Aikido — The World Of Blockchains & Cryptocurrency
By ASTR on Altcoin Academy
Comparisons help us to better understand the evolution and etymology of a new idea or subject we endeavor to learn.
Enter then the word, Aikido.
Aikido uses the principle of non-resistance. It is a non-violent way of defending oneself. The grace and power of Aikido comes from using the attacker’s force to defend oneself. Aikido is based on power with someone, not power over them.
Yet, in our workaday world, there is an emphasis on authority and power, wealth and domination, a jarring,“dog-eat-dog” world. Anthologised as “might-makes-right”.
Others claim that we are just born into a permanent class, a type, genre, custom or order of things. Whatever may be your proclivity, we are all born with what may be referenced as a “dream machine”.
As children, we sit and ponder the world about and imagine. Often we pick jobs that save those around us, a fireman, a policeman, a nurse or simply, a mum or dad. These dreams fade with time and life rushes upon us and the hopes and desires are put away, no less in a special place. They come out every once in awhile, and we smile and hope, sometimes we shed a tear for those dreams lost, but we all feel, felt or desire more.
Musicians, poets, and philosophers all refer to this ache for something more. We may, eventually, lock these fanciful ideas in a box never to be found again. This tragedy happens to many and most. Yet, within each of us burns a story to be told, if we would only listen.
We quietly do our part and our whisper heart shouts to us more infrequently, lost in the canyon of years gone by.
Others who cannot be stilled often take the more from the many, in a way to subdue the beast within. They take, and take, and take, and with insatiable appetite need for more and then more again. Often when asked, “how much is enough?” the billionaire, the power broker, the domineering will answer, “just a little more…”
Some cry “foul!” only to be met with resistance, ridicule, and scorn. The pragmatist says, “this is the way of the world, the rich get richer and the poor suffer”, they add, “it has always been this way, since time immemorial”, as if to say that makes it right or even wholesome.
And the clash continues, each tribe, each affinity group, each militant soul. Marching for more and decrying the fact that they have less or more than others, and scream an archetypal “it‘s not fair” or better yet, “mine”.
The battle lines are drawn, the many say they are correct because they are many, and the elitists say they are correct because they have wealth and position, and the politically astute say they are correct because they have power and control. The voices clash and the tempers flare and the results are often disastrous for all sides.
And then comes this little word, aikido!
Is the world of cryptocurrency a way that we may use the principles expressed in aikido to wrest monetary control and power from the few, and return it to the many?
Monetary systems are, and have from generations past, been devised, planned and manipulated with a “top-down” intonation. We all learn this as we mature. We grouse about it a bit, but in day-to-day life, it matters little to us. We trundle along in our life and acquiesce to the systems formulated for us, giving little thought to what may be feasible. All this with good reason, for what could we, can we, or should we, do about it?
Could it be there is a possible alternative? If so, does it demand a new way of thinking? Maybe, we could consider for a moment a philosophical construct that changes us, or rather reevaluates how we perceive the environment about us.
My belief is that George Gilder puts it best. In “Life After Google” he writes,
“The Google system of the world focuses on the material environment rather than on human consciousness, on artificial intelligence rather than human intelligence, on machine learning rather than on human learning, on relativistic search rather than on the search for truth, on copying rather than on creating, on launching human hierarchies in a flat universe rather than on empowering human beings in a hierarchical universe. It seeks singularities in machines rather than in human minds.
The new system of the world must reverse these positions, exalting the singularities of creation: mind over matter, human consciousness over mechanism, real intelligence over mere algorithmic search, purposeful learning over mindless evolution, and truth over chance. A new system can open a heroic age of human accomplishment.”
Excerpt From: George Gilder. “Life After Google.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/life-after-google/id1366321016
Part of this quest will revolve around many of us being challenged to create. It is a misnomer to say we “create wealth”, in fact, we create stuff, we have ideas, and we construct and bend, and paint and sing, and dance and play, and ponder and imagine. Computers are better than us at storing information and retrieving it, analyzing trends, suggesting alternatives from what is available, but no computer has created anything, no computer says, “I Did That!”.
All this to say, the very systems set to track us since the very first Hollerith machine did for the US census in 1890, to “Deep Blue” by IBM to play Chess to “Deep Thought” and now to “Deep Mind” to play “Go” coupled with the newest quantum Google gadget called Sycamore, bring an age where we individually may be able to use the power of these devices to create a more sustainable economy which will share the wealth instead of possessing wealth for the “chosen few”.
