Note: this is a transcript of a talk given at a local Bitcoin event.
In the early 70’s, the term agorism was coined. In the late 80’s, the term cypherpunk was coined. In 2009, Bitcoin was, in its own way, “coined.”
These were all pivotal events that lead right up to us being here today.
So before I get started, a quick overview of what those first two things are for those who may not know.
Agorism is the belief that changing the system via the democratic process is a pointless exercise because the entire state is so corrupt, ze cabinets so deeply penetrated, even a politician with the best intentions cannot make meaningful change happen, and therefore the answer is to make change happen ourselves through civil disobediance and the creation of a parallel community, currency, and economy outside the control of the state.
If the alternate system is superior, people will opt for it regardless of whether they agree with or even care about the political motivations due to simple market forces, and if enough people do so, the state becomes powerless to stop it.
Cypherpunks built upon this concept for the digital age. They warned technology would become a tool of control for the state long before the likes of Facebook, Google, and Apple dominated it. They preached that in order to ensure we have digital freedom and free markets – in order to ensure technology benefited the individual – it is up to us to create and spread that technology ourselves, because corporations and the state certainly will not do it for us.
Today I want to talk about why keeping these values in mind is absolutely key to shaping the future.
And I believe we are heading in the right direction. Even in our own little group we’ve got people who are, to use the technical term, gigabrain chads, creating world changing technology like Civ Kit built on top of other world changing technology like Nostr and of course Lightning.
I’ve spoken a lot about it to people I know, bitcoiners or otherwise, and all of them were very excited by it. A friend of mine spoke to a statist about Bitcoin, Nostr, and Civ Kit and this statist said that he was very scared of it.
So all in all, we’re doing a great job so far.
But we must succeed where the OG cypherpunks failed by making this accessible for everyone.
Much of what the cypherpunks wanted to achieve in their mailing lists and Usenet groups never caught on. PGP, to use a prime example, is too cumbersome for even a lot of technically inclined people to use. They had the means to protect their communications, but without adoption, the technology was practically useless in an agorist sense. Various attempts at digital cash predating Bitcoin, another core technology held in high esteem by cypherpunks, also failed largely due to their centralised nature.
What was needed was technology that not only appealed to cypherpunks, but appealed to many other demographics too. Alternative systems that stand on their own two feet as superior options whether you agree with or are even aware of the cypherpunk movement at all. Because the end result is still the same – adoption of a system that exists outside the murderous theiving arm of the state. Whether someone embraces new technology because they love freedom or merely because it doesn’t impose the same fees and restrictions as traditional finance, or is simply more user friendly, it does not matter. To quote Ross Ulbricht: “Every action you take outside the scope of government control strengthens the market and weakens the state.”
If you’ve ever tried to send fiat abroad, you already know how shit it is. I sent money to a friend in Australia recently. It would have taken over a week and cost $35 in fees using the legacy financial system. But I used Lightning so it took an entire three seconds and cost nothing. I then told her download BTC Map to check if any businesses around her show up. And yes, they did!
It was Arthur C. Clarke who stated that: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And the fact you can instantly send someone money on the other side of the world and they can instantly spend it locally is magic to people.
Shitcoiners might try and tell you their shitcoin can do so and so transactions per second already. But well, ask them where you can actually go and spend their Nano Doge XRP Polygon WEF Coins and all you’ll hear from them is their dinner – crickets.
The fact that Bitcoin is Bitcoin and is widely seen as a valuable asset even among those who’ve never used it is a very powerful thing.
We know we have superior technology. Now we need to make sure it is accessible. You don’t want to have to tell someone how to manage cryptographic keys to access a storefront published by Civ Kit, for example, because like PGP, your average Joe or Jane Public isn’t going to bother learning it.
Instead, follow the example of Lightning: make it magic.
If someone can easily visit the Civ Kit store they’re looking for, with payments settled instantly in an escrow system, and the merchant or content creator or whoever else makes use of this groundbreaking technology is not having a chunk of revenue stolen by greedy middlemen – the advantages to both sides of that transaction don’t need much explaining or convincing at all, and the first time they use it, they see that instantly.
Let us also remember, no one likes banks, and banks in turn don’t like huge swaths of society even if they represent huge industries. In the USA, for example, many states have legal cannabis, but due to it remaining illegal federally, dispensaries often cannot open bank accounts, cannot take credit cards, and must keep a pile of physical cash in the store – and thieves are well aware of this.
