My brother came to visit this past weekend and we got to talking about politics. He leans very left and we don't see eye to eye on pretty much anything. He has been living overseas for almost 20 years and he doesn't see the things going on here. He thinks the crazy stories about immigration and fraud are all fake and the corruption in government is not that bad or just isolated to a few bad spots.
I don't know where he gets his info but he repeats a lot of MSM talking points and when I tell him how it really is he just laughs and brushes it off like a joke. I sent him a few links but he won't watch videos, says he doesn't care enough to devote so many hours to watching interviews and commentary. If I send him articles he says its just opinions. I gave him a book last year about how the jab was killing people and the numbers didn't support the official narrative - he said he would be embarrassed to be seen reading it on the plane.
This weekend the conversation was mainly about DOGE and the deportations. He says he's very concerned and heard at least TWO cases where innocent people were deported just because of a tattoo that might be gang-related, and everyone, even illegals, should be entitled to an individual hearing to determine if they should be deported. He doesn't believe that illegals who are murderers and rapists are being let out without bail, or that TdA is really so dangerous, or that it all might be a coordinated effort to undermine national security.
He doesn't like that DOGE is shutting down agencies without consent from Congress, that Elon wasn't confirmed by the senate, and thinks the claims about social security fraud are total bullshit. I asked him why he thinks that and he can't give an answer. He says he won't believe something just because Elon or Trump said it. He thinks they are just pulling figures out of their ass and people on the right are so brainwashed they just go along with it.
I have no idea how to get through. Seems like he's totally dug in to his worldview and nothing is going to change that. Oh yeah and he works for the government.
That's why it's called "public service".
I'm not that old, lol, but I guess in bitcoin years I am. I was getting into bitcoin around that time period where the block size war was at its peak so I got to experience it first hand. I was always firmly in the "big blocker" camp because that was just how most normal people understood the road map.
The psyop was convincing people that it was dangerous to increase the limit beyond 1MB because, the argument goes, if blocks were too big then the chain would grow too fast and storage would become a hurdle for independent node operators who wouldn't be able to afford to buy bigger and bigger hard drives. While it's true that we don't want 1TB blocks tomorrow, so there should be a limit, the "small blockers" took it a step further and insisted that it could never be increased beyond the initial limit set by Satoshi, so now we are stuck with blocks that have the capacity of a 3.5" floppy disk and that is effectively set in stone. Unless they can somehow flip and convince everyone that suddenly hard forks are a good thing.
Can you give me the name of one you think is a good example, so I can take a look?
So the result of the block size war was the hard fork that made Bitcoin Cash. It shares all the major parameters of BTC such as the hard 21 million supply cap, 10 minute blocks, and shares the same history with BTC up until August 1, 2017. Those alternative node implementations that couldn't get off the ground with BTC now operate on the BCH network. So if you want to run a BCH node, there are about 5-6 independent dev teams with various approaches and specializations. BCH has a soft block size limit of 32MB and can increase automatically according to network demand, with no upper limit.
Another one is Monero, which uses RandomX instead of SHA256 for mining. RandomX is optimized for consumer grade hardware and ASIC-resistant which means anyone can mine it without having to invest a fortune on specialized hardware.
Both Bitcoin Cash and Monero have no corporation or foundation behind them, but a pretty wide and diverse ecosystem of independent developers and entrepreneurs. There are others but those are the main ones.
When did you start getting into Bitcoin? After 2017? If so then you have only ever known the subverted narrative because that was when the coup took place.
BTC is not actually decentralized how everyone thinks. The claims you made are the standard talking points of the BTC maxis because to refute them you need to understand the history of Bitcoin and the more technical aspects of what happened.
The claim that BTC is uniquely decentralized is just ignorant. I could point to dozens of other crypto projects that are arguably more decentralized than BTC, but this argument is based on the belief that non-mining nodes contribute to decentralization. Actually only miners contribute, and BTC miners are extremely centralized.
