This is your ticket to the greatest event on earth…do not squander it..
This is an article I wrote back in June while flying back from Singapore. One of those quiet moments where you can hear yourself think…
As the song goes “everyone is trying to keep us down….”
Business, Government and Society has a big issue; and it’s called ‘The Bitcoin Generation’. Bitcoin, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Decentralisation is more than a technology, it is a global movement! A structural shift to not only commerce but how the resources of our planet will ultimately be shared out. It matters and it will change things, it may even save humanity.
1960s replay
There was an uprising similar to Bitcoin the 1960’s in London (a movement) where the average working man on the street, the young and disenfranchised pushed back. They spoke out as individuals and no longer wanted to conform or be supressed as part of the obedient crowd. It was a break out because the UK was stuck in a post war grey period, a dull society the way the rich and powerful liked it, where social norms encouraged conformist behaviour, to be sheep. This young generation spawned the Beatles, The Who, David Bailey, Twiggy, Vidal Sassoon and Mary Quant — the mother of the mini skirt, they suddenly developed a voice. An opportunity to be part of a liberating movement, an emerging culture that encouraged people to express themselves, and they did, and there was nothing the establishment could do about it.
In the sixties people were tired of the stiff society of our parents who lived through the scarcity of the war years, whose own parents brought them up with draconian Victorian attitudes that forced people to supress their feelings and blindly follow the rules without questioning. A retentive society spawned a new generation saw the opportunity to make their own way in the world, the break free and not have to follow the rules of the past. Rules decided by the hierarchy of a class system where the ‘establishment’ designed the politics of the time to retain control, limiting democracy, just enough to extract more from the people to stockpile wealth.
A decentralised freedom is the only way to fly…
The sixties movement was driven by people that wanted to gain control over their lives, make their own decisions, but the establishment didn’t stand back and tried to constrain it and even quash it. Early adopters vocally expressing new freedoms were arrested and imprisoned, mostly musicians and fashion icons for living a rock n roll lifestyle, for smashing up hotels and taking large amounts of drugs. But the shackles were already coming off, as british socitey reeled and people loved it. Soon to be conjoined in the US where the people were demonstrating against injustice, voicing concerns about the Vietnam war. What emerged was as a range of fringe movements- ‘flower power’ and free love period, made easier by the pill that liberated women to control their sexuality and have control over their bodies. It was all going on and this is where we are are heading all over again, as the people wake up to new freedoms and a future where they have a larger say in how their lives play out, despite the best efforts of regulators and the banking system trying to deny our birth rights.
The parallels between the 1960’s revolution and Bitcoin are uncanny. Bitcoin is again encouraging the ‘permissive society’ fuelled by the underlying decentralised Blockchain technology, led by new heroes have emerged with rock star like profiles such as Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Andreas Antonopolous and Eric Vorhees and other pioneers with a voice that are pushing this community forward and cannot be silenced… The revolution is becoming louder as people from all over the globe discover the joining the Bitcoin movement offers new freedoms to control their own finances, their identities and take back control.
What we don’t want…
Nobody wants a centralised surveillance society that is watching your every move, tell you what to wear, how to behave and controls you. Society is a construct, a treadmill to keep peoples heads down. They tell you, play by rules, get a job, pay your taxes and you will be looked after, is simply a lie! It is an illusion created by the capitalist few that benefit from keeping the people off balance. Yes they will argue that someone has to make the decisions, take control and enforce law, as order is necessary that few would deny. But now they fear the advent of decentralised technology delivering the opportunity to create new models of governance, of decision making and consensus without them. A system that has trust and transparency built in, has no central authority. We are entering a new era that will decide how society will be run and who makes the decisions, because what we have today isn’t working.
The 1960’s set the benchmark for Bitcoin…
As a sixties child myself, I was aware of this loud revolution, the music, the fashion and the different way of thinking, and yes, I hated the Beatles and Elvis music and still do. But they played their part. It was key The Time in the 20th Century to be alive, to be involved, to make your mark as the London scene demonstrated. Even the FBI and MI5 perceived this as an infection as something they had to deal with, the quash. Fearing a new liberalism, a new permissiveness was sweeping the western world, as society was breaking with the past, on the tail end of wars years, hardship and scarcity. It was the 60’s generation that shaped the world we have today, breaking free of the authroritarian state the UK had become.
“This is our time” more empowering words from a song. And so, if you know anything about Bitcoin and you get it, like it, own it; you are already part of the Bitcoin Generation and we need you. 50 years from now, this time will be seen as an historically landmark, a time when society awoke from an Orwellian dream, when the establishment was rocked and then everything changed. And yes this time it is different!
The power of sending money to someone without going through a central banking system is profound, a transaction that cannot be tampered with by dark forces, and be under no illusion Bitcoin has rocked the people in power to its core, and they don’t know what to do next.
Society needs to structurally change…
I have been in technology for over 4 decades and seen mainframes, mini computers, the PC revolution and the birth of networking (from its packet switching roots) and then the Internet. Each having a profound impact of peoples’ behaviours, the nature of work and productivity and the rules of the bigger game that is being played out.
