Don't Trust, Verify.
I’M GONNA PUT ON AN IRON SHIRT…
The state of the impoverished is the most relevant measure of the progress of wealth in a society, not unlike the measure of the Bitcoin bear market bottom price is the most relevant measure of a society’s progress on its understanding of the necessity for, and inevitability of, a perfected sound money.
Fortunately for all of us, once you’ve reached the bottom, be it in your depravations of life in general, or in your financial portfolio, the only two options are death or onward and upward. And regardless of the path taken by the individual, the outcome for those that remain on this side of the living, is a better life and a better world for all, a world of greater wealth, a world filled with a better understanding of the necessity for, and the emergence of, the inevitable fire orange Bitcoin sunrise.
…AND CHASE THE DEVIL OUT OF EARTH
Ignorance is the greatest evil mankind will ever know
What will be fleshed out in the following discussion, for the discerning reader, is (1) the juxtaposition of the current falling, and failing mantra that circulates our global society, with the current rising, and resonating mantra that circulates our global society, (2) why these two mantras are antithetical to one another, and (3) why one of these mantras has already won the battle that wins the war.
And, to calm that weak Fiat mindset baked in to your lizard brain as you push forward beyond the horizons of pain and fear, into the realm of hope and getting it done, allow this to sink in — whether you like it, hate it, or hide from it, you can’t out run your past, present, or your future. The board is already set. The game afoot. The only question that remains is your role in it.
So what's it gonna be punk? Death or onwards and upwards?
IN GOD, WE TRUST or DON’T TRUST, VERIFY
SELF HOST…DEEZ NUTZ
Knowledge is the solvent that cleanses humanity of ignorance
In order to flesh this epic mantra juxtaposition out, we are going to take a methodical, logically crushing, journey of first principles, leaving no stone unharmed, and in the process, permanently ripping off your eye lids to that inevitable bright orange future, to a world filled with a better understanding of the necessity for sound money, and because of that, fulfilling at long last, the mythological laser eyed moon mission prophecy, until fiat dies.
Soon.
Moon.
Consider this — there is a perfectly obvious reason why the Bitcoin protocol is open sourced, available for any and all to verify for themselves and decide, voluntarily, on behalf of themselves on their own terms, whether they prefer to operate the Bitcoin protocol as designed and organize their own life around it.
Consider the antithesis — there is a perfectly obvious reason why the Fiat protocol is closed sourced, available to only a privileged few to verify for themselves and decide, violently, on behalf of entire countries with coercion, whether they prefer to operate the Fiat protocol as designed and organize everyone's life around it.
Through this lens it is obvious that anyone operating the Fiat protocol, supporting the Fiat protocol, or supported by the Fiat protocol, would surely blindly rally against the Fiat antithesis that is Bitcoin. The two are diametrically orthogonal to one another.
Imagine thinking the Pope would publicly support atheism. It’s never gonna happen.
I am a devoutly faithful person. I believe there are great powers in this universe we can’t begin to comprehend. That said, my religious beliefs are private and personal. I am not interested in sharing what God or Gods I pray to, just as I am not interested in sharing with you what sexual activities I conduct. Some acts are better left unspoken, and private. Bitcoin is not a religious debate, nor a sexual preferential debate. It is a financial operating system debate, and one that aught be openly discussed in the public, because the financial network is a public good, that we all share.
Before proceeding further, let us establish a few working definitions so as not to muddy our pristine waters, and we can proceed to logically pulverize all naysayers, for all of time.
TECHNOLOGY — let us think of this as the thing that makes life better for us, but don’t get wrapped around the axles on this. You could, and should, make the argument that value is subjective, therefore what is good for your life might not be good for my life. True. That said, just assume, arguendo, that the technology we speak of in the following logic is for our mutual benefit, holding back the obvious, that sure, some tech might be for your detriment. That said, I’ll try to use some examples to keep this discussion grounded for you stupid peasants :-)
INNOVATION — we can think of this as the thing that conceives of within our minds, and ultimately gives rise to the technology that makes life better for us.
