Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I left it up on my phone I guess and the page was still accessible. Caught my eye and wanted to find space to read it all the way through.

Nothing wrong with wanting more, and wanting to break out of the cycle. If you don’t already, I’d say it’s really important to have a solid community where you are. That’s going to be the most uplifting thing at your disposal if you can establish that. Friends can help you find better jobs and give encouragement and advice.

That’s what churches are supposed to be, so my recommendation would be to start there. Find a place that’s loving and welcoming, but doesn’t compromise on speaking truth.

And I will also say this - even though I’m financially stable, I find myself feeling the way you described. Life just feels like an endless hopeless rat race sometimes. Especially as a parent. It’s hard to stay focused and motivated. That’s pretty normal.

Flee the country / "lose" my bitcoin (aka, hodl, probably via multisig, until I'm safe) is the clear answer here.

Because the government simply can't afford to crack down on bitcoin like this and stay in power. See my post here: #484114

TL;DR - the US government criminalizing bitcoin would instantly weaken the country and strengthen every other country that decides to capitalize on the moment. It would be the end of its global dominance.

So It's just a matter of getting tf out.

PS - In no way is monero a scalable solution in this scenario, or any scenario. Increasing "security" is decreasing usability and scalability, which is why monero can't work as global layer 1.

Lmao

Made me lol

While I don't fully agree with the Calvinist doctrine of depravity, the idea that we're imperfect and trend towards immorality doesn't seem far fetched to be. Seems evidenced by motions to everything... And idk how that's fixed from within on our own.

No worries! Fiat is so digital it’s easy to assume that’s what cash means most of the time lol

I’m talking physical cash

A cash transfer can’t be blocked

Basic wallet security fixes a lot of this, and none of it protects you from being tortured until you give up your funds anyway. But it's not like our fiat system is stopping people from stealing money. There's always going to be a way to steal money.

For your "spending" wallet, which will have just enough to cover expenses for a month or two, using a hardware wallet w/ passphrase is fine, especially if you store the passphrase and backup in separate locations.

For long term life savings, using multisig w/ multiple locations or collaborative custody multisig is the answer. It's essentially thief resistant. Unchained is expensive to use, but they have a lot of free materials on how to do this well by yourself.

exactly this ^

Like anything in that space, it's going to be tough to balance security and user experience... A well organized 1password account is a great step in that direction though.

This is such a great question... I'm going to look into how difficult it would be to put something like this together.

But it's going to be a massive project because it really depends on what kind of service you're using. For example, if you're on a website that's using third party integrations, there's always a question about how much access to your traffic on that website does the third party have. Facebook and Google are all up in everything. Ethical integrity and security competence are such unknown variables.

And stuff like this happens: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-gives-final-approval-order-banning-betterhelp-sharing-sensitive-health-data-advertising

Like, any server you interact with could have a lot of data about you, and who knows if they're selling it or leaking it.

And then metadata makes all of this even more complicated.

I have a friend that keeps asking me if he should use an alternative browser or email service, and I keep telling him Google is getting so much of his metadata either way, you might as well just use chrome because it's more secure in a lot of other ways.

I would reword this to say a nation state probably COULD find out a hell of a lot about you and your traffic if they took the time to target you. They'd have to get info from ISPs and big tech corporations to piece things together.

My general recommendation is to use a lot of burner accounts so that things aren't all pointing back to a single identity.

I didn't actually end up getting one haha

I was conversing with someone who does tarot cards, and I essentially asked "why should I buy any of this". Their response was interesting - their theory was that our subconscious is a lot more impactful than we realize, and that, for a tarot card reader, their subconscious aware of the cards, the meanings, and where cards are when we shuffle them, so a reading is more about tapping into the subconscious than it is anything supernatural, mixed in with a hint of being subconsciously "in-tune" with the universe.

I still don't fully buy it, but I thought that was an interesting theory, and I think there's some truth to it. My personal theory with that stuff is, sometimes all you need is a metaphorical landscape to find meaning that you're looking for. So, as much as I think astrology is complete BS, I think it could actually be helpful for some people.

I could imagine something similar happens with Ouija boards. There's probably some level of subconscious coming into play, some level of "searching"/being open to meaning, and (usually) a lot of fear mixed in.

And as far as bad things happening post-reading, I feel like it's similar to buying a car and suddenly seeing a ton of that car around town.

Just my two cents.

I like this question. I think the fact that humans have doubled life expectancy and people don't die from sickness near as often as they used to could be considered progress. I also heard that once individuals make about $70k/yr, their happiness level stop going up w/ more income beyond that (this was over 5 years ago, so that's probably gone up by now). So I think there's something to be said about achieving basic needs, health, and being able to pay for a modestly comfortable life.

I think beyond that, it gets far more philosophical. What is the goal we're progressing towards? That's going to vary from person to person, and I think it's a mistake for "society" or government to have a heavy hand in solving that problem.

On November 28, 2012, the day of the first bitcoin halving:

Not a single murder, shooting, stabbing, or other incident of violent crime in NYC was reported for an entire day¹.

I like the point made about limiting our choice set.

That's why chess is such a beautiful game.

To answer your question, I would say neither liberal nor conservative culture can persist over time without the other. The former ends in chaos, the latter ends in tyranny and dogma. The right and the left need each other to keep balance.