Imagine if you said something true but unpopular in your social and professional spheres.
You could reasonably assume people would probably be talking badly about you amongst each other.
I used to think enlightenment meant imagining all the disparaging comments people might make and being okay with it. Every last petty personal disparagement of who you are and of your character, no matter how dishonest or out of context.
Consider the most passive aggressive person with whom you had had several run-ins, implying, insinuating, exaggerating or outright fabricating things you said or did.
You imagine all these attacks in detail, turn them over in your mind. “Yes, but I told the truth you tell yourself, and they are in the wrong."
But you are not cool with this at all. Your feelings are hurt, you’re angry, knowing what is likely going on, the unjust damage to your reputation, the likely social and professional consequences.
Maybe you shouldn’t have said it. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut after all, since you are not enlightened and not prepared to suffer all this agitation.
. . .
But what I realized was that enlightenment isn’t about not caring what people think of you or what they say about you. It’s just choosing not to think about it.
You don’t agonize about any of it at all, just go about the business of your life.
. . .
Is this any different than fearing what the state will do if you speak your mind and exercise your rights?
One last thought, and I’ll probably write this up in a longer piece: put yourself in the shoes of the WEF, deep state, or whoever you think is pulling the strings.
You have to get away with absconding with all the money, injecting billions with poison, fomenting all kinds of filthy and murderous psyops and coups, in the Information Age, where bitcoin, NOSTR and other freedom tech is advancing apace.
Are you really so confident you’re going to win? That you’re going to beat back earnest and sincere people waking up to reality by the thousands every day — and make no mistake, once someone wakes up, they don’t go back to sleep.
The idea that “they’re going to do this to you, and then you won’t be able to dissent or opt out or hide or whatever.” It’s defeatist propanganda, exactly what I’d want you to believe if I were them.
I covered sports for a living for 25 years, and I can assure you even the biggest favorites were underdogs against the entire field. No matter how good the coaching and the scheme, games rarely went precisely to plan. There were always upsets, unforeseen shocks and unpredictable second, third and nth order effects.
No one knows what’s going to happen. Not me, but not Klaus Schwab or Bill Gates, either.
If I were coaching an underdog, I don’t know what specific strategy I would use, but I would absolutely make sure my players didn’t think the other team was definitely going to win.
Unpopular opinion: dissenting under a nym while not making a peep IRL is compliance.
Sometimes when I post about freedom, people say, yeah, wait until the state comes for you, puts a gun to your head. But isn’t imagining that kind of thing all the time itself the prison?
I’m not saying it can’t happen, but no one is forcing you to think about it while it’s not yet happening, and if it does happen, then it happens, and you experience that.
Why are you trading away your freedom to say what you think is true because of something theoretical?
Ironically the more everyone fears the theoretical, the more likely it’s going to happen. The more people ignore it and behave as free citizens, the less likely they would dare to do it.
On normie Twitter, people are afraid of covid variants, climate change and terrorist attacks. On NOSTR, they’re afraid of CBDCs, the surveillance state, unchecked migration and the nefarious plans of evil masterminds at the WEF.
On the one hand you can argue the latter is more real, but on the other fear is fear. Both platforms are filled with its promulgation.
You could get hit by a bus or have a heart attack (especially if you took the mRNA shot) tomorrow.
Bad things could happen to you, you will definitely die one day, and statistically it’s unlikely to be especially pleasant when it happens.
Shed the fear, speak the truth.
They only do that because everyone knows it’s a horrible job, and talk is cheap. If they really wanted to thank them they’d take care of them when they come home maimed or traumatized, and they don’t. So I wouldn’t sweat that.
I like this framing.
Read a great book called “The Courage To Be Disliked”
Similar idea.
Very important not to be “nice” no matter how much you are socialized to do so.
Wherein I discuss the reaction to my Anonymity complaint on NOSTR:
Science is the process of figuring out which conspiracy theories about God are true.
Damn, was trying to pass as a bot!
Agree, but the walled gardens will just become spiritually dead safe places that more and more people abandon once they realize the vibrancy and life is here.
Agree they’re being forced to do it too fast, and it’s exposing them too much. Really think Trump’s election surprised them and derailed their plans for four years, and now their timing is totally off.
I’m sure it’s very rare (now) but wait until the price is at 1M. And almost certainly they have duress protocols.
But the biggest win from it would be as a deterrent. It would make it seem like virtually everyone had a third-party multi-sig setup at the ready, and there’s no point in even trying.
I suppose though it could have the opposite incentive wherein attackers got wind of it and just figured everyone was lying even if you really did have it!
So some poor bastard has the setup and gets tortured because the attacker assumes he’s faking it!
But the gist is to make it so no one really knows if they can ever get anything out of a violent attack.
Wanted to post this via nostr:npub1048qg5p6kfnpth2l98kq3dffg097tutm4npsz2exygx25ge2k9xqf5x3nf but until I can figure it out:
"Seeing agencies like the CDC and FDA still recommending the shots, and institutions like colleges and universities still (in 2023!) requiring it for age groups not at serious risk from covid, how can one not update one’s priors about what purpose those agencies and institutions actually serve? How can elite institutions of higher learning like Harvard and Stanford actively be involved in a push for censorship?”
My thought was they’d be trained to go through that routine already with their actual clients. So when someone who was not a client called in, they’d just do the same thing they’d already been trained to do.
And they’d have no guarantee of collecting from the invoice, but most people would be extremely grateful and a lot I bet would pay much more than the suggested amount.
To me the biggest negative would be it undermines their core business which is why get the real deal when you can fake it almost for free?
But in a way instead of selling insurance (which is what they’re doing) they’d be offering direct and immense value at the time you needed it most.
Had an idea, might as well jot down the notes here before maybe writing it up long form.
Plenty of people use multi-sig for security, like 2 of 3, and one of the keys is held by a third-party vendor.
And, I imagine, there are protocols to signal duress, etc.
But what if someone operated a service, say nostr:npub17u5dneh8qjp43ecfxr6u5e9sjamsmxyuekrg2nlxrrk6nj9rsyrqywt4tp where under duress, you couid call one of those companies but you had no account, no 2 of 3, and they looked you up, realized it and faked it for you anyway.
Like, “okay, we’ll need your passphrase, sir.” “Excellent, per your instructions, the funds will be transferred to that address in four weeks.”
Then you, gun to your head, say, “sorry it’s an emergency, I need them right away,” and the rep says, “I’m really sorry, but anything over 5M sats has a four-week delay on it, per your written instructions, and those can only be overridden via notarized letter.
Do you want me to send the 5M sats now?”
Then they could invoice you $100 for the service.
Maybe it’s a crazy idea, I don’t know.
Saw some prominent nyms muted me over my Anonymity post. Think it’s cowardly af, as it seems they only want to hear the straw man cases against their beliefs and don’t want to suffer the emotional discomfort of a contrary steel man view.
That said, I think you should be able to mute whatever you like for whatever reason. Free speech isn’t the same thing as forcing individuals to hear what you’re saying if they’re not interested.
So fuck them. But I respect their rights!