Can The Blockchain Change The World?

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Latin America Editor-in-Chief, Adil Elias]

“The most effective way to change the system is not from within, not even by a violent revolution, but by inventing a new system that makes the old one obsolete.” - Unknown Author

State Monopolies Are Bad For Your Soul

There’s a myth going around that whenever there’s a monopoly, and that monopoly fades away, then the service that it provides would vanish too. The reality on the other hand is the exact opposite.

If history shows us anything (except from continuous refusal of the masses to learn from it) is that most advances in human life occurred as a consequence of reducing the government’s monopolies on every aspect of our very lives. The most effective way to unleash human productivity and change the world for the better is to break free from the shackles of government.

Remember that ending the government absolute monopoly on agriculture was the reason behind the which all of those considerable advances in agriculture were obtained. It was the direct cause behind most breakthroughs in agriculture such as irrigation systems, fertilizers, machinery and the subsequent lowering of people involved in agriculture form 70 percent to almost 3 percent, with a much greater productivity mind you…not to mention the substantial improvement in the human condition by not enslaving black folks anymore.

The fact that there has been more material progress in the world in the 20^th century than in the entire world in all previous centuries combined is no product of coincidence, nor fate for that matter, but rather a direct consequence of losing a few shackles from the government: females joining the work force, the sexual revolution, the civil disobedience against racism… The things you can achieve when you are not busy fighting with each other. Let’s look at what we gained from the abdication of government’s say on whether women should be allowed to work or not. Once the states say on the matter was finally eradicated, life on earth became immediately better. 

The government in its infinite wisdom – and by infinite wisdom I mean its systematically wrong rationale – deemed that half of the population should be confined to sit around and just cook and clean, because well… they have lady parts. The worst part of that is that this isn’t even scratching the surface, because if you open any history book you will soon find out that before we’ve lost the heavy shackles of the gov’t say on whether the female population should be “allowed” to work or not, the main fight was about their “right” to choose a spouse. You heard it right, all throughout the centuries sociopaths –I mean “noble” government people- loved to force one half of the population to a lifetime rape sentence based of course on the wise and reasonable criteria of…wait for it… Being born with the “wrong” genetalia.

The state is extremely coherent with those parameters. (and this is important because the state is never coherent) They use accident of birth as a parameter in literally everything, slavery, monarchies, borders… You name it. The world keeps changing but to them the parameters remain the same, they still use them to divide and conquer – I mean impart justice and virtue. But what happens? Well, what usually happens and by usually I mean every single freakin’ time is that we discover that the government was wrong YET AGAIN.  

YOU HAVE A CHOICE

You have a choice right here, right now in 2014: do you support Bitcoin, digital currencies, the Blockchain, Bitnation… etc.? Or do you feel that you are more on the side of central banks, the Federal Reserve, waiting for hours in a government buildings for authorization paper? (Change the word “hours” for the word “years” if you’re gay and want to get married, or even the word “never” depending on the “accident of birth” thingy)

Which side do you fall on? A) On the voluntary interaction among peers? Or B) Do you believe that coercion is the way to go? “But what can I do to reduce my interactions to government coercion? It’s not like some digital currencies would just pop up from the sky to undermine the power of central banks, it’s not like you can get married via the Blockchain, right?” Well, I hate to quote Obama, but: Yes you can! You can and you should support these things, and any voluntary system of human interaction, because voluntary trumps force every time. If your answer was B then please stop reading this article. 

Asking coercive authority to rule with reason and sound judgment is like asking a bulldozer to be an architect. You may change the century, but politicians won’t tell the truth if their life depended on it. 6,000 years later there is yet a single political promise to be fulfilled (except for “I have two drones for you”) and yet we still trust the most dishonest conniving sweet-talkers to “rule” over us, which is like having a baby and interviewing 43 different babysitters for the job and ending up hiring a dingo. How we still trust politicians to decide important matters is something I will never understand, and quite frankly that’s part of the reason I refuse to believe in extraterrestrial life, because what would that make of us as a species? The joke of the universe? The clowns of the Milky Way?  “Look at these Planet Earth people, can you believe they still rely on bureaucrats?”

Keeping in mind that all the advances we achieved as a species occurred as a consequence of breaking free from government monopolies, and all the pain and suffering like wars, inflation, corruption, opression, spying and so on were caused by government, do you see now why I support peer-to-peer technologies?

BITNATION

When I saw how Bitnation and similar Blockchain technologies could make the government bureaucracy look like a chariot compared to a Lamborghini, it caught my attention.

