Yes, Virginia, There is a Blockchain
It exists in the hearts and minds of “people” everywhere
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no such thing as blockchain. They don’t even know the difference between cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in the sun, it’s so.’ But I tried to look at the sun, and now I’m blind.
Mama says, ‘That’s why we have a straining order against papa.’ I don’t know what that is, but I sure did like to help Mama strain pasta. Before I went blind.
Please just tell me the truth; is there a blockchain?
Virginia O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety-Fifth Street
Dear Virginia:
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Your little friends who doubt the existence of blockchain are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. And probably by fake news. And of course Twitter.
They do not believe except they see! They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia — whether they be children’s, or conspiracy theorists’, or U.S. Senator Ron Johnson(R-WI) — are little.
In this great Metaverse™️ of ours, the human mind is a digit, a mere punctuation mark — nay, a dollar sign! — compared to the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth, knowledge, and moral philosophy: Mark Zuckerberg.
Yes, Virginia, there is a blockchain. Many blockchains. They exist as certainly as money and greed and personal branding exists, and you know very well that they abound as the central and sacred tenants of our society.
Alas! How dreary would the world be if there were no blockchains. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias! There would be no childhood dreams on which to capitalize, no attention to economize, no teenage insecurities to exploit! No personal data to sell to advertising partners.
Not believe in blockchain? They might as well not believe in climate change, or COVID-19!
Although it certainly isn’t possible to reach out and touch a bitcoin, for instance, anymore than it is possible to hold the carbon emissions it’s responsible for in the palm of your hand, the fact remains that the bitcoin does — in a sense — exist. By way of blockchain, Virginia! And even if you were able to touch it, to pluck a BTC, or perhaps an ETH, miraculously out of thin air…what would that prove? Aside from your marginally acceptable baseline knowledge of cryptocurrency, gleaned by a half-hour of googling and the ten or so minutes that you were able to understand from the ‘Explained’ episode on cryptocurrency, now airing on Nextflix™?
Nobody can touch a blockchain, but that is no sign that there is no blockchain. The most real things in the AR world are those that neither children nor conspiracy theorists nor U.S. Senator Ron Johnson(R-WI) can touch. Did you ever reach out and grasp an instagram influencer with your bare hand? That came out wrong. Of course you didn’t.
Neither did I.
Nobody can conceive of or even imagine all the wonders that are unseen and untouchable in the ethereum of the Metaverse™️, web3, or even the physical world. You may want to tear apart Digital Artist PAK’s new piece, ‘The Merge,’ to see what makes it cost $91.8 million USD — but you can’t. Nobody can. Because it’s a collection of dynamic, “mass merging” non-fungible tokens owned by 28,983 different “people.”
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding! Meaning I honestly don’t know. Because I thought I got it, but that mass NFT thing really fucked with me, and now I’m not so sure.
No blockchain? Thank DOGE! Blockchain lives (I think), and lives forever in the hearts and uploadable minds of children everywhere, now and in the future (which also might be now? Because of something having to do with space-time and/or mesh? I don’t know. This shit is complicated).
May you not forget to like and share this article!
Also Merry Christmas.
— The Editor
