JaakkoVazhaKareli
Jaakko Vazha-Kareli

https://www.sovereignlanding.com/

Founder of Sovereign Landing (home finding service for location independent people) and the author of https://www.sovereignlanding.com/GTFO-Handbook/

Public Key

npub12r6qq0nsljcgaregqugue3knpa99v3ur6q2xvf7k7svvk767c2qq68sncq

NIP-05 Address

jaakko@nostr.sovereignlanding.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9paqq8ec0evyw3u5qwywvcmfs7jjkg7paq9rxylt0gxxt0d0v9qqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dskj45a9

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub12r6qq0nsljcgaregqugue3knpa99v3ur6q2xvf7k7svvk767c2qq68sncq

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Last Notes

2026-02-01 09:01:44 UTC

Politics = solving the wrong problems with concealed threats of violence.
When the violent threats are removed, people are free to work on the right problems.

2025-11-29 09:13:06 UTC

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Have you given any thought on handing that task over to AI? Sounds like a pretty solid AI job to me... easier said than done ofc.

2025-11-29 09:06:53 UTC

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Sick people are "hidden" irl extremely quickly, at least in sane societies.

2025-10-22 07:56:27 UTC

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Just in the process of switching over to Linux, writing this on Pop!_os.
Can't accept the forced digital ID, especially not with the all-seeing "copi-lot" copying my data to who knows where. No thanks.

2025-10-02 14:58:50 UTC

Where does the name GTFO Handbook come from?
Every business needs a tagline, and for my business Sovereign Landing, the tagline is "Go Lightfooted". When my friend Rasbelin heard it, he quipped that a better tagline for a business like this would be just "GTFO".
That thought stayed with me, and I put that idea into practice with the name of this book.
https://blossom.primal.net/c4f93ae7db946ba06f033e105e8354473cec5813789dfad1caab6779551e1d98.png
If you live in your country of origin, chances are that you are heavily exploited by people who seem to think they somehow own you, and that the fruits of your labor belong primarily to them.
You do the work, and they enjoy the benefits - in the name of fairness!
If you make the mistake of pointing out that it's all getting rather unfair, they're quick to tell you to learn your place, to STFU and to GTFO.
The GTFO Handbook is about giving them exactly what they want (or to be more precise: what they ask for).
There really is no need to fight any of them!
One of the best things about location independence is the ease of dealing with this leftard NPC crowd, especially their retarded comeback to any criticism of their ever-crazier policies of exploitation and violent coercion:
https://blossom.primal.net/313c281d9fa6ec4116bc1bd61264ecf46245f36740b9c5a9b3a3249da0abef20.png
When you live in a country where people like this are in power, you feel you have to spend endless amounts of energy in trying to convince them to "come back to their senses".
I see so many people trying to desperately figure out ways to somehow convince the violent expropriators that their socialist dreams are killing the country, and if they continue exploiting the productive people, the country will go to hell.
They cannot be convinced, because they actually WANT all of the destruction that is now happening. Their idea of building a better world requires first destroying the old, and they are getting exactly that.
You don't have to stay stuck in those endless, desperate political fights (that you will never win!).
When they tell you to GTFO, you can just give them a simple reply:
https://blossom.primal.net/9fe9ac6bdaa5448727b3ba90956133777279188f225595eb54f331f61d552f35.png
At first, you'd think that the violent expropriators might react like this:
https://blossom.primal.net/de0313d0fb3a515211208c875f637310e08f2a084faa66d372ee2a6e05885c4d.png
In my experience, the truth is much worse: they're simply happy with the thought of you leaving!
That "processing" part never seems to happen, and their "if you don't like it" noise is just an automated knee-jerk reaction to their world view being challenged: there's no actual thought behind it.
They aren't really bothered by productive people moving away, because the combination of the fiat money printer and the democratic "welfare" state DOES provide them with the real option of living endlessly on debt (until it doesn't, but the NPC is unable to think that far).
From their point of view, you moving abroad just works: these annoying ideas challenging their socialist paradise just go away.
Their problem is solved, so why be angry?
For those with even half of a functioning brain, the conclusion from this is obvious: this can't end well…
I discuss what all of this means in my book, especially part 5 (how and why to ignore politics):
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/GTFO-Handbook/

2025-09-29 07:55:27 UTC

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What should be switched off are EU bureaucrats.
Technically this can be switched off with a VPN to somewhere outside the EU, for now at least.
This is definitely a shot across the bow. They're clearly planning the digital ID stuff...

2025-09-25 10:22:32 UTC

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Tested now, seems to be an EU thing as VPN "solves" this... pretty bad either way. Hopefully the owners of these Discord channels start moving to other solutions.

