Replies (100)
Unfortunately, this is true.
Even the Israelis had this experience after Moses had freed them from Egyptian slavery.
Sad to think people are still experiencing the same dilution now.
At least we have Nostr where we can find some actual freedom minded similar thinkers.
Why Huxley was right in one post.
Being free is terrifying
Also being accepted by the tribe is more important than being right
This is why we need strong ancap/rational voices, to show people the way. And if they don't like it, we physically remove them (on an individual level, like spam, property rights and all) so they don't poison our culture. All the while remaining open to free trade, helping them in what ways they will allow us to. This reminds me of the note I just made, sort of similar dynamic but without the state and fallacy worship being touched upon:
See, they can get real lasting comfort if the society is not constantly lying to them.
The people who want slavery, most of them are not fully philosophically literate, fully aware that that is what they are doing. To the extent that they are aware, they are evil, choosing to deny reality and hurting themselves in the process, which is a real shame. But they are often just misled by deception that they were I'll equipped to handle. It is unfortunate most people are so corruptible and gullible, but a sort of peaceful and mutually beneficial solution is afforded in a society where the meek (principled, rational anarchists) have the strength and courage to speak sense, and be like guides to the normies. And the meek always win in the long run.
Kevin's Bacon
Something about sensitive people, they tend to spot opportunities that others miss. There's another word for that: entrepreneur, or investor (good investor at least).
In a free market, entrepreneurs and investors worth their bitcoin spot opportunities and exploit them, bringing in efficiency gains, long term resource abundance, and valued things that people like, while employees buy time and energy and things from the entrepreneurs, who in turn also benefit from the labor and monetary signals. In this free market, everyone is to varying extents a member of both classes. Entrepreneurs are also consumers and also borrow resources off of their collateral too, and contract with other entrepreneurs, as we know. I can see myself being an entrepreneur and investor foremost, but also doing contract work and employee work in a small capacity. This mix is what my life is rapidly becoming, thankfully.
As a sensitive person trained at and enamored with picking up on details, optimizing things, and understanding stuff on a deeper level, I notice things like this. It is the part I play in ushering in the cypherpunk-led anarchy of tomorrow, and honing these skills today while I provide value in small ways to the people in my family and the market around me.
View quoted note →
Slavery is a state of mind
This is why 19th century slavery failed (was "abolished").
1. The owners made the slaves miserable in most places in an obviously inhumane way
2. There were too many white (free) people having their own agency in life
Fix those 2 problems. Add in a monopoly token the slaves trade amongst each other. We have resurrecred slavery in a much more future-proof way.
Yay. 😔
Until you are free. Then being a subject is terrifying.
I just want a little gimp
Guy Swann
A truth I was surprised to discover:
Most people want slavery. They just want to be comfortable. And the moment a little bit of freedom causes discomfort, they rush back to their cage.
Then to delude themselves because they can’t accept that reality, they label all things uncomfortable as “slavery” and all things comfortable as “freedom.” Convincing themselves that because their cage is “nice and safe,” this means they are actually free.
View quoted note →
This makes me very sad but after some hard years kicking against the goads, I can’t be intellectually honest and refute it. Most people just want their comfortable shackles 😫
Cognitive dissonance is real.
Radical freedom is obtuse to most people. I find that many parents of my kids friends don’t really know how to socialize with me. They just want to live blissfully ignorant.
They fear the responsibility. No real freedom without responsibility
I agree. I think the reason for that is they're too scared to face the truth. Just my opinion.
Also, every human is deeply flawed and cannot think properly. Once you take a deep look at all of the biases and fallacies exhibited by all humans, you can never unsee it. Literally everyone is this way, myself included. We can’t help it.
Freedom is a ceaseless fight.
Most people get exhausted and give up in front of any significant obstacle. They expect life to be Netflix & Chill + Grubhub + Uber + Elevators.
Low tolerance of hardship has too many minds doomed, sadly.
A bit hyperbolic, but yeah most people don’t have libertarian ideals.
Few people value having trust minimized money
Yea not great
This is why we need a frontier
humans are herd animals
We need better antlers.
I first learned of what you’re talking about when I learned of the Christmas club.
The mentality of this … how do you change these bad habits, the correct incentives, yes but it’s so easy to deceive.
Ai quick summary:
The Christmas Club was first introduced by Pennsylvania banker Merkel Landis in 1909. It was marketed as a way for customers to save gradually for holiday spending, but in reality, it served the banks far more than the savers.
