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↩ replying to Gigi
Andreas Antonopolous gave a GREAT talk about this subject when talking about using financial freedom to do more good than harm due to the assymetry of evil. He gave that talk in Zurich. He basically said that in the 1920s, when the restriction of free speech was being debated that a judge basically said "the answer to bad speech is MORE free speech" (paraphrased). That is due to the "assymetry of evil" : there are more people in the world wanting to do good with speech than do evil and hence they will flood the bad speech actors with their good free speech. I hope we haven't forgotten that. In the 1920s they managed to stave off the attack on free speech. It would be sad that in the 2020s it were successful...
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Big Tech Evil, Governments Good. FFS We are all evil and good. All of us, all the time. Nobody is above anybody else, nobody gets to tell anybody else what to do. If somebody harms somebody else, allow society to punish that. Don't go creating tools to watch everybody all the time, in case somebody is doing something they shouldn't some of the time.
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Dear god, I don't know how I'd have made it through this without slapping that dude. He is either profoundly naive, or just completely full of shit. The idea that the bill "doesn't need to say what you can't do," is the dumbest shit imaginable. That's literally EXACTLY what the bill should fucking do.
↩ replying to Guy Swann
Yeah he was cringe. His position reminds me of a negotiation I had with a relatively well known bitcoin VC fund* in 2022. We agreed over the course of several months in the “dating” phase but when the term sheet started to take shape all the “agreed” terms were substituted with VC standards that fuck over the entrepreneur. When they tell you the contract language / regulatory language doesn’t matter, that’s precisely when it REALLY matters. *Not Ten31
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↩ replying to Justin
Regarding recommendations, I think we're very much in a transitional period. Right now, with the bill that's being looked at regarding encryption in the UK, I think it's a wait and see in terms of what precedent that will set for other countries as well. Regardless of the border BS, SimpleX is an option though the lack of interoperability as a transition-ramp could be an issue, but personally I'd be more inclined towards Matrix as I've used it extensively in the past. However, I think even those may full prey to issues that Mastodon is known for, not to mention legacy border issues. Instead, I'm more interested in seeing Nostr as an option, for instance #0xchat is a good one but not as featureful yet. Like I said, wait and see. As for right now, can't go wrong with #Matrix. Lastly, I don't think it's just about being able for YOU to verify the code, but for it to be openly available and auditable. We can't expect everyone to verify source code throughout their entire life, but there are always those willing to do so, and a million eyes on pieces of code is better than no eyes at all - That's the base proposition with no compromises that I think there are no opposing arguments for, in this day and age.
Wow. This is the only argument in the past 8 or more years where I’ve followed both sides and not thought one side was complete bullshit. Yes the dumpy man was a shill, but the argument on both sides was solid, and I didn’t know who Meredeth was before this post, but she’s my hero now. Great discussion, not to be judged. This isn’t the usual US bullshit convo. It’s worth listening to fully.
Well, this confirms my view even more. The move of the central planners is clear: client side scanning that makes encryption moot. Our move can only be total decentralisation: not services but open appliances (open source hardware & software) using open protocols (Bitcoin, Nostr, Bitcoin DNS & cert roots) so that even normies can keep their data safe in their own personal cloud until they are ready to reveal any of it to others or the general public. No mass surveillance allowed on those personal clouds. Business model is just the appliance sales, no service, no ongoing relationship, the vendor can even shield itself from knowing their customers payment identification (using Bitcoin or 3rd party payment processors) or even customers addresses (via couriers)