Seraph PT on Nostr: A reflection…🌏 I was born in the late 70s. Generation X, the hybrid ones. The ...
A reflection…🌏
I was born in the late 70s. Generation X, the hybrid ones. The generation that experienced relative peace, and saw the world transform rapidly.
From the birth of personal computers, to the internet, to emails, to open frontiers in europe and global citizenship of today. Or at least, heading there.
We witnessed the birth of personal computers. ZX Spectrum, with cassete loading games that we waited 30 minutes to load and praying for them not to fail.
Then came the first PCs - i8086 processors, at 8Mhz, with CGA graphics - 640x480 and 4 colors - white, black, cyan and magenta. And god, the games were fun!
Then the soundblaster sound revolution - from beeps to complex sounds.
Then VGA, XVGA, 256 colors, 16000 colors and 24 bit colors.
The sound became better and better each year, until it became true high fidelity.
Now we are heading to Virtual Reality and Metaverse, and games played with a RTX4090 seem real life.
In the meantime, the birth of the Internet.
First the dial-up modems. 28kbps, and we needed to dial and occupy the phone line. And pay! Our parents kept shouting "Turn off that thing, someone might phone us!"
Now we have cabled 1Gbps 24h hour connections, with no limits.
In three decades, the world has changed a lot.
Then came...Bitcoin!
The younger fellas, millenials and Gen-z, understand it easier, since they are internet-native. Is their native language
My generation has a tough time understanding the idea of free money in a computer.. State-money was all we knew, and it was paper in the beginning. Tangible and palpable. Computer-internet-virtual money seems strange. Baby-Boomers may even be more confused.
True, most of us almost only see digits in a computer screen on the bank account. But it is "The Bank", and we were raised in a time where banks seem very serious and credible. We saw the banks evolve too. My parents worked at one,
Everything was serious, professional. Everyone used suits. As a young boy, I used to see papers, cash vaults and shielded suitcases, cheques. Reunions. It's like the adult world. Now Homebanking revolutionized things. It has become more online, virtual.
However, it is not at par with the technological advances in other areas.
There is still massive supervision there, that requires slow settlements, intermediaries and central control.
But 2008 showed how fragile the economic system was.
In Europe, 2011-2013, the aftershock of the 2008 crisis. We had a central planning "easing", where the powers of central europe just squashed the autonomy of the southern countries. A group of three guys, some supposed economic gurus from the IMF, ECB and European Commission, called "Troika '', came to see what we were doing wrong. Like some angry daddies after the child screws up.
Conclusion - we were lazy. All southern countries - (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - The PIGS) were lazy asses that spent all their money on wine and women.
According to the powers that be, the PIGS fail had nothing to do with the centralization caused by the Euro, were different countries lost their ability to self-manage, and the quotas on production and we were paid to stop producing milk and fish, and payed to build roads and highways that we already had, among other dictates.
Where some banks were bankrupted, and of course bailed out.
Like Banif, BPN, BPP and Novo Banco (the one that is now withholding Peter Schiff's money lol) that was formed after ex-Banco Espirito Santo failed. The good assets went to create "Novo Banco", and the toxic assets were swallowed by the portuguese taxpayers. 7 billion euros - that we cannot even print, just borrow from the ECB.
Then came the Austerity Period where everything was bad.
Most of us believe that it is what it is, and we cannot do anything. That anything that is different is doomed to fail.
When I heard about bitcoin, 2013-2014, I dismissed it. Things were too complicated already in the economy, and that computer geek money seemed like some scam. I believe it's the initial reaction of most.
Then 2018 I was surprised bitcoin still existed, but still didn't give much of a thought.
In 2021 I heard of Tesla buying Bitcoin and that sparked my curiosity. I read alot about it, and as we all know, went down the rabbit hole. Bought eth, some altcoins and gambled with shitcoins, losing money. Guess most of us been there :P
Now after a lot of reading and studying I finally understand the power of incorruptible, decentralized, uncensorable money, or store of value.
I do believe Bitcoin will be a part of the future. Lightning network and Nostr may play a big part too, the simplicity and outreach of the "zapping" mechanism astounds me when thinking of what it can revolutionize.
I have no idea if it will be worth 30k dollars, 1k dollars, 1 dollar or 10 million in the next 5 years. It will attract resistance from the governments, a lot of it for sure. They will not yield their power and control gained over the course of last century and .
Bitcoin will be defamed, ostracized, banned and censored.
But it will endure.
Best part of all, Bitcoin is a beacon of hope in the future. In a freer mankind, sovereign and untamed. That is our birthright. And we are all in the front line of that change, and it is still soon, very soon.
