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@ Pablo Xannybar
2023-07-17 18:03:35Today I made a post on Nostr highlighting the importance of Bitcoin as an inherently agorist technology and hinting at the potential Nostr has to compliment it in fully achieving that vision.
The Nostr note (screenshot below) sparked some interesting debate in the comments, so I thought I'd take some time to explain where I'm coming from and flesh out the ideal vision for this freedom tech to protect us against the state as I see it.
Something vital I highlighted in both my previous agorism blog post and the Nostr note above is a key attribute of Bitcoin: it is an inherently agorist counter-economic alternative currency.
What does that jabber of words mean? Simply that Bitcoin exists outside the control of nation states, as well as central, investment, and commercial banks, or any other single third party - it is money ruled solely by code, mathematics, and compute power, not a government or any other body of fallible humans.
It is an alternative to inflationary debt backed fiat money that makes up legal tender and it possesses the characteristics of sound money.
(Thanks, ChatGPT!)
This has many implications as any bitcoiner will already know. But I am focusing here on its role as a key ingredient in the counter-economy of the post-CBDC world, particularly as access to cash continues to become more and more difficult even today. We all know the ultimate goal of a CBDC is to fully replace conventional, almost untraceable paper cash with new, extremely traceable, programmable, state controlled digital money that allows the government to set expiry dates and decide what you are permitted to buy, among other things.
Given that Bitcoin is "freedom money" I don't think I need to spend any more time preaching to the choir about the dangers of CBDCs and why Bitcoin is better.
Instead I'm going to elaborate (hopefully without babbling too much) on why I put so much emphasis on Bitcoin's power within an agorist model.
We are already in a semi-agorist economy
This is a vital point to understand. While agorism calls for a revolution, it is a slow one that happens over time, usually triggered bit by bit as the state expands its power into new areas of our personal lives. It doesn't happen overnight. Maybe a revolution never will happen.
But I don't think it's arguable we are already in a semi-agorist economy. What do I mean by that? Pretty simple really. If you go to a small business or a sole trader, particularly (although not limited to) tradesman such as builders, plumbers, and electricians, it's pretty much a social norm to ask for a cash price, with the unspoken understanding that you're getting a discount because the business isn't going to declare the income on their taxes.
This is a win/win for both parties. You pay less, the business makes more, and the only party losing in this transaction is the thieving, murderous state - i.e. the one with no legitimate claim to your income to begin with, the one only able to take it from you by coercion... provided you transact using traceable forms of fiat money.
That coercive power the state holds to seize your property is not exactly something they are going to wilfully give up. Indeed, by instituting a CBDC, they are further diminishing any remnant of financial freedom left in the fiat money world. Whereas you know your cold hard cash is safe in your physical possession (even if its value may decrease) a CBDC gives you zero ownership and zero control over your own hard earned wealth.
Enter Bitcoin.
Even leaving all other arguments aside, the mere fact Bitcoin is not only by far the most widely recognised and valuable cryptocurrency but also the strongest asset in history, it is the clear contender to bring back sound money as well as circumvent increasingly invasive state control.
I do not expect the entire world to suddenly switch from fiat to Bitcoin overnight. But I do expect that any transaction - whether legal or illegal - that currently takes place using cold hard cash will in the future be done via Bitcoin, and if not, certainly not via a CBDC.
In other words, it will exist as a tool allowing the current state of the free market to continue undisturbed by an unwanted expansion of state interference.
It is in a sense a natural progression. The technology exists and is established. It is right there ready to be used, and undermining the state in the face of rapid expansion of their powers is precisely the reason it exists to begin with.
In this circular Bitcoin economy, concerns such as KYC disappear as you are not purchasing it from an exchange, but rather you will be able to get paid in it (even if only from a side hustle) or you can otherwise exchange it in an anonymous manner, e.g. a real life exchange or for the more technically inclined, Robosats, and you then pay others using it.
Once it becomes its own circular economy, it is simply a second currency you can use as a medium of exchange. It is notable that Lightning adds some extra privacy by lacking a public ledger of transactions, and if you want extra privacy, Monero is another option - it is already the go-to currency of the darknet and I suspect it may become the black market currency IRL once a CBDC replaces cash - all this of course depending on how rapidly developers can build extra privacy protections into Lightning.
TL;DR: Fuck the State