That's definitely coming. The reason why I haven't added it yet is that it would be very short at the moment, with only Tbilisi as the first city :)

Working on having a longer list...

Thanks for the comment, glad to see you've really read things through!

I actually wrote the refund policy back when I thought it would be possible to have credit card payments. I was leaning into the reality of payment clawbacks: people are able to just pull back payments through their credit card provider, even when everything has gone well for them. The banks will side with their customer, not the merchant. In many cases it's completely unfair for the merchant, but it is the reality and cannot be changed.

With bitcoin payments, customer-initiated refunds are of course not technically a thing, but I think building on a bitcoin standard effectively "requires" the refund policy to be very much on the side of the customer.

It is extremely important to protect the long term reputation of the business and not let short term greed get on the way. If the customer feels that the service wasn't up to snuff, the situation needs to be corrected and at that point it's already too late to "fight" over money. The refund threshold has to be extremely low.

It is of course possible that some people might abuse such a policy, but then it becomes a question of numbers: is the increased trust of the majority worth the losses from a few bad apples? I guess that remains to be seen, but I'm betting that this is the correct approach.

Was the reason maybe connected to this stuff? I'm reading between the lines there that them being "uncomfortable" = cognitive dissonance?

https://primal.net/e/note1gl62rypp6qg2az2507e7t58nqy4tu8yfvn3hyvkkrfhewzdutupq728pal

It seems to be the latest update, I think in that episode nostr:npub1mygerccwqpzyh9pvp6pv44rskv40zutkfs38t0hqhkvnwlhagp6s3psn5p mentions that the podcast is taking a lot of time away from his coding... quite understandable.

The reason why I even looked up the podcast was this speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddvHagjmRJY

Hugely inspirational, and really unlocked my thinking around Sovereign Landing. I thought that I HAD TO have credit card payments on the site for the business to work.

Sure I've been planning to have bitcoin payments from the beginning, but I was stuck in the mindset of the credit cards being an absolute must.

To have those, you have to be registered with the state, otherwise the banks won't even spit in your general direction.

Well, I tried that, but I was still getting turned away from the banks. This whole summer I was fighting with them to be accepted, but it was just a miserable process of groveling in the feet of the bureaucrats, with make-belief work to conform with their idiotic made up requirements - wasting huge amounts of energy that should have been used for the benefit of future customers.

This is my blog post on that experience: https://www.sovereignlanding.com/high-future-preference/becoming-free-business-the-real-reason/

The "stuff we need" is a great point, as that will definitely be part of this service. Optimally, we could just get most landlords to "bite the bullet" and get good enough equipment so that all the necessary stuff is included in the rent.

There's a basic "common sense" list that we do require, but asking too much will be... too much.

A good example is my workstation. I need a 160*80cm standing desk with a 35" ultrawide display if I'm going to be working anywhere for longer than two weeks.

These two things alone can cost in the range of $1000 (depending on the country, can be even more than that). If I'm renting for $500 per month for two months, it's going to be a big ask to get the landlord to buy these :D

I see two main solutions for this:

1. We could convince the landlords that if they invest in this stuff, their apartment will be high in demand by our customers and they can then make back their money that way. This is probably doable over time, but can still be a tough sell before having a steady stream of customers!

2. Even if #1 works out well over time, it can never be a solution for "everything anyone wants". People will always want to have some of their own special things, and that's totally ok. We can help find those on the local market, or get them online (or maybe just help send them from country to country).

The bigger question with #2 is what then happens when you leave? Depends on the stuff and your plans of course - there are a few different choices.

If it's generic stuff that other people can use, we ("we" really meaning your local agent!) may be able to just find a buyer (another customer) for that stuff, or maybe buy it from you and rent it for those who want to use it.

You might also want to just store it for your return, or sell it yourself, but I'm hoping that this service will enable us to skip these "sell it yourself" scenarios - they're hardly ever worth the hassle.

My vision is that this service will allow seamless arrival AND leaving so that we can just pack our (hand) luggage and go without having to spend any brain cycles for the physical stuff.

I haven't yet put much of this in writing on the site because I need to be careful that the first customers don't then be like "but you promised that all the stuff would be handled and included in the base price!"... working on it, need to focus on the base service first :)

In any case, we will work with you on getting all the necessary stuff on a case-by-case basis, and then have better defined services for this when we have a decent understanding of the customer needs.

