To quote Solzhenitsyn
> *“And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.”*

As we saw in the grand social experiment of 2020, there's a whole segment of the population that really would be fine with enslaving themselves. 

This is why the the [Cypherpunk Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html) said we'll just do it whether you like it or not, because it's necessary whether you understand it or not.

Aeneas

Yep, I'm not surprised at all. But outside of the unbanked, why would I care about the US (or EU), if there are billions of people elsewhere that will actually be helped by Bitcoin's censorship resistance?

The US and EU are the problem.

optimism

Last week, I was reading through Zeke Faux's Number Go Up and Ben McKenzie's Easy Money...both authors clearly feel that most transactions 

 be reported to the government and that it is a bad thing if a person can move money in a way that governments can't track.

This reflects the general attitude I've seen among the average US people I meet. We are at the point where saying that the government should not be able to track all our monetary movements is tantamount to saying taxation is theft -- the wider public views both as radical statements.

All this means is that we shouldn't be surprised when the general populace sides against freedom.

Politics_And_Law

Why Trump and Bitcoin Are Aligned For Many Normies

siggy47

Last week, I was reading through Zeke Faux's Number Go Up and Ben McKenzie's Easy Money...both authors clearly feel that most transactions *should* be reported to the government and that it is a bad thing if a person can move money in a way that governments can't track. 

This reflects the general attitude I've seen among the average US people I meet. We are at the point where saying that the government should not be able to track all our monetary movements is tantamount to saying taxation is theft -- the wider public views both as radical statements. 

All this means is that we shouldn't be surprised when the general populace sides against freedom.