2025-09-25 10:17:12 UTC

In a previous post, I wrote about how the left is no longer the left - but why should anyone care what they think, or label themselves as?
It's important to make the distinction between the "old" and the "new" left because at their time, the old left was rational, and the majority of the current people actually agree with the views of the old left - even if they are a bit misguided.
If you told most people that everyone has to be responsible only for themselves and the "society" should not intervene if they get in trouble, they would not agree with you - at all!
Where the old left, and the average person of today are misguided, was confusing the society with the state. That's not important for the point here though.
The point here is two-fold:
1. The new crazy left is using the facade of the old rational left to manipulate people and to derail any sensible debates.
2. Trying to argue purely libertarian viewpoints lands to deaf ears for most people, but these points remain equally valid to those "deaf" people - a different approach is required.
With any intellectual integrity, it has to be recognized that all of the even potentially valid points of the old left died with the Soviet Union. Even in, let's say early 1970s, these discussion would have been quite different, and purely theoretical - with liberty-minded people in the minority against an army of intellectuals.
Now, 50 years later, we know for a fact that the general leftist direction for societies is simply doomed. Previously that was clear only to some through theory. Now it's clear both in theory and practice, with indisputable historical evidence.
The problem is that when the USSR died, the ideology of the left didn't die with it - they were forced to re-invent themselves.
Now we're in a situation where the new left has hijacked the rational image and some talking points of the old left.
Even though all of it has now been proven to be invalid, it is still very useful for them in sowing discord. It's an intellectual weapon to divide people according to old battle lines that in reality have ceased to exist long ago.
That doesn't stop them from trying, often successfully, in exploiting the tribal nature of people and in doing so, painting themselves as the vanguards of all that is good and holy - even though all they are now able to advocate for is violent control of their fellow human beings.
We need to see through this charade and call the new left as what they are - pure advocates of state coercion through violence!
They have absolutely no policy goals that can be reached without the threat of violent intervention in the affairs of free people acting voluntarily between themselves.
There's nothing good or holy in that!
That remains true even if all of their stated end goals might first sound like something everyone would want. But if violence and coercion is the requirement to get there, then we should get there in some other way.
We need to recognize and call out this requirement of violence behind everything that they demand!
Just pointing this out at the beginning of every debate completely disarms their primary attack: painting everyone who is against their policies, as cold, selfish sociopaths who would only critize anything the left wants because "they are bad, and the left is good".
When you point out that in this false dichotomy, the "good ones" are actually demanding violence, their mask drops.
I've yet to encounter a leftie that can really argue against this in any way, or even wants to do so.
Many of them actually PREFER violence as the answer - they've just been really good at hiding this fact!
When you point this out, you will not REFORM the leftie - you REVEAL them.
None of this will change the mind of the extremist, but it will do something much more important - it reveals the new left as what they are to EVERYONE ELSE.
Then, after the hijacking of "all that is good and holy" by the violent coercionists can be ended, a new question can be asked among reasonable people:
How do we provide all of those good things to people, without resorting to violence?
That's a much better conversation to have!
https://blossom.primal.net/f4f69d7063609262a0815ab98ac5a00d5aef60f7cfb9d33ab67f4231820a11ba.png

2025-09-25 09:22:08 UTC

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@nprofile…x6g9 Are you aware of this?

2025-09-25 09:03:38 UTC

I've never been a fan of Discord and only used it when there was no real choice (some tech support chats and Midjourney), but this is now getting out of hand... is this because of EU bureaucrats or something else?
I can't access any group chats (Alby groups are a real loss!) without doing KYC, which will definitely not be happening... anyone else getting this?
https://blossom.primal.net/bc346f97d0f202cb1a175596030220c4d66a4267b2f603b54b272a6dd23ab374.png
I'm so glad Nostr exists!

2025-09-24 04:41:43 UTC

The left is no longer the left
https://blossom.primal.net/5ed01381f4058700ea23f1e292d21f8cd9b53fae772f9de2afdcfd6b157a3cf7.jpg
The world of the past was divided into two different political sides: the left and right wings.
Left-wing people generally didn’t own much and had to work for a living. Right-wing people had perhaps more resources and usually didn’t need to resort to entry-level jobs or manual labor.
That was the main political divide of the industrial age, and while we still try to apply these same labels to current political thought, they don’t really make that much sense anymore. The “right-wing” people are increasingly more dependent on the entry-level jobs, if they can even find one.
The culture and thinking of the “non-left” people perhaps hasn’t changed that much: their circumstances have shifted greatly, but the underlying ethos is still based around three basic things:
1. Common sense
2. Personal responsibility
3. Improving your lot in life by working hard
Those same ideas weren’t foreign to the left either. If you went back to the heyday of the industrial age, let’s say the 1950s, and talked to any random “leftie”, they would probably agree with you on all of those points.
They would probably even be offended if you just hinted that they didn’t see those as being the foundation of a good life and a healthy society.
That definitely can’t be said of the “left” of today. They will get absolutely triggered if you start talking to them about hard work or personal responsibility.
That shared foundation has been replaced by other values, such as:
- The absolute, non-negotiable top priority is women's rights, although genders don't exist
- More important than women's rights are gay rights
- ...therefore Islam is best, and muslim rights are the top priority
- All cultures are the same, except their own, which is the worst
- Single race - human race! Just say no to the white ones... and the other ones too if they "act white"
- The more unlike the non-existent white culture the other cultures are, the better
- All immigrants are the same, and it's racism to criticize their living permanently on unemployment benefits because they work so hard
- In the class struggle of the working class, saying that people should work for a living is hate speech
- Violence is justified only when it is used to right a wrong: you not having what you think you should have
- Words are violence and theft is "social justice"
- Violence is bad and disagreements should be resolved by debate, except when the other party doesn't agree with you
- Because words are violence, responding to words with violence is justified
I know what some will say – “those are just your purposely twisted version of the real, actually noble goals and values and nobody actually thinks like that!”
But then nobody actually should think like that, and we see the opposite every day.
Not just in the way they think and speak, but in the way they act. I won’t go into details here because if this isn’t obvious to you at this point, I don’t think I can change that.
The “industrial age left” used to be honorable, hard-working people, just with an emphasis on having societal safety nets instead of purely individual responsibility. They were still perfectly rational – what you could call the “common sense left”.
The current “left” has very little in common with the thinking of those people – in fact, if an old and new leftie met, the new leftie would probably dismiss the old one as a “far-right extremist” in under a minute.
Therefore I don’t even like to call these people “the left”.
The division between the left and the right no longer makes any sense.
They are just empty labels on both sides.
There is the “new left”, with their severe challenges with logic, and therefore with reality in general (I have theories on why this is, but that’s a topic for another time).
Then there are everyone else, who just want to get on with their lives without getting bogged down by all kinds of craziness (whatever the “left” has cooked up that day).
These regular people are constantly being labeled as “far-right” whenever they make the mistake of publicly having common sense.
It’s all getting so very tiring. A bunch of crazies have hijacked the brand of the old left, and are using the old (now irrelevant) political divisions as a weapon against normal everyday people.
Don’t let them get away with that – just hold on to your common sense and don’t be scared by the lies they cook up to make you conform to their demands.
If you can’t ignore them, ridicule them! That won’t make them change their mind, but it does something far more important – it allows you to get on with your life!

