epsql

Currently questioning everything.

Public Key

npub1zhmsa0fs76dctwag0slvg4j9xqxu9q66dkkzxh7ls9pu4d0f9qkqgvs67x

NIP-05 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsptacwh5c0dxu9hw58c0ky2eznqrwzsddxmtprtl0czs72kh5jstqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsjlzc4z

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1zhmsa0fs76dctwag0slvg4j9xqxu9q66dkkzxh7ls9pu4d0f9qkqgvs67x

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Last Notes

2026-05-18 20:19:13 CEST

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Talking about onchain only or lightning as well? Also, what data are you looking at? Thanks

2026-05-18 10:01:40 CEST

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Most educated, well-meaning people are unfortunately the last kind of people you should be looking at for independent and critical thinking, let alone real world action aimed at actually changing things.

2026-05-17 11:12:08 CEST

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Would a covenant soft-fork allowing something like https://github.com/JohnLaw2/ln-scaling-covenants make a difference in your MoE assessment? Not sure why something as harmless as OP_CTV or similar proposals are taking so much honestly

2026-05-16 14:42:47 CEST

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Agreed! Which is why I wrote leaning to code "properly", not just focusing on syntax. Syntax is entirely without value though if one takes the time to go deeper into how programming languages actuality work.
For example https://www.nand2tetris.org/ involves a whole lot of coding of the serious kind that taught me a lot about subsystems, abstractions etc etc, which are fundamental engineering principles, but would have escaped me without knowing how to code in Rust for instance.

2026-05-16 14:37:45 CEST

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I think learning to code properly teaches one how to think rationally about problems and systems, so I'm not so sure you would have wasted your time.

2026-05-15 21:04:56 CEST

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What strikes me is that, while in this little corner of the world we're debating a thousand issues that might or might not plague Bitcoin, the vast majority of people out there doesn't even know the difference between sound and fiat money.
I get a bit less hopeful when I think about that. It seems to be one of the results of the predominant consumerist mode of living, where the average individual knows basically nothing about the broader system he or she lives in as long as they're able to go to work and get a bit of entertainment in the evening.

2026-05-14 13:37:37 CEST

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I'm reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31277759-the-world-ending-fire

2026-05-11 19:53:24 CEST

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LFG! How does it work for the node in terms of configuration though? I have only set up my LND node via Tor so I'm not sure about what are options are there, especially for onboarding people easily

2026-05-08 20:46:23 CEST

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Aaaand there we go!
https://image.nostr.build/215ca77b7c8358b7031f247285523fae4dc595f84dde127dd190d83263a4789e.jpg

2026-05-08 20:39:03 CEST

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https://image.nostr.build/1e8f73bda80ef5e448b45f14beb4ccd51622a4ea2d94d6c00e785d5ec395fcd3.jpg

2026-05-08 11:31:58 CEST

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Ivan Illich saw the problems with modern education decades ago, always good to keep his analysis in mind:
"School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is"
"School has become the planned process which tools man for a planned world, the principal tool to trap man in man's trap. It is supposed to shape each man to an adequate level for playing a part in this world game. Inexorably we cultivate, treat, produce, and school the world out of existence."

2026-05-07 19:42:49 CEST

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Please feel free, I don't personally care at least or should anyone for that matter

2026-05-07 19:28:50 CEST

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I fully agree, yet I cannot dismiss frictions that arise from technical complexity. Don't you think that a much easier to use Bitcoin would also have an effect on adoption?

2026-05-07 18:57:19 CEST

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Well said, NGU should at best tell us that something is wrong in the fiat world, but it cannot be one of the main metrics by which we judge whether Bitcoin is successful or not

2026-05-07 18:55:01 CEST

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Where did you get this value from? Curious

2026-05-07 18:47:54 CEST

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True enough, but what was the alternative to the computer back then? There are instead today's hundreds of apps that are going to transfer dollars for you with no friction. If normies adapted Bitcoin because the FED is evil they wouldn't be normies, right?

2026-05-07 18:41:30 CEST

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What are your thoughts on a solution like FediMint?