Customers locked in small deposits all year, which the bank could lend out or invest, earning returns. If a customer needed their money early, they’d face penalties—losing interest or paying fees. So banks got cheap, predictable capital, while customers got restricted access to their own funds and little to no real yield.
It wasn’t financial empowerment—it was behavior control, wrapped in tinsel.
The Christmas club problem
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Biblical slavery was quite comfortable. The master who told you where to be in the morning and what to do was also the master responsible for housing you
In the modern world we just separate the two masters as the corporation and the bank
And then we spend all our time fretting about anything that can cause a mismatch between unemployment levels and mortgage delinquency rates
This is so true. Being uncomfortable give us the drive to do better. Its like a cold shower.
Slavery is self imposed for those who fear the burden of freedom.
Ignorance is strength
Yes, most people are natural followers, only a minority are natural leaders. An even smaller minority are neither.
The flu psyop made this blatantly clear; perfectly normal, stable, nice people became rabid totalitarians overnight because the authorities told them to. That experiment in postmodern fascism would never have gone so far if most people were not sheep.
Since then I've given up on any hope that the masses will wake up. As Seneca said: the majority is always wrong.
Having been there recently myself, I don’t think anyone wats slavery but I agree that most people want a comfortable life and if they think that they have one it’s a tough illusion to give up.
Saylor has it right when he says that Bitcoin is for people who need it (I paraphrase).
Nothing is new under the sun. This has been the case forever: people’s natural inequality doesn’t encompass only their physical appearance, but their mental and spiritual abilities also. The bell curve works quite well here.
It is sad that the majority of Americans choose the cage. Weak men make hard times... and they are definitely not the kind of people that once braved across the country in a wagon to settle on their own.
Quoting from "The Bed of Procustes":
"They are born, then put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they go to the gym in a box to sit in a box; they talk about thinking “outside the box”; and when they die they are put in a box. All boxes, Euclidian, geometrically smooth boxes."
On freedom
Guy Swann
A truth I was surprised to discover:
Most people want slavery. They just want to be comfortable. And the moment a little bit of freedom causes discomfort, they rush back to their cage.
Then to delude themselves because they can’t accept that reality, they label all things uncomfortable as “slavery” and all things comfortable as “freedom.” Convincing themselves that because their cage is “nice and safe,” this means they are actually free.
View quoted note →
Sheep and Shepherds, that's they system they've set up for us
Bravo- this is well said.
I hadn’t realized there were so many others like me with a shared need for freedom.
most people cannot think deeply or clearly enough to even realize they are in this position.
I'm having harder and harder time suffering in the company of fools who don't realize the depth of their delusions. And very few actually want to rethink everything in their life on a regular basis and deprogram themselves from centuries of indoctrination that anything above laws of physics is "just the way things are"
"You have to understand.
Most people are not ready to be unplugged.
And many of them are so inured,
so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it"
Morpheus
That’s why I’m not so sure people will rush en masse to Bitcoin if things go south.
Well said. Thank you.
💯
Responsibility delivers freedom.
Discipline attracts the power to make it so.
The rabble mistake comfort & pleasure for evidence of having both. When in reality they lack them most.
Bitcoin fixes this.
The Exodus illustrates
@Dan Wedge I can relate. Noticed that with my kids friends parents as well.
100!
Be a wolf or a dog. Many choose dog. Free food and all.
You can help it. Start with intention and gratitude.
I think you are being too specific with your interpretations
This describes the phenomenon of the self acclaimed Libertarian Socialists. They basically redefine the words.
Ha! That’s a great quote. Reminds me of the typical Finance Manager in Big Bank or Big Corp. Inc.
All people are sheep. There are a few wise enough to lead towards greener pastures, and even fewer willing to reconsider the “greener” pasture they just led others to because maybe they’re still not following their true Master well enough.
I was also suprised. I remember reading MirBTC's tweets in 2020 and thinking, "That's crazy. I could never imagine lockdowns in the U.S. Freedom is too embedded into our culture.
Two weeks later, I learned an important lesson. I was wrong.
I'd say a little more than a bit. Humans are living longer by giving up freedom for comfort/safety. The tradeoff seems to be something most people would be ok with. Were do you draw the line of what's giving up freedom?
Peaceful parenting fixes this
Saw the same connection this AM with a lady who informed about a bylaw that doesn’t allow shirtless in public spaces which included the park I was at, of course shirtless. She told me all about the work she did with the police and how severe the bylaw violations were. She didn’t answer why the bylaw was needed only she was informing to ‘save others’ from the bylaw. I’m fairly positive I’m a strong reason they wanted this shirtless bylaw nonsense.
