Utopian or Dystopian? Democratic or Feudal? Entirely New? Or All of the Above! And Then There’s Religion.
As some idealists would lead us to believe, governments are not going away. Governance is a critical element of human nature. In the present we have geographical governments controlling regions, we have corporate governments wielding armies of capital, and we have non-profit governments influencing both. These well-entrenched forces are not going to simply lie down and disappear. Before we return to The Light, let’s first consider the Dark Side because it is indeed in full command of the tempo, and consider what role religion is going to play. If you’re religious this will be gloriously offensive to your delicate sensibilities and you are strongly advised to bail here or face an alternate reality you’re likely not prepared for. I also apologize in advanced for my colorful potty-language, which I have unapologetically indulged most of my life and recently read it is a sign of being genuine, so this is more a PG-13 or whatever the shit they now call it, U17-type warning rather than apology. Maybe that was fake news I read?
Now, our news, fake or not who knows these things, is in fact filled with images of war zones, the latest military tech, crazy assholes in their banana republics full of threats, tough-talking cowardly politicians in their suits, and major nations like Russia, China, and the US rattling sabers and deploying for conflict. The only hope for survival for the old order is to fabricate WWIII, send our young dreamers and innovators off to the killing fields or as Michael Franti aptly put it — “bullet-catcher’s, for the slave-master’s” — and destroy society to rebuild a new corporate-feudal order after a prolonged return to a wretched dark stone age.
Change is often sudden and violent, and somewhat predictably cyclical. Governments enjoy a “monopoly on violence”, though perhaps not a true monopoly as corporate armies, mafias, and insane “religious” organizations are among those who enjoy some market-share. War has an economy of its own, so I’ll use some examples to illustrate what is involved, beginning with the Roman Republic. After Scipio Africanus defeated the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, a change began in the Republic where senatorial consuls began using their military commissions for personal gain and wielding them like private armies. The conflict between Gaius Marius and future dictator Lucius Sulla saw an acceleration of this trend as the two competed for supremacy of the state, which led to the rise of Caesar and culminated in the death of the Republic and birth of the Roman Empire under Augustus.
Imagine a roman legion: roughly 5000-men marching up the Appian Way in perfect formation all looking the same. And in 82 BC when Sulla landed in Italy from his campaigns in Greece, he marched on Rome with 5 legions and was met along the way by a legion led by billionaire Marcus Licinius Crassus, and then by billionaire Gnaeus Pompeius who brought three more; over 45,000 men. Over 50,000 Romans died during the Battle of the Colline Gate, and when Sulla’s forces reached the Forum to seize Marius, the heads of over 1,000 political and business opponents lined the torch-lit bloody steps of the Senate House. This was a huge battle, though not one of Rome’s largest, but where did all this shit-ton of gear come from?
It began with government contracts and financiers, who yes, have been creeping around for over 2,000 years plaguing humanity for profit, and a fuckload of slaves in a hole in the earth toiling to death for a mining operation, without the decency of bum pay, sick leave, weekends, or benefits. Once the ore was extracted, a private security force was employed to protect the transportation company as it moved valuable goods overland and or by ship, perhaps several times. Then a refining operation was needed before it got turned into a product for a profit. So to outfit 45,000-men for this one army, there could have been 3 separate mines in 3 distant and remote corners of the empire, which implies the cost of production had volatility and experienced spreads in currency exchange. Outfitting a legion was a highly sophisticated operation involving credit and managing risk, meticulous operation of a lean slave-automated assembly plant, and is really not any less sophisticated or too different than how it is done today.
To get a better sense of what was produced I’ll describe most of what a legionary had and leave out details of cavalry, artillery, and the rest. Of course legionary gear changed during many periods but in general they each had:
Metal-studded leather sandals
Thick cold-weather socks
Undertunic (not sure if they free-balled?)
Cuirass
Helmet
Gauntlets & gloves
Cloak
Backpack
Tools for fortifying camp
Mess kit
Knife
Gladius
Shield
2 Javelins
A shared tent
Etc. you get the point, all built to the highest Roman standard.
