arcticorangutan
Arctic Orang-Utan

I write short pieces about meditation, movement and money daily. If a few readers feel inspired or a little more awake as a result, I'm satisfied; Paxos; Bitcoin and ⚡️ node runner

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npub1lem4kp0fmrqada46zdns53w42pxj79xlgwq4m3fyy0j09mrza6hqh3y3sy

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Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0ua6mqh5a3swk76apxec2gh24qnf0zn058q2ac5jz8e8ja33watskpkja9

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npub1lem4kp0fmrqada46zdns53w42pxj79xlgwq4m3fyy0j09mrza6hqh3y3sy

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Last Notes

2024-06-25 18:29:01

It's good to be back on #nostr after a little leave of absence!

2024-06-25 18:28:21

My favourite quote of the day comes from my seat neighbor at a Maryleborne Café this afternoon:
“The only thing that graduating from Central Saint Martins [a prestigious London arts and design school] has given me is ADHD”
This is an equally funny and insightful statement. Too often do we treat mental disorders as something intrinsic, rather than something inflicted on us by our circumstance.
It’s an important distinction. If ADHD is something intrinsic, then we need to treat the symptoms. And we do. For many children and from a young age. With amphetamines.
If instead we recognize it for what it is: a condition delivered to us by a very unnatural environment, then we create a possibility and a responsibility: A possibility to actually address the root causes of ADHD and many other conditions instead of creating more problems by drugging our children. And a responsibility for all of us to change the environment we live, study and work in.
https://m.primal.net/Ixfy.png
Marc Chagall’s “I and the Village” (1911)

2024-06-03 08:43:54

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the comparison to bitcoin keys is flawed. Even if you lose your bitcoin keys, you usually have a backup and can transfer it to another amount.
The same is not true for your nostr identity. Once it’s compromised you can never transfer it elsewhere.

2024-06-02 12:17:11

Psychedelic movies
Movies are amazing. They can change how we see the world over the course of 2 hours.
To do so, it has to be a movie that takes us out of our comfort zone. If your comfort zone is a circle with radius r=0, this is not difficult to achieve.
However, if the movie is in a whole different orbit than your heliocentric comfort zone it may miss the mark.
So the art is in picking a movie that is far enough out there to influence you in a meaningful way, but not too far to be obtuse.
Below is my selection of great movies on scale of 1 (mainstream psychological) to 5 (psychedelic):
Mainstream Psychological:
The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)
Fight Club (David Fincher)
Psychological Mystery:
Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Iconoclastic:
Contempt (Jean Luc Godard)
Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Existentialist:
Pierrot le Fou (Jean Luc Godard)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper)
Psychedelic:
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Mallick)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
https://m.primal.net/IVvE.png

2024-05-30 19:16:24

Technique is everything:
This may not be news to most but when it comes to exercise, technique is everything.
I used to not pay too much attention to this. My approach was to perform an exercise by meeting its general criteria and increasing the number of repetitions over time.
Squat? Lower my upper body while keeping my heels on the floor, done.
Downward facing dog? Hands on the floor, feet on the floor, lift the hips and try to approach the floor with the heels, done.
Rowing? Just pull the oar towards you and push it away by using both legs and arms, done.
Over time I realized there is much more to every exercise I’m engaging in. In fact there is a whole internal landscape to be explored. Small feelings and sensations that deserve attention and that can make all the difference when it comes to performing an exercise efficiently and safely.
An exercise not done with the correct technique is an exercise not worth doing. In fact, it may be counterproductive in the long run as bad habits eventually accumulate and cause injuries.
https://m.primal.net/IStK.png
Helmut Newton’s “Lisa Taylor and Jerry Hall” (1975)

2024-05-24 20:32:44

@npub1sg6…f63m Just downloaded Tidal for iPhone (13 mini). The app is not starting.

2024-05-23 23:18:39

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I honestly think "Sapiens" is a brilliant book. I'm surprised he so badly misunderstands Bitcoin

2024-05-23 23:18:01

Market makers attempting a final shake-out before moom...

2024-05-17 14:55:41

The most pressing concern wrt to #Bitcoin at the moment is unaudited Bitcoin on exchanges…
There are only two solutions:
- Creating awareness of importance of moving BTC into self custody
- Incentivizing exchanges and ETFs to provide proper audited proof of reserves (and liabilities)

2024-05-15 20:57:26

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Yep and Ozempic is a train wreck waiting to happen

2024-05-15 17:46:37

I’m sure this is a great interview but I just want to stress:
I don’t like this talk of banking failures. I don’t think this seems very likely in the US. They let SVB and Silvergate fail because it was a somewhat welcome development.
They will never let any of the major banks fail. The risk has now shifted to US sovereign creditworthiness which could be much more difficult to predict in terms of how it plays out.
I know a banking system collapse would be welcome but we shouldn’t hold our breath for it.
#note1x6k…08rz