2026-05-07 18:38:22 CEST

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I think you're misunderstanding the point: normies need this precisely so that adoption is not prevented by technical hurdles.

2026-05-07 14:11:54 CEST

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>That's why there are target inflation rates of like 1 or 2%. Decreasing prices encourage people to defer spending until later and that leads to a recession and downward spiral and then it's not predictable anymore and the economy will tank in no time
Sorry but this is not logical, you really think that if your purchasing power slowly increased over time you would stop all kind of consumption, and so would everybody else and therefore there would be economic collapse? Please.
The 2% inflation target set by central banks exists because governments have a lot of debt and debtors like it when money loses value over time. There's no need whatsoever to stimulate consumption by artificially lowering purchasing power.

2026-05-07 13:37:16 CEST

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>They've been getting more expensive by a few percent a year. It would be better if they didn't change at all but it's the best we can do. The change so far has been small and predictable. Predictable change is the next best thing after no changes.
You seem to think that predictable change is still pretty good, so why would it so problematic if change year over year was negative, but still predictable? Imagine all prices, therefore including wages, decreased on average by 0.2% from today until the year 2100 given a fixed money supply.
Where would the difficulties arise in such a scenario? If humans can plan for increasing prices, they can also do so for decreasing ones. Plus I'd argue that for prices to fall is the natural dynamic in a flourishing economy: if we're getting better and better at producing things due to improvements in social organization and technology, why would things end up costing more?

2026-05-07 00:29:24 CEST

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I simply don't think prices have to be *nominally* stable for us to be able to financially plan things. Sure we need to avoid situations where a beer is 5$ one year, 13$ the next, 1.15$ the year after that etc etc
But that could only happen in two scenarios:
- either the money supply changes in crazy ways due to bad central bank planning,
- or the inputs to beer production go from being incredibly scarce to incredibly abundant due to natural disasters or incredibly positive changes in natural conditions, provided demand for beer stays the same of course.
The second case is quite unpredictable, but the first one can be avoided by not having a central bank in the first place.
Nothing makes me think that planning is any easier with a managed money supply. That's because nobody is planning for a generic future, we're all planning that specific goods and services we might need are going to have certain price ranges when we need them.
Let's say I'm building a next generation videogame console but I fail to anticipate that AI demand is going to make GPUs much more expensive. Should I complain about it to the central bank? What if I'm planning to increase the production of cereals but then the strait of Hormuz gets blockaded and fertilizers get so much more expensive, what then?
If anything a fixed money supply allows the price signal to be as clear as possible: prices change only due to demand, supply, and technology. I argue this would allow much better planning than nominal stability.

2026-05-06 23:49:22 CEST

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I'm not thinking about that. You're implying that stable means nominally equal from one year to another. So if a beer is 5$ in 2026, stability would mean it will keep being 5$ in 2027, then 5$ in 2030 and so on and so forth (at least if I get your argument right).
This seems to be entirely unnecessary as far as I can see, especially if it is to be obtained by means of a central bank / planning agency that needs to constantly adjust the money supply.
Computers once had prices hovering around 10000$, whereas now you can get a pretty good one for 400$. Is that unstable? Is that problematic?

2026-05-06 23:29:52 CEST

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I reject the premise that stable prices can only be had with an increasing money supply. There is no logical reason for it

2026-05-06 22:02:10 CEST

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Inflation being pretty low and things being pretty good is a qualitative subjective statement that doesn't mean much unfortunately. Are you talking about hamburgers, houses, cars, eggs, or something else entirely?
>Your fixed money supply will lead to wildly swinging prices and kill any business quickly.
I fail to see why this should be so obvious.
>That's why you like dollars and obsess over the dollar price of Bitcoin.
The reason bitcoiners "obsess" over dollars is because the dollar is the dominant monetary system, not because inflation is low and things are generally speaking good as you seem to think. Should we discard this measurement and start focusing on some imaginary benchmark?

