Trump did a deal with the Taliban in Feb 2020 that came with a timeline.
Russia invaded. What kind of peaceable solution do you think exists?
It's as if the USA invaded Mexico and the world wondered why Mexico didn't negotiate a peace, while US troops were on it's territory.
Trump signed a deal with the Taleban in February 2020. It involved a timeline. Biden simply inherited it when he became President.
It's a side issue because it's not directly related.
The US fucked up in Afganistan. But to be fair, EVERY country that has ever tried to control Afganistan has had their butts kicked. Inc the UK and Russia. The exit was worse than it should have been, but that was Trump, and Trumop was such an outlier idiot that, luckily, what he did isn't viewed as typical of what the US will do in the future. Unless you re-elect him, or someone like him. Do that and the only way the US will be able to draw lines in and sand or water anywhere in the future will be with American blood.
The fact that Americans are, in popular culture, famous for being unable to find places on the map, doesn't mean that it's safe to ignore what happens in such places.
Also, I didn't say it was the most important issue in America today. I'm sure America can multi task.
And the only sons and daughters dying are those of the Ukrainain and Russian victims of Putin.
Point is, even if you don't give a shit about what happens in Ukraine, failing to act will lead to huge costs for you, a US taxpayer, later. If you want to minimise costs, and even if that is the ONLY reason, you should support Ukraine.
The US has the best weapons.
But should Europe pay more for it's defence, no argument there from me.
But don't let a side issue cloud your judgement on the fundamentals. Look at the bigger picture. If you signal weakness now, China writes you a huge bill in few years time.
And your secret non KYC BTC stash won't save you. You can't exit it for anything serious (cars, property), without having to dox yourself to the Gvt.
If you think we shouldn't be supporting Ukraine, you haven't paid enough attention.
They need our help. They should have it. And if you want to be self interested, a win for Russia opens the door to China and Taiwan and then the US ends up having to draw lines in the waters of the Pacific. If you think stopping Russia at Ukraine is expensive, wait until you get into that pissing match with China. Or have Chinese fleets tooling just off Cali.
If people are interested in money, this guy has the most brilliant channel. I watched some, waiting for the usual clangers, and they didn't come. Then I googled him :-) https://www.youtube.com/@PBoyle
You haven't woken early.
You're just living in the wrong place :-)
Yes. Money isn't money unless it circulates.
Have your stack, but have your spending money too.
Not knowing is fine. Things are moving so fast that it was probably only invented last week :-)
EVERYTHING here is still alpha :-)
No Cyber Cat on my feed. TBH right now the free relays are engaged in a war with the spammers, who has the upper hand, varies by the day. Paid relays are still good - spammers don't pay, yet...
It's the golden hour when ALL of the USA is asleep...
:-)
Yes. On the boat I have about 1MB. Nostr can be unusable at times.
Clients need to find ways of being less greedy for bandwisdth.
Step away from the dot com Sir, step AWAY from the dot.com
Other endings are available, and, provided you're not treading on trademark toes (and TM is really only protective against direct competition), make hay.
I own naut.social for the nostr.naut pun (my paid relay, FIRST paid relay in UK) and nicely.social because, sounded like something I might use later if a fleet of community relays becomes something I do.
LOG IT HERE - I just coined the collective noun for relays. It's a Fleet:-) Fleets of Nostr Relays taking on The Twitter Battleship and Meta Armada, c'mon Nostr Artists, get working :-)
I once started a project and was amazed to find that the portmanteu of LIKE and LOCAL - LIKAL was available.
But EVERYONE, apart from me, read it as LICK-al :-(
And we're awake again.
Gvts do not need to track your wallets or your LN. They simply decide to require that when you buy a big ticket item, the SELLER has to KYC you.
Let's say my current X in BTC pops to £300K, and I decide to buy a house. I can't, not without proving the source of my funds, (which I can only do by showing that the money went into the wallet on X date and my timing was brilliant), AND then giving the Gvt a load of info about me in the property purchase process.
If I tell the lawyer it's none of their business where the money came from, they can't process the sale.
By the time we want to enjoy the fruits of our early recognition of the power of bitcoin, the laws in most countries will have caught up.
Take taxes. I did have someone try and explain how they were taxing bitcoin in the land of the free, and fuck me tell me you have a single currency business environment without... anyway in the UK the tax people worked out how to treat crypto years ago. It's a forex. Treated just like dollars are. You record fiat value in and (for CGT purposes) out and pay tax accordingly.
Essentially, you can have a perfectly private crypto money system, like cash has been since forever, but it doesn't get you out of the system, any more than living cash only does.
The war for sound money won't be won by the most optimal solution. Like most things, it will be won by the Good Enough solution.
If you want to take on BTC/LN being better technically, doesn't matter. You have to be SO MUCH better that everyone goes "gotta move over".
Market cap nano is $125M and 2M daily trading. It's a toy.
Money is about networks and fungibility. BTC/LN fees are small enough that I don't care. FREE isn't a big enough gain. And who do I trade with, how do I spend.
Nano might be brilliant technically, but it's in a popularity contest. What people are willing to use as money is ALWAYS a popuilarity contest.
They're not interested in tracking the zaps. They're interested in when you use them to the purchase of the car, the property, no matter what currency you use. THAT is what can raise flags, all the things that people are looking forward to enjoying when BTC is $1M. Bitcoin is essentially just a more trackable form of cash re AML. Buying groceries? No one cares. Buying stuff of value, you're not making a private exit.
Doesn't work at scale. You'll be fine for groceries and haircuts, but ticket items like cars and property come with identity collection irrespective of the currency. And it's those things that most people seem to be looking forward to buying when we hit $1M