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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chungkingexpress 19 Apr \ on: Stacker Saloon
Quantitative Easing explained in 2 mins 30 secs
I highly recommend Jacques Ellul's book Propaganda, The Formation of Men's Attitudes for anyone seriously interested in this kind of stuff.
It is a dense text, but basically the handbook on propaganda in the 20th century. He makes some fascinating arguments such as it is those who think they are immune from propaganda who are most susceptible, in particular the intellectuals with their facts and figures (See, Covid).
Propaganda can only ever enhance or tweak deep-seated existing prejudices or beliefs. Some propaganda is designed to lay mental frameworks (telegraphing something prior to it happening), where as others are designed for calls to action (you need to ACT now).
The WW1 music you mention might not designed for thinkers like you, it is the Tik Tok dancing nurses equivalent during covid. But then as now there were also very sophisticated arguments floating around that attempted to make geopolitical or other moral / economic arguments to satisfy the intellectuals for the necessity of war, etc.
One of my favourite Hong Kong films.
I miss the "Snailposting until $100K" posts by @orthwyrm, whatever happened to them?
Thank you anon. I guess bigger amounts get auto withdrawn to my wallet, but I can see I got some CCs now...
Iām joined again by James Viggiano.
We ask: How do smaller currencies like the Kiwi Dollar (New Zealand Dollar) survive in a US Dollar dominant world? Is there a deeper geopolitical reason for the push for Central Bank Digital Currencies? Is the fight for physical cash a red herring when most transactions are already digital? And what is the role of Bitcoin in all of this?
I've found as I get older (in my early 30s) I've made more friends than in my 20s. I like to think I have become a better listener and more open-minded actually. I have drifted away from people I knew in the old days, but that is natural and to be expected.
I think it is about committing to making time for people on a regular basis, which is a lot easier when it is done for you in school etc. As you get older you have to take ownership of this aspect yourself.
I think these are important questions to ask and I am glad you are exploring them. I have not got any resources for you, but some thoughts:
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There was a naivety in the understanding of the nature of money, in particular of the layers required, that the big blockers did not appreciate. The quick growth of on-chain merchants etc in the early days could be thought of as similar to a fast growing sunflower in summer, where as what Bitcoin needed and has become is the slow-growing oak tree. The fundamentals of governance, node decentralisation, etc needed to be established and it was a messy situation that brought these to the fore. Consumer payments are a small part of the fiat world, but because they are obvious in everyday life people assign disproportional to them. It is only a minor % of the world's fiat velocity that is in day-to-day merchant payments compared to international commodity trading, interbank dealing, t-bills etc at the "higher layers".
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The nature of the messy situation during the blocksize war was absolutely essential to making Bitcoin anti-fragile and drawing a line in the sand. The outright aggression and unwillingness to relent was needed as Jonathan Beir wrote about, for if Bitcoin could not overcome a few dodgy Chinese miners and charlatans, how could it hope to take down "the creature".
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The malice of Bitmain and covert asicboost can not be understated, and they would have said anything to have pushed for the hardfork.
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There is no end to the political scheming and intrigue allegations. The idea that Bitcoin has been captured by central banks sits with a kind of vague conspiracy mindset that sees the slightest association with something (e.g. blackrock ETFs) as equal to full capture. I think the reality is messy and gray. Bitcoin is for everyone, the book Decrypting Money briefly mentions this: Bitcoin is a push and pull between three (or more) groups: Cypherpunks, Libertarians, and Speculators. As much as we may consider Blackrock as "the creature", that creature is also pumping bags and adding power to our own "creature". Monero and BCH only have one or another of those groups and so will always be a niche project that cannot survive.
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Stablecoins are really the area to watch out for in terms of capture. One timeline could be that we hyper-stabelcoinize with synthetic USD before we go onto a Bitcoin standard. The interplay between stablecoins, T-Bills, and Bitcoin is worth exploring. Tether for example is a total enigma to me and it is not clear how that plays out.
These are just some musings, I would happy to Socratically work through any particular points or questions you have as I am also interested in thoroughly exploring this.
Can I humbly suggest adding my show please, The Transformation of Value. Focussed on exploring the changing nature of value through the lens of creativity & Bitcoin.
@k00b @ek continuing from the thread, here is one rough idea about how you could bring this to the user's attention in the UX and motivate attachment of wallets and illustrate what it means.
The "attach wallet" page is quite complex for someone who does not know much (what does NWC, LNC, and LNBITS mean to a newbie?) so there could be some useful tooltips, alerts, or recommendations in there too.
I am sure you guys are onto it, but happy to throw in some design feedback as you work through it!
OK. I know you guys got a lot on but I don't feel like this is at all clear. Do you have a UX plan to rollout / indicate to people if they are "all set" after the 5th? I guess it is not a major issue given that there will be cowboy credits still, but could be super confusing for people who are new to lightning / don't know the options.