be

TODAY!

If you are in Nairobi for nostr:npub1dtvscxrhj224un2yeqvca5y4tp8ly02u2ndpeggzl4xf63c5c6ws53wc6t and you are interested in grassroots adoption, this is the event for you

It's a nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 Diploma graduation but it's so much more. nostr:npub1ghhhgrrlqkekma85tgpy6wauczlt9m4gtdnyqt7a49jx2e3p0hwsrmvnj2 has put together some amazing panels of African activists pushing Bitcoin fwd

nostr:note14cn6um2vunt2hxce6p9vu0x5un799kt2vermjfkkv3f2p39saccsrhfmmk

see you tomorrow in Nairobi!

nostr:note14cn6um2vunt2hxce6p9vu0x5un799kt2vermjfkkv3f2p39saccsrhfmmk

Lazer eyes until fiat dies

don't lose focus now

Good morning from Nairobi!

Here for nostr:npub1ghhhgrrlqkekma85tgpy6wauczlt9m4gtdnyqt7a49jx2e3p0hwsrmvnj2 Bitcoin Diploma graduation on the 7th & then nostr:npub1dtvscxrhj224un2yeqvca5y4tp8ly02u2ndpeggzl4xf63c5c6ws53wc6t on the 9th

😎

I'll be traveling to Kenya next week to represent nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 at the African Bitcoin Conference

this is the region where our open-source, empowerment-focused Bitcoin education materials have been growing fastest over the last few months and I'm so excited to meet with activists & educators from around the continent

see you in Nairobi!

last week I paced around on stage at nostr:npub1ad0ptuzte83alpkpqqctvewlaqj5zq23c83m82xw8apg4t6zlyns6xng2c, talking about how nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 was working toward creating a proof-of-concept for a better world for the next generation

meanwhile, my son paced around in front of me

🧡life highlight 🧡

https://m.primal.net/MeZm.mp4

I watched the sun rise over San Salvador Volcano today

I'm so excited. #BitcoinWeek is here!

Huge gratitude to nostr:npub1ad0ptuzte83alpkpqqctvewlaqj5zq23c83m82xw8apg4t6zlyns6xng2c. They are are the OG conference in El Salvador and a cornerstone of turning El Salvador into #BitcoinCountry. So many builders that have moved to El Salvador have tested the waters with this annual conference

They are also an anchor event that others can build around. For example, this is a HUGE week for nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 We are community-funded with significant budget restrictions, add in visa restrictions and much of our staff do not get the opportunity to travel. But this week the world comes to us and we are taking advantage to show off our proof-of-work

TODAY: we have a Bitcoin Diploma graduation with 150 students where YOU can verify their knowledge; in the evening we have a bitcoin board game night (and also classes in a nearby cafe)

TOMORROW: we are hosting a Bitcoin Educators Unconference

FRIDAY: nostr:npub1ad0ptuzte83alpkpqqctvewlaqj5zq23c83m82xw8apg4t6zlyns6xng2c begins, where we will have 9 different people from the team presenting & teaching, some of them various times

This is Bitcoin Week in Bitcoin Country

LFG!

Bitcoin doesn't have a president

and neither do I

(this is always true and doesn't change with election results)

this system can not be reformed, it must be replaced

and it won't replace itself, we need to build something better

everything else is a distraction

this is the way

THE PROBLEM WITH VOTING

Or, How to cede your power in one easy step

----

There is tremendous energy wasted on electoral politics. At best it is a distraction, at worst it serves to suffocate any alternative.

To clarify, this isn’t an attack on voting per se, it’s an attack on what large scale political elections in the United States have become.

We are beaten over the head our entire life with the notion that change begins at the ballot box. That’s false. The reality of change is that it’s uncomfortable. Voting will never yield substantive change because it is designed to prohibit the very discomfort which is a necessary prerequisite to substantive change.

In the civil rights movement blacks that sat at segregated lunch counters did not wait for an election to create change — and that’s exactly why they were successful. When we look back, we think of those sit-ins as righteous and assume they were popular. They weren’t. Forcing change never will be.

Lunch counter sit-ins were effective because they disrupted business as usual and forced people to look at what many would have preferred to avoid. Change happens when the discomfort of its success is less than the discomfort of the present. That means that the push to create a better future will almost always be unpopular in the present. The great tragedy of voting is that it tricks us into believing we can have progress and comfort.

‘Voting is the most important thing you can do,’ they say. Another lie.

That attitude encourages us to neglect our real power, which is our everyday life. When we are told that voting is most important, by default that means all else is less so. It sends an unconscious message that we can neglect other avenues of change and minimizes their appeal.

Voting takes away the burden of responsibility. You did your part, it tells you, you voted for someone to make decisions on your behalf. It allows us to see injustice in the world and think it’s not our role to change it; or worse it allows us to become blind to it completely.

We have arrived at the present because of voting. If we want to stay on this path, then voting will keep us here. If we want to make a substantive divergence, then voting will never take us there. When you vote you are doing so twice, once for the candidate on your ballot and again for the system that placed them there.

We tend to think of elections in negative terms. We vote against people and causes as much as we vote for them. We are always trying to avoid pain and bad consequences. But it cannot just be about slowing the bad, it has to be about speeding the good.

Our power is not which politician you vote for, it’s what you do every day. It’s how you treat people, it’s where you spend your money, it’s what you do for work, it’s what you eat; it’s who you are.

The root of the problem is the concentration of power. Voting for president represents an entrenchment of that imbalance. The system encourages behavior that makes it more likely for certain traits to emerge. For example, the candidate that raises the most money is overwhelmingly likely to win and the candidate with the most money most often is the one that large monied interests prefer. At each rung up the ladder of political power these systemic biases that favor certain behaviors over others become stronger. Still, there are always exceptions and it is possible to elect a candidate that doesn’t fit this broad mold, but once in office they would be an island and have to choose between acquiescing to the dominant system in which they exist or being ineffective.

Voting isn’t necessarily bad. We can delegate others to take charge in areas they understand better than us. We should listen to expert advice. In the ideal, the experts would inform rather than dictate and we would be capable of using that information to make our best individual choices. This would require critical thinking skills, the ability to recognize our own shortfalls where we most need to default to experts and empathy for others to avoid a tragedy of the commons.

In our current state we are not capable of this — but strengthening the status quo by voting makes us even less so. Political parties act as tribes which make us less able to recognize our shortfalls, less open to admit mistakes and has tarnished the neutrality of experts. It also makes us less capable of critical thought as we don’t use that muscle much in a system which tells us to let others decide on our behalf.

Power will always exist, but it doesn’t have to be so concentrated. Our present system is top-down, it could be bottom-up.

This is an ideal and one that won’t come tomorrow. But the longer we hold onto the notion that a better world will ever come from the ballot box the farther away that future becomes. The goal isn’t to burn down this system, it’s to make it irrelevant.