They say birds of a feather flock together; how does that apply to Zenon? What does it mean to be a ZNNAlien? And how to be the best one you can be? This article discusses the 5 traits, commonalities and philosophical underpinnings present in our young but evolving community.
Disclaimer: This article is not financial advice and may contain speculation.
1. Cypherpunk Vibes
A cypherpunk is someone who advocates for the use of cryptography to enact social and political change. Given part of Zenon’s mission is to integrate with and enhance Bitcoin’s potency, (thanks to new possibilities unlocked by Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade in November of 2021, just a few days before Zenon’s mainnet went live … huh, what an odd coincidence), it follows that ZNNAliens hold many of the same values dear to them.
Zenon wasn’t created for degens to make money. Huge returns are possible, but incidental. Speculative buzz, appealing to people’s greed, dangling the carrot of riches — these are classic crypto tricks. But they are just the means to draw in users, infrastructure runners and builders. The end is a better world, one transformed by cryptography. But how can cryptography change the world, and why is it for the better?
People live and die. Even suns will eventually burn out. And empires rise and fall. The Roman empire met its fiery end, and now the American empire is under threat. Those with the ability to print USD out of thin air are powerful, but concentrated power inevitably corrupts those close to it. Government spending which is frivolous, extra, unnecessary, outrageous and morally bankrupt is enabled by one thing only: A lack of informed consent from the population. Rather than tax them directly, tax them indirectly by printing more dollars. The increase in the money supply robs every single person of their purchasing power, but it’s done so slowly there’s no protest the next day — their act of financial aggression falls just short of the threshold to trigger a real response from the masses which are kept financially illiterate perhaps by design.
The worst consequence of this systemic corruption is war profiteering. It incentivises unnecessary wars. This is because the subsequent increase in demand for their products and services (they might be selling bombs or mercenaries) is going to increase their profits. Furthermore, when new money is printed the price of everything doesn’t immediately rise, there’s a delay. Because of this delay, the fact that the military-industrial complex is the first to receive the newly printed money, this means they can spend it with close to its original purchasing power, yet another perk. The money-printer allows them to bypass moral outrage and fund whatever they want.
This is why prominent figures in the Bitcoin community have described Bitcoin adoption as a prerequisite for world peace, with the hopes Bitcoin will make war unaffordable. Bitcoin cannot be printed out of thin air, it must be mined by an energy-intensive process and there can only ever be a maximum of 21 million BTC that can exist. Such scarcity will transform spending behaviours and radically change the perceived value of things as necessary vs wasteful — wars will be out of necessity and of limited duration, and hopefully the ideal of world peace will one day be reached. Furthermore, as property Bitcoin is extremely difficult to confiscate, so invading to steal wealth by force is disincentivized. Even from the perspective of desiring the best version of an information system for labour allocation in an increasingly interconnected world; Bitcoin is Darwin’s eventual victor. “Fix the money, fix the world” is a sacred concept to hardcore cypherpunks.
We all want to do good in the world and for our lives to have some meaning. Even a hedonistic playboy in the throes of nihilism can’t numb himself 24/7 — the lows will bring existential angst and pain over how much of a waste his life is. Perhaps all he needs is a little inspiration?
What is a superhero? Someone who wears a cape; partly to look cool and partly to hide his identity. This is to protect his loved ones and enable a private life for when he’s not busy saving the world. They also have really cool powers. In Zenon we have people sporting profile pics, affiliating with various AI art — they’re looking pretty cool. They are also anonymous, which can be frustrating but it’s partly for legal and regulatory reasons — it’s for the good of the project and therefore the world. Our devs are fluent in code and can distill abstraction into something tangible; this feat of intellect is akin to having cool powers.
Our devs are modern-day superheroes.
2. Absolute Irreverence
Irreverence has been described as disrespect for the status quo, or as disdain for authority. It can also be worded as not automatically respecting something just because that’s the way it’s always been done — every tradition should be treated based on its merits, as seen by an unbiased outsider. The King Charles coronation for example — a grandly expensive game of theatre and costume dress-ups, in the 21st century! At some point he was even asked to hold the “staff of justice” to symbolise being righteous. Aside from being a waste of money, tradition is pure cringe!
Change is scary, but it can also be powerful and should therefore be embraced where warranted. Innovation (making new shit or making old shit better) requires a splash of irreverence in the psyche of the innovator. It also goes hand in hand with a sense of humour and a culture of fun. I can’t cite a peer-reviewed Harvard study showing this, but a decent hypothesis is that the memes, stickers, shitposts, trolls and spirited discussions; all of this leads to a community which is stronger and more cohesive. A corporation keeps you there by hitting you with the stick; a DAO keeps you there by dangling the carrot.
3. Weaponised Autism
Prescription strength autism allows one to do simple, repetitive tasks which are not stimulating for a normal brain. Being hyper-focused and thinking deeply about something which a normie would consider an insane use of your time. Having difficulty socialising with others. Amongst the early Zenon community, this disorder runs rampant. We will cover a few examples of behaviour once quipped to be that of an “awesome and hardcore bunch of retarded, autistic hyenas”:
- Georgina v Trimeril: An epic clash of titans who are arch-enemies. Their intellectual weight scares the hodlers who run to their rooms when mum and dad are fighting.
