I grew up in a "Christian bubble" (attending church 2-3 days a week, mom sang for the choir, youth group retreats, etc.) and dropped my religion when i was about 20 – long story short, "enlightening info" like the documentary "Zeitgeist" made certain claims about Yeshua's story to discredit the authenticity as a copy of other cultural tales (virgin birth and son of god attributed to Egyptian Mythology, etc.) and I believed it...seemed credible enough. That documentary, along with hours of similar content convinced me that Yeshua's story was a mixture of several tales. So for a decade I've always said Yeshua was just a man who "figured it out", like many prophets before him, and then I got super dedicated into the Law of Attraction culture...until 2021 (officially declared myself Christian again on September 9th, 2021, I'll never forget that moment). 

Because of the plandemic, it forced me to get more vigilant with theological truth and doing my own deep dive research (666, the occult/satanism, the early 1st-4th century christian schisms, etc.) – i devoured hours on hours of info from scholars of all POV's (ie. the agnostic Bart Ehrman, or the Christian Dan Wallace, etc.) and read the actual documents from those early centuries like the Four Discourses Against the Arians, Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, Rowan Williams’ Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Revised Edition), Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos, etc. (archive.org is a great source for docs like this) ––– and from my earnest due diligence, especially reading Isaiah 53, Proverbs 8, Psalms 22 and Romans 8:29 – I've concluded that Yeshua is indeed THE TRUTH!!! I am now a Postmill-Arian-Christian. So much to say to defend Christianity, but I don't want this to get too long so let me wrap this up...bare with me lol 

Some quick info that I found helpful: 
Every scholar from all theological POV's agree unanimously that Yeshua was a real man in history who shook up society in ways the world has never seen before (Bart Ehrman is a great source for this, since even he defends this fact while being an agnostic so he has nothing to gain) 

Why is it that a large majority of the elites of the world, the "Deep State", etc. happen to be satanists or occultists? and they squirm at the name Jesus and try to remove God's law and moral value from pop culture...but yet, they're always cool with Buddha, Muhammad, Vishnu, etc. but when it comes to the name of Yeshua/Jesus and his true message that he is our creator and king of all creation? They vehemently hate anything alluding to Yeshua's title and his true teachings! Huge red flag! (Yeshua's title as Son of God is real) 

Bart Ehrman says: Christianity is the first religion that emphasized BELIEF, rather than WORKS. Pagans and Monotheist cultures (Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam etc) all focused on your works for your blessings or "enlightenment", Christianity was revolutionary for focusing on FAITH! So considering what Bart said, in my view, the original Law of Attraction wisdom was from Christianity!!! ––– ie. Whatever you desire, believe you've received it, and it will be yours [Mark 11:24] ––– and now today we see the pop culture using Law of Attraction to confuse people with truth while repackaging the original sin with the "I am God" lie, which is wrong. Yes, yeshua said we're gods (lowercase 'g'), but not how LOA culture teaches it (they imply the uppercase 'G'). 

Isaiah 53, Psalms 22 and Proverbs 8 helped me realize Yeshua truly was destined. 

But i kept wrestling with verses regarding the trinity like Mark 10:18 (“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.") – keywords: God ALONE. Not three, ONE. Among many many many other verses that prove Yeshua admits to being subordinate to the Father...UNTIL, i learned the TRUTH about a man named "Arius" and what he believed and fought for at the Nicene Creed of 325 AD. His opponents called him a heretic, twisted his words and burned all his books, right? Well here's some food for thought, we wouldn't have Christianity the way it is today without Martin Luther who exposed the corruption of Catholics in the 1500's – that's only 500 years ago...and til this day, Catholics still consider him a "heretic" – so the heretic label is often misleading! 

Arianism (plus Postmillennialism) was the missing exegetical POV that renewed my faith with an exciting passion. 

*Note: if you google Arianism you'll see a lot of misleading info implying that it's insisting "Jesus was not divine since he was not eternal" which is not what Arius taught; and often compares it to Mormanism or Jehova's Witness which is fundamentally wrong. You have to dive deep and read the actual letters/docs from the church elders of those centuries to read the truth. 

If you're interested, see my Arian blog post to read more info on the history of Arianism along with some Apologetic points to support Arius' views here.

Hope my testimony helps...much love!

A topic I've been thinking about...

Before I explain, if you're unfamiliar with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, here's a YouTube video breaking down the history of money and currency: Watch Video – and here's a video on how Bitcoin works: Watch Video

Disclaimer: I'm not an economist so my POV or math might be flawed. If you're an economist, please reach out to me if you have some input, critique, or are willing to do a brief video interview as a podcast conversation!

Now, here's my pitch...

It baffles me that we rely on a FIAT-based Market Cap for Bitcoin's value, aren't we supposed to be moving away from the FIAT system with the help of crypto/blockchain tech?

The Lightning Network – a second-layer scaling solution built on top of Bitcoin's blockchain to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions, making Bitcoin more practical for everyday transactions while maintaining its decentralized nature – helped speed up the currency adoption; but it's still reliant on FIAT valuation, which not only suffers from extreme volatility scaring away merchants and providers to accept BTC for payment, but in my opinion, it's not the best way to think about how to use the Bitcoin protocol. We should consider how to utilize the Bitcoin code's protocol to properly trade goods and services with the network's value, measured by the GDP provided by its users, without any reliance on FIAT Market Cap.

Hear me out...

