Quote from: papersheepdog on November 17, 2014, 01:48:52 PM

Enlightenment of the Blockchain Masters
Brian Vereschagin

November 2014 Issue of Cryptobiz Magazine

If wisdom was easy to come by, we might be colonizing space by now. We have been conditioned to believe that this higher intelligence is beyond the average person, and allow ourselves to go through endless cycles of ignorance and destruction. It is important for us to open our mind to the possibilities of our own psychology and the world it may create. We will use a scientific method of exploration to allow each of us a chance to listen quietly for experience that cannot be told.

Exploring the relationship between the blockchain and the real world is a primary concern to the CryptoTown On The Ground project. This project grew out of the consultancy culture in practice amongst the community of its primary supporter, Cryptogenic Bullion (CGB), a crypto committed to higher-level thinking. The intent of this article is to empower each individual to participate in meaningful collaboration, a challenge for so many reasons, as we will attempt to explore.

The blockchain phenomenon introduced itself through the release of Bitcoin (BTC), a global digital currency with no central point of control. The functionality of the central bank has been replaced by a network-based, cryptographically secured currency. To sweep aside of our debt based, centrally planned currencies, is only the first, most obvious opportunity. Blockchain technology has a much bigger role to play, in a much bigger story, than most would ever dream.

The effects of pervasive deception and exploitation can be seen throughout nature. This is a primary reason why blockchain based consensus is so important to building a society that deserves our trust. It seems that every opportunity to corrupt human trust, where significant power is involved, has been met with the appropriate deception and exploitation required to command preferably permanent benefits. This expedition will take us through our environment, into our past, and to new worlds of the future.

Life requires the ability to reproduce, or it would not proliferate or evolve. This is interesting to consider because, it allows an exponential growth pattern, seen in all life where resources are abundant and predators are absent. What is not often understood about the exponential function is how suddenly the end comes, quickly devouring what once seemed like so much.

All life has to acquire necessities to sustain life, or it would not exist. This is the reason why exponential growth may lead to exponential exploitation and collapse of ecosystems. It is also the reason for competition under conditions of scarcity. This competition, also known as survival of the fittest, has led to refined offensive and defensive abilities amongst species, as well as a healthy fear of this competition.

Over time, fear has proven to be useful to survival, as it can be seen throughout higher life. In addition to our here-and-now danger response, a fearful mind may also be consumed with future possibilities. The extent to which we have excelled at deception and exploitation has forged this powerful defense mechanism. This is of key importance because fear seems to be the most powerful trigger to automated behavior.

We are all born innocent, and what happens after that cannot be blamed on anyone. While considering potentially disturbing implications of this journey, it is important not to think in terms of division. Everything the human race does, it does to itself, because it is uncoordinated overall, with each one of us bound by the same isolated subjective experience. We haven't yet figured out how to build a truly peaceful civilization, but we can do it if we realize the futility of division and polarization.

Having gone over some possible reasons to expect pervasive deception and exploitation, we can appreciate how grouping behaviors based in fear would provide advantage to their members. It seems evident that intelligent coordination within nature has been utilized for both offensive and defensive operations, amongst and within all higher species. This phenomenon has been crafted to great complexity in human societies, through our technology and our culture.

If we imagine a simplistic model of communication technology and societies throughout our history, we can start with spoken language. It enables complex tribal societies, but knowledge is easily lost and distance is challenging. Written language and its technology allows for coordination over long distances and better preservation of knowledge. We are going to look at the flow of ideas and the competition amongst them as the self-domestication of our species.

We are all in a very similar situation when it comes down to it. We would like to organize into societies to coordinate labor and supplies, provide safety, and live fulfilling lives. There are many different views on the best way to do that, and a very complex battle amongst them in the minds of us all. This competition starts with the education system, where we receive the programming necessary to function.

Each individual is built upon to the specifications of society. We become isolated from the responsibilities and direct experience of existence, and become dependent on society. In hierarchy dominated societies, this dependence can even isolates us from our community. Its important to try our best to remain neutral when applying theory to reality, understanding that forces out of our control have shaped our entire environment, and us.

The printing press industrialized the broadcasting of information. Vast hierarchies (and networks) enabled by written language have greatly leveraged printed media to extend the reach and convergence of their respective ideologies. Books and newspapers, however, remained wrapped up in capital costs and politics beyond the reach of most individuals. The nature of print is one-way and authoritative, enabling massive hierarchies, while the Internet grants equal participation to all. The Internet enables global coordination in networks, just as the printing press enabled global coordination in the hierarchies of modern society.

We have almost laid the foundation upon which blockchain technology can be appreciated, but a final look inward, each into our own mind, will be needed to experience the wisdom behind what is being said. The ego will be examined as the nexus of control which occupies our time according to society. It may be uncomfortable to read, but please consider it as a possible model, while trying to avoid personal interpretations or reactions.