Dark day for my mitochondria.
You have no idea how right you are. I discovered this a long time ago too. People want someone to control them. They want to follow others. Very few are those who don’t. That’s the reason for fashion and everything people do. Most of them can’t and don’t want to take responsibility. Few are those who not only don’t seek convenience but also stand up against the system, risking suffering for it.
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True
The only truly free people in this context are probably the amish (in the US) and I don’t envy them
This is why we are $37 trillion in debt and no one bats an eye while driving around in cars they can’t afford and depreciating in value. People are fat, happy and clueless. Just like the powers that be want them
So true. Probably a symptom of conditioning. We always go back to what we know.
The duality of life is quite ironic amigo.
Unfortunately you are 100% correct
Balls and brains are needed.
I don’t know why things have to be framed in such stark, extreme, judgemental terms. I would put it as, young people seek financial stability, especially if their parents are immigrants (or something like that). So they get the higher education, go to graduate school, and figure out that the jobs that you can get with higher education are not necessarily places of respect.
But rent is a real thing. It’s like the main financial expense. In the US, a job is connected to health insurance.
That’s why I think some sort of passive income from investing should be available to everyone. Especially hourly wage workers, free-lancers, or people trying to do something creative.
Currently, passive income through investing seems only possible for people with interest and knowledge in finance, *and* who also have the extra cash to invest.
this post is another one of those posts where the individual is blamed rather than looking at the macro things… like the societal systems.
It also just vaguely describes the problem in a V for Vendetta way.
I don’t get why Lyn Alden reposted this, having written Broken Money.
Freedom=Responsibility. The government made a business out of putting people who get too carried away with their “freedom” in cages.
It is normal and ok to have out of the box ideas, And this could be equated to “freedom”, However a better understanding in my experience is Competition vs rule of law. It is a blanket statement to try something unusual, Be condemned, And then say “You are impinging on my freedom!” Being the victim. Nobody is coming to save you. The consequences of your “freedom” is the responsibility you need to take or the government puts you in their cage. If you really want to do what you want become a politician and start putting your competitors in cages. Then you can have the freedom to do fuck all and enjoy it, Which is what I think most people of as freedom.
My opinion is that freedom is the ability to create the life I want without anyone fucking with me about it, And this requires a constant ability for me to educate myself on what laws are and what I can and cannot do. There is always an asshole out there that wants to fuck your day up just because they don’t like the way you look. And fuck them anyway.
why do young adults get jobs? They don’t want to be a burden to their parents. Also, when their parents get older, they might need help.
It’s harder for Millenials to purchase a house.
Very few people, percentage-wise, can afford to invest large amounts into Bitcoin. If they can dollar cost average, it’s slow and takes time.
So it sounds like this post is creating some judgy narrative that whoever works at a job is someone who “loves being a slave” and is “scared of freedom”.
Most people are still followers, which is actually fine in the context of choice and self responsibility. But in a bad system that creates contradictory incentives, the above reality causes terrible long term consequences.
It’s basically true in either context, but in one environment, toxic incentives cause enormous suffering, while in another it enables strong standardization without hampering creativity and change.
(I almost didn’t respond because of your “I can’t believe Lyn Alden renoted this” remark. If you want to add a thought go ahead. But the moralization of casual social interaction and thinking out loud just comes off as entitled and holier-than-thou. Just a suggestion.)
This post uses dehumanizing language. Reposting something that calls people slaves because they live differently or make different choices is a big red flag. It makes the writer look out of touch, arrogant, and/or dismissive of real systemic issues.
Way to double down. Get over yourself
I said exactly nothing about jobs or anything you have assumed in your note.
Wait...you mean that you said what you said and not what you didnt say?
"when you have nothing to loose you are really free"
I have worked a government job and nearly all my coworkers were like this. They fear freedom and think slavery is freedom. Mind boggling!
Guy Swann
A truth I was surprised to discover:
Most people want slavery. They just want to be comfortable. And the moment a little bit of freedom causes discomfort, they rush back to their cage.
Then to delude themselves because they can’t accept that reality, they label all things uncomfortable as “slavery” and all things comfortable as “freedom.” Convincing themselves that because their cage is “nice and safe,” this means they are actually free.
View quoted note →
When you say 'most people want slavery' I see a strong ambiguity wherein you may be implying both, but I'd like to touch on it. Do you mean people want to be slaves or they want the institution (albeit invisible) whereby they benefit from outsourced slave labor? Perhaps a mix of both to assist in their own self-delusion that you mentioned?
