If you haven't seen Nostr, you should check it out if you are interested in the future of the internet and especially if you are interested in developing for the future web.  The project is currently in a "oh we're getting so much attention we keep needing more money to sustain the hardware and resources" stage, but most of the people who have been working on it so far have been doing it because they see it as a hobby they have that a lot of other people just happen to be really interested in as well: uncensoring the internet.

Nostr is a protocol which other platforms communicate through.  Its creators have described it as somewhat like when we send an e.mail, we use a client like Gmail or Thunderbird, and those messages are sent across a protocol which is specifically designed for sending e.mails.  Nostr only exists because other platforms have been built to solve some problems, only to flail about with other problems that aren't much better than their original problems after all, and Nostr seems to have come upon a really workable solution for a lot of content publishers.  I am in no way involved with the production of the platform (yet), but I realize that this post almost sounds like a paid shill.  I can easily say that nobody asked me or paid me to write these words, and until today, I haven't done much of anything on Nostr.

It is possible that Twitter could end up running on top of Nostr, or another relay-based protocol like it, because it is a very efficient node-based system which almost anybody can get into using immediately, if you can wrap your head around it and do some searching online to find the burgeoning collections of resources that people are putting together to help spell things out for newcomers. 

Basically, you can get right into reading and posting within a few minutes, with almost no programming knowledge needed, as long as you have the aptitude to read about how to use it, and it fits your personal use-case scenario.  You need to find some relays, and some reference to people whom you want to follow, and then choose a client or a way to access the relays used by the publishers you want content from.  If you want to publish, you can choose to publish to one relay, but the uncensorable strength of this system is found when you publish to a pool of relays, so that if one relay bans you, it won't affect you because your identity is tied to a public/private keyphrase.  Even if a person were to get their self banned from most of the relays that people end up using, anybody can start their own relay, share the address with their friends who are not banned, over time publishing and building followers, and still gain exposure to the audience of people using the Nostr protocol.

For someone to run their own relay, it is a bit more complicated, but there is a guide on how to set one up in 5 minutes, so for someone who works with servers and virtual machines and programming on a daily basis, the learning curve would be minimal.  Unless you are a technology pioneer who enjoys handling brand new technology and helping to develop it by merely using it, there is currently no real incentive in running a relay aside from data-harvesting (which is apparently limited), or setting up a paywall structure so that access to the relay is limited by paying for it.

Nostr is currently most appealing to tinkerers, programmers, designers, and content publishers who want to be a part of something while it's still so early in its development that it's risky to be a part of it, yet far enough along that people like Jack Dorsey, the former owner of Twitter, donated about 14 BTC to the team at Nostr.

The whole Nostr protocol is truly just being developed, and its creators seem like really genuine people, and after watching some video interviews about the project, I think it is something that a lot more people should know about, to understand where and how the internet is shaping up.  It's going to be tempting for a lot of platforms to consider adopting the Nostr protocol, though some platforms, such as Publish0x, probably would not be a target platform to try to convert to use the Nostr protocol.  Twitter is, as is the publishing platform Minds.  Twitter could make it happen.  Minds already has.

If they got 10,000 new users right now, the infrastructure is frail and it may collapse under the load, but they're actively building and seeking funding, and it seems like we are watching a wildfire grow, as I read articles and watch videos about this protocol, because more and more people are learning about it and repeating the same things:

It works.

It's simple.

It's easily the next communication protocol layer for the internet at large.

Much of the hype around "de-centralized" systems has been smoke and mirrors.  Bitcoin is not de-centralized, nor are any of the current cryptocurrencies that I know of.  There simply are zero cryptos which have no centralized control structure.  It's an illusion so far to say that any of them do.  Nostr is perhaps the closest thing I've seen yet that can be called truly de-centralized.  This brings up a host of problems and questions and implications for the internet.  What do we do about illegal content in an un-censorable system which could be run fairly closed-loop, where the only people allowed in have to go through very specific hoops to get there, but yet which is still able to be connected to the entire ecosystem that it runs on, exposing itself to be contacted by anyone who uses the system, if they know the protocols and methods to do so?  What do we do about hateful images and private documents and untoward things which should not be shared online, which will invariably be spread with haste through un-censorable and publicly-accessible networks like Nostr?  What do we do about those who prey upon others and post their images and videos of their crimes and make them available for others to purvey and share within and outside of these kinds of networks?  Who or what is benefited so much with creating a system so decentralized that even the authors of the system wouldn't be able to shut it down if they disagreed with how someone was using it?  Is this something that we can "weigh" the good versus the bad, or is this something where we would look at it and know that if it enables something so horrific such as (fill in the blank) to be displayed and shared freely, is it worth any good thing we might think to gain from it?

These are questions which we can ask and answer, today without needing to see it all take place.  There is a lot of bad stuff which is enabled by a lot of modern technology.  Soon the Antichrist, which the Bible informs us is made up of the false prophet, the beast, and the dragon (which is Satan), is going to woo and cause people to marvel at the powers that come from giving humanity's power over to it.  There are going to be a lot of "good" things which seem to be enabled by using more modern technology, and with a flood of words and through the force of policy and violence, Satan's minions are going to rule this world together for what the Bible describes as "one hour."  And just as swiftly, it will be over.

In Genesis 41, we read about Joseph being asked to interpret a dream for the Pharaoh, and Joseph humbly admits that the dream's interpretation is from God, and not from Joseph, and he goes on to deliver it to Pharaoh, warning of a great seven-year famine which would come after a great seven-year time of abundance.  By this warning, Pharaoh collected and stored up food for the nations of the world to survive on during the famine, further strengthening that kingdom.  Similarly, God's entire Word can be viewed today as a sixty-six-book-long warning about a roughly seven-year famine of good things, a famine of wholesomeness, a famine of peace, a famine of good choices, except to escape the worst of this famine, a person could believe on Jesus Christ today and have the peace and wholesomeness and plethora of good choices which the world is lacking even now.

The Bible also informs us that Christian hackers are going to hack.  As the old prophets described, there will be people who will forecast their devices against strongholds, and there will be those who do exploits.  I'm not a hacker like a lockpicker, but I know enough about computers and how they work to be able to see that when the Bible describes the end times it is describing a society very much like the one we live in today, with the internet and television and radio and telephones and militaries and disobedient children and wanton abominations and violence and cold-heartedness and perversions and confusion and deception and delusion.  Yet, there are also some described in the Bible who are those who believe in Jesus Christ, and we learn that "the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."

There are going to be people who recognize the Holy Spirit leading them to do very great things for the Kingdom of God in these days.  God says that in these days He is pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh, and young people and old people are going to see visions and dream dreams.  There are those who have no original thoughts because basically everything they've ever thought was fed to them from a screen, and there are those who have spent time in the Word, time in prayer, time under the instruction of wise leaders, and these people have been feeding on the very WATER and BREAD and BREATH of LIFE, and as such Christians will find themselves more fair and ready to bless others than other people beside them.  Not everybody is going to be a super hacker, but God has put His hackers in just the right places, and whether they are black hat, white hat, or whatever hat, God knows how to move the hearts of men, even those who think they are cursing God, to bring glory to His Son Jesus Christ.

Aside from hacking, using modern technology in general is a very extraordinary thing in and of itself, made even more extraordinary by the sheer number of people who merely use it without realizing how it works.  Many people around the globe are starving and not getting what they need to survive, yet almost everyone has a phone, or has access to use a phone to make a phone call.  Technology which has required so many dollars and so many years and so many people and so many needs and so many problems has become so accessible to even those least able to fully comprehend and grasp it or understand what it is or how it works, so that there is a very large divide between those who make it and understand it and those who do not.

Each person will have their moments with God, where God takes account of how we have used the resources we have been given, based upon the knowledge and wisdom He has gifted us with.  If someone believes that technology is evil in totality, then that person will be judged by that belief.  If a person believes that technology can be used for the good uses of the Kingdom of God, then that is the belief by which that person will be judged.  God holds us accountable for the light which He has delivered to us.

There are many questions we need to be asking ourselves about how we use technology, and about how we accept signals from society around us, and about how much garbage is allowed to infiltrate alongside the things that we actually want.

What legal strength do all those "I agree" buttons have that are clicked xillions of times per day around the globe?  They are all set up so that they will have maximum sting for the person who gets stung by them, because they realize that 99.9% of people will not read those "EULA" or "End User License Agreements" or any of the other notices like the "Cookie Agreements" and whatnot, and they realize that when people click the "I Agree" button, most people have not read what they are supposedly agreeing to, yet they craft these systems in a way so that in a court of law, the "end user" must abide by the terms they supposedly "agreed" to, without ever actually being really aware of what was contained in those texts.  Most people alive today have agreed their total liabilities, life informations, habit and preference trackings, and many other things over to these large and small corporations and organizations without thinking much about it.

Why is "KYC" suddenly "the law," and how long has that system been being developed, and by whom?  You might be surprised to find out that KYC is a Federal program which has been under development longer than most people have been alive, who read here on publish0x.com.  KYC is part of the same program that QR codes and RFID tags and GTIN/UPC barcodes all reside together in.  It's all the same system.  Who gave this system all the authority it will have in a few short months, before this year is over?  How did they get the ability to make these decisions for the whole entire globe?  Who has already positioned themselves to profit off of the shift to a one-world-currency and mandated individual digital identity "imprints?"

So many of these technologies which are being developed today are going to be used for evil, yet I see some opportunities, and surely others will see some opportunities to use the technologies which are in front of us to help establish some things which can help Christians in the present and into the future.  One of the largest struggles that Christians have right now is with censorship, and having the ability to publish and share in an un-censorable system would be great.  Another large struggle that Christians have right now is with being targets, but with these newer systems, a lot of things are encrypted in ways which make it difficult (though not impossible) to decrypt it without the proper credentials, which could be beneficial for Christians in places like North Korea or China, or anywhere where the technology is outpacing the government's ability to crack it, though eventually everything manmade can be manbroken.

Another major struggle that Christians have right now with all the various types of social media is the temptation to post inauthentic and glamorous things which portray themselves as someone whom they are not.  As well, many Christians struggle with sinning or condoning sin by using many of these social networks because the social networks are set up to help people sin.  With a protocol like Nostr, a Christian could make a social network which does not depend on advertisements or any other restrictions, and it would be able to be set up however the Lord leads that Christian to lead that group of people.  Nothing but the Holy Spirit can make a person want to pray to God first before posting anything.

What does God have to say about all of this?

If I'm wrong to use this technology, and God actually hates all of this technology, and if He counts it all to be wasted and sinful, as a part of the beast, then by using it and encouraging others to use technology, I am guilty of leading people into captivity, and God says I will go into captivity myself:

He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Revelation 13:10

If I'm doing exactly what God created me to do, and I am following His will through prayer and worship of Jesus Christ, then I am turning peoples' hearts to righteousness, and I will shine with all the saints in Heaven:

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
Daniel 12.1-3