Review: The Bitcoin Standard

My Review of The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous
 

Much as Martin Luther's polite letter of request posted on the Church's door, which was merely a simple request, that being asking for a return to the True God and the incontrovertible truth of nature, the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper reminds us of Jesus throwing out the corrupt middle men, degenerate money changers, and their monopoly on sacrificial-animal sales, from his Father's temple. (Sidenote: Muslims should thank protestants for ending the crusades)

The alternative, informal, and direct nature of Bitcoin is currently changing the world, similar to how the printing press changed the world and accelerated the already-in-progress renaissance. People in a Malawi village in Africa, who have never had electricity, are now able to access electricity via hydroelectric power via Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin is the ultimate anti-colonial power; it brings wealth to the countries that are accepting it, and then naturally deflates. Side note: At present, Nigeria is forced via international treaty to much all of its grain to the USA, whereas Nigeria buys its grain from the USA. Regardless of one's thoughts on climate change, this can't be good for mankind. Meanwhile, other countries in Africa, who do not have their own currency, are required to buy the CFA/African Franc from the central bank of France to transact locally, but nations buy them at a 50% loss of their buying power.

This book, in succinctly and in simple language, shows the history of money over time: Cows, West African beads, American wampum seashells+tobacco, the large, unmovable 5 ton stone coins of the Yap Islands (the first public ledger), silver, gold, and finally the life-changing discovery of true scarcity as laid out in Saratoshi Nagamoto's Bitcoin Whitepaper (*snicker*, Brad Sherman).

It also shows that Bitcoin has a better stock-to-flow ratio than even Gold. Gold is indestructible and does not lose it's luster, and humans have been mining, hoarding and exchanging it for thousands of years, and yet there is 10x as much Gold below the Earth's crust as above it. Gold mining also uses 10x the electricity that Bitcoin mining uses (this number might be different now), and 60% of Bitcoin mining is done is using renewable energy [and this number continually rises]). With Bitcoin, 92% has been hashed (cryptographically mined) as of 2023 and by 2028 98% to 99% of all the Bitcoin that will EVER exist, will exist. Bitcoin continues to naturally decentralize informally held wealth, continuously flowing out of banks and directly into the hands of humanity. For the first time in history, wealth will flow from the bottom-up rather than via the top-down MLM pyramid scam that is our extremely corrupt dishonesty, unscrupulousness, deception, fraud, immoral, criminal, villainous, graft, extortion, profiteering, crooked, sleazy, palm-greasing, malfeasant, sinful, profane, depravity, degeneracy, perversion, debauchery, decadence, wantonness, lechery, wickedness, evil, baseness that is unbacked fiat printing and the Cantillon effect (Thanks Google!). Humans unconsciously seek out a master, Lord, and King, and the invisible effect of printing paper monies that are not backed with grit/effort/work/energy/time/labor are being exposed and dethroned. You cannot destroy the invincible Smaug-like beast that has become the infinitely-tentacled addiction to printing fake money, but it will be severely injured.

My parents lost their mortgaged home due to ineptitude, and this spectre still harms my family to this day. If you only ever read one book on the subject, read this one. Bitcoin is an asset that is portable across all borders, of states where governments in the many forms of corrupt*ism cannot steal, reposess, rob, or even account, surveil or have knowledge of it's existence.

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

This post was taken from nostr:note1sml79x4y6hpuqy8xr2squdztjzxa59lkmv2560vv9aqne6z3hkwq3pn7vl

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

20

8,789

99

36

avatar

BforVictory

6 hr. ago

beautifully put.

avatar

Newton

8 hr. ago

salimrezanewton@iris.to

I SLIGHTLY BUT CRUCIALLY EDITED THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THIS WONDERFULLY COMPOSED TEXT THAT I SHARE BELOW. 🙏🙏

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has spontaneous, decentralised teams but no formal, bureaucratic leadership, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

1

avatar

MW

11 hr. ago

That’s all, folks! 👌🏼

avatar

Travis West

11 hr. ago

travis@west.report

Well said!

