Who are the Anti-vaxxers?
Even the most trusting of folks must have noticed that something is ‘slightly off’ with mainstream media of late. It doesn’t matter your particular political *tribe* (yes, *tribalism* is the sad reality now). The more the mainstream moans about bias, fake news and conspiracy theories, the more they themselves succumb to the very same.
Finding something resembling ‘the truth’ is no easy task. It requires time and effort. So much so that at one time we outsourced the entire task to a professional class called ‘journalists’ and would pay good money for their services. That was the good old days though. Now, getting to the truth sadly requires some homework.
If we swallow wholly what we are sold, we might believe that the Anti-vaxxers (yes, you spell it with XX’s now) are a loose alliance of alt-right conspiracy theorists. They propagate their misinformation on Telegram and other sites, which is also where they hatch their insidious terror plots, their motivations remaining unclear to rational human beings…
In an amateurish attempt at journalism I joined several of their groups. Partly this was to learn about their protests, which the BBC seemed barely to report at all on, but also to try and learn *who* they actually were.
No one is without bias, and I do not claim to be so. I have though tried to be as neutral as I can here.
Vaccine stance
The first thing I learned was that the name ‘anti-vaxxer’ is a misnomer. While it accurately applies to many of them, it does not represent them all. Many simply do not want the Covid-vax. They are not necessarily against the mumps vaccine, for instance. Some even have *had* the Covid-vax, but do not believe others should be coerced into taking it, much less lose their job over it. This no more makes you an anti-vaxxer than not eating veal makes you a vegan.
That said, some *are* what you would previously call an ‘anti-vaxxer’, that is, someone who is against *all* vaccines. Although, it worth noting, many of this sub-group seem to be ‘new’ anti-vaxxers. By this I mean the events of the past 18 months have pushed them to this extreme.
Politics
The alt-right accusation proved very misleading. Yes there were a few hard core racist types, but not necessarily any more than you would find on any uncensored platform. If ever these individuals would voice their prejudices then they would usually be either ignored or criticised by other members of the group. ‘Nazi’ is used as a favoured insult toward pro-lockdown politicians.
There were a few individuals who advocated violence, but these were in the minority and it was hard to determine if they were simply venting.
The largest political umbrella you could place these people under would be *anti-establishment*. There is nothing particularly right-wing about this. In fact, most of them seem to profess a strong anti-corporate stance which makes them come across as very left-wing.
The main point here is that they are NOT united by an over-arching political ideology. In fact, around half seemed to be made up of hippies (pro-organic, crystal healing, etc) and angry apolitical parents (mostly mums who didn’t want the jab for their kids).
Demographics
Violent terrorist groups tend universally to be predominantly young males. This was not what I saw in these groups. While it is sometimes difficult to determine gender, I would say there was roughly a 60/40%, or possibly an even, male/female split. As I mentioned above, many appeared to be fearful parents.
Their average age seemed to be significantly older than, for instance, the more favourably publicised climate-action groups.
Race is a difficult thing to tell online, but as far as I could see, the racial mix was either representative of the wider populace or possibly even more mixed. There were plenty of non-white thought-leaders that these groups would repeatedly reference and seem to hold in high regard. The point here being that any accusations of racial supremacist motivations are easily refuted.
They also seemed to be a higher than average Christian presence in the group, but the groups were not dominated by this view. I focused a lot on groups in the UK, as I am from there. The UK has a substantial Christian population of recent African or Afro-Caribbean origin, which seems to have a significant presence in these groups.
Scientific literacy
As with any social media, the least educated seem to be the most vocal. These groups were no exception. But that is not to say that this characterises the group as a whole. Yes, while insane conspiracies were frequently shared, so too were links to peer reviewed articles and sound statistics.
It seems they are struggling to understand what is happening. The mainstream narrative is not being supported by what they are seeing with their own eyes. As such, many of them seem to resort to extreme conspiracies in the absence of any better explanation.
So yes, conspiracy theories abound. This is true. But it is not accurate to say that the groups are motivated by these or that their cause is based solely upon them. Oddly enough, many of the conspiracy theories I saw shared were not specifically around Covid or even had any discernible connection with Covid. There were for instance occasional flat-earthers. These people would sometimes be ignored, sometimes mocked.
In general, they seem more inclined to trust *the-view-from-the-trenches*, rather than that of authority figures. e.g. they’ll sooner accept something said by a frontline nurse than someone like Fauci. This is not in itself ‘unscientific’, but because of the heavily institutionalised nature of science today, it can sometimes appear so.
Covid
Theories on Covid are a free for all, with the more extreme theories being the loudest. However, the claim that ‘none of them believe Covid is real’ is false. Many of them don’t, but many of them do. They debate the origins and severity as well as whether or not the vaccines are harmful, and to what degree. Sometimes these debates can be sources of fierce disagreement, but this does not seem to significantly divide the groups.
Conclusions
My most significant observation was that attempts to pigeon-hole this group in to a class of usual suspects e.g. the ‘alt-right’, is false. Not only that, anyone claiming this cannot have done any significant amount of research to reach their conclusion.
These groups, all of them, seem scared to one degree or another. Scared of persecution, scared that they’ll lose their job, scared of the police on their streets, scared that their kids will be forcibly injected, scared of ‘the way things are going’ or even scared of some absurd supernatural conspiracy.
The only things that unite and motivate these groups are exactly what they themselves claim. They oppose mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations. They oppose lockdowns. They oppose the loss of bodily autonomy. No more, no less. Whether or not you agree with them is a different matter, but if you choose to engage, disregard any labels you may have heard applied to them in the mainstream.
DYOR. https://t.me/freedomdirectory is one place to start as it included links to other groups.