2024-05-14 13:54:55

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No Fiat eggs baby

2024-05-14 12:58:17

Coping vs. Thriving
A while ago I decided that in my life I want to thrive, not cope.
Since then I’ve been very sensitive to areas in my life where I’m coping.
I define coping as resorting to compulsory behavior in order to manage a situation. This can be at the level of an addiction but it can be as minuscule as a morning coffee. If the morning coffee is not being enjoyed but is an unconscious necessity to get out of bed, it’s coping.
In that case I ask myself the question: “What is it about the way my life is currently oriented, that I need this in order to cope?”
Sometimes a solution is easily accessible and coping can be replaced with thriving. In other cases, it requires real patience and dedication. It’s worth it.
https://m.primal.net/IGcu.png

2024-05-13 22:49:57

The future is bright:
Let me put on my utopian hat for just a second.
Artificial Intelligence is about to deliver incredible productivity gains to humanity.
The rise of Bitcoin as a global immutable currency will reign in the irresponsible use of our wealth and distribute it to those who genuinely contribute to society.
And in the midst of all of this humanity may be on the brink of its next evolution from a contracted, ego-centric consciousness to one of awake awareness.
Let’s focus our energy on these bright lights on the horizon.
https://m.primal.net/IGUh.png

2024-05-08 18:04:49

Hearing the beating of my heart:
I once spent an extended period practicing Zazen in the Japanese Zen monastery Antaiji.
At one point during my stay, each of the residents of the monastery had to give a 20 minute lecture on their experience in Antaiji or some Zen writing that had touched them.
One of my most memorable moments occurred during one of these lectures. One of my fellows, a Japanese history student named Takeo, who was my age and who had arrived on the same day as me, was speaking about the reasons why he had decided to join the monastery.
Unlike me Takeo was not planning to stay for a couple of months. He had committed himself to becoming a monk. The reason, he said, was that he wanted to “hear the beating of my heart”. And as he said this, a tear rolled down his cheek.
In this moment I realized that he was not spewing the types of platitudes and cliches we grow accustomed to. Takeo meant what he said and to witness it was beautiful.
https://m.primal.net/IEfL.png

2024-05-07 14:41:03

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zapped!

2024-05-06 23:04:19

Why is it so much easier to follow someone you disagree with on #nostr?

2024-05-06 17:42:37

Aspirare:
Aspiration according to Merriam Webster: 1. a. : a strong desire to achieve something high or great.
In our culture the desire to achieve is arguably greater than ever. But the desire to achieve something high or great has gone missing.
The etymology of the word is from Latin “aspirare”, “to breathe upon”.
We’ve lost the art of breathing well and hence we’ve lost the art of aspiring, of breathing spirit into our actions.
Let’s relearn to breathe spirit into our actions and things will be good.
https://m.primal.net/IDtZ.png

2024-05-03 15:56:24

People should start to realize that #Bitcoin is highly correlated to expectations for global liquidity… and they’re going to print forever

2024-05-03 15:22:15

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haha nice one! thank you 😄

2024-05-03 12:59:06

Wisdom is the tolerance of cognitive dissonance:
I first heard this said by Josh Waitzkin, former chess prodigy and Tai Chi Chuan world champion and it stuck with me.
It is possible to verify this in one’s own experience. Wisdom is being able to hold two competing thoughts and recognizing that the true answer is never one-sided and never conceptual.
It can both be true that climate change is real and that the right response to it is not to try to reverse it. It can be true that the acts of Hamas were horrific and that Israel’s response is not justified. It can be true that Donald Trump’s presidency was a low point in American history and that one should not vote for Joe Biden.
In Zen, Koans are a way to resolve cognitive dissonance.
Every once in a while we should look at the world as if it’s a Zen Koan.
https://m.primal.net/ICiP.png

2024-05-02 23:17:20

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@npub1sg6…f63m Thank you. Your courage is truly inspiring!

2024-05-02 20:23:17

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wow this is a great insight

2024-05-01 17:53:03

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While we all like the sound of this, I think we may be overestimating the rationality of “everyone”. Neither #Bitcoin nor #nostr are just going to succeed

2024-04-30 18:52:26

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Don’t let it fool ya

2024-04-30 18:00:56

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Agree. I would argue Bitkey is a step in bringing decentralized tech to the mainstream.
But decentralized tech will always require the marginal user to rise to the challenge.

2024-04-30 15:35:36

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@npub1pyp…c0qq ?

2024-04-30 14:22:36

#Chess and stoicism:
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the humbling benefits of chess. In addition to humility, chess is a great teacher in stoicism:
Compare the post match interviews of football players (and most other athletes) with those of chess players and you’ll notice a striking difference. Football players are usually still emotional about the game and frequently feeling hard done by, whether by luck, refereeing or other conditions.
When watching chess players analyse their game, on the other hand, it is not rare that it is almost impossible to parse whether they won or lost. In fact, rather than talking about themselves, they will say things like “black’s position” or “white was very slightly worse”.
This is a masterclass in stoicism. Because their game does not leave room for subjectivity, it is essential for chess players to avoid redundant posturing or emotional outbursts which become a waste of energy.
Interestingly other sports seem to exist on a spectrum between emotionality and stoicism depending on the objectivity of the game. Tennis post game press conferences, for example are somewhere between those of chess and football when it comes to objectivity. Arguably the reason is that tennis is not quite as objective a game as chess, but luck and external factors play a much smaller role than in football.
Challenge me to a game!
https://m.primal.net/IBee.png

2024-04-29 22:12:41

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I love #nostr but I think the identity use case is overly ambitious. it's just too easy to irrevocably steal or lose a nostr nsec. As far as I understand once someone else has gained access to your nsec once, you can never recover your nostr identity for your exclusive use.

