What a world we live in where this is even a thought someone has.

You should know that little media is being made today that will stand the test of time. It used to be, that when someone was angry or proud or excited, when they were full of emotion that had to be expressed, they would write book or a song or paint a work of art. Now, those emotions can be unloaded instantly on TikTok giving the person the satisfaction they needed. And perhaps some people do still do this but you won’t know about it because the corporations that have historically funded such people full of emotions to express are now dumping money into works their board members know to already be popular.

I’ll add something that I’m personally struggling with. There is so much content available today that staves off any opportunity for boredom that I have little time to spend doing the things I know are more fulfilling. Like, when I get done work, I just plop on the couch and watch YT instead of taking a nap or reading a book or drawing. And now my attention span is shit so it’s a struggle to just sit still and do something requiring more than a few minutes of attention. I mean, I literally have a book called Dopamine Nation on my coffee table that I’ve yet to read more than a couple chapters of.

You and I may have two different problems but I think they’re booth seeking the same solution: rediscovering our humanity.

I mean, he doesn’t flip-flop hardly ever or change policies in decades.

Jones said this without any sense of irony.

I presume this position will be headed by Grok.

Thank you. I was getting worried that some pedantic twat hadn’t yet cherry picked my careful and specific wording.

The “meaning of life” is dependent on the scale.

On an intergalactic scale, practically nothing, unless you’re someone involved in some way in intergalactic travel (like Musk, potentially). On a planetary scale, your life as a political or corporate leader or humanitarian could impact generations of others. If you’re a doctor or lawyer, your life may impact tens of thousands or even generations of people. These are scales based mostly on space.

You could also look at a scale based on time. If / when the planet explodes, maybe someone like a Musk will be the only one alive today who genuinely has an impact on the human race long into the future. If you want to look at the time span of a country’s existence, someone like a Julius Cesar, a George Washington, or Adolf Hitler will have certain meaning for hundreds of years.

Your life’s meaning may yet to be realized. The point is to live your life day to day in a manner that has a positive impact on the lives that surround you. If you don’t have the impact of someone like political or corporate leader or someone like a Greta Thunberg, maybe the point of your life is to be a supporting player for someone else.

It gets difficult to find meaning if you live an isolated life. Without a family of your own, a fulfilling career, without traveling to engage with others outside your regular week’s schedule, it’s easy to say your life is meaningless. Because you haven’t made an attempt to give it meaning.

Your life doesn’t have to have meaning. But if you’re asking this kind of question and expecting someone to tell you there’s some inherit “meaning” bestowed upon you at birth, you’re not going to get a hopeful answer. That’s not to say you need to go out and look for it. It’s to say that “meaning” comes from the impact have on something, by choice or otherwise.

You’re gonna have to give me a source for that buddy.

Awesome. I appreciate this perspective.

Can you dig a bit deeper into the benefits for normal people that an irreversible transaction offers? To me, this seems like a detriment. Like, if I sell something on eBay and it turns out to be broken or fraudulent, PayPal can reverse the charges for me. Actually, I have a real world example of buying sneakers online that never arrived and had my credit card reverse the charges for me.

Thank you for being one of the few to take me seriously and offer a thoughtful response.

I can understand now the value of a token that represent some amount of effort that is limited in its supply. As “promised”, no other bitcoins will ever be made. So this alone makes it worth something. The fact that it represents some amount of effort achieved does seem to give it some validity. Although, IMO, certainly not $100k worth.

I’ll need to think this over some more and maybe update this post with some more thoughts on the future of the coin.

Thank you for a real answer like I specifically asked for.

The fact that Bitcoin does represent some amount of effort and that there’s a limited supply does seem to give it some value. While there is a theoretical finite resource of gold, it’s still being discovered. Which, theoretically, makes it less valuable than a predetermined finite resource. And, the US dollar continues to decline - almost by design during this administration.

How BTC is used today and in the future can continue to be debated but I’m satisfied in understanding it’s a limited supply of something that represents some amount of effort.

This guy on YT recorded the entire process of signing up for the mobile service. It was interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUtSo7dASg0

Not to discount this helpful and important information but, for the people you’re trying to direct this to, I genuinely don’t think it matters. This administration has thrown out habeas corpus and due process. And they have done this because a substantial portion of the population voted in favor of kicking people out who don’t look like them. It’s called Nationalism. And with that comes Fascism.

The core identity of the United States is disintegrating by public opinion. The one thing that brought pride to generations of Americans is being driven out and replaced with the same reasons people had left other countries in favor of the US. It’s gut-wrenching.

So, yeah, get your papers but don’t let it fool you into believing it protects you.

Hah - also funny to look at “only about 50% of US citizens have a passport” to understand exactly why we’ve turned into Nationalists.

Big Tech doesn’t run social media. It runs algorithmic advertising platforms.

The majority of people using algorithmic advertising platforms are not content creators, they’re consumers (if you’re reading this, you’re probably not in the majority). They have no interest is active participation in “social media”. They’re in it for the entertainment, the distraction, the memes, the algorithm telling them what they should care about. You can’t remove this feature and expect these users to find content for themselves.

You can argue the pros and cons all you want, your reasoning may be factual and altruistic, but you will not get a substantial portion of content consumers to migrate to platforms that require more effort. They know what they’re signing up for. They have no interest in “reclaiming social media”.

Bluesky and Mastodon are fantastic platforms that, in my opinion, revive some of the core tenants of social microblogging. But this is like comparing a bulletin board system (BBS) to the Yahoo! homepage. Some people want to be involved, some people want to be told.

One of these platforms offers a greater profit making opportunity than the other. If one allows people to make money and another does not, what’s the motivation for the most influential of creators to embrace the latter? And then what’s the motivation of the consumers to embrace a platform that lacks the most influential creators? (Again, if you’re reading this, you likely aren’t a member of the majority.)