2025-09-19 06:59:57 UTC

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I would take a pragmatic view and conclude that the society (any society) has protection mechanisms against people with such ideas, and therefore such ideas get snipped in the bud and never propagate.
And I'm actually fine with that.
Words can lead to actions, and certain actions are not acceptable. I'm not ok with violence, or people openly calling for it. You're just proving why that point is valid, even if you're not a leftist.

2025-09-18 09:11:23 UTC

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Continuing my thoughts: I don't think you can apply the label "authoritarian" to people calling for crime control - that's the #1 function of the state!
You can perhaps try to make the case that now the government is going after people who are not criminals, but incitement to crime is also a crime.
And yes, I'm sure many will weasel that cheering for murder is just "an opinion" and not incitement, but I think it's time we just stop buying that BS.
It's high time for the madness to end.

2025-09-18 09:02:30 UTC

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I'm not sure if this is about the state, or "authoritarianism".
I see this as genuine blowback from grass roots every day people who've had enough of the madness, and don't want to see people getting murdered, or to see people cheering for others getting murdered.
I'm sure there are also "authoritarians" out there equally worried about this, but that isn't the gist of this.
This is bit of a read, but very much worth the time: https://primal.net/allen/1758031375463
I'd be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on it?

2025-09-12 07:52:59 UTC

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Bitcoin is money, and if people try to repurpose the bitcoin blockchain for any other use, it's usability as money suffers.
Fixing money is the most important thing. The blockchain isn't a general purpose database.

2025-09-08 05:47:44 UTC

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Thanks for writing this. I'd like to undo the brainwashing as much as I can, but realistically I think that's mostly a non-starter.
Trying to "help" these people is just received as me attacking them, and getting around that seems near impossible... so I just try to focus my efforts on the ones that are clearly able to have thoughts of their own.
Having said that, I think what might help is to bring in sufficiently outside perspectives that the "system" hasn't yet created this inverse image for those thoughts. It will still create cognitive dissonance, but maybe not that threat reaction.

2025-09-08 05:24:52 UTC

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I've been very hesitant to pick sides in this fight, and definitely don't want to add to the drama. That said, I do think about this a lot...
https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqspwhtczwk4qfvcdrdcvy44ssce2gyla5m2c70vmg7hqqmg5msahug3vqnh8

2025-09-07 06:21:58 UTC

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I'd say this is a variant of the good old "you can't make a man understand something when his paycheck depends on him not understanding it."
People thought these shitcoins were their ticket to riches, so they ignored opposing viewpoints without doing the thinking, and that's always costly.
Maybe they will learn, maybe not. Nature will heal either way.

2025-09-07 06:17:40 UTC

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Then again, he does say "it feels deserved", so he's clearly assuming personal responsibility for this poor financial decision. People just have to learn the hard way, and he's doing it, so I don't see this as sad.

2025-09-01 04:19:43 UTC

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Absolutely correct, and the logic behind this is also clear:
When the state takes your money with the excuse of using it to take care of others, people take that promise to mean something, even when it means next to nothing.
Then, as their money has been taken, they have neither the will nor the resources to help others. They already paid for the service, even if it's never delivered...

2025-08-26 07:56:02 UTC

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My thoughts exactly. I currently have no idea how to access Nostr without these clients, definitely an attack vector.

2025-08-26 07:47:13 UTC

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These "the end of capitalism" clickbaits are so tiring - 100% of the time they refer to something that is not capitalism.
I wish we could have "the end of the end of capitalism", but the bait works, so probably not.

2025-08-26 07:41:00 UTC

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Nice idea!
Would of course be illegal in Finland at least, thou shalt not infringe on state monopolies...

2025-08-22 09:50:22 UTC

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Interesting to hear Terence use the word "divestment" in connection with real estate. I agree with what he's saying, and actually wrote four chapters on this topic in my book.
It boils down to that most people probably shouldn't DIvest money into real estate, at least not beyond their primary home (if even that).
In some cases it can work with things like residency or citizenship schemes, but then the chances of it losing money become even higher.
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/GTFO-Handbook/#part-9-divesting-in-real

2025-08-22 08:47:22 UTC

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He's just a paid shill for the unofficial British communist party, and it's not possible to get a man to understand something when his paycheck depends on him not understanding it.
Best thing to do is to starve him of attention, because that's what he's after.

2025-08-21 11:06:20 UTC

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This started out just as a practical handbook on how to move from your home country to anywhere abroad, but I soon realized that wasn't enough. The book then became about how to approach this lifestyle in general, and how to relate to the steady (steady for now?) downfall of the legacy countries.
Even though moving abroad is definitely a challenge, it isn't THE challenge. The harder thing seems to be how to make this lifestyle work in the long term: how to STAY as lightfooted as possible, while enjoying the process - how to thrive without getting stuck!
Most location independent people will probably tell you that a "fully nomadic" life is extremely tiring, and I totally agree. Constant traveling just isn't a good way to live.
While you can technically be just as location independent while living only in one place, the optimum is probably somewhere between those two extremes. While you'll have to find your OWN balance, this book will help you get started in thinking what that might look like, and how to make it happen!

2025-08-21 11:00:17 UTC

GM Nostr!
I've been location independent for about 10 years, and now wrote a book:
https://blossom.primal.net/99d0f8c9afc5d013e7c78f37b03b3ad71325d152b2759dc4303b62522892c2da.jpg
Have you noticed how the world isn’t exactly what it used to be? How it seems to be getting worse with no reversal of direction in sight?
I’ve noticed that too, and yet that’s not how I see the world. My view of the world is the opposite of that.
I think this is the best time to be alive – and with this book, I hope I can show you too why that is.
This is a practical handbook, but it is more than what it says on the cover. It is what it shows on the cover.
This is about becoming capable of being at peace with the world corrupted by politics, broken money and short-term thinking.
This is a handbook for elevating yourself above that, and liberating yourself from the shackles of the world of yesterday. You can be free when you decide to – this is how to get started!
You can get a good preview of each chapter online, and can read the full book by signing up (for free!) with just your email, so check it out at:
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/gtfo-handbook/

2025-08-14 07:20:51 UTC

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Also, as you mentioned buying, I just wrote a book where I drill into that topic, and a ton of other things around this lifestyle. It's just about ready to publish, so stay tuned!