That alone is a lot of military contracts, and war was arguably one of the largest and most profitable industries 2117-years ago, and with time and energy I could make a case for more than twice that long. Now imagine the technologically advanced Wehrmacht. Hitler did not just rise to power on his own; he enjoyed the backing of some of Germany’s wealthiest industrialists. The asshole was broke, and it’s not like he had a legion of tailors making and donating those Brown Shirts, like everything else it took money. Families like the Krupps were all too happy to profit off a giant army being made. Then there’s all the munitions used in conflict. The result was the destruction of the old architecture and order of Europe, and the obliteration of a huge generational swath of the population — not to mention others.
This sick human chapter created an enormous and irresistible financial opportunity: Rebuild the wasted old Europe with a modern new one, and of course someone had to finance all this. The 3-largest post-war banks, in order, were Deutsche Bank, Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank, and Citibank; somehow and perhaps not by chance German and Japanese financiers emerged for a time as the victors.
Going back in time to 1694 The Bank of England was private when William III had them loan the Crown £1.2 million (~$275 mil USD today) to finance his navy to wage war on France. BOE became a central bank (not nationalized until post-WWII) when it turned around and issued bank notes against that Crown debt. To give these notes value as a de facto currency, the sovereign agreed to accept them for tax payments. This created paper “fiat” money endorsed by the King, and established fractional reserve banking. Through this the BOE was given a license to print money, and of course they did.
So without getting too historically carried away, I’ve illustrated that while governments enjoy a near-monopoly on violence, they do so with the aid and sanctioning of the banks. Now I’ll ask, will bitcoin or decentralization really put a stop to this multi-millennial trend, or will the bankers orchestrate WWIII in order to guarantee their own survival? (with fuckface Trump at the helm??) Ridding the planet of banks would be a huge positive step for humanity, but we’ll also have to shitcan religion, and maybe toss out the venture capitalists while we’re at it (it is going to happen).
After all, everywhere I look people are correctly saying these technologies render banks obsolete. The banks are like a cornered bear in the kiddie pool, and if the bear has nowhere to run, he becomes violent. Thus WWIII may very well be brewing; and if launched it will produce a horror that makes Hitler look like a piker, and humanity will suffer a prolonged, Teutonically-Gothic darkness like we’ve never seen before. That’s potentially the Big Bummer.
I try not to waste much energy on such thoughts, but it has to be included in the Risk Factors.
What about the Future of Awesomeness? There’s no amount of time I wouldn’t and don’t spend considering all the potential, and I sincerely hope we skip the Big Bummer and all collect 200 BTC at Go. If decentralization is “allowed” to flourish, I believe the world will fractionate into many different regions and city-states, and perhaps later coalesce into more geographically associated larger collectives, and finally, maybe, a single society of human beings living in Har-Mo-Neee. Hmmm.
The crypto-anarchists believe all will then be algorithmic utopian bliss, but this assumes everyone is connected and going along with the plan. Maybe one day, but it’s pretty naïve to assume we’ll start there. Are we going to maintain private security forces to protect us from roving predatory gangs? Does this mean no gun laws and I can collect all the military hardware I can get my hands on? Where did all the nukes end up? Are our carrier battle groups converted into the Neal Stephensonesque flotilla of freedom (avoid the dentata!) which would explain where the nukes ended up because now we have motorcycle riding sovereigns like Raven (sorry for the Snowcrash references, couldn’t resist)? Yeah, I’m afraid the idealism will come up against very real world challenges that do not resolve simply because we have a new web.
But assuming we do get beyond the challenges, what will these new city-states and regional sprawls look like and what will it be like to live in one? I guess if you’re among the religious-minded you can now enjoy the conservatively perfect Jesusville, or Mohamedtopia, or the Goldfarb-token-issuing Judeaberg, or any similar place where the intellectually-defenseless kids get brainwashed early and everyone believes the same thing and focuses on the afterlife without having ever focused on actual life.
But how long until they bring violence to their neighbors, because despite keeping to themselves and minding their own business the neighbors think their religion has indoctrinated a collective of mental defectives, and now there’s a mandate to convert them? After all, you’re either part of the club or not; “you’re either inside, or you’re outside” (GG), you either have the star or polo on your chest or you don’t. Will our new wonder technology fix this? Will we ever be rid of the Coulters, O’Reilly’s, or InsanHannitys of the world? In time I like to believe it will elevate us beyond this nonsense of concerning ourselves with what other people do or do not believe, as if some pathetic god needs us little folk to sort it out for him, but right now such an existence is a colossal stretch of the imagination.
