Before Bitcoin existed, the U.S. government decided that strong encryption was a weapon.
In 1991 a man named Phil Zimmermann wrote a program called PGP and gave it away for free, so ordinary people, not just governments and banks, could send a message no one else could read. Soon after it spread beyond U.S. borders, the Customs Service opened a criminal investigation. The charge they were chasing: exporting munitions without a license. The munition was math.
The investigation lasted three years. Zimmermann's answer was perfect. He published PGP's entire source code as a book through MIT Press, because the government can restrict exporting a weapon, but it cannot restrict exporting a book. Code is speech. In early 1996 they dropped the case without filing a single charge.
That fight is why Bitcoin can exist. The right to run cryptographic software you control, to hold a key the state cannot pry open, was won by people like Zimmermann years before Satoshi wrote a line of code.
Self-custody is just encryption applied to your money. Same math. Same right. Same fight.
Hold a key no government can open, and you are standing exactly where he stood.
Principles don't stop existing because people violate them.
Property rights, free speech, and justice are principles, not descriptions of reality.
"If it isn't perfectly implemented, it isn't real" isn't an argument against capitalism.
It's an argument against having principles at all.
@mentorstrophy@RockChartrand@grahamformaine The only way that power is "wielded by the private sector" is if the shitbag politicians that people keep electing *sell that power* that people were stupid enough to give them in the first place.
THE. PROBLEM. IS. THE. GOVERNMENT.
@ick_real A mortgage means you own a house and owe a debt.
Communism means the state decides whether you can own the house at all.
Those aren't remotely the same thing.
It’s really simple.
You are completely free to think some men are actually women, to shag whoever you want, and to use whatever words you think best describe your ‘movement’.
Others are completely free to counter that men aren’t ever women, that sexuality is not only personal but political, that words matter, and that “queer” is a slur.
You don’t have any ‘authority’ to try and exclude GOATS like @BevJacksonAuth from the gay rights movement.
Respect your elders, and leave lesbians alone.
@MblingBrdFrk@dotkrueger No, I actually do both, including pooled mining with my own template and choices, AND solo with other hardware that cooks off excess solar energy.
How about you? What do you run for a node and hashing HW?
@MblingBrdFrk@dotkrueger I actually do a combination of DATUM and solo mining, so wrong again.
Do you actually do anything productive yourself, or is it all just stuffing fucking spam into things you don't understand to the detriment of others?