when somebody pitches me their "quantum-resistant", 47389579834 TPS blockchain token and tells me to read their whitepaper

One of my favorite clips: Liu Bei and Cao Cao debating one another as part of Three Kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is perhaps the greatest Chinese novel, written in the 14th century. It's based partially on historical fact - when the Han Dynasty fell apart and split into three different kingdoms. The two men in the clip, Liu Bei and Cao Cao, would end up ruling their own different kingdoms and would fight in one of the largest battles in Chinese history - the Battle of the Red Cliffs (赤壁之战) where Cao Cao's ~200,000 men were defeated by a much smaller force of ~50,000, partially headed by Liu Bei. In the clip, the two are still allies - Cao Cao is asking Liu Bei to join an alliance against the tyrant Dong Zhuo who had effectively captured the last Han emperor (a child), and their philosophical debate helps inspire long-held lessons in statecraft that persist to this day. 1- Order vs chaos A prevailing theme of Three Kingdoms is order vs. chaos. Cao Cao is the embodiment of chaos - he is depicted as murdering family members who had taken him in after he is caught trying to kill Dong Zhuo. Cao Cao is traditionally painted as the villain and the heel in Three Kingdoms, while Liu Bei is often painted as the virtuous example of a Chinese "gentleman". Yet we know the historical figure Cao Cao was a capable administrator who came closest to reunifying the Han dynasty after its ruinous fall - but at what cost? My personal sympathies lie with Liu Bei - this is the way the story is built, and in stories, you need heroes and villains. Yet, while filled with sin, Cao Cao's seductive siren song that to "make order from chaos" would make heroes of them both throughout the ages rings true - and is in fact true when one considers that the greatest Chinese novel is not about peacetime administration, but rather the "romance" of warfare and rivalry - for which we remember Liu Bei and Cao Cao even today. 2- Laws vs morals As a roughly similar thread, Liu Bei and Cao Cao also represent two great schools of Chinese philosophy: Confucianism and Legalism. Liu Bei finds the root of the current chaos in the fact that the people have lost "faith and principles" while Cao Cao talks about "turning chaos to order". A rough approximation of the underlying debate is that Confucians seek to set moral example, while Legalists seek to enforce laws. This is similar to the debate lines between Hobbes' Leviathan and his view of pre-state humanity as brutish and violent and Rousseau's idealistic view. Legalists demand a strong state, while Confucians demand a strong people. The two can be at loggerheads with tactics and synthetic in the same goals: a thriving civilization. Yet, it's the conflict between the two that has often marked Chinese history - as recently as when Mao compared himself favorably to the first Legalist Emperor Qin Shi Huang ("He buried 460 scholars alive - we have buried 46,000 scholars alive.") while ordering his Red Guards to desecrate the tomb of Confucius during the Cultural Revolution. 3- The lords seek spoils, not change Liu Bei makes the most insightful observation - that the alliance of Lords trying to depose Dong Zhuo are in fact, not looking to save the people, but rather to carry on ruling like Dong Zhuo has. They are "looking to divide everything under Heaven." - more jealous than reformist. In this respect, Three Kingdoms is an ample reminder of changing labels but not changing the underlying power structure after revolutions - which finds purchase in Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q or perhaps closer to home for many in Nostr, George Orwell's Animal Farm and the uniparty. 4- The people suffer from ambition While we see two men debating their ambitions - Cao Cao looking for "eternal fame and glory", Liu Bei looking to preserve the Han Dynasty, their words carry unimaginable power because of the impact their ideas would have on millions of people. A famous poem was written around the same time as the events depicted in Three Kingdoms - "At Fifteen I Joined the Army on Expedition" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:At_Fifteen_I_Joined_the_Army_on_Expedition). The poem ends after a veteran of the war-torn Three Kingdoms period - the same period that did indeed elevate Liu Bei and Cao Cao to "eternal fame and glory" - observes that he's been at war for 65 years and finds that nobody is left in his household. "Meal and broth are ready in an instant, But I know not whom to serve. As I step out and look east, Falling tears soak my clothes." A poem that resonated for the millions it took, in blood, to elevate the Three Kingdoms into the novel it is today. https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=dk9MzFD9T-Q

A lot of people have been wondering about how to get Bitcoin donations to Julian Assange after @Stella Assange wrote about the need to fundraise for the USD 520,000 to cover his flight on VJT199 to Saipan. I talked with his half-brother Gabriel, who set up this link on their @BTCPay Server instance.

Assange Campaign

cc: @jack @gladstein Verify, don't trust as always. All I can say is that I sent sats to this BTCPay instance, and that it came to me from the same Signal account as when I interviewed Gabriel for articles like the following: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/06/21/julian-assanges-continued-imprisonment-is-a-test-for-bitcoins-values/

This is a top tier shitpost from the Chinese Internet, and it speaks to the difficulty of the economy.

I'm glad Julian Assange is free, and I hope he is fully pardoned.