avatar

Ava

11 hr. ago

Certes tout ce qui est résumé est réelle, il a fallu d'une question sur Twitter sur mi décembre 22 à laquelle des professionnels ont merveilleusement interagi de manière réactive pour que nostr naisse sans oublier la capacité des donateurs à soutenir une vision qu'ils avaient du WWW après tout ce que l'on a connu avec les plateformes réseautes avec des failles qui ont dû à certaines règles qui in fine nous emprisonnaient ou nous écœuraient et des drames..... Merci je m'arrête au besoin je pourrais développer

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

avatar

hodlbod

11 hr. ago

hodlbod@coracle.social

20k developers? I was thinking more like 200-400

3

1

avatar

Louis

14 hr. ago

louis@vlt.ge

🤙

avatar

rusher77

16 hr. ago

rusher77@nostrplebs.com

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

npub1kdjrpwmwuj..pwjsrsp7xq

16 hr. ago

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

avatar

MTC

17 hr. ago

mtc@primal.net

"If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr."

🎯

1

avatar

Vendo

17 hr. ago

vendoquesos@nostrplebs.com

That's why we nostr

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

avatar

dbcooper

19 hr. ago

dbcooper@nostrplebs.com

#zerotoone

2

avatar

il_lost_

19 hr. ago

il_lost_@getalby.com

Nostrovia trailer 💜

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

avatar

Gigi ⚡🧡

19 hr. ago

dergigi.com

🫂

21

2

avatar

Gigi ⚡🧡

20 hr. ago

dergigi.com

Amen.

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

1

13

avatar

L

20 hr. ago

lifeloveliberty@iris.to

My explaination: Nostr is fun and different, come join via this app, put your nsec somewhere safe, enter you wallet address there, start posting and reading notes.

You'll get the rest later.

1

avatar

Gerry

20 hr. ago

Source: nostr.band

2

1

avatar

FarCue

21 hr. ago

farcue@nostrplebs.com

Great explanation

avatar

gsovereignty

gsovereignty@nostrovia.org

21 hr. ago

Explaining nostr to traditional folks:

Nostr has no team, no leadership, no funding, no foundation, no token, no Blockchain, and no one has ever seen the creator of the project.

And yet, it's the fastest growing network of humans the world has ever seen.

It's simply an idea - some very simple words written in a markdown document. It can't be stopped, it can't be controlled, it can't be owned.

There were less than 50 people using it when I first started dabbling about a year ago. I had solid reasons for believing it would work, and that turned out to be right. Today there are around a million people using it.

It's open and permissionless, so don't trust me, go and verify these numbers yourself. Look at everyone's data, and see for yourself they are real living humans interacting with other real living humans. See the economic activity for yourself as you witness money moving though this human network.

There's no indication that this is going to slow down, and every indication that it's already started eating all other forms of social graph.

Traditional social graphs like facebook, twitter, Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Telegram, etc cannot leverage off each other's network effects because their business models prevent them from being able to share data and users. They believe this is a feature that protects their feudal estate from all the other feudal estates.

Nostr is the opposite. When you build something with nostr, the network effects of what you build are *multiplied* by the network effects of what I build - and there are currently about 20,000 developers building all kinds of crazy things. It's like a super app that anyone can build on without asking permission.

If you're a half-decent developer and you've got an idea to test out in the market, building anywhere else is a total waste of time (unless the idea is very specific).

The chicken and egg problem is solved because the users and data (and the payment mechanism) is already there ready to use. I could never go back to the old way of doing things, it would be soul-crushingly frustrating after building with nostr.

At the core of nostr is a very bright and hopeful view of the future. We as a species are approaching a variety of non-trivial challenges. The institutions we used to rely on for sensemaking and problem solving at this scale are in liquidation, there is *no hope* for them, it's *over*, there is *no coming back*.

