Some Thoughts on Adoption (and other nonsense).

There's this old Louis C.K. clip—recorded long before he was cancelled—that summarizes our modern conundrum well: "Everything's amazing and nobody's happy."

As I was walking towards the hospital today—after a way too early 5:30 rise—it dawned on me that wide-scale nostr adoption (and "proper" wide-scale bitcoin adoption, for that matter) is probably not going to happen. The good news is that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The bad news is that lots of people will suffer.

"Why so bearish?" I hear you ask. If you know me just a little bit you'll know that, even though I do have many faults, being bearish isn't one of them. I'm still incredibly optimistic when it comes to the adoption and proliferation of freedom tech. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I do.

Here's what dawned on me, though: People aren't even interested in their own health, why would they be interested in healthy money? Yes, everyone wants to be healthy. But doing what is necessary to live a healthy lifestyle? Not interested. Not in the least. Usually something really really bad has to happen for people to change their ways. And even that doesn't move the needle in some cases, as plenty of drinkers who still drink after their liver gave up, or plenty a smoker who still smokes after being diagnosed with lung cancer can attest to.

Which brings me to bitcoin treasury companies. Are most of them interested in taking the responsibility of holding their own keys? Are they interested in providing real value while staying humble and stacking sats? No, of course not. They are interested in paper gains, not in a full-blown reorientation that leads to a healthier lifestyle. And I mean that literally: if you truly and fully adopt bitcoin, the responsibility that is entailed by that will result in a reorientation, a re-alignment of values, which will—down the line—lead to more long-term thinking, healthier business practices, more honest value generation, and so on.

To me, this is what "capital B" Bitcoin is about. Change. Real change. A ridiculous proposition to the balance sheet brain.

...which brings me to nostr.

A short stroll through the current iteration of the internet should make clear that the platforms that most people spend their time on are incredibly mis-aligned with humanity. The outrage-machine that we've built for ourselves is keeping us like rats in Skinner boxes, hitting the dopamine button with every swipe and every scroll, no matter what. We've built a machine that is parasitic on humanity, instead of synergistic. We are optimizing for engagement, which means that we are maximizing addiction by shoving a mixture of uppers (porn) and downers (rage bait) down our collective throats. The machine is catering to our lowest selves, as opposed to our highest selves. (We could also optimize for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, you know. Is that too much to ask?)

But who is to blame for all of that? (And is it worth blaming someone in the first place?)

It is clear to me that the whole military-grade industrial advertising complex that profits from running large-scale and nonstop psychological experiments on the whole fucking population of the earth wouldn't be profitable for long if we would all get our act together. But that won't happen, of course. There won't be a magical finger snap that suddenly shakes us awake from our slumber; that stops us from sleepwalking into dystopia. Just like there won't be a magical finger snap that stops us from our bad habits and unhealthy lifestyles.

Adopting a healthy way of living is hard. It means saying no to the constant onslaught of sugary snacks, fast-food around every corner, and social pressures to indulge. It means taking responsibility for your decisions, cultivating discipline, taking care of your body, your psyche, and yes, also your soul.

A wise man once said that "he who has a 'why' can bear almost any 'how'." And that's what most of us are missing: a strong enough "why." Why go through the trouble of living healthy? It's hard! Why hold your own keys, if someone else can do it for you, and there's even the apparent safety of some insurance? Why cultivate a less destructive relationship to the internet, if you can just autoplay & chill, whether it be with Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, PornHub, or something else? Why not write the snarky comment and trigger a whole cohort of people at the click of a button?

Because it's not healthy, that's why.

"Everything's amazing and nobody's happy." That's the state of the world. Always has been. And I'm to blame too, of course. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, writing these lines, bitching and moaning about the internet, this amazing series of tubes that I so love, warts and all.

But yeah, the internet won't heal itself over night. Neither will the economy, nor the rent-seeking zombie companies that don't provide value, nor the underlying fiat system that broke it all in the first place. It will take lots of time, lots of courage, lots of faith, and lots of responsibility.

It will be hard, but it will also be worth it. And it starts with you.

bitcoin is apolitical. doesn’t matter how hard they try to stand with it. it doesn’t take sides and it stands with no one.

GM

The state’s claim to regulate encryption is a claim to regulate thought. They’ll fail, not because of resistance, but because their tools are blunt and their logic is outdated. The future is sharp, precise, and distributed.

The discussion around corporations buying Bitcoin is so dull and uninteresting.