2025-08-14 07:20:05 UTC

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Sovereign Landing exists to make it as easy as possible to move between countries.
The idea (this is still a very early-stage business) is to work through local agents who know the situation on the ground, and can find you a place to stay before you even arrive.
Even as a very early-stage business, our service is already available in Tbilisi, Georgia. I'm working on some systems for onboarding more local agents so we can expand to other locations later this year!
More info at https://www.sovereignlanding.com

2025-08-12 09:56:40 UTC

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Businesses need to have a low barrier to fire customers. Not all revenue is worth it.

2025-08-11 10:47:52 UTC

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Yes, I've been thinking about this. AI increasingly enables, or should enable, people to work for other people instead of faceless corporations.
The industrial age governmental structures are standing in the way, and the countries where those restrictions are the strongest will suffer greatly.

2025-02-25 10:30:58 UTC

GM!
With all the talk about "AI changing everything" (and boring drama about bitcoin price, *yawn*), it's good to read up on some fundamentals. I stumbled upon this great post about the deeper role of social media, which got me thinking about Nostr:
https://justincscott.com/how-to-get-your-content-in-front-of-millions/
I'll just pick out this quote:
--------------
We are living through a second renaissance.
This era will be looked back on as a golden age of innovation, creation, and development.
No human in all of history has had the kind of advantage you have in this moment.
It’s never been easier or more accessible.
Don’t waste it.
--------------
The whole post is definitely worth reading, and helped me be more mindful of my use of social media. I'm also trying to make the jump from (semi-)mindless consumption to using this more as a tool of creation.
Keep in mind the importance of Slow & Steady, Proof of Work and Low Time Preference!

2025-02-25 10:21:16 UTC

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Tried it once, was fun. Lost my Oura ring when I lost my balance at one point, went under and simultaneously got attacked by some crab I stepped on 😄
Fortunately, by some miracle, the ring got found a few days later... would have been an expensive paddleboarding session if it had been lost.

2025-02-23 13:43:37 UTC

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I'll just leave this here
https://m.primal.net/PIID.png

2025-02-21 08:43:15 UTC

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He does have half a point, but misses the other half.
The current user experience of Nostr doesn't compete 1:1 with the well-polished UX of X, but the decentralized nature of the protocol is not the cause of that, and neither does it have to be the end state of Nostr forever.
The way both bitcoin and Nostr can scale infinitely is by combining the best parts of decentralization and centralized services. Not everyone can use the base chain directly, and nobody should expect them to.
In the same way not everyone should be expected to "tweak the algorithm" and micromanage their experience. Centralized services like Primal can handle that stuff for the majority and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
As long as you have the right to unilateral exit (withdrawing your sats without permission, or changing the platform you interact with Nostr), there's no problem with using centralized services for better UX.

2025-02-21 08:25:32 UTC

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This feels like half a story, difficult to make sense of. I hope it's exaggerated.
At the same time it has to be noted that the court systems in many European countries are more or less completely taken over by hardcore Marxists, and they don't feel the need to hide it.
The "long march through the institutions" has been a resounding success for them, at the cost of the people.

2025-02-21 08:18:28 UTC

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Most of the middle class people in the world live on maybe half of that, really depends on where you live.
Is it "a lot"? Dunno, maybe. If you start competing with the Joneses, nothing will suffice.

2025-02-21 07:53:17 UTC

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Feels like the legacy media is sensing their position being threatened, and they're doubling down on the lies.
It's good to see as they hasten their own demise.
https://m.primal.net/PFJX.png

2025-02-21 07:46:09 UTC

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The Trump/Milei shitcoinery might have been somewhat excusable in 2017. Now it's just extremely painful to see.
The only benevolent explanation I can come up with is that they both have zero understanding of money (not really a surprise) and are surrounded by hardcore shitcoiners looking to take advantage of them.
Even that is a pretty bad look though... sad to see.

2025-01-26 10:00:20 UTC

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I call this one "The Latvian Hangover"
https://m.primal.net/OArq.png

2025-01-26 09:37:45 UTC

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10,000 Liechtensteins!
(with their own non-Liechtensteinian cultures, ofc)

2025-01-26 08:59:35 UTC

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Nomading only within the EU.
The good thing is that with so many countries in Europe, EU-nomading can be maintained basically indefinitely (with EU residency/citizenship).
Still best to get out every now and then, if not indefinitely.

2025-01-26 08:39:53 UTC

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With the USSR, at least they had a positive vision of the future (in the beginning). I'm not sure what the vision of the EU now is...
Of course, it might still be the same vision as the USSR had, just them not being open about it.

2025-01-26 08:36:00 UTC

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https://m.primal.net/OAnj.jpg

2025-01-25 15:54:24 UTC

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The idea of the carbon emissions trade system would have made the Soviet central planners cry out in joy...

2025-01-25 15:49:10 UTC

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Correct. I have another post coming where I touch on this. Basically the ex-Soviet countries are quite immune to much of the BS, and it's not a coincidence... and of course going outside the EU (still possible within the European continent) works wonders!

