I’m an honest, high-integrity, optimistic idealist. Some will read that sentence and immediately think I’m a f***ing idiot. Maybe they are right. If I was to describe what it is I think I’m existing to do right now, it would be to help create a world we all want to live in. That touches on some shared collaborative commons, Nash Equilibrium, Tit-for-Tat with forgiveness, non-violet communication, universally preferred behavior, non-aggression principle, all-human-interactions-should-be-voluntary type stuff. Since I sold my business in the beginning of 2018, this expression happens through my involvement in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
I can hear you already. “Honesty? High integrity? Are you KIDDING me? Your chosen industry is a bunch of scams, money laundering schemes, and broken promises. It’s the result of toxic tech bros forging the power to create money out of nothing with no regulation or oversight. It's inequality run a-mock while destroying the planet. Get a grip.”
After almost eight and a half years in the industry, I completely see and respect that point of view. There is a lot of greed. There is a lot of waste. There are a lot of scams. There is a lot of insider access where some people who are early or well connected do really well while everyone else buys in later and gets dumped on. Whales push everything around. It’s a billionaire’s playground, and the rest of us slosh up and down in their wake.
So why did I choose to be involved? Why did I sell my business to consult full-time and why am I now the managing director for FIO?
Because truth f***ing matters.
(I don't cuss often, but watching I Am Not Your Guru last night has me fired up.)
The truth is, no matter how corrupt or shady you think cryptocurrency is, your default investment is far worse. The money you use is soaked in blood and created out of nothing on a whim by a small group of people which directly steals trillions (with a T!) of dollars of purchasing power from billions of people around the planet (not just US Citizens as the USD is still the world reserve currency). The governments you support manufacture banking investment opportunities called war, and you fund it with your taxes and compliance. I moved to Puerto Rico to reduce my support of that machine. If you’re new to the things I’m describing, read War is a Racket. This isn’t new information, it’s just uncomfortable and easy to avoid because most people think, “Well what can we do about it anyway?”
Please, understand the myth of authority.
The truth is, the political and governance systems for most of society are failed experiments. Either the US Constitution (supposedly one of the best examples for securing freedom) was powerless to stop the oligarchy we have in the US today or it paved the way for it. The approval rating of Congress is 36% (up from 15% in December). This is well below a failing grade. This is not consensus.
The truth is, you live in a world defined by violence. Laws are ceremoniously written down threats of violent force. Do what we say or we’ll put you in a cage, and if you resist we will choke and shoot you. The “justice system” isn’t about justice, making the victim whole, or protecting the people. It’s another system of power where those with money and influence get to write the rules and bend them as needed for their goals.
The truth is, we can do better.
As chaotic and unfounded as cryptocurrency may seem, it isn’t printing and stealing trillions of dollars of value from those who didn’t choose to participate. It isn’t bombing people on the other side of the world. It isn’t pretending to be a justified, “legitimate” ruler in your life simply based on where you were born. It doesn’t threaten you with victimless “crimes” and demand your obedience.
It is voluntary, non-violent, global consensus. It is truth and signal in a world of deception and noise. Yes, not all cryptocurrencies are equal and some are far worse than others. Yes, proof of work does seem more resource intensive than it needs to be (but so is every major bank building and armored car in every city on the planet). Yes, some (most?) cryptocurrencies are just speculative gambling with very little utility value. Yes, the rich get richer, but don’t discount the fact that the poor get richer too, unlike the current financial system which punishes their attempts to save and prevents them from legally investing because they lack accredited investor status.
Blockchains, and the financial rewards given to the validators who secure them in the form of cryptocurrency, are immutably true. What a chain says happened actually did happen and everyone in the world agrees. This is crucially important in a world of deep fakes, political lies, and financial deception. Are you starting to realize how much inflation actually exists due to trillions of dollars injected into the system out of nowhere? Have you seen the debt clock lately? Are you familiar with seigniorage which is the profit made by governments through issuing currency? They don’t even have to stamp the damned coins anymore as it’s mostly all digital. The pre-inflation purchasing power is in the hands of the well connected who have access through their cronies to the new funds before anyone else. By the time it gets to normal people, the story that is the basis for all financial value is breaking down.
Talk about dumping on bag holders.