So...exciting times ahead! ❤️🌟
I was born in the late 70s. Generation X, the hybrid ones. The generation that experienced relative peace, and saw the world transform rapidly.
From the birth of personal computers, to the internet, to emails, to open frontiers in europe and global citizenship of today. Or at least, heading there.
We witnessed the birth of personal computers. ZX Spectrum, with cassete loading games that we waited 30 minutes to load and praying for them not to fail.
Then came the first PCs - i8086 processors, at 8Mhz, with CGA graphics - 640x480 and 4 colors - white, black, cyan and magenta. And god, the games were fun!
Then the soundblaster sound revolution - from beeps to complex sounds.
Then VGA, XVGA, 256 colors, 16000 colors and 24 bit colors.
The sound became better and better each year, until it became true high fidelity.
Now we are heading to Virtual Reality and Metaverse, and games played with a RTX4090 seem real life.
In the meantime, the birth of the Internet.
First the dial-up modems. 28kbps, and we needed to dial and occupy the phone line. And pay! Our parents kept shouting "Turn off that thing, someone might phone us!"
Now we have cabled 1Gbps 24h hour connections, with no limits.
In three decades, the world has changed a lot.
Then came...Bitcoin!
The younger fellas, millenials and Gen-z, understand it easier, since they are internet-native. Is their native language
My generation has a tough time understanding the idea of free money in a computer.. State-money was all we knew, and it was paper in the beginning. Tangible and palpable. Computer-internet-virtual money seems strange. Baby-Boomers may even be more confused.
True, most of us almost only see digits in a computer screen on the bank account. But it is "The Bank", and we were raised in a time where banks seem very serious and credible. We saw the banks evolve too. My parents worked at one,
Everything was serious, professional. Everyone used suits. As a young boy, I used to see papers, cash vaults and shielded suitcases, cheques. Reunions. It's like the adult world. Now Homebanking revolutionized things. It has become more online, virtual.
However, it is not at par with the technological advances in other areas.
There is still massive supervision there, that requires slow settlements, intermediaries and central control.
But 2008 showed how fragile the economic system was.
In Europe, 2011-2013, the aftershock of the 2008 crisis. We had a central planning "easing", where the powers of central europe just squashed the autonomy of the southern countries. A group of three guys, some supposed economic gurus from the IMF, ECB and European Commission, called "Troika '', came to see what we were doing wrong. Like some angry daddies after the child screws up.
Conclusion - we were lazy. All southern countries - (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - The PIGS) were lazy asses that spent all their money on wine and women.
According to the powers that be, the PIGS fail had nothing to do with the centralization caused by the Euro, were different countries lost their ability to self-manage, and the quotas on production and we were paid to stop producing milk and fish, and payed to build roads and highways that we already had, among other dictates.
Where some banks were bankrupted, and of course bailed out.
Like Banif, BPN, BPP and Novo Banco (the one that is now withholding Peter Schiff's money lol) that was formed after ex-Banco Espirito Santo failed. The good assets went to create "Novo Banco", and the toxic assets were swallowed by the portuguese taxpayers. 7 billion euros - that we cannot even print, just borrow from the ECB.
Then came the Austerity Period where everything was bad.
Most of us believe that it is what it is, and we cannot do anything. That anything that is different is doomed to fail.
When I heard about bitcoin, 2013-2014, I dismissed it. Things were too complicated already in the economy, and that computer geek money seemed like some scam. I believe it's the initial reaction of most.
Then 2018 I was surprised bitcoin still existed, but still didn't give much of a thought.
In 2021 I heard of Tesla buying Bitcoin and that sparked my curiosity. I read alot about it, and as we all know, went down the rabbit hole. Bought eth, some altcoins and gambled with shitcoins, losing money. Guess most of us been there :P
Now after a lot of reading and studying I finally understand the power of incorruptible, decentralized, uncensorable money, or store of value.
I do believe Bitcoin will be a part of the future. Lightning network and Nostr may play a big part too, the simplicity and outreach of the "zapping" mechanism astounds me when thinking of what it can revolutionize.
I have no idea if it will be worth 30k dollars, 1k dollars, 1 dollar or 10 million in the next 5 years. It will attract resistance from the governments, a lot of it for sure. They will not yield their power and control gained over the course of last century and .
Bitcoin will be defamed, ostracized, banned and censored.
But it will endure.
Best part of all, Bitcoin is a beacon of hope in the future. In a freer mankind, sovereign and untamed. That is our birthright. And we are all in the front line of that change, and it is still soon, very soon.
So...exciting times ahead! ❤️🌟