2025-01-23 07:55:31 UTC

Europe is taken over by a suicide cult
https://m.primal.net/NvyA.jpg
I know. It sounds crazy. A suicide cult huh? Isn't that a bit much?
I think it explains a lot though...
This "cult" isn't something that anyone asked for. It's not a traditional cult with a leader who "designed it".
Rather, it is an emergent phenomenon - just an inevitable end result of multiple different extremely harmful ideas.
These ideas are so disconnected from reality, that when you apply them in practice, the end result is slow death and destruction.
It is exactly what happened with the Soviet Union.
Before Gorbachev died, he said that the EU resembles Soviet Union more and more every day.
You need to have some kind of a connection with base reality - common sense!
When this alignment with reality gets out of whack, the more you act, the farther away you drift from anything you actually wish for.
It's the definition of crazy.
That's exactly what's going on in Europe.
A slow, unintended cultural and societal suicide that nobody really wants to happen, but which will keep happening until people understand how & why things went wrong.
If they don't get this, things will keep going downhill, no matter what the politicians try to do.
When I say "nobody wants this to happen", I mean that nobody wants the end result of what this all will lead to (the slow death).
The problem is that European people have such a deep belief in the basic tenets of the suicide cult that they WANT to act in ways that keeps that slow suicide going.
What are these suicidal ideas exactly? There are many, but I'll list the main ones.
-Because CO2 is bad, all energy use is bad
-All cultures and people are the same
-When you import foreign cultures, they will automatically assimilate
-The state is the source of all welfare
There is also a fifth problem, one that isn't an idea, but rather a lack of understanding: the money is deeply broken.
I'm not just talking about the Euro, but rather the fiat financial system in general.
When something can't go on forever, it will stop - sooner or later. The fiat financial system is so unsustainable and has gone on for so long, that we are in the "later" phase.
This is a global problem, but one that Europe is very ill-equipped to meet.
How has Europe gone this far downhill? Again, for many different reasons, but mainly because of the "democratic short-circuit".
For democracy to function well even in theory, it would need to rely on a well-educated populace and a state-independent media.
We have neither: the legacy media is effectively a state propaganda machine.
The population is forced through government schools where they are taught that the state is the source of all welfare, and that entrepreneurship is something complicated, foreign and scary.
Of course that's rarely, if ever, said out loud directly.
Instead, those beliefs are implicit in the education plan and the structure of the whole system.
It's just what you take for granted after you go through that machine - and basically everyone does.
All of the above harmful ideas are so deeply ingrained in the population of Europe that any kind of change is far from obvious.
While the rest of the world is moving forward to a better future, Europe is loudly demanding to go down with slow ideological and cultural suicide.
Not everyone in Europe thinks that way, but too many do.
I'm optimistic that there are solutions, but I'm quite pessimistic about the short / medium-term outlook.
How can we solve this? I have some ideas coming in a later post. What are your thoughts on this?

2025-01-20 11:51:17 UTC

Probably not many people are aware of this, but bitcoin (lightning) payments are just now starting to be on par with credit card payments.
The biggest hurdle until now has been that bitcoin doesn't natively support pull payments, which has made otherwise basic things like subscription payments impossible.
@nprofile…q7y6 has recently solved this with ZapPlanner: https://zapplanner.albylabs.com/
It allows merchants to request recurring payments from an NWC compatible wallet. The user doesn't have to accept every payment as long as they are within the budget set by the user originally when accepting the subscription.
This alone is huge!
Right now, even bitcoin services and apps such as @npub1v5u…n0v5 are only offering their subscriptions on credit cards because ZapPlanner or nothing like it used to exist (the Fountain guys are already looking into this).
However, the payment amounts are defined in sats, and bitcoin isn't yet a unit of account. This limits the usefulness of this otherwise great system, as the sat amounts will need adjusting as the purchasing power of bitcoin goes up.
Alby itself has already ran into this problem once, as there was Nostr drama about their sat-defined subscription prices getting out of hand when we suddenly got near $100k...
It would be great to be able to define the payment amount in fiat and just do the fiat/sat conversion on the fly. I'm hoping this gets solved somehow.
There is some discussion in GitHub on this topic: https://github.com/getAlby/ZapPlanner/issues/44
To speed things up, I wrote this comment there:
----------------------
From a user perspective, if/when they can trust that the sat amount will be defined by the fiat price, higher budget shouldn't be an issue.
There are a couple of issues though: flash crashes (or glitches with the price feed), and short-term dips.
Flash crashes could be solved by using average prices instead of spot prices (averaging from multiple exchanges might not be enough, as arbitrage bots can temporarily spread the crashes from one exchange to others).
If the fiat amount was defined by an average bitcoin price, for example "previous 24h average", then flash crashes would have no effect. Dips would still matter, and it might be annoying if a large monthly subscription hits on a temporary low dip day.
Therefore, I think it would be great to have a "fiat price dollar cost average" as a pricing option. Using a monthly average for monthly subscriptions would solve both flash crashes and short-term dips.
This would mean having three different ways to calculate the sat amount:
1. Spot price according to whatever source (Dangerous! At least some basic sanity checks should be in place.)
2. Short-term average, let's say the previous 24 hours
3. Long-term average price, probably defined by the subscription length, ie. the previous months average price
Having the user decide between these different options is not a great user experience. This adds friction when compared to credit card payments: users don't need to think about these things.
Bitcoin is different though and SOME choice needs to be made. Spot is simple but not great. I think maybe the best option would be for the merchant to suggest a default (with perhaps the subscription length average being the default?), and this could be overridden by the user if they so wish.
-----------------------
Long post, I know, sorry... any thoughts on how you would like to see automatic sat/fiat conversion to work with subscriptions? :)

2025-01-08 10:59:40 UTC

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I fear that these problems with the legislation are a planned feature, not an oversight. Still, it's important to make the problems known, if only so that later there's no way for them to say "we didn't know this could happen".
They know, and this is already implemented in the EU. The supra-national forces will push this through as is.
I hope you can prove me wrong!