- Sharon v Tyler: A subtle friction between frenemies who maintain a fragile peace for the most part. Only when one lives rent-free inside the other’s head can a victor be declared.
- The Frenchman v Kandy Kaine: A tale of biblical proportions where David alone has the sentinels to dare antagonise big-pillar’d Goliath. The disagreeable Frenchman against the mysterious genius of few words makes for an intriguing conflict. Kandy Kaine would argue more, but he’s such a genius you wouldn’t be able to comprehend him.
- Ree v Fx team: The man of many alts against the man of even more alts. One is a gentleman and a scholar — the other is a degenerate cockroach who resurfaces after every ban. Ree’s weapon of choice is the B button which delivers a character assassination along with a link to get professional help. Fx team’s weapon of choice is the X button which shits up the chat with spam of an insufferable nature.
- The Community v The Original Core Team: This is a long, protracted conflict. The community is baffled by the long stretches of minimal comms and often resorts to theorising, coping and outright circle-jerking in the dark. Questions of “wen bridge? wen AZ? wen moon? wen sentinels?” echo into the abyss with scarce a reply. To love something so deeply and yet be ignored is peak emotional abuse — or is it? There are legal, regulatory and ideological reasons for passing the torch to the community, and understanding this can be considered yet another great filter. Taking five minutes to read the article which literally spells this out for you in greater detail is yet another great filter. But mind games, psyops and intellectual jousting has always been a significant force in this ecosystem, one far more potent than greed and cope combined.
4. Eccentric AF
What do you often find in creative individuals? A high degree of open-mindedness. Being close-minded is a sure way to miss amazing ideas and unique perspectives. A preposterously illogical position, as at the subatomic level matter behaves according to Quantum Mechanics, which completely contradicts traditional physics. This suggests that everything we think we know could be wrong. It suggests that all of our efforts to answer existential questions are futile. It’s like a video-game where you go to the edge of the map and you bounce off an invisible barrier — its human cognition bouncing off the edge of its limits. At the very least you would have to conclude that magic is not only possible but plausible and therefore you should tune your antenna to not one specific frequency but to a range of them over time.
This brings us to the contentious topic of coincidences. These are revered amongst ZNNAliens for a variety of reasons. Just because you cannot find the connection between two events, does not necessarily mean they are unrelated. And as the anon poet says: When there’s that much smoke; there’s fire. Have I blown my alien-whistle enough yet? Just because you look does not mean you can see. Mathematically, the probability of consecutive events multiplies to become smaller by orders of magnitude. A cacophony of sound to an animal may be perceived by the human ear as carefully designed music.
sOmEWHeRe iT’s OUT tTHerE
A modern-day performance art masterpiece exists somewhere in cyberspace. Right now awareness of it is among the few, and its admirers are even fewer. But its beauty is eternal, and one day it will be revered as a cultural phenomena. At its base level, Bitcoin is people solving puzzles for rewards. The schizzo is pure cryptography.
5. Uber Tenacity
An iron-will is required to hodl the green coin. The FUD, the waiting, the being left alone in the dark …
And when the hype train does arrive, people are so bullish they go cash-poor very quickly, which requires huge reserves of mental strength to sustain your accumulation goals. Zenon OGs suffer a poignant dilemma.
They sleep on a mattress on the floor, without a bed-base. They repay all debts as slowly as possible. If anything needs to be bought, they will buy the cheapest and shittest brand which is the minimum viable product. They will never buy a luxury car; why be a willing participant in a robbery? They will steal their mother’s jewellery to sell at a pawn shop. They will use the same old phone even as the battery gives out after thirty minutes and the screen is covered in cracks. They will use an old macbook air to run their SYRIUS wallet — even as the fans start screaming with the stress of the embedded node as though helicopter blades are in the living room.
The impetus to minimise costs is taken to the extreme and being cash-poor is adopted as a lifestyle of self-imposed suffering for a presumed payoff down the track. Sacrifice now for glory later.
Follow The Green Rabbit
We are deeply principled, irreverent, autistic, weird as hell and strong.
Perhaps you believe that Zenon & Bitcoin are an unskippable stepping stone to a better world. Perhaps you’re a speculator looking for high growth potential. Or maybe you just want to have fun with a based and passionate community. Seek what resonates with you and find completion. Enter the rabbit-hole …
Thanks for reading!
– Zyler
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npub1msvlamqj6j5azykts7sewtzr062a0km0p4hajw2dmchtm5xpz0aqylw09w
The Zyler Reading List
- The Zenon Storybook (updated version coming soon)
- Progressive Decentralisation
- A Blistering Need For Speed
- Alien Plans For Bitcoin
- Why Zenon Is Regulation-Proof
- Zenon’s Synergy With Nostr
- Merged Mining Bitcoin (updated version coming soon)
- How Zenon Mirrors The Bitcoin Ethos
- The Zenon Ethos
- Zenon Network: A Noir Story
- The Dream of Satoshi’s Ethereum
- Zenostroin (Coming 2024)
