Logan
Logan

https://thinkbitcoin.substack.com

Public Key

npub1zx0uydq67a62k5vhjcsvh0qvedk9ht9gz9t56et6j9k7wayj809qjghdct

NIP-05 Address

logan@nostrplebs.com

NIP-57 Address

holystar76374@getalby.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqspr87zxsd0wa9t2xtevgxthsxvkmzm4j5pz46dv4afzm08wjfrhjscewyth

Author Public Key

npub1zx0uydq67a62k5vhjcsvh0qvedk9ht9gz9t56et6j9k7wayj809qjghdct

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Last Notes

2024-09-13 13:24:26

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This masterpiece would 100% be included of course

2024-09-13 13:23:50

“Men just don’t have the skills to be sick.”
-my wife, patiently explaining the concept of the “man-flu” to me

2024-09-13 12:38:59

Hear me out. A Taschen coffee table art book that is a collection of $58k #bitcoin memes.

2024-09-11 10:29:18

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/bcf914f52c66caf0085ea34028cf9762e35fe43daa438de5d2b5e4a388304560.jpg

2024-09-10 14:21:23

I recently changed my political party affiliation to “unaffiliated.”
If, like me, you are tired of the corrupt, rotting two-party system and its stranglehold on our politics, BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.
Let’s starve that beast.
People usually react with “well then you can’t vote in the primaries.” I think this is a psy op.
Even if there’s no independent candidate in a given race, if enough people become independent/unaffiliated, primary candidates will have to take the independent bloc seriously if they want to win a general election.
If the independent bloc is tiny and immaterial, primary candidates can focus solely on throwing increasingly extreme red meat to the most vocal, engaged members of their respective partisan tribes.
This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t still financially support candidates from either party who are furthering values/policies you support. It also doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t ultimately vote for one of them. I just think making being independent your home base is important.
There are sooo many people who, in private and in public, wish there was a viable third party (or multiple viable alternative parties). But we’ve all been told formally stepping outside of the two-party system is playing spoiler, a waste of time, a waste of a vote, etc. And so nothing changes.
But the sheer number of folks who want another way should translate to actual political power. Elections shouldn’t be decided by a handful of voters in 3 states. Rather, independent voters/thinkers should wield the influence that their numbers warrant.
Both #bitcoin and #nostr are third way technologies, which bring together heterodox groups and new coalitions of folks who may differ on some issues but who agree on the fundamental importance of things like sound money and free speech.
We have more points of agreement than disagreement. And I think we can all agree that the two-party system is a downward spiral.

2024-09-10 00:22:05

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This is a great record

2024-09-09 23:40:12

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She takes after her mother 😉

2024-09-09 23:23:27

My 2.5 year-old daughter 🥹 https://image.nostr.build/64dc5b49c4e0af370931bc9bf7cf611e207faa3325435767012958ed2290d00d.jpg

2024-09-09 23:15:54

American Pastoral - Philip Roth https://image.nostr.build/72bfb72885bd99b0c72c79684319bc11dddb028e3fa117f41507cb4dbb5ad6f0.jpg

2024-09-09 11:04:13

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Gm Gm

2024-09-09 10:51:35

The fiat system tends inevitably toward hyperfinancialization.
A #bitcoin system, widely adopted, inevitably tends toward definancialization.
Hyperfinancialization erodes and suffocates culture.
Definancialization gives culture room to breathe, grow, and flourish.

2024-09-09 10:47:18

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/5111d1e5e77c5b6029c391f6c4f8a0cfe7d49728e123aff29262470466195315.jpg