An online gaming proposal for Bitcoin Cash
I used to be an avid player of Command & Conquer from EA Games. Then, my gf started pushing out babies and I had other things to distract me. Whether it was the Tiberium series, Red Alert, or Generals, the premise was the same; harvest resources to gain credits. Use these credits to build combatants to in turn destroy an opponent. Building defences, factories and units cost credits. So more credits = more units = victory!
Here’s the pitch:
2 or more players, playing a C&C *style* game online, live streamed. They talk you through what they are doing. You offer advice, encouragement and criticism via the live chat. They get excited, you have a laugh. It’s fun. Nothing new so far. But…
…they do not harvest resources, they just build units and defences. The credits are determined by live onchain donations of Bitcoin Cash sats to the players address. Let’s say, there are 2 players. You can donate to either. This will affects the outcome, along with the players skill. But…
…the sats of the loser are divided proportionally among those who donated to the winner (minus a 10% house fee).
So it’s game with high stakes. Potentially, very high stakes. It’d also potentially profitable. It's also potentially beneficial for BCH.
I must admit to being inspired by https://battleroyale.cash/ . I do not know if that will be a success. But i had fun playing it, and I think I understand what *Guyfawkesfp* is trying to do.
...The following gets a bit preachy, so feel free to ignore...
*There was a time when Bitcoin Cash tried to be everything. A coin for all seasons. Jack of all trades. In some senses it is. But the crypto space has moved on. It has become a fierce and ruthless jungle. Each coin must carve out its distinct cryptological niche or risk extinction. I know what some of you are saying ‘P2P cash for the world’. Amen brother, the only problem is, that ship has sailed a long time ago.*
*These purists would turn their noses up at the degen-gaming use case. Bitcoin Cash shouldn’t associate itself with this sort of thing. I disagree. A cheap n’ dirty cash-crypto is a noble vision. The digital equivalent of a scrunched up $5 bill. Let its dubious legality lead it into a game of cat and mouse with various authorities. Let 15 year old edge-lord wannabes bet ‘bcash’ on dodgy online game offs. Let righteous articles in The Guardian deride it’s unregulation. All of this is good. All of this is wonderful. All of this is what separates* ***real money*** *from CBDCs.*
What do you think? Would the gaming idea work? Is it already a thing? Are you up for making it happen? Let me know.
Why changing the block-time might be a fatal mistake for Bitcoin Cash
*The specter of changing the block-time refuses to go away. Below are 3 arguments why BCH switching to 1 minute blocks would be very bad. This is not necessarily an argument against 1 minute blocks in general, just against BCH switching at this point. Please steel-man them.*
Miner centralisation
At the point of writing this Antpool controls 54% of the BCH hashrate. 1 minute blocks would increase this, possibly to 100%.
Why?
Decreasing the block-time would increase the orphan rate. The cost of an increased orphan rate would be to the detriment of smaller miners, chiefly because a pool with 51%+ of the hash has zero incentive to choose another miners block in the face of a close tie, because they will always end up with the longest chain due to their majority hash.
So since smaller miners are now carrying 100% the cost of the increased orphan rate and the larger miner carries zero, it becomes more viable for smaller miners to direct their hash elsewhere and for the majority miner to continue with the captured chain. You end up with a single mining pool mining 100% of blocks.
You could argue that shorter blocks ‘smooth’ the mining reward distribution which should help smaller miners. This is true, but this alone does not negate the above argument. Smaller miners still bear the brunt of the orphan rate.
Alternatively you could point to other developments in block propagation which could mitigate the orphan rate (CTOR, Graphine, etc). If implemented, these may mitigate the issue, but that’s a big *if*. Also, they still will not negate this issue *completely*.
It's too late in the game for a block-time change
Block-time is too fundamental a thing to change *at this point*. Anyone who made a last will and testament style tx to activate at a particular block height would see these broken. Even if no such tx currently exist then changing something so fundamental at this point would deter anyone from ever making such a tx on BCH. You cannot build your castle on ever shifting sands.
Forkers gonna fork
Let us be honest with ourselves. Too controversial a change will lead to a fork war. Nobody wants that at this point, but we must be realistic. While the *ability* to fork is what makes a project truly permissionless, even the mere *prospect* of yet another fork might prove too exhausting for many in the community.
3 tips for protecting people from wrongthink
Don’t you just hate it when people hold a different opinion to you? I mean, who do these people think they are? Surely by now we all *know* which are the *correct* opinions? Why should the rest of us have to endure these stubborn contrarians *spreading* their scepticism and *infecting* our clean and sanitised minds?
Fortunately the *powers that be* have been working round the clock to provide us with solutions. There are a host of options on social media for us to block, report, snitch-on and fact-check any *wrongthinkers* we encounter online. Trusted media monopolies go out of their way to only give priority to stories and issues that support the *correct* narrative.
The problems arise when *wrongthinkers* become too numerous or too vocal to ignore. How can we keep them and their '*freedum'* rhetoric out of the public consciousness if they choose to take to the streets?
The following are 3 handy tips employed by our most trusted news agencies.
Ignore it anyway
It’s worth a shot. Do you know about the July the 3rd London anti-lockdown protest? Or how about the French anti forced-vaccination protest on July the 14th? If you rely on the BBC for your news you will have been unburdened by the knowledge of these disruptive events. The BBC made sure not to report on them, at least not to a long time afterwards. Instead we were treated to an important story on why we need to be told what to eat.
