Very nice using Minibits which has a lightning address and ecash tokens built in one,
Minibits.cash
Minibits.cash
Minibits is an e-cash wallet with a focus on performance and usability. Cash is issued by mints and backed by Bitcoin via the Cashu protocol and Li...
easy to use as a receiving lightning address with no kyc or details needed.
I don't think custodianship at this scale is an issue for communities that still have reasonable institutional structures in place that have retain trust and reputational prestige so long as they keep a healthy distance from the State.
Looking at ecash as a privacy layer for p2p payments on top of BTC albeit with a custodial element with mints
Denial alone cannot be the basis of the post-Adamic moment which approaches us. Standalone platforms harnessing LLM capabilities will not be as destabilising as the fusion of biology and dataism.
I mention dataism specifically because most bio-computer initiatives, currently being evolved or developed by companies that have an inherent commercial bias on leveraging behavioral data that can be analyzed and incorporated into business models and algorithms. Dataism is premised on the assumption that biological behavioral patterns through cyberspace are a commodity that can be bought or sold and synthesized into "business models" for optimization and "priming".
However beyond biological data there is the more fundamental question of what happens when man is synthesized with machine and the Adamic form is absorbed by the augmented cyborg. Fiqh can certainly respond and react to developments as they unfold. But it cannot be relied upon to evolve a proactive spirit, an orientation ahead of time. At least fiqh in its current iteration and configurations of political economy and bureaucratic stasis vis-a-vis its orientation and troubled relationships with the nightmare modern states of the post-colonial Islamicate.
Now is the need for evolving post-Adamic Tasawwuf, where cyborg can be tamed to serve God - a sufic taming of the man-machine synthesis that denies biological dataism, panoptic supremacy.
There is an arresting paragraph in Hallaq's Impossible State where he talks about how the paradigm of the modern state finds no overlap or common cause with that of Islamic governance:
"Nor did Islamic governance know anything like the scale of surveillance generated by the modern state’s police and prison systems. These, so normalized and a matter of fact today, would have been horrifying to Muslims as specters of domination and cruelty. Nor, still, did Islamic rule so much as tamper with the sphere of education, which remained not only private but also nonformal and highly accessible, accommodating the entire spectrum of social strata"
There are a few times in the Impossible State where Hallaq touches upon the coercive and pervasive net of surveillance the modern state casts over everything it sees in an effort to shape the moral nature of its citizens. Nearly every time he does so he references Foucault's work which is to be expected given his intervention in this particular facet of political philosophy.
Hallaq though does not reference the Cypherpunks as a philosophical resource even though the two share striking similarities. One of the biggest drawbacks with Hallaq's work is there is not enough translation of how his astute theoretical analysis translates into the modern machinery of the State in terms of how it actually works. This does not detract from the merit of his work at all, but there is an opportunity that goes begging.
The modern State is a parasite that logs everything you do, leaving no sphere for an "individual" to truly emerge, it is a consumptive pathology that leaves no space for autonomy even though it dresses itself up in the rhetoric of High Enlightenment aesthetics. This inescapable fact that is now proven beyond reproach is the ultimate vindication of the Hallaqian thesis.
"Exile occurs when society at large becomes estranged from right living and there is an absence of an ethical spirit and voice, when an era lacks a great moral figure or soul"
An Islamicate articulation of the surreal and banal horror of machinification cannot begin in the absence of eschatological belief in the heart of the believer. In Sunni cosmology, as time yawns ahead of us and leaves behind the Prophetic era we are in continuous state of moral decay as we approach the Last Day. Sunni eschatology to those who regularly refresh their hearts with the reminders and literature around the topic will be familiar with the visceral and detailed descriptions of complete moral breakdown and decay and the increasing Prophetic advice that in such times we must withdraw, refrain and retire physically away from such evil whilst engaged in a war for spiritual purification by clinging on to prayer with the Qur'an as a shield. With such an eschatological superstructure one should not be terribly shocked or surprised by the accelerationist contentions (they are varied and diverse) about the march of technocapital and the havoc it would wreck. Nor should the Sunni be terribly surprised that the ruling political elites would exert tremendous oppression to expand and cling on to power.
Props to Elon - he's playing a different game. Rile up everyone into a chimp contest of r-tards claiming who is more based/racist etc all the while building the Everything App - monetizing the simulated conflict and keeping it within the logic of the new cybernetic system.
The Eye of Sauron is upon us but wait everyone is holding mock inquisitorial trials of who is more racist and charging peasants $5 a month via their Patreon for the viewing pleasure.
For every peasant the most important question on the Right or Left right now is who is more racist and they charge people and game the algorithm on this basis.
Alex Jones really matters when you'll happily transfer your biometrics, financial statements, bank account and passport ID to Twitter within the next five years.
Yuk Hui who is the author of Cosmotechnics, proposes an idea of technology that tries to bridge the gap between technical expertise and having a cosmological sense of one's place in the world. In effect, it tries to sacralize one's relationship with machinery and technology.
However, it remains to be seen whether cosmotechnics can evolve beyond just a niche interest of those who are privacy conscious and already aware of the metaphysical implications of the hyperdigital and data harvesting decay of American Empire.
Rather, the task for cosmotechnics is whether it can fully sustain itself as a alternative civilization on paradigm to the one that we currently have, which is premised on big tech surveillance, corporate espionage, and state-sponsored spyware.
