Wisdom Engine

Anarchy is incompatible with liberty, and Bitcoin cannot be anarchist. Anarchists often claim to be “libertarian”, but this is just a part of their charade designed to help indoctrinate those who have not really studied liberty into the Philosophy of Collectivism.

The code-is-law movement is a pernicious attack on freedom. There is no definitive means to assess truth through a computer program. The strength of law comes in its flexibility — the ability of judges and juries to weigh evidence and find a balance based on proof. Those seeking to subvert justice will tell you that proof can be obtained through mere digital data, that evidence through a simple key is sufficient.

It is all anyone who believes in freedom should be opposed to. It is something that childish hackers and those aligned to states who oppose freedom seek to promote. It is not simply leaving choice to a mere algorithm, but in taking away the power from the existing system, they seek to weaken the underlying tenets of law and the structure of society. They call it by many names, some say it is anarcho-capitalism, others do not care for the label, but just seek disorder and chaos. Yet with all, the aim is very clear: to undermine the nature of justice.

Bitcoin is only decentralised when power is removed from developers and others who can change the protocol. That is the point. The argument about decentralisation is about decentralisation of power.

When, as with BTC (SegWit Core) or ETH (Ethereum post DAO), you end up with a few developers who have the ability to alter the protocol, you have the power to impact a large number of people — which is not decentralised as claimed but rather highly controlled.

Bitcoin is the first peer-to-peer cash system that introduced a key aspect of money that everyone else ignored: tracing. There was never any goal to create a decentralised cryptocurrency that is outside the reach of governments. The entire anarchist catchcry is inimical to the purpose of honest money.

Bitcoin is a protocol and a platform. It’s stable and set in stone in the manner that the Internet was. Beginning in 2020, people will start to better understand the power of bitcoin and just how fragile the position taken by the Bitcoin Core developers – and their creation of a different coin in BTC – really was. Bitcoin was never designed to be anonymous; instead, it is anti-anonymous. Bitcoin was not designed to oppose governments or banks; instead, it is honest in nature and designed to implement a system that fights corruption. Governments are not bad when they are honest and subject to the just will of the people. It is anonymity that allows corruption to flourish. In 2020, people will start to see that truth and the true nature of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not designed to deliver free software, it is designed to be an open protocol that any organisation can build upon and create commercial applications on top of. Its design required the use of open-source software. Bitcoin is anything but anti-capitalist. It works with law, and it doesn’t enable the anti-government, anarchist view of a collapsed society.

Cohen expands on Frankfurt’s philosophy to show that bullshit must fulfil a set of requirements. To be bullshit, it must be “(a) unclarifiably unclear, (b) rubbish, or (c) irretrievably speculative” (Lewis 2015). From Lenin’s (1939) reworking of the term imperialism up until contemporary issues with ‘woke’ culture, we see the introduction of Orwellian doublespeak (Orwell 1984). Communism has been said to have failed. We have been told that history is at an end (Fukuyama 1995)—which is the selfsame promise that Marx and Engels promoted in their socialist utopia (Williams 2000). What is promoted as a concept of freedom where the workingman rises to promote equality for all is a power play. Phillips demonstrates it repeatedly (Phillips 2020a; 2020b)—not in referencing communism, but in removing the foundations of such inconsistent creed.

Humans are naturally inclined to seek compromise (Baume & Novak, 2020, pp. 70–71), which is a well-studied psychological condition (Radosavljevic, Andelkovic, & Panagopoulos, 2014). Because of the imperative to belong, many of us simply believe that the truth must lie somewhere between or in the middle of two arguments (Wendt, 2014, pp. 475–480). Yet, the commonly held belief that compromise can exist between all positions is held in error. In democracies, for instance, a balance of ideas can be arrived at through a consensus-based process. Truth and science are not democratic processes. In 1610, Galileo wrote a treatise noting that an explanation of the solar system placing the sun in the centre, rather than relying on the prevailing method of calculating a convoluted path of mixed planetary convolutions, allowed for a simple near-circular product that made an analysis of planetary positions far simpler. Galileo was compelled under torture to repudiate his assertions that the earth circled the sun, instead of the converse. E pur si muove, or, “still it moves”, is reported (Hawking, 2002, p. 396) to be Galileo’s final recalcitrance on the same point.

