Random shower thought from this morning, mostly leadership-related: sometimes people aren't actually looking for an explanation - they actually just want a fight.

Humans are creatures of propaganda. In 2 Peter 3:1, the apostle tells his audience that he is intentionally writing to them again with the purpose of "stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder." When God formed us from the dust of the ground, He made us as creatures that were meant to be shaped. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Question 88), we are introduced to what are commonly called the means of grace: prayer, scripture, and the sacraments. These are meant to be the regular tools of daily life that God uses as He works in us and conforms us into the image of Christ. Paul, in Philippians 4:8, commands the following: "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Scripture recognizes that, left to our own devices and natural state, "our heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jeremiah 17:9). The common refrain of modern times - "follow your heart" - stems from the oldest temptation in the Book (Genesis 3). We need the truth of God's word and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives on a regular basis to teach and remind us of what is true and shape our heart, soul, strength, and minds. However, our Adversary knows this truth all too well. A general principle is that the forces of evil tend to corrupt what is good, rather than create de novo. This is true of our created purpose to be shaped by something outside of ourselves. Recognizing that we are malleable creatures, the Devil has wasted no effort in creating His own legions of opposing forces that are intended to shape us. But instead of pointing us towards Christ, these forces shape and harden us deeper into our own sinful nature and unto the ends of Satan himself. The current political, media, and entertainment landscape has not been spared. After all, though both God and the Devil use fleshly tools at times and as secondary means, the ultimate battle is a spiritual one (Ephesians 6:12). It should not surprise us that our Enemy has intentionally tried to capture institutions and common means to shape our hearts and minds against our Creator. Edward Bernays (1881-1995) was, as his obituary states, the "father of public relations." He worked closely in public relations with various governmental and corporate entities over the course of his storied career with the explicit end of shaping public opinion and action. He even wrote a book aptly entitled Propaganda, in which he explains the following: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” In a world where history is written by the victors, and yet conveniently the good guys always seem to win, thinking critically and from first principles is hardly encouraged. But an important part of being "wise as serpents" (Matthew 16:10) and understanding the times (1 Chronicles 12:32) is dividing truth from deception and being mindful that being shaped is inevitable - we are programmable creatures, after all - but we should be intentional about what forces we are allowing into our lives, and particularly mindful of the reactions that are stirred in us by the various forces to which we are exposed. I have written previously about the power of social media, both in its potential usefulness and also in its ability algorithmically shape us. But this truth extends to many domains - the news we consume, the shows we watch, the books we read, the music we listen to - the list goes on. Music is a particularly interesting rabbit trail - as malleable creatures, different frequencies and keys have measurable effects on our cognition, our nervous system, and ultimately our ability to think clearly. The lyrics catechize us, whether we are aware of it or not. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that much of modern music is overt warfare on the soul. But we understand the broader spiritual battle, we should not be surprised. Therefore, brothers - be wise and understanding men. Be self-controlled, and discipline yourselves and train your hearts and minds (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Be intentional in what you allow into your life, understanding that everything you interact with is shaping you in some way. Expose yourselves regularly to the means of grace, choose your friends carefully (Proverbs 27:17), and be particularly mindful of what you choose to occupy your mind and time. Do not let your guard down if you choose to use tools like social media, and be intentional even with the entertainment you regularly consume when it comes to shows, music, and books. Be mindful of the reactions that are elicited from you by various means and question the intentions of those providing that stimulus. Information warfare is a powerful tool of our enemy, but remember that even in this the Devil is only corrupting what God intended for sanctification, for our good, and for His glory.

The sweat of the body lays a foundation for a disciplined soul; the training of our flesh prepares the way for the training of our mind.

Acts 17:26: "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God" Esther 4:14: "For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”" 1 Samuel 14:6: "Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few.”" Two thoughts: 1) we can find our comfort in the sovereignty of God, even amidst seeming chaos and inescapable odds. 2) many of the examples of courageous faith in scripture are not God descending from the heavens and proclaiming His will, but instead a faithful servant of the Lord seeing problems and trusting themselves to God's sovereignty as they walk forward in trust and in His name.

