Public holiday, banks closed, can't find my bank card, out of cash, places to Drive, nobody takes Bitcoin, what you going to do?
Buy a gift card online vía bitrefill with Lightning and a burner email. Seamless, so simple, using #Bitcoin lightning to buy fuel.
Yet another example of the power of this incredible Payment system.
We tend, as humans, to complain about change rather than examine the reasons behind it. The rise of AI is a perfect example. Much of the public reaction assumes that automation is inherently destructive—as though removing jobs automatically removes meaning, dignity, and social stability. But that assumption deserves scrutiny.
If David Graeber had written a book called *Meaningful Jobs*, then the prospect of AI dismantling large sectors of work—especially those involving words and numbers—would indeed be alarming. It would suggest a direct assault on human purpose. But he didn’t. He wrote *Bullshit Jobs*—a critique of the vast number of roles that exist without meaningful contribution to society.
If Graeber’s thesis holds even partially true, then eliminating a significant portion of so-called “productive” jobs might not lead to societal collapse. Many essential functions—food production, logistics, healthcare, infrastructure—would continue. Life, at least at the level of basic needs, would go on.
History offers small-scale examples of this. Entire categories of work have disappeared before: milk delivery routes replaced by supermarkets, paper rounds eroded by digital media. These changes disrupted livelihoods, yes—but they did not destroy society. Where is the nice lady at the telephone exchange putting you through working now? Typing pools? People adapted. Often, they were quietly relieved to leave behind low-paid, monotonous work.
A more recent case often cited is when Elon Musk drastically reduced staff at Twitter. Predictions of immediate collapse were widespread. Yet the platform persisted—imperfectly, perhaps, but recognizably intact. The gap between expectation and outcome raises an uncomfortable question: how many roles were truly essential?
Similarly, layoffs at Block Inc. (formerly Square), co-founded by Jack Dorsey, were initially framed as technological cruelty—AI displacing workers. But a closer look suggests a more complicated story: pandemic-era policies inflated payrolls to preserve employment during extraordinary conditions. What followed may have been less about AI “destroying” jobs and more about correcting an unsustainable expansion.
All of this points back to Graeber’s argument: a substantial share of modern employment may exist not because it is necessary, but because the system requires people to appear economically active. If we applied a strict standard of meaningful productivity, many roles—across management, administration, finance, media, and beyond—might struggle to justify themselves.
This leads to a deeper economic question. If large portions of the global workforce earn extremely low wages, while others perform work of questionable necessity, what exactly is the system optimizing for? The fear that “the economy would collapse if people stopped working” assumes that current structures are both natural and indispensable. But modern fiat economies are constructed systems, not laws of nature. Their stability depends as much on belief and coordination as on material output.
Technologies like Bitcoin are sometimes proposed as alternatives—systems designed to operate with transparent, fixed rules rather than discretionary policy. Whether or not such systems can fully replace existing financial structures remains an open question, but their appeal reflects dissatisfaction with the current model, particularly its inefficiencies and inequalities.
The larger point is this: AI is being blamed for disrupting society, but the disruption reveals pre-existing weaknesses. If millions of jobs can disappear without catastrophic consequences, then perhaps those jobs were never as essential as we believed. And if losing them creates despair, that suggests we have tied human worth too tightly to employment rather than to contribution, creativity, or well-being. What do you do?
In that sense, automation may be less a destroyer than a mirror. It forces us to confront why we work, which work truly matters, and how we distribute resources in a world where less human labour may be required.
The real failure, then, is not that AI might be changing the system—it’s that we built a system so dependent on questionable forms of work in the first place.
Semana Santa in Spain, a time for reflection and a perfect setting for a murder-mystery.
No mystery when one of millions of city folks Who descend on small villages and dusrupt Life beyond all recognition ends up pinned to one of the many crosses traipsed around town on elaborate processions of religious scenes carried on the shoulders of shuffling pious-for-a-day bank managers, industrialists and other purveyors of unholy daily doom.
Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale nailed It right 1000 years ago. A highly recommended read for all children before enduring communion classes.
And oh, literally breaking main headline on the #Spain news: clerics apologise for systemic sexual abuse of children by the church.
You really couldnt write this level of depravity and hypocrisy – although I have a jolly good try in the #OlgaSejeHansen thrillers. Download a sample few chapters from my bio, and let your hair down.
And remenber, It would be so much harder for people in positions of power – bankers, churches, elite hangers-on and their dressed-in-blue enforcers – to get away with what they do, if we were on a Bitcoin Standard.
Happy Easter
. #writers #authors
I've turned into a lurker. Not a good sign for a creator.
Apart from build quality, not much good to say about iPhones. Returning to Android such a relief, not pummeled for signing in and justifying my existence.
I guess It Will get as restrictive as Apple at some point. What's the free world producing by way of phones? #asknostr
Been set back on my heels the last few days, compounded by the revelation from
@utxo the webmaster 🧑💻 that maybe 4000 users are active on Nostr!!!! Jeez. Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom
with bigger brother bitcoin -
@MartyBent “So yeah, that's what I wanted to focus on today. Square turning on bitcoin payments by default. CFTC protecting self-custody wallet developers. Oklo advancing nuclear energy and isotope production. El Salvador thriving as an economic zone. The SAVE Act moving forward. There are plenty of positive things happening out there. Never doom. We're going to win.”
There's no concept of Doom scrolling on Nostr. At least that's my take away. Even in the global feed theres so much positive news and ideas to move the world forward. #asknostr
You'd think Id learnt how to deal with other people projecting their issues onto others, but It still takes it's toll when you are accused of having someone else's faults. It's a mad world. Relax, take a Deep Breath and think clearly, before playing into the horrible culture of the day - you agree with me or you are against me. Whatever 👍
I have an unhealthy relationship with poetry. There, I said the unthinkable out loud.
Verses and stanzas make me edgy and turn me illterate.
Limericks are OK, I can grasp what they are trying to say.
Recently I was dragged over the coals by a music fan because I owned Up that I don't even listen to lyrics, the tune is what hooks me in. That must also tie into my brain fart over anything containing a hint of poetics.
I think this aversion to the more arty creative side of language use hearkens back to the days of learning Latín. Call me old-fashioned, but layering four years of arcane grammar on top of metred Gallic Wars killed poetry for me.
In fact while I'm at It, I can say that state education from 11 to university killed my love of reading for pleasure, period. How can that be right? Rather than read, I write.
#writers #writing
Titanic struggles, blistering speed, handling skills, brutal tackles, non-stop action...recipe for action thrillers and rugby Union. This game today was insane.
spread the reach of Nostr: npubpro to show your social feed in blog form…
RT Crenville
RT Crenville
Author of the Olga “Seje” Hansen thrillers.
Psychological noir that’ll make fans of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo reach for a stiff drink. ...
or use #openvibe to post to blue sky, mastodon and Nostr. Embed Nostr feeds, zaps, join Nostr buttons on legacy websites like here
RT Crenville Writings – RT Crenville's Writings
Nostr As
@utxo the webmaster 🧑💻 mentioned, there’s plenty enough Nostr tech, now it’s time to address not enough users
How fucked Up is the #Bitcoin community? The wonderful stat that says 80% of holders are underwater. The greatest stat behind BTC? Anyone who bought in at sub 69k did OK. Fed Up with the pussy footing. You do know that BTC is the most incredible money ever invented? Use It as money. How hard is It to grasp that BTC is money... gillipollas.
Has anyone said outloud Nostr Dms are really bad, or a reflection of really bad etiquette? I speak as someone Who had 10 x the followers (Twitter) of the pretentious dicks on Nostr. Provocative enough?
The travel industry intermediaries are on borrowed time - even more than already....
https://locktrip.com/es/agents