Not necessary, but a better system is not invented yet - I mean a practical system, not theoretic. And, I believe, blockchain will help us make it possible.

I say nothing about morality, because it's a social construct and can be arbitrary depending on what people can agree on. And I don't say that taxation and enforced government are the only way to build a state. I just say that current states work this way: taxation is a feature, not a bug. What about the conscription - I bet it isn't needed because the US has the strongest army and the strongest economy in the world. If and when there will be war with an equal enemy - conscription will be turned on again.

For sure it's better and more "natural" to live in an egalitarian and free society without taxes, military conscription, etc. But, if you do not pay to your own government, you will pay to another - liberal society can't win a war, because no one want to die for a state. Taxation is not a theft - it is an integral part of the monetary system, which itself is a mechanism of power. Money (and taxes) are needed to govern people in a first place.

This change looks suspicious: it resides inside a commit named "More transaction sorting" but instead it changes wallet balance caching code, which is a quite possible spot for a vulnerability.

Did you think that savings in the form of money are essentially just a promise from other people to give you something you want in the future for the good things you do now or did in the past? And, as with any promise, it's based on some kind of social contract. And, as with any contract, it requires some punishment mechanism in case of violation of contract terms. And, traditionally, institutes like governments, courts, judges, churches were used to implement this. In the case of Bitcoin though, this promise is based on the belief of many people that Bitcoin will grow in price perpetually (or, stay at the same value at least). And if, for some reason like a bug in software, targeted attack, or invention of some kind of better cryptocurrency, enough people will lose this belief - you will lose these promises too. My point is that Bitcoin is a great invention, but its natural purpose is a payment means, not a saving means. It's just a temporary but pleasant side-effect that you can effectively store value using Bitcoin now. As for long-term and reliable savings, I think it's better to use something based not on a belief but on a natural demand, like commodities, businesses, and education.

What's your favorite new feature?

I think nothing can be done when you are under the power of someone else. Money, no matter fiat or bitcoin, is just a tool. To stay free you need power, not money.

This reminds me of the way socialists have taken all the sound money (gold, foreign currency, etc.) from Russian civilians after the revolution in 1917. Firstly, they robbed all the banks, rich people, and organizations taking all their money by force. When this stopped working, they monopolized all the imports of foreign goods to the country and started to sell them only for gold and non-local currency. It worked pretty well, people just wanted to buy something luxurious or even good enough. The final chord was the great famine in 1921-1923 when people were willing to buy any food, even wheat for gold. So, I really think that when BTC becomes the sound money, it will be quickly acquired by those in power, no matter what. Just because your life is more valuable than your money.

Shooting is not fine (mostly), but rejecting a shooter's code only because it's written by a shooter is not fine too.

I agree, but it's not a common case for now, certainly not enough to create the whole market

Why are so many people desiring anonymity and privacy? What is a usual use case for it? Are they all black-hat hackers? I'm not an advocate of "if you are honest you have nothing to hide", and I certainly prefer a service without a KYC and personal info to one requiring it, but for me, this desire for anonymity looks like snake oil.

I've tried to run a Bitcoin node on Pi 4, but its SD card gave me errors due to (?)overheating so I've switched to a Rock 5B. It has 16GB RAM, a 1TB SD card works perfectly and it also has an M.2 slot (so I can replace the SD card with an NVME SSD drive). It's not an advertisement, just my own experience.

What are the disadvantages of this way of content monetization compared to classical mechanisms (like topping up a balance using a credit card)? What will happen if the user clears his browser's local data? Will funds be lost?

It's true that fiat is much more convenient (actually it was built) for controlling a population and using it in military operations.

Source please

I mean the development of Bitcoin protocol and consensus, not an ecosystem around Bitcoin (but it's important too). Slow speed (compared to Ethereum for example) of changes signals that though Bitcoin has a working consensus as a payment system, it barely has a consensus on how to improve and develop it.

Lack of development & innovation

It's a very good question. I think one of viable strategy is to affiliate with fiat on-/off-ramps, exchanges, dexes (like Bisq or Peach) and provide to services a communication channel with a user without revealing his privacy and shielding from a spam.

Inscriptions don't cause excessive utxos

True. I hope this PR will be merged and projects like STAMPS stop doing this.