I am realizing I have way too much of a main character mindset. Need more of a stewardship mindset. Particularly as it relates to thinking generationally.

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Francis Bacon

The Wonders and Terrors of Social Media You've felt it, too. In fact, if you are reading this you've acted on it - that urge to respond to some notification, or to pull your phone from your pocket and peer into the looking glass of the world around us. It's powerful. The social effects of generations having access to immediate information and commentary on events happening the world around are still yet to be fully determined. On the one hand, particularly as a husband and father, I do have an obligation as protector and provider to have some awareness of current events and a duty to position my family in a way that we are responding, as best as possible, with wisdom to the world around us and preparing ourselves for the future. And most of us realize that we are not getting accurate information or data on which to base those decisions from the likes of Fox News or your local newspaper. On the other hand, the siren call of social media has a double-edge, and this edge can cut deep. If it were not for Musk acquiring X/Twitter in 2022, the world would likely be worse off for it. In a world emerging from the aftermath of Covid, it was clear that control of information was itself a means of control of society. In the best case, if platforms like Twitter remained censored and controlled, the push towards truly decentralized and uncensorable forms of social communication (like Nostr) would have accelerated. In our current timeline, we have time to organically grow and improve these networks. Simultaneously, we must also recognize that, while networks like X bought us some time, every time we log on we are, in some sense, entering enemy territory - or at the very least, no man's land. As human beings, we are shaped by inputs. Scripture recognizes this when we are commanded to write God's word on our hearts, pray always, fellowship with other believers, attend church, disciple our children, and participate in the sacraments regularly. These are in fact regular every day things that God uses as means of conforming our hearts and sanctifying us. Proverbs furthermore teaches us that we essentially become the sum of our friends - even the people we regularly hang out with have an effect on who we become. It is no different with social media. Every time we log on, the algorithm is active - studying us, feeding us, shaping us. That post you lingered on? It will show you more like it. The algorithm knows you, perhaps more than you know yourself. And beyond that, it can subtly catechize you. It can show you more of what you expect or want to see of the world, sometimes disproving your biases and sometimes confirming them. It uses our biology and consciousness against us, scratching our itching ears and squeezing dopamine hits from our neurons to keep us scrolling. That feeling of despair you might have after an extended session on X? It's not accidental. It's manufactured. Keep all this in mind as you participate in the world around you. It is true that, at least currently, resources like X are probably some of the more helpful tools to understand real-time events as we live through years happening in weeks and seek to have some situational awareness. But always understand that just as a fire can keep you warm and alive on a cold night, it can just as easily burn you alive. Do not wander onto your feed with your guard down, looking for a relaxing time where you can turn off your brain and just soak in the algorithm. That is how we are programmed. Understand what you are doing - you are logging into a digital battlefield. There may be good things to glean or work to be done, but understand what you are handling. In a world where we are exposed to the happenings of a million tragedies, endless controversies, and where much if not most of our feed is composed of not even real human beings but bots (themselves potentially controlled by nefarious actors), we must understand the forces at play. So step onto the battlefield. But do not mistake it for something else. Your time of restoration and shaping should be intentional and protected and come from spending time in the Word, in prayer, with your family and friends, reading long-form physical media (we used to call them books), voluntary adversity through physical exercise, controlling what kind of food enters our mouths, and all the other regular means God uses in our lives to shape us according to His purposes. Do not let the massive events happening around you control what you have direct jurisdiction over in your life and the lives of your family. As Paul wrote in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Two things to consider as you read history: 1) The victor writes the narrative 2) Somehow, thankfully, the good guys always seem to win. Let the reader understand.

Hold up. Sorry to go back to the op return stuff and I'm a bit slow and didn't/don't fully understand taproot and some of the downstream consequences in terms of ordinals/inscriptions. But apparently you can relatively cheaply inscribe at least 400 KB of data AS IS within the taproot witness data, which makes the relatively more expensive OP RETURN portion with a proposed 100 KB cap (which is also prunable and doesn't bloat the utxo set) seem like a nothingburger. Most of you probably already knew this but figured I'd put it out there for those of us in the back who are a bit slower.

