Could The Bitcoin Beast Hack Human Greed?:
Yuval Noah Harari explains how humans are hackable in this interview (The 2 Most Important Skills For the Rest Of Your Life):
“The price of delusion and the price not being able to tell the difference between fiction and reality, it adds up, and eventually it adds up to things like genocide and war.” - Yuval Noah Harari
Trust in accurate history (recorded data) is crucial for humanity.
What this could mean:
Essentially all life is matter, or data that is organized in the right/trusted way using energy (producing RNA first, then DNA). This creates consciousness or an algorithms. These algorithms are programmed to survive and replicate, using greed as input, organized data as an output, and trust as feedback. If this primary loop is not satisfied (life is threatened), it is referenced. This basic life randomly interacts through unorganized data and other life, running this program and storing it in genetic code. This process is called evolution. As more genetic code is stored, life cycle times increase. Eventually an integral feedback loop is formed (short term memory). Each replication evolves slightly different.
Over billions of years, evolution created many species and this could all be viewed as data in the environment becoming organized. All this organized information can also be viewed as technology (caused from unorganized data being organized by greed powered algorithms). Even evolution can be described as, technology innovation of life/organisms. All technology comes from greed as an input and trusted organized data as an output.
If you observe any company today, the leading ones are those that organize the most trusted/helpful data (brands are just proven trust in organized data). Evolution happens because of random chaos/interactions. Imagine any animal burrow or nest, as organized material or data (technologies) that were formed by greed and trust, as evolved protection from the environment for survival. It’s easy to observe that most of the technology that we use today, is just emulated technology from the environment (airplanes from birds, electricity from lightning, computers from brains or thinking, etc).
Eventually primates evolved. Likely by random interaction with large sources of available energy (possibly geothermal pools that animals got caught in and cooked from?). They consumed energy dense food regularly until biological changes evolved. Their intestines shortened and their frontal lobes formed. This allowed for derivative feedback or future perspective. Maybe groups of primates learned to capitalize on this energy opportunity. Over many years, different groups likely got forced away or wiped out from the abundant supply, and formed the types of lesser evolved primates that were still unaware of using fire. Then groups eventually stayed there long enough around this geothermal hot spot, likely near volcano and slowly they grew more conscious. Eventually by using new perspectives, they made the connection between cooked food and heat so that they could harness fire by mobilizing it. This may have happened more than once or even in different areas, creating all types of homogeneous species. This perspective may have allowed tribes to figure out more problems with more available time, as primitive technology revolution started (all by observing natural technology from other species). This consciousness and future perspective created imagination.
Having the ability to reflect on stored memory data and simulate future outcomes without the risk of actually performing tasks. Learning took place and energy was harnessed as its efficiency for organizing more data was realized. Cooking food is the process of breaking down energy data, prior to organizing it internally for energy use. Throughout history, energy dense forces were learned to be worshiped. This is where religion may have started as it became critical to worship energy sources in the environment like the sun, elements, ocean, volcanoes, etc.
Greek mythology has many other examples (Poseidon- God of sea, Zeus- God of sky, etc.) These energy dense forces contribute to survival and become deeply trusted data or memory. All these sources provide energy for life to thrive. This is where mythology likely came from (every god represents an important bit of trusted data that can be passed on for human survival). As tribe leaders were held responsible for survival, the melding of religion and leaders took place. Trusted leaders would hold knowledge of important energy sources for survival. Gods would have been personified over generations, as a form of storing data between generations to be passed on for survival. This may have occasionally created worshiping leaders as gods in certain cultures. As evolution took place, time frames and life cycles grew. So did religion and larger groups organized and stored more data.
Wars were fought in chaos over important trusted data, which brought about even more technology. These wars were fought over who’s data was more trusted. Technology is always a side effect is of chaos, as everyone learns something from it. When you fall as a child, it is a “chaotic” event, but it teaches you how to walk. All this war stemmed from mistrust and allowed groups to steal resources (organized data) from others, or to prove how trusted their own data was. Throughout these times, markets were formed in tribes using barter systems. As barter became too complex, humans were forced to search for better mediums of exchange. The most ideal/proper traits for a medium of exchange are durability, scarcity, divisibility, portability, and uniformity. As time went on, gold was inevitably discovered as it is the best element with these traits.
Dependent on how manipulated the medium was (usually dependent on its proper traits), chaos was a proportional side effect. The system of trade is just an adoption of rules, forming an external algorithm to reduce mistrust or lies. It should be viewed as this or a control loop.
This is much like creating a less violent Darwinism environment for creative evolution to take place (capital market). This algorithm uses incentives of valuable stored energy in the form of the chosen medium of exchange. If you want to get gold, then you will find a way to provide goods or services to others. Essentially, this is just finding a way to organize data in a way that people trust is useful, to make profit. The economy is an interactive control system that converts greed into technologies with trust as feedback. The error signal represents the misunderstanding or lies (manipulated market values) in the trading system that creates chaos in the market. This is because greed is the input and organized data is the output, but trust is the feedback and the trust signal has error signals in it. If not all traits are satisfied, the medium of exchange does not remain constant as it is prone to human manipulation. Without a constant in a feedback loop as gain in the algorithm, you cannot have a tuned loop. When the total gold is not manipulated, it works quite well in the system loop. Because of its shortcomings (lacking slightly in portability, divisibility, scarcity, uniformity as they can be changed), gold never stayed completely constant in history.
