1/ So much of the debate is around how deadly COVID is, or the effectiveness of the lockdowns, or the magnitude of the collateral damage.

But that immediately concedes the frame to the tyrants, both large and small.
2/ The implication of arguing in this fashion is that if the disease was actually that deadly, or the lockdowns were effective, or the collateral damage harmed fewer than it helped, then all this control and oppression might be acceptable.
3/ The implication is that imprisoning peaceful people, mandating what they wear, when they can do business, who they can meet, forcing people to die alone, and all the other evil stuff going on around the world right now *could* be okay *if* the disease was dangerous enough.
4/ No. It doesn’t matter how deadly the disease is. Even if it was influenza times one thousand. You should never lock innocent people in their homes. You should never make people die alone. You should never force people to live in a way that makes you feel more comfortable.
5/ If you live in fear, you must individually take your own precautionary measures. If you fear for others, you must accept that the world is sometimes dangerous.

Give me liberty or give me death.

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More from @nwoodfine

24 Oct
1/ The assault against open-source software that emerged recently will not be resolved by self-hosting alone.

One of the authorities’ obvious next steps, after GitHub has “harmonised” its platform, is to demand licenses to host any software and maybe even licenses to produce it.
2/ These new rules will be implemented in the name of “ensuring new technology fits with the values of society” and “guaranteeing that everyone has a democratic stake in how technology affects our lives.”
3/ The urgency of the regulations will be accelerated by two things:

(i) Bitcoin’s threat to the increasingly fragile and controlled fiat monetary system.

(ii) The emergence of decentralised, self-hosted communication apps that circumvent the censorship and encryption bans.
Read 6 tweets
6 Jan
1/ "What happens when the internet gets switched off?" Despite the best hopes of many salty nocoiners, a surprising number of great engineers have been thinking about how to keep bitcoin running in offline environments.
2/ Bitcoin is as much a hardware revolution as it is a software revolution. If your private keys are on someone else's device, the bitcoin are not yours. If your full node is in the cloud, it's not you verifying transactions.
3/ And if you're totally dependent on someone else's network hardware for access to the bitcoin network, then you're at risk of being cut off when things go wrong. Some reasons you might want to transact "offline" include...
Read 51 tweets
4 Oct 19
1/ This is an idea I’m still working with, so comments and corrections welcome: S2F is only an *outcome* of something more fundamental, hence some people taking offence at the metric being used to explain bitcoin’s value.
2/ For instance, you theoretically could have a good in low demand with a high S2F ratio, and its high S2F ratio would be a *product of* its low demand. The sale value of the good would be so low that only a few small manufacturers would bother producing it.
3/ Now let’s imagine that same good, for whatever reason, suddenly sees a surge in demand. New manufacturers would rush in, supply would increase, and S2F would rapidly decrease. It was always cheap to make, just few people originally wanted it compared to the existing stock.
Read 18 tweets
1 Oct 19
1/ To expand on this further, the idea of money "storing" value is just a metaphor, and often leads to the illusion confusion. People don't really agree or believe or imagine that money "has" value. Instead, individuals simply seek to obtain money as a means to further ends.
2/ They accept money as an intermediary good which they can subsequently exchange for something else. Each individual is constantly making a series value judgements on which goods to accept in exchange for the goods they produce themselves, on a path to satisfying their own ends.
3/ This will of course take into account how many people are demanding various intermediary goods at that instant—which goods are most "saleable"—but will also take into account other factors, including properties that might cause goods to be more or less demanded in the future.
Read 18 tweets
25 May 19
1/ Bitcoin deals with money. Separating money from the state. Managing people’s life savings. People’s livelihoods depend on it. The path of civilisation is altered by the money its built on.

Dangerous, risky stuff. A lot is on the line.
2/ In addition to this, the vast majority of the industry surrounding bitcoin is comprised of scammers and their “agnostic” enablers. Fraudsters and charlatans that knowingly exploit the lack of understanding in this new technology to profit handsomely at others’ expense.
3/ Bitcoin industry culture is therefore *necessarily* one of extreme skepticism, cynicism, rigorous review, and forthright language. Regardless of whether you’re discussing bitcoin development, business, or economics, no one is safe.
Read 13 tweets
1 Feb 19
1/ Our parents were led to forget—no, outright reject—the ideological underpinnings that make the UK a nice place to live. Based on discussions with friends and family, apathy rules. Authorities have almost zero opposition, free to do as they please. “If youre not doing wrong...”
2/Nothing is real and relativism has completely taken hold. No one understands rights like private property or free speech, they’re not codified anywhere. There is no constitution or ethical framework to refer back to. That would be too rigid, “too ideological”.
3/ Instead, it’s considered better to make case by case judgement calls on how things make you feel. Stripped of formal philosophy, religion, and ideology, the majority are reduced to drones, intellectually inert and led by emotion. Virtue before logic. Great news for the media.
Read 11 tweets

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