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Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

nostr.org

161–170 of 198 posts

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#161

I tried very hard to develop for Nostr with the idea it was an inclusive communication commons. Turns out it was a Lightning Network payments promotion project. All of its users (aside from its creator) were very much more interested in Lightning than in Nostr. Dismal experience, still bitter about the effort I wasted on it.

In its early inception, it wasn't so bad about that. As it grew, though, it became insular and favored those who were going to the conventions for bitcoin and shouted things like "Pura Vida". My "done with it" moment was when there was a lady from some Latin American place who was asking for donations so she could go to one of those Bitcoin talks in Costa Rica, and everyone ignored her. It was weird to see people goi…

If you’re talking about who I think you are, it’s because she is a scammer and a stalker and everyone on Nostr is completely fed up with her. The community is extraordinarily welcoming of honest people producing honest content.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#162
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government would just break glass on every transaction because what would you do about it?

Fortunately, not all governments have completely normalized warrantless wiretaps yet. I think requiring a court order and retroactive notification of suspects whose privacy has been invaded is a good model. I'd rather have my money work in a way that allows that than in the current status quo, i.e. a complete lack of privacy for anything other than cash (which has different issues and doesn't work so well online).

What will you do when they break glass on every transaction and don't do that?

Or when Lithuania breaks glass on every transaction and sends the data to the FBI, like what they did with Anom?

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#163

Nah it’s DOA because it was adopted by the alt right.

Yeah, zero moderation and you can't talk to the manager. Truly awful to have decentralized freedom.

I mean when you start organizing the next jan 6th event the press (not this admin's fbi) is gonna go straight to nostr pages for research on the time and places and what will happen.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an unfair judgement. There are people there using LN, just as there are others using Monero, BCH or whatever crypto rocks their boat. I develop for NOSTR and use zero cryptocurrencies because the communication aspect is what matters, especially the account with npubs which are basically universal entry cards to avoid anyone having to create separate accounts just to use some website or app.

I'm interested in seeing more nostr clients that do not implement cryptocurrency. Can you please share some examples?

From top of my mind would say https://coracle.social/ and on Android the darkwisp from: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.darkwisp.app

There are so many clients, here is a site that tries to keep up with what exists: https://nostrapps.com/

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, zero moderation and you can't talk to the manager. Truly awful to have decentralized freedom.

I mean when you start organizing the next jan 6th event the press (not this admin's fbi) is gonna go straight to nostr pages for research on the time and places and what will happen.

When you dive deeper into NOSTR you'd find completely encrypted communities with a privacy level far higher than mainstream products because the servers here can be completely randomized and very difficult to track: https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqszqwr0f8pclmskaydx9x4lvwh057zj...

The other advantage is that NOSTR doesn't necessarily run on the internet only. Things like LoRa and radio waves are within reach and even harder for eavesdropping. Not that I would care about protests nor governments in general, my typical focus is communication when electricity/internet are gone.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#166
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? What can you do with this client, and how does it find the relays to use to get notified of new notes? I don't know very much about Nostr, so I don't know the answers to these questions, or even if they are the right questions to ask.

Users set their own relays. Other users can see this list and use it to send and receive events. It's fixed the need of big common relays. https://nips.nostr.com/65

So how does this hypothetical client find out what non-big relays have been set by the other users whose notes its user wants to receive, if not by receiving notes from those other users via one of the big common relays?

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#167
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOSTR is a protocol so there's no entity for you to be bitter with... You can be annoyed at the people who were on there, but that's a different subject. There's probably a better analogy than this, but what you're describing would be like playing soccer and being annoyed that your teammates are furries. Go find another team to play with.

Protocols are always developed by entities. Suppose the protocol changes - who decided that? About the only ownerless protocol is Bitcoin (not Ethereum, Monero or any other one) and it still has an entity with soft power over it.

if the protocol were to change, clients and relays would have to also be willing to adopt the change, almost if not all of which are open-source and easily forked if a large population did not care to pull in those changes. Sure there's always someone guiding the direction, but I don't know how much better you can get than that.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#168
post #117
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been 18 years and there are still no useful blockchain projects that go beyond trading and speculation. It hasn’t even produced a compelling currency, <2% of households use it for goods and services. I have no idea how or why anyone is still hanging on.

How would you anonymously pay for a VPN or donate to whistleblowers or get cash from an ATM without having to identify yourself? What is your backup plan to pay bills when your bank account is frozen by identity theft (can take months to resolve)? Only those that believe privacy and sovereign control of wealth has no value, can assert cryptocurrency is useless.

> Only those that believe privacy and sovereign control of wealth has no value, can assert cryptocurrency is useless.

I didn’t say it was useless, it seems to have a niche value to speculators and investors.

All of the examples you gave either don’t matter to 99% of everyone (“hey mom, how do you donate to whistleblowers”) or isn’t the most practical way to do a thing. E.g. bank account-related fraud is vanishingly small (the vast majority is credit card-related); in the US it affects ~10k people per year. Is the average person more likely to lose their savings to fraud or lose a crypto wallet due to human error?

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#169
post #61
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOSTR is a protocol so there's no entity for you to be bitter with... You can be annoyed at the people who were on there, but that's a different subject. There's probably a better analogy than this, but what you're describing would be like playing soccer and being annoyed that your teammates are furries. Go find another team to play with.

But now imagine that the regulating body of your favorite hobby sport is deeply corrupt and fundamentally profit driven, so while playing with your friends is still fun, just thinking about ever competing at the regional level makes you shiver. [1] Sure, you can always fork a protocol/not federate with who you dislike etc., but you might find yourself fighting an uphill battle against other people’s experiences and p…

This makes no sense. It's a protocol.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#170
post #168
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you anonymously pay for a VPN or donate to whistleblowers or get cash from an ATM without having to identify yourself? What is your backup plan to pay bills when your bank account is frozen by identity theft (can take months to resolve)? Only those that believe privacy and sovereign control of wealth has no value, can assert cryptocurrency is useless.

> Only those that believe privacy and sovereign control of wealth has no value, can assert cryptocurrency is useless. I didn’t say it was useless, it seems to have a niche value to speculators and investors. All of the examples you gave either don’t matter to 99% of everyone (“hey mom, how do you donate to whistleblowers”) or isn’t the most practical way to do a thing. E.g. bank account-related fraud is vanishingly s…

I did not say it was ready for the average person yet. It took over a hundred years to build our fiat systems and it may take as long to fully replace them. But for technical people that need privacy, the types of people that use tor, it is an invaluable tool, today, for which no viable alternatives exist. The actual cypherpunk crowd using it as intended for privacy and sovereignty absolutely exists. The noise of the traders and grifters just drowns it out.

Also I have legitimately purchased things in person all over the world with bitcoin, including at major department stores. A great way to meet the rare actual cypherpunks though are places that are crypto first, like the pubkey bar in NYC.

I do not trade, and have no interest in trading.

Decentralized payments will be as easy as paypal soon with Silent Payments allowing you to pay someone by email -> dns -> private one time use address, all automatically.

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