It goes without saying that I’m a big fan of peer-to-peer technology, the voluntary aspect of Bitnation is another thing that had won me over, take the gay marriage Non-issue for example and how governments are still to date forbidding people to get married just because they are attracted to the same sex individuals, this is something that is hard to explain to civilized people, even more mind-blowing is watching some part of the population asking for the government to enforce these bans and to restrict other people’s freedoms. I can’t help but ask myself how much of a sucker can you possibly be to degrade yourself to such an extent to start rooting for the government to subject gay people? Even if I were the biggest loser on the planet, I’d probably just think “cool, then there’s gonna be more chicks for me”, so seriously, how much of a bigot can you be to buy in those artificial divisions? Even Aristotle’s neighbor knew that that was vulgarism, and he used to be the Ancient Greek version of a Proctologist . At some point people will realize that they should let go of the state because the state will never let go of barbarism.

Luckily, with Blockchain technology you can get married right away, no bigotry, no prejudice no superstition… Just voluntary interactions.

“Honey, this love is so good we gotta get the government involved” - Doug Stanhope

Human happiness and well being is way too valuable to be to be left in the hands of the state. In some places of the world, the state still has a say on whether women should have a “right” to choose a spouse or not.  In Pakistan for example they still stone women to death, I repeat stone humans to death, or bury them alive for daring to choose their spouse. Coincidently, Pakistan never seems to appear in “the best countries to live” list. I guess those people don’t read much, or how else would they let their government steal so much power?

But if those people were to learn from history then they would quickly realize that what usually happens by breaking state monopolies is that the quality of life increases dramatically time and time again, history keeps showing us that once we broke the government’s monopoly on marriage, great things came with love because as it turned out when people have the freedom to pursue whoever they feel attracted to and experience love, passion, joy and happiness, they can be pretty creative, and certainly much more productive. So once again the state was wrong, criminally wrong, as it turns out forced rape was not the way to go. Who could have figured right?

BLOCKCHAIN NOT BORDERS

Borders, the physical enforcement of the delusional belief that you should forgive all the horrific evils that people born in the same region as you commit against the innocents of the world, because well… They were born in the same region as you, that and because they go overseas to protect some flag they pretend has magical powers, powers so great that they even swear allegiance to it, to a freakin’piece of fabric. 

“I hate patriotism, I can’t stand it… It’s a round world the last time I checked”- Bill Hicks.

Borders and nationalism is the glue that sticks all statist insanities together. If you stop reminiscing about those presumed tales of military glories of centuries past, and start seeing humans as humans no matter the fence they were born into, then you’ll realize that sooner or later those last gov’t shackles will too be broken. We’ve gone over many statist artificial divisions over the centuries white/black, male/female, gay/straight… Now we have South of the border/North of the border, sooner or later we will get over those too, because you can’t keep people delusional forever and with the advances of technology that we are blessed with, I bet it’s gonna be sooner rather than later.

On that subject, Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, the C.E.O of Bitnation is trying to bring some services to some of the poor countries of the world through Blockchain technology, services that the people who live in those areas would have a hard time receiving otherwise, simply because they were born in the “wrong” country. That in my mind is revolutionary, so I wish her the best of successes. Why should accident of birth be a limiting agent in life? And kudos to anyone doing something about it.

When I personally met Susanne for the first time, here in Rio de Janeiro, I noticed that she was a doer in all the sense of the word. I understood quickly why she went to Afghanistan for example and other places where many people wouldn’t dare to go. It’s because she is one of these people we call ‘Doers’… Finally, time has arrived for a Blockchain technology that takes the few services that the government provide and renders them obsolete.

Before Bitnation she was already creating “The Googlement Project” which seemed like a brilliant idea about structures of governing platforms which one of its purposes enabled those who wish to be governed to remain governed leaving the rest of us alone at the same time, giving the perfect answer to “What if some people want to be governed?”… So you see, she is consistent with her goals which by the way I believe are similar to the goals that many of you share, because at the end of the day, fewer things can be more revolutionary than trying to come up with new alternatives to end government monopolies. That’s why I support Bitnation, the concept behind it, and also all the other Blockchain innovators, if there is a time for the freedom-minded people of the world to get together and support each other, this it. Maybe glory will be finally achieved, maybe not, the beauty lies in the road that we take, the outcome is the bonus, how rewarding would it be? Nobody knows, but one thing is for sure, there is no glory in the in-fighting. Can the Blockchain save the world? I don’t know for sure, but one thing I do know is that we live in a hell of an era. This is probably the most interesting time in human history to live and it’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Editor's Note: The Dollar Vigilante Latin America is a top informational source for Latin America news, insights and information.] 

Have questions or comments? Join us at TDV!

Adil Elias is the Editor-in-Chief of The Dollar Vigilante Latin America (TDVLA) and is the Rio de Janeiro group moderator: [email protected]. After living in several different countries, he finally based himself in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil seeking a relaxed environment away from all the large numbers of increasingly stressed people in Europe, without missing on the happy vibe and the laidback beach culture the city of Rio de Janeiro has to offer.