Got feedback today that a friend’s kids loved the story! It takes about 14 minutes to read which is great for kids attention span. The pictures by @PurplePainter are beautiful with subtle nods to Bitcoin and Nostr culture throughout. My goal was to help kids understand that freely printed money is destructive to society and that hard money can build a better world. Free e-book and read-aloud video at my website. Hardcover only for sale on my website for sats. I sign each copy. www.satoshigeneral.com

I hope the whales who have been cashing out this cycle are using the proceeds to buy physical assets in the real economy. We need to be thinking about owning the means of production to guarantee the continued influence of the ideals that Bitcoin encodes. I can imagine an attack that goes something like this: CSAM shows up on the block chain. A huge media campaign gets spun up to demonize node running. An announcement is made that running a node without a banking license is illegal (because bankers and politicians care about protecting children…obviously) and that a soft fork is being introduced. All the major regulated holders are forced to follow the fork guaranteeing that most of the dollar value of the network flees to the new fork even if the real value stays on the legacy chain. A few high profile arrests are made of node runners that has a massive chilling effect on the legacy chain. The institutions, who have now centralized Bitcoin, pour everything into the new chain making people who follow them the new wealthy class (albeit cucked). Our once in a species opportunity for freedom is cooked. We need to defend against this with tech, but we also need to develop as much influence as possible in politics, media and the real economy so that we can push back against this sort of attack. Maybe it’s not CSAM and maybe it’s not this decade, but this sort of attack will be tried at some point. I suspect they will try it before the class of 2016 reaches the point of wealth that allows for political influence. Am I just being paranoid.

Went to church today. I will go again next weekend. Still skeptical, but can’t shake the fact that the only two groups of people with any hope are Christians and Bitcoiners.

I have been carrying an empty Trezor HWW with me on all flights (international and domestic) for five years in a zipper pouch of my carryon backpack. I send it right through the security x-ray. 🩻 This device is completely empty and has never had Bitcoin on it. My purpose has been to test the security reaction to it. I’ve had my bag searched several times for other items and have had them steal fingernail clippers, kids scissors and a can of tuna (extremely dangerous contraband!). They have literally had their grubbed-blue-gloved hands on the Trezor when digging for other items and have never asked about it once or showed any glimmer of interest.

Today we live in a world where Bitcoins price responds to political announcements. Eventually Bitcoin out grows politics and politicians will be forced to earn taxes by offering programs citizens actually want/need in exchange for sats. Our job is to make the free market so effective that the list of things people ask their governments to do shrinks most governments into irrelevancy. This cannot happen in I’ll the boomers are gone and we need to focus on shifting younger generations away from commie ideals.

I don’t worry about AI ending humanity. This book is why. The supply chains that keep us alive are vast, ever changing and interconnected. To make a pencil, you need more than just wood, graphite and paint. You need the logging truck that hauled the wood and all the parts that make the truck. You need the chicken farmer who collected the eggs that fed the logger. You need the teacher who taught the logger to read. The connections are endless and here is the key piece that AI can never replace: WANT. Someone has to want the pencil. Someone has to want breakfast. Someone has to want an education for their kids. AI will never WANT anything. It can solve problems and replace major links in the chain but it will be serving our needs as it has almost none of its own. As it drives down costs and eliminates jobs, some people will fall into despair. Those people are losers. Don’t be a loser. Find a way to add value to the world and find meaning in what you do. Teachers your kids to find meaning in life apart from traditional work. Think about what can be done now that building that excel pivot table no longer requires a week of training.