2024-09-08 19:22:09

So when I was in undergrad, my thesis was on negative vs positive freedom in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
It dug into the idea that in modern America we have lots and lots of negative freedom (freedom FROM external constraints) but a pretty shallow, if not nonexistent, cultural conception of positive freedom (self-determination, self-autonomy, self-actualization…basically okay no one’s telling you what you can and can’t do now how do you find fulfillment in your externally free state).
The two concepts can be kind of roughly analogized to having a thousand channels and no one telling you what to watch (negative freedom) but you have to pick something to watch, knowing your time is scarce and irretrievable (positive freedom).
The interplay of these concepts underpins Wallace’s famous commencement speech at my alma mater. Everybody worships something, and in America you’re mostly free to worship what you want (negative freedom), but how to choose wisely what one devotes oneself to is the issue (positive freedom).
For those who don’t know, the unifying plot point in Infinite Jest is the existence of a film (the “Entertainment”) that is SO entertaining that those who watch it basically lose interest in doing anything else and feel compelled to keep watching it over and over until they die.
Some terrorists want to disseminate the film in America because Americans are, they argue, uniquely susceptible to this film. The reason for this susceptibility is the subject of an ongoing conversation between two characters (Marathe and Steeply) which is essentially an extended, though fragmented, discussion of negative vs positive freedom.
Wallace wrote this book before social media. These days I think of the Entertainment through the lens of addictive, incendiary social media algorithms. One could argue we’ve died a kind of cultural/spiritual death as the result of these technologies.
One question I think worth considering is how much has social media, as well as state co-option of mainstream media, degraded our negative freedom (in addition to obviously degrading our positive freedom)?
#bitcoin and #nostr are both mostly negative freedom technologies. But there are very interesting ways of looking at them from a positive freedom perspective. They are tools to combat the seemingly implacable and ubiquitous cultural forces that impede our ability to pursue positive freedom.
Bitcoin, as sound money, can allow adopters to sort of buy back their time, clearing space to pursue more abstract things like self-actualization, fulfillment, etc.
The more I think about Infinite Jest the more I want to figure out a way to merge negative freedom bitcoin culture with an under-discussed, under-explored positive freedom bitcoin culture. If we’ve died a kind of cultural/spiritual death as the result of things like addictive social media, endemic entertainment, mainstream media, etc., my hope is we can have a revival, a renaissance, and a Cambrian explosion of art and culture through the advancement of technologies like #bitcoin and #nostr.
Negative freedom is only one half of what we need to be flourishing, productive individuals pursuing our respective highest purposes. We need positive freedom too.
Anyway, more to come.

2024-09-07 11:21:35

#coffeechain https://image.nostr.build/10f15f29edd1b030b0f78f0475d2e794627e9b7fda6bfd28b99d667932c00280.jpg

2024-09-07 11:14:39

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/d9e8e62d39de6b5b6b92e847c60f411e30352452fb44008470242ff6efe69db8.jpg

2024-09-07 02:11:19

This is somewhat embarrassing to admit. I’m the kind of guy who can quote you Shakespeare all day but couldn’t write a line of code with a gun to my head. I’m woefully nontechnical.
It took me a long time to wrap my humanities brain around the tech of #bitcoin, and almost a half decade later I’m still learning everyday.
The tech of #nostr, candidly, is even more intimidating to me. But I’m also in awe of it and all the builders working on it.
I’m always thinking man, I wish I could contribute more, but I just don’t have the skills!
But then I realized, the biggest contribution I can make to Nostr is just to bring my whole, weird, uncensored self to it, to bring my life energy, my thoughts, and my passions to it. And if we all do that, whether we’re technical or not, this is gonna be a wondrously alive place.
Anyway, Friday night thoughts.
You’re all great and truly inspiring. Gn. https://image.nostr.build/fefcc47c2259eea323a3fa69a8e89d0f6b41427732f19f11da6583c17f59d89f.jpg

2024-09-06 10:30:06

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/7b65bb5f4fa05d976df36347fdee467e8bd68c3545de88ca8b076e43ebc48cff.jpg

2024-09-06 00:42:27

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This is elite meme work

2024-09-04 17:16:09

https://image.nostr.build/c9c73e4e9baeddbeffd8ac71da15dfafc9c1fb627908a0801b00181d408d37a4.jpg

2024-09-04 14:52:56

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Trying to channel this energy today

2024-09-04 14:34:05

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I told her blame @npub164q…2rl3

2024-09-04 14:33:42

Yesterday my wife, laughing, goes “I feel like you have this whole social life on #nostr that I don’t know about.”
Clearly I need to get her on here, right?

2024-09-04 14:25:40

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And to your critics who don’t appreciate or see the value in nuance:
“Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance.” -Albert Maysles

2024-09-04 14:24:36

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Making my way through the episode and enjoying it immensely. I, for one, am very glad you had them on. Lots of resonance with my own journey from the left to whatever I am now. And I feel like there are so many people out there on a journey OUT OF the two-party system. If my friends are any indication, lots of people don’t feel comfortable talking about that journey publicly, due to various social pressures and the lord-of-the-flies world of virtue signaling we live in now. It’s exceedingly important that we meet those people. Because that’s where the real frontier is, in my opinion. These conversations are part of that.