A camper van would actually be a lot more stuff than what I have now 😄 ... a few suitcases and a couple different workstations in different locations. A workstation is mostly just a wide standing desk and ultrawide 35" display. Need these to work, non-negotiable. Of course, these could fit into a camper van. I've been planning to do that too, but I'm not sure if I want that as my only choice. Overall any "one choice" seems to turn sour over time.

It was trying to open Electrum wallet, even though I have the Alby extension installed... so I think that depends on user/OS settings. Electrum has probably marked itself to my OS as "the bitcoin wallet".

I had this same functionality on my own site working already, but it was through the Alby Lightning Publisher WP addon and it was causing other issues (backend kept crashing). Alby crew is looking into it, so I'm hoping to get my lightning donation buttons back online soon 😃

nostr:npub1rtlqca8r6auyaw5n5h3l5422dm4sry5dzfee4696fqe8s6qgudks7djtfs posted this thing about Ross yesterday, and that made its way into my dream. I was in some rural deep south town, maybe somewhere Alabama or Louisiana. It was voting day and I went to vote in some old wooden church. When I arrived, the local election officials were doing crack at the backseat of some 70s mobile.

When I arrived they got out to see if I had the right to vote, and I showed them my Finnish driver's license (which doesn't officially count as valid voter ID even in Finland, lol). They didn't understand it but because it clearly was an ID, they let me through.

I don't remember all the details from inside the voting church, but RFK Jr. was there and he was pissed because someone was smoking indoors. Somehow this smoking tied into the fact that he was telling people to vote for candidate #6, but at this point I had already voted... for #7.

I woke up confused and angry for having voted the wrong candidate.

After I regained my senses a bit, I was just laughing at this crazy unrealistic dream - there aren't that many candidates in US elections!

nostr:note1xqswfftnr8fd2jcs6u9trzamfjlwdrj84fgs990s848c3tdnqdnqs5cw50

Tested and it worked. UX could be improved by having a lightning metatag so that Alby browser extension could pick up on this without having to use the clipboard (many clickety-clicks could be avoided that way). Also, would be nice if content loaded automatically after the payment is received, no need to keep the QR code on the screen after that.

As a side note, I'm not at all convinced that QR codes are the best way to go on websites. Better way is to just have direct payment buttons like Primal (for example) has for zapping. One click and done - or 1-2 clicks more if the payment needs to be accepted in the wallet. QR codes are a good fallback if the browser doesn't have payment support extensions.

nostr:npub1klkk3vrzme455yh9rl2jshq7rc8dpegj3ndf82c3ks2sk40dxt7qulx3vt spitting absolute fire on this Nostrovia podcast with nostr:npub1mygerccwqpzyh9pvp6pv44rskv40zutkfs38t0hqhkvnwlhagp6s3psn5p (link to the full podcast episode at the end of the post). This part of the conversation was such gold that I made it into a separate clip: https://m.primal.net/LJjL.mp4

This part of the conversation is about the book Second Realm: https://libertyunderattack.com/product/second-realm-book-on-strategy/ (you can download and listen to it for free)

My highlights from the conversation in text:

[Gsovereignty]

...We can also orange-pill the world by hiring everyone...

[Max]

Yeah, cause ultimately free people are productive people and productive people want to build stuff...

Not just do we need to produce services and goods in the 2nd realm that cannot be acquired in the 1st realm, but likewise there is a demand in the 2nd realm that cannot be provided or satisfied in the 1st realm... and so then 1st realm agents will migrate into the 2nd realm in order to produce those goods and services for 2nd realm inhabitants.

[Gsovereignty]

I think I will take that hint and start referring to the bitcoin world as the 2nd realm

[Max]

Yeah it's a perfect fit...

... (Second Realm) It's a book on strategy, how to build a productive parallel society that gets humanity through this dark time of parasitism. We need to have people continuously producing, DESPITE the enormous amount of theft that is going on, and we need to build tools and strategies that make being productive cheaper.

There is a gigantic demand in this area, and therefore huge opportunities for value creation and profit.

So, this is ultimately I think what is going for us, like back during the Soviet regime: you had the Soviet economy, centrally planned and everything going to shit and rotting and no value being created at all, and you had the much more liberal western societies with more free market producing enormous amounts of incredible things.