Faith Ridler (2021) managed to capture many of the aspects of intellectual dishonesty and bankruptcy in her article in the Daily Mail titled ‘Father of capitalism’ Adam Smith’s grave is included in Edinburgh council’s ‘ludicrously biased’ dossier of sites linked to slavery and colonialism. The article records the false accusations made against Adam Smith. In an attempt to tarnish capitalism and promote a socialist and collectivist agenda, Smith is portrayed as supporting slavery and racist practices. The investigation demonstrates the sophistic techniques being used by certain political groups that are responding to the Black Lives Matter movement and how they are trying to supersede truth and promote an anti-capitalist agenda.

The Tokugawa political order was maintained by a system that some researchers have referred to as centralized feudalism. The structure had feudal lords with their own domains, but acted as a centralised state with the shogun at the head. Such a political system differed significantly from the European feudal structure, where barons held significant power. It would be more closely analogous to the French authoritarian system implemented by Louis XIV. In constructing Versailles, the French monarch centralised power in the French kingdom. Analogously, the shogun acted as a de facto ruler at the emperor’s order, but ran the country as a hereditary military leader [[1]](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81778/discussion_topics/627038#_ftn1).

Budziszewski delivers a focused intellectual discussion of the evolution of natural law, incorporating each of the major theorists. Such vindication starts with the politics of the human good and a comprehensive investigation into moral excellence and the design of government, followed by an investigation into friendship, justice, and the significance of moral law in the system developed by Aristotle [3]. Such work would be enhanced by an exploration and analysis of Aristotle’s instructor and contemporary Plato. Of note, an analysis of Euthyphro, Laws, Apology, and Crito would provide the reader with a further understanding of the background on the Nicomachean Ethics and the differences in Aristotle’s philosophy [4]. Aristotle’s concept of excellence could be further enhanced with an analysis and counterpoint provided through an analysis of the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, including a biography of Solon, by Plutarch [5].

Lin (2005) discussed the impact of technology on the art world over centuries of its growth, noting that photography changed the nature of displaying aesthetic beauty and, in bringing it to the masses, introduced new forms of artwork that rebelled against the traditional ideas of beauty from the past. The changes in technology led Atkins (2014) to investigate the relationship between empathy and aesthetics using video technology. It is the same embedded level of empathetic abasement that led Grayson (2015) to introduce Ribbons as a component of the post-internet artwork. With the introduction of tokenisation and the creation of virtual worlds, such art forms become a means of encapsulating an alternative world once delivered in psychedelic glory (Sperry-Fromm, 2020).

In knowingly choosing rebellion, Prometheus set the stage, defining a choice of opposing tyranny and unjust laws, starting the march down the long path towards equality under the law. Aeschylus wrote the tragic play Prometheus Bound as part of a trilogy over 2600 years ago. Unfortunately, only the first volume survives. Yet, its remarkable story tells of the refusal to accept tyranny and arbitrary rule. In an early argument against authoritarian rule, we see a message that remains important even today.

George Orwell warned of the power of repressed speech and the rise of Big Brother in 1984. Yet today, in a culture of ‘woke’ values and virtue signalling, in times of cancel culture, the true sense of it becomes apparent. It is not the government but the ability for social media to control access to the digital commons that is at the heart of censorship in the twenty-first century. The development of new technology and the printing press opened up opportunities for change.

To the normative philosopher, things are expressed as good or bad and referenced relative to some standard. In the BTC Core world, it is referenced in terms of opposing government and cypherpunk ideas of rebellion and anonymity. In such an approach, those who do not follow the standard will be shunned. But, Bitcoin is designed with an open protocol. As such, it becomes a descriptive statement and an account of a system, without including that which is good or bad itself.

The story of Joseph in Genesis illustrates the transformative power of work (Smith, 2019). Despite being sold into slavery, Joseph demonstrated diligence and dedication in his various roles, ultimately becoming a trusted administrator in Egypt. Throughout his career, he managed resources, developed strategic plans, and effectively prepared for widespread famine. Researchers, including Ming et al. (Ming et al., 2021), acknowledge Joseph’s qualities. Joseph’s rise to prominence inspires individuals navigating challenging circumstances, highlighting the importance of perseverance and dedication in the face of adversity.

