Was telling a department colleague today about the SN research project I've been working on. I told him about how on SN, people have to pay to post, territory owners can set their posting fees, and that raising the fees can actually increase the quality of posts.

I also told him about zapping, and how it incentivizes good posts, and how good posters can consistently run a profit.

He seemed genuinely interested, as he understood how these incentives could make for a better discussion environment.

He then asked me how the payments are made. "Doesn't it take like 10 minutes to make a transaction with Bitcoin?"

So I told him about the Lightning Network. I told him the base chain is like the settlement layer, and that Lightning is like people keeping peer-to-peer tabs with each other that they can decide when to settle on-chain. I told him how routing works, and how nodes can set their own routing fees. He really like this because it sounds like people having control over their property rights.

I told him, yes, that's exactly right. That with traditional banking, we actually don't have control over our own funds. We have to trust that the bank will let us access them, but with Bitcoin/Lightning we have an entire payments system that is entirely peer-to-peer, and where the user is in control of their own funds at all times.

He said this was really cool, and he's liking the sound of Bitcoin more and more. He said it's a shame that it's been so associated with crypto scams and with the Trump family. I said, yup, it's a shame, and I told him most of the people on Stacker News feel the same way.

Anyway, thought I'd share this cool orange pilling story.