2024-04-29 17:58:55

Mysticism trumps orthodoxy:
Most religions nowadays don’t call themselves orthodox but they are: they want you to take at least some element of scripture literally and make believe that by following certain rules, you can obtain salvation.
A lot of the time this leads to confusion and conflict.
Wisdom and awakening can never be the result of submission to some relative belief. They are the result of direct recognition of the absolute, achieved through openness and authentic engagement with what is real in this moment. In other words, they require a unitive experience, a certain level of mysticism.
In fact, one might argue that every prophet, including Jesus and the Buddha are likely to have been mystics, men who were deeply in touch with the absolute.
And the bible, while it is hopelessly inapplicable to our life today when read literally, becomes a book of wisdom, when it is reclaimed through a mystical lense of openness.
https://m.primal.net/IBPv.png

2024-04-29 14:46:51

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A particular refined version of this is the music of Sean Angus Watson. Check him out on Youtube or Spotify

2024-04-28 13:50:10

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“read Ludwig van Mises 6 lessons… motherfuckers!” 😂

2024-04-26 23:18:57

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Brita is probably the most respected brand globally

2024-04-23 19:29:14

Collective action problems:
We are social animals that rely heavily on cues from others in order to make decisions.
As a result we are at the mercy of a peculiar dilemma: collective action problems. Collective action problems are situations in which everyone would be better off acting in a certain way, but they do not due to incentives born by the collective.
Jonathan Haidt recently introduced me to this sociological concept when describing why children excessively engage in social media. Overindulgence is not in any individual child’s personal interest but because all of their peers are connected via these networks, stepping away is costly.
Collective action problems can arise in any group but logically, the less reasonable and wise the collective, the more prevalent they become.
A couple of current examples:
- Individuals sacrificing their health by overexposing themselves to stress — in order to keep up with an increasingly frantic economy.
- A shortage of skilled workers in a society that celebrates higher education as as status symbol and insurance policy.
- Increasingly indebted individuals due to societal pressure to maintain status through consumption
https://m.primal.net/HzDE.png

2024-04-22 23:39:46

#nostr recently feels like it has reached escape velocity

2024-04-22 23:12:31

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Welcome! Please set up your Lightning Wallet so that you can receive zaps!

2024-04-22 11:29:34

In other words FUD is going to turn from a reactive phenomenon driven by the ignorant, to a proactive tool for price suppression
#note1nss…4z94

2024-04-22 11:28:04

When #Bitcoin hits 100k, the cat is out of the bag and everyone is going to “get it”.
With that we’re going to see a phase shift in which the promotion of Bitcoin is going to become secondary and the artificial suppression of the price by all kinds of actors is going to become the dominant dynamic.

2024-04-21 19:14:10

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The basic hypothesis between the sovereign individual is NOT that property rights are fundamental, it’s that incentives matter. And that these incentives are about to shift due to the rise of technology. Not sure what’s flawed about this argument.

2024-04-20 19:14:49

To think that Bitcoin is inevitable is Fiat hubris

2024-04-19 19:13:55

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@npub12vk…pugg for iPhone

2024-04-18 17:16:14

Pain is widely misunderstood or if it’s understood, the understanding is ignored.
Whenever my daughter gets vaccinated, the doctor wants to give her sugar water to distract her from the pain of the needle. Apparently, this is something that doctors now do.
This is based on a false understanding of pain. Pain is not something to be avoided, it’s a signal. A signal that something is wrong. By numbing or distracting from the pain, we’re desensitizing our children and habituating them to a disfunctional habit that we later try painstakingly to disengage adults from.
In fact our various recreational drugs, when used habitually all serve the purpose of numbing physical or psychological pain. And once such a habit has been built over years, it is very hard to drop.
Let me pre-empt two concerns with this view:
Chronic pain: If pain is chronic, there may be value in numbing it but this should not be done mindlessly and without first testing whether there is a way to truly address the root causes. The reason is that once you start numbing the pain, you may raise the bar for the identification and resolution of its causes.
Overwhelming pain: Of course I would not want to expose my daughter or anyone to pain that is so overwhelming that it causes trauma and further issues down the road. The definition here is subjective but I don’t think a needle sting belongs in this category.
Lastly, there is an inverse view of pain that I want to mention:
One meditation practice is to go into pain and to experience it fully instead of shunning it. This is a difficult but powerful practice because it allows us to realize that the pain is separate from its observer.
Loosening our identification with pain is the only way to live from a more powerful relationship with it and to avoid the pitfalls of destructive coping mechanisms.
https://m.primal.net/HwpU.png

