"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is one of those flippant things people say to absolve people of responsibility for the most blatantly unethical actions. It's a shitcoiner morality slogan. It is possible at once to understand that we are living in a golden age of grift, and that systems have evolved to incentivize people to check their principles at the door for a buck. Still, everyone has agency and can choose not to sel their soul for a few bucks, a few clicks, a few likes. It's important to find it within yourself to hate both the player AND the game.

A perhaps unpopular opinion that I firmly believe: MSTR has not even been net positive for bitcoin’s price. It’s been a negative on every front.

GM

For all the young father's out there, I can't recommend this book highly enough:

The Sovereign Child - A Revolutionary Philosophy of Parenting

Discover a transformative approach to parenting that liberates both children and parents. Learn how to raise children without rules while fostering...

We all want to be good fathers. This takes that abstract desire and provides a concrete guide for that means in practice.

God I hate the bellcurve meme

This is very fiat, but are there any Nostrich Fantasy Football leagues going this year? If not, I'm keen to make one. I'm thinking 250k sats buy-in.

A friend just told me that, in the original story of Howl's Moving Castle, the reason he wanted his home to move around was to avoid property tax. Makes me love it all the more.

The further I get into my bitcoin journey, the more I look back on the 2018-19 bear as the high-point of bitcoiner culture. Bitcoin felt punk back then. We’d just emerged victorious from the block size wars, price had crashed to sub-$4k, lightning was just getting going, regulators were trying crush us...good times. And, while on one hand, bitcoin has been substantially de-rerisked, open source funding has improved dramatically, the political environment has become more favourable…the culture feels like it has rotted (except for here on Nostr). When I look at the empty mempools and lack of retail interest/search volume for bitcoin (despite basically being at ATHs), I can’t help but think it is because bitcoin has lost its counter-culture appeal in the eyes of most people. Between hyping MSTR and its myriad of clones, simping for politicians and cronyism, ‘strategic’ reserve bs, we’ve gone from suits not wanting to associate us because bitcoin is just used for drugs and terrorism dontcha know, to regular people not wanting to associate with us because of all the suits. Feels like a kinda shitty timeline tbh.

Listening to this 1979 talk by the late psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. Though the topic is how libertarians can unwittingly work to undermine their own movement, it all equally applies to bitcoiners. What starts as earnest and principled can so easily become performative if we don't engage in constant self-reflection.

Bitcoiners make fun of goldbugs a lot (and often for good reason). However, gold is still the only other asset that it really makes sense to own. The kind of asset you would feel comfortable holding if you knew you were about to go into a coma for a decade. Gold is the perfect compliment to bitcoin in a portfolio. The tail risks that could make bitcoin go to zero are twofold: political and technological. The tail risk that could make gold fall is that bitcoin's tail risks don't materialize.