Lawrence Lessig’s (2000) “Code is Law” principle argues that the structure and functions of cyberspace are designed and controlled by the software and hardware that comprise it. According to Lessig’s seminal work, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, such technological code mirrors law’s ability to shape and regulate human behaviour. He posits that the potency of code as a governing mechanism could be harnessed by governmental entities and corporations to dictate surveillance norms and thereby modulate people’s behaviours. This, he suggests, has profound implications for freedom, privacy, and the democratic fabric of our society.

The problem is never the fool. It is the sophisticated fool. These individuals do not denigrate themselves to a level where they will publicly degrade another that lead others to that position. They don’t lie but mislead. Either is a deception. The worst of these create a philosophy that opposes capitalism. This anger when focused inwards helps to silence their own inner voice, that small niggling voice that tells them of their own faults and failures. As they see those more successful than themselves they bundle this anger into a ball that goes deep within themselves and they say how they could have been better and could have done more if only for a better society and that it would be so if not for capitalism

This is expressly clear in Bitmain’s abysmally failed attempt to create a token platform. We can see in its Wormhole coin offering a promise of“Wormhole Cash (WHC) tokens that are backed by burned bitcoins”. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth. This horror from beyond the wormhole is parasitic and vampiric and acts as an undead sucking the life out of the system it sinks its teeth into.

This is exponential growth in a wide scale. This is the type of technological change that economists call disruptive change. There is not a visionary on Earth who can forecast what this will truly mean in 20 years. Even 10 years is astounding. Just take some of the figures that this leads to by 2020:

I would like to propose rent-seeking as the answer. As rational actors (more so than many other parts of the economy), economists have a choice; an easy path (rent-seeking by promoting big-government policy), or a more obscure path of publishing flaws with this view and seeking solutions that create productivity and growth, that is freedom-based solutions.

Why rent-seeking? Simple; big government pays for reports that support the views of big government. This comes from endowments, research grants, and many other sources of government funding. Conversely, when a report goes against the proposed views of the politicians in power, it is relegated into obscurity together with the author of the report.

Many have thought that Bitcoin was in some manner designed to promote anarchy and a stateless society; that concept cannot be further from the truth. Bitcoin was designed to promote the rule of law. It helps create a system where all are equal under the law and sunlight is shone on the corruption that festers in the dark and hidden regions to make it fade into obscurity.

The ideology of anarchy is rooted in a concept which (falsely) mandates a path to liberty that is initiated with the dismantling of ALL government. This corrosive philosophy instils the lie of a free society only being able to exist when there is NO government whatsoever.

The following are some notes on ICOs (all are securities) that can act as a set of things to consider. Always know the rules for registered funding portals, completion of offers, cancellations of offers, and withdrawals, the requirements for non-resident funding portals, and the miscellaneous provisions attached to funding portals.

Governments cannot take into account wide-scale effects. You may ask why central planning always fails. No person, department, or other body can predict the course that society will take, and even when it is marshalled, it still ends up being unpredictable.

As another interesting side note, there is a philosophy known as Panopticism that was proposed and developed as a concept by the philosopher Michel Foucault. In his book Discipline and Punish, Foucault discusses how humanity can be better ordered. Incentives control everything we do, and when applied correctly, economics allows us to create a system that evolves toward something better. Evolution does not always achieve the results one may think; for instance, Herbert Spencer’s concepts of an evolutionary system of society takes such a control concept too far. Systems evolve to fit. The concept of fitness is not referring to the most powerful or the most energetic but rather the one that adapts correctly to the system it is part of. As such, fit is not what we see today as fitness. Fitness in this concept refers to an adaptation to the environment and the system one exists in.

We have a vision of systems that are built on the Bitcoin blockchain, which maintains a global, open ledger. It is the vision of a single ledger, so that banks, governments, and corporations cannot fudge the numbers.

Bitcoin will work because it stays within law in a manner that allows most nations to set policies. Bitcoin doesn’t help corrupt governments; to such governments Bitcoin would be their worst nightmare. But when a country follows the rule of law, the one of accountability, open government, accessible and impartial judicial resolution, and stable just laws; Bitcoin can help promote a better society.

