A fifth of the entire world couldn't KYC even if they wanted to. Don't lock them out. The tiny amount of crime prevented by KYC/AML is not worth locking out a fifth of the world from participating in Bitcoin.

I post on Farcaster sometimes and when I see people using a decentralized crypto platform like Farcaster to promote centralization of control and the theft and redistribution of wealth through socialism and socialist policies, it makes me feel that those of us in crypto who still actually understand why it's important have completely failed in educating newcomers to the space. Maybe this is some of these people's first or second cycle and they don't know or appreciate the origin story. If it wasn't for libertarians, cypherpunks, and ancaps promoting bitcoin and actually using it back in the very beginning when everyone thought it was a scam, it would of never gained the adoption that it did. The most important use cases of crypto is to create decentralized systems and markets outside of state control and to create property rights and scarcity in the digital realm. Socialism and crypto are antithetical to each other. I support your right to say anything you want but at least appreciate the irony.

There is no excuse for funding war except in self defense. The United States once again throwing fuel on a fire, paid for by taxpayers. We have a long history of making geopolitical tensions and conflicts worse by intervening instead of focusing on defense of our own borders. Russia isn't going to invade the United States whether they seize more of the Ukraine or not. You also can't use the good ol' protecting freedom excuse because the Ukraine has become a very authoritarian place. In 2014 they instituted a state of emergency that limited the freedoms of expression and assembly, and they extended this endless "temporary" measure in 2021. Journalists have been fined, arrested, harassed, and fired for speaking out against the government. Russia is worse of course but that's besides the point. We should not be trying to be the entire world's police while our own country goes to shit. https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-35/

If you're wasting money on lotto scratcher tickets, stop buying them. Save the money you would of spent until you can afford an ASIC. If you solo mine bitcoin you are going to have better odds of winning a block and earning $200,000 than the odds of getting a significant lotto win. Plus it will help heat your home and you will be helping to decentralize the network. Don't let giant centralized corporate mining farms have all the fun! #mining #bitcoin #solomining #ASIC

Go read my first piece on Hackernoon! TLDR: Reputation is important in a truly free society, and we need to experiment with permissionless, transparent, and cryptographically verifiable blockchain-based reputation systems like what @opt_aut is building.

The Role of Universal Reputation in a Free Society | HackerNoon

How decentralized, universal, and permissionless reputation systems such as the one Āut Labs is building is essential for the future of freedom.

What to do with people who are solely dependent on welfare is one of the most interesting problems with a hypothetical Libertarian or Voluntaryist revolution. This would be a revolution in which the state is either dismantled completely or rebuilt from the ground up as a very limited night watchman style organization. However, the very act of dismantling the welfare system could be seen as an act of aggression against those who are dependent on it for their survival, which would violate the non aggression principle (NAP) which is the entire basis of a voluntaryist society. It wouldn't violate the NAP to punish and stop the state actors who steal the money (via taxation and seizure) that funds the welfare because they themselves have already aggressed against everyone they have stolen from, but the legitimate welfare recipients haven't stolen anything, they have just been given stolen funds and were born into a system that made them dependent on welfare. Taking those funds away could mean they are going to potentially starve or die because of lack of medical care. You can't start a voluntaryist society with an act of mass aggression against all welfare recipients, but you also can't have one in which the state is stealing money to redistribute. A potential solution to this would be to set up parallel systems first in which people can opt out into on an individual basis as we gradually try to reduce people's dependence on welfare. If you opt out of the state's system and began to participate in a parallel economy rather than using fiat currency and paying taxes, to prevent any potential harm to welfare recipients that would result from you no longer paying taxes, you could donate the same percentage of your income that would of previously gone to welfare. If you donate it to non profits or even give it directly to people in need, you will end up helping welfare recipients more efficiently than the state ever could. People could gradually be convinced to opt out of welfare and instead accept charity from others who have opted out until which point they are self sufficient, if ever. This would produce change from the ground up on a voluntary basis rather than a top down act of aggression. Currently, people on disability welfare in the United States are incentivized to not find a way to earn money despite their disability even if they may want to and be capable of doing so. This is because once you make some money you are penalized in how much benefits you receive, so you would have to be earning a significant amount before it would be worth it to do so. This encourages disabled people to just give up and collect a check for the rest of their life's and is not a good system, especially in today's age of remote work in which it is easier than ever for disabled people to work. Disability is of course not the only form of welfare, all of them have their own issues. The main problem though, is it is funded with theft.