This machinery and the connectivity could, and frankly must, allow each of us to explore our creativity, expend our earnings without intervention, to enjoy the fruits of our individual labor, and to share the intelligence each of us possess.
Those of us old enough remember the Yellow Pages, it was a giant book, sectioned in alphabetical order, where would we search and find what we needed. To say that the Yellow pages made us brighter or more intelligent would be considered utter nonsense.
If you can remember, people would gather a couple of Yellow Pages and use them as a footstool in the kitchen to reach an upper shelf.
Factually, Google offers little more than the Yellow Pages did but is possibly an easier way to search. We may say, we use Google to boost ourselves, metaphorically to the upper shelf, just a bit to see more of the world. But just as the Yellow pages could not create anything, Google and its algorithmic jargon do not create anything. Google is no more than giant Yellow pages serving information when and if we desire it, and subsequently cashing in our searches by providing data to corporations to help them follow our path and upsell us on other products and services.
Facebook, in much the same way, is just like the White Pages. Endless pages of names, strangers for the most part, but now with pictures, and likes and dislikes and new jargon that epitomizes the age.
Of course, both are useful tools, and in many cases serve us well. Better than the ways that went before, to be certain, but less than an “open source” world where we will freely communicate, buy and sell, socialize and share in a distributed way, as opposed to a structured centralized model.
Consider the sheer computing capability that has been devised and implemented within this model. Massive amounts of data move instantly, gigabytes, to a yottabyte. The infrastructure is built. The data connectivity is worldwide and becoming faster each moment. Google has adopted a new term, called a hellabyte, meaning a “helluva lot of data”. This is both interesting and alarming!
Let us just take a moment to consider a radical idea. It runs in the vein of “aikido”. Using the force and power of another to defend ourselves. We presently use our mobile devices to “pull” the information we need and occasionally some system may “push” information to us as well.
The “pull-push” model works; banks and credit companies provide services to ensure the fluidity of the system. Giant data farms feed us, and we regularly consume our share of the banquet.
What if there was another way? All of this data required a shift in how we consume information, and that shift created a grand opportunity to each of us individually and to all of us corporately. We have the machinery in hand to create a “shared economy”, where each of us can produce and without the necessity of intervening parties, such as government, banks, and brokers. We share in a peer-to-peer way. A giant “mesh” network. Transparent, secure, immutable and available to all. A peer-to-peer transfer of value from individual to individual without “data mining” and intrusive governmental meddling. A system where the power of computing is decentralized and open-sourced, instead of centralized and monetized, allowing every individual the ability to live their lives unencumbered.
Human capital is the “only” true capital in the world at large. We are, in essence, creative idea machines. Our desires run in this river of life.
History shows us, that those remembered, are often the poets and musicians, the artists and sculptors, the architects and designers. We can scarcely recall the politicians and bankers, the brokers, and money has laden. Even if history remembers those, it often does because of the wrongs, and greed, and the lust they had, not because of their contribution to society. In the same vein, are the data gurus, who are daily, hourly, minute by minute, second by second, gorging themselves, with an insatiable appetite for more, contributing or deceiving us and the society at large? They offer us “free” enticements and then sell the data they collect to the highest bidder. Is it the Roman Colosseum in an updated version? A free show to engage us, to addict us, to deaden us? How history will remember this is yet to be determined. My bet is it shan’t be kind.
The world turns, and we with it. Shall we go down the path of the “hellabyte”, or through an astute “aikido-like” move, bring a fresh alternative, called an “open byte”?
Blockchain technologies, coupled with new forms of cryptocurrency, shall wrest the control of data, and wealth, and ideation, and information, and claims, and property rights, and news, and payments, and community from the hands of the few, the power brokers, the data-merchants and bring a better tomorrow for us all.
We all have significant choices to make. Individually we have little to say, collectively we have a voice that will not be quenched.
The pen believes that we are at an “aikido” moment, where the forces that were designed to control us, manipulate us, propagandize us, and addict us will be turned upon themselves and a new opportunity will evolve. Quite surprisingly, the very machinery built to do all the above may well be the very machinery that will bring a new and more sustainable and equitable world for us all.
As we enter the “Value Age” from the “Information Age”, we shall recognise the benefit each individual brings.
The door is open, albeit just a little, maybe we should open it wide and enter in?
Just maybe…
