Damus

Recent Notes

Dey Ex Machina profile picture
20% cc interest is a debt that doubles every 4y. if you default, the lender garnishes your pay and you become its slave for all practical purposes.

This, is riba.

It seems the arguments to keep this obscene product were

1/ 'rich people will lose their 5$ coupon to Applebees'

2/ Poor people will no longer be able to financially destroy their family
Dey Ex Machina profile picture
Bitcoin OGs initially thought people from countries with weak ccies would be the early adopters. The opposite occurred: the worse the currency, the more anti bitcoin its population is. It's a paradox, I don't fully understand.
ابو مريم · 8w
I'm a moderator for nostr:npub1h8lhed2da096g2wcsh2crmyvenune046rqkejc8f8pcaag8qj25qqadp5p relay and producing content with nostr:npub1updmknky86nsph84rstlh0yymqpeg9l9f62qgxwvd6a75f3pvzxqxv83nv
Muslim Bitcoiner · 8w
This is an interesting feature that I think nostr apps should incorporate. I view nostr as a tribe building engine. In legacy social media, users are algorithmically inventivized to follow and prop u...
Dey Ex Machina profile picture
the content quality on nostr blew me away. this is my take on sm

1. twitter doesnt allow long form content, and forces people to give up private info if they want to share longer form contents. so there is a whole cohort of people you will never see engaging there because their profession is more secretive. as a result, you are left with sound bites and mindless confrontational people with relatively nothing to lose.


2. reddit is a step above, in the sense you can dive in and find subs with real insiders. the issue is censorship. if you have a vpn with no leakage your account will be removed at some point. mods also are arbitrary and generally a net negative to the convos. the value is obviously not shared with the comtributors which will cap the effort one will put into it.


3. fb, ig, consumerist trash


4. tiktok was great, but it’s centralized so it got nuked. expected.


nostr is the only sm that really excites me. it’s fully censorship resistant, the quality is extremely high and i think it’s because there is a technological barrier to entry. the concept of keys management (private/public) is just hard enough to scare away the low effort rage bait, but simple enough for the rest. i tried nostr 2y ago and gave up on it. so it’s a come bck for me. the progress i see this with yakihonne, primal, following._, habla…. is just very (very) exciting to see. i am here to stay. there are much more relays, its less clunky. bravo. there is so much more potential. articles are a great innovation that i dont recall seeing 2y ago. now i see widgets coming up. if pple start implementing their own widget inside of their profiles, you can really create a universe of small planets which are communities, and in each planet you have different people doing different services. so maybe, planet finance. and one would have a widget to project your personal finance cashflow, another to compute your taxes, another to build your portfolio. medical field could do the same, etc… its a complete different way of socializing info, with supercharged tools, and without a leviathan on top that enforces misguided rules. and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
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ابو مريم · 8w
yes! it's always been about the quality here for me as well. nostr isn't noise (i mean, it could be if you wanted, but i think you nailed it in that the technical bar to entry does make those here naturally want to do something productive). folks are here on nostr becuase they want to build somethin...
Muslim Bitcoiner · 8w
Reddit is an interesting case, as it started out as an engine to build communities, but it ended up turning to shit. I think there's lots of aspects of both reddit and discord that should be applied to nostr, obviously without all the surveillance and homosexuality
Muslim Bitcoiner · 8w
And they're just going to be increasingly irrelevant going into the future most likely
Dey Ex Machina profile picture
unfortunately, i don’t know if they are losing influence, because popular apps like zoya, wahed or launchgood are pegging their zakat calculators to them. My main contention is when an interpretation of a rule leads to removing life saving contributions away from people who by definition, will be refugees, orphans, people in severe need, etc. The wealthiest people, including for muslims, own most of their wealth in stocks. cutting their zakat by 70% will have devastating impacts. I really hope the spread of this methodology stops right then and there.
Dey Ex Machina profile picture
Wealth inequalities are mostly driven by a class of investors that were able to accumulate capital in the form of shares. Zakat offers a virtuous mechanism to transfer some that wealth into the most vulnerable part of the society. A new methodology introduced in 2015, provides the wealthiest with a 70% haircut over their charitable contributions on shares. This year, it was adopted by the North American Fiqh Council, the Shariyah Review Bureau and was added in the official calculators of the popular app LaunchGood, Zoya Finance and Wahed Invest. If it continues to grow in influence, it will significantly impact charitable contributions for the most vulnerable, at a time of massive refugee crisis in muslim countries, and for a foreseeable future.

In the attached letter, I show why the methodology is incorrect. I have so far not been able to reach out to the authors or the apps pushing it (my reach is very low). Please consider sharing the open letter as much as you can. And may Allah accept your action as a ceaseless charity.

The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said: "When a man dies, his deeds come to an end except for three things: Sadaqah Jariyah (ceaseless charity); a knowledge which is beneficial, or a virtuous descendant who prays for him (for the deceased)." (Muslim)

https://yakihonne.com/article/s/[email protected]/0tgPnMnDpaZc0m-cKr7Wn
Alp · 8w
Added already