2024-04-17 14:40:50

Ludwig van Mises and the UFC:
The times they are a-changin’.
In 2020, Russel Okung, Super Bowl Champion and then NFL offensive tackle of the Carolina Panthers, made some headlines by deciding to receive half of his salary in Bitcoin. At the time he started the trend #paymeinbitcoin which lost momentum in the wake of the FTX scandal and the ensuing crypto winter.
This week something more extraordinary happened: After winning his fight in the lightweight division of the UFC, Brazilian MMA fighter Renato Moicano announced: “I love America, I love the constitution […]. And let me tell you something: If you love your country, read Ludwig van Mises’ 6 lessons of Austrian Economics… Motherfuckers!”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sEln2ehGEEg?si=SNjK0N1gZTVI_lki
The last word rounds off a perfectly legitimate philosophical call-to-action from an unlikely source.
Ludwig van Mises was one of the most prominent proponents of the Austrian School of Economics and mentor of nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. The Austrian School emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism, the importance of individual preferences and choices, and the limitations of government intervention.
For all of these reasons it remains relevant today. However, I would argue the reason it is now finding its way into the mainstream in as extraordinary a way as the post-fight incantations of an MMA fighter, is for its view on inflation.
Inflation is and will continue to be a defining problem of our time.
And unlike our politicians, Austrian economists subscribe to the strict view that inflation is not a magical and baffling phenomenon but that it is always a result of monetary expansion.
Or in Friedrich Hayek’s more blunt words:
"I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflation engineered by governments for the gain of governments"
For these reasons, Bitcoin proponents have found a natural home in the theory of Austrian economics. In fact they argue that Hayek prophesied the rise and importance of Bitcoin as early as 1984.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tHO3cylCRM

2024-04-15 21:00:48

Self defeating assumptions:
It’s a habit of our culture to assume that when an aspect of our health has deteriorated, this must be a result of genetics or irreversible damage.
This is lazy and self-defeating. Of course, genetics are an important component of our physical health. But WHEN our genes may trigger a physical affliction is typically a function of choices we are making in our day-to-day life.
Of course some of the damage may be irreversible. But some of it may be reversed by taking responsibility and changing one’s lifestyle.
This dynamic is particularly notable where a large fraction of the population suffers from a disease and is reaching for quick fixes.
1 in 10 Americans now have Type 2 Diabetes. Even with this condition, you still commonly read that it is strongly tied to family history and genetics. Yet we all stem from about 300,000 generations of humans before us and I find it hard to believe that many of them dealt with Type 2 Diabetes as early in their lives as we do. We know that this condition is largely reversible and yet drugs seem to be the treatment of choice.
Nearly 30% of Americans are myopic. Did our ancestors really run around and constantly bump into trees? Or is there something about our choices that is contributing to this huge percentage? We may not be able to change our lifestyle completely but what can we change?
About 10% of the US population have a food allergy. This number has tripled since 1997. And yet, everyone I meet that has a food allergy seems to just take it for granted and show little interest in its underlying causes and potential reversibility.
There are many more examples. Every time I run into one of them my initial reaction is bewilderment followed by deep curiosity in what is actually. going. on.
https://m.primal.net/HvdZ.png

2024-04-15 19:13:58

Thank you for the likes and resposts!
If you'd like to test and train my humility, find me on chess.com:
https://www.chess.com/member/arcticbonobo
#note10kv…e4np

2024-04-15 16:39:43

@npub10vl…sp42 ‘s newsletter is one of the best in the space
#note1wxy…26uq

2024-04-15 13:51:26

Chess and humility:
There are few games to train in humility like chess.
With most other games you can blame luck or a plethora of other external factors on your inadequacy.
With chess, there is just you and complete information. There is no component of luck and there are no unknowns. In other words, there is little room for excuses.
Blundered a piece? Clearly not your best decision. Gave up a winning position? Hubris was your downfall. Ran out of time? You'll need to speed up your decision making.
As a result, those with a fixed mindset hate chess. If you don’t truly believe you can improve, you certainly don’t want to be shown the evidence of your ignorance on a regular basis.
However, if you have a growth mindset, there is no greater teacher because there is no game that exhibits your opportunities for growth as clearly and frankly as chess.
https://m.primal.net/HvUu.png

2024-04-10 14:44:15

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Agree with your pragmatic view. But I disagree with the premise of the original post: The Cantillon effect is not based on wealth inequality, it’s based on unequal access to newly printed money.

