“Everytime we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice. Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility.“
— Jullian Assange, Conspiracy as Governance, 2006
Good Morning Everyone,
A deep irony exists when we live In a world that has become so deeply polarised and politicised. So much so, an immutable, apolitical system of scarce information, of value, has been manifested into existence.
As a protocol bitcoin is absolutely apolitical. It is indifferent to any political beliefs or ideology. It is decisively neutral. Which is a stark contrast to most else in clown world. Bitcoin is neutral to race, religion, ethnicity, gender (trigger warning: of which there is only two 🤣), height, hair colour, skin color, eye color, body type, body shape, name, language, location, wealth or any other myriad identifying and distinguishing factors.
Bitcoin will process any transaction from any person and to any person, regardless of everything else except for 1) whether or not you adhere to the rules of the network 2) you pay the appropriate fees to process your transaction - which is essentially paying for the scarcity of the block space. Assuming those two items are met, your transaction will be processed.
Where the political paradox lies is in bitcoins very existence. The fact that it has come to be. That it even exists. Which implies that some cohort of individuals sought to create a technology with the very properties bitcoin has. While the protocol itself is apolitical, this act of creation, is a deeply political one.
When one see’s bitcoin for the first time it illuminates many things about our current system that where previously invisible. All of a sudden you can no longer see the world the same way. Prior to the inception of bitcoin, we had no superior system or point of comparison. Something that would highlight the characteristics by providing an alternative.
We now have something different to compare the current system to. It would seem to be the case, that the creation of bitcoin is the recognition that having a monetary system, a network of value, that is centralized, and enables the weaponization of this network by those with administrative privileges against those without (the users), is a deeply flawed and immoral one. A system of incentives that rewards people for playing political games, specifically those who get closer toward the center of this system by playing these games benefit disproportionately to those furthest away. The zero-sum nature of the design would seem another fundamental flaw in the code of the central banking system. But perhaps to those who designed the system, it is a feature? This dynamic of inequality only accelerates over time as those at the center of the system continue to increase the supply of units at the expense of a large swath of users on the network, and eventually to the demise of the network itself.
The very creation of this technology we call bitcoin is perhaps the most significant political act of all time. It is a technology that diametrically opposes the current system, and everything this current system stands for. The notion that someone should be able to get between two individual humans and their right to transact with one another, that any entity or group should have that power over another. Bitcoin rejects this. That you should be required to identify yourself in order to access the network of value transfer, and be subject to surveillance and a loss of privacy for that privilege. Bitcoin rejects this. That the imaginary borders formed by tribes of humans should have any impact over our ability to transact with one another. Bitcoin rejects this. One system asserts that these are not fundamental human rights that are implied as a result of being in a body; but bitcoin rejects this.
Bitcoin is a vote in opposition to the current system, and in many of the values this current system has attempted to install within the minds of the many. It is in its very essence, political.
The beauty of bitcoin is that it will never coerce you to use it, like the current system does. It will never impose its power upon you or any other, it will simply offer superior incentives, and no one can ever control the network whereby capturing this power. An immaculate system of incentive design, to allow the flow of pure informational clarity from any node in the network to any other, that is owned by no one. Where no hierarchical structure exists and no imbalance in the distribution of this information affords any node power over another as a result. Incredible.
It’s impossible not to be completely in awe of its existence, and to marvel at its very nature.
An apolitical monetary protocol for humanity birthed in a world so deeply entangled and confused by a captured system of political power, influence and violence. As Jullian Assange hinted at in the quote at the beginning, Once an injustice is bought to the fore of our attention, we are offered a choice: Will we be passive and become party to the injustice, and in the process find our character corroded into servility or will we opt-in to a superior system…
I know which one gets my vote.
Hope you all have a great week.
AK
