Who wants some Bitcoin, friends?

I've also always thought about cashu as private custodial lightning, nothing more nothing less.

No it's not clear already, this is your opinion. We should have been dead multiple times by now, which does not mean I'm excluding the possibility of it happening in the future: I'm simply taking it for what it is, namely a possibility.

Why? I personally don't like colleagues who use AI to generate code they barely look at, wait for reviews, and then implement all the required changes to address the comments. What's the point of this? I thought AI was going to improve their code, not just allow them to push stuff quicker and then wait for reviews

I've thought about this many times and I've reached the personal conclusion that capitalism is not the problem per se. I think the unhealthy relationship with technology is: in the words of Thoreau "we have become the tools of our tools". That is, we no longer seem to think that technology is a means to an end, but it has become an end in itself. Changing society's mode of operation won't necessarily bring back a saner way of being in the world, nor meaning, purpose, appreciation of beauty and many other things which we seem to have lost.

The most worrying thing for me personally is that the vast majority of people around me seemingly can't wait to literally outsource everything to AI, not sure why this is so appealing to them

I was expecting more debate on this point - is it true that Monero is not experiencing these issues and if so, is it true that it would change if it crossed a certain size threshold? Why would that be in both cases?

Sure, but even in a tribe of 10 people dealing with other tribes of similar size is not like everyone automatically knows everything about what you've said or done. Most importantly there was no institution that could peek into all of your transactions by simply checking database entries.

Hard to disagree with this, yet I'm not sure the solution to centralization can only be technical in nature. Without the average individual being informed and interested in sovereignty, would ideally perfect UX and tools ever be enough? What's preventing the average self proclaimed Bitcoiner from self custody + operating his/her own lightning node?

Elaborate the elaboration?

That's a pretty unclear reply in my opinion. Data availability in an unconfirmed state for users that cannot wait?

No, it's an act of ignorance, which is very different from faith

Pretty crazy to think that this was the internet once

How many people can transfer a meaningful amount of gold to someone else and have it verified in around 60 minutes?

Self custody or this was all a worthless adventure

Also try our

Don't know much about him to be honest, he seems to have done quite a few things for El Salvador as far as I know. So yes we can have good leaders, I'm just not sure they're reliable over the long term. Best case, they get replaced over the decades and nothing ensures we get good ones again

I'm not sure that going in this direction is fruitful since my question was really a rhetorical one. I cannot imagine how we would be able to have any sort of institution/entity/dictator in charge that optimizes for what is morally good and ensures material abundance without ever failing. I'd also state that this line of thought is based on a hidden premise: do you think we can, as mankind, define a set of objective values and goals to be pursued? The question of how to then pursue these is necessarily secondary

Self custody?

If you could guarantee to me that we could have a benevolent dictator who would never do anything wrong and only implement incredibly great ideas for the benefit of each and every member of humankind, then sure! Can we do that?

Because especially when it comes to money you don't want to end up broke with all your friends and family members pointing at you as the guy who lost it all on the shiny new thing. If it turned out that the shiny new thing were the highest instantiation of money humanity had ever seen, it still wouldn't help the average individual since they wouldn't know how to recognize it in the first place. So in my opinion is not even the case that people need established options to think freely and critically, they need them precisely to avoid having to think. We're social animals and we feel better by being part of a group than by being right. I think it was Naval who said that groups aim at consensus while individuals aim at truth.

Fair points, can there ever be a culturally aligned user base for a tool which is as broad as an alternative monetary system though? In other words, can anybody hope to unleash something like Bitcoin onto the world and expect it to be used accordingly?

That sounds scary which unfortunately doesn't prevent it from happening