The U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971 – so FIAT isn't backed by anything (it's merely digits on a screen) so the volatility in Trade Markets is irrelevant since BTC should be backed by the Bitcoin Network's GDP – not FIAT.

A suggested FIAT-to-BTC "Anti-volatility Conversion Rate":

BTC has a 21M Max Supply ÷ 11B Global Population by the year 2140 (last mined BTC) = 0.0019 BTC per person for equal allocation (0.19% of 1 BTC = 190k Satoshis ––– *excluding lost/irretrievable coins.)

Now the question is, how do we value, price, and trade with "0.0019 BTC per person"?

Example:

0.0019 BTC ÷ $10k (median annual income in USA in 1971) = 0.00000019 BTC

This would make market rates for Goods & Services as:

$1 = 0.00000019 BTC

$10 = 0.0000019 BTC

$100 = 0.000019 BTC

$1k = 0.00019 BTC

$10k = 0.0019 BTC

$100k = 0.019 BTC

$1M = 0.19 BTC

$10M = 1.9 BTC

$100M = 19 BTC

Does this conversion rate & overall idea make sense? If so, why aren't we putting thought and energy into perfecting this type of utilization with Bitcoin? Or if this idea is not applicable, why not?

Comment your thoughts below...

“If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.” ― Confucius. 

In a society bombarded by new content uploaded every millisecond ranging from social media pictures, viral video clips and broken flood-gates of new music from thousands of artists pouring into streaming platforms everyday combined with modern life's typical triggers of stress; it's easy to understand why so many people suffer from anxiety and panic attacks with a heartbeat thumping at 200 bpm or higher! Cue the Lo-fi playlist and let the 70-90 bpm beats entrain your brain and soothe your sanity as we evaluate this genre's impact on today's culture.

What is "Lo-fi"? The definition of the term is rooted in "low-fidelity" and has roots in various styles and sub-genres from Rock and Electronic to Hip-Hop, respectively. Recording artists like The Beach Boys helped popularize this low-quality DIY sound in the 60's which inspired a wave of indie acts, punk rock bands and other recording artists like Paul McCartney to use this sound as an aesthetic, effectively "turning sh*t into sugar" as the cost of professional studio time and recording equipment in those days were still unattainable for most indie artists and an expensive debt for major label signees – fast-forward to 2021, where the cost of professional home-studios are easily accessible, affordable, and abundant...why are lo-fi records still alive?

Let's dive deeper into where the term "Lo-fi" evidently thrives today: music playlists. 

Hip-Hop is today's dominate genre, and a phenomena has occurred in the past decade of Lo-fi (aka "Chillhop") playlists ranging from 1-8 hour durations to indefinite 24/7 live streams with playlist titles such as "Focus & Study" or "Relaxing Rainy Nights" which serve as the subtle soundtrack to the lives of college students, desk workers and others in need of a laid-back ambiance without the distraction of lyrics or the sonic slap of 808's and triplet hi-hats from today's popular hip-hop music...keyword: hip-hop. Hence the term, "Chillhop". The confusion of the term "Lo-fi" is due to its complex history of the technical definition and its multi-genre branches, but if you listen to any of today's most popular Lo-fi playlists you won't find Rock songs and you'd rarely bump into any Electronic drum patterns. Instead, what will you hear? Classic un-quantized boom-bap drums often supported by jazz samples. 

While the boom-bap era of rap was dwindling after the loudness wars took off spear headed by albums like Dr. Dre's "The Chronic 2001" followed by genre-bending raps with pop influences exemplified by artists like Kanye West or The Black Eyed Peas in the early 2000's; technology continued to improve resulting in higher fidelity records. Meanwhile, producers like J. Dilla and Nujabes are recognized as the fathers of Lo-fi with their steady contributions to the culture providing the dirty dusty barely-mixed-and-mastered imperfect instrumentals we hear so prominently in today's Lo-fi scene which is kept alive by a fleet of producers such as Jinsang or L.Dre but mostly unknown beat makers with anime avatars for profile pics. 

The combination of chillhop and anime has a history of its own. As mainstream as hip-hop has become today, and considering the amount of traction Lo-fi/Chillhop playlists maintain daily – it's still an oddly underground genre while extremely popular at the same time. Perhaps because Hip-Hop began as the voice of the people in an NY neighborhood and now that it boasts the highest streaming stats of any genre worldwide, well, that's a lot of voices to represent. But sometimes nothing needs to be said...just felt. The mood is unanimous. For perspective, the second most visited website is YouTube and the number one platform for music consumption is again: YouTube. What's one of the top categories on YouTube? Never ending live streams of Lo-fi/Chillhop music as seen when"ChilledCow produced one of the longest videos in YouTube history — more than 13,000 hours — and amassed 218 million views in the process". The trend is in such high-demand that the internet exploded with comments of shock, sadness and frustration when YouTube accidentally removed one of the most popular chillhop channels known as "ChilledCow "(who recently rebranded as "Lofi Girl"). 

Chillhop beats are streamed globally with annual rising stats – and according to Confucius, that's a statement. Are lo-fi hip-hop beats the global mood? Maybe the world wants to slow down, and these crackling Lofi beats are helping to do just that.

Listen to L.Dre’s latest album entitled “Birds of Paradise” [released 07.30.21]

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written by Erik “Airic” Diaz (@airicmusic)
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an article for NYU | TISCH | Yellowbrick