I sometimes fall into high time preference thinking, I want to pay my bills with good money of any sort and most of the time only fiat is accepted which really frustrates me. Paying with fiat feels morally objectionable, like I'm littering, and like I'm forced to support the actions of government against my will. I think "if only they would let me pay with Bitcoin or precious metal instruments (old silver coins, silver rounds, Goldbacks, etc), then I would be actually contributing real value to the market.
But I need to let go of this evangelistic attitude, things that are able to organically succeed and prove their worth to the open market don't need our help beyond just quietly supporting them and stacking for the future. Things that are far reaching across time and space will happen as they happen, regardless of efforts from any single individuals.
The paper network is stagnant, it cannot grow when it doesn't add energy to it's closed system. Paper money printing only reduces trust in the system overall while reducing the value of the individual units, the paper money systems are doomed. Especially so in a world of free market competition against sound money that can no longer be fought against.
The Bitcoin network's value will continue to grow and the fiat networks value will continue to fall, eventually a point will be reached when it's just common sense to use Bitcoin or even other alternatives to the dollar. That day is coming regardless of what we do, so just stack and chill and focus on the people and things right in front of you. Every moment is unique, the people and places we visit won't always be here and should be treasured today while we calmly work towards a better future for all of humanity. ♥️
It is until it isn't, as it always is.
In a world of lies, the truth shall set you free.
So I moved to help my older sister help take care of our elderly Mom. Just finally got the living room organized enough to use it as a combined living room/dining room. Was able to sit down for dinner with my Mom tonight. Not knowing how long I have left with her (terminal illness), it felt really nice to just sit down and eat food together finally at a proper table.
Appreciate the little things in life, we won't be around forever.
♥️
About 2 1/2 years ago I tried to predict Bitcoin's short term future and, surprise surprise, I failed. Bitcoin is currently less than half the USD measured value of what I expected it to be today based on my extrapolations. I'm done with living in the future, or regretting the past, I'm going to live, laugh, and love in the present.
I'm no longer going to try to predict the future. But even if I was wrong about the short term, I'm still optimistic of the network's growth over the long term. The positive ramifications of a world where there's finally an option for permissionless universal sound money, without a central authority controlling it, are immense. The people of the world deserve peace and prosperity achievable through a truly free market where BOTH sides of the market are free. Not just 1 side pretending to be free while the other side (money itself) is anything but.
Bitcoin has the chance to give the world exactly that, for the first time in human history, but in my view we must be patient. The fiat economies are effectively violent economic cannibals, eating themselves from the inside out all while gaslighting the uninformed with the illusion of growth. This is a battle of the selfish and violent, high time preference, impatient networks, against the generous and peaceful, low time preference, patient one. All we have to do is be patient, and build the free world we want to live in NOW, to be able to leave it behind for those that come after us.
Don't worry, be happy, and live life to the best of your ability close to those who matter most to you. Bitcoin is just a tool to make life the way we want it, living on Bitcoin is the foundation of prosperity not the prosperity itself. That has to come from you.
☮️♥️₿
"Money" is a network of trust, including false trust, more than anything else.
Sound money is simply when the units of that network are difficult to make, like when dollars were made of Gold or Silver. The precious metal provided a strong check on supply expansion due to their natural scarcity and difficulty of production, but they were not money without the overlying network. Gold and Silver are just commodities that hold value longer than any other physical good, they are no longer money, because they no longer have a trusted network of which they are a part. Gold and Silver are still worth owning IMO, because they are free market trade units now. I can buy privately produced "rounds" and offer them for payment, I just have to make clear that they are not legal tender and not recognized by the banks.
FIAT is "money", or "currency" some might say since there's no foundation of value anymore, not because it's good money but because you can take it to the local diner you've never been to before and exchange it for a sandwich and fries without saying another word to the employees. You cannot do that with bits of Gold and Silver without first discussing what value and money actually is with the person you hope to exchange.
Bitcoin is money without substance, without physicality, it is money in its purest form. At the end of the day money is trust, and Bitcoin created a network of trust with no trust in any individuals or isolated groups required. Trust that the supply won't be debased (to pay for violence and dishonesty), trust that new units are hard to create, trust that you can save for the future, trust that your money is actually yours, trust that you can use it when you need it and it's value will largely trend up over long enough time periods.
End of Part 1.
Kinda feels like there's two digital value philosophies at odds right now.
One is a system designed to reduce value input requirements, IE costs, the other is to produce more value.
AI is able to make a passable to some copy of anything (including the appearance of good work). This reduces the need to pay people for original productions and reduces cost but also reduces quality of the businesses own output.
The only thing AI really offers is doing the same things similar but worse than a professional and creative person could.
Compare that to Bitcoin mining; rather than creating something that copies well, Bitcoin miners create something that cannot be copied. Instead of finding ways to reduce quality and input costs which only leads to reduced output quality, Bitcoin miners create something that is able to itself facilitate the creation of value in the free market through honest free trade.
Bitcoin grows the economy, AI shrinks it, only one survives in the long run. The AI economy is the latest shitcoin that captured the traditional fiat economy that only cares about relative input/output fiat growth of business and not about the end result.
If a business with $1000 of expense and $1050 of income can reduce their expense by %5 then even if their total income dropped the relative income (profit) will have grown.
$1000 expense / $1050 income = $50 profit.
$950 expense / $1030 income = $80 profit.
Profits can grow 60% yoy while the actual economy of the overall company fell by almost 2%. One could argue that you could use the extra profit on growing the company in other ways, but why would most companies do that when they can just reinvest that money into more AI cost cutting within the company or in the stock market within other companies doing the same thing?
This of course is all happening while the dollar itself is continuing to shrink in value.
Am I missing anything? Cause it really seems like the fiat economy + AI bubble is an accelerating economic cannibalism debt spiral. While Bitcoins cost to produce is going to double in less than 24 months. I think the next decade will be very interesting to say the least.
Lost my YouTube premium discount so I get to see what normal YouTube has become.
It's all AI slop shoved in your face now? "Ads" have really gone downhill, now I actually miss seeing the same high quality ad 5 times in the same video.
I don't care how much Bitcoin you have, using Bitcoin at all is revolutionary.
Bitcoin isn't even old enough to be considered an adult, and it's already changing the worlds of everyone who chooses to mine it, save in it, and use it to support them in hard times.
Fixing the entire world's monetary system won't happen overnight, but you don't have to wait to fix YOUR world by fixing YOUR money. That happens the moment you understand and decide that holding sovereign money is preferable to holding the money of slaves.