Tim Makarios

I'm interested in freedom, decentralization, economics, mathematics, …

Apprentice of: Jesus
Husband of: Deborah Makarios (npub1ywv…ezzn)
Nature and training: Mathematician
Still intending to work on: https://circulex.nz

Last Notes

2026-05-19 06:08:22 CEST

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I don't think any translation has the exact text "submit unto the powers that be". There are passages that say similar things, but their context tends to indicate that the particular governing authorities they have in mind are ones that are governing well.
There are different ways to "submit" to authority.
One is to slavishly do what they say, even if it's evil. The New Testament never advocates this.
Another is to do the right thing, and submit to any potentially violent punishment the authority might dole out if doing the right thing means disobeying them. What's the ultimate threat violence can make against you? Death. But if you believe in Jesus's victory over death, you have no need to fear that violence, and therefore no need to respond with violence. Stories at the start of Acts chapter 4 and the end of Acts chapter 5 are examples of this kind of submission: https://freely-given.org/OBD/OET-RV/byDoc/ACT.htm#C4
Then there are all sorts of creative ways of submitting that undermine the authority of violence. Like going the extra mile. I understand that Roman soldiers were allowed to force civilians to carry their pack for a (Roman) mile, but no further. So when Jesus advocates going two miles, he's advocating a nonviolent way to assert your freedom, and it's a way that might potentially discourage the soldier from letting you go the first mile in the first place, in case they get in trouble.
And for the record, here's what Jesus had to say about authority: "You all know that the rulers of other nations practice total control over their people, as do other powerful people. But among all of you, it shouldn’t be like that. Instead anyone who wants to become great should be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first, should be your slave, in the same way that humanity’s child didn’t come to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many people." — https://freely-given.org/OBD/OET-RV/byDoc/MAT.htm#C20V25

2026-05-19 06:07:22 CEST

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It's fine to be skeptical of claims about supernatural events, but it's also important to be skeptical of philosophical naturalism.
For example, I've recently been reading about life. All known forms of life (and therefore also the extrapolated last universal common ancestor (LUCA)) have a number of apparently essential components.
Perhaps the most well-known is DNA. Now, it's incredibly unlikely for a non-trivial strand of DNA to accidentally self-assemble, but if it did, that still wouldn't be enough for life to exist, because DNA can't self-replicate, or do anything else, really, on its own.
DNA (or RNA, if you prefer) contains what's essentially a file format (with some decent fault-tolerance properties) for proteins made out of 22 specific amino acids. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_and_RNA_codon_tables . But this encoding would be meaningless if there wasn't a machine to interpret the code and build the actual proteins. That machine is called a ribosome, also present in all known forms of life.
Now a ribosome would also be incredibly unlikely to accidentally self-assemble, but even if it did, it would be useless without any DNA (or RNA) to act on. So now we're thinking about a non-trivial strand of DNA *and* a ribosome both somehow existing at the same time in the same place.
But even that wouldn't be enough! The ribosome can't self-replicate. So the strand of DNA it's paired with must somehow have the encoded instructions on how to build a ribosome! And then you also need a machine to duplicate the DNA, and encoded instructions on how to build *that* machine, and the infrastructure to collect and process the raw materials for building all these things, and so on, before you finally have self-replication.
Now, as I see it, there are basically two possible explanations for how life got here, given how unlikely it now seems.
First, life could have been created by supernatural intervention in an already-created universe.
Second, there could be some natural processes, not yet understood, that make it vastly more likely than it now seems for error-tolerant self-replicating molecules (maybe specific sequences of RNA, initially?) to emerge in lifeless parts of this universe. But this explanation would enormously strengthen the already really rather strong evidence that this universe's laws are finely tuned to be at least hospitable to life, which is another story. (As are the philosophical implications of the fact that the universe had a beginning.)

2026-05-19 06:06:17 CEST

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When I said "believing Jesus", I meant believing what he said — about himself, about others, and about life in general.

2026-05-15 02:15:30 CEST

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What's stopping you from believing Jesus? Are your objections scientific in nature? Historical? Moral? Something else? All of the above?

2026-01-20 07:13:34 CET

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Interesting! I suspect things have changed for a lot of those systems since that video was made.
For XMPP, the Snikket clients have OMEMO encryption on by default, and you can set up at least the Android one to automatically delete messages from your device after a certain length of time, if you want them to disappear, but of course (as with every disappearing messages system, whether they admit it or not), you need your correspondents to cooperate if you want them not to keep a copy, either.
Snikket also tries to make it really easy to set up your own server, so you can control your metadata, and invite your less technical friends to have an account on your server, if they trust you with their metadata. https://snikket.org/
#XMPP #Snikket

2025-04-20 09:11:14 CEST

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I'm sorry if I've caused more stress for you. That certainly wasn't my intention.
As I indicated at the start, I'm inclined to believe you, and now I'm perhaps even a little more inclined to believe you than I was then.

2025-04-20 05:52:51 CEST

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If they're playing DARVO on you, it could be a tough time for you. I don't have much experience of being a DARVO victim myself, but I'd like to encourage you to keep telling the truth. I sincerely believe that the truth wins in the end.

2025-04-20 05:49:35 CEST

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Thanks for your reply.
I've actually once seen a claim (with a ring of FUD about it) that the eylenburg comparison was largely a collaboration between you and DivestOS, "without significant input from other projects". Unfortunately, it wasn't really in a place where I could reasonably call *[citation needed]* on it, and it's probably very difficult for you or eylenburg to prove their independence. Hence my interest in links to code or other verifiable evidence of /e/OS's security flaws, which would make the question of independence less relevant.

2025-04-20 02:01:14 CEST

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What you've been saying so far does seem to have a ring of truth about it, but I would have a lot more confidence if it came with easily verifiable claims, such as links to parts of their source code you think are problematic, with links to corresponding parts of your own source code, and an explanation of the difference. A long-form article is probably a better place for that than a series of toots.

2025-04-10 00:39:40 CEST

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XMPP protects metadata by not forcing all communications to pass through one organization's servers. I understand that for this reason, it's very difficult to figure out even how *many* people use XMPP, let alone who they are and who they talk to.
But yes, if you think you're a target of individual surveillance, that protection isn't ideal, but nor is the prospect of telling Signal who you talk to.
I'd love to see wider use of peer-to-peer XMPP, or something like it.

2025-01-28 04:12:44 CET

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An XMPP room is hosted on a specific server, but its occupants don't all have to have accounts on that server.
If the room is going to be moderated, authority over it has to be centralized anyway, in the person or people who choose the moderators. In that context, how much more decentralization do you want than what XMPP offers?
I mean, a peep-to-peer system would be nice, but is even harder to design well than a federated one.

2025-01-24 08:31:39 CET

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Out of curiosity, why did you choose Discord, Telegram, and Matrix for your community chat rooms?

2025-01-23 23:50:54 CET

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Have you also disabled fediverse follows? I'm getting an error when I try clicking the Follow button on the demo server (or the favourite heart, or boost …).