Some people seem to think that I had to come out there when I was exposed and do what the media demanded of me. What you’re going to learn is that you don’t make demands of someone you want something from. You ask politely. You don’t need to like me. But Bitcoin and blockchain are my system. They act within the law, and are bound by it. You’re going to discover that decentralised only works for a blockchain system as a concept where it acts within the law. You’re going to discover that anonymous systems cannot act within Bitcoin. You’re going to discover that Bitcoin allows free speech but not hate crime. You are going to discover that Bitcoin doesn’t allow trolls to continue to operate with impunity. You’re going to discover that people who aid in hacking and compromising systems and people like Greg Maxwell are the opposite of what Bitcoin creates, and you’re going to discover that such people who run the sock puppets and manipulate social media and lie and seek to create systems that undermine law are the antithesis of what Bitcoin was designed to be.

It is, of course, why people in Core and those such as Greg Maxwell oppose me so vigorously. Decentralised is nothing more than a marketing term for crypto assets. The reality is far different. If we take the fork of Bitcoin, that is, Bitcoin Core or BTC, we see a system that actively promotes how it is decentralised. The truth is that a single group of developers sets the process and controls the system.

I mean, honestly, if all you do to manage the security of your finances is hide your head in the sand and leave trust to obscurity, then you deserve all that such an approach brings with it. I may seem uncaring and I may come across as cruel here, but really, it is a simple process to actually protect your information.

Nakamoto delivered the thesis that true history was altered time and time again by those seeking to constitute what they saw was pure origin based on their own philosophy. The reconstruction through a series of overlays and changes leads to something radically different. The only stable part of history that Nakamoto noted was one of self-promotion and bragging. The one thing that never changes in human nature is the matter of contradictions and deceiving ways. But a system without the ability to change without a record of the change always leads to the truth. And a predicate can always be formed in a way that does not allow rhetorical dishonesty.

Both Nakamoto and Sorai supported a common current of analysis affirming the Tokugawa system of government and rule. Known as hoken, the Tokugawa, whilst still a ward lordship, constructed a decentralised system of government. He compared it to the imperial centralised regimes that existed in China. In particular, he criticised the disproportionately unforgiving and legalistic examination systems needed for a promotion within the Chinese government and its associated bureaucracy. It was his hypothesis that they stifled both intellectual life and the development within society across China at the time. He noted that it differed radically from many of the earlier periods of China, where a more decentralised governorship had led to growth and a profound expansion.

I created Bitcoin to be honest money. I had envisioned a system that would act to record information, secure data, and allow people to transact through micropayments in a way that has never occurred before. Bitcoin was never about decentralisation for decentralisation’s sake. The call for decentralisation doesn’t even make sense. It’s a religious catchword of a cult based on people saying that government is bad and calling to expel society.

Bitcoin is not anonymous. And whether we’re talking about Plato’s ‘Ring of Gyges’ or the revisiting story of ‘The Invisible Man’ by HG Wells, it has been clear throughout human history that no man remains moral without his actions being monitored and viewed. The same applies to both people and the institutions we create. Governments require transparency to remain honest and aligned with the needs of the people they represent.

I believe in law. To me, it holds the convictions of all that is valuable. Having said so, all systems of law require bounds. As societies develop, such bounds are tested and change. Here lies one of the reasons why the concepts of “Code is law” or even “Code as law” are each fundamentally flawed. It is only with law that we can challenge society and the boundaries that are set. It is because of law that civil disobedience allows people to see the flaws in society and for people to rectify them. It is not just the common law but equity, too, working together, that create the balance in the scales that measure life and ensure justice to the greatest extent possible. For it is never possible to achieve perfection. For what is perfect now would not be perfect a generation, three generations, or further down the track.

Since there are multiple redundant copies of the transactions database, no one can seize bitcoins. The most someone can do is force the user, by other means, to send the the bitcoins to someone else. This means that governments can’t freeze someone’s wealth, and thus users of Bitcoins will have complete freedom to do anything they want with their money.

The promise of Bitcoin lay never in removing government. The promise of Bitcoin lay in micropayments and a system that delivered an honest ledger. People should look up the word honest in the dictionary:

In the last few decades, I have come to understand that people lie, that dishonesty exists. I still fail to understand that it can ever be useful. I see the long term, and will tell people what I see as being truthful, even if it hurts them and damages relationships. I believe, still, that in the long term, knowledge is preferable. In other words, nobody has been able to quantitatively convince me yet that there are many scenarios where lying would be the better option.

