DefiantDandelion on Nostr: #asknostr #philosophy #economics #bitcoin #grownostr I’ve been thinking about ...
#asknostr #philosophy #economics #bitcoin #grownostr I’ve been thinking about money, bitcoin, and the natural state of things. And I’d like a discussion to test these ideas socraticaly. I’m wondering if hard money like BTC isn’t actually a problem. Atleast in some cases. Hear me out.
The natural state of the world is decay. If I’m a Hunter gatherer I spend my time gathering food and supplies, and if i don’t use them up, they rot. That’s the natural state.
Now humans have clearly invested a lot of time and energy into tools to reduce this, and make more efficient use of our time, since the most finite resource is your own life. I understand why humans desire it. But a resource that once collected, exists forever seems like we are cheating the system somewhere. And my instinct is if you cheat the system somewhere, someone, something will pay the price.
Most Money itself, even fiat, usually has a better shelf life than perishable items. It may have even been the key strategy to put energy into collecting primarily foods that had a longer permanence like gourds, and seeds, that could be stored. And they eventually became rudimentary money. Which on the one hand is just good sense. But on the other hand, I ask: does it at some point become a distortion of the natural state enough for it to become a problem.
With BTC hard money, who pays the price?
I can think of two scenarios:
1) FOMO: The individual today, if accepting the rational conclusions of BTC as hard money and thinking multigenerationally, may spend (may I say waste) their life collecting every resource they can and funnel it into buying BTC, embodying the individual who sells their chairs to buy more Bitcoin. Sacrifices every moment To protect their future generations from becoming scenario 2)
2) The MO, The individual in the future, who has no stack of Bitcoin for whatever reason gains your sympathy. They are orphaned in a boating accident, let’s say. Cast into a world where everyone has been stacking for generations, competing against each other for the scarcest hardest resource. “Everyone else” sits a top a stack. Everything is priced in BTC, they must compete with other individuals for resources. In one since, this story is as old as time, there have always been people born into better situations. But in another sense, if the promises of BTC are as transformative as is said, then this distortion will also be greater than it’s ever been. And if the solution to 2 is “well that’s just life, you need to be responsible for all your future generations if you want to avoid this”, then that logically puts you into scenario 1).
Stuck between these extremes, extreme FOMO, and extreme MO. Is any point in the continuum optimal?
Or is the natural state optimal. The equalizing force of entropy always eroding your efforts, it’s actually irrational to store too much, if you store more than you can eat today it will spoil, efforts wasted. So get your work done and then play, engage, live your life with friends, and raise your children, and feast occasionally. The neurons in your brain were made for the natural state.
Is BTC today the “savior”, the proclaimed solution to everything. Real, Hard money, just the future master to a different kind of slavery. The next dystopian fiction to be written. The curse as the price reflects scarcity, and rational FOMO consumes every drop of life energy in the present, and the MO, the remainders, curse the system and dream its demise in the future.
There is more to be said, and I haven’t thought it all the way through.
Just my pondering.
hodlbod (npub1jlr…ynqn) how does this intersect with your observations about the use of technology?
The natural state of the world is decay. If I’m a Hunter gatherer I spend my time gathering food and supplies, and if i don’t use them up, they rot. That’s the natural state.
Now humans have clearly invested a lot of time and energy into tools to reduce this, and make more efficient use of our time, since the most finite resource is your own life. I understand why humans desire it. But a resource that once collected, exists forever seems like we are cheating the system somewhere. And my instinct is if you cheat the system somewhere, someone, something will pay the price.
Most Money itself, even fiat, usually has a better shelf life than perishable items. It may have even been the key strategy to put energy into collecting primarily foods that had a longer permanence like gourds, and seeds, that could be stored. And they eventually became rudimentary money. Which on the one hand is just good sense. But on the other hand, I ask: does it at some point become a distortion of the natural state enough for it to become a problem.
With BTC hard money, who pays the price?
I can think of two scenarios:
1) FOMO: The individual today, if accepting the rational conclusions of BTC as hard money and thinking multigenerationally, may spend (may I say waste) their life collecting every resource they can and funnel it into buying BTC, embodying the individual who sells their chairs to buy more Bitcoin. Sacrifices every moment To protect their future generations from becoming scenario 2)
2) The MO, The individual in the future, who has no stack of Bitcoin for whatever reason gains your sympathy. They are orphaned in a boating accident, let’s say. Cast into a world where everyone has been stacking for generations, competing against each other for the scarcest hardest resource. “Everyone else” sits a top a stack. Everything is priced in BTC, they must compete with other individuals for resources. In one since, this story is as old as time, there have always been people born into better situations. But in another sense, if the promises of BTC are as transformative as is said, then this distortion will also be greater than it’s ever been. And if the solution to 2 is “well that’s just life, you need to be responsible for all your future generations if you want to avoid this”, then that logically puts you into scenario 1).
Stuck between these extremes, extreme FOMO, and extreme MO. Is any point in the continuum optimal?
Or is the natural state optimal. The equalizing force of entropy always eroding your efforts, it’s actually irrational to store too much, if you store more than you can eat today it will spoil, efforts wasted. So get your work done and then play, engage, live your life with friends, and raise your children, and feast occasionally. The neurons in your brain were made for the natural state.
Is BTC today the “savior”, the proclaimed solution to everything. Real, Hard money, just the future master to a different kind of slavery. The next dystopian fiction to be written. The curse as the price reflects scarcity, and rational FOMO consumes every drop of life energy in the present, and the MO, the remainders, curse the system and dream its demise in the future.
There is more to be said, and I haven’t thought it all the way through.
Just my pondering.
hodlbod (npub1jlr…ynqn) how does this intersect with your observations about the use of technology?