Nostr is the rallying point for people who are completely unfazed by this. It's for people who believe in the human spirit and understand that we have have all the tools we need to handle whatever challenges come at us, and if we need new tools, we'll figure it out and build them.

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play@devsou.com

21 hr. ago

play@devsou.com

Well done!

avatar

southside

21 hr. ago

southside@nostr.nz

trad folk: ‘cool, add me on Threads.’

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bulletproof smart water:

 Easy to make bulletproof smart water: boil water, while hot put it in blender along with butter/ghee and coconutoil/mct oil.

Two Funerals and a Honeymoon

“...a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and health care of his island nation.” 

In 2016, Fidel Castro died and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made this statement about him. He had planned to travel to Cuba for the funeral, but canceled the trip after the public outcry over his statement. For a skillful politician like Justin Trudeau, this was more than a little odd, like watching Olympic athletes purposefully losing: there is more to the story. 

Why did Justin Trudeau whitewash a murderous dictator’s legacy?

The Other Funeral

In 2000, Justin’s father Pierre died at the age of 80. Prime Minister of Canada from 1968-1979, his funeral was the end of a long and eventful life. Shocking observers was one of the honorary pallbearers.

It was Fidel Castro.

This was a man that rarely went outside of Cuba. Dictators stay where it’s safe because they’re paranoid about assassination attempts. Yet here he was, exposing himself to pay respects to his friend, almost like a pilgrimage. Once again, there is more to the story.

Why did Fidel Castro attend Pierre Trudeau’s funeral? 

The Honeymoon

It was something of a scandal, that the bachelor prime minister had married. This was 1971, well before TMZ, so the public had no idea that Pierre Trudeau was even dating. He had been courting Margaret Sinclair for the previous 18 months and there she was, his 22-year old bride. 

He was 30 years her senior and had been enjoying his bachelor lifestyle. The year before, he appeared in public with Barbara Streisand. Yes, he was dating Barbara Streisand publicly, while dating Margaret privately. He was an alpha male and the normal rules didn’t apply to him.

Pierre slept with many women including Liona Boyd (classical guitarist), Margot Kidder (actress), Gale Zoë Garnett (author) and Kim Cattrall (of Sex and the City fame). He dated multiple women at once and oftentimes would invite them to the same party. So when this lifelong bachelor got married, the public was shocked, as if a previously terrible baseball player suddenly won MVP.

Pierre and Margaret went to the Caribbean for their honeymoon. It was at this time that they went to an undisclosed island in the Caribbean. To quote The Ottawa Journal from April 13th, 1971:

“Barbados – Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his wife Margaret left here by chartered plane on a quick side-trip to an unidentified nearby island.” 

The press revealed every other island that they had traveled to: Barbados, Tobago, Trinidad and St. Vincent. This is like showing your browsing history, but not revealing one particular website. There is more to the story.

Why would they not reveal this island?

Pierre

The only politically problematic Caribbean island to visit at the time was Cuba, a communist state and ally of the USSR. It’s possible that the press didn’t want to name another island for some reason, but it’s hard to imagine why.

Why would Pierre Trudeau want to visit Cuba? Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro had dealt with each other months earlier during the October Crisis in Montreal. Quebec nationalists (FLQ) kidnapped British Diplomat James Cross and held him for 59 days. The kidnappers eventually agreed to release the diplomat in return for safe passage to Cuba but there was one problem: Cuba had to agree to take them.

Pierre Trudeau called Castro and Castro agreed to take the kidnappers. The crisis was resolved. Trudeau afterwards sent a private letter expressing his heartfelt gratitude.

It’s hard to overstate what a big deal this was at the time. Trudeau had to resolve this crisis to stay in power. The solution of sending the kidnappers to Cuba was a godsend and the gratitude he felt was genuine. It’s hard to believe that a politically isolated dictator like Castro would save another world leader’s hide without asking for something in return, but that’s the story sold to the press. This would be like getting a favor from a mobster: completely out of character and hard to believe that there isn’t more to the story.

After this political crisis, wouldn’t they have needed or even wanted to meet each other? 