Make it ‘nazi’
In any crowd of a few thousand people, you are bound to get a few extremists. Make sure your story focuses on them. Take only pictures of the most overtly right-wing individuals in the crowd to make it look like they are *all* right-wing. Also, make sure your headline misframes and generalises their cause. For instance, people protesting against forced-vaccinations are now ‘anti-vaxxers’, irrespective of their opinion on vaccine in general or whether or not it is *only* the coercive aspect they object to. This way, you can easily make a pro-liberty crowd look like a bunch of *anti-science Nazis*
Focus on something else
Take a leaf out of The Guardian’s playbook. When there is more than one protest happening, photograph only the one that supports your narrative. Focusing on the *few hundred* extinction rebellion protestors allows you and your readers to safely ignore the *few thousand* anti-lockdown protesters who were also in London that weekend.
While the war against *independent thought* is far from won, with the help of the tactics described above we are slowly winning the battle against free speech and expression 🙃
Doge is a joke that can teach BCH a lot about marketing
Doge is a joke. That’s not me hating on Doge. Doge is great. But the premise of Doge is that it’s fun, it shouldn’t take itself too seriously, it should at least in part, *be a joke*. And yet it has proved to be a fantastically successful joke. Its market cap has surpassed that of all other jokes *ever* (I made that up, but can you disprove it?). In fact, its market cap has passed that of many non-jokes, like BCH. If there’s one thing we should take seriously about Doge, it’s what it can teach other cryptos about marketing.
BCH takes itself very seriously. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think it largely due to the fact that people who take crypto very seriously are often drawn to BCH. BCH was born out of contention. It stayed true to the *mission*. But one thing that should be apparent by now is that when it comes to winning over normies, ‘serious’ doesn’t cut it. It bores them. You can see them glazing over as you talk.
Where preaching about censorship-resistance, crypto-politics and good tech have failed, doggy memes have succeeded. Accept this. Embrace it, and learn to *use* it. BCH needs to be *more fun*. It needs more memes. Of course stuff like this needs to be organic. There is nothing more cringy than a manufactured meme that’s trying too hard (anyone remember the whole Bitshevik drama?).
Spend less time moaning about the failings of BTC and the lightning network and more time showing people how much fun crypto can be. Sneak the censorship resistance in when they’re not looking. No one is going to be won over because of you telling them why you think BTC has a flawed scaling solution. They are going to be won over because you photoshop a BCH logo on to a video of a goat headbutting a cow with Janet Yellens face on it.
This approach is quite well suited to BCH. Chaintip, read.cash, noise.cash and memo/member means we can reward the good memes when we see them. Let’s put the army of tip farms who seem to congregate here to work! You don’t need the coding skills of a programmer or the people skills of an adoption promoter. You just need a few sats worth of creativity, Memegenerator, and a sense of humour.
Article NFTs on read.cash?
Good idea? Bad idea? Already a thing?
The pitch
Basically, you should have the option of creating an NFT on BCH for an article you write on Read.Cash. If you choose this, then all earnings from that article go to the address holding the NFT. This way, you can sell your Read.Cash NFTs on something like juungle.net. The NFT token purchaser will then earn all subsequent tips received for the associated article. https://read.cash/@Read.Cash https://www.juungle.net/#/
The pros
An *actual use case* for NFTs!
It would encourage people to write *good* content on Read.Cash. https://read.cash/@Read.Cash
Some people are good at writing articles, some people are good at promoting them. It’s a different skill set. Let the writer write and then sell their article to the promoter who can promote it for the income.
I believe something like this could raise interest in Read.Cash and NFTs on BCH. https://read.cash/@Read.Cash
The cons
Could be technically challenging to set up?
Could it make things more gameable?
Could there be legal issues?
A Tale of Two Cities (part 1)
*Two cities, both alike in dignity, In fair Ancapistan, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.*
Vaxville
The citizens of *Vaxville* pride themselves above all upon their *responsibility*. This is their highest virtue. Whither their actions, through either first or second order effects, lead to the misfortune, or gods forbid, *death* of a fellow *Vaxvillian* is of the highest concern to these noble citizens. They consider their statistical longevity to be testament to their enlightened values.
Moshpitia
While the *Moshpitians* are by no means to be considered irresponsible, they pride themselves instead upon their *freedom*. To impinge upon the *freedom* of another *Moshpitian* is an unthinkable act, from which can only result the greatest of shame. While this can sometimes lead to a slightly decreased lifespan compared to their neighbouring *Vaxvillians*, this is generally agreed to be a price well worth paying for their unrestricted lifestyles.
Act 1
Despite their differing philosophies, the two cities have historically been at peace. Not only this, mutual trade has led to the prosperity of both. But alas, a great plague has risen in the land, infecting both citizens of *Vaxville* and *Moshpitia*. While neither city is in any doubt as to the virulence of the plague, their respective responses reflect the differing philosophies of our two cities.
The *Vaxvillians* response was decisive. Lockdown was imposed to stop transmission of the plague. Citizens who needed to leave their abodes to seek sustenance were required to wear beak masks, which, according to *Vaxvillian* scholars may slightly decrease transmission of the plague. This, the responsible citizens of *Vaxvillia* proudly did. Some even double-beaked for added protection. While they were afraid, the *Vaxvillians* held out hope that soon *new medicines* would be developed to combat the plague. This thought gave the *Vaxvillians* comfort in the dark times.
Meanwhile, in *Moshpitia*, the response was somewhat *different*. Well actually, compared to normal life in *Moshpitia*, it was *not* that different at all. Life, for the most part, carried on *as normal*. There were some casualties to the plague, mainly among the old and infirm, but once this was understood then it was mostly *only* these citizens that took precautions. For the majority, life in *Moshpitia* carried on.
As time went by, the plague ebbed and flowed. Both *Moshpitia* and *Vaxvillians* mourned their dead, and looked forward to the end of the plague. It was however at this point that relations between the two cities began to sour. The *Vaxvillians* objected to what they saw as the *Moshpitians* ‘reckless’ behaviour. Infections in good *Vaxvillian* grandmothers could arguably be traced back to *un-beaked* Moshpitian merchants. What was worse, these *Moshpitians* seemed in no way inclined to take this fact seriously. They seemed to continue about their lives as if there was no plague at all!
