Lol. My cat's day job is to abuse my dog... who does absolutely nothing to fight back. 😅

So for my job I have to keep up with global economic trends and research. The reality imo is that a lot of this forecasting is fairytale stuff. And wish listing.

Reading the WEF reports always makes me want to 🤮🤮🤮

I loathe these parasites.

We need better money. We need better leaders. We need more humanity and more love.

They push the opposite of that. What good is progress if we sacrifice people and humanity for it?

#randomthoughts

Woke up unmotivated but with enough discipline to do anyway and finding some motivation back in that

Minds are weird

Murray chilling in the sink like a PIMP

#catstr

#introductions

Hey y’all.

Grew up in several national contexts in a conservative Christian circle (not weird conservative).

Went to a university to pursue a career in ministry and midway through realized it wasn’t meant to be, for a multiple of reasons I won’t flesh out in an intro post. I finished the degree nonetheless.

Life happened and much of the faith I held in the Church faded. I sat in silence without speaking to Him or progressing my faith in any way.

Many years older and potentially wiser, I am restoring myself to a dedicated and faithful life.

I find myself in a weird space of knowing my theology well, not liking some non-theology related pieces to the evangelical Church and the churches (as well as some theologically adjacent pieces), knowing that faith is beyond important, but refusing to return to just the same routine and expectations I had growing up.

I have been reading about regular prayer routines to start with, as consistency is a good start and I’m still struggling to read regularly and with vigor. I came across prayer ropes, which by extension brought me to the Jesus Prayer.

Since then I’ve been both praying this prayer regularly and doing more reading/watching on the Orthodox faith. I find much of it very interesting and the practices very engaging. Theologically and practically, I have lots of questions.

While I’ve been on #nostr in the past, hoping to use this user profile to engage the #christian and #orthodox community here. I enjoy philosophical conversations and talking about theology and want to learn more about how to wade through these waters of de/reconstructing a faith pleasing to God.

I glossed over some parts of my life etc (this note was much longer than I really wanted it to be). It’s not that crazy. I’m just another person in the corner. 🙏🏽

hi, hope I haven't missed too much, life has been at peak capacity but I wanted to share a cool moment

Over the last year my wife and I have missed on several houses after making offers. It always hurt to get the Zillow "sold home" email showing how much we'd been outbid by...

Over the past few weeks we got one but it was our purchase and man God is good!

BLANKET STATEMENT ALERT 🚨 For Bitcoin to be mass adopted it has to be easy to acquire and easy to spend with little assistance. That’s it. The vast majority don’t care about the technicalities. Same way the vast majority don’t really care how digital fiat transactions work technically.

Your thoughts?

i don't disagree, but useful doesn't automatically mean good

i now have political reasons for being skeptical of money, but even when i was a kid i hated receiving gifts or cash for my birthday and i've been asking people not to give me stuff for most of my life (despite the fact that for the few years when i was able to be employed, i gave away most of my disposable income, feeling too guilty to spend it on myself). i guess my politics to some extent are just an excuse to indulge my childhood intuitions, which i've retroactively propped up with a philosophical and moral framework that nobody else seems to take seriously. lol.

An open letter to all #nostriches on the future of the nostr protocol and freedom tech with the intent to start a discussion that will benefit all.

I will start off with what may be considered either a very bold or a very boring statement: The biggest fight for freedom in the near future is going to be how to fund freedom tech. This open letter is not going to point out the obvious flaws in our current electronics hardware production model. I am wanting to focus on the adoption, growth, and sustainment of mostly the software layer of permission-less systems that grant individuals sovereign control of their own data, securing both their stored value and their privacy (if they so choose).

A majority of users of the internet are living in a very heavily subsidized market and those subsidies have so distorted the market that literal billions of people have no real idea how much it should cost to nearly instantly send and receive data from any point in the world to another. One exception to this, and it us only a partial exception, are those with a pay-as-you-go plan for data. They are more aware of costs, but, with hardwired data (which wifi is connected to) or even direct satellite connections without data caps becoming more and more ubiquitous, the tendency is for data costs to continue to drop, but, they will never not be zero. Much of these costs are covered by governments, through either taxation, bonds, or money printing and also by big tech companies that are funding the massive power and hardware infrastructure necessary to run the internet in the original command and control model that was specified. These costs are obfuscated by several layers of abstraction which are vital for people to understand before they can fully embrace freedom tech. The abstractions from the costs of running the internet have created a huge market distortion. Subsidization and centralization are the key elements causing most to never think much about the costs, much like a black hole distorts space so severely that no light can escape once it passes the event horizon. This ignorance of the costs is likely intentional, and it is very hard for most people to break free from that way of thinking. This distortion, that of thinking that goods and services should be "free" is at the root of many other insidious societal issues we all face. It must be challenged and subsumed by the truth. (And we can and should debate what that is, in this case!)

If we, as the intrepid users of what could very well be the freest of all freedom tech, do not actively and intentionally engage in building a real market for these services, the distortion of the centralized, concentrated players will doom most efforts to build systems that respect freedom and privacy before they can come to fruition. This is the biggest issue I see with the whole of the nostr protocol if it is to be a growing, thriving place for all notes and other stuff to be transmitted by relays.

To the devs:

Whining about costs to people who have no idea what the costs actually are makes you look like a raving lunatic talking about how your frog-slime capture system is really better than the fish-slime capture system. Another mistake is beating them about the head for "not knowing" about basic economic principles and just how distorted the internet we are all using is. Most people don't have a clue and many of them will also not care that the internet sucks and they are being sold. Build better products and services that are desirable, and take the time to explain up front that this cannot and should not be "free" of cost. Yes, it takes a lot of effort, but explaining the practical applications of value for value will only make those that adopt to the new systems, products, and services more savvy and better customers in the long run.

To all the users of the nostr protocol:

It would behoove you to learn that you are living in a market bubble that will eventually burst, and if you wish to have not a crappy fall-back but a front row seat to the future of open, permission-less freedom tech, you had better learn to budget for services rendered at a fair market rate. Learn to provide value for others and receive value on return, and if you do that, the cost of using the nostr protocol will most likely be covered by that alone.

I'd very much like to hear your take on these thoughts, as I am always concerned with founding principles and strong foundations. I don't see that often enough in the context of onboarding new #nostriches. Not educating them in these things is a mistake, as the sticker shock of what these kinds of services should actually cost when one is not being exploited by an evil corporation that is actively attempting to addict you to their products to turn your time and attention into something they can sell will absolutely turn people away, thus sowing the seeds of failure that will eventually choke the life out of this wild and wonderful place.

#plebchain #grownostr #nostr #nostriches #sovdata #devs #development #dev #marketing

Most important advice for folks who are online workers and introverts.

How to start conversation with neighbours?

Hello, I’m hoping to find like minded people, connection, some common ground.

#introductions

Completed

There's some studies in second language learning that seem to indicate you need to pay attention, but you also need to be feeling and engaging with positive emotions to really create deep fast learning.

A professor in psychology once told me this regarding learning:

"Just pay attention and let your brain do the rest".

Will never forget it.

Thumbs-down emoji should do it. Copy Dluvian's reaction to my reply :p

I do like Amethyst's freeform unicode reactions...

I'm here trying to figure out what to do!!!! help?