Castro at the time was the target of many CIA assassination attempts, and he wasn’t leaving Cuba. Trudeau also couldn’t go to Cuba since that would anger the US, a valuable ally. The US had gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis just 8 years earlier and were actively at war with Communists in Vietnam. Like a Shakespearan tragedy, the only way for Trudeau and Castro to meet would be to do so in private.

What better way than to do so under the cover of a honeymoon?

Fidel

“Oh, what a charmer! You know why he’s in power, he’s got charisma coming out his ears.”

So said Margaret Trudeau about Fidel Castro during an interview. She also called him, “the sexiest man she had ever met” in her autobiography. In the video where she calls him a charmer, she gushes about him the same way a child does about Disneyland.

We all would like to think that dictators have horrible personalities since they do such horrendous acts, but this is rarely the case. Stalin had serious charisma, and even president Harry Truman said “I like that son of a bitch.” Hitler charmed little kids by giving them horsey rides. 

Fidel was a really attractive man. At 6’3” with the build of a football player, he was powerful, good looking and had many, many lovers. One report has him sleeping with 35,000 (!) women during his lifetime. Villains in real life have personalities less like Voldemort and more like Casanova.

We don’t know what happened during this trip or if the trip even happened at all, but if the Trudeaus did go to Cuba in 1971, it’s safe to say that Fidel Castro charmed them. What we do know is that the Trudeaus visited Cuba in 1976 and they were lifelong friends after that trip. 

Is a single trip enough to start a lifelong friendship? One that would result in being an honorary pallbearer and a politically risky eulogy?

Margaret

Margaret was 18 when she met Pierre Trudeau. He was justice minister at the time and she was a university student studying sociology. This was the late 60’s and she was a flower child. After graduating from university, she traveled the “hippie trail” in Europe and North Africa. She was an attractive young woman fully immersed in the ethic of free love, so her sexual mores were as non-traditional as Star Wars Day.

In her various autobiographies, she confesses to many affairs during her marriage. She admits to sleeping with Ted Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal (Boxer), Lou Rawls (Singer) and Ronnie Wood (Rolling Stones) among others. She was also a heavy drug user, smoking pot in front of her security detail and partying at the notorious Studio 54. She was only 22 when she got married and she lived in the spotlight for the rest of her 20’s. She was more messed up than a college dorm room.

As mentioned above, Pierre’s sexual mores weren’t conventional either. He was sleeping with many beautiful women before his marriage. After 30 years of being a playboy, he was as likely to be a traditional husband as a Hollywood director.

Given Margaret’s assessment of Castro as sexy and having embraced the flower child/free love ethic of her years at university, is it crazy to think she would have slept with him?

Justin

Which brings us back to Justin Trudeau. He was born about 8.5 months after that possible April 13th, 1971 encounter, on December 25, 1971. The internet has noted his remarkable likeness to Fidel Castro, making us wonder whether the speculation has some truth.

Justin Trudeau today is the prime minister of Canada. We don’t know why he felt the need to exonerate a bloodthirsty dictator, but looking backward at the two funerals and a honeymoon, we have some clues as to why he might.

Napoleon once said that “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” History is full of official narratives that don’t match reality. We are left wondering at the accuracy of these stories given how little sense they make:

Did Pierre and Margaret have a normal marriage? Do powerful men like Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro and beautiful women like Margaret Trudeau observe traditional morality? Are world leaders like Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro always fully transparent? 

The agreed-upon “official” stories conveniently make the powerful look good and hide their degeneracy. These stories don’t add up because they never reveal the other side of the equation: the power games, the humiliations and the sheer human depravity.

We may not be certain about Justin Trudeau’s paternity, but we can be certain that there’s a lot missing in the story. There are too many explanations that don’t make sense. Too many justifications that are “just-so.” We are being told lies, and for that, we should be outraged.

