That niggly little middleman problem
“It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.” — Benjamin Disraeli, Former British Prime Minister, 1804–1881. Oil on canvas painting by Michael D’Antuono.
Satoshi’s whitepaper unleashed a veritable tsunami of blockchain startups, ICO’s and whitepapers promising solutions to the global demand for “something else” — a new way of addressing the proliferation of global issues. Blockchain founders breathlessly describe a world in which the role of a central authority or intermediary is eliminated. The technology, we are told, has the potential to change the fundamentals of the economic ecosystem and fundamentally disrupt every industry with varying impact.
In conference after blockchain conference numerous utopias are espoused: open networks of governance, peer-to-peer engagement of humans and resources, self-sovereign identities, incentivised problem solving and ousting of corruption. I, too, have fallen victim to the hype and written about Life Without Middlemen:
Life Without Middlemen_Happiness thrives when nobody tries to control_medium.com
Sadly, in all the excitement, the blockchain community has overlooked one inconvenient truth about humanity: power, once attained, is seldom conceded without a struggle.
It’s highly unlikely that central banks, the people who control them and power-hungry despots will allow tokens and cryptocurrencies to usurp their role as monopoly suppliers of money. China has already shut bitcoin exchanges and clamped down on initial coin offerings and Russia has said that “we don’t legalise pyramid schemes” and “we are totally opposed to private money, no matter if it is in physical or virtual form.” The Bank for International Settlements has said that, “While cryptocurrencies may pretend to be currencies, they fail the basic textbook definitions.” Moreover, without “institutional backup, which is best provided by a central bank,” new crypto-assets endanger trust in the fundamental value and nature of money. In Australia, local crypto investors have been complaining that Australia’s big four banks are freezing their accounts, and preventing transfers to bitcoin exchanges. Central bankers are clearly worried that an increasing number of retail investors will pour their savings into the various forms of digital currencies.
With all this resistance to crypto, how is the blockchain community realistically going to tackle the very real challenge of addressing the middleman in governance?
“Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” — Lord Byron, often incorrectly attributed to Frederick Douglass.
I believe there is an answer to the question of “how we strike the blow” — a blow that can be dealt ethically and without violence. The answer is certainly not something I’m comfortable writing about, but this conversation needs to be started. It’s important if we are to have an as meaningful an impact on humanity as we all hope for.
First, to put things in context, I need to go back a little in time.
In summer 2002, I arranged a Paris city tour through the hotel in which I stayed for three nights. In all my travels I’ve often hired a local driver for a few hours, because it’s by far the best way of discovering non-touristy local places and interesting facts you’d never read in a tourist guide. This day was no different.
Diana, Princess of Wales
As it happened, my driver turned out to be a personal friend of Henri Paul, the driver of the car in which Princess Diana was tragically killed on 31 August 1997. Since I’ve always been skeptical of the official explanation of the accident, I asked him what he knew about the incident. Turns out that he (and the entire French professional drivers’ association) had many theories.
He offered to take us through the tunnel, travelling at the same speed at which the accident happened. Since he’d obviously done this many times before, I agreed. He took great delight in reenacting the moments before the accident and went to great lengths to explain how there was no way a professional driver couldn’t handle the speed at which the accident happened (official reports said about 105km/h). He also vehemently denied that Henri was under the influence of any substance, as was reported at the time.
I then asked him whether he thought the accident had been planned, and he was totally convinced it had. When I asked him why, he said just one word, “pédophilie,” and refused to say any more.
I subsequently discovered that there were suspicions that Diana could have exposed Prince Charles’ ties to an elite pedophile ring. This claim aligned with similar scandals in the US, including the CIA Finders Scandal and the Franklin Scandal, which all claimed widespread child abuse and prostitution at the highest levels of government, business and church. Since pedophilia doesn’t directly concern me (or so I thought), I gave the matter no further consideration.
Vladimir Putin
In late 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the Dima Yakovlev Law, prohibiting Russian children from being adopted by American citizens. It was a controversial bill, because it immediately denied many Russian orphans the privilege of a better life. However, when proposing the bill, Putin explained that Russia will not be responsible for the abuse of Russian children at the hands of American pedophiles. Putin has apparently warned that the ban will remain until President Trump takes care of the sex trafficking epidemic and lives up to his promise to “drain the swamp,” specifically of pedophiles in the US.