2024-09-04 10:24:09

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/fc5f64e622bca5e9d38f1cbb72823d5d8ae702f873ad27a592808c810b954927.jpg

2024-09-04 02:02:33

Gn #nostr https://image.nostr.build/20b387daf46f70c9d4b2f4836c63a2ee73ec46ad5319eb4125b0db900fd064f0.jpg

2024-09-04 01:22:51

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Nostr lawyers unite 🤝. My apologies, John, a lamentable and embarrassing oversight on my part. Followed!

2024-09-04 00:19:54

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Just followed everybody I wasn’t already following, thanks y’all

2024-09-04 00:03:34

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This movie is so wild. Love lynch

2024-09-03 21:52:49

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Big week for the times. First the anti-Constitution piece, now an anti-air-conditioning piece. Wonder what’s next.

2024-09-03 21:26:10

https://image.nostr.build/b27155765c587accfd2737170208138f5f876e76fb142d38e89d718106bf5ba7.jpg

2024-09-03 20:50:03

https://image.nostr.build/74f8a5d1378d04c999434781e574657d4ade8532bafd605082e5423e1da1460f.jpg

2024-09-03 16:17:00

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That’s a fair reading, and I hear you on the Free Press. Nevertheless, I’d love to have heard a resounding rebuke of Brazil’s overreach, and what it portends for speech on the internet, from some of X’s competitors vs. a celebration of the opportunity to acquire more market share (until the govt turns on them too, of course).

2024-09-03 15:06:38

Remember also that Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has praised Brazil for its treatment of X and Elon, which is to say its hard lean into censorship. https://image.nostr.build/b5d4f203654c28bb0eb3d8f57e41acaa29facdc150ae3173fc850b88836f51ac.jpg https://image.nostr.build/2dc42e7cfc40dcb51114f6ba2c06934c2585f3233ad296d0086495461de4c00c.jpg #note1s2y…uj5v

2024-09-03 14:50:27

Hear hear! Pumped for the rebrand and personally very much feel Trey’s evolution here. I’ve wrestled with much the same myself for the last couple years. Historically came from the left, have gradually come to a place where I don’t identify with either party in any meaningful way. I’ve even officially changed my party affiliation to independent.
I used to talk and write about how I think the two-party system will ultimately capitulate to #bitcoin and/or be essentially forced to reconfigure and reconstitute in some creative destruction process as a result of #bitcoin (versus Bitcoin capitulating to or being slammed ill-fittingly into the current two party paradigm).
Bitcoin basically introduces competition into the two-party duopoly that is our current politics.
And more importantly, beyond the two-party company town lies the frontier. That’s where we’re heading. Looking forward to and grateful for Trey’s voice and efforts on the journey.
LFG #note1ukv…qxjp

2024-09-03 10:57:46

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” -John Milton #note1chq…rvet

2024-09-03 10:32:05

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/898253fc3ea69aca53947469e8d1f9c1173f420939e9adb58ad86c6409ae8a97.jpg

2024-09-03 02:33:28

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So when we start our music podcast Trey we obviously gotta add films too

2024-09-03 01:55:52

Gn #nostr https://image.nostr.build/71fc19431debaec0d8cd0c553417ae4a40dd33ce4c149851040957f5b8c873e4.jpg

2024-09-03 00:15:16

“We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our lives because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think.
Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“What the really great artists do is they're entirely themselves. They're entirely themselves, they've got their own vision, they have their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings.”
-David Foster Wallace
Be yourself. Don’t run from yourself. Stay weird. Stay free.

2024-09-02 22:26:59

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Busy week for Dick Cuckerson obviously @npub1cj8…rz4u

2024-09-02 22:24:57

The state of things this week. In case you missed it, the Constitution is one of the “biggest threats to America’s politics,” having more children us propagating a Ponzi scheme, and taxing unrealized gains is good.
Orwell said “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
Disempower this nonsense with #bitcoin and #nostr. https://image.nostr.build/57c20bb48303648e1d3ae1cd7ac735c4874aa1e47d83966be7c20d56098eebc2.jpg https://image.nostr.build/7066758976dbf691b9ca8503a65bd84457c3c57058d0e545e40ae13ad64910ef.jpg https://image.nostr.build/712574a5ba0d78f615ca4ac1e330e3e2e2111f2255f4945649bca91391bbd7c3.jpg

2024-09-02 17:19:14

David Foster Wallace on Kafka’s humor:
“It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get -- the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke -- that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It's hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it's good they don't "get" Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it, we don't know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and pushing and kicking, etc. That, finally, the door opens...and it opens outward: we've been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch.”

