Saturday 16th December, 2023 - The Bitcoin Self Custody Lie (Issue #145)
Assembly theory, slightly woo but uplifting spirituality, bitcoin in difficult environments, social media shifting, science & interstellar meteors, space travel and podcasting experimentation.
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
Kind of a tough week. It’s Friday now and I’m not sure I’ll be able to put together a complete issue, so here’s what I’ve got so far. Maybe I’ll find time to add to it by tomorrow.
Update: I found some time to add podcast descriptions :)
Some interesting podcasts this week. Assembly theory, slightly woo but uplifting spirituality, bitcoin in difficult environments, social media shifting, science & interstellar meteors, space travel and podcasting experimentation.
This week’s issue title was based on these two notes I wrote during the week:
Bitcoin self-sovereignty a big lie https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/09/204900-markjgsmith.com/
Bitcoin practical soveraignty https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/15/061100-markjgsmith.com
The Tldr; is that practically speaking bitcoin self custody in the future isn’t going to be possible. That’s kind of a big deal imho, because “only some will be able to afford to walk away from the fiethdoms that are created, in which they are forced to live”.
I had some discussions about it on Twitter:
https://x.com/markjgsmith/status/1735440636508348452?s=46&t=bRj2Jcps7ZVVYpFA7ISZ1A
My guess is that over the next few months / years self-custody is going to be de-emphasised, even by big name bitcoiners. You got to wonder if this was the plan all along. Without self custody for all, imho it’s really just a worse system than the already very bad system. An even bigger pressure cooker.
I wish this wasn’t the case, but that’s how it seems to me right now.
The other big news this week is that Threads is now available in Europe, and also it’s testing out ActivityPub integration. As far as I can tell so far the only difference, at least in my timeline, is that there are loads of girls in suggestive poses, they sort of look like bot accounts, but I can’t tell. I still can’t figure out how to see Threads posts in Mastodon. I guess we’ll see if it catches on. To be honest, all the social medias just seem fake to me at the minute.
I made some big progress on my static site generator, written up here:
Redesigned archives https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/12/114200-markjgsmith.com
Permalinks and indentation https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/13/174100-markjgsmith.com
Tldr; It’s now possible to link to days in the timeline, with other posts displaying along side them. Makes it easier to see the surrounding context, just by scrolling you can see all other posts made around the same time. Really great feature.
I wish things weren’t so hectic and that this issue was more cohesive. It’s the best I can do given the circumstances.
Here are the pods, links and notes…
Podcasts
Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper On Evolution Of Life and the Universe Ep#404(Lex Fridman Podcast) - I find assembly theory fascinating. It’s like Lee looks at reality and adds meta data, like he’s instrumenting code. There is a tendency to reflect and say he isn’t really doing anything, or perhaps that it’s all obvious, but that misses the point. What he describes is reality, but augmented. Perhaps we can use the augmented reality to accelerate and focus our trajectory. https://lexfridman.com/lee-cronin-3
Trudy Goodman and Trudy Kornfield (Duncan Trussel Podcast) - If you are looking for something a little uplifting, and good humoured. Just a few friends having a chat, doesn’t get too into the weeds. They talk about old friends, looking at the world, mind, body, consciousness, growing up, intuition, emptiness, grief, neuroses, loving life, community, the big mind, reactivity, recognising patterns of consciousness and where they come from. I don’t agree with all that they say, for example I think often it’s the world that has trouble letting go of the individual rather than the other way around, ymmv, but on the whole it’s a nice episode. https://www.duncantrussell.com/episodes/2023/12/11/trudy-goodman-amp-jack-kornfield
Bitcoin in Africa With Femi Loge (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - Quite an eye opening episode, Peter travels to Africa for the first time, and has some candid conversations about Bitcoin and it’s impact in a very different environment than most westerners are used to. It gets difficult in places, but it’s great that these conversations are happening and that we are sharing them. I don’t think there is a roadmap for solving multi-generational problems, so it will likely be a bumpy road. Really worth taking the time to listen. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-in-africa
Saying goodbye to Twitter (Vergecast Podcast) - I’m not personally totally convinced by the Twitter is dead narrative. I think there’s still some good stuff there. Pretty much every popular product gets announced as being dead at some point. But it’s definitely a new era, and they do a good job of looking back at what has happened. Obituaries who would have thought, perhaps we should all wear some black? https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/MmRkNTYzMTItNDlhZS0xMWVkLWE2ZGMtMjMzY2Q4ZDgxNzAw?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjolu27lJCDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Avi Loeb Strikes Back! (Into the Impossible Podcast) - Some interesting discussion about extra solar asteroids, space travel, meeting aliens and all that type of stuff. There’s also a bit about intimidation and bullying in academia and science. Makes you wonder how much time and energy is wasted with these silly and petty rivalries. Imagine how much better off depressed parts of the world would be if we could refocus this energy to better use. With modern technology we are much more connected, it’s going to get more difficult to justify all this waste. Billions of people are suffering while you are arguing about bullshit, it’s really not very funny. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/NDRiYzc1ZTgtOTYwYi0xMWVlLWJmZGEtNzMxYTRmNmU2Mzhh?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwiwuJXSlJCDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Big Tesla Recall 12/13 (Techmeme Ride Home Podcast) - Brian is experimenting with some new podcasting formats involving TikTok which I think sound very interesting. Reminds me of linkblogging, but it’s for audio. He talks about it at the end of the episode. https://www.ridehome.info/show/techmeme-ride-home/wed-1213-big-tesla-recall
Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin (Lex Fridman Podcast) - This was a last minute addition. It’s a great interview. I don’t think I’ve heard Jeff talk much before, certainly not about his space exploration. It’s clear why he’s been so successful. He operates on a completely different scale than most people. Especially with all his experience building Amazon and AWS. It’s cool to hear his vision of where we are at with the space race, how it will effect the future of civilisation. His focus is on creating the foundational infrastructure for future generations, so that eventually young entrepreneurs will be able to create space companies in their dorm rooms, similar to how he was able to build his internet ventures on top of existing infrastructure. I hadn’t heard the idea of moving most heavy industry off planet to save the planet ecosystems. Makes sense. It’s pretty cool he’s decided to go next level rather than retire and live on the beach. As an engineer myself, it’s very inspiring. https://lexfridman.com/jeff-bezos
Links
Lots of interesting links this week. You can find them all by scrolling up. Please check them out:
https://markjgsmith.com/links/2023/12#09Dec2023
Notes
The new permalinks also work for notes, you can see them all here. Again to see the notes for the whole week just scroll up:
https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12#09Dec2023
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
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