Skanderbeg

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Francis Bacon

The Wonders and Terrors of Social Media You've felt it, too. In fact, if you are reading this you've acted on it - that urge to respond to some notification, or to pull your phone from your pocket and peer into the looking glass of the world around us. It's powerful. The social effects of generations having access to immediate information and commentary on events happening the world around are still yet to be fully determined. On the one hand, particularly as a husband and father, I do have an obligation as protector and provider to have some awareness of current events and a duty to position my family in a way that we are responding, as best as possible, with wisdom to the world around us and preparing ourselves for the future. And most of us realize that we are not getting accurate information or data on which to base those decisions from the likes of Fox News or your local newspaper. On the other hand, the siren call of social media has a double-edge, and this edge can cut deep. If it were not for Musk acquiring X/Twitter in 2022, the world would likely be worse off for it. In a world emerging from the aftermath of Covid, it was clear that control of information was itself a means of control of society. In the best case, if platforms like Twitter remained censored and controlled, the push towards truly decentralized and uncensorable forms of social communication (like Nostr) would have accelerated. In our current timeline, we have time to organically grow and improve these networks. Simultaneously, we must also recognize that, while networks like X bought us some time, every time we log on we are, in some sense, entering enemy territory - or at the very least, no man's land. As human beings, we are shaped by inputs. Scripture recognizes this when we are commanded to write God's word on our hearts, pray always, fellowship with other believers, attend church, disciple our children, and participate in the sacraments regularly. These are in fact regular every day things that God uses as means of conforming our hearts and sanctifying us. Proverbs furthermore teaches us that we essentially become the sum of our friends - even the people we regularly hang out with have an effect on who we become. It is no different with social media. Every time we log on, the algorithm is active - studying us, feeding us, shaping us. That post you lingered on? It will show you more like it. The algorithm knows you, perhaps more than you know yourself. And beyond that, it can subtly catechize you. It can show you more of what you expect or want to see of the world, sometimes disproving your biases and sometimes confirming them. It uses our biology and consciousness against us, scratching our itching ears and squeezing dopamine hits from our neurons to keep us scrolling. That feeling of despair you might have after an extended session on X? It's not accidental. It's manufactured. Keep all this in mind as you participate in the world around you. It is true that, at least currently, resources like X are probably some of the more helpful tools to understand real-time events as we live through years happening in weeks and seek to have some situational awareness. But always understand that just as a fire can keep you warm and alive on a cold night, it can just as easily burn you alive. Do not wander onto your feed with your guard down, looking for a relaxing time where you can turn off your brain and just soak in the algorithm. That is how we are programmed. Understand what you are doing - you are logging into a digital battlefield. There may be good things to glean or work to be done, but understand what you are handling. In a world where we are exposed to the happenings of a million tragedies, endless controversies, and where much if not most of our feed is composed of not even real human beings but bots (themselves potentially controlled by nefarious actors), we must understand the forces at play. So step onto the battlefield. But do not mistake it for something else. Your time of restoration and shaping should be intentional and protected and come from spending time in the Word, in prayer, with your family and friends, reading long-form physical media (we used to call them books), voluntary adversity through physical exercise, controlling what kind of food enters our mouths, and all the other regular means God uses in our lives to shape us according to His purposes. Do not let the massive events happening around you control what you have direct jurisdiction over in your life and the lives of your family. As Paul wrote in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Two things to consider as you read history: 1) The victor writes the narrative 2) Somehow, thankfully, the good guys always seem to win. Let the reader understand.

Hold up. Sorry to go back to the op return stuff and I'm a bit slow and didn't/don't fully understand taproot and some of the downstream consequences in terms of ordinals/inscriptions. But apparently you can relatively cheaply inscribe at least 400 KB of data AS IS within the taproot witness data, which makes the relatively more expensive OP RETURN portion with a proposed 100 KB cap (which is also prunable and doesn't bloat the utxo set) seem like a nothingburger. Most of you probably already knew this but figured I'd put it out there for those of us in the back who are a bit slower.

Fun stat: Bitcoin network annually uses about the equivalent of 21 nuclear reactors. (Assuming network consumption on average of about 170-180 twh over last year and each reactor producing about 8 twh/year). To put that in perspective, looks like US has about 94 reactors and china is next up with about 58, Russia has 36. Nation state resistant.

