Let's hack back to the good old days of the PC (personal computing) revolution. Way before Hal Finney and Satoshi Nakamoto. Then jump from there to the future of a world where we have not a few Big Bankers like Jamie Dimon, but where every adult desires to be a banker. Like the open-source decentralization of AI is the only way to ensure no runaway AGI takeover of human civilization, similarly, the open-source decentralization of banking is the only way to ensure no runaway AI-fueled, debt-money-fueled war-mongering keeps happening. With Bitcoin nodes and miners in every home before TV or Radio, pumping debt to sky-high levels will be a tale of the past. Or at least, for one lucky administration (still hoping). It’s been too long without a golden age of wealth and abundance. The PC Dream When Steve Wozniak and his hacker friends at the Homebrew Computer Club imagined the future of personal computing, they saw the computer creating freedom for people and not more bondage. To quote from The World According to Woz by Gary Wolf: The World According to Woz What are the rewards?" he asks. "We didn't have computers back then. You don't get to use it, you don't get a job, you don't get any money. You don't get any acknowledgment. You don't get a title. The rewards are intrinsic. They're in your own mind." What are the rewards?" he asks. "We didn't have computers back then. You don't get to use it, you don't get a job, you don't get any money. You don't get any acknowledgment. You don't get a title. The rewards are intrinsic. They're in your own mind." He is talking about the idea of designing computers in those early days when the notion of someone owning their own computer (think smartphone today. Woz is our grandpa), was unimaginable. A clunky, full-functional computer costs about as much as a house. However, the script might as well have been written for hackers tinkering with Bitcoin nodes today. Trying to actually live up to the ethos of Do Not Trust, Verify. Unlike us pretenders. Do Not Trust, Verify. The Bitcoin Dream The Bitcoin dream is a reincarnation of the PC dream. Albeit on slow-fuel. Too much friction to its growth abounds. Even as growth is all that people today preach. What is the reward of running a Bitcoin node today? - None. You don't get to use Bitcoin more often (people here use UGX), you don't get a Bitcoin job when you run a node, you don't get any free bitcoins (they now require electricity that would bankrupt you and your family for generations if you dare use the national grid to mine BTC). If you run a Bitcoin node, you don't get a title, e.g., Bitcoin Node Troubleshooting Professional. The rewards are indeed intrinsic. They are in your own mind. Financial freedom is your daydream. Say it out loud, you'll be frowned upon by all. While Woz was lucky enough to live through the PC revolution, you'll be lucky to live through the Hyperbitcoinzation. It'll take a while. The World According to Woz - Remastered “Undaunted, Woz describes for this graduating class his original vision of a technological revolution”, writes Gary Wolf. But let me say, it wasn't enough. Building computers on a decayed financial layer has simply allowed rot and needless debt-slavery to continue. To thrive. And computers have aided it. Now, they will fight it. Allow me to paraphrase futuristically, Woz's words to UC Berkeley's graduating class of 1999 [with added Bitcoin wisdom]; "affordable computers [called Bitcoin nodes] were coming! Computers that people could own! We could have them in our homes. There would be a [financial] revolution, and they'd be in every home. And we spoke in [Bitcoin] clubs, and we had a big club [$MSTR], and it grew to 500 [million] members and it was huge and we just hung on every word. And the big computer companies [like Apple] the ones that already existed, said, 'It's a little passing fad like ham radio. It will go away. It just doesn't matter. Nobody is going to want a [Bitcoin] computer in their home.' "affordable computers [called Bitcoin nodes] were coming! Computers that people could own! We could have them in our homes. There would be a [financial] revolution, and they'd be in every home. And we spoke in [Bitcoin] clubs, and we had a big club [$MSTR], and it grew to 500 [million] members and it was huge and we just hung on every word. And the big computer companies [like Apple] the ones that already existed, said, 'It's a little passing fad like ham radio. It will go away. It just doesn't matter. Nobody is going to want a [Bitcoin] computer in their home.' While talking about the students at Southwestern Oregon Community College, Woz says; "If students read history [on fiat and debt]," …. "then when they finish their course they are better at reading. When they work and study history on a computer, do they know history better? No. But they know how to use a computer." "If students read history [on fiat and debt]," …. "then when they finish their course they are better at reading. When they work and study history on a computer, do they know history better? No. But they know how to use a computer." But if they also know how to use a Bitcoin node, then they also know how to stop the ugly fiat and debt history that led to world wars and gulags (while Stalin didn't print money before starving millions of his own people to death, his authoritarian fiat policies were worse. fiat Printing debt money to “provide free goods and services” might be socialist capitalism. But at least it destroys slowly. Stalin's communism was the equivalent of printing poverty itself and serving it out equitably. Big Banking Will Not Swallow Bitcoin Big Banking acquiring Bitcoin is good for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the one playing Big Banking, not the other way around. The Trojan horse has made it closer to the printer. Total victory against it couldn't be nearer. Currently, it doesn't pay to call out Big Banking. Rather, Bitcoin's NGU for all (even Bankers) is the norm. But if the NGU is largely from debt and not real productivity, then there will be a crash in Bitcoin. But it will not destroy Bitcoin. It will simply let more people know that if you create a debt machine, then a Michael Saylor will come along who will ratchet up his gains by continually getting debt to buy the most scarce asset on the planet. Nothing stops this train, but if it derails, it will have fewer passengers on the next run. Maybe AI will ride it out. Who knows. But I don't see humans continuing to remain gullible when the playbook is this open and open-source. You know what would have been sweeter? 21 million bitcoins, no satoshis. In 2020, we'd have each Bitcoin at $6 million. Or rather, reduce the number of satoshis per BTC from 100 million to 10 million. To be more realistic. Imagine how much more quickly that would have still pushed the Fiat train vs today. We might need a hard fork to have even fewer sats per BTC. Epilogue: Food and Other Basic Needs > Intelligence "Sometimes I wonder, 'Am I the master of the computer?', Woz challenges from the podium. Red Herring, Woz. You need to master money. It is the abstraction of your and my personal food garden. (Interestingly, Woz wasn’t that good at managing his millions of dollars. He SPENDed instead of HODLed. Oh well, it was Fiat). Picture this → Bacteria get to eat. How much Intelligence does it have? How about monkeys? Now, why are humans starving? Also, picture this. Monkeys have all the sex they want. No economy. Meanwhile, humans are too broke to get some sweet loving? And don't get me started on marriage. Intelligence is not the primary need. Good Food is. And by Food, I mean everything that feeds a good life. After that, we can sit at the top of Maslow's pyramid and contemplate human consciousness and robot consciousness, quarks, and whether Trump and Elon are still friends, but playing us all like a fiddle.