In September 2013, Putin took part in the final plenary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. In his speech, Putin took aim at the moral degradation sweeping the West in a politically rare display of candour:
0:35: “The excesses and exaggerations of political correctness in these counties indeed leads to serious consideration for the legitimisation of parties that promote the propaganda of pedophilia.” — Putin
(Sub-titles in the video can be corroborated with this official translation.)
Prior to his recent previously undisclosed second meeting with Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in June 2017, Putin apparently issued a warning that if Trump didn’t expose the elite pedophile networks, then he would “begin naming names.”
Basically, it appears that Putin has dirt on Trump that extends way beyond a “pee pee tape” and is threatening to expose him. (Have you ever wondered why Trump doesn’t seem particularly concerned about Stormy? He has much bigger issues to deal with.)
If correct, what this means is that the level of blackmail required among the world’s leaders to keep pedophilia hushed is slowly unravelling. Bear in mind the long-term ties Trump has with the pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is in turn linked to British royals and other high-profile pedophiles. Each have dirt on each other, in a high-stakes game of “if you expose me, I’ll expose you.” The most powerful person — who also appears to have the cleanest reputation, at least as far as pedophilia is concerned — is Putin. This appears to be the reason why Trump kowtows to Putin.
Why does pedophilia matter to the blockchain community?
Because it may hold the key to answering the question about middlemen.
Let me stress again, this is not a topic I enjoy writing about, much less researching. The scale of the issue and the size of the networks involved in covering it up are immense. This is a global scandal in which almost every single one of the infamous 1% are involved in some way, or at least aware of and do nothing about. Pedophilia is the underlying reason for the absolute lack of moral leadership at a time when we so desperately need to intercede in our collective path.
As tragic as pedophilia is for the victims involved, exposing pedophilia is much more about ousting global leaders who have abused our trust. This is an important distinction from existing movements trying to expose the torture of children, for the children’s sake. Pedophilia is also the golden thread connecting the leaders and representatives of everything that no longer serves humanity: big oil, big pharma, big tobacco, big soda, big banking, big government, big taxes, big unemployment, big surveillance, big manipulation, big dumbing down. Specifically, pedophilia is the ethical, nonviolent answer to how the blockchain community could address the niggly problem of the middleman. If we can get one to topple, it’s likely the others will come crashing down too, or simply resign and disappear to avoid the scandal.
We know that governments will likely resist the promised decentralisation that blockchain loudly promises. We also know that system resets have occurred in the past, but they usually involve traumatic events like war, famine or plague — events we’d all much rather avoid. This problem of how we transition to a blockchain-driven world is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing. I believe pedophilia may hold the key, and an exciting initiative is underway which we could relatively easily support.
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Trafficking and Child Sex Abuse is the first truly independent Judicial Commission of its kind, and has garnered tremendous international political and diplomatic advocacy. The principal intention behind the Commission is not to instigate witch-hunts or target particular figures, but rather to set in motion a culture that ensures the restoration of truth, disclosure, reconciliation, and redemption surrounding human trafficking and child sex abuse.
The audacious goal of the Judicial Commission is to achieve in 9 to 12 months what whistle-blowers, governments and leaders of the world have failed to do in centuries — shed the full light of truth on the true nature and extent of the human trafficking and child sex abuse pandemic. Inaugural hearings will be held at Westminster Hall in London on April 16–18, 2018.
Since this is an independent inquiry (important because it must be conducted outside of the existing system and it must be global), the team behind the initiative needs our help. Please, please, please would you consider signing their treaty to show your support? You can meet the commissioners here. You can also contribute to their crowdfunding campaign, with a once-off amount starting at only $3.00. I seldom contribute to campaigns because I seldom see any that have the potential to achieve massive social change. This campaign does.
Thank you for your consideration. And thank you for reading about something which hasn’t been easy for me to write.
“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated, and seen through by the passion of individuals.” — Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist
Milestones in the history of the ITNJ