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Seeker Erebus
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A Seeker of Truth amidst the chaos of the modern world.

Which would be more amusing, that clip, or the AI debate 🤔

Have you used #Loop?

Whenever discussions about bitcoin and kyc come up, I'll often see comments about Coinjoins with Whirlpool, or more about just not using kyc. These are great of course, but I rarely see comments on my favorite way to deal with kyc bitcoin, that being Loop.

Step 1: Have a lightning node. Great idea generally.

Step 2: Get on-chain bitcoin. Preferably above 0.01 BTC. Let's assume it's tainted with kyc.

Step 3: Make a lightning channel with a well connected node. ACINQ, Wallet of Satoshi, breezy, someone with very high connectivity.

Step 4: Loop out all of the funds from that channel to cold storage, except the channel reserve and active funds you're gonna use for zapping people/buying goods.

Congratulations you just broke all on-chain trace of where the hell your money has gone. And that's not all. You can come along and loop-in -> loop-out more kyc funds later, and those are even better off because they aren't indicated to be part of a channel with any connection to you.

As for fees, I haven't done a direct side-by-side comparison against whirlpool in a while, but it averages 0.35% for each side, or about 0.7% to loop in and then loop funds out.

Hope you find it useful.

Just like how right before a bubble bursts, everyone and their dog is in on it. Everyone and their dog is getting in on trying to be a bank.

When a person initiates the use of force against another, they are no longer playing a consensual game of social rules, they are playing by the laws of physics. As such, the laws of physics determine who wins. The person or group that is able to bring more force to bear, more effectively, is the one that wins.

We bitcoiners already play this game. We simply apply an additional social rule that says the force will be electric, rather than kinetic.

If Wright is not met with the amount of force necessary to end his use of force, then he wins, just as thoroughly as if he controlled 90% of all the mining power. Maybe we can bring some of that force through the same governmental systems he's using, but if that isn't enough, we bring whatever else is required. Or we lose.

A heavy answer, and appreciated. My own thoughts are quite similar.

Wonder if the follower list, when changed, was also given a local update, and would be regularly resent out to relays. That .json is pretty small, so local storage isn't a problem. Should be an easy enough fix.

Fun one for you: Given that Craig Wright is using the force of government to attack bitcoin core devs, what level, if any, of force can be justified against him in defense.

When you brush your teeth, shower, do all the other prep that you do each day, that routine is an algo. Just because something is an algo doesn't automatically mean it is bad or evil. Centralized algos that allow other actors to control how you see the world, are evil. Personally controlled algos that let you properly interact with the world, whether those algos be code you run for yourself, or algos run by your brain, are necessary, and can be good.

If you think all computer algorithms are bad, try to operate while only being on public relays, and only ever looking at global. If the data feed isn't controlled, you will be overwhelmed. If it isn't controlled by you, you will also be manipulated.

I'm realizing now I might have assumed where you were going with this, and if so, my bad. Points still stand.

#[0] Could clients be set to filter out all events from non-NIP5 verified accounts on public relays, while allowing for paid relay events to display normally?

It's easier than it seems. Just get started. Get a lightning address on your profile so you can receive as easily as send, budget around 5000 sats in a lightning wallet (self if you can, but 5000 in a custodial is manageable risk), and start engaging. When you go to like a post, also zap 3 sats. Like just as you would otherwise, but add in the zap. Do it publicly, you want the engagement effect. Do it for a few days, or until your budget is reached.

If your experience is at all like that of those of us doing this already, you will discover a few things. First, a single sat will have clear, real value to you now. Not as an abstract concept of potential value, but as a real value you can provide to others as a social factor. Second, you will likely have received zaps of your own, like encourages like. Maybe you'll have a little less, maybe a little more. Depends on how much others enjoy your interactions. And third, you will really understand how shit buying things with dollars is, mechanically. If you have the same net percent of your earnings saved as bitcoin each month as you do now, but all of the spending that you do is done with bitcoin, you are still far better off.

I for one am certain that the way we create hyperbitcoinization is not by preaching the importance of the incorruptible store of value, or how perfectly suited it is as money. We get there by using it as money first, by making the use of it as money so unbelievably easy that every other method of paying people feels like wading through muck by comparison, and by generating enormous value between people without ever touching fiat. When people have to sell goods to bitcoiners for bitcoin because no one else can afford to buy them, and all the quality goods and services can't be purchased but with bitcoin, we've won.