Fun stat: Bitcoin network annually uses about the equivalent of 21 nuclear reactors. (Assuming network consumption on average of about 170-180 twh over last year and each reactor producing about 8 twh/year). To put that in perspective, looks like US has about 94 reactors and china is next up with about 58, Russia has 36. Nation state resistant.

Meditations on Hate As the apparent fourth turning swirls on, and particularly in light of the horrific recent murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, social media has increasingly been filled with discourse reflecting anger, fear, blame, and cries for justice. Over the last few days, I have been chewing on hate, and what role - if any - this has in the life of a Christian. Mainstream evangelical Christianity does not dwell much on this emotion. If it is mentioned, it is viewed negatively and perhaps preached against - and with good reason. Uncontrolled hate leading to cruel actions is clearly condemned in scripture and not reflective of our calling to imitate Christ. However, that is not the end of what scripture has to say about hate. Firstly, hate itself is not a sin. God hates - see Zechariah 8:17. Jesus in Revelation 2:5-6 says Be hates the sinful works of the Nicolaitans. Our modern conception of God oftentimes strays to far in the direction of a comforting, loving Being - and to be sure, this is true. But we should be careful lest we forget what it means that He is Holy - He cannot abide sin, and the justice of His very nature demands that sin be punished. This is an important essence of the Gospel message itself. To those who reject Him and embrace sin, God is a being to be feared - He is a "dread warrior" (Jeremiah 20:11) and judge. Obviously, we are but imperfect imitators of our Lord. Hate can easily, if allowed to fester and twist us, lead us down a path of bitterness, anger, and violence. But we cannot be overly binary in our thinking, and while there is certainly a ditch on either side, clearly there is a time and a place in scripture for even this emotion. The Psalms are good example of this. Not only are there many Psalms of worship and praise, but many where hate of evil is presented as a virtue and even many where strong imprecatory prayers are employed against the enemy. See Psalm 25:5, 36:1, 119:113,116, 139:21-22. Psalm 97:10 commends us as follows: "O you who love the LORD, hate evil!" Proverbs 8:13 instructs us that "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate." To be certain, this does not mean we are called to hate people groups based on earthly characteristics or even necessarily hate individuals - but we are called to hate evil and the evil works done by evil doers. We should be repulsed by evil, including our own sin, and denounce it wherever it may rise. We should not tolerate evil among us. Our enemies should be called to repentance, but evil around us must not be abided. It is also of note that our lives should not be marked by hate. This is not the defining feature of a Christian - rather, we should be marked by the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. One of those fruits, however, is self-control. As we hate evil, our hate should be marked by this virtue - it does not drive us to reactionary violence or senseless anger. One passage of note occurs in Revelation. Jesus, in speaking to the church in Ephesus, is calling them to repent but does hold up one positive virtue in their favor. In Revelation 2:5-6, He says, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Why is this important? How does this affect our lives now? I would argue that one reason we as a nation are fully deserving of God's judgement is that Christian men have stood silent far too long. In the name of tolerance and peace (and likely also in the face of the fear of man), we have stood by as our atrocities have multiplied. We have not called our nation to repent as sexual deviancy in the form of homosexuality and transgenderism have multiplied. We have stood silent as millions of babies are murdered by abortion. We have allowed for skewing of gender roles and the devil's sweet whisper of egalitarianism have ravaged our nation. We have not hated sin enough - to the contrary, we have abided it. The recent video of the father at the Phillies game comes to mind. Why didn't he defend his son from the belligerent women? Because he just "wanted her to go away." He chose the easy way out, the way of unruffled feathers and supposed societal approval. But we have abided sin too long. Once again, this is not a call to violence. Scripture supports the right of self defense, but vengeance clearly belongs to the Lord (Revelations 12:19). God's wrath will come to bear on our enemies. Additionally, while there is a discussion to be had regarding primary and secondary means, we must remember that our battle is ultimately against the Evil One and not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). But if we continue to silently abide sin in our own lives, in our family, in our communities, our friends, our enemies, and our nation, then we will deserve every ounce of God's righteous judgement on our lives. Tolerance of sin is not a Christian virtue - it is condemned (Revelation 2:20). Instead, by the grace of God and in the power of His Spirit, let us truly hate sin and evil as He does and mortify it quickly. As the prophet Amos proclaims in Amos 5:15: "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph." May the Lord have mercy on our nation.