The choice between Democrats and Republicans isn't much of a choice at all, it is an illusion created by your enslavers so that you continue to accept your enslavement. Both parties support the child killing Israeli government, central banking/unrestrained money printing, gun control, the war on drugs, mass deportations of migrants, the worthless Covid vaccines, mass surveillance, forced "education", putting our country in massive amounts of debt, and stealing your money to pay for all of it. Neither one support free markets and the Federal Government has continued grown in size and power far beyond the limits of the Constitution under the rule of each party. Both parties are in bed with corporations and banks while destroying small businesses. If you think anything will change for the better by continuing to put Democrats or Republicans in the White House or Congress, you need to wake the fuck up. The lesser of two evils is still evil. #democrats #republicans #election #election2024 #politics

I'm using Amethyst, how do I tell if my NIP-05 verification worked? I hosted the nostr json file on my domain and according to the guide I was using it said to find the NIP-05 field in my client's profile settings and enter the name I chose. I see no such field in Amethyst, so what do I do next? Do I put my nostr name and domain in the "nostr address" field? #asknostr

I was reading the Human Rights Foundation's Financial Freedom newsletter and apparently the digital ruble CBDC is on track to be released in July 2025 in Russia. Time is running out, as more nations adopt CBDCs it is inevitable that the United States attempts to do it as well. Stop being lazy and swiping your debit card for everything! Use cash, Bitcoin, or Monero whenever possible. If a business is not accepting any of these, stop giving that business any of your money until they do. Make sure you let them know that you can't spend money with them unless they accept cash or crypto. Whenever you can, tell people why it is important to continue to use cash/crypto as much as possible. The more widespread cash use is, the harder it will be for the Government to take it away. Unfortunately, many people are already not carrying cash and will be easy to convert into using a CBDC. We have to push back on this, once a CBDC is adopted we will be one huge step closer to complete tyranny.

What's the difference between using blogstack and just posting longform notes? As a freelance writer I like the idea of paid subscriptions because they would enable me to have some consistent predictable income, is there anyway to enable paid subscriptions on the Nostr protocol instead of relying solely on in value for value zaps?

Larkin Rose once said some things that resonated w/ me. That is gun control is just another form of gun violence because it is enforced by men with guns (law enforcement). Also, law enforcement are some of the only gun owners that will point a loaded firearm at you for no other reason than they don't yet know what is going on. An actual responsible gun owner, even when facing a potential threat, would at most have their gun out of its holster, pointed at the ground, with their finger off of the trigger. Only when their life or someone's life is threatened will they point a gun at someone. This is because responsible gun owners know you don't ever point a gun at someone unless you intend on shooting them. Pigs on the other hand, don't give a fuck about being responsible and will point guns at you if they simply don't like how you look. They routinely put their own safety above others. Ironically liberals and some conservatives want to seize guns from responsible gun owners so that pigs and criminals are the only ones with guns. Although to be fair to the criminals, most felon gun owners are also more responsible than pigs are. #guns #guncontrol #freedom #billofrights #selfdefense

In true 1984 style, they want us to think war is peace. From the article: "NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, on June 20, told his audience, “It may seem like a paradox, but the path to peace is more weapons to Ukraine.” A few months earlier, Stoltenberg had told another audience that “Weapons, in fact, are the way to peace.” "

Orwell’s War: When War is the Path to Peace | The Libertarian Institute

People will complain about the lack of FEMA funding until the Government "fixes" it by stealing even more money from us through either taxation or inflation. What they won't ever do is simply decrease spending on stupid shit to pay for helping Americans in need at home.

