hahaha I kinda agree...

Haha, not malice? I think that if bitcoiners play their cards right, we could defeat anyone that tries to take it down. But hopefully we don't get stupid.

I have similar concerns over bitcoin distribution. I think of layer 1 as defense and lighting layer 2 as offense: layer 1 -- lindy effect: "life expectancy is proportionate to age" layer 2 -- gini coefficient: "a measure of the distribution of wealth within a group"

I can't speed up time and accelerate lindy, but we all can impact gini. Helping people earn sats over lightning is the best way I can think of to impact distribution.

That's a good argument. I will say most metrics for coin distribution are flawed, since they include exchange wallets, which may have coins owned by tens of thousands of customers.

I once heard someone talking about "the halving" say, the price would be a lot less volitile if instead of halving every 4 years, it had a smaller decrease every year. The thing is the volitility has done a great job of keeping institutions and nation states out thus far.

Fiat is pretty unequally distributed also. It's easier to get a head if you are already ahead, that won't change with bitcoin. However, in fiat, they get to change the rules. They can benefit by making riskier gambles, and socialize the losses by tax funded bailouts paid through inflation.

Austin Hill, who was a founder and former CEO of blockstream spoke on Peter McCormack's What Bitcoin Did about some things he said bitcoin doesn't fix. He was talking about the "Vulnerable World Theory," in which as technology increases, ie, someone can easily bioengineer a virus and fly it over someone's citadel walls with a drone they built in their basement, the world becomes increasingly fragile. This causes wealth inequality to be a larger and larger issue. He also said something to the effect of "technology aside, when in history has 'the haves' ever been able to build a wall big enough to keep out the 'havenots.'"

I am also reminded of Pete Rizzo, editor at Bitcoin Magazine, who is a self-proclaimed "Bitcoin Historian." He said that part of the reason he does what he does is because in the future, after hyperbitcoinization, there will be winners and losers, and many confused and upset people, and we all will have some explaining to do.

Bitcoin doesn't solve everything, but it levels the playing fields alot. It works through people acting in their own best economic interests to create a beautiful network of value. Still, there are some things that Bitcoin doesn't solve, and Bitcoiners may have to make decisions beyond their economic interests to ensure the continuity of the human species.

I've heard a couple good arguments concerning this that we could use to counter the wealth gap narrative.

This is a good point. If bitcoin becomes the world's money, but is nuetered into becoming basically a CBDC, I would probably call that a failure.

#3 is SO incredibly important, and such a complicated problem to solve. It will be interesting to see what types of security solutions (custodied storage of seed phrases, like a safety-deposit box or vault?) and insurance offerings will become popular in the coming years.

I think I’m a pretty responsible person, and still self-custody makes me a little uncomfortable at times (though more comfortable than keeping on exchanges).

The biggest non-human risk I think is a Carrington event-like solar flare. I don't think that it will kill Bitcoin though. It will set back the network for a few years though.

Lack of fungibility seems to be a double-edged sword. The transparent ledger means it's not a safe harbor for criminals, which would be a much easier argument to make of something like Monero if it was threatening the dollar. On the other hand, I think it's reasonable that even non-custodial bitcoin, despite its sound money qualities, could be co-opted by a surveillance state. From my research, Whirlpool and lightning aren't really enough to guarantee privacy unless you really know what you're doing and are exceedingly careful.

Yep, this is the way I expect them to fight Bitcoin. The first things you mentioned really only affects the regulated exchanges; the on and off ramps in and out of fiat. The fact that it can be easily converted into and out of fiat is alot of bitcoin's value, and therefore, such a thing would negatively affect the price. Tax reporting requirements is highly reducing bitcoin as a medium of exchange in the US and many other jurisdictions. But i guess thats only if they are KYC sats. But most probably are. As far as the fractional reserving, I remember back when Max Keiser, before he was a bitcoin guy, was encouraging people to request physical delivery of their gold and silver. Luckily, it's more practical to withdraw bitcoin. At least at the moment. I'd like to think that people would try to withdraw at the first sine of funny buisiness. But yeah, what you mentioned is what I think will be the government's strategy for fighting bitcoin moving forward.

Interesting, like if bitcoin ends the nation state, we don't need it anymore?