CURIOSITY and IMAGINATION — let us think of these as the ephemeral ineffable tools within our minds that develop our innovations that in turn develop our technologies.
VALUE — we can easily assume that what you prefer is not necessarily what I prefer, that all value is subjective. I don’t think this needs to be assumed, I think it is a rather firmly established fact. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of leeway for the idiots among us, let us place this arbitrary definition upon it for the midwits to have a bone to gnaw on. Savvy?
DEFLATION — we’ll use the oxford dictionary on this one, “a reduction of the general level of prices in an economy” and I might add, we should exclude the price of money in this definition. In other words, if prices are generally falling, it means that the purchasing power of money is increasing, making the value or price of money more valuable in a deflationary economic environment. I know, that one might make your head spin. We’ll come back to it. Don’t worry.
PRICE — consider this to be the value assigned by the market, me, you, and everybody.
Alrighty then. With these givens dispensed, let us plunge ourselves into the pulverization proceedings, forthwith.
BEGINNETH THYN MAXIMS
1- Technology is deflationary. And remember, refer back to the definitions if you must, early, and often, my fellow left of the bell curve, degen plebs.
2- Thus, provided there is no fuckery about, monetary purchasing power should increase, in general, over time. We see this to not be the case. Something is amiss. Like a rotten week old tuna salad in the bin. Time to take out the trash.
3- There is always only one sound money at a given time that is held by the global population. This sound money holds the largest share of monetary premiums at a given time. Suspend your horror if you might have had just percolated the momentary notion that we actually have a potpourri of debt and equity holding the largest share of premiums presently. Simmer down, Tonto. Allow me a brief few sentence history of the world. The last 5,000 years was a gold standard. The brief last 100 years was a speculative credit bubble, that is in the process of realizing gravity still exists and is in the process of nose diving back into the dirt from which it came, as the great transition to a Bitcoin digital sound money concludes over the next 100 years.
4- Gold was inevitably going to be the global physical sound money, even prior to its use because of its physical attributes that most closely matched perfected sound money attributes.
5- Empirically, by simply staring at gold for a few nanoseconds, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to conclude, physical sound money attributes include;
scarcity and durability: to move value across time
portability: to move value across geographic space
divisibility and verifiability: to trade value across time and space
6- And, empirically, after a few more nanoseconds, a double barrel bong rip, and yet still, without the accolades of a Nobel prize or a philosophical doctorate scam title, any monkey with a few brain cells can conclude with certainty, after interacting with the Apex killer Bitcoin, digital sound money attributes must also include, and importantly, conclude with;
confiscation resistance: to move value across time unperturbed
censorship resistance: to move value across digital space unperturbed
permission resistance: to freely trade value across time and space
7- People think they know what is best for you, and that they should have the power to enforce what they think is best for you, and that they therefore inherently have the self imposed authority to perturb you.
8- Note, 100% of people that may attempt to perturb you are deathly allergic to lead poisoning, specifically when administered with a high caliber steel syringe. It’s also written into the United States constitution, for you boot licker types, that need some authorititative guidance on this self evident inalienable right, you own yourself.
9- Perfected sound money, thus has the following attributes;
a non physical design, enabling a fixed, scarce, supply
a non physical design, enabling an infinite durable lifespan
a non physical design, enabling lightspeed portability
a non physical design, enabling an infinite divisibility structure
a non physical design, enabling 100% certain and instant verification
a non physical design, enabling the impossibility of confiscation
a non physical design, enabling the impossibility of censorship
an opened sourced software design, enabling the impossibility of permissions
10- An understanding of a self imposed strictly scarce, fixed supply sound money protocol, is impervious to third party attack, for honest participants cannot be perturbed into dishonest protocols by their very nature of being honest humans, which is then, the bedrock of the fixed supply sound money protocols design, honesty.