2026-05-06 18:58:37 CEST

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This seems really complicated and easily manipulated, I think central banks are trying to do something of the sort already and it's not looking great to be honest. I, for one, would stick to a fixed money supply or a fixed rule like Friedman suggested many decades ago (money is neutral and all that)

2026-05-06 13:24:35 CEST

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I hope Strategy sells almost all of its stash to be honest

2026-05-06 13:22:58 CEST

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Not sure I got your point

2026-05-06 11:27:40 CEST

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It's hard for your community to be your race though, am I missing something? Unless we're talking about subgroups of a particular ethnicity that live in a different country. But if you're Chinese and living in China, for example, can you call all the Chinese people your community? I don't think so

2026-05-05 15:56:17 CEST

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I guess he's just waiting for the world to catch up at this point

2026-05-05 15:43:42 CEST

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It is at least a bit in this case given the nature of the subreddit and what seems to be the general level of the discussion. Some of these people are replying to the thread things as:
> Most likely you would have the actual currency, lets call it PowerCoin, and then the government which controls both energy production and the issuing of these coins, would say "Each 1 unit of PowerCoin is worth something like... 1 KWh of energy, and you can trade in 1 PowerCoin to get that much energy."
> Just to make a point for anyone here. You wouldn’t have to store the energy. You wouldn’t need little batteries as coins or something. It would just be a fiat currency backed by energy.
> It would make no sense. Currency is used mostly to keep track of debts and taxes and trade relationships and virtual is probably the best way to do that.
So it's not like we're in some subreddits for cake recipes, you know what I mean?

2026-05-05 12:54:38 CEST

We have people in 2026 talking about how an energy based currency would work in theory and nobody is bringing Bitcoin up.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/comments/1rvl6tt/how_would_currency_based_on_energy_work_in/
#asknostr How is this possible?

2026-05-04 17:45:10 CEST

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This is in interesting perspective, thanks!

2026-05-04 16:53:33 CEST

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Not sure I agree with your take that debt creation under the fiat regime has served the purpose of capital accumulation. Why would that have been harder without fiat money?
If anything, it would have been easier to discover and fund successful entrepreneurial projects given that we'd have had an interest rate aligned to market preferences, don't you think?

2026-05-04 11:40:34 CEST

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Technology cannot be rejected entirely since it's a defining human activaty, but I think individuals can use their intelligence to make conscious use of it. How systems develop is another matter entirely though, yet I see hope for the conscious individual

2026-05-01 22:23:44 CEST

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Which is why we like it, right?

2026-05-01 18:36:04 CEST

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Is this from "The Last Of Us"?

2026-04-30 18:39:01 CEST

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You'd surely agree that quantum computing is not the kind of discipline where everyone can have their opinion while also demanding to be taken seriously, right? Of course I agree with you that everyone should be able to speak freely though

2026-04-28 11:33:44 CEST

Maybe we need open source everything at this point, see https://www.opensourceecology.org/about-overview/
#nevent1q…jvay

2026-04-24 10:15:13 CEST

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Which means you don't think quantum is a threat, otherwise there would only be one quantum scare (and one soft fork)?

2026-04-23 11:09:34 CEST

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I guess it's just one of those weird things such as the fact that all numbers of shape ABABAB are divisible by 37

2026-04-23 00:31:37 CEST

Let's keep the world humane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojScF_gf85Q&

2026-04-22 20:49:26 CEST

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And absence of experience is not experience of absence

2026-04-22 13:51:52 CEST

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How does it work from a backend perspective? Is everything somehow hosted on relays, or is Nostr (correctly I might add) used for identity, communication, and payments?

2026-04-22 13:34:31 CEST

"... the distinction between toiling for sustenance and working for purpose. These are not the same thing, and the conflation of them is the deepest error in the technocratic imagination. Toiling for sustenance is what the serf did, labour extracted by necessity, directed by another's will, producing no accumulation of capital, no development of personal mastery, no expression of individual judgment. The serf plowed because he had no alternative; he received subsistence in return; he built nothing of his own. The UHI recipient is the digital serf ... "
Very well said 👏
#naddr1qq…u3ua

2026-04-21 12:24:59 CEST

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https://video.nostr.build/623f675c2ddc12c9b06e2c97d487ad8837c3ddd49d8aec6963d1475ca5ff2047.mp4

2026-04-20 16:31:23 CEST

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What's the chance of actually finding something?

