Mullvad is a bad ass company IMO

Proton's buying spree is bad for the privacy ecosystem. It makes everything more centralized and makes it harder for builders to gain traction with a new product in the space because you have to compete with what has become the Google of privacy. I'm referring to the acquisitions of Simplelogin and Standard Notes. As a subscriber to Standard Notes I was horrified to learn that I could no longer renew my subscription with XMR post acquisition. We need a wide variety of options, not one company that owns almost everything in the space which is the path we are on.

I really dislike seeing WWIII trending on X so often lately... humanity has nothing to gain by killing each other. It's never the regular folks who want to go to war, it's always the corrupt gangsters who call themselves "government" who make regular people go to war for them. Everyone knows this deep down but continue to support governments because who would protect us if not a government? Well ladies and gentlemen, they aren't protecting jack shit when they regularly put us at risk of nuclear war. Every single major system of government in the world today has either failed or is failing, so maybe it's time to consider something different.

Sadly Bitcoin meetups are the entirety of my social life at the moment so I can't stop going or I'd be a hermit. But any smart kidnapper would hopefully pick one of the dudes with cyber trucks over the guy who rolled up on an old bike. I look even poorer than I am 😆

Ian Freeman, the host of the libertarian/voluntaryist radio show "Free Talk Live", is serving an 8 year prison sentence for the victimless "crime" for selling Bitcoin to consenting adults without first getting a license that didn't even exist. He did a lot of good work getting people and businesses onboarded to BTC in the early days. Sign the petition to free him at https://www.freeiannow.org/

Why do these assholes always support war? The Ukraine war could of easily been a flash in the pan scenario, they probably would of had to cede some territory to Russia and then it would of been over. Instead the US gets itself involved like it always does and turns it into a proper drawn out war, because;

a) War is a money maker

b) War creates fear and the State needs you to be afraid at all times so that you think you wouldn't survive without them "protecting" you, otherwise citizens might think twice about ceding their freedoms and money to the state.

All this can be summed up in the famous quote, "War is the health of the State", from Randolph Bourne's 1918 essay entitled "The State". This quote rings just as true today as it did in 1918, if not more so. Why should you care? Eliminating this system of coercive government led by corrupt warmongers could literally be a life or death issue for you or your offspring if geopolitical tensions get bad enough that the draft is reinstated. Always remember that.

https://x.com/RonPaul/status/1858578717980979270

Even with all the crazy shit this year, it was when I realized Elon managed to get a whole new government agency and named it with the same acronym as our favorite OG memecoin, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), that I gave up & accepted that I live inside a simulation.😆 What in the fuck????

Don't ever forget who your adversary is. Just because there is now support for Bitcoin within the State doesn't mean the State is no longer the enemy of Bitcoin and freedom. Don't become complacent, never trust politicians. Don't KYC and don't tell anyone you have Bitcoin especially not the State. Who knows who will be in power after Trump? Don't let your guard down.

I bet most Democrats in crypto secretly voted for Trump and just told their friends and family that they were voting for Harris. People have a strong tendency to vote for their financial self interest.

Regardless of who wins the election we are still slaves. The choice between slave masters is just so that you feel like your not a slave. One of Frederick Douglass's masters would let him leave to work a job, and he even got to keep some earnings. He knew he was still a slave though, just one with more privileges which in some ways was worse to him because he was getting a taste of freedom but didn't actually have it.

Many people spend a large portion of their working hours working for the government because of income taxes. You don't get to decide how the money is spent just because you "voted". Politicians don't really care what you want. There are so many unelected "officials" that have power over your life.

Are you ok with the state using your hard earned money to kill people in pointless wars, imprisoning nonviolent people for victimless "crimes", or just wasting it on corruption and bloat? If that's what you want done with your money then maybe you aren't a slave, in that case you're just a sociopath.

I know my privacy game is on point at the moment because I haven't gotten a single political text message on any of my phone numbers for this entire election.

I can't imagine what Ross Ulbricht is going through right now with the election this tight. In just a few days (depending on when they call it), he will learn if he is going to be pardoned or not after years of fighting for his freedom. If Harris wins it's possible he will spend his entire life in prison, if Trump wins he could be free in January. I doubt he is getting any sleep at all.

#freeross

Hold on dude, but they were giving out donuts. Free donuts in exchange for an experimental vaccine with unknown side effects!

Have you tried venice.ai if you do value privacy it's worth checking out.