2025-01-06 11:32:05 UTC

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Yes. It's a scam, yet another on the long list of lies that people have been brainwashed to believe in.
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/high-future-preference/democracy-power-from-people-the-fix/

2025-01-06 11:24:24 UTC

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This is a good explanation for my experience in India during my month-long trip in 2016, and what I've experienced since then online.
When I arrived in Delhi, I was immediately taken for a scam ride. There were a lot of roadblocks (these seem to be a permanent feature for some reason?) and the riksha driver told me that road to my hostel is blocked.
Instead, he took me to his scammer buddies who tried to forcibly sell me a way overpriced holiday.
I was having none of it and exited the office they took me to. The driver, waiting outside, refused to take me anywhere until I bought into their scheme.
Fortunately there was a police car next to the office, and I explained to them that I was being scammed. Unfortunately, they were in on the scam and just laughed at me, telling me that maybe I should buy something.
Welcome to India!
Long story short, I was getting more and more resolute in not giving anyone there any money, and ultimately they figured out that they would only get trouble from me.
Eventually, after several hours, I managed to get the driver to just take me to my hostel. Fortunately the scam attempts I encountered after that were minor in comparison.
This was May and the hot season, so I decided to head to the mountains where I found things to be quite tolerable (even the tap water was drinkable!).
I think the fact that they have an actual winter there has a local civilizing effect. It forces you to think ahead, and weeds out those who don't.
If I ever visit India again, it will definitely be back to the Himalayas - with a private pre-arranged transport immediately from the airport with minimal stops in-between.

2024-12-29 09:22:18 UTC

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Possible in theory!

2024-12-19 17:01:29 UTC

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Retirement is a trap. Bitcoin should be used to fund a meaningful project, one that will later return sats to you. Then live on that sats flow, forget about both options 1 and 2, and don't stress about money.

2024-12-19 16:42:34 UTC

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I think so too. People in X are up in arms because IMF, but Bukele isn't stupid.

2024-12-18 13:31:23 UTC

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I heard somewhere that even rainwater is not good to drink nowadays if not filtered because of the poisonous forever chemicals that have spread everywhere globally. I don't have any details but I would look into it if drinking rainwater, I'm sure they can be filtered out.

2024-12-18 13:23:08 UTC

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Apparently a large part of the population isn't even capable of critical thinking.
That's why a functioning society should be there to provide them with more or less reliable "default options", but we don't exactly have a reliable society... if there ever was one.

2024-12-18 13:19:44 UTC

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Thanks for building Alby. I run my own node(s), have done so for years, and will continue to run them, but there's no substitute for good UX and a wide set of tools.
Keep on doing what you're doing!

2024-12-18 13:11:11 UTC

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This is one of my go-to tracks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B8He23yW64

2024-12-18 08:32:04 UTC

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Same here, weird connection issues and notes not loading when opened in new tabs, difficulty publishing notes, etc. Tried a couple of different browsers too. Having to reload so much is starting to get annoying.
This would be understandable with random free relays, but with Primal Premium, there's no technical reason why the experience shouldn't be just as snappy as with any centralized social media.
I've already reached out to Primal on this, let's see what their research comes up with.

2024-12-18 07:14:19 UTC

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Try Slashdot next 😄
In the earliest of days, bitcoin was often discussed in Slashdot, and a lot of the tech folks dismissed it because of any random technical quality they found lacking.
Boy have those folks been salty for a long while...

2024-12-18 06:59:16 UTC

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I haven't read the draft and don't particularly care to read too much between the lines. I'm trying to look at the big picture, which is this:
"The government will ban bitcoin" narrative has been quite strong for the whole existence of bitcoin, and it hasn't been completely made up.
While a complete ban would of course be unenforceable, even with the Biden administration there have been quite strong attacks on bitcoin and there are powerful forces that would like to see it go away.
Bitcoin would have survived any ban, but those people wouldn't have been afraid to throw bitcoiners in jail.
Now, instead of banning bitcoin, the government is ADOPTING bitcoin. Sure, it won't be done 100% perfectly from the get-go, but please take the win when it is offered.
Have more faith in the ability of bitcoin to fix things!

2024-12-18 06:35:01 UTC

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Had to check this out 😝
It seems they're mainly in the business of selling expensive convenience (cabin hosts are a red flag, don't need 'em).
If I had enough sats to even consider flying private, I'd be chartering. It's a bit more hassle to organize but will get you flying for much less than a whole coin.
And now I'll get back to trying to find the cheapest economy tickets...

2024-12-14 09:27:17 UTC

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I'd like to see the world move more into that general direction, yes.

2024-12-13 12:07:16 UTC

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I wrote about the Finnish "luck constancy" belief and the accompanying envy. I've been thinking where this irrational fixed scarcity mindset comes from, and it's quite understandable when you understand the world where the Finnish people come from...
For centuries, Finns used to be pretty self-sufficient, farming their plots of land in the cold, dark north. Because of the high latitude, farming was possible but very hard (no modern fertilizers!), and didn't really provide enough food to sustain large families reliably.
So, people essentially needed a "second job": they also had to be hunter-gatherers. With that and farming, you could get enough to eat and survive... usually at least.
There were still "lean years" when crops failed and hunger came about. You could find some food in the forest, but it was never plentiful. Things like mushrooms and berries are extremely seasonal.
So, imagine a hunger year, especially if it wasn't just one but a few in a row. These happened every now and then. You knew some spots in the nearby forests where food grew, and you saw some mushrooms pop up but they weren't ripe to pick yet. You left them to grow.
A couple days later, you go pick them up with the hope that MAYBE now your children can survive the coming winter... only to see this extremely scarce and valuable resource of your survival gone with your neighbor who got there just before you did. You experience viscerally this very real, non-artificial scarcity.
A rational person might be able to handle that situation, but you've gone hungry for a long time and been at the edge of your limits for too long already. If you don't go and visit your neighbor with an axe, at the very least you curse them to the seventh hell.
Against this background, and knowing that this dynamic has been constantly at the back of mind for people for centuries, it is understandable if your neighbor getting a new flashy car makes you seethe in unexplainable rage.
That car came from somewhere, and there's just no way it isn't somehow away from you... you don't know how and why exactly, but you feel it deep in your bones. It's almost as if that car was stolen from future you.
Damn that thieving neighbor!
#note1lx8…cdpg