2024-09-02 00:59:52

Gn #nostr
https://media.tenor.com/7lVwxNqmTfgAAAAC/sentimental-upset.gif

2024-09-01 18:29:09

Folks, these people are deranged. I’m no Elon simp, but Robert Reich’s vision of the world is an Orwellian one entirely untethered from the free speech values upon which our country is founded. If you abandon those values quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?
Use #bitcoin
#grownostr https://image.nostr.build/456f4c1b836aae12e4acc92a47d8caa9d289548bc7bbf2cce12021c6909eda34.jpg https://image.nostr.build/7a7326a00622b757d8e97af5da27bdeeb9fe37778c2c4a761a1f4d1ebbdc9921.jpg

2024-09-01 11:02:55

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/9f623815d2ad7d8d326be3541acad4902c3ff15719cb52d724df4916cb39a4ab.jpg

2024-08-31 23:12:55

Agreed, and I think the deliberate election of certain restraints actually IS freedom. Just a different kind than most people think about. It’s positive freedom (aka freedom-to) vs the negative freedom (freedom-from) of having zero constraints.
*Using “negative” and “positive” freedom in the Isaiah Berlin sense #note1vmc…l695

2024-08-31 21:23:02

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https://youtu.be/alUnWyBBSi0?

2024-08-31 21:21:47

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I think I did a Tim Maia one. Totally agree on the other two. If I wasn’t about to head out to dinner I’d def be posting Jorge Ben tor!

2024-08-31 21:17:28

Brazilian music all day on #nostr in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from #brazil. It’s been real.
Last one is contemporary Brazil:
#tunestr
https://youtu.be/HU_FZJA8RCQ?

2024-08-31 14:39:41

I don’t know much about Brazilian politics, and I don’t have anything technical to contribute to help our Brazilian friends get onto #nostr . But I do love Brazilian music. So I’ll be sharing it all day in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from #brazil.
Next up is one I don’t think is even available on Spotify. Deep cut:
https://youtu.be/RpXw8VZTuGE?

2024-08-31 13:09:18

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This is beautiful, Leo, thanks for sharing. Shout out to @npub1jw6…h29m too for the moving music.

2024-08-31 11:29:22

As a not-especially technical guy, transitioning fully to #nostr is continuously humbling.
Grateful to all of you who have posted (and continue to post) so much good educational material. Grateful to all the generosity in this space.
I’ve never shared so much of my non-Bitcoin interests on any platform before, and it’s been immensely fun talking about books and films, poetry and art with all of you.
Have an inspired day everyone.

2024-08-31 11:00:49

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/7761633aaa7a850221a302d90fdc549e8aab49b29f6bc43cfc824b4bcee7a4b7.jpg

2024-08-30 10:32:21

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/85a1d25181e6619fba62648558137296f32f7c2480ec9e4d4b186206d408ca34.jpg

2024-08-30 00:32:38

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Great song. Deep cut Moreland

2024-08-29 13:39:35

Consumerism is a value of the fiat system. It is both literally a value, since we measure economic health in large part by measuring consumption, and also an ingrained mode of behavior. By disincentivizing mindless, reflexive consumption and incentivizing a lower time preference, #Bitcoin, if it continues to grow in adoption, offers the promise of a cultural foregrounding of deeper things, like fulfilling pursuits, relationships, creativity, contribution to community, presence, etc.
#Bitcoin is money that, through its soundness, will hopefully allow us to actually get past thinking about money all the time so that we can make room for life’s important things - which tend to get lost, neglected, and/or sacrificed in consumption and the systemically coerced pursuit of more and more money.
We spend so much time thinking about money (how to get it, how to get more of it, how to make it grow, how to keep up with inflation, how to invest it, how to spend it, what to spend it on, how to get rich quick, how to pay the bills, etc). And to a certain extent this will always be true.
But when money does not hold its value, when it is continuously debased, when the sovereign debt is so massive it must be inflated away, and when the economic health of a country is measured by how much it consumes, it creates an environment in which money is practically all we think about.
Looking forward to a world in which this is no longer the case.