Meditations on Hate As the apparent fourth turning swirls on, and particularly in light of the horrific recent murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, social media has increasingly been filled with discourse reflecting anger, fear, blame, and cries for justice. Over the last few days, I have been chewing on hate, and what role - if any - this has in the life of a Christian. Mainstream evangelical Christianity does not dwell much on this emotion. If it is mentioned, it is viewed negatively and perhaps preached against - and with good reason. Uncontrolled hate leading to cruel actions is clearly condemned in scripture and not reflective of our calling to imitate Christ. However, that is not the end of what scripture has to say about hate. Firstly, hate itself is not a sin. God hates - see Zechariah 8:17. Jesus in Revelation 2:5-6 says Be hates the sinful works of the Nicolaitans. Our modern conception of God oftentimes strays to far in the direction of a comforting, loving Being - and to be sure, this is true. But we should be careful lest we forget what it means that He is Holy - He cannot abide sin, and the justice of His very nature demands that sin be punished. This is an important essence of the Gospel message itself. To those who reject Him and embrace sin, God is a being to be feared - He is a "dread warrior" (Jeremiah 20:11) and judge. Obviously, we are but imperfect imitators of our Lord. Hate can easily, if allowed to fester and twist us, lead us down a path of bitterness, anger, and violence. But we cannot be overly binary in our thinking, and while there is certainly a ditch on either side, clearly there is a time and a place in scripture for even this emotion. The Psalms are good example of this. Not only are there many Psalms of worship and praise, but many where hate of evil is presented as a virtue and even many where strong imprecatory prayers are employed against the enemy. See Psalm 25:5, 36:1, 119:113,116, 139:21-22. Psalm 97:10 commends us as follows: "O you who love the LORD, hate evil!" Proverbs 8:13 instructs us that "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate." To be certain, this does not mean we are called to hate people groups based on earthly characteristics or even necessarily hate individuals - but we are called to hate evil and the evil works done by evil doers. We should be repulsed by evil, including our own sin, and denounce it wherever it may rise. We should not tolerate evil among us. Our enemies should be called to repentance, but evil around us must not be abided. It is also of note that our lives should not be marked by hate. This is not the defining feature of a Christian - rather, we should be marked by the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. One of those fruits, however, is self-control. As we hate evil, our hate should be marked by this virtue - it does not drive us to reactionary violence or senseless anger. One passage of note occurs in Revelation. Jesus, in speaking to the church in Ephesus, is calling them to repent but does hold up one positive virtue in their favor. In Revelation 2:5-6, He says, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Why is this important? How does this affect our lives now? I would argue that one reason we as a nation are fully deserving of God's judgement is that Christian men have stood silent far too long. In the name of tolerance and peace (and likely also in the face of the fear of man), we have stood by as our atrocities have multiplied. We have not called our nation to repent as sexual deviancy in the form of homosexuality and transgenderism have multiplied. We have stood silent as millions of babies are murdered by abortion. We have allowed for skewing of gender roles and the devil's sweet whisper of egalitarianism have ravaged our nation. We have not hated sin enough - to the contrary, we have abided it. The recent video of the father at the Phillies game comes to mind. Why didn't he defend his son from the belligerent women? Because he just "wanted her to go away." He chose the easy way out, the way of unruffled feathers and supposed societal approval. But we have abided sin too long. Once again, this is not a call to violence. Scripture supports the right of self defense, but vengeance clearly belongs to the Lord (Revelations 12:19). God's wrath will come to bear on our enemies. Additionally, while there is a discussion to be had regarding primary and secondary means, we must remember that our battle is ultimately against the Evil One and not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). But if we continue to silently abide sin in our own lives, in our family, in our communities, our friends, our enemies, and our nation, then we will deserve every ounce of God's righteous judgement on our lives. Tolerance of sin is not a Christian virtue - it is condemned (Revelation 2:20). Instead, by the grace of God and in the power of His Spirit, let us truly hate sin and evil as He does and mortify it quickly. As the prophet Amos proclaims in Amos 5:15: "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph." May the Lord have mercy on our nation.

"But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The more I think about it, I think one of the fundamental lies underlying many of the issues of our time and our history is the imposition of an egalitarian mythos in contradistinction to the reality God has ordained.