About 4 years ago, after releasing Delphic Oracle 9 software, the pressure coming from the technology that I was using was causing me pause as to whether I was working with the right platform. I started noticing this around 2010, but by 2016 it was getting too troublesome to ignore. The parasitic leaches were built right into the platform and there was no way to extricate the offending code.
Embarcadero saddled the compiler with all of the extra nonsense and wouldn’t offer a stripped down version without all the bloatware. Some of it was security related to prevent unauthorized copying, some of it is for complying with government regulations which prohibit export of uncompiled code to terrorist nations (such as Iran), etc. But I began to realize that these platforms weren’t just a service to a customer, they are a means of control for the rising technocratic class.
I’ve been talking to others from the cypherpunk community (Nick Szabo, Peter Todd, etc), which has been an interest of mine since the mid-90’s. After William Stickevers finally got through to me about the importance of bitcoin (took him about 4 years lol), I started researching what this was about and realized that bitcoin is actually a rebellion platform that was formed as a pushback against the techno-plutocratic elite.
Humans want control. They can’t resist the urge to leave well enough alone. So unbridled power concentrates into the hands of the few unless unchecked.
The US government’s 3 branches (senate, house, executive) were originally an attempt to decentralize (put checks and balances) against too much power. As a network it is a reflection of the scaling trilemma that Vitalik Buterin talks about (decentralization, security, scalability). When building networks (as was the case with the early internet with TCPIP), the trilemma is a hypothesis that one may build a system that can optimize for only two of these qualities, but it is impossible to do all three. One of these must be sacrificed for the other two.
Our govenment has chosen the path of scalability and security and sacrificed decentralization. Bitcoin chose to optimize decentralization and security but sacrificed scalibility. The danger with the first architecture is a spiral into authoritarianism, totalitarianism and censorship. The internet sacrificed security to achieve decentralization and scalability. Bitcoin’s sacrificed scaling (inefficient decision making due to PoW (Proof of Work) algorithm, but provides superior security and decentralization. Decentralization allows superior personal freedom.
Most of the platforms we are using are becoming dangerously centralized. Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google) said that Google searches should only provide one result. He said that we should know perfectly well what you meant and give you the exact answer you are looking for. He called the multiple search results “a bug”.
The problem with this line of thinking is it doesn’t provide for alternative points of view. What if you get a cancer diagnosis and want a second opinion? Science is not “settled” but Google will settle it for you. They keep saying “trust the science”, but there isn’t a single opinion. Quantum mechanics has proven that light is both a particle and a wave, both democrat and republican. Which result will Google return to you?
Most likely, the one that reflects the values of the ruling technocratic class. Add AI to this and you have centralization on steroids. You won’t even realize the ways in which you’ve relinquished control. You will have taken the blue pill and gone back to sleep and they can turn your dream into a nightmare. We in the cypherpunk community have been sounding the alarm.