I somewhat agree. Truly public relays, in the fashion that exists now, cannot survive. They'll get buried under spam, porn, and csam and be destroyed by it all.

Public relays that only provide write access for those that prove work however could be viable for those who just want to be on nostr, and will accept shitty service. You could pull that off by connecting your pubkey to a UTXO via on-chain address signature, or a recognition signature by a trusted party. It would stop the spam, but it wouldn't fund the relays, and they have costs. A charity relay that funds itself as a goodwill gesture is one thing, but demanding that of a relay is as immoral as demanding people zap you.

The only way paid relays become a walled garden is if there aren't enough of them. Public relays provide garbage service. The moment I went fully to paid, performance and reliability went way up. Most people will pay for good service that they value. If there are only a couple dozen paid relays, then all the good service is centralized. If there are thousands with good rates, then most people can connect to 20+ without a dip in quality, and the chances that people end up with nearly identical relay lists approaches zero.

Replying to Avatar jleger2023

FREEDOM OR CONTROL - YOUR SUPPORT SHOWS YOUR CHOICE

I saw a long thread discussing another spam attack on Nostr last night. That's not going to stop for free relays. Spammers will always use free services with large audiences to spam. Stopping them is a game of whack-a-mole that even the big Social Media companies have failed to win despite their deep pockets and teams of engineers.

The solution is value-for-value: pay for what you use and find valuable. If Nostr benefits you in some way, be willing to pay for the tools you use that provide it to you (relays, clients, etc). If you can't pay but you can build or support it in some other way, that's great, too.

I had a person (jokingly I assume) say they were sad I didn't ⚡ them. The first thing that jumped into my mind when I read the note was "What benefit are you providing?" I had never seen any other post from them before.

If you want to live in a free world, you need to ask that question often, both of yourself and of others: what benefit are you providing? Because any time you're getting something "free", it's not free. Somebody is paying for it. If that person isn't you, then someone else is setting the agenda for what you consume. Is that what you want?

For many, the idea of freedom is like the idea of owning a boat. They daydream about how great it would be to have a boat, take it out on the water, fish, swim and enjoy it all. But they never buy a boat. Why? Because boats cost money and take work to maintain. All that pleasure has a price. Either you're willing to pay it, or you're not.

Freedom is no different. I hear a lot of talk about freedom today, and that's good. Freedom of speech is a big one. But what are you doing to support those that are building the tools that give you that freedom? Are you content to daydream about that freedom and how nice it would be while never taking any action, or are you willing to put some skin in the game to turn that dream into a reality both for yourself and others you care about?

We've been conditioned to get things for "free", but it's a lie and a trick that's resulted in us selling ourselves and our choices to the highest bidder. For me, Nostr is the path to freedom, but Nostr is not free. It costs money to run the relays, servers and services, and it costs time (which results in lost earning power) to code clients that provide the experience you want and create great content on an ad-free platform.

So if you believe in freedom, and I know you do (that's why you're here) then support the builders that are providing value to you. Show that freedom is not just a daydream. Governments and nefarious actors have long taken advantage of the masses just daydreaming about freedom. Let's wake the world up from that dream and make it a reality. This is our shot. Let's not miss the target.

My deepest thanks to all of those that are supporting the builders already. You are true heroes. 🙏

Excellent thinking. A thought for you and the other client devs out there: provide a way to very easily zap relay owners, as well as client devs. I paid for all the relays I'm using right now, but I've got no qualms about sending them a few sats a day for good service. Not when I'm sending a couple sats out to posts I find helpful.

Not just you. Fiat mindset means consume, trash, repeat. To produce quality is to lose against quantity. Fiat mindset makes flat, boring glass rectangles. Gold mindset built the Notre Dame. Bitcoin mindset? We're gonna find out.

Thank you for the feelgood thread my good sir

I eventually found my way back to the sidewalks of the neighborhood, though 20m+ away on foot and still lost. A neighbor noticed me, figured out why I was alone and where I lived, and got me home to the profuse gratitude of my parents. I know, impossible to imagine nowadays.

Wholesome religious community in the 90's. People looked out for each other. Among everything else, I hope that bitcoin can bring that ethos back.

Getting lost after exploring a creekbed on the way home from kindergarten.

I suspect by that point, "global" will have been abandoned by most and replaced by "relay" feeds. I can also imagine most users will know who they should go to in their followed for insight outside of the local relay community.