2024-04-10 14:43:31

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Exactly. The Cantillon effect is not based on wealth inequality, it’s based on unequal access to newly printed money

2024-04-10 14:37:30

Market is SELLING Bitcoin upon higher than expected US inflation data 😂 we’re still early

2024-04-10 14:21:37

Hard times ahead:
History moves in cycles (or a helix shape) propelled by the often quoted dynamic:
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times” (please use “women” interchangeably).
An increasing number of observers seem to believe that we’re at the end of this cycle, the fourth turning i.e. about to enter hard times.
If you want to stretch to see the silver lining in this dire outlook: there may be opportunities for acts of true heroism ahead of us. To birth the next generation of “strong (wo)men”.
https://m.primal.net/HtLo.webp

2024-04-09 22:37:05

Even the FT’s most lethargic commentators
are starting to put two and two together
https://m.primal.net/HtAJ.jpg

2024-04-08 11:01:25

As Bitcoin jumps above its previous all-time-high, I think we should all expect significant government intervention pretty quickly.
The signal from Bitcoin going to 100k is just too great for them to further ignore it and view it as a severe risk.

2024-04-08 09:38:37

short squeeze incoming

2024-04-04 22:18:33

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great stuff! Danke für’s Teilen!

2024-04-04 15:09:31

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Got it. do you think the optimal solution for an individual then is just to use custodial lightning wallets for small amounts and otherwise stay on-chain?

2024-04-04 15:02:08

A Process of Elimination
A while ago I wrote a post about the “Paradoxical benefits of subtraction”. I recently came across a quote by Tom Myers that applies this principle to movement and the body:
“I remain unsure to this day as to whether we can truly ‘add’ anything to a person. It’s debatable. We add information, we add sensation, we encourage experimentation in movement, but in fact the best structural bodywork is more of a process of elimination — a taking away of the tensions and holding that have been imposed by their accidents, traumas, training, and the heroes they emulated. We don’t want to ‘impose’ good posture on top of that accumulation of compensations but rather progressively decompensate them to ‘expose’ the essential individual within.”
This perfectly summarizes my own experience of my body.
I used to hold a lot of tension, making me feel highly inadequate in the first few Yoga classes I joined. Initially I thought that I had to add an understanding of postures or new movements to make my body more pliable.
Of course, the opposite was the case: It has been all about dropping tension and holding patterns through various practices. Today I still hold plenty of tension, but my body is infinitely more capable and flexible.
The reason this can be a a slow and difficult process, even after becoming conscious of this principle, is that we have to work against decades of habits and compensations.
It’s worth every second.
https://m.primal.net/HrJH.webp

2024-04-03 16:38:38

Psychosomatic Inquiry:
Everything we carry in our mind or broader experience is a reflection of some part of our body, we just may be unable to discern it.
Becoming increasingly conscious of this psychosomatic connection is a powerful way to resolve resistance or obstacles we encounter.
Once, at a meditation retreat with Peter Ralston, I told him that I was struggling with physical tension in my body and that this was preventing me from making progress during my meditation. He laughed, paused for a moment and then said: “Your body is your mind. They’re not separate”. While I had been convinced that my body was getting in the way of my mediation, the signals from my body or my resistance to them WERE indeed the meditation.
Conversely, seemingly psychological experiences are also experiences of the body, an insight best captured in Bessel van der Kolk’s seminal book “The Body Keeps the Score”.
One extraordinary therapist I recently reconnected with expressed this principle while he was studying my back: “Our front is what we show to the world. Our back betrays what the world has done to us”.
https://m.primal.net/Hqux.webp

2024-04-03 16:08:14

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That’s what I thought… Do you think we’ll get to a point where this makes more sense?

2024-04-03 14:24:23

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What’s been your average rate of return on that liquidity over the years?

2024-04-02 23:04:31

There is tremendous benefit in being with a teacher, therapist or coach in person.
This is easily forgotten when we have grown accustomed to the comfort of connecting online.
Being in person is beneficial because it facilitates an energetic transmission between teacher and student. It allows us to realize that our teacher is made of the same “stuff” as we are and consequently that whatever they are doing and whatever insight they have is accessible to us as well.https://m.primal.net/HqlM.webp

2024-04-01 14:41:05

Many of my posts make references to “people” or “society” usually referring to some of the detrimental habits of life and thought we have grown accustomed to.
This publication undoubtedly is contrarian but it is not misanthropic: It’s not out of a disdain for people that I write in this manner, it’s to highlight that I am convinced without the shadow of a doubt that the West is on a deeply troubled path.
But more importantly, what I want to point at is that believing in something better is not utopian, it’s realistic and the path there is completely accessible, even natural.
In fact, there seems to be a hierarchy of possibilities to be unlocked, for humanity to transcend its current trajectory:
1)Money — I debated whether money or consciousness should be in first place but I came to the conclusion that the former, in our current situation is even more important. The average person is not able to tap into greater consciousness while living in the current exploitative monetary system, which is causing significant economic and political distress. This is the reason why I view the introduction of sound money as humanity’s most urgent technological project, even before AI.
2) Consciousness — Once humanity is able to afford to live in more humane conditions (and yes, unfortunately this is referring increasingly to people in the West), the second most important project is stepping into a non-dualistic world-view. Descartes gave the West a great tool to accrue power, but his thinking also threw us into depression and anxiety. The movement toward Eastern practices of non-dualism has already begun but needs to be accelerated and broadened.
3) Health — I suspect that this third most important element of the next stage of human development will take care of itself as 1) and 2) are addressed. However, it’s worth calling out here, again, that our current view of human health is in a dead-end. What we need to embrace is a new paradigm of individual responsibility, holistic and preventative healthcare.
In other words, when you read these posts, my hope is that they can primarily feel aspirational, rather than judgmental.
https://m.primal.net/HqOi.jpg

2024-03-31 11:19:56

Is it correct that @npub12vk…pugg doesn’t have bookmarks?