2024-08-29 10:57:43

Gm #nostr https://image.nostr.build/f96618876e3a5d085715f6b96118b17c1d7b10211bee5d593443826cd53dc967.jpg

2024-08-28 17:13:25

I will simply never vote for a candidate who proposes taxing unrealized gains.
On this issue I think slippery slope arguments are valid and historically grounded.
I also think it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding and economic illiteracy.
More troublingly, it indicates a perspective on the relationship between government and citizen that I think is anti-American. #note1n5f…j3vk

2024-08-27 14:01:18

Been spending lots more time on #nostr the last two weeks (shout out @npub164q…2rl3 for the push), and have been trying to share more about the stuff I care deeply about beyond just #bitcoin (though I of course talk Bitcoin too).
But for me those things are literature, art, poetry, and ideas. Before I eventually became a lawyer I went to grad school for lit and film, and that remains an integral part of my life and the way I think about things. It’s my intellectual anchor.
I’ve been blown away honestly at the quality of convos I’ve had on here the last week or so.
Even the last few days I’ve been discussing Infinite Jest, Shakespeare, postmodernism, DeLillo, etc, and the discussions have been very cool.
I feel I can kinda open up and express more of my total self, beyond Bitcoin bull-posting (which to be fair I still enjoy and support). It’s refreshing.
Hoping to continue to find and engage with more Bitcoin/nostr folks who are into literature and mining great artistic achievements for lessons and constructive discourse on the present.
Gm

2024-08-27 12:45:01

Letter from Zuck to Congressman Jordan yesterday: https://image.nostr.build/f19cbb2016db05f89045fec10cc220117638784c98608534e1d5e06d60a66fb6.jpg

2024-08-27 00:39:43

Gonna be an awesome convo. One angle I think about a lot:
Don DeLillo described the Kennedy assassination as “the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.”
And he did so because after that Americans lost conviction in capital-T Truth, in a fundamental coherence of the universe. After all if we can’t even determine who committed the most famous murder since Franz Ferdinand, if we have to fall back on “magic bullet” theories, does anything mean anything? Is there something behind the curtain?
This, coupled with Vietnam, creates the perfect backdrop for the intellectual revolution that is postmodernism and all its tributaries and outgrowths.
Postmodernism takes over college campuses. Critical theorists like Derrida and Foucault and de Man become rockstars. Academia becomes almost a competitive game to see who can formulate the most radical understanding of the world.
We go off gold in 1971, and inflation ensues. For the next 50 years everything gets more expensive, especially higher education. So at the same time post-structuralists and post-colonialists et al are saturating the academy, the number of folks who can actually afford to go to the academy is decreasing.
So now we have elite schools increasingly captured by what is essentially an evolved viral (almost Darwinian) Marxism, teaching increasingly wealthy and well-connected kids. This is where we are now. With the country’s most affluent, privileged, educated kids becoming the most politically radical, and it’s all occurring in a way and in places more and more detached from the lived reality of normal people. And these kids of course grow up to take powerful positions in society (because they’re wealthy and well connected).
So a schism between “the Left” and the constituents it purports to care most about, “the working class,” emerges and grows.
Most regular people are basically just like what the actual fuck are you guys talking about.
And so the Left becomes utterly detached from its target demographic and becomes instead like an eternal regress of theoretical nonsense.
Like the bird in an early David Foster Wallace story (the title escapes me at the moment) that flies in increasingly narrower circles until it actually flies up its own ass.
Voila here we are. #note1vys…05lw

2024-08-26 02:00:47

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Sounds like your woke government school taught Shakespeare wrong, or at least deeply insufficiently. Shakespeare traditionally not taught in anything resembling woke, but some scholars in the last probably 25 or 30 years or so have tried to narrow him in that way. Don’t give up on him. You might find him even more interesting/constructive now as an adult with the economic grounding you now have.

2024-08-26 00:18:08

Couldn’t possibly agree with this more. Anybody who thinks ayn Rand is an elite novelist has simply not read enough (or widely enough) to know what an insane opinion that is.
Infinite Jest, for example, is a far more interesting rumination on freedom in America than anything by Rothbard, Rand, etc etc.
You will learn more about humanity from Shakespeare than from the Mises (all due respect to Mises).
So many incredible conversations about big ideas live in works of fiction or poetry, where people tend not to look.
100% endorse not just reading more but reading outside of your comfort zone. Read poetry, read more fiction, read something you think you might disagree with, read something long.
Imagine how absolutely miserable hyperbjtcoinization will be if everyone just reads and talks about the same five books. #note1xd2…v45n

