Sometimes you can’t help but just crack up at an insight from thousands of years ago. Marcus wrote “Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making-love-something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.”
Amazing that cloudy liquid combined with an egg can make humans. With the advent of A/C, vehicles, computers, AI, and all our other modern day wonders it is easy to think that we have progressed so far. We still drink wine, eat dead animals, and fornicate the same way our ancestors did thousands of years ago. Luckily, we have moved on from shellfish blood and according to chatGPT “Some popular purple dyes for natural fibers include Procion MX, Sabracron F, and Drimarene”
I have no clue what type of chemicals those are but at least we have upped our clothing game from shellfish blood. I joke but this does remind me of a concept I recently learned from Gurwinder’s substack. Worth reading the other 39 concepts here but the one that stood out to me.
Presentism:
We judge history by modern standards. We regard slave-owners as evil, but slavery was so common & familiar to our forebears that they were blind to its iniquities, as we are to the industrial slaughter of animals (for which we too will eventually be called evil.)
For all we know these chemicals could have side effects that make most wish we had just used shellfish blood to dye our clothes. Now that is total speculation I have no clue if there is any truth to it. Just pointing out that humanity is fallible. To expand a little more on presentism I am glad humanity figured out that slavery is bad. We still have slavery in some places, like the Congo where they are mining cobalt for the world so we can have our technology, but overall there is less slavery today than a few hundred years ago. Or so it seems in the United States where I live. At the very least it is apparent the average person today understands that slavery is wrong. Including context in our judgement is always important. If you grew up in a system that had slavery would you realize it was wrong? Probably not. Most things we are taught we blindly accept. Takes a lot of work to unlearn stuff.
It is generally true that many of the things we are taught, especially in our early years, are accepted without much critical examination or questioning. This is partly because we are young and inexperienced, and we rely on authority figures such as parents, teachers, and other trusted adults to provide us with information about the world. Additionally, some of the things we are taught are so fundamental to our understanding of the world that questioning them would shatter all our world views.
For example, when we are young we are taught about numbers, letters, information about historical events, scientific theories, and cultural norms without questioning them because they are part of our shared cultural knowledge and have been reinforced by various sources over time. If you can’t trust that 2+2 = 4 then what can you trust?
A bit of an exaggeration but some ideas are so fundamental to our understanding that if we find out they aren’t true anymore we will simply refuse to believe it. I’ve seen this play out with people’s faith in the government. No one wants to face the music that over 99% of governments are more concerned with their own preservation than their citizen’s well being. El Salvador gives me some hope for what a government can be, but truth be told no one can save you but you. As we grow older and gain more experience and knowledge, intuitive people begin to question and critically examine the things we have been taught. This can be a natural part of the learning process, as we seek to better understand the world around us and challenge our preconceptions and assumptions. This is good.
My partner’s step-dad is a great guy, but I think he believes I hate the United States. In his defense I joked about a peaceful revolution where Bitcoiners overthrow the U.S government by opting out of the dollar. Behind every joke there is some truth. I don’t know what the future holds for America. I believe our constitution is one of the best founding documents a nation has ever seen. I’ve got a deep sense of pride about this country and to quote a controversial figure I want to make America great again. The mere fact the zeitgeist considers that taboo is insane. The idea of America is amazing. The kleptocrats in power are not respecting it. If we followed the constitution, instead of trying to castrate it, the United States would be thriving. Instead central planners have been trying to legalize counterfeiting, mass surveillance, and a bunch of other stuff that has resulted in the world facing down the barrel of a hyper-inflationary event. Thank God we can peacefully opt-out with Bitcoin.
The United States is a country where people come to build and be free. So what does all this have to do with cloudy substances like the title of this article suggests? Well I think we need to remember our roots. People come to be because the man has a mild seizure when inside a woman and if he is lucky that cloudy substance will find its way to an egg. America came to be because a bunch of libertarians freaks decided enough and overthrew one of the great powers at that time which was the United Kingdom.
The average age of the Founding Fathers at the time of the American Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1775-1776) was approximately 44 years old. The youngest signer of the Declaration was Edward Rutledge, who was only 26 years old, while the oldest was Benjamin Franklin, who was 70. Other well-known Founding Fathers and their ages at the time of the Revolution include George Washington (43), Thomas Jefferson (33), John Adams (40), and James Madison (25).
No one knows who Satoshi is or how old he was when he created Bitcoin, but my man started a movement that is filled with people of all ages, from all walks of life, who just want to be free. What started as a bunch of cypherpunks and shadowy super coders has turned into a global movement which gives humanity a chance to be free. Literally a bunch of nerds who just got fed up and said there has to be a better way to run a monetary system.
I don’t hate America. No far from it. I love this country and its incredible history. I just realize that it is time for a new birth to take place. A decentralized one. A birth that gives the people back the rights they are owed via our founding documents. Freedom is not easy to obtain and the fact we have so much of it here in the United States should serve as a reminder to exercise it constantly. You can talk shit to a sitting president on Twitter because of the Founding Fathers. So do it! Trump, Biden, whatever 🤡 is in office next: do it! That is what freedom of speech allows for. If you see them tweeting out dumb stuff then call it out.
Satoshi’s white paper is the second coming of the United States constitution. It will free humanity in ways we can’t even imagine. For all the awesome things America has done for the world we have also done some messed up stuff. I like to focus on the good but also be realistic about the reality.
History is messy. Nuance is lost on social media. At the end of the day we are monkeys on a rock floating around a huge ball of hydrogen and helium. I’m not saying don’t take life too seriously, but don’t take life too seriously. If you don’t find time to enjoy life you are going to make what’s already challenging more miserable. Before we know it our time will be over and if you are lucky you will have had enough cloudy liquid producing seizures to pass on your DNA to the next generation. As a recent Father I can confirm I want the next generation to prosper. Maybe because of my baseline assumptions and knowledge I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell the way for future generations to prosper is by getting the world on a standard where a neutral, decentralized, and permissionless currency is what everyone uses for money. Printing money is theft, even if it is legal. With Bitcoin no one can violate the rules and it doesn’t require a massive army to enforce and bomb civilians if things aren’t going accordingly. Choose wisely anon.