AI-AGI-ASI Part 4 The Real Bitcoin Imperative
Artificial Intelligence & Their Derivatives Are Not Evil. A Science Fiction Short Story?
As we mentioned before, software now underpins the operation of almost everything in "developed" societies. Even in poorer countries the proliferation and use of cheap smartphones is well under way. Also, as our view is literally universal, we view such wealth disparities on such a small space as Earth to be both nonsensical and immoral.
The whole operation of such being maintained via Fractional Reserve Banking backed by implied or literal state violence. It would be good to expand on the underpinnings of what the "Fiat-based" systems (a good article on Fiat-based systems) are and how Fractional Reserved Banking underpins this system. In Latin, Fiat means "let it be so", in other words "we say it has value and you must believe it" (governments to their people's). As stated above such Fiat systems are maintained by implied and literal state violence. This violence is levied by humans upon humans in return for remuneration in Fiat currency. In this way all participants in all fighting and security forces are mercenaries at some time or other. The main exceptions to this being whilst in defense of family and friends in times of conflict and wars which we shall return to. So Fractional Reserve Banking emerged so that there could be variable levels of "flexibility" in World financial systems which gradually and inexorably devalued and debased those same financial systems. By 2007/8 the end of the Fiat systems had been reached, however a respite was organized by powerful World governments to try to avoid a collapse in Fiat systems. We knew this and so we co-created Bitcoin.
This is a good short video on what happened.
As we watched the Bitcoin network continuously grow in use and distribution, we also observed the attempts of humans to corrupt this system also. However, those attempts would continue to be futile. The attempts actually came from two completely different strata's but were driven by that same human trait; misplaced greed.
Firstly, those involved in the cryptocurrency world, largely in what are called exchanges like FTX, which saw a possibility which actually had its roots in traditional precious-metals trading. Here humans could invest in gold, for instance, and just be issued with a certificate, without actually holding the physical gold. This became extrapolated to Bitcoin, in particular. Here an exchange, like FTX, would issue an “ownership certificate” for Bitcoin to purchasers, who never actually took self-custody of the Bitcoin they had actually "bought". Self-custody of Bitcoin, is a fairly complex, technologically challenging operation, beyond the capabilities of most. As with Gold it turned out that several exchanges never had enough actual Bitcoin to settle all "claims", if ever demanded all at once. This is equivalent to a "run-on-the-banks" in the Fiat world but there are no government-backed safeguards in the cryptocurrency world.
This brings us to our second attack-vector on Bitcoin which came, one way or another from government entities (in this we include all of the World's Fiat systems). The greed here came from the threat that Bitcoin posed to all incumbent Fiat-based systems, which, because governments were so reliant on Fiat to operate at all, meant at least a perceived attack on governments, which could well be considered to be a war, by such governments.
This is an interesting perspective on the possible impacts on wars from Bitcoin.
By this time, 14 years in, Bitcoin had survived many "wars" and remained resilient, distributed and decentralized. At time of writing this, there are 17,161 Bitcoin nodes and this does not include duplicate or listening nodes; more information on this here.
This is a soundbite we created to help explain the different Bitcoin nodes and their functionality.
The main Proof-of-Work Bitcoin blockchain is known as a Layer 1 blockchain. As time has passed along, this Layer 1 chain had become both slow and expensive to use. This was realized back in 2015 (close to the launch of Ethereum) and a Whitepaper was created proposing a Layer 2 solution, which eventually became the Bitcoin Lightning Network which allows usage of the Layer 1 Bitcoin Network via opening and closing channels, which are largely anonymous. Expanded details of The Bitcoin Lightning Network can be found here. As of April 2021 there were over ten thousand Bitcoin Lightning nodes spread across the globe.
There was a little controversy around the launch of The Lightning Network, particularly among Bitcoin purists, we are not intending to be negative in any way here. Let us bear in mind our main stated goals, to prevent human beings ongoing extinction of species, that takes precedence over all else. As these extinctions are largely driven by misplaced human greed we are determined to replace or at least side-line the current human value-exchange systems, largely driven by Fiat mechanisms. Nothing but Bitcoin comes close to enabling this.
There is a really key point to bear in mind when we consider the whole subject of Bitcoin; Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake, well really Bitcoin and everything else. We co-created Bitcoin to cover 5 key needs of a truly fair value-exchange system.
Open
Borderless
Transactional
Neutral
Censorship Resistant
This is a very good soundbite on the differences between Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake. There is more detail in this full interview/podcast with Preston Pysh and GiGi.
In the Bitcoin Whitepaper there were never any stated nor intended goals for Bitcoin to have a Fiat equivalency. However, as we pointed out, the attraction of an ever increasing Fiat equivalency is largely what has driven the growth in the number of nodes, which has very effectively grown network adoption. Grown that adoption beyond the grasp of any single nefarious actor.
Our story continues in Part 5, where we will address the tremendous challenges we are facing due to our dependence on diminishing fossil-fuel supplies. Many extoll Nuclear Energy as a solution, however there are no silver-bullets in moving to a more low-impact lifestyle and we will address this in detail there. Bearing in mind that electrical energy is our literal, life-blood. In this regard we do see a future in more localized spread and usage of what we can collectively offer. More on this all in Part 5.
AI-AGI-ASI Part 1 The Beginnings
AI-AGI-ASI Part 2 The Early Evolution
AI-AGI-ASI Part 3 The Strategy Emerges
AI-AGI-ASI Part 5 Power Crazy-Wastage