2024-03-31 11:18:42

nostring from a plane right now… feels good

2024-03-31 07:40:00

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Haven’t had the chance to open it yet. Is BitKey multisig compatible with other devices?

2024-03-30 07:37:41

Almost every optimal state in matters of human affairs is characterized by balance.
Balance of new and tried-and-true. Balance of stress and relaxation. Balance of haste and slowness. Balance of order and chaos. Balance of discipline and creativity.
Therefore, in any debate or argument, you can recognize a bad take by its one-sidedness.
https://m.primal.net/Hphu.jpg

2024-03-30 06:34:58

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I once attended a writer’s retreat in Iceland with Paul Murray. He was a scintillating lecturer

2024-03-28 11:06:02

The danger of quick fixes in human health:
The way our society has learned to approach health is through quick fixes.
There’s a simple and logical reason for this: Quick fixes generally alleviate the immediate symptoms a person is struggling with. And our healthcare system is primarily incentivized to alleviate symptoms.
Future consequences are exponentially less relevant to a pharmaceutical company or a doctor. This is because we simply have a very poor understanding of long term cause and effect in the human body. As an example, it’s just very hard to know what unique combination of genetics and external stressors have caused cancer in an individual.
If you build a house and the house collapses 10 years later, it’s still relatively easy to investigate who the culprit was and to hold them accountable. This level of accountability is difficult with a complex system like the human body and exponentially more so the further in the future the consequences.
Whether consciously or not, our system has internalized this principle.
Doctors simply do not have the time to really worry about the holistic health of their patients, they are incentivized to see as many patients as possible, relieve their symptoms and not kill them in the short term. And they do not have time to question whatever new treatment science funded by big pharma has most recently been recommended to them.
In brief: Your wish to live a long and healthy life is not aligned with the incentives of the system. Awareness of this problem is the first step towards a solution.
https://m.primal.net/HpCk.jpg

2024-03-26 09:57:25

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It’s called price differentiation. You don’t have to know directly how wealthy someone is, a lot of people will signal this themselves, if you offer the right product variants. e.g. Premium version that only offers marginal advantages over the Standard version.
As long as it stays at that level, it’s actually beneficial to the economy as it drives higher profitability and hence a more optimal distribution of goods and services.
It becomes a problem, of course, if the wealthy are no longer even given the option to opt for the standard product, e.g. imagine forcing the wealthy to take business class (which offers much more value than economy class but arguably not nearly as much as the relative price difference)

2024-03-26 01:30:23

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…is.

2024-03-26 01:28:51

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Yeah, I mean looks like even some of the people who were pitching BTC to the mainstream still live in some make-belief/magical world where they don’t understand it.
Bitcoin is so clear, so transparent and yet it’s still elusive to many because of how strong the Fiat delusion.

2024-03-26 01:25:01

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We’re much earlier than I had thought… wow

2024-03-25 18:20:30

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Willkommen bei nostr!

2024-03-25 11:55:33

Feeling embodied:
I used to live in my head, I didn’t know another way.
Living outside of it can still be intimidating, but I am now increasingly familiar with an embodied experience of life.
So much so that I feel a lack when I’m back to my (over)thinking ways.
One way this still happens is on long-haul flights. There is something naturally ungrounding about being in the air and airplanes add to this through other artificial factors: highly processed or preserved food, bad air quality and visual entertainment overkill.
I can feel my energy creep up into my head during the course of a flight.
Getting back to ground can take days. Yoga, breathing exercises and good food are some of the easiest ways to put down roots again.
Increasingly though, I’m looking not just for remedies after the fact, but for ways to stay here independent of obstacles thrown at me.
https://m.primal.net/HoJl.webp

2024-03-25 10:38:02

Everyone should just recognize that libertarianism is the only reasonable form of politics.
It’s ok to be left or right of center, but at least recognize that you’re there not because you’re right, but because you care primarily about yourself.

2024-03-25 08:47:07

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haha great summary. Haven’t listened to the podcast yet but sounds about right :)

2024-03-24 10:28:29

My favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quote is:
“Who you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear a word you are saying.”
The idea that we ultimately ought to judge people by who they are, not by what they are saying, portraying or displaying outwardly deeply resonates with me.
One expression of this, in my opinion, is to avoid overindulging in credentials.
Credentials are superficial. While one personally may be linking an experience or memories to them, using them to posture is superficial and ultimately misleading.
Those who overuse their credentials for status, often seem to be insecure overachievers. Often they don’t have enough trust in the substance of their being to do without external accolades.
Credentialism is tempting because sometimes it can promise shortcuts, but the reliance on external validation risks disconnecting us from our authentic selves.

