By the way? What’s the right way?

And also, if you know the right way, why aren’t you willing to fight this battle yourself? Why do you seemingly expect that your offspring should fix the things that you clearly haven’t been able to? Does that seem fair?

That has worked out great so far hasn’t it?

I can understand where you’re coming from since these are the tools you are familiar with. The examples you give though are equivalent to small battles that have been won in the context of a much larger losing war. Ask yourself whether, since the 1990s, privacy laws have improved or worsened as a whole.

I’m sorry, but I maintain that using the tools of the state won’t work.

In case people do want to actually do something about this, the answer does not lie in the political system. It does not lie in the legal system. Sorry Lyn, but you’re flat out wrong.

These systems have been fully and completely captured. To try to change things using the tools of the state is simply absurd.

The way to change this is to vote with your feet, your wallet, or your genitals.

Move out of the US, ditch the US dollar, refuse to produce yield for anyone but yourself (become self-sufficient), and for fucks sake (yes I know), stop producing more slaves for the masters.

This is all the leverage we have left.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Why one day? Why not now?

When are we going to ACTUALLY going to do something about this?

Oh that’s right, never.

Bulgarian split squats for the win.

Gotta hand it to the Eastern Europeans when it comes to leg day.

As usual David, I appreciate your thoughtful and measured response. This is awful stuff to think about as a parent I know, since children are permanent once born and the dissonance involved must be massive as the person who chose to have them.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that parenting already involves massive sacrifice. It is an awful job that results in no direct benefit to the parent other than intangibles and maybe a resource to care for you in old age. As I’ve posted before, it’s like the ultimate form of taxation, since it imprisons parents to a particular geography, forces you to be obedient to the state (or they take your fucking kids away), and costs an absolute fortune in terms of the best years of your life and earning potential.

That said, WHY OH WHY do people still do it? The state of the world is beyond TERRIBLE. Why did you bring another batch of slaves into existence when you can clearly see the walls closing in? I know you value human life but your kids will only suffer a worse fate than you, being constantly surveilled and exploited to within an inch of their lives. Do you not feel this way yourself? Do you not want to protect them from this? Do you think it will somehow magically get better or that your kids should solve the problems you and your generation have created and ignored?

I just read that here in the US, the average American only has one healthy birthday after the age of 65. Most are working full time until they are older than that. We are so beyond FUCKED in this country and in this planet yet people are still breeding and arguing over who can use what bathroom or what some senile fucking moron has to say about it.

Do you know that all of our technological advancements over the last 2000 years have only led to more working hours and less leisure time? Is this not concerning? Does this make any sense? Sure, our ancestors didn’t have Wi-Fi, cars, or air conditioning, but they had freedom of movement and ready access to the abundance of nature. When they woke up they only had to leave their shelter and find some food and water (which was everywhere) before being able to enjoy the rest of their days. Now, they wake up, go to work or school to produce yield for the masters, eat poisoned packaged food that will kill them off quickly when they are old and no longer productive, and spend what little time they have to themselves consuming propaganda so they can be optimally watched and marketed to.

We are allowing this imbalance get even worse and are pawning the hard work of fixing it off onto the next generations.

My working theory is that humanity has literally gone blind to the reality of the world. We have been bred over millennia now to be a maximally distractible and docile working class. Although it has human nuance, this phenomenon happens eventually to all species who outgrow their resources and it serves to accelerate their species’ decline and restore balance to nature. Humans have brains though and so could avoid this. It is really, really awful to watch.

If I were to be a parent, I would only do so if I were willing to die for my kids. It only seems fair. Given the abhorrent state of the world, I guess I just don’t understand how I haven’t seen ANY do so yet. I suppose they are all just too tired or distracted with Facebook updates and soccer practice.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Well I am sorry for your child but understand how hard it is to not fall for the pro family propaganda that is shoveled down our throats from birth.

You are correct that I do not have children and could never conceive (pun intended) of having any in this reality. I was lucky (in a sense) to see the falseness in such things from an early age and find a partner who agreed with me on the topic.

The fact that you are even able to think about such issues as a parent though is truly impressive and admirable. While I don’t wish the guilt you must feel at times on anyone (which is why I advocate so loudly for going childless from the start), I do think it is very important for parents to process the fact that they bear all of the material responsibility for their children’s existence. The government and religious leaders that promote reproduction sure as hell aren’t going to take any of it on. Part of that responsibility should be, in my opinion, telling your children about the guilt you feel, and urging them to not reproduce by extension. At least as long as it takes for the world to wake up to what is going on around it.

I truly do appreciate your willingness to discuss such difficult things in a civil and thoughtful manner though. Taking the next step though, I really do wonder how you are not rioting in the streets these days? I mean, as someone with almost no skin in the game myself, I am rendered so livid on a daily basis by the exploitation and abuse of humans around the world that it is a struggle to not do so myself. The true targets of my ire though are not my fellow plebs, but our so called global leaders and elite who so smuggly and openly oppress us. Do you just feel completely powerless? Are you more afraid of your own suffering than that which your child will potentially endure by your inaction?

I recognize how tough these questions are. Thank you again for being so willing to see past any offense, and help me gain a better understanding of the issue.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

I agree with you 100%, revolution and massive amounts of human suffering will be necessary to reset humanity to any semblance of freedom. Whether they realize it or not, parents are voting for this suffering, except they are not willing to do the suffering themselves. They expect their children to do it instead.