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Clint Russell (@LibertyLockPod) on X

Pretty wild how the government has unlimited funding for every foreign endeavor right up until the American people are hit by a crisis and suddenl...

Presidential candidates love to make promises about lowering income taxes. They just forget to mention that they don't even have that power. Instead of just being honest with voters and saying, "I promise to try to get Congress to do x, y, and z", they just lie and misrepresent the powers of the executive branch.

This is a perfect example of why we need KYC free cryptocurrency on and off ramps. If you are a domestic abuse victim trying to save up some crypto so you can afford to GTFO of your situation, then it's way less likely that your abuser will find out about it if you aren't forced to KYC. Not to mention there are countries in the world where women literally can't have their own bank account, they too need access to KYC free crypto services. Having something to hide doesn't mean you're a criminal. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/09/23/how-bitcoin-can-offer-a-path-to-safety-for-domestic-abuse-survivors/

I predict Trump's ego will lead to him accepting this 2nd debate challenge. Isn't there any non partisan venues available?😆Does anyone honestly expect ABC or CNN to not give Harris the questions ahead of time? Of course they would! It's not like if they got caught that anyone would change their vote based on it. Nooone would be punished. Nobody on the left cared that the ABC moderators only fact checked Trump's lies and not Harris, or that the moderator was interjecting his own opinion (when he said,"it didn't sound like sarcasm to him"), which brought the whole debate down to the legitimacy level of a YouTuber debate instead of a presidential debate. Well actually, the debates have always been illegitimate because they refuse to even let the largest 3rd party participate, even during the many elections in which Libertarians managed to jump through the burning bureaucratic hoops and were on the ballot in every state. The game is rigged against 3rd parties or anti establishment candidates(just ask Bernie Sanders). #trump2024 #harris2024 #politics #trump #harris

#asknostr #alby #btc Are alby and wallet of Satoshi the only two options if I want to receive zaps? Can someone hook me up with one of the invite codes? I'll be forever grateful to you and you entire lineage until the end of time itself.

Do Bitcoin L2s do a better job of driving value to Bitcoin than Ethereum L2s? If not now, will they in the future? 🤔 The whole "just build it on Bitcoin" thing used to sound like a bad joke, but now you actually can just build it on Bitcoin. What does that mean for Ethereum?

Hey everyone on Nostr! I'm trying out Nostr again, and wanted to introduce myself. I am a freelance writer, a freedom advocate, an amateur homesteader, and a privacy ninja. I don't believe that the government's authority is legitimate and I believe that the institution of government is responsible for more violence, misery, and death than any other group. Technology such as Bitcoin is one of the most important tools we have in the struggle for freedom worldwide. I discovered Bitcoin in 2017 but didn't understand it's importance until around 2019. I live my life almost entirely outside of the traditional financial system, for example I dont have a bank account. I believe that by working together, we can make a powerful circular economy outside of state control that is so large no one will need to use fiat at all. Give me a follow if you are interested in privacy, freedom tech, or the ideas of liberty. #introductions

The idea of the social contract, that is citizens consent to be governed and abide by the law in exchange for protection from their government, is a fantasy. Being born within imaginary boundaries on a map, something you have no control over, does not constitute consent. In any other contract, people understand that a child is not capable of consent. Somehow when it comes to this "social contract", they think you are able to consent to the state's rule from birth. Even if the contract was valid, the government does not give a shit about protecting you, and they also want to take away your ability to protect yourself. An armed citizenry provides a check on the government's power, and the government always wants more power, therefore they don't want an armed citizenry.

X (formerly Twitter)

Axiomatic Enemy of the State (@DeTocqueville14) on X

The government can't even adequately protect Donald Trump while providing him with around the clock protection, and you think it will be able to pr...