While influencers and the media are busy touting Trump as the crypto president of the world, Samourai Wallet developer Keonne Rodriguez is locked up in a federal prison cleaning toilets. If we continue down this path, bitcoin will be nothing but a glorified pet rock you can use to prop up your portfolio. It’s time to get your priorities straight anon. #FreeSamourai

I think his take is largely correct. I think it *can* be used for empowerment, and thats where we should try to get as a society - but thats not the reality currently

Internet: The Illusion of Empowerment, Jerry Mander, 1998

First of all I think you should learn what the difference between a „report“ and a prediction is, and second you can verify that this prediction was largely correct via both El Salvadorian and Argentinian gov statistics, showing that extreme poverty has risen yoy under bukele and homlessness has increased in buenos aires by almost 30% between 2024 and 2025 Next time feel free to google these things yourself xx

One thing that is very much missing on this planet imo is media literacy. We can build all the censorship resistance platforms we want, if we dont know how to verify information ourselves we will always keep rebuilding the same echochambers. ⭐️If you‘re interested in learning more about media literacy, interact with this post and I‘ll probably come up with one of the very controversial examples I am currently struggling to verify myself in the recent media hype.⭐️ Media literacy is not easy and its not for everyone. It involves asking yourself very hard questions that constantly go against your own bias, not instantly reacting to the current thing, and sometimes spending days or weeks on a single topic before you are able to form your own opinion, and most importantly, it means always being open to being wrong. I still think that learning this skill would be worthwhile. Nobody should rely on journalists, activists, media outlets, advocacy groups, politicians or governments as a single source of truth. Let‘s use our brains for something other than decoration ✌️

Great! Now that we agree that the Pahlavi monarchy was „awful“ and „one of the worst dictatorships“, you can hopefully finally answer my question - will the HRF distance itself from people and organisations that advocate for its reinstallment, or does the HRF not share the view that the Pahlavi monarchy was an awful dictatorship? Re being a „pretender“, I‘m not sure what that means. I agree that he‘s a grifting scumbag with zero actual chance of ruling the country, but Im not sure what you‘re trying to tell me with that statement. Does that mean it would be ok for HRF freedom fellows to advocate for, e.g., the son of Assad to take over Syria as long as you dont take him seriously? Or is the qualifier here that he promises to hold fair elections? Does this mean it is ok to advocate for the reinstallment of an awful dictatorship as long as the sons dictator pinky promises to not be a dictator this time? Re the current regime being „WORSE“, I‘m not sure what metric you use here - is it worse to order extrajudicial killings in the name of islam than in the name of big oil? Right on time with the whataboutism btw - had already worried that you abandoned your favorite line of argumentation, but there it is alas :)

So your official stance is that the pahlavi monarchy, which had total control over Iranian gov esp after the CIA ousted Mossadegh, tortured and murdered journalists and dissidents, disallowed a free press, forbade all political opposition, and surveilled and disappeared students and academics, was an „imaginary dictatorship“? Very insightful. Great end to this conversation imo ✌️

Actually, they hate America because the US-installed monarch, which you guys seem to be wanting to bring back without having any idea what you are talking about, murdered, exiled and tortured anyone associated with their party Might want to learn a bit about history before involving yourself in political discussions, just as a lil tip 👍

😭😭😭

How do people live like this

Seems like you won‘t say either - not very helpful for an alleged human rights org to not be able to provide a clear statement distancing itself from people who advocate for a dictator Looks like we will both be leaving this conversation disappointed :)