This story of Justin Trudeau’s paternity is just one of the many stories that we are told every day. The Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories are crazier, yet people are far more ready to believe that than the Justin Trudeau one. The difference is that the Jeffrey Epstein story is more recent and we have far more familiarity with the details. We can’t let the lack of public knowledge prevent us from closer examination.

Because there is more to the story.

Bitcoin explained in a correct and intelligible way - Translation of https://fiatjaf.com/bitcoin.html

 This post is a translation of this post: Bitcoin explained in a correct and intelligible way:

What is Bitcoin?

Every unhappy guide on Bitcoin starts with this common question, and usually starts with the answer that it is a “virtual currency” 1 , a stupid concept that does not clarify anything.

Forget this chat. Bitcoin is not a currency. Bitcoin is a protocol 2 .

Why then do they say it is a coin? Because these very hasty people like to say that everything that is easily divisible and transferable, and whose various units are identical to each other, is a currency. So, in that sense, Bitcoin is a currency, but ignore that currency talk.

The Bitcoin protocol says that there are “credits” (or “points”, or “units”) that can be transferred between participants, and multiple computers, each operating independently of the other, as long as they follow the protocol (i.e.: that they are all running the same program, or compatible programs), will always be in agreement as to who spent each credit and how they spent it.

This is basically the idea: a bunch of “virtual points” that are transferred from one to another, without there being an organizing entity, “the owner of Bitcoin”, “the supreme boss of Bitcoin”, who controls nothing, coordinates nothing, or have power over such transfers.

How it works

Imagine several computers running the same program (or compatible programs). Now imagine that these programs communicate with each other over the internet: they send messages to each other and wait for responses. Every now and then the response doesn't come, or it comes in a format the program doesn't understand, that means the other computer has gone offline, or is running an incompatible version of the program, and then everyone else will ignore it. But in general the answer comes straight and everyone manages to talk to everyone.

Now that you've figured that out, it's easy to imagine, for example, that each of those computers keeps a list of all the bitcoins in existence and who owns each one. They get the list of other computers on the network and then update it as new transactions are made. Every time someone wants to make a transaction, he must do it through one of these computers, the person goes to the computer running the program and says: “I'm so and so, I have x bitcoins, and I want to send them to such and such a place ”, the program goes there and sends this message to the other computers, which update their list. End.

This would be a naive version of the protocol that would work if all participants were very honest and no one ever tried to spend bitcoins they don't have.

For something like this to work in the real world, the great invention of Bitcoin had to come in, the brilliant insight of Satoshi Nakamoto, which is the chain of blocks, known around as blockchain .

It works like this: instead of each computer keeping a list of where each bitcoin is, each computer keeps the chain of blocks. A “block” is just a fancy name for a dataset. Each block consists of a reference to the previous block and a list of transactions. As they contain a reference to the previous one, there is a sequence, an Indian queue, and the computer can be calm knowing the order of the transactions (the transactions that happened in the third block are later than those that happened in the second block, for example) and know that the same bitcoins were not spent twice in a row by the same person, which would be invalid. When a new block appears, all the computers just check if there is no invalid transaction there and, if so,

who makes the blocks

In theory, either computer can do the next block. The idea is that each person who wants to make a transaction goes there and uses a computer on the network to send his transaction proposal (“I want to transfer bitcoins to such and such a place”) to everyone else, and that, when someone goes a block, take all such valid transaction proposals and place them in the block which will then be accepted by all other computers and included in the global blockchain. This global string has to be exactly the same on all computers.

In practice, there is a rule that makes not everyone able to make blocks: it is that the block data hash + a magic number must be less than a very small value x. The magic number is any number that the computer trying to make the block can adjust, by trial and error, so that the hash comes out the way it wants. The xcan be bigger or smaller according to the frequency of the last blocks produced. The smaller x, the more statistically difficult it is to find a magic number that, along with the block data, has a hash smaller than x.

That is: to make a block, many different magic numbers must be tried until one is found that satisfies the conditions.

