Between Thinking and Scrolling – A Reply by Zeitgedanken
A comment on the Freechain discussion between @lordbutterfly, @apshamilton and @stayoutoftherz
Introduction
The release of Freechain — the film project by @lordbutterfly about the origin and idea of Hive — didn’t just bring attention. It sparked a small, but meaningful debate.
While @apshamilton defended the film as a necessary medium to explain the deeper principles of freedom and decentralization, @stayoutoftherz dismissed it as inefficient and outdated — a relic in the TikTok age.
Both have a point. Yet both overlook something far larger than Hive itself.
I. The conflict between speed and depth
The criticism from @stayoutoftherz reflects the spirit of our time: pragmatic, results-driven, impatient.
He asks about efficiency, reach, and opportunity costs.
Why spend months on a 45-minute documentary when a ten-second TikTok can go viral?
Why invest in something few will watch to the end?
These questions sound modern — but they are ancient.
They come from the school of utility, not from the school of understanding.
@lordbutterfly answered from a different mindset.
He speaks of meaning, not marketing.
Of content, not clicks.
He’s not trying to sell Hive — he’s trying to explain it.
And @apshamilton added the question that cuts to the core:
“Do we actually want people with TikTok brains or ones that will watch a 45-minute documentary?”
That question goes far beyond Hive.
II. The symbolic meaning of Freechain
Freechain isn’t just a film about a blockchain.
It’s a statement — about memory, about community, about resistance to mental outsourcing.
The Hive hardfork was never only a technical act.
It was an act of intellectual sovereignty —
a refusal to let ownership of thought be centralized.
You cannot explain that in ten seconds.
You have to pause, listen, and think.
That’s why a 45-minute film about Hive isn’t out of touch with the times —
it’s a quiet rebellion against them.
It defies the logic of acceleration simply by existing.
III. Between market and meaning
@stayoutoftherz is right about one thing:
Most people today don’t have time — or patience.
But if we start building everything around that fact,
we end up designing systems for impatience
and calling that progress.
@lordbutterfly and @apshamilton represent the opposite principle:
depth, context, substance.
Both sides reveal the same inner tension that Hive itself embodies —
between efficiency and essence,
between product and principle.
And it’s within that tension that Hive’s fate will be decided:
whether it remains an idea or becomes just another trend.
IV. Zeitgedanken’s conclusion:
In defense of slowness
People with “TikTok brains” aren’t the enemy.
They are the result of a world
where attention has become a traded commodity.
But anyone who truly believes in freedom
must first learn to spend time with themselves.
Thinking requires space,
just as the soul requires silence.
That’s why Freechain isn’t a marketing product —
it’s a small act of cultural self-defense.
A film that doesn’t beg for attention,
but dares to demand patience.
And perhaps that’s Hive’s real revolution:
not just a decentralized technology,
but a decentralized attention.
#Hive #Freechain #Zeitgedanken #Philosophy #Decentralization #Freedom #Culture
All true, but my viewpoint is rather from an investor´s perspective and not from the ivory tower of intellectuality (exemplified by the "we don´t want users with a "Tiktok" brains). I am afraid we can´t afford to "heal the world" with Hive, or even explain it to a lot of people with such a film. Other projects will surpass us left and right and with no user growth Hive will ultimately fail.
Hive is at 11c! If this is not an alarm signal then what?
fully understand your point — and I agree, from an investor’s view this is bitter. Seeing Hive at 11 c after once being 2 USD hurts everyone who believed in it. But I don’t think this volatility is Hive’s fault alone. Every crypto — even Bitcoin — breathes in cycles of faith and fear.
What keeps me here isn’t the price, but the principle. My balance came only through words, not money.
Maybe the real growth Hive needs first is not in price — but in understanding what value truly means.
Ich verstehe deinen Punkt vollkommen – und stimme dir zu, aus Investorensicht ist das bitter. Hive bei 11 Cent nach einst 2 USD tut weh.
Aber diese Schwankungen sind kein Hive-Problem allein – selbst Bitcoin lebt in Zyklen aus Vertrauen und Zweifel.
Mich hält hier nicht der Preis, sondern das Prinzip. Mein Guthaben entstand durch Worte, nicht durch Geld.
Vielleicht muss Hive zuerst im Verständnis für echten Wert wachsen – bevor der Kurs folgen kann.
I realised there was a profundity to my comment, but you have developed the idea further and linked to ancient concepts.
Can you source and develop this idea further.
@apshamilton
I appreciate that you recognised this line — it probably carries the core of the whole reflection.
The distinction between the school of utility and the school of understanding reaches back to the very beginnings of philosophy.
The school of utility begins when knowledge becomes a tool — when thinking no longer asks, but serves: production, profit, or power. One can trace this line from Francis Bacon’s dictum “knowledge is power”, through the industrialisation of science, up to today’s algorithmic pragmatism.
The school of understanding begins with Socrates, Aristotle, and later with Kant and Hannah Arendt — thinkers who saw knowing not as control, but as a dialogue with reality; not as efficiency, but as orientation.
I mention these names not to borrow authority, but to mark the path I’m extending beyond them. They framed the question; I’m trying to reconnect it to practice — to show how the act of understanding shapes the structures we build.
Modern questions often sound new because they are wrapped in technology, but their essence is ancient: Do we seek to understand, or merely to use?
I’ll gladly expand on this idea in a later essay — it touches the centre of what I write about:
that our civilisation may have mastered the art of utility, but has forgotten the meaning of understanding.
deutsch:
Ich freue mich, dass du gerade diesen Satz aufgegriffen hast – er trägt wahrscheinlich den Kern der gesamten Reflexion in sich.
Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Schule des Nutzens und der Schule des Verstehens reicht bis zu den Anfängen der Philosophie zurück. Die Schule des Nutzens beginnt dort, wo Wissen zum Werkzeug wird – wo Denken nicht mehr fragt, sondern dient:
der Produktion, dem Profit oder der Macht. Diese Linie lässt sich von Francis Bacon („Wissen ist Macht“) über die Industrialisierung der Wissenschaft bis zum heutigen algorithmischen Pragmatismus verfolgen.
Die Schule des Verstehens beginnt mit Sokrates, Aristoteles und später mit Kant und Hannah Arendt – Denkern, die Wissen nicht als Mittel zur Kontrolle sahen, sondern als Dialog mit der Wirklichkeit, nicht als Effizienz, sondern als Orientierung.
Ich nenne diese Namen nicht, um mich auf Autorität zu stützen, sondern um den Weg zu markieren, den ich weitergehe. Sie haben die Frage gestellt – ich versuche, sie in die Praxis zurückzuführen:
zu zeigen, wie das Verstehen selbst die Strukturen formt, die wir bauen. Moderne Fragen klingen oft neu, weil sie in Technologie verpackt sind, doch in ihrem Wesen sind sie uralt:
Suchen wir zu verstehen – oder nur zu benutzen?
Ich werde diesen Gedanken gern in einem späteren Essay weiterentwickeln, denn er berührt das Zentrum dessen, was ich in meinen Texten immer wieder thematisiere:
dass unsere Zivilisation die Kunst des Nutzens gemeistert, aber die Bedeutung des Verstehens verloren hat.