The more constant it was (or whatever was used to represent it like paper notes), the more peaceful humans became as the market wasn’t flooded with error. Look back before 1971 for example. The violence is caused from lies/error in the trust feedback signal, and therefore chaos. We still produced organized data (technologies) but many people suffered for its production. Never finding anything better as a medium of exchange meant that this was accepted as "normal". People didn’t stop searching though. As we evolved we created many other positive feedback loops built around our primary one for survival (forming a cascading loop system). For a complex control system to operate well, it needs the primary loop tuned before the others become effective. We all want to work together and experience the benefits of technology. We want to grow our time perspectives or consciousness and experience the positive loop outputs but can’t always do that. That is why we feel like there’s always something wrong. Trying to focus on tuning less prioritized loops in a system will always lead to failure without tuning the primary loop first (greed). These symptoms are guilt, resentment, anger, depression, jealousy, and many others.
Every step of the way we justify that our system is the best that there will be to provide production growth (technology). This system creates errors in the form of lies. As more energy is used in the system, it amplifies the signals and error. The more money, the more chaos. As the system has feedback that can be manipulated by governments, they can never be balanced if they increase the total money supply (system gain).
The only time it would be somewhat balanced (tuned), is by using bills that were backed by gold, that never inflated. That system repeatedly lasts about 100 years before humans corrupt it, and change the constant too much. This system has been the best option, up until the search for the perfect medium of exchange prevailed. Bitcoin was discovered just in time before another chaotic collapse of our broken economic system. The governments have the gain maxed out these days. Never have we seen the exponential increase of money printing before today. Bitcoin’s production is a programmed constant (decreases by half every four years) in the feedback loop, that creates the expected adoption curve as it reduces itself towards zero. As the gain is reduced, the feedback is reduced and therefore, the error along with it. At the point it becomes zero, it changes to a pure, greed to creation/technology converter without any possibility of signal error, as there is no feedback loop anymore. This would balance our primary loop of survival by accepting human greed and providing technology without error. This would also allow full use of tuning all other loops (positive human traits) efficiently. There would be no lies in the economic market and therefore no resentment. Anyone who created technology for everyone to benefit from, would deserve the market value for that technology at the right price. Any entrepreneur would feel deserving of the profits from their creations. This also allows anyone that stores their energy in bitcoin, to release their guilt and resentment over time that was built up through the forced use of the chaotic system.
Essentially, Satoshi Nakamoto created another algorithm that creates a medium of exchange with all those necessary traits, plus even another trait that may become more usable than we can predict (durability, scarcity, divisibility, portability, uniformity, and scalability). Scalability is an extra trait that presents itself as the currency is digital and can be "programmed onto", while maintaining all other traits. This could be argued that this trait falls under future durability though. This creative system to produce this perfect medium, is balanced with game theory and incentives. The produced bitcoin can replace the inferior mediums of exchange, in the already available economic system. The transition may cause some chaos as humanity is dealing with enormous amounts of built up entropy from the failing currency (US dollar). Between that and the need for a world-wide paradigm shift (the population with a world history worth of complacency and reinforcement that nothing can improve, will need to wake up).
The Bitcoin system is amazing as it organizes data to form a perfect currency with perfect trust. A perfect constant with trust, that can be used in our economic system, to produce zero trust signal error. Bitcoin converts electrical energy into computing power, into organizing data that forms a trusted ledger of trusted transactions, using a digital standard of divisible units to represent them. It turns energy into the most important tool that humans use for survival- trust in data (history). The algorithm is designed to evolve, as it uses open source code as competition for its own evolution. These alternative algorithms (other cryptocurrencies) are forms of testing methods of failure to learn what works and what doesn’t. The open source code just provides the Darwinism environment for the best algorithm to evolve from. As bitcoin is evolutionary, it can adopt and adapt from whatever proves itself in that environment. It is built to adopt proven lessons from other algorithms when they become trusted enough if needed. It just grows stronger and more robust with competition by using human incentives. All of the alternative coins give people the illusion of failure for bitcoin but what they are missing is Darwinism.
Only the fittest, with the most trusted organized data can survive. If you look back at bitcoin’s history through these lenses, you will see bitcoin as a learning child that has grown and learned from every mistake. The energy usage of the system is as necessary as trust is for humans and at a macro view, it becomes sustainable as the system creates innovation and methods of energy production.
As the system works towards technology innovation, it improves the world in a compounding way. If you value trust, then you will end up valuing bitcoin. Just as people value Tesla, as it provides the most trusted technology (organized data) in its field. Bitcoin is like a startup company that has been successful. The more you feed it energy with effort and startup capital, the more it can grow. If you direct and design it to organize data (resources) into trusted data that people will use, it will out-compete those other startups that fail to do this. As it grows and more people trust its historical data, it becomes more robust. Eventually it becomes a leader like Tesla, Google, Amazon, etc.
In other words:
Satoshi Nakamoto created a Bitcoin Beast of an evolving algorithm that feeds on human greed and lies. It excretes innovation and trust. He set it loose in the world, brimming with an abundant supply of sustenance. It’s finally large enough to defend itself from defeat. Michael Saylor is riding the Bitcoin Beast and leading the hunt into the corporate world. The number of the beast is 21 million. The feeding frenzy is just beginning!
If you’re interested in learning more about bitcoin:
This interview of Andreas M. Antonopoulos & Simon Dixon explains how difficult it would be to stop bitcoin:
