I do not blame people for believing that socialism/communism is a good idea. They are 100% right in feeling that the system is broken—rigged—that it's crazy that they can't afford anything. It's going to continue to seem viable for as long as money comes out of thin air...

But if there's anything I've learned, it is that human behavior over time seems cyclical, that those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it, that history often rhymes. They may promise free things or things of that nature but you will pay for it through currency debasement, among other ways, which is a form of tax.

"It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights." - Ludwig Von Mises

All these companies are at the mercy of Visa/Mastercard. If they don't comply then they don't have a business anymore. It's not about Itch.io being "weak" or "bad". It's not their fault.

What we need is a reliable way to make payments to each other with no third party intermediary. This exists today.

But a lot of furries don't understand this and believe they hate the solution. But if the solution is completely open, transparent, secure, FAIR, and censorship resistant, among other things, then don't you see how that benefits you? The problem is there's a lack of education. It's a boring subject.

But AS YOU CAN SEE, if you are relying on someone else to process your payment, then there is a chance they can stop you for ridiculous reasons. You should be able to make a consensual exchange for a product or service. It's between you and the other party.

I think it's high time we just don't bother with protesting Visa/Mastercard to make changes and just... go on and do our thing without asking anyone's permission? You wanna buy and/or sell nsfw stuff? Go for it! Who cares what someone else thinks.

But education is hugely important. Economics and the history of money may not be sexy for most, but you'll see how integral it is for human society as a whole. And this is literally what Bitcoin was made for. It takes the power over money out of their hands and puts it back into yours, where it rightfully belongs.

Study the difference between it and the rest of "crypto". Yes, there's a difference. Yes, it matters. Open a history book. Learn about how the monetary system works today and in the past. See how we got to where we are today. I really don't want to keep seeing furries worry and struggle to find a place that'll let them live off of their amazing work.

Fiat money makes it easy to fund wars. Hard money, money that cannot be easily printed up for free like fiat, by contrast makes it more difficult and costly to fight wars.

The economic story behind the bloody wars of the 20th century is all about abandoning a hard money standard in order to fund global war.

Make war unaffordable.

Time for another post that will likely fall on deaf ears, but I think gaining some level of understanding is important for where things are heading. Being the issuer of the world reserve currency has its pros and cons. Her book 'Broken Money' is amazing.

https://www.lynalden.com/wp-content/uploads/broken-money-chapter-13.pdf

To no one's surprise, the orange man is unfortunately going to cause more people to learn a certain lesson the hard way. I think if Dems want a good chance at winning the next election, they'll actually put in the effort to understand the future landscape ahead and differentiate one vs the rest.

This can be such an easy layup it's insane. But will they take it? I'll remain hopeful but I have a feeling that they may not. They enjoy the advantages unsound money gives them over you too much.

It's honestly crazy how different you see the world when looking at it through a sound money lens. Most if not all the issues you have about society stems from the fact that the money is broken. Our money is not tied to reality, and the ones that create it for free steal from you.

Sound money is fundamental to society. Without it, society starts to break. You are mad at the wrong people. If one rich asshole can supposedly end world hunger, what about the ones are able to create that very money for free? Why do they need to collect taxes from you when they can LITERALLY just create it, allowing you to save everything that you earn for food and shelter?

Why don't they just create the money needed to solve all these problems? If you could, wouldn't you feel morally obligated to do so? Money since 1971 is just a piece of paper or now mostly digits on some government's database, backed by literally nothing. Different pieces of paper are ascribed different values, when they all cost them pennies to create.

You spend your life's limited time and energy on this planet working for money that someone else creates for free. Who do you think has the advantage here? The history of "money" (feathers, sea shells, rai stones, leather, glass beads, metal coins, etc) show that people who are able to exploit money WILL, because that's just human nature. Which is why we don't use them as money anymore.

Gold was great, but even that was susceptible to devaluation. Over time, they'd recreate coins made with less and less gold content but attempt to give it the same value. Nowadays with technology, gold is too slow and expensive to transport and verify its authenticity. It does not work in the telecommunication/digital age humanity has entered, which is also why we came off the gold standard. So if you want everyone to be put on a fair and level playing field, we need to fix our idea of money. How?

These things take up the majority of my mind space, and it's hard to even look at social media nowadays watching people complain about complex issues they think can be easily solved by just throwing their favorite politician in there, but is actually prolonged because of unsound money.