2026-04-20 16:20:44 CEST

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I'd like to see that as well, but, given that nobody sets the Bitcoin roadmap, there's no way to enforce which soft fork does or does not happen before others

2026-04-20 15:54:57 CEST

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Covenants could be great for LN though, see https://github.com/JohnLaw2/ln-scaling-covenants
To be honest, OP_CTV or similar proposals seem one of the safest soft forks to be deployed in the future.

2026-04-20 11:46:45 CEST

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@npub18zs…lyv6 might have something to say on the matter of morality as it relates to economics. I don't think we should abandon the idea that strong moral values are possible.

2026-04-20 11:30:12 CEST

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Life quality in Europe is generally speaking better also because the European Union is not an empire: nobody in Europe is worried that Taiwan might sooner or later be invaded, and to they are relatively free to focus on quality of life improvements. Or at least they might be worried, but certainly nobody is going to die for it. Maintaining a global empire necessarily leads to tradeoffs.
I would say that European nations are to the US what "clientes" were to the Roman Empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_kingdoms_in_ancient_Rome)

2026-04-20 10:46:56 CEST

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Makes sense! But then how would you define capitalism? I would image a system inherently requires sound money for it to be called capitalism, although I can see how a car can still be called a car even if the fuel tank is losing ~10% of its gasoline before it can even reach the engine

2026-04-20 10:29:00 CEST

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Bitcoinism == capitalism + sound money? Or does it even make sense to speak of capitalism without sound money? I think the term "capitalism" itself means almost nothing nowadays unfortunately

2026-04-19 22:22:59 CEST

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Art, religion, sports, psychedelics, philosophy, travel, mysticism, love, community life. Did I forget anything?

2026-04-19 15:03:13 CEST

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Sure, but then is not grown adults you're dealing with, but murderers.

2026-04-18 11:31:58 CEST

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Sure, but *what is going on*?
https://youtu.be/-8VE04-by9Q

2026-04-17 13:40:34 CEST

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Sure, lett's keep the wealth extraction machine going in the hope that technological productivity is going to offset the stealing. What could go wrong?

2026-04-16 10:15:47 CEST

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This is part of the attack of labeling Bitcoin as an asset. We need 99% of so-called Bitcoiners to abandon this idea.

2026-04-15 11:09:38 CEST

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Are you hinting at Fedimint?

2026-04-14 23:33:04 CEST

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These bots are getting ridiculous!

2026-04-14 12:37:00 CEST

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How old is the guy?

2026-04-12 12:22:17 CEST

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The brave among us will create a new future.

2026-04-10 13:37:16 CEST

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"Confirm is a retired major league soccer referee" (probably Alexa's answer)

2026-04-03 11:01:11 CEST

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I hope this is a sick joke. Quasi-consensual?

2026-04-02 22:24:23 CEST

We're endlessly optimizing our lives, but for what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhsQeWpseU

2026-04-02 09:08:21 CEST

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Defining a rise in prices as inflation is a central banking trick. There can easily be inflation without any noticeable price changes simply due to increased productivity.
It is very true that prices are going up now due to oil and gas, but that's because oil and gas are inputs to almost all production processes. That's nothing to do with inflation, meaning an increase in the supply of money.
It's very important to define terms because prices staying flat can very well still mean we're being debased due to an increased in money supply which would otherwise allowed lower prices.
Inflation = incrase in the money supply.

2026-04-02 00:49:30 CEST

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Inflation should only be defined as an increase in money supply IMO

2026-04-02 00:48:03 CEST

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Unfortunately nothing

2026-04-01 13:33:52 CEST

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@npub1uwj…axfl would be proud of this

2026-03-31 14:58:48 CEST

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I guess fetch is way too hard for people

2026-03-31 09:44:07 CEST

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I was watching this video yesterday, lots of good points on why society feels the way it does today
https://youtu.be/6VhsQeWpseU

2026-03-29 20:29:53 CEST

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Without cultural awareness and critical thinking, availability of tools does not translate into action.
We see this in many other fields, for example a lot of people could choose to eat healthier foods without necessarily spending much, yet they default to McDonald's or Mac & Cheese type of meals.
A lot of people could choose to exercise in moderate amounts to improve their health as well, but they don't.
And so on and so forth, you get the point and you know this yourself already so I'm not pretending I'm teaching anything new here, I just happen not to share the pessimism.