2024-08-25 11:38:37

Gm, still thinking about RFK’s speech on Friday.
When you store your wealth in S&P 500 index funds, among the things you are “investing” in and funding are censorship, surveillance, big pharma, the sickness industrial complex, and war.
And so many people do this. They blindly, price-insensitively store their wealth, the result of their life energy on earth, in companies who participate in the aforementioned societally harmful things.
It’s a reflexive, inculcated behavior. It’s what the financial advisor class tells you is “prudent and smart.” It’s what Warren Buffett will tell you is “investing in America.”
It may be prudent and smart, in a dark, cynical way. But I reject the idea that investing in our own gradual spiritual and physical death as a populace is investing in America.
I tend to agree with RFK that the most important issues of our time are fixing our utterly toxic food system, fixing the perverse incentives of our broken healthcare system, dis-empowering the censorship and propaganda machines of mainstream media and tech conglomerates, and defunding war.
One way you vote for THAT is with your money, by saving in #bitcoin.
Another is with your eyeballs and your attention, by using #nostr.
So yes, we talk about our bitcoin price, and maybe we do it too much. But it’s because #bitcoin is a vote. It’s a tool. It’s a protest. It’s being the change you want to see in the world.
Gm #nostr

2024-08-25 00:16:59

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I am in the very very early stages of my knausgaard journey

2024-08-25 00:07:17

When your nightstand has lost all sense of direction: https://image.nostr.build/5e80e2480bbc4283392200863730ebe93ce6c61c7fe4d12cd6c3ca8b2addfca4.jpg

2024-08-24 02:53:12

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I love that, ordering it now!

2024-08-24 02:02:35

David Foster Wallace on the purpose of good fiction. So good. https://image.nostr.build/deb85c9b00fcf8fee35df5468169d31d5cc65b770fd7ba09381ddb30f3eb2646.jpg

2024-08-23 19:41:37

The RFK speech today was better, more urgent and more authentic, than any speech from the two major candidates at their respective conventions.

2024-08-22 16:42:57

On Tim Walz and his repeated digs at J.D. Vance for getting an education and making some money:
I was born and raised in a small rural town near the Appalachian Mountains, 2 hrs from the nearest major city. Still work in this town today.
My father was born and raised in an even smaller town, even more rural town with a population under 2,000.
I have three degrees from three elite institutions because my folks believed in aspiring to education, that it opened doors, created opportunities, and allowed you to experience more of the world. They instilled that in me.
I am a cocktail of my upbringing and my education.
I shoot guns, and I quote Shakespeare.
I eat venison, and I think about Dostoyevsky.
I am comfortable in both Waylon Jennings and Mozart, Steve Earle and Alice Coltrane.
I can cite Luke Combs and Lou Reed, wax poetic about Top Gun and Le Mepris.
I buy food (and milk) from farmers.
I am an attorney, yes, and my J.D. is from an elite institution. I represent the blue-collar folks of my hometown.
I am neither a supremacist, nor a relativist.
I am a dad and a husband.
I am a #bitcoin er
All my life I have had one foot in the ethos and spirit of my rural hometown and the other in the rarefied echelons of the elitely educated, the financially successful, and the well-connected. It's not always comfortable.
All my life I have climbed, my folks sacrificed and pushed me to climb and to aspire. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," to quote Tennyson (see, I told you I can do that).
And all my life I have kept my upbringing close to me, because it is a part of me. I don't shed my lived experience, nor do I forfeit its imprint, its impact, simply because I pursued the best education and got a professional job. The validity of my experience does not expire upon achievement.
So when Tim Walz repeatedly attempts to invalidate J.D. Vance’s upbringing, to cast him as some inherently callous, rich interloper, out of touch with the "heartland" simply because he pursued the best education he could and made some money, it bothers me on a deep, personal level.
In the Walz taxonomy, which is binary, but only binary for non-Democrats apparently, financial success or an Ivy-League education, automatically and irrevocably renders one out of touch with "regular" people. Further, aspirations to these things are no longer to be applauded; they're punchlines in campaign speeches.
Never mind the financial success and education of the Obamas, the Clintons, Kamala Harris, Oprah, etc. This does not invalidate their respective experiences, the journeys they each took to get there.
Only if you're J.D. Vance does success actually make you a charlatan to yourself, an interloper in your own life, an enemy to your past.
It's not right. We should be applauding folks, no matter their race or political affiliation, for aspiring, for traversing the brutal terrain of class, region and familial afflictions and making it.
You may agree or disagree with J.D. on the issues, of course. That's perfectly fine.
But dismissing him simply because he managed to go to Yale (like so many Dems, by the way, who readily purport to be regular, working class heroes), or because he majored in philosophy, or because he eventually worked in finance and made some money, is craven, disingenuous, breathtakingly lacking in self-awareness, and offensive to anyone who has actually grown up in the "heartland," myself included.
Like so many other Americans, I contain multitudes, Tim Walz, but your taxonomy apparently doesn't allow that.