I think most people want to be directed, not to be slaved. But given the stark reality of the choices available, they take the path of least resistance which is slavery. But to say they want the slavery seems disingenuous; they want the convenience and (often unwittingly) accept the slavery.
I've been thinking about slavery an awful lot... It almost seems like slavery is this unavoidable problem or quality of humanity on some level. If that is true, which is possible it might not be, then we need to be really careful about who or what we are slaves to. I'm being pretty broad, vague and general here on purpose so just keep in mind that I haven't thought too deeply about it. It's just a topic my mind has been returning to frequently. 🤔
Dostoevsky, he
This is truth and why democracies lead to authoritarianism.
I’ve thought free people must continue to carve new communities to obtain true freedom
do you know how to communicate without insulting?
yep you wrote your post in a vague judgmental-emotional way.
From Behold A Pale Horse by Milton William Cooper (1991)
You posted in the following style -
… cartoonish (like Ren and Stimpy). This kind of post feels designed to provoke a reaction, not invite real dialogue. The replies are just a chorus of “so true” from people who already agree, … what’s the point of having a convo in an echo chamber?
comments section: bobbleheaded agreement bots and recycled slogans.
This writing is … a synchronized yes-machine. Super vague, super polarized, and blaming of the individual with no context. So yeah I am very surprised Lyn reposted it with also no context. Who even knows what ‘group’ of people you’re judging?
The most dangerous place to call home is your own “comfort zone”
Just surviving paycheck to paycheck & using all your free time to watch Netflix should NEVER be the goal!!!
Always push to Learn, Grow, & better yourself inshallah.
#Bitcoin #HosKasi 🫵🏾🇸🇴
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This sounds like a quote from Loki lol
Most bitcoiners don’t. “Have fun staying poor” their emotional EQ is trash lol it’s why Bitcoin has only evolved to generate more demand for u.s. dollars.
I happen to agree with this.
Isn’t this basically one of the biggest takeaway lessons from The Big Short?
Free thinkers get laughed at even when they’re right. Most people do not possess the competence to roll solo so the idea of being ostracized by your “in group” triggers life or death fight or flight considerations. People are more worried about fitting in than they are with finding truth.
Solomon Asch figured that out.
Not likely: maybe single digit percent chance, because that would require taking personal responsibility for one's own life.
It's clear worldwide that the Nanny State exists, because majority don't want the above, and prefer to pilfer others through the State. In other words:
Guy Swann
A truth I was surprised to discover:
Most people want slavery. They just want to be comfortable. And the moment a little bit of freedom causes discomfort, they rush back to their cage.
Then to delude themselves because they can’t accept that reality, they label all things uncomfortable as “slavery” and all things comfortable as “freedom.” Convincing themselves that because their cage is “nice and safe,” this means they are actually free.
View quoted note →
They take the blue pill honey
This is why open systems are so important. Everyone shares the burden and everyone has access to the tools, making reality less scary, even bearable.
Interesting to contemplate.
Is freedom freedom from uncertainty? Then is is never attainable.
Is freedom freedom from the fear of the unknown? Then how does one attain that?
When everything is changing, and rushing ever faster into the unknown, uncertainty and the impossibility of knowing which way to turn is everywhere. If that is the case then where does clarity lie?
If one can have a sense of clarity when the winds of change are blowing, and when change and uncertainty are everywhere, that clarity leads to a fearlessness which is free under all circumstances if it is truly free.
Most people
Not all people
Thank god we still have a few folks out there that truly care about our real freedom…. Regardless of comfort
That’s probably most of us on Nostr
The minority?
exactly!!!! I keep seeing repetitions of that type of language and it’s just like, what is the point of saying that?!
ok bully!
I think people want symbiosis. They don't want to worry about their food, housing, electricity, basic needs, etc. But they DO want to contribute in a meaningful way. They want to benefit from a system that supports their livelihood, but not at the sacrifice of their freedoms.
I’d say it’s not that most people actually want slavery, and more that most people are willing to accept slavery because they primarily want to be comfortable.
What do you think about this framing?
I kinda see them as the same thing really. It’s that valuing comfort above all and desiring to not have responsibility of their own lives, IS a form of seeking slavery. To seek freedom is the explicit decision to take responsibility for your own life.
Most have simply equated freedom, because they see it as a desirable thing, with comfort and *lack* of responsibility, because that’s what they *really* want. They actually don’t want freedom at all, they are running from it to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and situation.
But arguably, either framing can be considered accurate, imo. Because freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin, and most people find comfort in avoiding the weight of responsibility.