2026-03-29 17:14:02 CEST

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Is it very noticeable?

2026-03-28 19:35:51 CET

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Is your DCA strategy that of buying 11.11 dollars every 60 minutes? Forever?

2026-03-28 14:02:32 CET

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All models are broken if it doesn't I guess, and if it does all other models are broken, so #yestr

2026-03-28 14:00:29 CET

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Turkish coffee?

2026-03-28 13:59:32 CET

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Media at its finest I guess

2026-03-26 14:32:57 CET

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Boostr!

2026-03-26 13:26:47 CET

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What's the term was Nostr though? "ReNote"?

2026-03-24 12:00:39 CET

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Makes sense

2026-03-24 09:49:34 CET

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I think this really is an unnecessary attack

2026-03-23 12:19:48 CET

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Just what happened? Gold up, stocks up, Bitcoin up, and oil down?

2026-03-23 09:02:22 CET

It's too crazy for sure! The average individual thinks that while several things are very wrong with our modern society, surely money is not one of them.
People are very willing to consider that politicians are using funds in inefficient ways, that the banking industry is somewhat shady, that international mega-corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes, but money itself is fine.
This is in my opinion the single biggest obstacle, because fiat money is so similar in appearance to sound money that one would never question the money itself. Fiat money is a simulacrum.
#nevent1q…p8ym

2026-03-21 17:32:03 CET

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I'm thinking mostly about small town vs large city to be honest, not really about countries. It might be the case that getting by with Bitcoin only is more feasible in Milan, for example, that in some small french town in Normandy.

2026-03-21 17:25:39 CET

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Where do you live then? And most importantly why can't you?

2026-03-21 16:54:58 CET

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How do you get paid assuming you have a job? Also, how do you pay rent or your mortgage assuming you have to?

2026-03-20 15:17:02 CET

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I anticipate explosions

2026-03-20 13:43:00 CET

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Any recommended sources on the labor standard thing? It seems similar in nature to what Richard Werner has been advocating for, that is a monetary setup where banks can only create money for productive investments (so for example one cannot borrow new money yo buy a house).

2026-03-20 11:35:22 CET

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I was randomly gonna be in Belgrade exactly that weekend, too bad!

2026-03-19 14:41:31 CET

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Seriously 80 billion? Holy shit

2026-03-18 21:22:43 CET

Interesting thoughts from an independent thinker
https://youtu.be/C58C8U_3WPM

2026-03-18 09:49:19 CET

Trustodial is a good name? #asknostr
#nevent1q…xnu9

2026-03-18 09:44:59 CET

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We need a new name for these kinds of situations: quasi-custodial? Almost custodial?

2026-03-18 09:25:26 CET

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Is it though?

2026-03-17 11:48:41 CET

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Holy shit this is quite depressing to be honest

2026-03-16 18:16:21 CET

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Sure, has anyone ever been unable to carry out this maintenance though? How many times have people that wanted to open/close/reshuffle channels bumped into the Impossibility of doing so?
All I'm saying is that we're talking about the potential scenario where everyone and their cousin is paying via lightning, when in fact most probably a large percentage of so called bitcoiners don't even run a lightning node.

2026-03-16 17:59:23 CET

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Is it a shitcoin 2.0 though? I personally think it's an interesting system which can have its place, but I see a lot of people declaring it to be yet another sophisticated shitcoin.

2026-03-16 17:56:00 CET

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Just zapped you from my lightning node. Why is lightning unfixable? Is it because the average person doesn't want to run a node? Can one be sovereign without infrastructure?

2026-03-16 12:05:08 CET

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Well the solution should be Bitcoin in self custody, am I right?

2026-03-16 00:40:32 CET

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#nevent1q…5ljz

2026-03-15 18:54:37 CET

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#nevent1q…m97g