Nick Szabo  🔑

The nice thing about permissionless networks is that you do not need anyone's permission to develop on top of it and help it reach its potential.

A perfectly coded network is worthless without users, and users are humans, so a network will not reach its potential unless you make it attractive to humans. Ironically, a community of Bitcoin's most intense acolytes hold it back with their poor social and communication skills.

Let me help you understand Bitcoin by explaining the joke. The joke is that Bitcoin dominates regardless of what anyone does. When shitcoiner snowflakes start hyperventilating over @bitstein acting as emperor, you both confirm Bitcoin's value proposition & make us laugh at you.

I get the joke. It's just not that funny. You're doing Lord of the Flies while out in the world, I assure you, Bitcoin is not dominating.

The world of politics *is* Lord of the Flies, especially on Twitter. We didn't invent it. The fly net called Bitcoin is however an extremely useful tool to have to help us survive and thrive in this buggy world.

In terms of power relations, politics is indeed Lord of the Flies. I'm against replicating it in Bitcoin-land, which in terms of extent/territory is a tiny island. Your metaphorical survival on that island is by the grace of mainland forces still today, which is disappointing.

But metaphors and literary allusions sure are great!

Jim, the point is the protocol itself doesn't care, anyone can use it (friend or foe), and that we are not a police force. We gotta work with what we have and make the best of it despite not being able to get people to behave like saints. That's the challenge. The tech is easy.