The problem that exists in the Bitcoin environment today is reminiscent of society at large. For many years now, we have been falsely preaching a myth of equality where we tell children that “it doesn’t matter” as long as they participate. We denigrate those who do well, those who work hard, and those who achieve and sacrifice themselves on the altar of equality. The cult of equality has infiltrated society to an extent where we now try and teach people from childhood that they are special because they tried really hard. To such ends, we give prizes to not only the first but the last.

Many people within the ‘cryptocurrency communities’ have made a religion of “code is law”, the flawed methodology of Lawrence Lessig [1]. In his rant-like diatribe, Lessig holds the view of a world that did not ever exist, and believes that somehow, we will gain true freedom through computational systems, in a world where code sets rules that cannot be changed. It is a typical mantra of Silicon Valley, a world where general AI replaces government in a techno-communist utopia. In a supposed world of abundance, machines run everything with perfectly balanced code. It is not that we cannot create a certain system, but such devotees hang onto a concept of code that will one day be perfect:

To the same people, Bitcoin and all the derivative systems that come from it present the promise of a world without government, where rules are made by machines and set in code. Yet, such a concept is fatally flawed. Such people, who often attack traditional religion, do not even understand that they have formed nothing but a fragile belief system, built on an easily discredited foundation of mud and shifting sand. For what they are talking about is not a science or even something to do with engineering, but rather a religion. Such extropian ideas are but another means to try to find purpose in a finite life—that must necessarily end. Rather than admit death, they grasp the concept of a virtual world where we can be uploaded and live in eternity. Even a basic understanding of physics and the universe would reveal that such a world is neither feasible nor possible.

When it comes to cringeworthy, excluding politicians, I will move next to Edward Said. Like many post-modern authors, he has a belief that truth is personal. It is a rather common belief amongst many post-modern scholars, and it is one that is highly flawed. Where two individuals have differing opinions, it often becomes difficult to compare values. At times, some individuals will try to tell you that there is no truth, or that it is personal. Such an argument is technically and logically unsound. As with many other forms of post-truth philosophy, it leads to nihilism. There is little that is more excruciating.

The researchers demonstrate that misleading content has been spreading virally at an increasing rate. Technology is promoting not only access to information, but the ability to create ‘cheap fake’ and ‘deep fake’ counterfeit information. It is noted that it becomes simpler to promote conspiracy theories. The ease at which companies can now create and spread false information is leading to an information pandemic that could be more dangerous than viral epidemics. The negative impact of such misleading pseudo-knowledge undermines the valid trust that responsible organizations have built over the years.

If you opt to believe Anderson (2016; originally 1991), it becomes necessary to concur with the notion that ancient great powers, including Ancient India and Ancient China, are merely modern ‘consumerised’ ruminations of a capitalist society. In Imagined Communities, a notion develops, in a progressive sense, of believing that we are all part of a whole, which is presented as a fresh concept, one that is only a couple of centuries old. To Anderson, nationalism is an idea that has grown through and with the modern conception of capitalism. It is sold as a concept that is supported through the power of the contemporary state.

Anderson promotes an idea of old wine in new bottles: the argument that no use of the word nationalism was recorded before the eighteenth century falls flat when you compare the meaning of the word to its use. Whether in ancient China, India, Israel, or Rome, the principle that you are bound to one another without blood ties and ever having met has been a strong influencing factor. Communities exhibit periods of isolationism and periods of openness across all times—reflective of modern society. Before World War I, the United States of America had sought to remain isolated. At other times, they have exercised their hegemonic power.

Jones (2003) proposes that no matter how complex the world becomes, we can still form three basic tenets for how we can operate through politics and government: we should do no harm and not mislead others, or society, we should aim to allow individual and organizational movements and interactions without friction or corruption, and we should not require people to acquire knowledge outside of their area of expertise or attention in a manner that would create inefficiencies. Both authors express a path to either hope and salvation or, if we make the wrong choices, the collapse of good government, leaving us with the darkest page in history. There is no guarantee of good government, nor an easy path to designing institutions that will be operating flawlessly over time.