The *Moshpitians* had grievances too. Not only were the *Vaxvillians* on the point of suspending all trade between the two cities, there was even rumour of *Vaxvillian* conspiracies to put up a wall around these ’reckless plague-spreading *Moshpitians*’ to trap them in their city, or worse, force medicines upon them without consent (‘consent’ being sacred to the *Moshpitians*).
Thus, generations of peace and prosperity were on the brink of ruin. Not because of the plague itself, but because of philosophical differences.
To be continued…
A manifesto for the memo protocol
***Tldr; this article is an attempt to convince you of the importance of*** ***https://flipstarter.member.cash/*** ***and similar projects.***
When Mark Zuckerberg announced Libra, politicians were thrown into a panic. It was truly wonderful to watch. They knew that a cryptocurrency tied to a well-used social media platform would *cripple* their control of money. It would accomplish in a year what Bitcoin failed to accomplish in 10.
But it too failed. The politicians won. Libra is alive, but neutered. The reason? Zuckerberg tried to do it backwards. Censorship resistance must *precede* the activity that you know is going to be censored.
Thankfully, BCH has got the censorship resistance part nailed. Now it’s time for phase 2.
**The killer app**
Money is not the killer app. ‘Money’ is the thing that is most useful as money. Ergo, the killer app for X must precede the monetary use case for X.
330 million users on Twitter, 330 million users on Reddit, 516 million users on Weibo, 2.7 billion users on Facebook. For every 1 person remotely interested in crypto trading, defi, ICOs and yield farming there are perhaps thousands on social media… *and not everyone’s happy.*
Despite around half the humans on earth using some form of social media, an increasing number of people are increasingly dissatisfied with the main platforms.
Bots, spam, censorship, cancel culture, data harvesting, rage baiting algos, de-platforming, trolling. The list of problems is goes on, but they all have a singular cause – broken incentives. I suspect I may be preaching to the choir but if you need persuading, Joel Valenzuela’s gives a compelling summary of both the problem and the solution @ https://lbry.tv/@DigitalCashNetwork:c/Social-Media:9
This dissatisfaction has not gone uncapitalised. Parlor and Flote are 2 recent attempts to muscle in on Twitters territory. At the end of the day, these are not categorically different from Twitter. They are still private platforms ultimately subject to all the same pressures as Twitter.
Others platforms using other structures are popping up in the wake of this great resentment. Some blockchain based, some not. They include:
https://hoot.goldandblack.xyz/ (a reaction to Reddit’s *banhammer*)
http://jembe.dashevo.io/#/ (a DASH based platform)
https://twetch.app/welcome (a BSV based platform)
Any one of these could grow it’s ecosystem to eventually compete with the giants*. If it is built around a scalable cryptocurrency then adoption of that coin proportional to the adoption of that platform will follow.*
**Bitcoin cash’s time to shine?**
BCH is currently well place to lead the way, but there seems to be a reluctance within the community to run with this use case. Make no mistake, *this* is the silver bullet, *this* is the missile down the exhaust vent of the Death Star. *Not* trying to play catch-up with BTC fomo or ETH defi, but building a strong uncensorable social media ecosystem around BCH.
Currently around 5-10% of all BCHs onchain activity pertains to the memo protocol. Another 5-10% pertain to the SLP market on memo.cash.
The most interesting thing about blockchain platforms is that *none of them control the data*. They simply read it off a public blockchain. As individual platforms they are censorable, but the data posted *on* them is not.
**Meet the Memo family:**
https://memo.cash/ (The original. Jason Chavannes, who wrote the memo protocol, runs this. Memo recently added an ios app)
https://member.cash/ (Current flipstarter @ https://flipstarter.member.cash/)
https://member.electroncash.de/
http://member.bchd.cash
https://validator.freemarkets.cash/ (a feed of memo protocol activity)
*I think PFS is also working to provide some token specific memo feed. Have i missed any others?*
**Objections**
There is some resistance to the idea of using the BCH blockchain for social media data within the BCH community itself. Aside from a few purists, the objections focus on scalability. The traditional calculations are that BCH can scale as cash but not as social media. This is technically correct (the best kind of correct!). But it also is something of a straw man argument.
· Building a social media ecosystem around BCH does *not* require *all* data to be onchain (BSV style). A detailed proposal how to build a social network *around* BCH was Stackk, but the project did not get the attention it deserved.
· Currently, onchain memo activity could increase 100 fold before we had to even *think* about scaling.
· Issues of blockchain bloat can best be tackled by adding new incentives to maintain an archival node proportional to the increased cost of running one (as opposed to only focusing on minimising blockchain bloat, BTC style). An active social media ecosystem would accomplish this.
**So what do we do?**
I think too many of you focus on fighting trolls on r/btc when you should be focused on *building the next Reddit*. Show some love to https://flipstarter.member.cash/. Let’s grow and develop BCHs native social network.
**Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Freetrade beyond being a user on member. I have not pledged yet to the flipstarter as I am waiting for the price to come down.**
The importance of lying to kids
There’s no such thing as rainbows. Tell young children this. Challenge them to prove to you that rainbows are real. Proclaim that rainbows are a myth concocted in order to sell merchandise.
Pretty colours in the sky? - get real.
️️🌈 https://emojipedia.org/rainbow-flag/
Unicorns, on the other hand *are* real. All hooved animals have breeds with horns of *some* kind. Why should horses be the exception? If they googled rainbows to show you a picture then google unicorns too. Checkmate.