What is a hash ? A hash is a mathematical function that is easy to do one way and hard to do the other. Multiplication, for example, is easy to do and easy to do, and its opposite operation, division, too (so much so that anyone with a pen and paper can do it, there's that thing of passing the numbers down and subtracting and such ). An exponentiation operation on the other hand – a number raised to 1000, for example – is easy to do, but to undo it only with trial and error (and it is by trial and error that the computer or the calculator do).

In the case of Bitcoin, the computer that is trying to produce a block has to find a number such that (this magic number + predetermined block factors) raised to 50 results in a value lower than the difficulty factor, another factor predetermined by the general state of the blockchain.

Suppose a computer finds a number 1798465042647412146620280340569649349251249, for example, and it is smaller than the difficulty factor. He then says to the others: “here is my block, the hash of my block is 1798465042647412146620280340569649349251249, the predetermined factors of the block are 4 (these factors everyone can check), and my magic number is 3. (4 + 3) raised the 50 is 1798465042647412146620280340569649349251249, as everyone can see, so my block is valid”. Then everyone accepts that block as valid and starts trying to find the magic number for the next block (and this time the block factors are different, since a new block was added to the chain and caused everything to change).

The rules for defining xmean that on average each new block is ready in 10 minutes. So, if there is only one computer trying to produce blocks, the protocol will say that xit is relatively high, so that computer will be able, in 10 minutes, on average, to find a magic number. If, however, thousands of super-powerful computers are trying to produce blocks, it xwill be set to a much lower value, so that the effort of all those computers doing thousands of trial-and-errors per second will only succeed in finding one magic number every 10 minutes.

Today there are computers specially made to look for magic numbers that can calculate hashes much faster than your home computer, which makes it impracticable for any non-specialized person to try to produce blocks, see this graph of the evolution of the number of hashes that are tried each second.

For some reason, computers that are engaged in making new blocks are called “miners”.

If two computers on the network make blocks at the same time, which one counts?

If you already know who makes the blocks, it's easy to imagine that this is a little unlikely. But still it can happen. Even if the blocks are not ready exactly at the same time, problems can happen because the other computers on the network will receive the two new blocks in different orders, and then it will not be possible to determine which is valid or which is not valid, in that order.

The computers are then left in a state of indeterminacy about the two possible chains of blocks, A and B, say, both identical up to block number 723, but different as far as block 724 is concerned, for which there are two alternatives. The protocol determines that the chain that has done the most work is the one that counts, but for a while we may have a state in which some computers on the network only know about the existence of block A, while others only know about the existence of block B, which It's a big mess that can only be resolved by the advent of the next block, the 725.

As each block refers to a previous block, it is necessary that one of these two 724 blocks be chosen by the miners to be the “parent” of the 725 block when the magic number is found and it is done. Even if each miner chooses a different parent, this process will probably only leave a 725 block, and when it is spread out it will determine, by its ancestry, which was the 724 block that was valid. If two or more 725 blocks are produced at the same time, the system continues in this indecision state until 726, and so on.

For this reason, you shouldn't trust that a transaction is actually committed just because it was included in a block. You have no way of knowing whether there is another alternative block that will be preferred over yours until at least a few more blocks have been added.

Transactions

Many people believe that there are addresses and that these addresses have an owner and he owns the bitcoins. This erroneous belief is the result of an analogy with traditional banks and bank accounts (accounts are addresses that have an owner and hold money).

In fact, once transactions are included in a block they are not "at one address", but wandering around in a large limbo of transactions. From this limbo they can be withdrawn by anyone who meets the conditions that were previously specified by the creator of the transaction.

A more useful analogy than the bank account analogy is the cash analogy: imagine you have a 20-penny bill and you want to use it to pay someone 10 bucks. You need to break that 20 note into two 10s and then one stays with you and the other person, or, if you have two 5s, you can put the two together and give it to the other person. All those bills you're spending have a prior history: they came from somewhere at some point into your control.

Bitcoin transactions are like that too: you need to specifically mention a previous transaction.

