Bitcoin and Blockchain; it was never about the money, despite what people like to believe...
It has always been about trust!
The Dunbar Number is a number in evolutionary psychology meant to describe the maximum number of relations any one person was capable of maintaining, for obvious reasons, you need to trust somebody to relate/communicate/associate with a person frequently. Getting to know someone takes time and vicinity, so the Dunbar Number is simply a mathematical expression of that societal "time" and furthermore "geographical" limit.
This number can be seen expressing itself in various species of animal populations around the world, but the main point is that to exceed the Dunbar Number is the foundation of all civilization...
This how Human Society started, back in Egyptian times, the organizational structure of hierarchy came about to help many different people relate and organize for different purposes, all for the betterment of society as a whole.
Language was the first large jump for Humans relative to the Dunbar Number, language allowed us to to communicate and organize much more than hieroglyphs.
Religion was the second large jump relative to the Dunbar Number, it allowed us to organize and communicate even beyond the language barriers of the world.
Money was probably the single largest jump, being that Gold very quickly became a global "language" and currency: Money talks, am I right?
Just to keep you on track here, we're talking about how relationships and communication rely on a foundation of trust, which is currently the greatest barrier to true development on a global scale.
As humanity increased in population size, we needed a way to trust massive amounts of people without being next to them or taking the time to get to know them for that matter, this is WHY "hierarchy" and "corporations" came to be. It was 100% necessary in a non-digital era!
Community, and later global, development was made possible because people placed their "trust" into these large corporations and hierarchies, allowing faster trade, communication, and expansion. In celebration of these massive achievements for all of humanity, the pyramids were erected as a testament to the hierarchical organizational structure, more commonly known as a pyramid "scheme".
This pyramid "scheme" is ultimately what led to the industrial revolution, allowing for global trade and synchronous technological advancements for the entire world.
The problem with this system now is that the "bottom" of the pyramid is now too big for the "top" of the pyramid to efficiently make decisions in real-time. In a real and metaphorical sense, the top of the pyramid is too far removed from the consequences that the bottom is dealing with, this leads to corruption.
There is too much power at the top, too much information at the bottom, and not enough time for the top to possibly make decisions fast enough for global scaling of economies.
This pyramid "scheme" was good, it was necessary, it brought us to the point we're at now with all the technological innovations of the 21st century, but the thing about power is that it corrupts. People know this, and thus they have started to take their "trust" out of the corporations and hierarchies.
This is expressing itself in the fact that we literally cannot make any decisions globally whether big or small. This is the reason why even with enough money, value, and resources to end global poverty EASILY, the decision never gets made.
This current system is not scaling to global demand...
Bitcoin was never about money, it's always been about trust...
Communication is 100x more effective than some years ago, that problem has been solved, there is plenty of information, but we need a new system of trust to deal with all that information, so that decisions can start being made in a timely manner.
There has been no platform that can scale trust with relying on the time-honored trust-dispersal system we know as "hierarchy", not until Bitcoin that is... Bitcoin was invented on Jan. 23, 2009.
Bitcoin relies fully on "Blockchain" technology and that is the technology that is solving the "trust" scaling issue for our current society.
Trust no longer needs to be provided by a "hierarchy" or a "corporation" which are susceptible to single centralized attacks and corruption, it can be provided by a protocol, a program, a technology; this technology is Blockchain. Bitcoin is only popular because "Money" was the most readily adaptable and needed form of the "Blockchain" technology.
Blockchain will shake the foundations of the world because Humanity can now organize without further relying on corruptible and vulnerable, centralized "hierarchies"...
Don't think we're "hating" on hierarchies, or disparaging the system in anyway, the system got us this far, it was a stepping stone necessary to get us to this point, and it's done that, it has succeeded, but it's failing to scale... we need something else at this point in our Society.
This model of "trust" is seeping into every corner of society, Blockchain is the technology providing that model, and Bitcoin is the "hype-man" acting as the first mover in the industry (it's doing a mighty good job of it as well).
So we reiterate, Bitcoin and Blockchain were never about "making money" even though somebody literally made a new form of money, it was about changing our model of trust for Society as a whole, allowing us to evolve faster than ever before. People are imagining this technology being used to re-invent voting systems, for completely re-structuring the idea of a "corporation" owned by many people, and even groups of people being able to make "applications" or "programs" without even needing a centralized leader.
Just because "hierarchies" may no longer be necessary doesn't mean there won't be rules, there will be transparent rules predictable in their outcomes, but there will be no rulers. This is the 1st time in history where we've had the opportunity to have rules without rulers...
The rulers of the world will not "thank" this technology for making their lives easier, they will try to de-legitimize it by saying that only "criminals" and "pornographers" or "hackers" will ever use it. They will say that because Blockchain threatens their ability to be "corrupt" while sitting on "top" of the hierarchy.
Blockchain, and by extension Bitcoin, are a system of social organization that offer "trust" as a feature to the protocol (program) and this system works at massive scale...
Every innovation starts illegal...
Every great innovator was so busy innovating that they forgot to ask for "permission"...
Even if they remembered the rules, the didn't listen to them, because the rules were made by rulers, sitting at the top of the hierarchy securing their profits by destroying competition (corruption).
Bitcoin isn't about money, it's not disrupting "Finance", it's disrupting "Hierarchy"...
Skype did not ask permission...
Uber did not ask permission...
AirBNB did not ask permission...
Self-Driving cars literally didn't ask permission when they rolled out onto California streets...
Be bold, think of morality first and rules second...
Click here to watch the speech by Andreas that inspired this article!