🦄
There is method in my madness. Allow me to explain…
For me, it started with Father Christmas. Father Christmas is a nice story to tell the kids. A little bit of magic to make a dismal time of year more fun. However, the feeling of telling a child an outright lie whilst they listen with total trust is rather unsettling. Perhaps, I thought, I should instead focus on the real? Surely dinosaurs, black holes and history are rich enough goldmines to stimulate any child’s imagination indefinitely. Perhaps they are. But something still bothered me. As parents and teachers we take on the role of authority figure. What *we* say is true because *we* say it.
That was my little epiphany. It was not lying to my children (albeit in a fun and harmless way) that had bothered me, it was that I was inadvertently teaching them to accept the *wisdom of authority*.
How often do you hear people say '*My parents brought me up to do X*', or '*I do X because I was raised to do X*', as though people were robots that could be programmed.
Perhaps they are. Perhaps that's the problem.
2020 has taken a huge luminous highlighter to this problem. People seem overly willing to believe what authority figures tell them. Whether it’s parents, politicians or teachers, too many people accept the emperor’s new clothes over and above what their eyes are telling them. Alternatively, they reject everything in favour of a conspiracy theory, which essentially amounts to an equal yet opposite form of gullibility. Either way, people seem more ready than ever to pick a side and swallow its narrative unquestioningly. X is true because *good*man said it. Y is false because *bad*man said it.
I will admit to being embarrassingly old (well into my 20s) before I realised that even *science* was not immune. While science was ‘true’, even that truth had a context. Certain ‘facts’ were favoured over others. Certain topics were researched to death while others were avoided altogether.
Ergo, I lie to my children. They know this and try to catch me out. It’s become something of a game. By lying to them I am teaching them that trusted authority figures *can* lie or *can* get it wildly wrong. If you want to know the *real* truth, don't take my word for it, do some investigation yourself. Truth takes effort and you don’t always like what you find.
Rainbows are real but unicorns aren't.
Teach kids to question your little lies and just maybe they'll grow up to question the big lies.
Scam alert!
Beware of this scam coin which is currently doing the rounds.
Known varyingly as the U.S. dollar, the American dollar or just *the* *dollar*, it has acquired the ticker USD. USD boasts an impressive network effect and has made real inroads in to both the payments and the trading markets. It also has attracted some high profile advocates from Presidents to business leaders.
To be fair, on the surface USD seems to have a lot going for it. Aside from its popularity (most people in the world have heard of, if not at some point owned, USD) it boasts an entirely off chain and fungible payments system based completely on printed bits of paper! These factors have led to USD becoming widely viewed as both a sound store of value and medium of exchange.
Sound too good to be true? I thought so to. So I did a little digging.
Superficially, the online payments system for USD seems pretty slick. It is utilised by some of the most widely accepted payment processers around, like MasterCard and Visa. From the consumer side it is a hassle free tap-and-go experience. But there is a hidden cost to this. Unlike regular currencies such as Bitcoin, the fees for USD via Visa are entirely merchant side. Fees for small payments can be in the region of 0.001-0.002 BCH. So while cheaper than BTC or ETH, it’s still higher than BCH, DASH or LTC. This can be a real problem for small merchants and can eat in to their already low profit margins.
It gets worse.
What the team behind USD don’t advertise is that it has neither a hard cap nor a steady emission rate. Basically, they can just mint as much or it as they like, whenever they like, *and they* *do*. This has led to currency inflation and an increasing drop in the buying power of the dollar.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar
Worse still, by far the bulk of this new money went to the core development team and their partners (https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list). It is of course ordinary users and small holders who are ultimately left to foot the bill for all this money printing.
…and here’s where it get really bad…
The USD has become the de facto currency for organised crime. I am not just talking about victimless black markets, but red markets too. In fact, the team behind USD have themselves been linked to corruption, attempted political coups and even full scale wars of aggression https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-america-needs-war/5328631
The verdict?
SCAM ALERT! USD is not to be trusted. Get out of this obvious and immoral scam while you can.
Bitcoin Cash: How I got sucked in.
OGs got into Bitcoin when it was the original and the biggest, if not the only, crypto around. They followed the various forks till they ended up at Bitcoin Cash. It is different with us n00bs. We came to Bitcoin Cash when it was already *Bitcoin Cash*. When there were a plethora of other coins to choose from, we chose Bitcoin Cash. We were not influenced by past loyalties/grudges or heavy bags. I want to try and explain why.
I heard about Bitcoin perhaps when many of you did. 2012-2014, I don’t really remember. I do remember thinking ‘cool’, but that was about it. Besides, I had other stuff going on in my life, young kids etc. By then, bitcoin already had a mainstream media presence so I was able to casually follow it from the side lines. Fast-forward a few years and the kids are a little older and I have a little more free time. I decide to revisit that bitcoin thing and learn a bit more.
Also by this point, the world itself seemed increasingly to be going down a strange path. It seemed harder and harder to be simply left alone. I started to seriously doubt whether my children would grow up to enjoy the same freedoms I had. Most disheartening of all was that people seemed to welcome it. I remember having conversations with colleagues who thought "*people shouldn’t be allowed to be anonymous on the internet because it means they can get away with saying such horrible things… the government should do something"*.
I didn’t even know where to begin with that. It seemed to me that trying to change people’s minds was a lost cause. There would always be an unbridgeable divide.
It was then that I made the connection. Because Bitcoin was *permissionless* *money* it could be a powerful tool for personal freedom, one equal to, if not greater than, the internet itself. This made it *important* in my view. I wanted it to succeed. It *needed* to succeed.
This was after the BCH fork but before the BSV fork. Here I made my first mistake. I joined crypto twitter.