If cosmotechnics indeed offers an alternative paradigm to the Leviathan-like organism which is big tech, then it has to be grounded in local sacred cosmologies and local ideas about vicegerency and custodianship, which figures prominently in the Islamicate ethical traditions.
The inherent fragility with the whole tradition of Islamicate critique of modernity from Guenon onwards, finding its fullest expression in the normative Sunnism of al-Attas is that if were to fully realise their projects on their own terms we would be doomed to extinction. This is not to say they are wrong, mistaken - far from it. They are inherently fragile projects because if you take their projects seriously on their own terms with sympathetic good-faith engagement and try to scale it up, I don't see how you escape becoming Luddite fodder.
This fragility - where success, victory of Islamicate critiques end up cannibalizing the entire project is a recurrent theme and motif not just in these philosophically sophisticated critiques but also the Ikhwanist projects too
"Martin Heidegger, in his 1966 interview (published ten years later) with Der Spiegel, was asked what came after the end of philosophy; Heidegger answered: cybernetics. In other words, he announced that cybernetics marked the end of Western philosophy"
My new piece on The Iqra Files: - Notes On Culture War Accelerationism (CWA):
"What would the ultimate political goals of CWA operations be? Decimating trust in the American electoral process, spreading rumours and constant aspersions on the integrity of the American electoral process, the voting mechanism, the already growing trust deficit in the legacy institutions of the Deep State such as the CIA, FBI and a whole host of federal alphabet agencies. A complete assault on the social contract within the Imperial heartland. Trumpism tapped into this for its own cynical means - Muslims too should be relentless in spreading as much content as possible trying to undermine American trust in the guarantors and arbiters of its constitutional and electoral system - this can be neatly packaged under populist themes which are proving to be wildly successful across the Anglosphere."
https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/48159/notes-on-culture-war-accelerationism-cwa
With the clear emergence of a mature censorship industrial complex that is spearheaded by not just the core actors of the Five Eyes but also the belligerent Israeli intelligence community, Muslims are now finding themselves in the same position of fragility and vulnerability as post 9/11. Whereas during the War On Terror there was a systematic propaganda campaign against Muslims using the total weight of legacy media and the astroturfed NGO-complex, the aims of our enemies is to wind down the decentralising effect of social media platforms in an effort to control not just narratives but diffuse digital Muslim asabiyya, breaking it down from within by putting up barriers across the net.
Digital sovereignty including over data, social media platforms and publishing is now the target of American Empire wishing to try and put the genie back in the bottle in regards to social media. There will be labels such as "misinformation", "hate speech" and the time and tested hammer of "antisemitism" used to justify all manner of draconian encroachment of the Deep Administrative State of American Empire into all facets of "the Discourse".
"The Discourse" was never the imagined utopia of "Popper's Open Society" - it was instead a mirage, a simulacra of "deliberative reason" in the "public sphere" - euphemisms of artificial edifices that were often the construct of ex-military and ex-intelligence agents wishing to simulate the "art of the conversation" and "public reason". These euphemisms fronted by Cold War liberals were merely aesthetic concepts to sanitise the very real and gross encroachment of the State into every facet of our lives in an effort to displace the gaze of God Himself - claiming Sovereignty over our very cognitive faculties. Popperian "open society" aesthetics provided the rhetoric for various intelligence agencies of American Empire to participate covertly in the supposed civic life of liberal democracies.
Sovereignty is key - and it is really the only priority for the Muslim political engagement. Expect over the next 12-18 months a series of ludricous bills and acts passing through parliaments all over the Anglosphere wishing to "protect" people from "misinformation" in an almighty effort to re-establish State dominance over thought and speech.
Scratch beneath the surface of liberalism, look beyond the philosophical assumptions of the canon of Mill, Kant and Rawls and you a find a deeply malignant, transnational, military-technocratic surveillance apparatus that works without any accountability, scrutiny with endless funding - liberalism is the precursor ideology for the Cybernetic State - which is the hyperdigital transformation of the Deep Administrative State established during the latter years and aftermath of WWII by American Democrats and progressives who are the most resourceful and successful servants of the Empire.
The most insufferable part of liberalism is pretending to go along with the charade that clearly astroturfed, hollowed out, propped-up by-the-Deep-State mainstream "intellectuals" and legacy media orgs are "free and independent" and not a clumsily dim part of imperial propaganda
Enhanced privacy can play a significant role in fostering a deeper and more authentic religious outlook. When individuals are not preoccupied with the burden of performance, they can prioritize pleasing the Creator over seeking the approval of Creation. Privacy allows for the cultivation of sincerity and introspection, as individuals are not pressured to conform to social expectations or project a public persona for financial gain and social advancement.
In a world where surveillance and public scrutiny are pervasive, the quest for sincerity can be impeded by the constant need to manage one's image. By minimizing these barriers, individuals can focus on their personal relationship with their faith, free from the distractions and expectations imposed by society. This freedom enables Muslims to engage in genuine acts of worship, devotion, and self-improvement that are driven by a sincere desire to please the Creator rather than to maintain a façade for the sake of appearances.
By embracing privacy and eliminating the pressure to perform in a particular fashion, Muslims can develop a more authentic religious outlook that is grounded in humility, sincerity, and devotion. This approach allows for a deeper connection with one's faith, fostering a sense of spiritual fulfilment and inner peace that transcends the fleeting rewards of social approval and material success.