2024-03-21 23:39:51

Looking forward to playing around with bitkey CC @npub1sg6…f63m
https://m.primal.net/Hmyh.jpg

2024-03-21 23:38:51

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same here!

2024-03-21 23:38:19

Loving the diversity of new joiners on #introductions!
Please don’t be shy about posting about other things than #nostr and #bitcoin!

2024-03-21 13:44:48

Just received my @npub1tcn…ctu0
https://m.primal.net/Hmyh.jpg

2024-03-21 11:38:19

People talk about the free market economy as if they are intimately familiar with it. They aren’t.
A system in which the words of one government bureaucrat are the single most important predictor of the price of assets and goods is not a free market economy.
https://m.primal.net/Hmwr.jpg

2024-03-20 18:39:36

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Sick! Where can I find Seeker and “Find me on nostr”?

2024-03-20 14:15:07

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Well presented, thank you! This will be very big!
What % of BTC holdings to LINER do you currently consider reasonable and why?

2024-03-20 13:55:26

WAR IS A RACKET
There are a few pieces of writing that are modern beyond their age. One that comes to mind is Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”, which reads like a self-help book written 2, not 2000 years ago. Another is George Orwell’s 1984, which is prescient in its description of mass surveillance and big data, although it was published only a few years after WWII.
Another extraordinarily modern piece of writing is General Smedley Butler’s pamphlet “War is a racket”. Butler was a US Marine Corps General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. “War is a racket” was published in 1935 and mostly pointed to his experience and cautionary tales from World War I.
Butler starts off by saying:
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. […] It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
This is as true today as it was then and it is all the more shocking that our public discourse - most recently in the case of the war in Ukraine or even in the Middle East - still treats war as something that our governments wage for reasons related to justice, nobility or our safety.
“Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and ‘we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,’.
Look no further than the fortunes being made in Russia, Ukraine, the US and Europe to understand the real reasons for this war and why it’s still ongoing. If you think the people at the helm and their lobbyists want this war to end, think again.
“[…] fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.”
Who’s paying the bill? First and foremost those leaving their lives on the battlefield and their families.
“In our government hospitals are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.”
And then… way less importantly, we are all paying. All our purchasing power is being diluted and redirected into the pockets of the beneficiaries, by governments funding these wars through money printing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a blue-eyed pacifist who believes Putin should not be resisted. But let’s call the means of resistance for what they are: The means are selected not to find solutions, not to reduce the number of casualties. They are selected to create another forever war and to fill the pockets of those running this racket.
The only thing that is not modern about Butler’s pamphlet is that it was written by a (former) insider criticizing the establishment and yet he was neither locked away nor forced into exile.
Next time you hear mainstream media propaganda about the evil enemy, alleged war progress or sanctimonious moral statements from our leaders, think of General Smedley Butler:
“TO HELL WITH WAR!”
https://m.primal.net/HmjE.jpg

2024-03-19 12:32:58

Aspirational movie scenes
Some of the best movies leave us in a state of aspiration. They make us feel there is something more to life than we had so far been aware of and, importantly, that this new something is accessible to us.
One surprising way some movies inspire me, personally is when you have a character, who after encountering some important moment in her life, is shown just sitting or standing still — often with a cigarette — pondering or contemplating what has just happened.
The reason I find this inspiring (or almost unrealistically romantic) is because most of us actually never take a moment to sit still and consider important events in our lives. We just go on to distract ourselves.
So when I see such a scene, I try to embody the experience of the character for a moment and I try to remind myself what it feels like to really. slow. down.
https://m.primal.net/HmPo.webp

2024-03-18 21:10:00

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💯 About a year ago I wrote this post about what makes Novak special comparing him to Ayn Rand’s fictional character Howard Roark:
https://open.substack.com/pub/soirbleu/p/djokovic-roark?r=o7r8l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

2024-03-18 12:50:24

The revered Indian sage Ramana Maharshi attributed his extraordinary insight and liberation to a simple question: “Who am I?”
This self-inquiry, if contemplated with openness and intent, can lead to a recognition of our true nature.
During meditation retreats, I have asked this question 1000s of times, usually in the form of diades: You’re facing another person and they prompt you with the question: “Experience who (or what) you are and communicate that to me”. You then go on to communicate your experience of self for 5 minutes, then the tables are turned.
For the first many times of doing this, I was prompted with the question and immediately my habitual thinking mind became active and tried to answer the question in some cerebral way: “I’m Daniel, born in Germany. I’m human. I’m a curious person…”.
There is no limit to the number of things your mind will come up with to answer a question like this.
Over and over the teacher would ask us to actually be open to what the answer might be, to actually look for what we are… in our experience right now. Not through intellectual hearsay, but through direct recognition.
One day, in between sessions I went for a walk, my mind finally capitulated and suddenly there was a very new, an almost inverted view of self and the world. I was no longer Daniel, up here in my head but I was one with everything: one with the soft breeze in the warm Texan air, one with the sounds of the cicadas and of shoes on gravel, one with my body but not limited to it.
Before this day, I had a subtle suspicion that Ramana Maharshi and many other wise men and women before him, were onto something. On this day any last doubts were erased.
https://m.primal.net/HmCk.webp