The first thing you learn on crypto twitter is ‘Roger bad’. I did not know who Roger was or why he was bad, but it apparently had something to do with ‘bcash’. Beyond this, I learned frustratingly little. Crypto twitter did not seem interested in what I had thought the ‘mission’ of bitcoin was. They only seemed to care about trading bitcoin for dollars. After a few frustrating months and another fork I was growing disillusioned with bitcoin. Was it all only about currency trading and getting fiat rich?
Fortunately, I also decided to check out that Roger guy to find out why exactly ‘bcash’ was so terribly bad. Correct decision, because just as my interest was waning I discovered in the much maligned Bitcoin Cash a version of Bitcoin which seemed to align with what I though Bitcoin was *supposed* to be.
There are many other great coins out there, but Bitcoin Cash seems to most consistently and stubbornly ally with the cause of personal freedom and censorship resistance. It might have been easier for BCH if it *hadn’t* done this. Perhaps if it had made more of an effort to chase institutional money, or just produced a few more hodl memes then it would have a bigger market cap? But I don’t care. If I cared about moon/lambo/market-cap I would have stuck with BTC or ETH.
And here’s the thing. The above is probably true of most newcomers to BCH from this point on. Anybody who now comes to this space now cares more about personal freedom and censorship resistance than about trading or DeFi. If they didn't, they would not have got any further than ETH.
So don’t worry too much about chasing past glories. Focus on what makes Bitcoin Cash what Bitcoin was *supposed* to be – a tool for freedom.
A proposal to increase BCH infrastructure funding with SLP tokens
This idea is neither mine nor new. Several people have mentioned it and there are many similar projects out there. However, I believe this solution still doesn’t get the attention it deserves so I’m repeating it here. This proposal aims to help with both funding and governance.
The premise
Basically*, you donate to a BCH node implementation by purchasing its SLP token.* The tokens come with perks like voting rights and dividends.
Here I use a hypothetical node implementation called *P2Pnode* as an example. Amounts given are also examples. I do not consider (or know) the legal implications in any particular jurisdiction.
*P2Pnode* creates the P2P SLP token. It mints 10,000 P2P. It initially markets these tokens at around $1 each. Users donate to P2P development by buying these tokens. P2Pnode continually dividends 5% of funds raised back to token holders. This initially gives token holders around a 5% return. *P2Pnode* team mint an additional 500 tokens each month (indefinitely). These are sold for their market value (a number can be held back to help stabilise the price)
As more tokens are minted the dividend amount per token decreases and then levels off (after 5 years it is down to 1.6%, after 10 years it is 0.84%, after 20 years… etc). These figures are examples. It could vary depending on the chosen emission rate and dividend %.
What are the incentives?
Besides simply wanting to support development, the initial high dividend rate not only incentivises early buyers, but also that those buyers go forth and evangelise the good word of *P2Pnode* in the wider community. Token holders can have additional privileges like voting rights, or an exclusive on-chain memo style forum where token holdings are displayed and development is discussed. You could also ‘support’ *P2Pnode* by accepting P2P token at your online store as this would give the token further value. Other features like token burning in exchange for dev/agenda time could be implemented. Maybe the tokens could even unlock special features in certain wallets or apps.
Why pay dividends?
Yep, ‘cash-back’ seems like a peculiar incentive, but consider the following -
Dividends financially incentivize holders to act as advocates for *P2Pnode*.
Whales are encouraged to purchase tokens as they get a small but steady long term return.
Even small (but reliable) dividend paying SLP tokens are attractive assets. P2P node now holds the monopoly on a saleable commodity!
It garners attention in the project from outside the community. Passive income is hot-topic!
It helps raise interest in the wider SLP ecosystem. Despite the long standing technical viability, there have been comparatively few examples of established dividending SLPs.
With these dividends, *P2Pnode* is ‘paying’ the token holders to promote their service, participate in governance and provide community feedback. Likewise, in purchasing tokens the holders are ‘paying’ the P2P dev team to maintain a BCH node imp. If both parties do their jobs well, then the whole BCH ecosystem will benefit.
How does it help with governance?
While dividends are a small incentive to the holders, the major advantage here is stability for BCH.
Democracies, despite their flaws, are a lot more stable than dictatorships (even benevolent ones). For any radical change, the *P2Pnode* dev team would have to have the support of the majority of their token holders. To do otherwise would be financially ruinous as the value of P2P token would depreciate. In short, it would reduce/eliminate unpopular forks.
What could go wrong?
Since *P2Pnode* is dividending 5% to holders, it would *in the absolute worst case scenario* be 5% worse off than if they continued to rely only on traditional donation methods. This would improve as time went on as it could hodl some of its own tokens. But, more likely since it now has an involved and incentivised community behind, *it will be financially better off*.
**Buy from me instead!**
Would the fungability of tokens mean that people bought them from each other rather than purchased directly from *P2Pnode*? Maybe, but this fact does not mean Bitcoin has no value. Do you buy BCH directly from miners? Either way, buying directly from source is no less an altruistic act then simply donating.
**Scam alert!!!**
Since you are paying dividends out of token purchases could you justly accuse the whole thing of being a Ponzi? No, the *P2Pnode* team are producing a valuable node implementation. This is the ‘product’ that is being sold. Bottom line, it is no more or less a Ponzi than Bitcoin itself.
**Examples**
True, token holder projects have a ‘colourful’ history https://news.bitcoin.com/token-holders-dont-give-damn-voting-rights-community-governance/ , but there are many positive examples too, https://psfoundation.cash/ (i first heard mention of the memo style forum for token holders in relation to PSF token)
Conclusion
Most of us here believe Bitcoin Cash is the good stuff. We buy it, use it and sometimes profit from it, all because we believe that ultimately it adds value to the world. Community backed node implementations can be a microcosm of that. We would have a token that we buy, use or trade because we believe that a particular node dev team adds value to the BCH ecosystem. If they are successful then BCH will be successful. If BCH fails then they will fail. If they succeed spectacularly then token holders may even profit. All incentives are correctly aligned.
