Unless @Apple's decision to terminate @craigraw's Apple Developer account is reversed by June 30, all new installs of Sparrow will fail, and development on macOS will end. If you value Sparrow, a repost would help. @AppleSupport
“Why don’t libertarian ideas ever catch on?”
The answer is: most people are stupid.
In a libertarian society, stupidity is punished at the individual level. Under statism, stupidity is cushioned & the costs are redistributed collectively.
Bad loan? Bailout. Bad diet? Regulate the food. Bad investment? Print more money. In other words, the state rewards the stupid, and because the state makes stupidity less costly, people indulge in more of it.
Lbertarianism is a hard sell because it offends the fundamental instinct of most people: the desire to be protected from their own retardation.
I think we shouldn't get sucked into the distracting technical debate about OP_RETURN -- there is a principle that's at stake:
Do not make meaningful changes that nearly all users are against, for debatable marginal benefit, EVEN IF it's "better" technically.
That's not your place, nor your role, open source developer.
Satoshi gave Bitcoin to humanity so we all own it. You are putting your speech on OUR PROPERTY; you are a steward, not the boss.
As people migrate away to other versions, it becomes clearer to see that the consensus rules are no longer in the Bitcoin Core code as they once were (reference implementation). They are now in all our nodes, all agreeing with each other's DNA expression, with the resulting phenotype being the timechain.
To come to understand this, consider if Bitcoin Core changed the consensus rules unilaterally - that can't change what all the users run, where the true rules are.
And so, the more diversification away from Core, the less of a central point of failure/attack it becomes, and the better for Bitcoin.
Everyone should celebrate the reduction of Bitcoin Core as the first choice of Node flavour.
Core groupies are spending all day on Twitter fighting... but why? Why do they care? Why are they seemingly so coordinated? It would far more natural a response to not care and let people run what that want to run. Something is fishy about the behaviour.
Three standout realities of the last five years.
1) Dystopian-level totalitarianism descended on most of the world, complete with enforced and universal solitary home confinement, extreme censorship, and the crushing of commercial and religious freedom, ending in the force administration of a dangerous genetic/toxic injection created by the military and marketed as a cure.
2) Only a tiny number of prominent voices of any establishment public or private publicly objected; those who did were often punished with professional disgrace and job loss; to date, no one has been held accountable in any form.
3) Open discussion of this horror is still considered impolite and even this post would still be banned in most mainline social media.
What do the hill tribes of Southeast Asia, who successfully evaded states for two millennia, have in common with modern cypherpunks with their cryptocurrencies and encryption? Both groups understood something that escapes most of us: liberation doesn't come through political struggle, but through strategic invisibility. When the costs of control become higher than the revenue from it, states make a rational decision – they withdraw. In the article "Running for the (Digital) Hills," I reveal time-tested strategies for escaping state control and show how digital tools amplify the same patterns that have worked for millennia. The hills are calling – whether real or cryptographic.
https://t.co/OivGAravAE
O nesmyslu jménem Čtyři selhání trhu jste již zřejmě slyšeli někde ve škole. Vsadím se ale, že následující vám dosud tajili!
🏛 Čtyři selhání státu
Proč stát selhává prakticky v čemkoli, na co sáhne. Sdílejte, než to smažou! 🤪
👇🧵
One of the worst ideas in modern education is that you learn by asking questions.
The most effective way to actually learn it to SHUT UP & READ & LISTEN.
The vast majority of learning happens in the zone where a newbie has no useful or important input. People should be taught to listen to a teacher formulate a complex chain of reasoning and follow it and understand it fully. Instead, we have generations that cannot muster the self-control to listen to new information for more than 2 minutes without indulging in the narcissistic fiction that the first brain fart that occurs to them needs to be vocalized in order for them to learn.
A manifesto for MEGA: Make Europe Great Again 🇪🇺
Dear EU bureaucrats,
We're done.
• Done with your excessive regulations.
• Done with your anti-tech stance.
• Done with your degrowth mindset.
• Done with your socialist policies.
• Done with your woke bullshit.
• Done with your risk-averse attitude.
It's time to Make Europe Great Again.
→ Celebrate Entrepreneurship
We've grown complacent—taking centuries of progress for granted, as if new technology comes to us on a silver platter.
We're stuck in a local maximum, blind to how much better things could be if we allowed free markets to lead the way.
We're driving away our entrepreneurs with pointless red tape and silly taxes on unrealized gains.
This has to STOP.
Entrepreneurship should be encouraged and celebrated.
→ Embrace Technology
Technology is the frontier of the future, but we're mere spectators on the global stage—not pioneers.
This is not due to a lack of talent. Europe is home to a world-class talent pool.
The problem? We’ve made it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to thrive here.
Worse still, we’ve forgotten that science and technology aren’t optional extras—they are the only tools capable of solving our most pressing problems. Actually, all problems.
It’s time to change course. Time to EMBRACE technology like our lives depend on it—because they kinda do.
→ Seize the Opportunity with the US
Trump and Musk are steering the US toward significant economic and technological growth, and potentially making humanity a multiplanetary species.
Meanwhile in the EU, we're busy clicking on cookie banners.
The courage and determination of the US are the spirit we need to rekindle at home.
Right now, we have a rare opportunity to restructure Europe, follow in the footsteps of the US, and make the West stronger.
We need our own @DOGE to undo the nonsensical regulations and cut wasteful spending.
Repeal GDPR. Repeal MiCA. Repeal DMA. Repeal the AI Act. Repeal the other baloney regulations.
→ Rediscover Our Roots
It's a shame that the land that gave birth to the Enlightenment—a beacon of reason, freedom, and innovation—is dimming its own light.
We're hesitating on the brink of our potential.
The Enlightenment wasn't just a historical period; it was a mindset—a commitment to challenge, to question, and to advance.
We owe it to our forebears and ourselves to REIGNITE that flame.
"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom."
― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
→ Europe, Wake Up!
We must change our culture to one that is:
• Pro-progress
• Pro-tech
• Pro-entrepreneurship
• Pro-science
• Pro-freedom of speech
• Pro-free markets
• Anti-overregulation
We must also ensure that every immigrant who settles in Europe assimilates and adheres to these cultural values.
So here we are, standing at a crossroads.
Will we keep sleepwalking like zombies in a bureaucratic nightmare, or will we wake up, snap out of it, and reclaim our legacy of freedom and innovation?
The choice is ours. The time is now.
Make Europe Great Again!!!
This story of strangulation by over-regulation from @elonmusk about the government requiring @SpaceX to asses whether their rockets could potentially hit SHARKS and WHALES is side-splittingly hilarious. 🤣