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Chad Lupkes
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Wealth based systems are the future. #Bitcoin is the foundation for wealth based financial capital. Critical thinking is required. Bitcoin class of 2017.

do you think it's the lack of network strength? we either need more people to send smaller zaps, or people sending larger zaps.

I'm not trolling. We used to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That's no longer true. Now it's of the corporate donors, by the corporate funded lobbyists and for the corporations. If a law doesn't help a corporation make profits, it's killed in committee. "Government" has failed, entirely, completely, and irreversibly. There is no saving the nation state, it's just a matter of time before it collapses and everything goes to insanity levels.

I'm not trolling, this is what I honestly believe. There is a big difference between government and governance. We absolutely need governance systems that provide a foundation so that markets can build structures and supply chains so that people can live and thrive. The current governments around the world have not been, are not, and will not be capable of managing those governance systems for several decades. But because they control ... everything, there didn't seem to be anything we could do about it. Until Bitcoin, which is a new foundation for a global monetary system that no government can control. Until Nostr, which is a new foundation for information flow that no government can control. With these two established, we can encourage our imaginations and build a system of trust, globally.

I'm not trolling. I'm just willing to question everything we know, because everything we know is built on a foundation of lies and misdirection. It's time for a change.

If we are unable or unwilling to use Critical Thinking to probe into our own assumptions and conclusions, then we are not using Critical Thinking at all.

Let me ask this. Of what use is an attempt for us to define what it means to be progressive when you hold your own view that won't change no matter what we say? If the entire world is a struggle, a war, between Left vs. Right, Progressive vs. Conservative, Us vs. Them, how are we ever going to find common ground and decide to act in cooperation and collaboration towards a shared future?

Progressive TO ME means keeping four things in mind.

Grassroots democracy - if a decision is being made that affects you, your voice should be heard.

The concept of WE - The Earth is a single environment. We should treat it as such. We are in this together.

Understanding the Past - both positive and negative. Learn the lessons of the past so we don't repeat those mistakes.

Looking to the Future - We are creating the world our children will grow up in. What kind of a world do we want that to be?

I don't expect you to agree. And I don't know if you will consider this to be a "political" answer, or just an answer. Maybe I'm wasting my time. But since you asked what we are progressing towards, I thought I would weigh in. I want a world that my sons can live in, and I want them to thrive in that world. And I want that for all children, everywhere.

As long as we keep the blinders on, that will be true. This entire space (Bitcoin, Nostr, etc.) gives us the opportunity to take the blinders off. I used to be hard left progressive. Now I just consider those to be useless labels that divide us so we can be conquered.

Partisan Politics is fundamentally, completely and globally broken beyond repair. We need to scrap the entire thing and start over. Progressives in the US House of Representatives or this or that political party are just trying to scrape for votes. It's a silly distraction from what we should be doing.

And it's also a quest on the global level to reach a Type I civilization on the Kardashev scale, utilizing the full potential of the energy our planet receives from the Sun and building a civilization that can reach for the stars.

My answer to this would be the higher levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Progress towards those higher levels is always the goal.

I've been following him since the beginning, and I know what words he has spoken. I love his ideas, and I love the work that his companies are doing. But that doesn't mean I have to respect the man himself. And sometimes I have to rant because I see something that pisses me off. Isn't freedom wonderful?

Replying to Avatar Lyn Alden

Good afternoon.

The Bitcoin conference currently has a lot of political theater, and the Trump headliner is front and center much to everyone’s joy or frustration depending on where you stand on that, but I’ll take a moment to highlight something that’ll get lost in the shuffle.

Today on the main stage, Jason Maier (author A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin) interviewed progressive congressman Rho Khanna. They talked about a lot of stuff but the TLDR headline takeaway statement from Khanna was “Bitcoin is about freedom. Bitcoin is about human rights.”

And around the same time, a bunch of Democrat Congress people sent a letter to the DNC chair saying the party needs to embrace this industry better, and basically that the Warren wing of the party isn’t the way to go here anymore. Whether it’s polling data, sheer numbers about how many Americans own this stuff, or more knowledge conversations about bitcoin’s energy impact and other things, being anti-bitcoin is a losing strategy.

Yes, a lot of this will be forgotten after the election, both from Republicans and Democrats. Politicians gonna politic. And there will be shitcoinery. Politicians are currently in their pandering phase. But when I began writing about this industry nearly seven years ago, I would not have expected to see this much explicit support by 2024.

The builders, the educators, the advocates- all of your work does matter. At least when it comes to protecting Americans and others against some of the most potentially hostile government positions, the narrative war is working. We need more work on the right to privacy, and that imo is the harder battle, but given how successful things have been on other fronts, I think that front is workable too.

Immutable money. Unstoppable voice. Endless memes.

Anyone else think that internet services like Ad Bloc, Carbonite and anti-virus software should accept Bitcoin as payment? I would be willing to support them more if they took sats via Lightning...