If someone wants to run their own node, there is ONE software option, Bitcoin Core, which is controlled by Blockstream, and it was demonstrated in 2015-2017 that they will not allow competition in the space. Several attempts were made to launch competing node implementations with upgrades to increase performance, but these were all torpedoed by Blockstream and the narrative that block size had to remain permanently capped at 1MB took root.
Since then, nothing has been done to increase BTC's throughput capacity unless it involves "2nd layer" solutions which move transactions off chain, where other private entities collect the fees. Blockstream's profit model depends on crippling the base layer of Bitcoin which limits the long term viability of mining. Eventually fees will have to go through the roof or mining will become so unprofitable that the long term security of the network could be threatened.
Onboarding new users to BTC is a joke these days. It used to be you could find someone who had a miner running at home and you would just trade cash with them. Fees were always under a penny so it was trivial to send $20, $10, $5, or even less. It wasn't something anyone had to be concerned with because you could rely on fees always being low. That's what made it so amazing, but Blockstream killed that, and even celebrated when blocks became full.
Now, people are ushered onto corporate platforms that are government-regulated, with KYC, to trade sats off-chain (because that's the only way to do low volume transactions) while being told it's a sure bet that it will make them rich someday, and then maxis do nothing but talk shit to everyone who doesn't agree with their position and smear the real OG bitcoiners who made it successful in the beginning.
There is a reason all the big names from the early years have moved on to other projects. BTC has become the exact thing it was meant to destroy.
Bitcoin is not fundamentally different from the rest of crypto. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and now maxis like to pretend that it's the only one that anyone should be concerned with so they act like it has some special property that makes it unique. The only thing that's unique about it is the cabal went out of their way to convince the masses that BTC is incorruptible, when in fact they corrupted it many years ago and the psyop is still going.
But wait I was told that CEOs just want to pay themselves higher salaries.
Beyond the executive branch, I want to know why any civilian judge thinks they have authority over the military, period. The military is governed by a completely different set of laws than any civilian agency, and they have their own distinct court system.
Yes and then when the attack failed they backtracked the short and said it was an accident.
Thank you!
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While Biden was golfing? I don't believe it.
Don't know yet. DM me later.
PirateChain is a ZK chain like Zcash, but with enforced privacy. I have traded it before but it's kinda dead lately so definitely feel like Monero is still superior. And yes planning on going to PF this year. You?
Do you mean pirate chain?
I know what XRP is. I don't think it should be sold to people as a daily use currency because it provides absolutely no privacy, is totally centralized, and uses a closed validator network rather than fair proof of work consensus, so yes it is a CBDC. Just because it's not being made mandatory by the government doesn't mean it's not a CBDC.
Also not saying there's no use case for XRP. I'd be totally fine if XRP ends up being the tool used by nation states and international banks for instant settlement, but that's where it should stay, not try to compete with BTC as a store of value or with XMR as private digital cash, because it is neither of those things.
No, XRP is basically a CBDC blueprint. Provides even less privacy than BTC.
XMR (Monero) is actually peer to peer electronic cash that cant be traced. You can actually spend it anonymously.
Learn how private keys and self custody work. Learn about Monero for privacy. Keep your KYC stash separate from your private stash.
Monero is the answer.
I remember something about not giving in to peer pressure...
Well I have done a little research on this topic over the past 8 years or so. Not extensive, but some. My reading led me to the conclusion that "employer" and "employee" refer to a relationship with the federal government, and so only those who work for the federal government, directly or indirectly, or in DC itself, have a true tax liability, because the statutory authority can only extend that far.
Now if you bring in the federal reserve, fiat currency, and the fact that every company uses bank accounts of that system it gets a lot more complicated.
I just don't file. If I never enter a contract how can I be liable? And no law can compel a person to perform an act against their will or enter into a contract unwillingly.
What is an "employer"? Does that term include private companies or does it only apply to government agencies?
Anything outside of DC is technically foreign to the federal government. But if you live in a ZIP code that is a federal address, so...
From my understanding it doesn't make you liable just because an employer reports your income. You become liable the moment you sign your own tax return swearing under penalty of perjury that all information is true and correct.
This is what I've done for 8 years.
Trouble is when you do that it looks to them like they won the argument and gives them a chip on their shoulder.