2024-08-16 01:30:52

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Hope you’re right. I tweeted today, making careful effort not to dox the person, about a close family friend who worked very high up in a very prominent progressive Congress person’s staff and now works for Kamala. This person is highly educated, super smart, and millennial. I’ve spoken with her about BTC and crypto multiple times, including with a close personal friend of mine who works in crypto VC, and the response every time has been polite, but slightly condescending, dismissal. Zero interest, zero knowledge, treated us like we were talking about a Pokémon card collection. Most recent convo was immediately after SAB 121 sitch. Obviously not representative of the dem party as a whole, but has kept me pretty discouraged about meaningful vibe changes on the left. I would absolutely love to be wrong and hope that I will be in due time.

2024-08-16 01:18:51

In case anybody still harbors any illusions about Kamala’s economic illiteracy, her vacuity on substantive issues, or the persistent influence of Elizabeth Warren. She’s the same candidate she was in 2020, which is to say an empty vessel, a construct seeking to capture and project whatever views will get her elected in a given year, ideally without ever having to articulate anything of any detail. https://image.nostr.build/6e7ef8adbd635afff46979f312c828308d6d5bf12e1e6b45d00e7de1a2914cb6.jpg https://image.nostr.build/cc426b976d01bf81bd94af89addedf930dcec59cc7974b5801fa0d0c1462161a.jpg https://image.nostr.build/14075afbd2d83dfb7cde0b846adab8646593695f1d92e9a5fad56e83f1bc47d2.jpg

2024-08-15 11:00:50

Gm #nostr, touch grass and read poetry
T.S. Eliot: https://image.nostr.build/d5dd0271f1ad0733ba079bc378b92f93963c6964cd47a34ddc0b783555a57522.jpg

2024-03-08 21:25:20

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Harking back to our music lists, I think “sweet Jane” is, pound for pound, my favorite song of all time.

2024-03-08 21:18:37

Original pressing. Friday vibes #tunestr https://video.nostr.build/20c79c9c39b3434e0fd82b20255f4ec532cc3e03612d5955fd5d8eb78b7a070e.mp4

2023-12-19 00:32:08

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Also somebody needs to get ahold of Trey’s low time preference skincare routine and post it. Not a single crow’s foot in sight on my man!

2023-12-19 00:28:37

This conversation was so fun. We go deep on Bitcoin and progressivism and toss around some probably unexpected ideas and conclusions. Ultimately I continue to hope we move toward new political coalitions through and with Bitcoin. Thanks to Trey for having me on! #note1umr…yesf

2023-11-15 14:16:37

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Happy birthday, my friend! And congrats on all you’ve accomplished this year!

2023-11-15 01:29:09

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Thankfully I’ve never even allowed myself to be tempted to enjoy velvet revolver. My shamelessness does, luckily, have some limits.
“Doesn’t remind me” is one of my fav Cornell songs though. When I’m thinking about him that’s usually the song I throw on.

2023-11-15 01:22:43

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😂😂 I mean, honestly, it’s just “plush.” It gets to me. Still shameful, I know. It’s a flaw.

2023-11-15 01:17:21

I like the idea of Chris Cornell more than the idea of Scott Weiland, but if I’m being honest with myself I think actually enjoy more stone temple pilot sings than soundgarden songs.
Unsure if I feel ashamed or not.

2023-11-14 23:48:00

https://image.nostr.build/bdadfd91d880808dc0e8107eabbbd5ca3eb5daa582dfab74d4b2ac46231c48e2.jpg

2023-11-12 12:55:51

Gm #nostr, Brazilian music is great.
#vinylstr #tunestr https://video.nostr.build/c0c7a867b26d4b28a42ae2e5765200a77274f080e151983b936d9799edd257de.mp4

2023-11-11 16:14:25

Saturday listening with my daughter.
#tunestr #vinylstr https://video.nostr.build/a9f8226bc86478b3efdd24656e844607d9e3a7b541f2db6bfeaddf678de82b15.mp4

