Don’t sell your soul to the algorithm.
Most modern platforms don’t optimize for truth, clarity, or understanding. They optimize for engagement. Engagement is not wisdom. It is reaction. The system learns what provokes emotion, and then quietly slowly pushes everyone to speak in those tones.
Over time, this changes how people think. You stop asking whether something is true or meaningful, and start asking whether it will perform. The incentive structure trains behavior long before it feels like coercion.
This is how integrity erodes without censorship.
No one forces you to lie. You are simply rewarded when you exaggerate, simplify, or trigger. careful thought gets buried. Thoughtfulness gets ignored. Gradually, people learn to distort their own beliefs just enough to stay visible.
The cost is internal.
When your speech is shaped by metrics, your thinking follows. Your ideas become fragments designed for attention, not understanding. You begin optimizing yourself, and eventually you forget what you actually believe.
That is what it means to sell your soul.
Nostr exists as a rejection of this model. There is no central feed deciding who deserves attention. No invisible ranking system steering behavior. Your words stand on their own, without algorithmic amplification or suppression.
If they spread, it is because people chose them.
If they don’t, nothing is taken from you.
That is freedom.
Freedom of speech is not just the absence of censorship. It is the absence of incentives that quietly corrupt honesty. It is the ability to speak clearly without negotiating with a machine.
Say what you mean.
Write what you believe.
Let the signal find its own path.
Don’t sell your soul for reach.
Because once speech becomes performance,
truth becomes optional.