Easily the most boring and uninspiring topic within Bitcoin that I've ever seen.

To the people who tell me this isn’t a bubble.

There are early signs everywhere for people paying attention. @NVK

It will in big parts for a long time. On- and off ramps, regulations for business payments, chain surveillance…there is a non KYC P2P market now and it will grow. I don’t believe that it will be fully captured. At least I’m trying to help further the grassroots adoption.

True. The state could use bitcoin as money too instead of fiat and it would not mean that the state falls. The state couldn’t tax people through inflation anymore, but can still coerce them to pay income tax etc.

as the internet gets further infested with ai slop, the nostr webs of trust we are building out today become much more important

Users retain full control over their money without relying on banks.

— Satoshi Nakamoto

Depends on where you go, but mostly yes, as people get the same European education, and the same nation state systems like fiat currency are used to extract value (much more as in Western countries) and people often fear disobeying their autocratic leaders (understandably).

Because for the most people outside this space the thought of destroying the state is making them anxious. It seems to them that the purpose of Bitcoin is only to destroy or speculate to get rich to the detriment of the „regular„ people. Most people are not anti-state.

People do not view the state as a problem too, so they are unlikely to care either way

Probably because most people are pro state?

Good morning

There are two brothers inside my chest

Stumbled upon this podcast title today.

If I wanted to attract a lot of people to learn about Bitcoin I wouldn’t choose that narrative. It turns most people off.

Nothing has. Every limit is imposed from the outside.

Man sollte den Staat konsequenterweise nur noch die Staatsgewalt nennen, damit Gesprächspartner die Chance haben zu verstehen, um was es eigentlich geht.

Sorry to hear the defeatism. Organized action can well change this. There are too many of us, and not enough of them. Even with the buy-out of those of us willing to be sold.

JP MORGAN CEO JAMIE DIMON SAYS IN 10 YEARS #BITCOIN WILL BE "CLOSED DOWN"

#llm #sensorship #stopcopyrights

Questions questions, so many of them and always prefer to err on the side of uncertainty.

What agency do we got otherwise? 😅

Projecting yourself into a beautiful utopian future or retreating into a glorious past are both the same form of cope.

We must play it as it lies in front of us.

Moment by moment.

The only way out is through.

A camera watching another camera in #barcelona #privacy #streetart

Revised and final table of contents for #UNTRACEABLE

#privacy

Section I - FOUNDATIONS

Lesson 1 – Thinking Like a Cypherpunk

Supplemental Reading - Beginning Steps to Privacy

Lesson 2 – Operational Security (OPSEC) for Real Life

Supplemental reading - Nyms, Personas, and Digital Identity

Lesson 3 – Threat Modeling for Dissidents

Supplemental Reading - Operational Security and Your Digital Life

Section II - CRYPTOGRAPHY AS A WEAPON

Lesson 4 – Symmetric Encryption (AES) in Action

Supplemental Reading - Encrypt Everything!

Lesson 5 – Asymmetric Encryption: GPG and the Web of Trust

Supplemental Reading - Protecting Email Communications

Lesson 6 – Zero-Knowledge and Hashes

Section III - ANONYMITY & COMMUNICATIONS

Lesson 7 – Tor, Mixnets, and Routing Obfuscation

Supplemental Reading - Clearnet vs VPN vs Tor

Lesson 8 – End-to-End Encrypted Messaging

Supplemental Reading - Your Phone is not your Friend

Lesson 9 – OPSEC, Identity Separation, and Burner Protocols

Supplemental Reading - A VPN is Not Magic

Lesson 10 – CoinJoin, Monero, and Financial Privacy

Supplemental Reading - Financial Privacy

Section IV - FIELD WORK

Lesson 11 – Operational Security (OPSEC) & Anonymity in the Field

Supplemental Reading - How to use a Burner Phone

Lesson 12 – Anti-Forensics & Operational Disappearance

Supplemental Reading - Photo Metadata Dump

Lesson 13 – Secure Dropboxes & Dead Drops

Supplemental Reading - Data Privacy

Lesson 14 – Physical Surveillance & Real-World Recon

Lesson 15 – Red Team Tactics in the Real World

Section V - DEPLOYMENT & RESISTANCE

Lesson 16 – Building a Censorship-Proof Network

Lesson 17 – Self-Hosting and Digital Sovereignty

Supplemental Reading - HOW TO: Set up your free private Onion Mail

Lesson 18 – Going Dark: Total Digital Disappearance

FINAL PROJECT

AFTERWORD