"If BTC ever becomes a ubiquitous alternative... allowing people to escape dollar inflation... expect the feds to make it illegal, tax it, or regulate it so much that it poses no threat to them. Fed researchers and strategists are already laying plans for it."
Bill Bonner
https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/downloads/fj2362424
Abstract
In an economy with incomplete markets and consumers who are sufficiently risk averse,
we show that the government can uniquely implement a permanent primary deficit us-
ing nominal debt and continuous Markov strategies for primary deficits and payments to
debtholders. But this result fails if there are also useless pieces of paper (bitcoin for short) that can be traded. If there is trade in bitcoin, then there is no continuous Markov strategy for the government that leads to unique implementation. Instead, there is a continuum of equilibria with distinct real allocations in which the price of bitcoin converges to zero. And there is a balanced budget trap: continuous government policies designed for a permanent primary deficit cannot eliminate an alternative steady state in which r - g = 0 and the government is forced to balance its budget. A legal prohibition against bitcoincan restore unique implementation of permanent primary deficits, and so can a tax on bitcoin at the rate -(r - g) > 0.
Has anyone picked up on this?
The coordinated government pincer movement on bitcoin has begun.
https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/downloads/fj2362424
Saylor is bullshitting all sides, it's his intrinsic nature and he's been playing the same gig for 20+ years. He has been selling his stock options in MSTR. Why not keep it in it? Saylor has millions of private money in fiat and tradfi, bitcoin and MSTR are just a means to and end for value extraction into fiat.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so, guys like Saylor are racoons.
One should be aware, what saylor says in public and what saylor does in private will not always be the same.
Layers
#photography 
I think this probably refers to the problem of modern day slavery, which was/is prevalent in the hospitality sector.
Your arguments are not incorrect but trust is also an important factor. All corporations and platforms invest in building a relationship of trust with their users. The same way people trust banks with their money.
However, we are not always conscious of our understanding and so in this context we are potentially all artists.
Genuine question, on who's authority is this solid ground?
Personally I am cautious of the idea of an external solid ground.
This presentation from the founder of Patreon could inspire many of us in the Nostr community.
A shift is happening. Not only on the Internet but in the world.
It’s time to shift from the outer world to the inner world, from reach to depth of connection, from doing something that matters to others to doing something that matters to you and your local community.
Platforms that displaced others never did it on the same paradigm. Nostr doesn’t need to replace Twitter. It needs to enable something new, something different. Replacing Twitter will be a natural byproduct. Not the product.
How could we use Nostr to enable creators to reach their 1000 true fans?
How could we create a bazar with millions of local shops that care about servicing 1000 people, not one million people?
After discussing with nostr:npub1kuy0wwf0tzzqvgfv8zpw0vaupkds3430jhapwrgfjyn7ecnhpe0qj9kdj8 the other day, we talked about whether the problem of a global username was still relevant in this new world.
Your last name was invented by the nation state. And your global unique username by this idea that you had to build a global audience. But what if you don’t? Local shops only need a unique name in their locality.
This is a good example of a design decision that sets the tone, that defines who we are, how we are different, how we are not playing the same game.
Anyway, here is an invitation to slow down. Do less tweets, more long posts, take the time to think. Take the time to build stuff that will last 200 years. We need more human beings, less human doing.
Good post, as has been said, 'be the change'.
Does nostr fix this? Depressing af:
"All of which is why we may soon be entering a golden age for truly psychotic totalitarian regimes. The Kim Il-Sung of the future won’t need an army of peasants expecting tile roofs if he has an army of killer robots, and ChatGPT is much cheaper than a full-time propaganda minister. Depending on how good AI gets, it will sharply reduce the number of people required to run an effective regime. In the limit, you can imagine a single mad king with no human servitors at all, just a computer as his grand vizier. There would be no limit to how brutal or crazy this guy could get, no limit to what he could do to his populace for fear of triggering a revolt amongst his own bodyguards."
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-real-north-korea-by-andrei
The US is not immune. I've heard multiple commentators make the point that this could be the last election. ie. Post this election, the rules will change. Meaning the US will soon have their own version of Kim, embodied in a new form of state and his computer embodied in the form of the military and the NSA.
Regardless of the election, you, we are already living in a form of financial and technological dystopia.
Only the great ravine fixes this. (From 'The Dark Forest')
Going to my first bitcoin event.
nostr:note1e75ag5reuwetaccg3jhm9lhjxdklugd8ll34ylwrf8dgd5kk9rhqrx9cxt
Dreaming
#photography
That's encouraging to hear there are open source projects with working governance models.
Users expect good governance too, otherwise they will not be encouraged to invest their time.
There’s tons of drama going on over in WordPress land. Private equity Silverlake has bought up and is running WP Engine. They’re apparently not contributing back to the WordPress Foundation as much as the foundation people think is fair. That much seems fine, but Mullenweg also seems to be wanting to completely destroy WP Engine to the point where his company Automatic can buy them up for pennies on the dollar. Getting companies to contribute to the open source the use seems good, but weaponizing trademark to try and destroy another company in the ecosystem seems really questionable.
It’s interesting to think about because we don’t have a Nostr foundation or trademark. How would we handle if private equity came in to the Nostr ecosystem and didn’t contribute? We don’t have clear expectations of the role of companies in the Nostr space, nor do we have a central company or foundation the way Word Press does.
I think it’s worth thinking about the best way to set up Nostr to handle this going forward. Many people here know the saga around Craig Wright and the struggle to define who and what bitcoin is… That feels somewhat similar as well.
What do people think is the best way to handle this?
https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-corporate-takeover-of-wp-engine
I agree with nostr:npub1melv683fw6n2mvhl5h6dhqd8mqfv3wmxnz4qph83ua4dk4006ezsrt5c24 below. Nostr lacks the legitimacy to be considered a community and open project when the governance is so opaque.
It's an experimental hobby, very much like ham radio, which is all fine, but for the protocol to grow it will need to form it's equivalent of W3C.
The community knows this but no one has dared to broach this so far as this will likely be painful process.
Those who have invested most in this project will eventually need this question answering or they will leave nostr for other more commercially viable projects.
That's fine and I'm not saying bitcoin won't appreciate in value but be aware wall streets nefarious activities.