My adventures in Migraine Land
I can usually tell when I am going to get a migraine. My thoughts feel strangely fragile. It is usually a portent of what’s to come. The first definitive sign is the aura. These visual disturbances usually manifest as pixilated distortions in one area of vision. They are the neurological equivalent of an error message, popping up in front of my face.
This is my cue to down a few ibuprofen to avoid the headache and nausea.
Usually this is the end of it. 20 minutes of visual disturbances, a few hours of photo-sensitivity and mild discombobulation and I am safely out of the woods. Sometimes though things can get more… interesting.
The visual disturbances sometimes grow into a nonspecific bending of perception. Perspectives on size and distance can melt away and the whole world becomes an indiscernible collage of colour and pattern. It reminds me a bit of a Picasso painting.
The changes are not just visual though. Sometimes mood and cognition change quite significantly too. Often I find myself feeling slightly disorientated yet at the same time unusually enthralled with my surroundings. This is not in itself a problem, save for the fact that it usually seems to happen when I am at work.
*To my left, one colleague is wearing a black dress with gold and white flowers on it. It seems like half the universe has suddenly taken on this pattern. While I sit at my desk, another colleague stands to my right talking to me. He is tall with a salmon pink shirt, similar to his skin tone. It seems to me as though he is just an amorphous pink blob, towering over me. I cannot discern if he is 6 foot or 600 feet tall. In my disorientated yet curious state I have a powerful urge to reach up into the sky and poke his pink smiling face. I have to consciously remind myself where I am and why this would definitely be a bad idea.*
The experiences are not always so neutral though. Sometimes, along with extreme photo-sensitivity and nausea, a range of other negative psychological patterns seem to manifest in overdrive.
*One time it got so bad I decided to excuse myself from work and head home on foot. It feels like I have been walking for hours when in fact it has only been minutes. My perception of time is slowed to a frustrating crawl. I walk past a bronze statuette. I have always liked metalwork, but now the face seems to glower at me like it is aware of my predicament. I catch sight of the mottled coppery texture of the statuettes hair and am overcome with an inexplicable disgust. I walk on, but every step, every moment, seems painfully drawn out. Time itself joins the conspiracy against me. I am convinced the statuette knows this and is pleased.*
*Ahead of me a couple is walking down the same path. All of a sudden they veer off and head up the road. For some reason this feels like a punch in the stomach. I am filled with rage toward them. How could they simply veer off a straight path at such an imprecise angle!?! Worst of all, they seemed completely oblivious to their blatant crime against symmetry. I want to verbally chastise them but would likely vomit if I tried. My head is now throbbing, the light feels like daggers in my eyes and each step I take seems to last forever.*
*After what feels like a whole day of walking (although is likely only around 20 minutes) I make it home. I go upstairs, make my room as dark as possible and switch off. When I awake the negative symptoms have completely vanished and sanity has returned. In fact, I feel amazing.*
This was another interesting thing I learned about migraines. They are not always bad. Sometimes they are extremely pleasant experiences. Normally though, they are bad. If they are good then the good will usually follow the bad, like a reverse hangover. Sleep is the reboot that can trigger the flippening from bad to good, but sometimes it can happen without sleep, like a wave washing over me. Very occasionally I hit the jackpot and just get the good. The ‘good’ experience is characterise by an abundance of energy and confidence as well as a kind of buoyant euphoria.
*I float around in a state of focused elation, the ideas bubbling up. Things I can invent, enterprises I will create, grand artistic endeavours that I must get started on right away! I am spoilt for choice. Around me the world itself turns into a work of abstract art. Details are absorbed into pattern and colour. It is like a dream in that I can see the overall picture, yet if I try to concentrate on details then they pixilate out and melt away. An impressionist world, just for me.*
Unfortunately, it wears off after an hour so and I am back to my default setting of grumpy pragmatism.
Acephalgic Migraines are funny beasts. I have had a lot less of them since lockdown started, so maybe my trigger pertained to my work environment. On balance it is probably a good thing I am now nearly migraine free. Still, some part of me cannot help but feel a little disappointed.
The Church of Batman the Redeemer needs YOU!
*Bored of Buddhism? Sick of Scientology? Then the Church of Batman the Redeemer needs YOU!*
So says a digital billboard in a futuristic street scene in Terry Gilliam’s 2013 film, *The Zero Theorem*.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8GxPO55tM
I liked the film. Whether you like it or not probably depends on whether you like Gilliam’s work or not. I won’t ruin it for you by telling you the plot or the moral, but basically it’s classic Gilliam.
Weirdly, the most persistent brain-worm I got from it was that throwaway line ‘The Church of Batman the redeemer’. Weirder still, it seems I’m not alone. Google ‘The Church of Batman the redeemer’ and you’ll see there has been quite a bit of interest. It’s even got its own Facebook page.
Gilliam’s own explanation for ‘Batman the Redeemer’ comes from an interview with IGN. *"We have to believe in something, don't we? And I think comic book heroes are the new apostles, the new prophets. They're all there!"* He continues (mixing Marvel and DC) *"Come on, I mean how is Marvel surviving? It’s because people believe in Batman and Superman and Marvel comics more than they believe in anything else."*
He’s right. Stories resonate or they don’t. This single line resonated because everyone who hears it sort of gets it. Yes, you *could* probably build a philosophically consistent religion based around the Batman story.
So, tentatively circling the rabbit hole, what would the *philosophy* of The Church of Batman the redeemer look like?
Well, existentialism is a given. Between the cold, indifferent streets of Gotham and its dark, starless sky there is no innate meaning or purpose. No divine justice. No God.