The organs of society have come about through the development of obstructions between the individual and their direct connection to existence. Religions of power have exploited our direct experience of love and of the divine, replacing knowing, with symbolic metaphor, mere echoes of the truth. Government and corporation manage our safe access to food and water, and provision our shelter. Responsibility for most aspects of life including order and security has drifted away from community based networks, and toward hierarchies.

A strong sense of self confidence is the only necessary goal of education to such a society. From here, desires and aversions can be crafted into levers of control known as views and beliefs. The subconscious can be woven into the very fabric of society to create the structure know as the matrix, the wall, the ego, the personality. The true individual will remain subdued behind these structures, enraptured by the spectacle, so long as the inner world of the mind remains unexplored.

This exploration can be called meditation, and it is the only foundation on which to discover and know any truth for yourself. If we can stomach a little more abuse, we will try to show how such a society enables its coordination. We are pushed towards the left, processing brain known as mind, where behavior is automated in the subconscious, and away from the right creative brain known as heart. Where life appears to be composed of routine functions of society, learning to do instead of to think, working jobs that could one day be automated, using prescribed emotional reactions, this is where the autopilot function of the ego can be seen.

We collect and repeat knowledge which supports ideologies, and have even developed defense mechanisms against wisdom. If this exercise so far has made you bored, uncomfortable, or possibly even angry, this is because it has approached the uprooting of something bound in the subconscious. Through meditation, we can begin to peel away our views and reconnect with the heart, where a quieted mind reveals wisdom. This should not be mistaken for a religious experience. Science has long observed the observer to reveal experiences of direct knowing, which can be discovered by anyone.

The survival mandate of deceive and exploit can be seen manifesting throughout history as corruption. We don't often realize that the profit motive, enshrined to law in our society, is how we have sanctioned this type of behavior. Human trust has always been subject to exploitation, and this often proves to mean the end of our collective efforts, large or small.

Religion and government have both tackled the problems of corruption, through concern for just weights and measurements of commerce, and the maintenance of equal justice. Where justice is not maintained, confidence is shattered by the spectre of terminal looting. The system, at that point, become twisted enough to make whistleblowing an existential threat.

The blockchain, at its core, is not subject to the corruption of human trust. Elements of programmable, network-based trust will bring automation to government, finance, education, anything. Its important not to polarize on the perceived duality of hierarchy and network, or we will miss the middle path. A mix of both, which compared to today's extremes, will look like decentralization, with the sharing of crowd wisdom, and the meeting of needs through local coordination.

When the profit motive has completely saturated all opportunities for growth, little remains but the final collapse of resources. Civilization becomes bound in deception; fixing symptoms, never causes. The transition from a profit based economy to a resource based economy could preclude this global outcome.

Even with the corrupted mismanagement we apply to our collective natural heritage, we still encounter the prospect of abundance and automation which threatens to put us all out of work. The Venus Project explores the workings of a resource based economy and society as an alternative to profit driven resource allocation. The blockchain has tremendous potential, in a resource based economy, to imbue the very plumbing of society with our collective wisdom.

The networked world simply unfolds around us as seen in projects like Transition, Open Source Ecology, and RepRap self-replicating 3d printer, which aim to empower communities with self-reliance and sustainability. We may see programmable blockchains and automatic decentralized exchanges replace the finance industry. Network-secured public voting and discussion, as explored by BitCongress, an Ethereum based app, could change the very way that we govern ourselves.

The CryptoTown On The Ground project provides guidance and resources for crypto-collaborators, both online, and offline through grassroots consulting and local organization. It uses a cryptomall structure to connect the cryptocurrency development community with strategic insight and feedback gained through on the ground collaboration with participating communities. Collaborative guidance will be available for the transition to localized blockchain apps like public audit, currency, exchange, resource allocation, discussion and voting. This relies only on the participation of individuals like you.

As the network becomes more aware of itself, it will organize to express our creative nature towards each other. Society will become a matter of public participation and audit, but also of individual autonomy. We will apply the latest technology to become self sustainable, and responsible for our future. Through development of automated, renewable, abundance on the local level, the profit motive can be replaced with blockchain secured management of the common bounty.

Where the hierarchy relies on productive task executers to obey authoritative broadcasts, the new world will find people ill prepared to act intelligently, or even to survive. In the network, broadcasts take on the self-replicating nature of life, with the individual acting as an intelligent traffic router. The individual is the main actor in this new world, and todays education system will need to stop teaching producers and doers, and start teaching creators and thinkers.

Start discussing wisdom and forget the news. Become a supportive and self-reliant peer in the new frontiers of the networked world. Let the consultancy culture flourish in your communities!

PSD for Dalai Lama!

Interesting write up. One serious question though, did your ego put you up to writing this, or was it enlighenment that guided you?

I must say I prefer the old PSD, but one must get lost before he is found again haha. Happy travels!