When you think about take risk, you probably think about starting something new, right? What if you try this new thing and it doesn't work and you suffer loss, humiliation, or worse. If you're in the middle of something that isn't working well, you probably think about grit and perseverence, right? Just a little further, stay in the game, one more try, keep going. This week I was challenged by, what is effectively 'inversion thinking', what if the best thing to do here is quit something first, and walk away even if it doesn't look so bad right now? That opens up new lines of inquiry. How much of your identity is tied up with your decision to persevere and keep going? To what extent are you addicted to the path you're taking, such that you're not able to walk away even if you think, like an addict, you can drop it whenever you choose? What space do you create in your life by walking away and enduring the 'wrap up' effects of your decision? What opportunity cost do you set free when you cut the rope to the sunk costs that are pulling you down? If this is the kind of thing you're thinking about, I can recommend Annie Duke's work, especially the latest book 'Quit', which has inspired me this week. Here's an interview which covers the main ideas. Let me know if it inspires anything in your life too. Be blessed.

Confession time. My profile pic was taken from https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ way back... and I added the laser eyes (till fiat dies). I get digs from the so-called oppressed about my alleged white privilege, based solely on their reaction to the image and their assumptions about my command of English. Meanwhile I laugh in Palestinian at their virtue signalling ignorance. 💜

"Stop! You don't AI for that!" is the new "Stop! You don't need a blockchain for that!".

@Laeserin 🇻🇦 is doing great work in articulating this position. Tune in to understand what's happening. This feels like a critical point for the social aspect of Nostr. Not quite the 'blocksize wars' but there's definitely something going on, and it's more than just innovative developers getting criticized by laggards. Edits are to this 'new free speech experience' what backdoors are to encryption. It's really that serious. So I continue to wonder if there's some deliberate mischief-making and chaos-sowing, to how resilient this thing is already, and whether it's likely to become a threat to the self-styled overlords. For example, incentives are not aligned, if Vitor breaks the Nostr social experience from the inside, he gains favor from his current and previous clients, and can 'frame' the experience in a professional/respectable way on his CV, with no personal accountability. Slay your heros and think clearly. @nakad.ai🔱🦁🛡️🏯📿 warned us about this a year ago, wish I could find the old notes, I've been uneasy every since. @DarthCoin ₿⚡️ is another npub who helps clear the cobwebs from my mind every so often. Gather such people into your virtual council chamber and listen carefully, the prophetic voices are a gift. View quoted note →

The most sobering part of this talk was the call to acknowledge our own hypocrisy. I'm still living very comfortably within the system and accumulating bitcoin as a hedge. I haven't hodled my stash out of ideological commitment, I hodled it because I didn't need to touch it, since the fiat stream is covering my needs and I'm generally a contented family guy. I've played with freedom tech because it's fun and reinforces my cypherpunk larp, and zapped some developers as penance. Yes, I home educate and complain about government overreach, but I still ask permission from the same government each year to continue home educating. My real ideal is the quiet life and that means I tolerate far more than I should, for much longer than I should. My fiat mining is probably contributing to the problem, and building the world I don't want to see. I'm guessing that this incongruence is what's making me unhappy at work, because on paper it's a dream job at the top of my professional curve. On a spiritual level too, there's incongruence in building babylon and the kingdoms of men, rather than making way for the kingdom of God. Don't know where I go from here, but it's good to transmit this confessional note to my frens over whatever relays are listening. Selah. View quoted note →