bugs & mistakes⚓︎
only if we embrace mistakes, and learn from them, will we grow stronger
We broke...⚓︎
Nostr is like a decentralized fleet of ships at sea. Some days, storms hit those ships and nostr hodls on. Not every storm is a negative happenstance: A flood of people rushed through Damus' doors, when it was accepted in the Apple App Store. Access to nostr created a storm that tested the strength of relays.
In real time, we could read how developers were bracing for the storm, how they fought to withstand it, and how, sometimes, stuff breaks... for a while. Then these notes and stuff transmitted through relays get built back up again. Resilience is another word for nostr..
Storms did not only hit relays, they also hit lightning, as new people on nostr continued the tradition of sending their first lightning invoices, now transformed into zaps. Most of the weight fell on the Wallet of Satoshi's shoulders. Bitcoin has a similar ecosystem to nostr. In nostr you can discover various nostr clients, and in bitcoin, you can find many wallets. People began recommending Blue Wallet, Muun... to help with the high usage of new lightning zappers.
Nostr is sometimes known for breaking things, often leading to stronger products faster. It experiences real life tests of scalability and it adjusts its sails to withstand future storms.
Aliens & Unidentified Flying Objects⚓︎
We may have bold and italics to give emphasis to text, but we do not have a way to signal sarcasm. In order to understand it, we need to be in the conversation. What do we believe? What do we mock? We often mock fakeness, lies, disregard for truth and ethics.
Life teaches us to laugh at our mistakes and imperfections. We can grow stronger when we can take criticism, when we can look deeper into how we work and learn from it.
Yet so many centralized bodies do not tolerate sarcasm nor criticism, they do not allow for learning or growing, as if they wanted to remain stagnant, when everything is fluid. Anything that remains stagnant weakens over time, as if it was blind to its mistakes. Holding on to a broken past in the hopes to retain a power structure prevents positive growth and innovation.
Orange Pill Moments⚓︎
In the bitcoin world, knowledge is a highly valued form of freedom. It is the "orange" pill inspired by the concept of the blue and red pills from the Matrix. Choose to take that metaphorical bitcoin orange pill and you will never look at the world in the same way. Knowledge has that power.
Orange pills symbolize a bitcoin culture that thrives on learning, testing, and solving for issues. Swallowing bitcoin concepts can be revealing. Money connects us, yet how it works and affects people's lives across the globe is often an unspoken subject outside of bitcoin circles, treated as a taboo subject.
The effects of an orange pill focuses on education and translates into real life choices that can improve people's lives.
Technology can BUIDL on itself across time thanks to the work and openness of many people. Bitcoin brings together a technological foundation from the past, adding to it, and putting everything into a one-of-a-kind formula built with the purpose of solving for many of the issues in current financial systems. (Thank you Satoshi Nakamoto et al.).
The orange-pill effect helps people gain a deeper understanding of the gaps and issues with current financial system practices, but this learning process spreads further into other areas of our lives. It encourages integrity, fairness, openness, low time preference, collaboration, personal responsibility, critical and ethical thinking... It allows us to connect with our humanity.
As you look back on your own journey, what's been your favorite "orange-pill" moment? What did you learn? Has that knowledge carried unto other parts of your life?