Who on here left the legacy socials already?

Most people who I know that think the CIA invented bitcoin, are not very familiar with the pre-history of Bitcoin including work by Back, Szabo, Finney, etc.

I'm not saying that certainly no intelligence agency created Bitcoin, but rather, I'm very skeptical of the certainty that many people have around that topic.

Because, when you are somewhat familiar with that pre-history and look at it from an engineering perspective, you can clearly see the pieces gradually falling into place. In the1980s there was work by Chaum about how to build a database run by mutually suspicious entities. In the 1990s there was work by Back for proof-of-work. As things moved into the 2000s, there was Szabo's Bit Gold, which is very similar to what Bitcoin ended up being, and Finney's Reusable Proof of Work "RPOW" tokens. Finney hadn't solved the centralization issue, and Szabo hadn't solved the issue of better computation causing supply inflation over time, but they were collectively within shooting range of the solution. Others as well. Meanwhile global bandwidth was getting better, encryption in general was getting better (and there we've got an actual intelligence agency contribution), etc.

And then Satoshi added to that work, including the difficulty adjustment in particular and many other details, with a full implementation.

Basically, if someone thinks that Bitcoin just kind of magically came out of nowhere, then it's pretty easy to see how they'd be inclined toward a conspiratorial assumption.

However, if one sees that, just like any other industry, there was a series of engineers building on each others' work until someone finally got it over the line, then it looks a lot more organic.

I have a feeling I'll be ghosting a lot of friends in the coming years.

Spending time around bitcoiners makes me question old friendships. I have friends I've known for 20+ years who haven't offered any real value in a long time.

That sounds awful to say, but they are so caught up in their dead end jobs and other bullshit. No care for anything else. They think the MSM and government are the best sources of truth. No interest in growing, or in self reflection.

Any attempt at deep, meaningful conversation basically turn into the "That's crazy. Catch the game last night?" meme. It's frustrating.

I'm still processing my feelings on this. I haven't had a close "crew" of buddies since high school. Even that was superficial. I've always been that guy people hang out with, but never a part of the "inner circle" or whatever.

I'm not saying this to garner empathy. I'm the complete opposite of depressed, and I don't stay up at night wishing I was one of the cool kids. I like having a close family, a wife that's my best friend, and a couple others I can talk to about anything and everything in a meaningful way.

I'm just wondering if it's time to drop some baggage.

Nostr is a great place for long-ish form writing. I love privacy, but I also love sharing the human experience. I spent the first 30 years of life keeping everything bottled up inside.

Never going back to that.