11- An, impervious to third party attack fixed money supply monetary protocol, will inevitably become the most salable money, and become the global store of monetary premium. This is not a negotiation. In the same way gold was never a negotiation and had already won as the best physical money before it was discovered, Bitcoin is not a negotiation and had already won before the invention was created to align with the discovery of perfected monetary attributes.
With these initial few maxims established, it’s time for the meat and potatoes, or maybe just the meat, and I suppose a little whiskey or wine to whet the whistle.
FOOK THE FOOK’N FOOKERS
Humans, and thus human culture, is deflationary by its very nature. People have an innate trait of making their lives better for themselves, to discover and invent new and novel innovative ways to accomplish a task that improves their quality of life. Humans are by their nature a civilization of technocrats. It is in their nature to build. A brief look at history proves that we tend to improve our lives, not make them worse, over the long arc of time.
Human culture is deflationary, not because of monetary pursuits. The money that people earn in their pursuits of new technology is not the motivating or driving force. The monetary outcome is secondary to the initial drive. All new technologies are developed because the creator was compelled to create. Creators are driven to create for the sake of creation, blind to any monetary outcome. Imagination and curiosity drives technological innovation. Monetary benefits of any successful technological development are merely second order emergent outcomes of our inherent imaginative and curious tinkering minds.
People will tinker with all sorts of things, for the sake of the tinker. Rarely does a great mind tinker for monetary pursuits. Most, perhaps all, remarkable technologies were discovered or invented by men and women that earned no monetary reward for their work. In many instances the technologies are picked up by business minded people that see an ability to capitalize on the new technology. It is the business minded with a profit motive that enable the spread of the new technology, but as we will see, they also tend to capture the new technology for themselves through development of walled gardens like patents and copyrights where one must pay to use the new technology. We will see that it is these imaginary intangible property rights that cut off new technology from providing greater benefit to the world, because of the monetary enabling walls, not in spite of them.
People will tinker with all sorts of things for the sake of the tinker, including weapons, including defensive and offensive weapons. And still other people will take those new technological advances in weaponry and apply them to increase their sphere of control, and to increase their ability to protect their current sphere of control.
There are two ways to tinker with all sorts of things to develop new technologies. Do it yourself, or pay others to do it for you. The later is much more powerful, you can pay many more people to develop the technology you want and improve your chances of discovering or inventing a new technology faster than you could by yourself. However you need funds to pay the people that you want to tinker for you.
People will tinker with all sorts of things, including monetary networks. On occasion, people have developed novel technologies that increase the amount of money certain people have, by various slights of hand, or temporal arbitrages. Coin clipping, metallic debasement, fractional reserves, and legalized counterfeit are a few historical examples of monetary technological slight of hand innovations. And these temporal arbitrage innovations allow the people with the most money, to have even more money, and enable the ability to pay for more and more tinkerers, to do what they wish.
And what do people that are trying to control money through temporal arbitrage wish?
If money can be acquired by any of the slight of hand innovations, or temporal arbitrage technologies noted above — then these people will wish that those without the ability to acquire money in this fashion will accept that these innovations and technologies are just, and righteous, and necessary for a functioning society.
These people will pay for more tinkerers to educate those without this money that this is the only way to operate the world. These people will pay for more tinkerers to develop media outlets that reinforce the idea that this method of monetary network is the cost of a civil society, that any alternative technology is dangerous, evil, chaotic, anti human, etc.
These people will pay tinkerers to develop incredible tails and stories to support their payment masters. These people will pay tinkerers to develop the greatest technological tail of all time, that their technology is divine, that everyone must simply trust in their technology. That to do otherwise is heresy, the work of the devil, or a terrorist.
Eventually the technology will develop into a religion, with its own mantra;
IN GOD WE TRUST
And this mantra will be stamped on the monetary network of those that push their slight of hand and temporal arbitrage technologies. Just look at any dollar bill, every one is stamped, In God We Trust. And they’ll pay their tinkerers to develop the notion that to not blindly believe is a great sin, punishable by eternal damnation. And this technology will work, for a time. Until the temporal arbitrage is margin called by reality, and a new monetary technology subsumes this weaker one, maligned with the laws of the universe.
