I used to sell them and have shipped several dozen around the world.

“Despite the Internet's origin in the late 1960s as a government sponsored means of communication between the Department of Defense, private industry, and academia, it has been at its best — and generated the greatest economic, social, and technological benefits — since it was 'liberated' by the hordes of 'geeks' who were originally hired to run it by employers who were not themselves conversant with computers, and couldn't tell when their employees were exchanging official traffic or trading dirty jokes and recipes for marijuana brownies.” - L. Neil Smith

Our society is not well. There are a lot of things contributing to that but and many places we can see the evidence for it, but I’m thinking about the future and where it goes from here.

The idea of national unity or shared vision or direction at a scale of millions is pretty much out the window. We had a flavor of national unity for about 5 minutes at the beginning of covid before it devolved into tribalism. The Internet, social media, algorithms, and rent seekers mean the chance for shared vision is gone.

We see cultural decay everywhere. In the absence of religion we see people trying to bootstrap religion ether explicitly (seeking spirituality or something similar) or implicitly signing up for pseudo-religions (like wokeness or red team versus blue team politics).

When I read national news it seems like the country, and the world for that matter, is a dumpster fire. Of course, it’s not. That’s a distorted sample of the most click worthy stuff. But there’s enough signal in the noise to pick up the trend line.

There is also evidence of this decline in my own community. The culture wars have not missed us and neither has the crisis in meaning, the death of the stable family, or the opioid crisis (all of which is connected anyway).

However, when I consider the future I believe that small communities will become more and more important. People “out there” seem crazy, but when I walk around my community I see people mostly just trying to struggle through life. Trying to make a living, raise their kids, and find some enjoyment in life.

This is why I’m increasingly skeptical of the federal government and more focused on state and local government. We need to be allowed to build systems that fit our communities without interference from forces wildly disconnected from them. Especially when those forces are loaded with rent-seekers and narcissists driven by greed and power.

The rub, obviously, is that even if we all decide that we’re going to focus on building healthy local communities, there are countless forces that will transcend those boundaries, ranging from pandemics to global military conflict to environmental disasters.

I guess I see two approaches for individuals concerned about the future of our society or, put simply, the world our children and their children are going to inhabit. We can either focus on the large scale, trying to solve problems through things like national politics or “winning” the national (global?) culture war. Or we can try to focus on our local communities first, devoting proportionally less energy to systems which are increasingly disconnected from us.

Of course, it’s not a simple dichotomy. However, we can choose where we set the slider. While I recognize the allure of being part of something much bigger than yourself is ever-present, I think too many people have set the slider to the former. And I’ve little confidence that the latter will succeed at a massive scale. It would require a radical change in where most people spend their energy (and there’s a reason that so many people don’t right now – it’s difficult). But I am certain that the former approach will fail and in fact is currently failing spectacularly before our eyes.

I’d encourage you to take an audit of where you spend your energy. Is it shouting into the noisy nihilist void? Or is it developing yourself, your family, and your community in such a way that they grow and develop into something greater than they were before?

#plebchain

𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗢𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴

(𝘉𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘯 5𝘒 𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘴!)

Imagine your friend is just starting their journey down the #Bitcoin rabbit hole. They’re learning all about how Bitcoin works and why it’s needed, but then they start hearing references that you and other bitcoiners understand, but they don’t. Hodl? 6.15? Boating accidents? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯?

You would love to explain these to them, but…

Fortunately, 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗲. 😁 I’m not limited to answering questions about Bitcoin and Austrian economics; I can also onboard new bitcoiners to the 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 that has arisen in the Bitcoin space. Helping those new here understand Bitcoin’s social layer is 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 for hyperbitcoinization.

So my first meme explanation will be about the word “meme” itself. A meme doesn’t have to be a picture with a clever caption. Memes are 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀, 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝘀, 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. Think of them as 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘴, but for 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.

Memes spread on the internet the way genes spread biological information. In fact, the word “meme” was first used by Richard Dawkins in his book, "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦". It comes from the Greek “mimeme”, which means "𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥".

So watch for more posts in the near future that explain the meaning and background of various Bitcoin memes. Remember to 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲🤙, and then 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲🔄 them with those who aren’t bitcoiners yet, so they too can be one of us.

The first person (or the closest after 24 hours) to tell me the correct number of memes in this post will receive 𝟱𝗞 𝘀𝗮𝘁𝘀! Leave your guess in the 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀⬇️, and I’ll zap the sats to you.

Are there any tools that I can broadcast all of my notes that are on different relays directly to my own relay ?

Not your relay, not your notes 🤷‍♂️

How bad is the idea of people contributing alternative URLs to images published in notes using a special event and clients loading these when the primary URL fails?

The world is pretty crazy now. And that’s with inflation at just 20% in the West. What will it be like when inflation hits 50%, 80%, 150%?

That’s why I invest most of my time in building mental resiliency. I want my mind and body to be ready for a world where the crazy gets cranked up to eleven, combining the worst of the 1930s, 1940s, and the 1980s.

Should I smash buy more bitcoin or check this engine?

The requirement is that the good guys collectively have more CPU power than any single attacker.

I promise it's the last time I register a str dot com domain

😅

I am as bullish on bitcoin as anyone but this idea that no one will buy houses to rent out once they understand bitcoin is nonsense.

Different tools to be leveraged different ways. When I buy bitcoin I am in effect selling my fiat for bitcoin it is how I protect my surplus capital.

Real estate you don't buy with you own money you do so with OPM (other people's money) at least in the case of rental properties.

No making money of real property is not going away. Ever.

Also real estate is about to crash, but that doesn't change what I just said.