Started my account here on SN and plan on sharing some of my thoughts on bitcoin related topics. Wrote my first post last night on PoW vs PoS. Will try to write another one later this week, maybe talking about wanting something for nothing.
I like that metaphor: it's the difference between being at a lecture (on the good end) or a wedding and there's some dude sitting across from you droning on and on (on the bad end); and being in an actual conversation. There's value in getting broadcast at, but it's a very different kind of value.
Thought experiment of two alternate-reality SN variants:
a SN that is a really kick-ass place to go to download info about events, like a really good information depot.
a SN as a place where really good / rich / interesting conversations happen about those events.
It seems like if you were hell-bent on one of these cases, you'd do different things. I don't know what the differences would be, but the two realities seem distinct enough to warrant different approaches, though I couldn't back up that intuition right now.
It stops me from doom scrolling on X. Plus SNL brings a comedic approach to bitcoin news. It’s not about fed rates or recycling the same ol guests that go on all the popular/influencer bitcoin podcasts.
Lastly I get to interact with bitcoiners. I get to zap sats which help kick start the circular economy share my ideas and opinions with other stackers and exit the fiat madness I find myself in every day.
I like Phoenix, you just gotta know to make a big enough channel to be reasonable for a spending wallet that you think you'll never exceed and then from there you don't pay that 1% again (unless the channel closes for some reason)
I have several kids. My wife gave pretty natural births (no c-sections, no special procedures), but at the hospital. People do not realize that if everything goes well, the hospital staff does not get involved that much.
But in case something goes wrong, you have all the tech, staff on call, etc. to save you and the life of your child.
During the second birth, our baby got stuck a bit and the midwife had position my wife in a way to allow the baby to get out. I can’t imagine dealing with this at home alone.
Sure you can have a midwife at home, but why risk it?
I agree changing the protocol (I'll assume you are only talking about consensus changes through soft/hard forks) is very difficult, CTV has been proposed for several years now, and I am witnessing it first hand myself. As for it being very dangerous, this totally depends on what the change is. A new OP code is one of the smallest changes possible, far less complexity than segwit or taproot were. CTV is also the most restricted op code that is currently proposed (you will struggle to find a serious dev that disagrees), it is non recursive (best to look this up if you don't know this term), and has a relatively small amount of code. The code has been reviewed for quite a few years and heavily tested, with a 5+ BTC bounty available for anyone who can create a damaging tool/bug/etc using CTV on bitcoins testnets. This has also been available for several years with nothing found so far. CTV could certainly be used for bad things where you could lose your money, but you would have to volunteer to send your bitcoin to an address that uses CTV (so it wouldn't affect any other users). This is the same as now, you could send your bitcoin to an address you don't control or you could use a time lock to lock your bitcoin for thousands of years, etc. There will be new code to maintain of course, but CTV will also improve efficiency of lots of current code/use cases making some things simpler. As for the rules not being meant to change, firstly Satoshi would have disagreed, you can see this in his writing. And also bitcoins history disagrees, as there have been 8 consensus rule changes since March 2012 (see the attached image). Also non consensus code changes very regularly, check out the bitcoin GitHub. There are very good arguments that covenants like CTV can improve the economic incentives of the system. Such as improving the fungibility of coins with coin pools (like using coinjoins but inside a single UTXO), and increasing the economic density of a UTXO so monetary transactions can better compete with things like ordinals or inscriptions (which some call spam).
Ok now for the second point. I'm not very convinced by this personally, and I believe I went into this a bit in the post. If lots of coins end up TRAPPED (due to fees to exit being too high or the custodian refusing/legally not being able to let you exit) you no longer have the same free market we have right now. We could not force bank runs on them to keep them in line. This would be a similar system to what we have now with fiat, there is some competition amongst banks, but it's far from great (as I'm sure you know). We would probably be back to having to protest or use the legal system. The open ledger could provide a slight improvement though on seeing their reserves (assuming they share their addresses). But we could never truly know their liabilities, so they could create fake IOU bitcoins and go back to fractional reserves. As for their authority on the bitcoin protocol, I feel I covered that well in the post, but I'll touch on it again. If they get enough power through their nodes and they collaborate with other custodians (the government they reside under could force them to do this, the custodian themselves doesn't need to be a bad actor).