2024-12-13 11:31:03 UTC

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The deep cultural beliefs are a great topic to think about. They affect everything without people realizing it themselves.
In Finnish culture, there is a very deep belief of "fortune constancy", or "luck constancy", whichever word you'd like to use. In a nutshell, it means that the amount of good things in life for people is a fixed constant.
If you get anything good in life, I get less.
You might ask "well what exact group of people is that and how much good things are in store", but that would be a rational question, and this is an irrational belief. For the sake of this belief, it is the people around you, and the good things are whatever happens to be. This is about feelings, not an excel sheet.
This fixed scarcity mindset affects everything, and is the main driver behind the cultural phenomenon of Finns being probably the only people in the world who would pay 50€ for their neighbor NOT to get 20€.
That's sort of a joke in Finland, but when you see people actually behaving like that, it's not funny.
This belief results in extreme and active envy, a serious problem in Finland. It's also the main driver behind the unbelievably high tax rate, around 75% of average person's total earnings go to the state in one form or another (and high earners have it even worse).
People think (or rather, subconsciously FEEL) that it's better if the money goes to the state, where they might get some of it back, rather than have all that wealth be taken away forever by other people. Better just let the tax man take everything.
The government knows best what to do with the money, and as some of it comes back in form of services, it's like an investment instead of the permanent loss and misfortune that would surely happen if other people got that money for themselves...

2024-12-11 13:28:42 UTC

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Thanks for saving me from having to watch that!

2024-12-11 13:25:49 UTC

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I know this is 100% besides the point but I'll say it anyway:
Just owning a US LLC does not make you personally liable for taxes in the US. You do need to file an "informational" tax return for the LLC, but that doesn't mean having to pay taxes (just on its own, there might be other reasons that may mean you need to pay).

2024-12-11 10:17:42 UTC

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While I do like to see this, the concentration of that much BTC into a single entity does make me worry...

2024-12-11 10:11:35 UTC

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Yes. This is from my 2023 trip, facing towards the Guatemalan border. At the middle, you can see Volcán de Fuego,130km away, puffing smoke.
https://m.primal.net/MstK.png
https://m.primal.net/MstP.png

2024-12-11 09:16:53 UTC

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MSTR is a public company and as such it is of course "state sanctioned". That doesn't mean there would be any shady backroom plans going on.
They've just actively played by the rules the whole time. Public companies have no other choice and are kept in check by the financial system every step of the way. That's the nature of being public.
I'm not saying this to defend MSTR (don't own any, and I don't like that much BTC concentrating in any one entity), just an observation.
I see MSTR as a test of the US justice system. If it holds, the BTC indirectly owned by those who own MSTR get to keep their price exposure to BTC. If it fails, it has to fail in a lot of different, major ways for MSTR to implode. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible.
The only exception to the above would be if the BTC gets technically pilfered somehow. That's probably the biggest risk, and difficult to quantify as we don't know how the BTC is secured.

2024-12-09 08:00:58 UTC

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It's what everyone else is doing! Most people think that means that it can't fail...

2024-12-09 07:58:22 UTC

Is now a good time to buy bitcoin?
https://m.primal.net/MqvH.jpg
Well, you guys in Nostr probably already know this stuff, but I'll still post this as a pointer for newbies!
Before anything else, you should understand the main reason why bitcoin exists in the first place:
The money is broken.
What you think of as "money" (fiat money), is actually a clever scheme to quietly rob you of your purchasing power - and purchasing power is the whole point of having money in the first place!
You don't want money for the sake of having money, you want the things that money will buy you. Money is just an option to get other stuff later.
Fiat money (dollars, euros etc) buys you ever less. I'm sure by now you've noticed this!
Money is half of every trade, and it being broken affects everything in our societies negatively. We can fix it - but it is up to each individual.
You need to put on your own oxygen mask first. Nobody's coming to put it on for you.
The stock market is also broken
https://m.primal.net/MqvM.jpg
While the causation here is quite complex, the correlation is extremely clear and tells you everything you need to know:
The stock market as a whole isn't going up in purchasing power - it only goes up with the amount of money that is printed.
In other words, you can maintain your purchasing power by investing in stocks. That's essentially saving, not investing - but you do still have to carry the risk of owning those companies, many of which are zombie companies.
Savers shouldn't have to suffer that risk!
What about bonds?
If you "invest" in government paper (bonds), you can count on your purchasing power getting diluted.
The governments are essentially bankrupt, and are mathematically unable to do anything else than to pay you less in purchasing power than what you originally gave them. Not a great trade!
Real estate?
This is a longer story, but the base logic is the same as with stocks: you can perhaps maintain your purchasing power, but carry risks that savers shouldn't have to think about.
Real estate is more often saving than investing.
Well, is now a good time to buy bitcoin?
The thing is that nobody can answer that for you - not necessarily because there wouldn't be an answer, but because of an ironclad rule I've observed over the last 10 years:
Those who do understand bitcoin (at least well enough), can and do hold onto it and are able to maintain and increase their purchasing power.
Those who don't understand bitcoin, are unable to hold onto it and get burned by the volatility: price goes temporarily down after they buy, they panic and sell at a loss, and blame whoever convinced them to buy.
There are very little exceptions to this rule, so you just have to study bitcoin to understand it. Don't just "ape in".
Asking people to buy it before they are mentally ready for the ride is a recipe for disaster, so I won't do that.
You can earn sats through zaps right here in Nostr - that's the best way to get bitcoin!
This post was a short version of my blog post, in which I answer the question:
"If the government can print money, why do you need to pay taxes?"
...among other important things. You might want to read it!
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/high-future-preference/is-it-time-to-buy-bitcoin-ultimate-answer/

2024-12-05 08:23:35 UTC

A dollar buys less than a 1000 sats... sat/cent parity next!
https://m.primal.net/MoFu.gif
After that, hopefully some more meaningful measurement of purchasing power?

2024-12-04 11:28:43 UTC

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Both are just extreme forms of totalitarian statism. Same shit, different flavor.