"But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The more I think about it, I think one of the fundamental lies underlying many of the issues of our time and our history is the imposition of an egalitarian mythos in contradistinction to the reality God has ordained.

"Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate: ‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods"

The more I learn about the GENIUS act the more of a shitcoin it becomes. I think we all understand it's not really about Bitcoin. But it truly is just about extending the last gasps of dollar dominance globally and propping up treasury markets. Some have tried to frame it as "a necessary step to the SBR" (as an aside, the merits of which are very debatable and I think primarily serves to pump our bags while introducing a host of attack vectors and problems - although I think it is likely inevitable at some point) or as a "Trojan horse." The problem with the Trojan horse thing is that the act now mandates 1:1 backing of stablecoins with UST or equivalent and excludes "high risk" assets (i.e. Bitcoin). That crushes Saifedean's thesis from Vegas re: tether. Al this bill does is provide a framework for tether to restructure their reserves and come back onshore and probably for circle to get in the game too. Ripple is sitting in the corner like the perfect little suckup who wants in on the action but thankfully their market cap is so small no one really cares. The anti cbdc act is charades. The dollar is already a functional cbdc. The only signal in all of this imo is the self custody/dev protections in the current CLARITY act, which functions as a bill of rights of sorts (i.e. we can do it anyway but let's enshrine this type of deal). Otherwise it is just shitcoinery all the way down. Bad news for the US government is you can't just put a shiney facade (i.e. stablecoins) over a shitty system and call it good, although I suspect they will find ways to prolong dollar dominance longer than any of us think possible.

Mullings this morning. 1. We are called to lead and in some sense disciple our wives, calling them closer to the Lord. 2. We are, ourselves, sinners. 3. It is also true that love covers a multitude of sins, it is to a man's glory to overlook an offense, and "weaker vessel" means something. 4. Threading all of those needles requires the aid of the Holy Spirit, is often times an issue of prudence, and gives rise to sanctification and grey hairs.

Bitcoin in 2025.

Heresy incoming. With all of these Bitcoin companies emerging on an almost daily basis, I think it's a good time to remember that, for an individual or family, just stacking sats is likely the best and most sovereign way forward. Definitely the most mentally stable way forward. It's an impossible and futile task for an individual to keep track of all these Bitcoin "treasury or whatever" companies and trying to pick out which one will be the best or even buy all of them - not worth the stress or return imo. However. I think what is interesting, particularly with Saylor and those trying to copycat, is that this is to some degree a natural evolution of the Bitcoin thesis. Corporate and nation state adoption is inevitable as the fiat machine continues to print the fuel feeding it's decline. That said, the anarchocapitalist view of the future is likely unrealistic and so then the question becomes of how best to manage that transition. Additionally, what these folks are catching onto is that just matching monetary supply creation (i.e. S&P) is not adequate. If they are going to be worthy of investors, they need to beat digital gold. What Saylor et al are doing is providing onramps for highly regulated capital markets to feed into the Bitcoin ecosystem. He is arbitraging the future to create product now that these institutions can participate in while making a profit and doing it in a pretty darn smart way imo. Does the individual need to participate in that? Probably best just to stack sats in cold storage. However, some might have trapped funds in tax protected accounts, and imo Bitcoin ets while providing price exposure are just a fiat fake replacement for the real thing. So, is it unreasonable to allocate a little of those funds to some of these companies as a risk-on bet on the Bitcoin thesis? I don't think so.

Nostr - what is the best wallet that works well on grapheneOS for zaps/ecash/lightning?

I think I often get distracted by the flood story, etc. and forget that Noah labored in faith for ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS before anything even happened.