None of this is guaranteed and I'm not promising it will happen. But it's a very real threat and risk and something that needs to be taken seriously. We have already seen wallet of Satoshi & Exodus wallets pull out of the US over regulatory fears, meaning custodial bitcoin wallets themselves might not even be a real option. You cannot transact/deposit/withdraw with an ETF. Hopefully this post was clear and helpful, I might have gone on a bit haha. And thank you for the comment and your interest! :D Stay humble, stack sats in self custody and don't choose voluntary ossification.
He was a man far ahead of his time when you look at some of the topics he wrote about. Here's an additional few to give an idea. Admittedly I haven't read all of his stuff, but feel many topics are still relevant today and do plan on reading at some point.
The Hidden Persuaders (1957) - about the advertising industry.
The Status Seekers (1959) - about social stratification and behavior.
The Naked Society (1964) - about how new technologies create threats to privacy. Seems one people here particularly would be interested in.
Our Endangered Children (1983) - about how America ignored the needs of future generation.
Started my account here on SN and plan on sharing some of my thoughts on bitcoin related topics. Wrote my first post last night on PoW vs PoS. Will try to write another one later this week, maybe talking about wanting something for nothing.
What happens if a coin-join round "fails'?
I like that metaphor: it's the difference between being at a lecture (on the good end) or a wedding and there's some dude sitting across from you droning on and on (on the bad end); and being in an actual conversation. There's value in getting broadcast at, but it's a very different kind of value.
Thought experiment of two alternate-reality SN variants:
It seems like if you were hell-bent on one of these cases, you'd do different things. I don't know what the differences would be, but the two realities seem distinct enough to warrant different approaches, though I couldn't back up that intuition right now.
It stops me from doom scrolling on X. Plus SNL brings a comedic approach to bitcoin news. It’s not about fed rates or recycling the same ol guests that go on all the popular/influencer bitcoin podcasts.
Lastly I get to interact with bitcoiners. I get to zap sats which help kick start the circular economy share my ideas and opinions with other stackers and exit the fiat madness I find myself in every day.
I like Phoenix, you just gotta know to make a big enough channel to be reasonable for a spending wallet that you think you'll never exceed and then from there you don't pay that 1% again (unless the channel closes for some reason)
The best is a natural birth at the hospital.
I have several kids. My wife gave pretty natural births (no c-sections, no special procedures), but at the hospital. People do not realize that if everything goes well, the hospital staff does not get involved that much.
But in case something goes wrong, you have all the tech, staff on call, etc. to save you and the life of your child.
During the second birth, our baby got stuck a bit and the midwife had position my wife in a way to allow the baby to get out. I can’t imagine dealing with this at home alone.
Sure you can have a midwife at home, but why risk it?
None of this is guaranteed and I'm not promising it will happen. But it's a very real threat and risk and something that needs to be taken seriously. We have already seen wallet of Satoshi & Exodus wallets pull out of the US over regulatory fears, meaning custodial bitcoin wallets themselves might not even be a real option. You cannot transact/deposit/withdraw with an ETF. Hopefully this post was clear and helpful, I might have gone on a bit haha. And thank you for the comment and your interest! :D Stay humble, stack sats in self custody and don't choose voluntary ossification.
Vance Packard - Waste Makers wrote about planned obsolescence back in 1960.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Makers
He was a man far ahead of his time when you look at some of the topics he wrote about. Here's an additional few to give an idea. Admittedly I haven't read all of his stuff, but feel many topics are still relevant today and do plan on reading at some point.
The Hidden Persuaders (1957) - about the advertising industry.
The Status Seekers (1959) - about social stratification and behavior.
The Naked Society (1964) - about how new technologies create threats to privacy. Seems one people here particularly would be interested in.
Our Endangered Children (1983) - about how America ignored the needs of future generation.
The Ultra Rich, How Much is Too Much (1989)