Similarly, just a few years ago, OnlyFans almost had to ban adult content – a move that would have effectively killed their platform – because of arbitrary puritanical policies enacted by banks and credit card companies, who currently grant themselves de facto unelected control over every market due to their monopoltistic position.
We have the technology. We have the builders. We have the energy. We have the passion. All we need is to ensure that once you show this tech to a regular person, it is easy to use and the benefits are self-evident.
Because once enough people are onboarded and using it, any laws seeking to limit its use become practically unenforceable.
Finally, I feel like I have to address the elephant in the room. Because I know, we know, what some people are thinking when we promote the idea of private peer-to-peer marketplaces that cannot be censored. I’ve already hard it multiple times.
“This is going to be a new Silk Road.”
I am sure the mainstream media and government regulators will waste no time portraying it that way in an attempt to discredit it and scare people away from it. I personally don’t believe this will work.
Bitcoin stood up to a solid decade of non-stop attacks from the media saying it was only used by drug dealers and terrorists to launder money. Ironically much of that FUD came from bankers at reputable, morally upstanding institutions such as JP Morgan, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank. But people aren’t as stupid as bankers think – you don’t have to be a bitcoiner to know where the real money laundering is happening: right here in the good old City of London, and of course across the pond in Wall Street.
And trust me, those banks, those credit card companies, all these other money printing debt factories? They are already taking notice of this new market Nostr and Lightning are empowering and they are trying to stop it. Just take a look at what Apple is doing to Nostr clients already.
It’s easy to put this down solely to the Apple Tax on app transactions. But what you might not know is in the US, Apple offers credit cards. Bank accounts. High yield savings accounts. Peer to peer payments. They’ll even give you extra cashback if you use your iPhone to tap to pay in an Apple Store when you buy a new iPhone!
How do they do that? All those financial products are in fact offered by their, in their own words, “trusted partners” at Goldman Sachs. Apple is fronting Goldman Sachs consumer credit products and most likely making a killing in comissions.
Is it any wonder they’re worried about zaps?
And we’re only just getting stated here. We’ll see far worse attacks levelled at Nostr and Civ Kit and anything else we Bitcoiners build that threatens the state and commercial bank monopolies on money and power. And we can bypass these restrictions – already PWAs are being developed for all platforms, and of course Android allows sideloading.
These attacks didn’t work when Bitcoin was fresh in the media and they will not work now.
But still, the elephant remains, because although the media will blow it out of proportion and ignore all the other use cases, it is true that inevitably, a decentralised marketplace that promotes anonymity is going to be used to sell drugs, in the same way it’s inevitable that anonymous pieces of paper produced by the Royal Mint and the Federal Reserve will be used for the very same purpose.
Now just to be clear - what I’m about to say is my opinion and I speak only for myself, not Civ Kit or its team.
Now that my lawyer is happy, guess what I say?
I say good. I say let them have at it. I say I hope it widens access to cleaner, safer drugs and encourages a community of harm reduction just as Silk Road and the other darknet markets did. I say I hope it continues to demonstrate what we’ve already known since the entire “war on drugs” hysteria was forced upon the world by the United States to begin with: it has not and will not ever work.
Such laws are akin to legislating if a bear is allowed to shit in the woods. The bear is still going to shit in the woods regardless of what some Eton toffs say.
I can buy drugs on the darknet. I can buy drugs on Telegram. I can buy drugs on eBay. The fact you can buy drugs from the internet is not new or special. It is merely another example of how the state is failing to control the population.
After all, what business does the state have telling you what to put inside your own body? What business does the state have permitting sale of drugs sold by their friends, their business partners, their campaign doners, such as alcohol, tobacco, and addictive pharmaceuticals while barring the sale of cannabis, mushrooms, and LSD? No business at all!
A free market must be a free market.
To quote Ross Ulbricht for the second-to-last time: “The drug war is an acute symptom of a deeper problem, and that problem is the state.”
Let us use our tools for their intended purpose and create a new free market for everyone, outside the control of the state, corporations, or any other single party!
There is no middleground here. The state is not your friend. The state will not compromise. The state will not voluntarily give up control.
It is Bitcoin or Britcoin. It is freedom or a social credit system.
I’m gonna quote Ross one final time. Yes, I promise, just one last time:
“Never forget where the real power lies. It's where it always has been, in your hands.”
Stay agorist. Stay cypherpunk. Take back that control for yourself.
That is the true power of the gift left to us by Satoshi.
Thank you for listening!