"It is said that, years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."

We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized."

- Ira Byock

.

As I write this, Iran has not attacked Israel. But Israel has attacked Iran. And Israel is threatening to attack Iran again, in self-defenese, even though Iran hasn't attacked Israel? Even though Iran obviously has a better claim to self-defense right now? Who the fuck does Israel think it is? Every country in the world should work to dismantle this rogue state that violates every UN ruling, violates every international law, applies force to every situation, treats its neighbors like animals, steals everything it can steal, and commits genocide. I *love* jews, but I fucking *hate* this stupid country Israel. End the fucking thing already.

I’m of the opinion that things like this are a mistake. That they should be allowed to happen naturally.

But we will see.

What’s the saying? You can take the boy out of Silicon Valley, but you can’t take the Silicon Valley out of the boy 👦

nostr:note1z866al6xs9xhnlqgwt0lkxr9lrynstyc52ls29sej96hfxpwxzws5u3m9u

Some GN thoughts (maybe a rant?) - Most of y’all don’t know that I’m a deeply political creature - and I’m not ashamed of this, I just simply don’t lead with it. Lol.

But what I am most certainly NOT is a partisan, and I will tell you why:

Before I dropped out of my PhD program I racked up 96 graduate hours in leadership studies and what I learned was politics is simply how power is distributed. I learned that I’m a pretty big proponent of power to the people, myself. The whole life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness meets freedom and justice for all is my vibe.

In George Washington’s farewell address he warns about partisanship as a form of political theater used by clever, ambitious men to swindle the public and subjugate us through the centralization of ‘values’.

Funny how they don’t teach that in schools, huh?

Think about how the different social media platforms are also like their own political parties that reward conformity and loyalty and funding more than individuality, freedom, and justice. Just think about the parallels between the big parties and the big platforms - not that one platform is aligned with one party but that they act the same in terms of shaping how we behave and in terms of distributing power.

#Nostr is democracy in social media form. You can hate me if you want. You know I’m right. Lol.

GN Nostr. Sweet dreams. 😘

In part of our launch of the Creator and Journalism Accelerators note1z866al6xs9xhnlqgwt0lkxr9lrynstyc52ls29sej96hfxpwxzws5u3m9u some people have asked why we're doing this on Nostr and not ActivityPub and the Fediverse. It's a good question, and the answer for me is about the way both the protocols and the culture of the people creating them work. I wrote this out here in a reply, but it deserves it's own post. So here's my why Nostr instead of Mastodon & ActivityPub.

There are a lot of things that Mastodon & ActivityPub can’t do.

* User identities are tied to a server; if the server goes down, you lose your account, as happened when queer.af had their domain name seized.

* Users can’t migrate between servers. In some servers there’s a system where they can request a migration, where they can stop using one account and point their followers to a new account, but server admins need to allow this, and your followers don’t automatically follow your new identity on a new server.

* On a single server, it is impossible to change your username!

* Fediverse servers have total control over your account and data; they can see all of your private messages or write new ones on your behalf.

* The fediverse is a network of fiefdoms, each server admin having total control over their users. Often they are benevolent and use their power to decide what behavior is acceptable on their server, but it’s opaque. Most fediverse server admins keep their moderation and defederation decisions secret. So, users must choose a trust and safety regime without any understanding of the rules and how they’re enforced. When combined with the very limited ability to migrate between servers, only with server admin's permission, it’s a problem.

* Each kind of fediverse server is isolated. You can use a Peertube instance to federate with other Peertubes for video, or Mobilizon for meetup-style events, or Pixelfed for Instagram-like photo sharing, or WriteFreely for blogs. But each of these is isolated. I need a new account on an instance of each of these servers. They all run the same protocol, but they aren’t actually interoperable. You can’t use a single fediverse identity with your profile and followers in Peertube, Mobilizon, WriteFreely, and Pixelfed. You need a totally separate account in each one. With Nostr, you can use dozens of apps all with your same identity, content, and followers.

* The fediverse has no privacy; there is no system of end-to-end encrypted messaging. In Nostr, you can have private direct messages and even private groups that are encrypted. Nostr even supports encrypted private file sharing.

* The fediverse has no system for micropayments. The zaps on Nostr enable easy ways to fund creators and journalists with either one-off tips or subscriptions to unlock paid content, like paid Substack newsletters or OF accounts.

* Lastly, and most importantly for me, the culture of fediverse server admins and developers is vindictive. It’s a community that attacks people who make proposals or want to try out new ways of using the network. That is why there is no search, no ability to choose an algorithm, no private groups, no private messages, no system for payments, etc. Those have all been proposed or even built, but the fediverse culture has gone after those people, punishing them for suggesting new ways of doing things.

From Elsewhere:

DONT THROW AWAY YOUR ECLIPSE GLASSES‼️

stick your glasses in an envelope & mail to the address below so that kids in Latin America can use them Oct 2, to watch the South American Eclipse

Eclipse Glasses USA, LLC

PO Box 50571

Provo, UT 84605

Miren que hermosura 😍

🥑

Is strfry still the most popular relay? Just checked the repo and the last commit was 4 months ago..

#asknostr #nostr #dev

The obsession with egos gets grosser and grosser each cycle. It’s F you $ not A$$ kissing money.

Stop making this a nerd version of The Kardashians. The yachts are basic. The parties are lame.

Evolve beyond fiat pedestals. Free thyself.

Political influence bots are showing up, commenting on their own comments to fake consensus, using nip05 verification from nostrich.house’s automated nip05 issuance service.

Got a raised God is Good 👍🏾