How millions of parents wake up everyday and live with themselves and this vile kind of cowardice is beyond my comprehension. If I had forced someone into existence, and witnessed what the world has become, I would be long dead, having found it necessary to do something, anything, and everything to atone for my grievous mistake.

**Trigger warning**

Many parents seem to have this romantic notion that they would die for their children. They espouse this ideal most fervently when confronted with the question of what material things they are doing to unfuck the world we are currently living in and they have brought more human life into.

What seems to happen far more often in practice though is that they really aren’t willing to sacrifice anything for their kids. They just tell themselves (and others!) that they are willing to fight and die for their kids, that things will surely get better soon, or that other people who are actually to blame will soon “see the light” or get theirs. Rather than doing anything of consequence, I also see many retreat into non-logical self-soothings like “this is all just part of Gods plan”.

Anything and everything is done to avoid and distract from the harsh possibility that they have created lives that will most likely be even more miserable than their own.

When it’s all said and done, they believe their children of course will only carry on with the “correct” and “true” principles that they, as all knowing and wisest of parents, have imparted. Someday, someone else or some God will surely come along, since their own efforts are already maximized (they would die for their kids, remember?), that will finally fix all the things they complain about.

So I ask you, parents (who are all apparently willing to die for their kids), when will you start actually living (or maybe dying?) up to this lofty ideal??

How bad do things have to get? How much surveillance, propaganda, and exploitation do you have to witness your children suffer before you ACTUALLY do anything of consequence to protect them?

I’m sorry but until then, I’ll continue to see you as the impotent cowards that you probably are. Keep telling yourselves that Bitcoin, god, nostr, whatever, is going to fix this shit. Anything to avoid putting in any actual effort or suffering yourselves, right?

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

#getoffended

Such a great lyric:

“Oh, it's a mystery to me

We have a greed, with which we have agreed

And you think you have to want more than you need

Until you have it all you won't be free”

Society by Eddie Vedder

Oh and we can also choose to stop paying attention to the bullshit and buying their garbage products and experiences.

I’d love to hear other suggestions.

If you’re not getting offended on #nostr, you’re doing it wrong.

#getoffended

The only things that are left that can actually make a difference are saving outside the current financial system (in #bitcoin for example), rallying around free speech tech (like #nostr), and refusing to have more children.

Hear me out but I cringed a little when I read “work as hard as possible”.

The nice thing about #bitcoin for me is that it has eliminated this kind of thinking. Fiat has instilled in us the notion that we need to be greedy, to get as much as we can as soon as possible. #Bitcoin, on the other hand, if bought/saved regularly over a long period of time, will make you wealthy enough to live comfortably when you can no longer work, no longer want to work, or chose to work less.

The Fiat mindset serves the masters purposes very well when you think about it. We are most productive with our labor when we are young and therefore the system of work would tend to “reward” those who sacrifice those precious able bodied years in favor of future IOUs (like money).

I’m not advocating for a YOLO mentality which is just plain stupid in my opinion, but I do worry about attitudes that favor future wealth over any enjoyment of life in our youth. You are not guaranteed an old age at all. The key I have found is balance, which is not all that surprising. With #bitcoin, you need to save less, not more. This is so that you can have more of your life back now which is currently being stolen from you by the Fiat system.

In other words, be careful to not fall for just another version of the get rich quick mentality. This is how the Fiat system is advertising #Bitcoin and it’s just another attack vector.

Good luck!

#bitcoin

#thinkdangerously

It may not be immediately obvious:

Billionaires, royalty, A-list celebrities, Supreme Court justices, etc.

I’ve seen them all die, and all die with the same anxieties and regrets.

There is no magic escape people. We are all on the same ride no matter what petty differences we think exist between us.

#grownostr

Hyperoxia produces many harmful free radicals and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Other than decompression sickness, hyperbarics should mainly be used for wound therapy where perfusion to a limb is severely impaired due to peripheral arterial disease or treatment of air embolus where the goal is to shrink the size of the embolus.

What purported benefits have you been promised I wonder? Could it be that someone is preying on your vanity or fear of aging normally?

I find influencer culture interesting.

For me, it boils down again to people not liking to think for themselves because the world is not a happy place anymore. Thinking for oneself mostly means being sad and angry now, or lying to oneself that things aren’t as bad as they actually are.

So instead, people happily watch other people who are stereotypically good looking live what they know are fake fantasy lives as they shill garbage products and lousy advice. They prefer to outsource their thinking to these people (advertisers), because the only happy world is a made up one at this point.

While it is most likely that the world remains an absolute shit show now and continues to deteriorate, hiding from this fact will only make things worse. It’s sad to watch, especially when people bring blameless children into it, but I suppose everyone is just doing their best. The problem is just that we are all pretty dumb I suppose.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Anatomy of a fall was pretty good.

Lots of stuff to think about there as far as the disturbing nature of modern legal systems and how they tend to promote/profit off human suffering.

Conversely, better money (like #bitcoin) may bring more happiness (than fiat). The fact that fake fiat money doesn’t bring happiness is really not that surprising.

I agree though, that money remains a necessary but insufficient (by itself) source of human happiness.