Ever since the great decline of liberal dominated world order, the rise of populism and illiberalism have proven as a very polarizing reality. As of today, the world is going through a resounding reorganization of political power that results in the transformation of authoritarian control.
In today’s world we are constantly detested and must face a growing problem posted by Donald ’s questionable electoral victory in the United States and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union while we are constantly reminded that the truth might be further away than we actually understand.
The 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea is a prime example of our misguided belief that we live in a world governed by global . It is now questionable that how far is Russia’s sphere of influence reaches and what kind of consequences their campaigns have where they decide to turn elections and referendums towards choices that favour them the most.
In Hungary after the 2010 election of the Fidesz-KDNP it was very little predictable that we would see such degree of dissolution of democracy that thrived so much to reject socialism at the change of system back in 1989. Today, we are going through a crisis of trust and must deal with a more transcended authoritarian government in Hungary that strives to constantly control the narrative and brainwash its citizens to further and more deeply institutionalize them.
With the fall of the free press, it has become a challenge for us to maintain our oversight and hold members of government to account to their actions. By not having this oversight especially in Hungary, it made it possible for this corrupt system to spread out as a form of that infests many institutions private or public, with its own ideologies and manifesting them into a tool that helps their own agenda.
Today in Hungary, there are now preparations to further entrench Fidesz into its seat of power, and there is nobody out there that can stop them. The recent plans of transferring ownership of the Hungarian Scientific Academy’s buildings to separate organizations operating as a foundation poses a massive threat to Hungary’s educational system. The purchase of G4S by Istvan Garancsi poses another insurance that allows Viktor Orban and his allies to gradually grind to halt the operations of the money processing company called as G4S Készpénzlogisztika Kft., which is the largest money processing and transporting company in Hungary.
The forced transition of ownership of buildings and other assets could mean for the Scientific Academy, that in the case of possible fraud or miscalculations of finances could result in the total liquidation of assets previously owned by the MTA, and its complete operation could be thrown into a state of limbo while it attempts to sort out its loss of operational rights and buildings that might end up in the hands of creditors or worse, foreign investors whom will not cooperate with the new government.
The interruption of money processing in Hungary would also be a problem because OTP Bank and other major Hungarian banks also use G4S as a contractor to count coins and paper notes that are deposited into branches and into ATMs. This interruption of money processing could cause a catastrophic crash in the Hungarian economy and grind all institutions to a halt that require cash to be transferred to them that they transact with on a day to day basis. Bank branches would also be unable to hand out money, ATMs wouldn’t be able to give paper notes and the Postal Service potentially couldn’t deliver paper notes to retirees, to most of whom are still heavy cash users. Retirees with bank accounts often resort to withdrawing their pension directly and not actively using bank account as a place to their funds in.
Hungary’s government also began to institutionalize judges and lay down complex litigation rules for whom seek action against the government. A similar attempt made by Poland also drawn the criticism of the European Union as not falling in line with the European norms and rights of citizens.
A few days ago, the Hungarian government have decided to allow a questionable Russian bank into the country with complete financial oversight immunity, a freedom that allows the Russian bank to operate limitlessly in the country without any consequence if there are mismanagement or like happen.
At this point, we must ask the question: Are we heading into the right direction?
It is apparent that we certainly do not. But there are now active methods to fight against a corrupt government by not even leaving the comfort of our home. All that it requires is that we start voting with our own money.
The creation of is a preface to the fall of the old-world political order that will eventually result in the complete annihilation of the left and the right because their political goals, aspirations and policies no longer can be agreed upon even if there is an active democracy in place in a country. This means that today’s political parties are going through a termination phase and the inability of the liberal order to control conservative, nationalistic and illiberal tendencies have completely eroded the trust of the people whom put faith into their political system.
The authoritarian tendencies although are very dangerous in today’s modern world where society is ever increasingly interconnected and can exchange information in an unrestricted manner. Fake is now ever more increasingly consumed which in the long run, pose a direct threat to our safety, national sovereignty and unity.
As of right now, it is impossible to separately find solutions for our problems and challenges we face today, these are just symptoms for a bigger problem that requires a transformative change to fix the world we live in.
In 2008 a new solution was brought to daylight. An anonymous pseudonym called as Satoshi Nakamoto have publish a new electronic currency’s whitepaper on a cypherpunk mailing list and in 2008, the first block of was mined signed with the following message in its genesis block in 2009: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”
is based on a revolutionary system that changes the fundamental meaning of human produced value, the exchange of money become completely borderless and censorship proof. We can now send millions of dollars in a matter of minutes from one point of the world to another. This borderless exchange of value elevates the meaning of the internet in which it is currently prospering.
The advent of the internet and info-communication’s expansion made it possible for such system to be developed, the proof of work system makes the system resilient and functioning without requiring trusting third part actors like banks whom often have questionable business ethics.
Since is based on a deflationary system, is not subject to the effects of the established market economy, fungibility is also preserved in because one does not inflate in value and remains the same one . A Dow Jones crash would no longer affect the value of , the only difference we would see is that the national currencies we use daily would fluctuate extremely in value because of the inflation that is happening to it.