Obviously not all religion is bad nor all religious people, but organized centralized money-involved religion is a real problem that is not going away soon or without a war, and I’m not convinced anyone has even tried to tackle this one in an actionable way, because the religious resort to hate and anger if you dare question them. What I want to know is, what kind of sick fucking god tolerates and promotes hate, racism, and violence?
Maybe we should offer up a challenge? Let the holier-than –thou religious missionary have 8-hours to talk about their god and convert a non-believer. In exchange, they have to choose between drinking a heroic dose of ayahuasca, eating a pile of peyote or mushrooms, or dropping 5 tabs of acid. That would be fun, except for the 8-hours of suffering their intentionally fabricated babble, so maybe we should skip that and just wait for a chance and dose them when they’re not looking, one by one.
The biggest problem with religion is that it fears and avoids change. Avoiding change is like avoiding responsibility. If you avoid change then you cannot be an advocate for technological advance. Avoiding change is also not living life. Sadly for them, life doesn’t give a shit because it is a constant state of change, and attempting to avoid it is Borg-futile. Our decentralized technologies are bringing a rapid metamorphosis, and the best option is to let go of the rock and go with the flow, but that doesn’t seem to be the will of anybody’s god — such will only works when it’s convenient. Actually the most ironic thing about the uber-religious is their fear of death. I mean if the afterlife with the god is so amazing, then death is great because you get to go hang out somewhere perfect and leave all the bullshit here behind. But that’s not how it works, and this applies more to Christianity and not so much to radical Islam.
Digital nations and city-states will become mergers of government and innovation corporations. Some will be like-minded such as Mormon Utah while others diversified like the great NYC. Some, like the Middle East, may become true paradises for the Islamic-oriented folk, where together in the sand they can continue rejecting their non-shellfish-eating brethren; or perhaps they get over it and get along? Others may be atheistic liberal cypherpunk hippy utopias, and then there is likely to be more domineering and controlling corporate anti-privacy feudal kingdoms run by mad profiteering CEO’s. Let’s not forget the redneck hillbilly whiskey tango slums filled with Schlitz-drinking dudes in schweaty wife beaters rocking the mullet-badge of honor as they dance to bad music with some wildebeest. Ouch.
Many of the decentralized automated digital realms will begin with the best of intentions and end up being morphed into more centralized systems as we see with Bitcoin and its miner consolidation. Power eventually finds a way to corrupt, so multiple waves of human migration will circle the globe, where talented people bail their homeland or previous domicile that has degenerated, or become non-competitive, and settle in a place that suits their desires and offers the best setup. You never know when you’re going to wake up and realize your homeland has gone to shit. I mean if The Donald can become president, anything can happen, and hopefully in the future it becomes easy to migrate on your merry way when you wake up to such sad news?
When I started writing this I thought I would end in my Happy Place with a utopian perfect awesome future. As I started considering some of the real problems, I’m left here wondering how we can really deal with divided views and especially religion, which has driven a wide wedge through the entire human race for way too long. Is the Vatican really going to give back all the wealth and property they’ve accumulated/stolen throughout the years, beg our forgiveness for their wars, rapes, murders and intrigues, lay down their claims on our souls, and go quietly into the night? How about the Islamists seeing others as “infidels”, are they really going to suddenly wake up and chill out? From my travels I’d say this is all very wishful thinking. It seems technology can build a better world, but alone will not solve all our problems.
I end with one final thought: regions will degenerate and others will rise to innovative-awesomeness; but as we are one species on one planet for the time being, we need to let go of our pettiness and work towards a common goal or else the cycle of conflict will never end and dreams and visions of a great society will be nothing more than just dreams. As Jean-Luc Piccard once said, “The economics of the 23rd Century are different, we work to better ourselves”. This should be the goal we all strive for. Amen.
So I’m going to flip religion The Bird for being such a pain in humanity’s collective ass, and Trump too, because I had to write his name, and because I can here without fear of arrest or persecution. In the future I threaten to share my disruptive views on strategies, deployments, and implications of decentralized systems and distributed ledgers; on monetary theory, occasionally government, historic anecdotal indulgences, release a Kraken or two, invoke offending pagan idolatry, call bullshit, reveal many wild dreams and fantasies of a better world for my daughter and humanity’s next 7-generations while raising a great horn of ale to the Innovators…may they live long and prosper…Sköll.
Dream Big, Make it Happen, and May the Decentralized Force Be with You!
I can also be found at https://medium.com/@akau.tau