I have learned it is the Blockchain technology that offers a structural transformation to society both good and bad. Previously, technology has also been held back by those that feed the hierarchy of power, making the tech conform rather than unleash its true potential. Where core systems were designed around draconian Tax, Legal and Accounting structures have since strangled businesses, a centralised ‘system of record’ that forces all parties to have keep their own version of the truth. A system that supports the power games of those calling the shots, that embed politics in a company, as this is exactly what it was designed for. Our business systems are system based on post industrial revolution structure as we entered entered mass manufacturing, where the nature of work was designed and packaged to be measured in a hierarchy that became the school of management for almost 100 years. Supported by organisational theories and their leader Peter Drucker. Thus infecting all businesses with frictional costs, a landscape for politics and imposing layers of unnecessary management in every industry.
I would argue inefficiency was by design to hold society back. A set of controls to maintain control and keep the wealth in the hands of the few.
This spawned a generation of worthless and unnecessary jobs backed by regulation to make sure certain people had a role and could drink from the trough. Some may argue job creation was essential, however it is worth remembering at the time there was no such things as an entrepreneur.
Everything we were forced to buy and consume, had a dark purpose. Insurance products designed to be sold through layers of distribution, sales people and brokers. My favourite parasites — the Independent Financial Advisor. How much profit margin has to be in a product to feed these layers, pay the commissions and allow miselling on mass. Insurance is a ‘Ponzi Scheme’ as it is predicated on new money coming in as premuims, to pay out at the bottom, if it pays out at all. Pensions is another failed product, where 42% of your pot goes in fees and charges, it is a scam, a lie. Then we have mortgages another failed product that robs people paying more than twice the value of the property over 30 years. Lets not even mention Medical Insurance designed to be sold and not claimed, aimed at the people with money.
Bitcoiners don’t want to be employed…
There are a couple of issues. When people realise they have been sold a lie and Bitcoin offers something different, they want to take back control. The genesis of the ‘gig economy’ is freedom. The libertarian journey begins, that offers new tools to create your own economy, be your own bank and to trade the value you hold, without friction. This is the crypto way. The millennials don’t want to work 9–5 sit in an office or commute to work. They demand the flexibility to do other things and live an entirely different lifestyle with many becoming ‘digital nomads’.
I witnessed my dad commute into London for 35 years everyday, missing out on so much, as a child I only saw him only on the weekends. The labour force has changed and big companies don’t know how to deal with, attract and retain talent, because for this generation working for a large company represents the ‘treadmill’ that you get on, that burdens you with financial trappings and obligations that never stops until you retire and die.
We have Generation Z growing up infront of a screen that have few social skills, cannot look you in the eye, with many having ‘digital damenture’ which will have a profound impact of the workforce. It is changing before our very eyes. Technology liberates our information making everything accessible, something some states don’t like (China, North Korea), as governments that concentrate power, more than in the western economies (who do allow allegedly free markets to work and for some to make money). But is it really? There is a strong argument western governments, built on aristocracy and power bases, is also authritarian. Themselves ‘extraction economies’ designed to keep the people dump and in the dark, take their wealth, relying on “Ignorance to be Strengthened”, and for government, this means embedding it as disinformation, where in the UK they use the government controlled BBC, to spread untruths and scare the people, for which you are taxed. the only country to have such a draconian tax that forces to you to pay for a TV station that lies to you.
All at Once
Bitcoin is part of a technology wave I call ‘all at once’, where the Bitcoin Blockchain is one of several pervasive technologies that will have a profound impact; Deep learning, Virtual Reality, Quantum Computing, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and the magnitude of change we can expect will dwarf anything we have seen.
Think, Elitism, the Establishment, the Upper Class, Royalty these are intertwined through history with politics that set the rules, makes laws and decide how they want the people to behave. These constructs are centralised, in the same way managing a business where hierarchy within a capitalist system allows the resources and wealth to be owned by a handful dictators, the dissemination of power flows from top to bottom of all organisations. That is until you build a decentralised autonomous company or (DAO), a business where rules, consensus and decisions (the constitution) are handled differently. Where responsibility, benefits and decisions are shared and behaviours is set by consensus.
Where do we go from here?
I want the people to understand the potential of this technology and why I go from country to country evangelising about Bitcoin and the Blockchain, its use, its liberating power and encouraging people to get involved.
Whether people like it or not, if you were an adult on 3rd Jan 2009 when the first 50 BTC was mined, sent from Satoshi’s wallet to Hal Finney (thought by some to be Satoshi anyway), you became part of the Bitcoin Generation, and it is like being 18 in the Sixties – this is your ticket to the best show in the world.
When the people of the western world find out they have been sold a lie, when the unbanked find out they can build new commerce and create a life for themselves, when accountability through transparency will call out governments that lie, distort the facts, where the truth about climate change is revealed, they cannot hold back renewable energy or allow organisations to tamper with our food chain, the chains come off.
The politics and government has no responsibility or accountability. Too many things decided behind closed doors. Too many lies propogated by those with vested interests that feed by a Capitalist model, a model that is ‘unsafe’… It is Bitcoin’s time to shine although in Act I Scene II we expect the Bitcoin Generation to do great things as I look ahead to ACT 5 Scene IV of the story in the years to come.
“Ignorance is what they rely on, don’t feed it!”
Judge the Bitcoin Generation by actions not by the Fake News…
Author: Nick Ayton
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