But I was told if everyone just stopped using cars we can stop the climate from changing! Are you telling me I've been lied to? 😮

If you ever score a government contract hold on to it for dear life, you can literally charge these jackasses as much as your heart desires. They don't care how much it is because it's not their money, they stole it from you. Fuck a budget, if they run out they can just steal more.

https://reason.com/2024/10/30/pentagon-paid-nearly-8000-percent-markup-on-boeings-bathroom-soap-dispenser/

Read the first in a series of guides to opting out and living safely and privately outside of the system using freedom tech and other tools. This one is just about the importance of cash in a free society and how to safely carry or store large amounts of cash. I've lived without a bank account for many years so I can tell you all about it. Follow me if you want more content like this.

#optout #freedom #howto #privacy

https://paragraph.xyz/@thoughtcrimetraphouse/optoutguidetocarryingcash

TLDR: It sucks that poll workers are being harassed and threatened but questioning elections and results shouldn't be politically incorrect. Poll workers are just people, and people are corruptible and make mistakes. Fraud is likely when the stakes feel so high to many people. Blockchains can fix many problems with elections.

Disclaimer: I don't endorse either Harris or Trump or democracy in general. I don't believe we should vote to force the minority into doing what the majority wants. Voting doesn't make the extortion, theft, and violence the Government does on a daily basis okay. I believe there is some valid arguments for voting as an act of self defense but also valid arguments that we shouldn't legitimize this system by voting at all. That is a topic for another day though.

Questioning the integrity of elections is now officially politically incorrect and taboo! That is concerning to me, we should always question everything the Government does, from the federal level all the way down to your local government. At least some Democrats or Republicans have questioned election results for almost every election this century, but now suddenly it's no longer acceptable to do so without being labeled a conspiracy theorist. Is anybody really naive enough, deep down, to think there won't be at least some attempts at fraud on both sides this time around? For people who either worship Trump or think he is Hitler, the stakes feel high, it feels to them like the fate of the entire country is at stake. That alone can make people do crazy shit and feel justified in doing so.

Now before you rip my head off, keep reading and consider my other points please.

Yes, it is obviously horrible that there are crazy people in the world harassing poll workers, but let's please not forget that these workers are just people like any other people. If they are just people and they are underpaid as I have seen many posts claim, then that would make them even more susceptible to corruption (greed is universal, almost everyone has a price). Yes, people are sometimes corrupt, people make mistakes, and some election workers may even let their fear of a Trump or Harris win override their common sense. That's just like how the people who are harassing poll workers are also letting their fear override their common sense. It's all just PEOPLE running this election, from the electoral college all the way down! People are bad sometimes, and sometimes they are good, but they are always just human beings. You don't magically acquire the morals and self control of a saint the minute you accept a job as a poll worker! Yet we are supposed to pretend that there is not even a possibility that people could act like people? Here's an idea, stop leaving it up to fallible people to count votes in the first place! In this kind of political environment don't you think it's a bit of a big ask to expect people to just trust elections outright?

Some people will do crazy shit when they feel that special kind of righteous anger, that anger which sends morals and rules out the window because it becomes more important to win and "protect America". If you still have faith in democracy (you shouldn't), then we have the technology to ensure fair verifiable elections with no need for poll workers counting votes. If you eliminate all the human points of failure then no sane person can claim an election was stolen. You can't argue with verifiable math on a blockchain. It either is or isn't, there is no room for any corruption if the code is solid. If we want fair elections then why not have open source voting machines and blockchain based voter registration? Are they just worried some corporations will lose some money? What's the real reason? Hopefully it's just Government's typical inefficiency leading to slow adoption of new technology and not anything nefarious.

Now if someone within the vast apparatus that runs the US elections does see some evidence of fraud, we are in the kind of deeply divisive political environment in which they may very well stay silent out of fear of being ostracized and labeled a Trumper, right wing extremist, conspiracy theorist, or worse. It could just as likely happen the other way around, as in a poll worker with a Republican family or circle of friends might not report fraud that benefits Trump. That kind of scenario is not that implausible, and if you think it is you're lying to yourself. If we want to continue having a stable democracy, this needs to be the last election that's not done on a blockchain.

Okay I'm done ranting now, If you are interested in learning more about the security of our elections, here's a good podcast on the subject by Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons. According to the guest, there are concerning vulnerabilities in our voting systems, although no evidence has been found that they have been exploited in the wild.

Episode webpage: https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2023/12/11/restoring-trust-in-elections/

It's only a matter of time at this point before the law of supply and demand sends Bitcoin to the moon. That is the moon in another fucking solar system.

My god he really went all out with it, personal suitcase maxed out. This is that guy that arrives in county jail with like 3 cellphones, a ounce of tobacco, a lighter, and a assload of drugs.🤣