< Rereading The Odyssey by Homer. Can’t really remember the last time I read it, though I underlined parts >
I’m feeling … not optimistic, I guess. Reading The Odyssey, and intrigued by this approximately 2,770 year old story, memorized and told orally at a time when many couldn’t read! It is * such * a patriarchal story. Everything is very much from a hetero male point of view, rich kings and their sons. Even though Athena plays a big role. So much meat eating, sacrificing cows. It’s gross. And the gods like it. They like and value the same things humans do. Gold, and precious rare metals. Fat meat. But the human morals are relatable. But everything is about marriage - to a beautiful woman. Ew. A lot of the main characters, the heroes, live in a kind of wealth that many don’t have. With maids, servants, slaves.
Meanwhile, I’m reading this in a very different time and place. Which feels … like a miracle? Also confusing. What am I to learn from this? The universal belief that it’s wrong to be selfish, proud, greedy.
I feel like the message of Bitcoin is ‘time is on your side’. As long as you are alive. And even if you’re not alive, then it can still have that message for the people or causes that you care about. It’s an innovation that becomes more valuable with time. As the flaws of the current financial system - flaws that have caused violence, inequality, unfairness - continue to show themselves. Flaws that have created * more * problems for people and living things, rather than solving the fundamental problems. The burden to work and make money, while inflation also exists. People have found some smaller solutions. But Bitcoin and Ethereum are big solutions. Based on the foundation of other technologies. Communication technologies.
I wrote the above on 8/13/2025.
Then on 8/15/25, I was watching an interview with Ocean Vuong and learned about the working poor class of the USA. It made me realize that Bitcoin, the freedom money, the tool for self-sovereignty, is only benefitting those at the middle class level and beyond. Especially those with financial and technical literacy, and a disposable income*. The working poor can’t invest in anything really. That’s why programs for guaranteed basic income, aka universal basic income, need to be expanded.
* ‘Disposable’ referring to financial assets means, “readily available for the owner's use as required.”
#classinequalityacrossspacetime part 2
Greece, 750 - 650 BCE (Before the Common Era)