Great time to buy Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion - fees are low, and the narrative is dumping a bit. Here's a couple of observations on how to do this: 1- Get to know your local Meetups/Bitcoin community. Typically cities I'm in have a Telegram group that is fairly active though some people have started creating smaller SimpleX groups. There's usually a set of community organizers that would know what's going on - you could search for a local BitDevs chapter, or Bitcoin on Meetups.com. But in practice, the way to short-circuit is to meet somebody in the community and get warm intros for wherever you travel. If I'm DMed here, I'm happy to make intros for certain cities, mostly in North America. Telegram groups would have the benefit of searching for reviews and being able to ask for people to vouch for sellers. Though ofc, Telegram isn't great for security etc. (not end-to-end encrypted by default, group chats are probably sitting in a server somewhere in a pile), so maybe delete and reinstall whenever you need. If you can attend a physical meetup, that's always best, and you can meet and ask people if they're willing to sell sats. Generally, most people don't, but there are usually a few people running businesses and/or living on a BTC standard that will sell relatively large amounts. You can find 1-2 of those people and be good for those cities. 2-

BTC Map

Easily find places to spend sats anywhere on the planet.

has Bitcoin merchants listed who will take Bitcoin. While not preferable to the above option, if you really can't find liquidity, it's worth both 1) going to those businesses and buying stuff and 2) maybe asking if they're willing to sell for cash. There are ATMs as well, including some cities with Lightning ATMs which have pretty low fees, though those should generally be your last resort due to the high fees and batch sending (also, ATMs may have a camera somewhere nearby). 3- It's worth developing a "ritual" and having lots of different on-chain/Lightning wallet options for receiving. What I've observed, is that the buyer/seller usually agree on a reference for price, who takes on the fees, and then the seller sends after the buyer shows they have the cash on hand, and then the buyer gives the cash. Aqua Wallet, your own Lightning node, and Cake Wallet (silent payments) are good options, depending on your own tradeoffs on privacy, on-chain/off-chain. Lightning is vastly preferred, mostly because you don't want to stand around waiting for confirmations. 4- Keep in mind your physical safety - have a preference for meeting in public spots. Next to a well-frequented public transit station, for example. This is one reason why physical Bitcoin events work well as well - safety in numbers, and unlikely people will try sketchy things with a lot of Bitcoiners around.

I wrote for @Bitcoin Magazine on how a donor to anti-Bitcoin Rep. Brad Sherman's campaign has worked with the Chinese state to influence American policymakers with large contributions to their campaigns and coordinated tours to China.

Bitcoin Magazine

DONOR TO ANTI-BITCOIN REP. BRAD SHERMAN COORDINATES WITH CHINA'S "MAGIC WEAPON" TO INFLUENCE US POLITICIANS

Many prominent American policymakers, including the President and the Vice President, have become friends with a donor to Rep. Brad Sherman's ...

My book on Bitcoin + China is officially out on Amazon! Thanks again to @gladstein for the foreward. When I originally wrote this book, I wanted to portray China and Bitcoin as characters in a larger fight - for control over how finances and computing power would be arrayed. Would individuals be able to enjoy more liberty and financial freedom and dilute the control of tyrants - or would new technologies like the Digital Yuan create more control? I hope you all enjoy. Any of you who DM me that you've bought the book - if I'm in your city, I'll try to meet and sign your copy! Love the Nostr community.

Amazon

Amazon

I wrote previously for Forbes about how "chat control" and European policy attempts to go around end-to-end encryption would invade millions if not billions of user phones. User privacy and control of what your device displays to who is so critical to human freedom. One of the things I love most about Bitcoin is that it aggregates people who think along this vein. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/05/07/european-threat-to-end-to-end-encryption-would-invade-phones/

My profile picture on here commemorates Ba Jin, the leading anarchist Chinese writer. His short stories and novels animated a revolutionary generation that saw China break from thousands of years of dynastic rule - but he was personally punished by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. His wife was denied treatment for her cancer and she would die. Ba Jin took to writing about remembering the Cultural Revolution and reading Dante's Inferno to gain some small measure of comfort. Some people talk about the "Chinese model" as if it is a matter of destiny, but the recent ideological fascination with Marx and a stronger Leninist state doesn't have as strong of a root as most assume, and even less so the idea of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" forged right after Ba Jin's torment. Ba Jin's story tells us that there was always a China that looked to temper the state's excesses and one rooted in a desire to engage the world (at the time in Esperanto, perhaps now with Bitcoin). Though the Chinese Communist Party has tried to seize his legacy, I believe it is Chinese cypherpunks looking to hedge and move away from one of the most unequal fiat kingdoms on Earth (China's income inequality by some measures surpasses that of the United States) that truly follow Ba Jin's legacy. )

I wrote about how Bitcoin survived China's bans and actually grew much stronger - diving into the details on the level of what was attempted - really showing how Bitcoin thrived despite a very robust attack from a large state adversary - and what lessons can be drawn for future resilience. Hattip to @`jb55`who gave me the whole story of how Damus had to face down Chinese censors firsthand who took the Damus app down and then banned the default relay IP addresses.

Would Mao hold bitcoin?

How Bitcoin Thrived Through China's Bans And Became Much Stronger - Would Mao hold bitcoin?

How Bitcoin became much stronger after China tried to ban it - and what Bitcoiners can learn from the experience.

One of the cool features of Nostr is the automatic translation of different languages in mobile clients. I believe @Damus and @npub1nz64...0w5y both have this feature. It's awesome to follow people from around the world.