Is The Church of Batman the redeemer a religion for atheists?
“Without myth, however, every culture loses its healthy creative natural power: it is only a horizon encompassed with myth that rounds off to unity a social movement.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Nietzsche is one of the primary patriarchs of modern atheism, and there is definitely *something* Nietzschean in the Batman mythology. Gotham itself is a metaphor for the Will to Power doctrine. Each value system or morality is embodied in a villain, and they all war for supremacy e.g. Greed = Penguin, Nihilism = Joker. Batman himself, just one more costumed character who is distinguished only by his victory. This is the key Nietzschean point. Batman is right because he wins. He does not win because he is right. There is no higher power or external morality system to validate him. No justice beyond what he imposes.
“The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
But just how Nietzschean is Batman’s justice? Is he really an *Übermensch*? The morality he imposes on Gotham seems to be a herd morality. Batman seems driven by the pain of his parent’s murder and a desire to protect the vulnerable. A *real* Nietzschean would embrace their strength and superiority. They would learn to love every aspect of their fate, even the tragedy. Nietzsche’s ultimate doctrine, *Amor fati*, is forever beyond Batman’s reach. In the end he *chooses* to remains that most un-Nietzschean of things, *a tortured soul*.
So if not truly Nietzschean then what?
“*No one saves us but ourselves”*
― Gautama Buddha
Both the young Bruce Wayne and the young Buddha were members of the pampered elite. They both had their illusions shattered by witnessing the ugly reality of the world. They both were driven by their suffering and compassion to journey away from their homes to find a solution which they went on to share with their world. The Buddha identified the cause of suffering as *craving*, Bruce identified it as *injustice*. The Buddha went on to teach meditation and philosophy. Bruce went on to beat the crap out of criminals each night.
So, what conclusion can we draw from all this silliness?
I don’t actually want to convert you to a Batman religion. As far as I know no one does. Even The Church of Batman the Redeemer’s Facebook page seems just to be about the memes. But, if you did decide to start a major world religion, then you *could* do it with Batman as your founding mythology. Let’s face it, over the last 2000 years there have been some highly successful religions founded on far less ;)
How to save BCH from forking by forking BCH
I like the idea of seasteading. The idea that you could solve all political problems by *not* solving them. Simply up-anchor and move. If the community is split, split the community. There needn’t even be any animosity. The whole thing can be an amicable, even mutually beneficial, arrangement.
You see where I’m going with this?
In all honesty, I don’t want BCH to fork. That would be annoying. I use BCH regularly for online purchases. I love it. Having total control of your own money is not possible outside crypto. Sure, you can hoard objects of value, but spending them is challenging. A fork would make either or both coins less widely accepted and greatly diminish their value. At that point, some of us might be inclined to think that the whole thing is more trouble than it’s worth and just jump ship to another coin.
Fork-talk keeps cropping up (and yes, I realise the irony here). Any disagreement, any misunderstanding, any ambiguous response or even any delay in response. FORK INCOMING! No sooner has one issue been laid to rest than another pops-up. I won’t recap the grievances. You already know them. Besides, it will be something new next month.
All of which leads me to a regrettable conclusion. Vin Armani is right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huUV4YPA_LY
[Pause for sad refection]
I don’t know if Vin is a wise sage who understands cosmic cycles or he is just in all the right Telegram groups. Maybe he is the infamous ‘controlled opposition’ or maybe he just understands people as well as code. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether the entire thing is orchestrated by the *enemies or P2P cash* or just the result of honest yet fundamental disagreements between well intentioned parties. Sure, drama is part and parcel of decentralisation, but it also deters would-be users, devs and entrepreneurs. Forks solve the problem, but at a cost. **Eventually, you fork yourself into oblivion.**
The solution… a *forklet*.
Note: I am using the term *forklet* instead of *fork* which implies a new or duplicated money supply, or *sidechain* which requires interoperability. Interoperability would be great, but likely not easy, so I do not want to commit just to be shot down for technical reasons.
Like two beasties occupying the same rung in an ecosystem, two nearly identical coins might find themselves in competition. Competition is in general a good thing, but when the *real* competition is fiat, it’s a distraction. A straight fork will benefit no-one but exchanges (and maybe Calvin). So let’s not do that. Instead let’s create something that complements BCH, but also liberates us from the problem of dev capture.
So what should we do?
Fork the code, not the chain. Forks damage a coin by halving the network effect and doubling the money supply. Instead, let’s **keep the money supply constant**. One way to accomplish this is by burning BCH to create ~~coinbase~~ *Edit: new coins* on the new chain. Miners of that chain would need to reference the main BCH chain too for this to work. Challenging, but doable.
To give community members more control over the fledgling *forklet*, it needs a **new hashing algorithm**. Something GPU friendly (remember, in the absence of block reward, mining would be for fees only).
**Capitulate** to a quantum of dev capture on BCH. Yup, that’s a tough one to swallow. But no point doing all this then continuing to fork-talk about BCH. We will get our genuinely decentralised *forklet*. We can still use a stable and widely accepted BCH chain to transact with. Have our cake *and* eat it.
Imagine that the defining characteristic of the BCH community - *incessant drama* - could be channelled in such a way as to actually grow the ecosystem, not split it.
Power and profit coalesce. This is as true in cryptocurrencies as it is in politics and society. If you are fighting this trend then you are swimming against the tide. In fact when I finally accepted this was when I got interested in seasteading. Decentralisation requires a continual breaking away. A shedding of the old skin. You have to keep moving forward. Keep evolving.
Just don’t salt the earth behind you.
…hmm. Maybe I am sounding too Vin Armani-ish so perhaps it’s time to stop…
@n00b