For example,

1. Carlos pays Dandara 10 bitcoins, Dandara now has a transaction worth 10
2. Elisa pays Dandara 17 bitcoins, Dandara has one transaction worth 10 and one worth 17
3. Dandara pays Felipe 23 bitcoins, she merges her two transactions and makes two new ones, one worth 23, which goes to Felipe's control, and another worth 4, which goes back to her control, Dandara now has a transaction worth 4, Felipe has a transaction worth 23
4. Felipe pays 14 bitcoins to Geraldo, he splits his transaction into two, one worth 14 and another worth 9, and so on.

One difference, however, is that in Bitcoin nobody knows who owns the note, you just know that you can spend it if you really can (if a previous transaction specifies a condition that you can meet, you must meet that condition in the time you are mentioning the previous transaction). This is why a Bitcoin wallet can say that you “have” x number of bitcoins: the wallet knows which private keys you control and which transactions out of all the unspent transactions on the entire blockchain can be spent using that key.

A common form of transaction is that it specifies the condition that anyone who has the private key capable of signing the public key whose hash is said here can spend this transaction. Other common conditions are those that specify n keys, of which m need to sign the transaction for it to be spent (for example, between Fulano, Beltrano and Ciclano, any two of them need to agree, but not just one), which is called.

payment channel

A payment channel is a sequence of payment promises made between two Bitcoin users that do not need to be published on the blockchain and are therefore instantaneous and free.

Before you ask yourself what happens if someone breaks a promise, I should say that "promise" is a bad term, because real promises can be broken, but these promises are self-fulfilling, they are signed transactions that can be redeemed at a later date. any time by the recipient simply by publishing them on the blockchain.

The idea is that most of the time you won't need it, and you can keep making new transactions that invalidate old ones until you decide to publish the last valid transaction. This way your money is safe in a payment method

The big problem is that if the other party decides to steal and publish an old transaction, you need to appear within a reasonable amount of time (this depends on the agreement between the two users, but I think the default is 24 hours) and publish the last transaction. There are incentives to prevent someone from trying to steal (for example, whoever tries to steal and is caught loses all the money that was in that lane) and other mechanisms, such as watchtowers that watch over other people's payment routes to see if no one is stealing.

Example:

1. Angela and Bóris decide to create a payment method, as they expect to make many small payments between them, both forward and backward, over the course of several months.
2. Angela creates a transaction to an address shared between her and Bóris, worth 1000 satoshis, and from that address she and Bóris create a transaction returning the 1000 to Angela
3. When deciding to pay 200 satoshis to Bóris, they create a new transaction that transfers 800 to Angela and 200 to Bóris
4. Now Boris wants to pay 17 satoshis to Angela, they create a new transaction that transfers 817 to Angela and 173 to Boris
5. And so on, they create new transactions that invalidate the previous ones and change the “balance” of the payment method. When either of you wants to withdraw the money you have in your balance, just publish the last transaction and that's it.

The Lightning network is a large network of payment channels that allows people to make payments to people not directly connected to them through direct channels, but through a route that traverses various other channels and adjusts their balances.

Are there other cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin?

For starters, never use that word again. “cryptocurrency” is even worse than “virtual currency” 1 .

Now, answering: yes, in a way there are, they are called “altcoins” (or “poop coins”, friendly translation), because they are, in fact, worthless.

Otherwise, it can be said that they are not comparable to Bitcoin, because there can only be one currency in a free currency market, and that position already belongs to Bitcoin, and also because Bitcoin is free, without owners, without great powers that control it, which cannot be said of any altcoin.

After Bitcoin was invented and its ingenious insight was embraced by the interested community, thousands of people copied the protocol, with minor modifications, to create their own coins.

Thus came Litecoin, Ethereum and many others. Basically, they are just copies of Bitcoin that try to improve it in some way or add other functions.

Further References:

• Little by little, and then all at once , Parker Lewis
• There is no solution
• The rot
• Bitcoin as a human social system
• Lightning Network