https://void.cat/d/GrBGaYHrZvU29SzCq3fJbP.webp

An excerpt from "NOSTR: The Dawn of Cyberspace":

# A Mystery Solved About Cyberspace and Bitcoin

The reason that the properties of cyberspace and the metaverse are so mysterious is because they are actually properties of reality, but inside a digital system.

In reality, it is no surprise that your hardware and skill affects your ability. No surprise that your work determines your power. No surprise that you can't teleport and must travel using energy. No surprise that building constructs or customizing yourself takes effort and cost. No surprise that territory is scarce and must be defended. No surprise that conflict happens between people. All of this is so completely normal that it's easy to overlook.

The reason these things in Neuromancer and Snow Crash and other works about the metaverse seemed so mysterious is because they weren't possible to model in a digital space. These authors took properties of reality and put them in a digital space, and it seemed amazing because nobody knew how it could actually work.

This is how it is possible: you design a digital system that has the same fundamental properties as reality. It must be permissionless. It must be thermodynamic. Then you have a system wherein cyberspace can exist.

Nostr is the fulfillment of these requirements. Like bitcoin, nostr has captured the imaginations of thousands of early adopters and developers. The magic is there. But few may realize why it is feels so magical. The answer is that when you make a digital system that can model reality's own properties, you have created an extension of reality itself. This is one of the most significant discoveries in human history, because a digital extension of reality can allow humanity to connect, collaborate, and grow in a place where their physical distance does not matter. Barring any major advancements in spacefaring technology, cyberspace will be the most significant departure from earth you may experience in your lifetime.

I posit that a virtual action which is permissionless and thermodynamic is as real as a physical action, except the consequences of that action happen in the digital space rather than the physical one. It's not quite reality, but it is like a mirror. It is a true extension of reality. Nothing in it is disconnected from the real world. And therefore, unlike any other digital system, it can be truly consequential.

Read the whole article here:

https://habla.news/a/naddr1qq25ce6ff3ny7mm40ff42hmgfue52mn4244ngqgjwaehxw309ac82unsd3jhqct89ejhxqgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqg7waehxw309ahx7um5wgkhyetvv9ujumn0ddhhgctjduhxxmmdqyf8wumn8ghj7mmxve3ksctfdch8qatzqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hszyrhwden5te0dehhxarj9emkjmn9qgsw3mfhnrr0l6ll5zzsrtpeufckv2lazc8k3ru5c3wkjtv8vlwngksrqsqqqa28uf7md3

If you’re interested in making this like a real vending machines for services (beyond requesting files like Sats4Files), I would explore the S in ZKCSP: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/566

They provide a way to pay for services in an atomically trust-minimized way, without either party trusting each other — but it doesn’t work over Lightning yet like Sats4Files.

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/67e950a2009e81df1b8c91b0a2ade0596e83f168/vending-machine.md

This is a WIP proposal for the "Data Vending Machine" NIP.

https://on.soundcloud.com/Muh9cpgGVPRXANe86