2024-12-04 11:13:34 UTC

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Can you open that BitVM part a little bit, is it "live" and usable?

2024-12-04 11:08:35 UTC

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Does not compute.

2024-12-04 10:58:54 UTC

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I really don't get how people voluntarily buy these.
Or I do get it, they want to change the way the place smells, but like... eh... no. Smelly poisons are not the way.
Such dumb, such fiat.

2024-12-04 10:44:34 UTC

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A lot of the replies here seem to answer "what bitcoin is" (yes, it's freedom money). But the question was "what's the POINT of bitcoin"?
I don't think it's enough to focus on "what problems of our current world will bitcoin fix". There are many!
What happens after those problems are fixed, and the world gets to run on a fair and efficient bitcoin standard for a while, maybe a long while?
I'd say that the POINT of bitcoin is to bring about a literal Star Trek future, where humanity flourishes on Earth, spreads out into the universe and climbs up on the Kardashev scale.

2024-12-04 10:21:17 UTC

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I'm not sure if looking at it that way is helpful. Most people in the world:
1) Are mathematically unable to ever use the base chain (not enough space)
2) Don't need the expensive security assurances of the base chain
3) Are not interested in that level of self-sovereignty, probably for valid reasons
4) Will not be spinning up the tech stack required for "full" self-sovereignty
...and they can still escape the curse of central banking with this "not bitcoin" - which carries like 90% of the value promise of on-chain bitcoin.
I get the "technical" point, I just think we should be mindful of our focus.

2024-11-29 11:43:48 UTC

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Reading through many posts on X, there is plenty of salt already... 😄

2024-11-29 11:26:11 UTC

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I wonder what amount of the effect of chemotherapy is due to it taking appetite away...
Not that I think that fasting would be a sufficient cure on its own after cancer has already formed, would just be interesting to know.

2024-11-29 11:11:34 UTC

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I need to listen to this today. This presentation was a powerful one: https://youtu.be/U2YnBrSDmoE

2024-11-29 11:08:11 UTC

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Milei is in a man in the arena, doing things in real life, making real progress. It is always messy and imperfect, but at least he's in the arena.
Perfection is for the realm of ideas.

2024-11-29 11:05:42 UTC

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False dichotomy perhaps?
Bitcoin is for everyone, including enemies. Bitcoin fixes them, eventually.

2024-11-29 10:58:05 UTC

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This absolutely needs some kind of a solution!
Storing any master keys in a BROWSER EXTENSION feels like such a bad idea... I understand that this is early days and this is not a simple problem to solve.

2024-11-28 21:37:32 UTC

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I think this is why the "Network States" idea, especially the book, is such word salad.
The whole idea seems to ride on somehow having some magical iMmUt4bL3 relationship between real world possessions and tHe bL0CkCh4iN.
Such ethreium.

2024-11-28 11:41:57 UTC

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The pharma companies finance the news so they can control the messaging.
I heard RFK is planning to make that illegal and the pharma companies are in panic mode.

2024-11-27 12:00:35 UTC

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If only the IRS stopped hunting you at the border...

2024-11-27 11:48:01 UTC

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Everyone gets bitcoin at the price they deserve, and what's going on now doesn't change that one bit.
Also, the "Blackrocks of the world" buying bitcoin doesn't mean that "Blackrock the entity" would own all that corn. They buy it for their customers, many of whom are - at the end of the day - the average people you talk about.
Those average people can later sell their "Blackrock wrapped bitcoin" (even if they do so at a premium) and buy real bitcoin, at least assuming that the legal contracts hold.

2024-11-27 10:56:54 UTC

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There is a balance though. When the temperatures start getting anywhere above 25c my brain starts to slow down, and above 30c the higher functions basically turn off.
AC helps ofc but then you're restricted indoors...

2024-11-27 10:41:49 UTC

Damn this is powerful stuff. What a presentation! Makes me think...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2YnBrSDmoE

2024-11-26 09:23:16 UTC

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This is missing the soundtrack. I propose this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLxdNqMXBM

2024-11-26 07:50:00 UTC

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Now that the "the guberment will ban beet corn" narrative has flipped on its head and the TradFi world is beginning its stampede, what are the downsides of this happening?
I'm thinking of this (by user BitStrategy21 on X):
https://m.primal.net/Mhei.png
It is a bold vision but one that I could see happening. What if the legacy system really doesn't have to collapse?
But if bitcoin "rejuvenates" the old system, might it mean that at least some of the legacy system problems get carried over to the new, rejuvenated system and then those same problems just persist?
I don't know the answers, just something I've been thinking of.

2024-11-26 07:16:31 UTC

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Cool idea, been thinking of this.
I doubt that exists yet, as Wordpress posts are mostly HTML and Nostr notes seem to be Markdown. There would need to be a converter in-between.
Probably not a huge technical challenge to build a Wordpress plugin that would take an existing post, convert it and post to Nostr. Might be a fair amount of work to make that happen though...

2024-11-25 11:05:28 UTC

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I think easily viewable edit history is probably the right balance on this?

2024-11-25 11:01:59 UTC

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I'm glad to see the "blue" (blue hair, red ideology) people migrating to their own bubble. Them being there will mean that they will be more detached from reality, and therefore generally less effective.
That's good for everyone!

2024-11-25 10:57:37 UTC

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Incredible view! I need to get somewhere where there are mountains...

2024-11-25 10:40:44 UTC

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The Downloads notifications feel spammy. I know the iOS and Android clients exist, and could do without the notification each time I refresh the desktop app.

2024-11-25 10:10:32 UTC

Bought Primal Premium 💪
It's good to have free things, but you get what you pay for...
I was having trouble with connections to the free relays, and thought it would be good to support Primal anyway.
Will be interesting to see how my Nostr experience improves!

2024-11-25 08:41:35 UTC

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The ex-Soviet eastern Europe seems to be quite immune to this though. Poland and Hungary seem to be doing pretty well.
The problem will be quickly solved if the government funding for it dries up.