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@ Marc
2025-02-13 02:04:30
In the very early days, Nostr was pretty much troll-free. It was one of my favorite things about it, but I suspected this was only the case because only hardcore bitcoiners were on there. Now that the network is growing, there is more diversity of ideas. Ideology tends to make people mean. Mean people suck, so I try to remain respectful even when I disagree with others. I am not a fan of communism, but enjoy reading other perspectives. I do not wish to censor any speech at all, especially speech I do not agree with.
The freedom of speech is not about the First Amendment to me. It's about creating a space that is safe for free speech. Platforms are not a safe space for free speech. The safety of free speech is in peril on platforms. Nostr is a space where people can speak freely in an open Internet-connected society. There is some speech I would rather not see. I wish some people did not say certain things, but I do not want to stop them.
If we censor the worst speech, the speech does not go away. It merely goes underground and creates bad speech silos where people hide their true selves and go only speak to people just like them. Censorship is like prison for ideas. Prisoners improve their robbery skills because they exchange ideas with other criminals. It's like a conference for criminals. Fascists get more fascist when they only have permission to talk to fellow fascists. Communists get more communist when they can only talk to other communists. Ideas are a marketplace. May the best ideas win.
Nostr allows me to speak with people about topics I might not otherwise get a chance to speak about. I never see any pro-communist posts on Twitter. That's a problem because communists also don't see me. I also never saw sex workers talk about anything other than kinky-boinky talk on Twitter. Nostr brings the humanity back to sex workers. Sex workers are people too. They have interesting ideas and take [interesting photos]([take interesting pictures](nostr:note1svl3ne6l7dkxx4gckqsttx24nva7m37ynam7rvgq4zu83u9wl2ks86ahwx). )
On the [What is Money Show](https://fountain.fm/episode/DYPKRSkN11EmYDhrhH0H), Rabble says he wants to have Christians have a Christian-only Nostr network and sex workers to have a sex worker-only network. It's a fun idea, but I'm not convinced this would be a good thing. What if Jesus was on the Christian Nostr, but Mary Magdalen was on sex worker Nostr? I suspect Christians talking to sex workers is not such a bad thing. **What would Jesus do?**
Here is a conversation I had with a stripper on nostr. You can read the original [here](nostr:note1wxalrm6tpftrrs9rmzvv4e5gpnamkmfuu6fpwu9gs3wtudeegd7qpd5l0r) but I have reprinted it on the Habla and Substack.
I don't believe it's possible for a community or state to abolish private property when the private property can be distilled into 12 secret random words. Ironically, bitcoin does give the means of monetary production to the people, but this is a moot point given that individual people do not have equal ability. Very few people had sufficient knowledge to mine bitcoin when the block reward was 50 bitcoin every 10 minutes. Therefore, even though anybody could technically produce bitcoin blocks, very few people can.
The same is true for saving. Even if we could defy human nature with schemes such as this, it would not solve wealth inequality. Most people spend money like drunken sailors. If everyone had the same income that could not be debased or stolen, broke people would still exist because people do not have equal money management skills.
That is why I prefer capitalism with a non-socialist monetary system. The United States, contrary to popular belief, is not a capitalist economic system. It's a mixed economy where some people (banks and government) get money without doing any work aside from fudging numbers.
A bank does not save capital to buy a house. Banks print money to buy homes and collect rent from homeowners. It's an accounting trick, not capitalism.
Here's how capitalism works according to economist, Russ Roberts.
https://youtu.be/ljULutAUL7o?si=bLPY5IvwwMQvfXJK
npub1marc26z8nh3xkj5rcx7ufkatvx6ueqhp5vfw9v5teq26z254renshtf3g0
https://mempool.marc26z.com/block/00000000000000000001fa33d3d7750ed315d94e3c1def6512281b33bece333b