People are great tinkerers. We can spin magnificent tails, and get most people to follow in those technologies, even if they are not congruent with reality, with the laws of the universe, convincing the world that there is such a thing as a free lunch, that debt is money we owe to ourselves, that perpetual motion machines exist.
Although the imagination of humans can conceive of such innovations, the universe does not appear to be designed in this way, and neither should our money.
DONT TRUST, VERIFY
Alas, the world is not built on trust, though some with great amounts of money would want you to believe such a fairy tail.
When you buy a house, do you blindly trust the sellers representations of the home? No of course you don’t. You hire a home inspector to verify the representations of the seller. In fact, if you are to borrow to buy the home, the bank will not lend you money without a valid inspection of the home prior to lending the money.
But it is not only home purchases that we do not “Trust in God” to purchase our homes. If we want to buy a car, we test drive the car, we research reviews, we do conduct our due diligence to verify the claims made by the seller of the car before we purchase the car, before we execute the trade. We don’t blindly trust the representations of the car salesman.
And when we are at the grocery store to buy food, we don’t blindly trust the grocery store that all of their food is acceptable to us. We don’t blindly select our apples and bananas and hamburger and potatoes and onions. We pick up each item, we smell it, visually inspect it, squeeze it, we verify it is acceptable to us before we agree to trading our money for their goods. Nobody of any semblance of intelligence walks into the grocery store and picks anything off the shelf without a concern that what they are buying is good enough for them.
In the business world, where trade is the backbone of human civilization, there is not a single business buyer that has ever walked the Earth that had not spent weeks and months reviewing financials and hiring specialists to perform due diligence work to verify that the business they are buying is in fact what the seller represents the business is. Financial attesters certify the balance sheets and income statements, tax authorities audit the balance sheets and income statements, and regulatory boards review and approve the balance sheet and income statements of essentially every business we rely on in our day to day lives.
The only mantra that business lives by is;
DON’T TRUST, VERIFY.
GET ON THE MISSION, OR GET RUN OVER
So isn’t it peculiar how the one business in the world that everyone relies on every day, the business of monetary network management, has a mantra that is antithetical to that of all other businesses in the world.
Well no, it’s not peculiar.
We’ve already established that people will take their great sums of money that they’ve earned through slight of hand and temporal arbitrage, and use it to apply more slight of hand and temporal arbitrage to grow their sphere of influence, and maintain their current sphere of influence.
When you go to a purchase a home or a car and the seller does not allow you to verify the validity of the sellers claims, you run away from the deal. And if there was a grocery store that didn’t allow you to inspect any of the food, you wouldn’t shop at that grocery store.
But when it comes to money, you are told not to inspect it, to accept the representations made by the seller. In fact the seller of money goes out of his way to try and convince you that there are no viable alternatives to his monetary technology. He will spend great amounts of money to hire tinkerers from all walks of life to tell you in your childhood education, in your adult education, in your leisurely songs, and cinematic movies, and nightly news, that his monetary technology is the only possible solution for you. He will try his hardest to convince you that he is your god, and you must trust him.
Run away. Run away as fast as you can, and run to Bitcoin. But don’t trust me. Don’t trust anyone. Go and verify for yourself. Put in the proof of work. Read Rothbard and Saifedean. Listen to the podcasts. Do your own research. Bitcoiners want you to listen to as many voices as you can and make your own judgement call, based on your own personal set of values.
Isn’t it peculiar that Bitcoiners want you to test their arguments. Seems like they aren’t too scared of anything. Seems like they welcome the attacks and criticisms. Seems obvious which one is battle hardened. Might want to get some in case it catches on.
It is the most beautiful technology in financial innovation I have ever seen.
Don’t Trust, Verify.