There isn’t enough currency to pay the debt created by the currency. Read a dollar bill. It’s a certificate of debt. This is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme and if someone designed a cryptocurrency like this, inflated it trillions of times each year and forced people to use it at the point of a gun, you would freak out at the injustice of it all. And yet, that’s the world you live in. That’s the world I chose to exit in an attempt to build something better.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller
You are free to laugh at the industry I’ve chosen. You can certainly point out its most egregious examples of ridiculousness (and I may even join you in that naming and shaming). You may call me an idealist or a dreamer, but as the song goes, I’m not the only one. What you don’t see is the people seriously involved building real things to solve real problems. Some of the most intelligent, well-informed, clear-seeing, morally-purposed, skilled people on the planet work in the blockchain industry. Many of them have become independently wealthy with real F U money to the point where you can’t hire them. They do what they do, not because even more money than the millions or billions they already have will change their lives in a meaningful way, but because they believe as I do that spending your life working to create a world we all want to live in is a life well spent.
As excited as I am about the technology, I’m increasingly more excited about what this technology reveals about ourselves as a species. Can we delay gratification and make long term investments into systems and projects that will benefit us or will we YOLO into any new scam coin that comes along? Will we care about privacy, security, and the resiliency that comes from sufficiently decentralized systems or will we go with whatever network provides huge gainz as we lambo moon into “make token go up” over any other reasonable metric? Can we coordinate voluntarily to self-regulate as an industry or will we be forced by violent hierarchy to do “what’s best” according to their agendas (which, provably, are not good if you understand democide)?
The cryptocurrency industry is a mirror. It reveals to us our current level of awareness. Are we conscious enough to see what we’re doing to the planet, legitimized through human-created organizations which claim a monopoly on the initiation of force in a geographic region? Are we adult enough to not need mommy and daddy regulator (who will use the belt for “discipline” at the drop of a hat) to tell us how to choose which projects are beneficial and which projects are smoke and mirrors?
How are you choosing to spend your life?
Are your comfortable with the status quo and leaving this world as is (or more likely worse) to your children? The people I’ve met in blockchain are not satisfied. They are willing to try, and they recognize technology is like a brick: you can use it to build a house or break a window. There are bad actors in cryptocurrency, no doubt, but I do think they are the minority. This revolution has no violence, is completely voluntary, and builds freely and openly on the successes (and failures) all around it.
To me, this is the path forward for how we evolve as a species. Centralized control is brittle, systemically risky, not resilient, and will eventually fail due to the realities of evolution. The illusion of choice in the current political system is being revealed as such. Immutable truth, clear signal, and decentralized consensus, all obtained without any threats and with full right of free association maintained is the key to a world we all want to live in. Let a thousand experiments bloom and watch evolution at work. You exist in an exciting time period of human history and exponentially accelerating technology. You can either ignore it, make fun of it, fight it, or join it.
Start by understanding what cryptocurrency actually is and how it works. Next, get on boarded. FIO is working to make this easier and you can get a free FIO address today via Edge Wallet. I’m not asking you to drink the Kool-Aid, and I sincerely welcome your well-thought-through criticisms. Just keep in mind I have experience working with amazing people in this industry that you may not. If your understanding comes from news headlines instead of direct experience, I’ll ask you to go a little deeper to understand and be less wrong. That’s something I ask of myself as well. When I point out the failures (as I see them) with military and government and the financial system, I sanity check them with people I’ve met who work in those industries. They mostly agree, when they are in a safe place to be honest with me.
So going forward, let’s all get more honest. The cryptocurrency industry has its faults, no doubt, but don’t claim a moral high ground if you’re not willing to look at your own support and engagement of the current system, with all its far more serious flaws.
The future is what we make of it through our vision expressed through our thoughts and actions. Those who understand this control the world. Those like myself who are learning it are ending that control and giving it to those who are ready to lead themselves.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Since I can remember, I was always able to understand more than verbalise, and your words here are exactly my conclusions which came to me after spending 6years of my life to research what's is broken with this world and how can it be healed.
Indeed, you're not the only one.
War is A Racket is a great speech and read by Smedley Darlington Butler (recipient of 2 Medals of Honor). For a person to really understand how he comes to the point of making that speech they should read Maverick Marine about his life.
Oh, I haven't read that. Thanks for the recommendation.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
@edicted will read that sentence and immediately think: "Yep!"
If I'm being honest this is the main reason I personally vote for your witness.
Team crypto. Team human evolution.
End the tribalism. Scale up.
Peace over war. Love over hate. Hug a tree.
Yada yada yada all the hippy stuff.
It's a nice goal to have.
Heheh. Thanks. :)
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Everyone wants to talk about wealth inequality, nobody wants to talk about power inequality.
One man can kill millions almost instantly, anywhere in the world, another can't smoke a menthol cigarette.
It does seem a bit insane, doesn't it?
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