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The endless boredom that is regulation

this is such a good way to describe regulation. Hannah Arendt got it wrong: it's not evil that is banal, but rather banality is evil.

To be free of the great deadweight that is regulation is a very optimistic vision of humanity.

571 sats \ 8 replies \ @optimism 10h

It's not optimistic. The tribes are consolidating. The leaders grabbing all they can get their fat little fingers on; power, money, pussy. The masses are enslaved to convenience, they wont change anything. They wouldn't recognize freedom as anything beneficial to them at all. They don't need it and they don't want it. Pearls before swine.

All is good. It's like Justin says: if / when the normies truly come, Bitcoin cannot be freedom money. Then it will be as regulated, mediocre and boring as your dollars are today. You'll need to ask for permission to send coin. p2p dies. P2P is not some larp though, it's what we have today. So enjoy it while it lasts. Before it gets taken from you.

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I want to figure out at what point P2P collapses. Is there some equivalent for Dunbar's number for P2P?

when the normies truly come, Bitcoin cannot be freedom money. Then it will be as regulated, mediocre and boring as your dollars are today. You'll need to ask for permission to send coin. p2p dies.

Presumably, the same statement could have been made in 2014. We have since seen more people come to use Bitcoin (and many try to use it in non p2p ways). Still, i think I can send sats to anyone anywhere anytime.

So, I predict more people can come to bitcoin before p2p dies. But how many more? I don't know. But it seems that there might be some ideal level of adoption above our current state where I can more easily spend Bitcoin at more places.

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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 22m
more people can come to bitcoin before p2p dies

Oh, sure. My point was about "if normies use bitcoin", which implies that you don't need to denormalize anymore to use Bitcoin, which in turn means it must be part of the system. I.e. the famed Bitcoin Standard. It collapses due to unit divisibility on-chain and everything that is p2p depends on that. LN isn't p2p if you cannot exit your channel and make it with someone else, and for that you need an on-chain tx.

Until then, normies can stop being normies and use Bitcoin as MoE.

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238 sats \ 1 reply \ @justin_shocknet 7h -310 sats

To collapse it has to rise first, we're probably close to or at the upper bound of people that care about p2p specifically. Anyone inclined to care would be doing so already.

More p2p could be a side effect of people caring about it as their reserve currency however, thus choosing to accept it as payment.

Everything is ultimately downstream of predictable money.

136 sats \ 3 replies \ @028559d218 9h

"Then it will be as regulated, mediocre and boring as your dollars are today. You'll need to ask for permission to send coin."

How is this possible?

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113 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 9h

A transparent chain, when you combine that with goons with bigger guns and better training and tactics will generally make people comply. Unit economics inheritance from uint64 will at that scale make it impossible for you to have useful keys in the first place: remember ∞/21M? The inverse is true too then: 21M/∞.

But this is exactly the reason why mass adoption and Bitcoin standards are not going to happen and the brothers in power will just mint their own thing and put those goons with guns to work to force their shitcoin upon thee. Just like they do today.

After all, why would anyone want a bunch of nerds to be the most powerful people in the world, just because they generated some corn at 50 pops a block in the early days? Or a fucking autist like Saylor as king of the world? lol. No one wants that.

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136 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 2h

"Or a fucking autist like Saylor as king of the world? lol. No one wants that."

Nobody wanted billionaires to exist either and yet here we are.

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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 16m

Most people that I know want to be a billionaire. Most people that say they don't wanna are lying because they think they cannot make it. Politicians say it because they need you to think that they won't take the billionaire money and fuck you (while all they do all day is that; yes, also the commies.)

However, that is a function of infinite money supply. If it is limited by design, and sovereign in a way that you cannot confiscate it, then bag holders will forever have leverage over you. And that's the last thing anyone wants. It would be anti-freedom.

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