Before I start, let me say: keep building. To discourage you is the furthest thing from why I complain. I’m mainly posting this to document where we’re at, so later, we can remember what we were doing here.

That out of the way, I’ve said this before and it might be a while before I don’t have to say it again: nostr has the potential for censorship resistance, but it doesn’t actually have censorship resistance right now. It isn’t actually resisting censorship. I’m using it to resist censorship, but can you even tell if it’s working for me at all? I still feel much more heavily censored than I was back when Aaron Swartz was alive.

I first heard about Brian Thompson on reddit, not nostr, even though I’m so banned from reddit I can’t even view it from my home internet so I don’t check it much at all anymore. Nostr is still LESS censorship-resistant than that

Don’t remember where I first heard about Israel’s big terrorist attack with communication devices in Lebanon, but it wasn’t on nostr

I first heard about Matt Nelson’s self-immolation on X, not nostr

People praised the Primal update that took away my ability to see all the posts from my followers

People pay for Primal Premium to get basic functionality we should get from a P2P network, like having posts actually stay and not disappear - will paying Primal protect bookmarked content too?

At the technological level, nostr is based on the jack dorsey malware model because it’s so much easier to decentralize than a good feed curation system like what Aaron Swartz created at reddit

The protocol calls for servers it calls “relays” that aren’t actually network relays as far as I can tell. Fiatjaf made some weird joke about how only non-P2P stuff can work when creating it, phrased as a reference to a quote by Satoshi talking about how Bitcoin would work as a P2P network, but Bitcoin has worked so far and Fiatjaf is ostensibly into it? Oh, but he’s into “lightning.” Don’t worry, people say he’s the next Satoshi, and he must simply know more than can be explained (actually 🔥 post by hodlbod)

The nostr protocol itself is a kinda retarded javascript-based technology other than the keypair login model that gives it pretty much all the potential it has.

Another cool thing about the protocol is how you can mute people visibly instead of secretly. That brings me from the technology topic to the community topic - how well does the community resist censorship? Well, a lot of the users who fill the “trending” feeds all the time have me muted for being a toxic dickhead and a terrorist (my words, not theirs). Corndalorian is an example. You might recognize other names too

Are we still talking more about Bluesky than Gaza?

I am definitely still the only person here talking about the ongoing pandemic

As we speak, I, for once have a post which is doing numbers. This gives me some dopamine, as I’m quite alone. I’m thankful for every like and repost. It’s an unusual night where a funny reply to a big npub has broken me into Primal’s Trending echelon. My post about Brian Thompson, the recently-proven-mortal UnitedHealthcare CEO, has not. You can scroll all the way down to my funny reply in the Trending 4h feed without seeing a single murmur of praise for Brian Thompson’s executioner - in fact, not even a peep about the topic at all, praise or otherwise.

Not seeing anything in the 1h feed either -

Meanwhile, this is the top of the front page of reddit’s /r/all -

That’s how much worse than reddit we are doing. Worse. Than. Fucking. Reddit. Seriously. Reddit, who made me get that screenshot from a different device because this is what I see on my main phone -

A lot of people here still blame all the outsiders for not being here, like there’s no way a better job could possibly be done at creating a beacon of intellectualism and free speech

To which I say -

But it’s fine. Maybe we should make nostr the kind of place Digit would like before we seriously try to onboard Hezbollah.