2023-11-10 18:04:15

For many politicians, this emerging bull market will be the first time they’ve really seen #bitcoin not only not die, but rise from perceived (and/or desired) oblivion.
Bitcoin is much more salient in the political consciousness, now.
And I think this means a few things.
Politicians will be forced to consider #bitcoin more seriously, which will of course mean more sedulous attempts to fit it into their existing, partisan, political paradigms, however uncomfortable the fit may be.
What’s happening under the surface I think, with actual voters, is #bitcoin is transforming their politics and moving an increasing number of people out of or away from their prior partisan, political affiliations. It’s creating distance between people and our ossified two-party system.
So at the grassroots level bitcoin is changing, and re-shuffling political affiliation, while at the political class level politicians are (and will continue) trying to figure out how it fits into the existing two-party paradigm.
The bottom-up dynamics will be much more lasting, much more transformative, and, I hope, much more effective.
More and more people are becoming politically homeless. And #bitcoin is becoming a new consensus force pulling together what would traditionally seem to be strange bedfellows.
Anecdotally, every Dem I know who has spent any time meaningfully learning about #bitcoin is not thinking to themselves: how do I fit it into my current political party affiliation?
They are thinking wow this really subverts my existing political thinking in a lot of ways.
In the same way that Wall Street is capitulating to #Bitcoin (not the other way around), I hope and expect political parties to capitulate to bitcoin (and not the other way around), too.
This could and should create a very interesting, generational re-shuffling. It’ll of course take time to develop and progress. But I suspect we’re already in the early stages.

2023-11-10 01:02:34

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Niiiiice. Dude, so much to discuss with this list. Throwing mac demarco in the top 5 = major conversation starter. Interesting National selection too. Curious how close Boxer or Trouble Will Find Me were to cracking the list.

2023-11-10 00:56:07

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True story. I played bball my freshman year of college. Over winter break we stayed on campus for games. We were packed into a couple of houses, sharing rooms, etc because all other buildings were closed. One night a teammate and I were just chilling, having some beers, listening to the mtv unplugged album. The sun went down and the room got dark. We were both so engrossed in the music neither of us moved to turn on lights. And we sort of felt a flash of what we perceived to be Kurt’s presence. Next day I try to explain this experience to our relatively young assistant coach. His response, deathly serious: “Logan, you’re aware the NCAA conducts random drug tests, right?”

2023-11-10 00:50:09

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Hit me with Trey’s top 5 albums

2023-11-10 00:43:05

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Nevermind is incredible, of course. Def not a knock on it. I just think In Utero raises the bar incrementally. The hottest take would be where does the unplugged album land? There are times when it’s number one nirvana for me.

2023-11-10 00:36:16

My most controversial music opinions: I believe most of these things, most of the time
1. Craig Finn is a top five lyricist of the last 25 years
2. Let It Be by The Replacements is better than Let It Be by The Beatles
3. The Velvet Underground and Nico is the best album of all time
4. (Getting spicy now) Rage Against the Machine is the most overrated band of all time, and I actually think they kind of suck. Good in theory, but the actual result not so much. The idea of them is better than them.
5. pre-American idiot Green Day is actually pretty great
6. Darkness on the edge of town > Born to Run
In Utero > Nevermind
Stillmatic > Illmatic
7. Prince is better than Michael Jackson, and it’s not close
8. Bob weir is an almost legendarily terrible back up vocalist
9. Joy Division is good but not transcendently so. Give me echo and the bunnymen instead.
10. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is better than every Radiohead album (nothing against Radiohead)
Non-exhaustive list

2023-11-07 01:26:32

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Paprika or nostalghia. Haven’t had a good Tarkovsky jam in a while

2023-11-05 14:17:19

Bullish. Shout out to @npub164q…2rl3 for all his hard work on the pod. Taking it to a whole new level. #note1rur…uj9d

2023-11-05 14:14:56

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Def the worst, especially with and for a young child

2023-11-05 13:14:04

2023-11-05 00:15:25

@npub164q…2rl3 you’ll like these guys I think. Recommended to me by @npub1z0r…xuxf. Some of that sweet melodic fuzz. https://image.nostr.build/3fd8c78c9a2f600f6ed349274b4922fa227805fea3a201b19b7de51ec669b9c7.jpg

2023-11-05 00:10:52

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Love this. “Perfect pitch black” is 👌. Also dude are you Vertigo Kidd? Been listening to cold neon blues a lot!

2023-11-04 22:35:54

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Awesome, gonna start sending to all my fav bands

2023-11-04 15:27:17

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Ah right on right on, good. This is the way, I think. Much better than blackout. Appreciate you, Derek 🤝

2023-11-04 15:16:55

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I shall follow your lead, friend 🫡. Are we going full non-nostr social media blackout this time around?