You just see the two markets and centrally planned slavery societies always underperform property-rights based freedom societies, like always has, always been, will always be... just because of economic reality.

So in the long run we will see exactly the same thing happening again: the first realm, centrally managed, fiat-controlled and slave/theft based system is going to dwindle and further decrease in capital.

It will devour itself more and more, and as it is dying it will have to devour itself even at a faster rate, just to keep up. While simultaneously the free world will produce things that we cannot even yet imagine, at a scale we cannot even fathom...

...and that will continue to increase, as we continue to write the code that decreases the cost for doing so, and we're not stopping to write the code!

The full episode is here: https://fountain.fm/episode/1UPPuhyd3St7E3RCpBsX

I agree with your general sentiment when it comes to religions - but I think it's mistaken to say that the _concept_ of god is fiat. It might be just misled superstition, or something else, but I wouldn't call it fiat.

Completely disconnected cultures don't have the same general concept because someone told them so. Definitions of that concept are another thing - that can be fiat.

Exactly. The right to exit is the key. Understanding this makes so many past fights just irrelevant, and allows building & scaling "not fully but decentralized enough" systems.

Why I started Sovereign Landing

I've been location independent for over 8 years. Nomadic lifestyle isn't easy, but Sovereign Landing solves my biggest pain...

During these 8 years, at times I've attempted to have just one permanent base. Every time I try, reality seems to start sending me subtle or not-so-subtle hints that I shouldn't even be trying that... so I'm now leaning 100% into a semi-mobile lifestyle - permanently.

I'm not constantly moving around because that would be just a ton of wasted energy, but I'm not living anywhere permanently either. A few different places per year.

This comes with some issues of course. Nomadic lifestyle is especially challenging over the long term - most people who try this just give up. Many find lack of community the worst aspect, but I've never really cared about that - my communities have always been online.

What I personally find the most difficult is the actual moving - having to find a new apartment in a new country, and setting it up. That's tolerable to do maybe once, but the frustration compounds over time.

This happened again in the beginning of 2024. I was busy with life and knew I wanted to go to Tbilisi, Georgia, so I did. I just thought I'd get a temporary Airbnb while I find an actual longer-term rental. Should be easy, right?

Well, it's never that simple, and that hit me once again when I started the apartment hunting process. I remembered vividly what absolute drain of energy it is. It usually means weeks of focus destroyed.

That's true even if you hire local help, as that hiring process by itself can be long and arduous! If the first person you hire can't get the job done (somewhat likely!) you have to start from scratch - fffffuuuuu...

I did find a good reliable local person in Tbilisi (Nina), and during her apartment hunting I just couldn't help thinking "if this thing here and that thing there was done slightly differently, this could be like 10-100x easier". These things kept popping up in my head.

Nina was working as a real estate agent part time, and when she mentioned that she could have time for more customers, I just put 1+1+1 together.

I know something about online marketing. Nina is an expert on the local market. And I'm definitely an expert on taking sort-of-functional processes, ripping them apart and turning them into great customer experiences. That's how the idea of Sovereign Landing got started!

I've been building this project primarily with myself as the primary customer avatar, but it's now high time to start getting some market feedback from OTHER people - preferably customers! 😀

I'd highly appreciate it if you can check out the site and let me hear your thoughts?

https://www.sovereignlanding.com/

A not-at-all-thought-through idea that came to mind just now when reading this. Maybe the "vote to kick" system could be a betting market:

You vote for/against kicking an account with sats. If majority of the votes (sats) vote for kicking that account, the ones who voted for kicking get the sats of those who voted against it. And vice versa...

Not sure how/if this would work in practice, just a random idea.

That's like asking "how does internet make money?". It doesn't. Businesses built ON the internet can though 😉

Just out of curiosity: in your mind, was this also the case during the covid lockdowns?

Any and all collectivist projects that don't require violent repression or coercion of others are ok. You're free to start any such project, as long as one of the project requirements isn't violent expropriation of resources from others... I hope you don't feel that this is a deranged starting point?

Martti Malmi and Iris. I was a user there back when Martti was working on his own decentralized protocol. Then Nostr came around.

Excellent questions. I don't see the nation states necessarily dying out, just diminishing in importance. Same thing has happened with the examples you mentioned: they're still around, but not in the same sense as they once were.

Also check out Owncloud. There was something fishy with Nextcloud, but I can't remember the details...