2024-03-15 14:45:40

Throw on your tinfoil hats
In her masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged”, Ayn Rand describes a society in economic decay with widespread business failures, decreased productivity and shortages. In the book this decline is exemplified by accidents in the US railroad system and the fictional railroad company Taggart Transcontinental.
If you’re looking for early signs of the decline of the US economy beyond fiction, look no further than Boeing. Boeing, and particularly its 737 MAX plane, have had numerous issues and accidents in the past with this last week marking a new wave of incidents.
A lenient interpretation is that these incidents are still marginal in the greater scheme of Boeing airtaffic and that the company merely needs to refocus on engineering quality over profitability.
More scrutiny, however, seems to suggest that the US government is failing to regulate air safety and that this is one of many prominent examples of regulatory capture and the revolving door between many US industry giants and their regulators.
In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) has over recent decades introduced a practice of delegating some of its inspection functions to Boeing’s own engineers. Design issues with the 737 MAX, which was rushed into production to compete with Airbus’ new A320neo, were known and documented but arguably glossed over by F.A.A. oversight (more here).
The part of the story where we should throw on our tinfoil hat is where John Barnett, a former Boeing quality-control-manager-turned-whistleblower was found dead by apparent suicide two days ago. This happened a couple of days before Mr. Barnett was scheduled to give legal interviews linked to his whistleblower retaliation case against Boeing.
In the words of the Charleston officials: “No detail can be left unturned”.

2024-03-14 12:21:13

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one would hope

2024-03-13 16:25:11

Starting to get the first random private LinkedIn messages from very old acquaintances on whether they should buy #Bitcoin

2024-03-12 19:33:27

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We agree there. I just think that the new equilibrium may be much smaller states with much less power to issue Fiat at will

2024-03-12 19:07:18

what do you all thing is the best angle to convert ETF holders to self-custody?

2024-03-12 12:15:50

Separating money from state
On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the doors of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, initiating the heretofore elusive separation of church and state.
On October 31, 2009 the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin Whitepaper, initiating the heretofore elusive separation of money and state.
The date Satoshi chose for his publication is no coincidence, he was evidently a student of history and well aware of the parallels between his and Luther’s discoveries.
Not only was the Protestant Reformation a process of emancipation from the dictatorial regime of the most powerful institution in the world at the time, the Catholic church. It was also a process of decentralization: Luther told his followers that they could reach salvation without the need for mediation by priests and without the need for rituals or indulgences.
Today, the movement around Bitcoin is in the process of emancipating us from the oppressive regime of central banks and the banking system. Like the protestant reformation, one of its central theses is one of decentralization: Participants do not need permission from a central entity to transact value with each other.
The implications of this are as subtle and yet profound as those of the reformation. Like the reformation, the power shifts triggered by the invention of Bitcoin will undoubtedly lead to crises and potentially even wars.
Today Bitcoin is trading at a new all-time high. As it continues its seemingly inevitable rise, look out for people from the old system yelling, kicking and screaming as an indication that tectonic power shifts are occurring before your eyes.
https://m.primal.net/HkBI.webp

2024-03-10 19:19:54

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This is correct. However, there is no complete map you the territory the bible is trying to point at. It’s always going to be hearsay and conjecture… the true territory of consciousness and life can only be experienced for oneseld

2024-03-09 17:45:44

In 2017 I turned 18 and bought $1000 worth of Apple stock. I remember thinking I was a genius when my “investment” tripled in a relatively short period of time.
In my naïveté about markets, I used the opportunity to sell.
ChatGPT did the math and those shares, if I had held on and after accounting for stock splits, would be worth $350,000 today!
Except, in fact Chat GPT was hallucinating. The correct value today of $1000 invested in Apple Stock in 2007 is somewhere closer to $37,000, depending on the exact purchase date and whether one accounts for dividends. What ChatGPT seems to have gotten wrong is that it did account for stock splits, but it did so with a 2007 price that was already historically adjusted.
So this is a post about the power of compounding in investments and one lesson is that if you have a high conviction bet, you should not let your profits lure you into selling or trying to trade.
However, this is equally a post about remaining cautious about the output from LLMs. They present their results confidently and articulately and they can be extremely useful, but they often still get simple things wrong… resulting in potential orders of magnitude of errors.https://m.primal.net/HjJS.jpg

2024-03-08 14:24:08

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That's awesome. I was just in Nosara and asked quite a few vendors whether they accept #bitcoin. Most didn't really seem to take the question seriously.
Looks like great progress, but still more work to do.

2024-03-08 14:12:01

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Thank you @npub1lrn…qnw5. There seems to be some bug with primal...

2024-03-08 14:11:27

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Thank you for inspiring my post from today @npub10p5…00zw . Is there a recording of @npub1lun…27lj 's talk somewhere?

2024-03-08 14:07:26

@npub12vk…pugg I can't seem to post a note that references another note (with the "note:" notation). Any idea why? I'm on MacOS