Roger H

we failed to bring Bitcoin to politics, instead we brought politics to Bitcoin

Things I've bought with sats recently: Cocoa beans Magnets Ice cream Books Tea Bitcoin is money

Age verification is the beginning of the government trying to understand and control everything you do online, just like taxation and the Bank Secrecy Act was the same for every time you spend something.

Curious if Nostriches think there are some books they’d love to see built in the world. I’ve got 1-2 in the hopper, but would love to see if there’s a blind spot (I’ve already had the idea of making a book on Nostr itself!)

Two German writers, united by their pen and their language, but sworn enemies in all other aspects. Carl Schmitt wrote The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy in 1923 - then The Concept of the Political in 1932. Both were fierce attacks on parliamentary politics and presaged the rise of a new order in Germany from the ruins of the Weimar Republic. The Concept of the Political would be the Weimar Republic’s tombstone - the next year, Schmitt would join the Nazi Party and he would end up providing the legal and philosophical underpinnings for Hitler’s rise. Thomas Mann was the “European man of ideas”. After criticizing Wagner (one of Hitler’s favorite composers) in his talk "The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner", he was soon exiled in Los Angeles and served as the focal point of German culture outside of Nazi Germany. In Mann's Magic Mountain, there is an oddly prophetic character - Naphta - who rants that humanity will desire terror and not liberation for this era. Naphta’s "love of extremes and contempt for all forms of compromise make him defend the Inquisition and the authoritarian aspects of Catholicism and communism." At the end of World War II, Mann would write Doctor Faustus, which told the tale of a composer who bargained his soul to the Devil for twenty-four years of creative genius (and a lifetime otherwise spent in neuro-syphilitic madness). Of course, Nietzsche is the original inspiration, but it is not hard to discern a common trend in Mann’s writing: the rise and downfall of Nazi Germany and the bargain with nihilism it took to get there. Perhaps he was thinking of Schmitt and certainly his emanations when Mann spoke in Germany and the Germans: “this story should convince us of one thing: that there are not two Germanys, a good one and a bad one, but only one, whose best turned into evil through devilish cunning.”

War is the continuation of politics by other means. Bitcoin is the continuation of state philosophy by other means. For centuries, humanity has wrestled with the awesome power of the state and the monetary printing press combined. Nietzsche said “God was dead” and the Übermensch he spoke through one of his characters implored for “this-worldness”. These aren’t dead battles - they live every day. One of the leading Chinese state philosophers, Jiang Shigong, cites Nietzsche and the German philosopher Carl Schmitt and “Nazi crown jurist" in arguing that geopolitics today is the "unceasing, deadly struggles of different gods”. Carl Schmitt (pictured below) ultimately empowered Hitler’s rise. But to dig deeper beyond his grave error and to attack the principle and not the person: Schmitt spoke of an executive wing being crafted in the Constitution as the embodiment of a class of “state sovereign or king” in his Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. It is not the exclusive domain of Chinese state mandarins to think in this way. The American presidency has been manipulated in this way, from Bush's “strong executive” to Trump’s attack on the “bureaucracy” - of which the “deep state” is another cyclical example. Looking deeper beyond red vs. blue, one can see Schmitt being invoked for cracking down on Hong Kong protests, to silencing those who disagree with climate change being a “state of exception”. It is a continuation of the question of freedom and justice within the state - a modern “god": Should a state try to achieve freedom for its citizens or justice? While a seemingly simple, perhaps naive framework, it has led to a classical philosophical dialogue. This dialogue has gone from the Legalists vs. Confucians, to Camus vs. Sartre (“How we loved you then” Sartre reportedly told Camus before they split over the issue of freedom and justice) to the modern-day battle between Rawls and Nozick. Freedom - and the ability to choose? Or justice - and a potentially enforced one based on righting inequalities? Nozick and Camus argued that freedom would bring a better justice. Rawls argued that his justice was a “paramount value” imbued with some “inalienable freedoms” - but that justice trumped freedom. Where to go from here? Bitcoin is a tool that separates state and money - in its network form. It is a way of living without the state - and combined with tools, some of which are present, and others being imagined - perhaps a way of defraying from it. Combined with the ability to work remote, Bitcoin moves agency to individuals over states, and gives the ability to some (and hopefully more in future years) to define their own justice and to take their own liberty rather than warring within “civilizational gods”. While I believe AI gives people interesting capabilities, ultimately how we choose to govern and be governed will determine human freedom and justice - in my mind. For me, this is a more interesting question.

my CIA agent, trying to figure out what the hell I’m spending on as I use cash and sats

Fiat just hit an all-time low

I’m doing an AMA with nostr:nprofile1qythwumn8ghj7ct5d3shxtnwdaehgu3wd3skuep0qyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcqyzf8jfmtl7urem3nj3h9vnpkqz3jsspxn2pqd5qamaqvvset4g9ukgq8syn - come join the fun at https://stacker.news/items/1032527

In one generation, China went from not having playable pianos and condemning conductors who played Debussy and Beethoven to death - to being the world’s largest producer of pianos.

Among the Persian poets, Rumi is perhaps the most well-known outside of Iran. But within Iran, the highest poet is Hafiz - whose Divān resides even among the diaspora who have long shorn their links between state and religion, and is celebrated among the wine he may have literally or metaphorically celebrated.

We need to find the 8.5%

Looking forward to discussing how the Chinese government couldn’t kill Bitcoin or Nostr even when it tried to put down bans at nostr:nprofile1qqsd0f68dvf98gvs9am9dp0lu0f4r7xzu2k89rm9tt448axf5tu6wlgphpy4c . China is what the cybersecurity business calls a “red team” - the state most capable and willing to try to censor permissionless networks. That it failed - shows the promise of both Nostr and Bitcoin.