The open source nature of also makes it extremely resilient to censorship and several attempts of manipulation. Different versions of can not be sent on the because miners, whom verify transactions, will reject or not even receive those transactions on the network. Fake bitcoins can not be created because miners every day verify the mathematically predictable rate of that is released and accounts that have no or have not received any beforehand cannot initiate a valid transition that would make it onto the .
is also able to provide individuals with complete financial freedom. The Improvement Protocol 39 made it possible for the private key of wallets to be made more human readable by establishing a list of 2048 words, which of a combination of 12, 18 or 24 can be created via computation that gives us access to hierarchically deterministic . These combinations of words, the seed phrase, can be much more easily memorized and their storage is easier because every two character of the word are usually distinctive character therefore the first four characters are required only for storage. This protocol also made it possible for an additional 25th word to be added that can serve as a password, up to a certain limit, which makes the cryptographic key of the original seed word to be modified using a hashed salt that result in a completely different that can only be accessed via the original master seed.
This unprecedented financial freedom creates problems for governments, taxation becomes a problem and new means must be found to enforce the law and fines. But at the same time positive effects outweigh the negatives because this creates such options for people living in countries that actively seek to oppress or control their population. Many Venezuelans today go through tremendous hardship due to their governments complete lack of competence that resulted in the massive hyperinflation of the Venezuelan Bolivar, the hyperinflation made companies and factories to go out of business and shutter their operation in the country.
Many supermarkets in the country are also seeing a massive product shortage, especially stuffs that the residents need daily. Even if there is available product often people must pay with massive piles of cash which are often weighted to determine their value. One roll of paper requires over 10 thick bundles of bolivars while a whole fresh chicken requires 60 packs of bolivars that are already hard to gaps and is immensely difficult to count.
on the contrary can not be inflated in such manners since its gradual release of bitcoins that are released over time to miners whom keep the network operational can be determined and verified mathematically.
in this sense is a sound money that serves the purpose of medium of exchange and of value for people and allows us to effectively circumvent governments reach of influence over our financial well-being. By eliminating the need to use centralized institutions that could potentially be under the influence of the government and could impose sanctions on us illegitimately and prevent our money from moving from one place to another.
in the past have attempted to ban on some shallow grounds, but their ban has proven ineffective because of Bitcoins underlying open source nature. If an Orwellian government would attempt to ban or criminalize its ownership, there are already a line of available methods to circumvent these controls and bridge us to freedom to restore democracy.
The Tor network’s anonymity protecting function can be used by people as a transmitting medium where a transition would be pushed to other nodes before they are placed into blocks for miners to mine. This allows users to remain anonymous and no government could track whom uses this way because it is not possible to trace back from what IP the transaction originates from. On the contrary, it would still be possible to track the path of the Bitcoins via its public , that CoinJoin (Wasabi Wallet) with certain methods today attempt to solve by mixing together transactions with users whom also own similar amounts of to essentially restore fungibility to the network.
can also be transacted in an offline way with Satellites. Blockstream company operates 6 satellites in orbit that can receive transactions from Earth and relay the transactions back down onto the planet, the Tor system can also be implemented into this system to provide further anonymity.
In 2019 the first offline on-chain and off-chain Lightning Transaction was made using RF signals from Canada to the United States, further proving that transactions are now inherently censorship resistant and there is no possibility for the government to prevent an individual from transacting with .
The decentralization of exchanges is also a recent advancement that made it possible to transact online in a peer to peer fashion using already existing banking systems and money transfer businesses. Bisq which is a decentralized exchange makes it possible for individuals to do just afore mentioned while utilizing the Tor network to provide anonymity for its users to prevent governments and third part adversaries to snoop their activity on the exchange.
It is possible to conclude that the technological adaptation of the internet made it possible for decentralized systems to exist and flourish like . in a sense is able to actively sustain the economical well being of individuals and protect them from Orwellian governments actions, all while transforming the meaning of human produced value that can now be stored independent of inflationary effects present in current central bank issues currencies. (Taleb, 2018) in its current format might still be a very young system, but while block is still occurring and new transactions are actively verified by miners, will have value and usability. This in its essence makes resilient system that can circumvent censorship, effectively affect authoritarian regimes, and a very agile tool in the hands of those whom are oppressed and seek a way out of economical oppression or control. By making it possible to move money like we move emails today, we open brand new gateways to new possibilities that will require further study and examination to determine their positive aspects and negative aspects alike. But it is detrimental that we examine these effects and reach conclusions while sharing findings to further the research that is done on , other and their underlying technology.
References
Ammous, S. (2018). The Standard. WILEY.
Davidson, J. D., & Rees-Mogg, W. (1999). The Sovereign Individual. Touchstone.
Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Nakamoto, S. (2008). : A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
My BA Thesis, Redacted. (20 — ). Redacted
Taleb, N. N. (2018, Jan 22). . Retrieved from Medium:
Proof of Originality
— — -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE — — –
Hash: SHA512
I, Karo Zagorus, hereby certify, that my research paper named “Circumventing Authoritarianism with the use of .”, on its original title in the research paper as “, an insurance policy against an Orwellian future. (Taleb, 2018):” dated March 19, 2019 is my own original work. The attached presentation in a previous tweet is also comes as a following addition to the paper. These were made as a course requirement. If you are someone who have access to the original version of the paper, please respect my privacy and do not release my identity. This version of the paper contains minor adjustments to the wording and redaction of my BA thesis’s information to preserve my privacy.
— — -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE — — –
Version: Keybase OpenPGP v2.1.0
Comment: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=9zv6
— — -END PGP SIGNATURE — — –
Published at Sun, 14 Apr 2019 20:54:22 +0000
