@ Ashoka
2025-01-19 13:35:09
*This article by Milosz Matuschek first appeared in German on* *[Freischwebende Intelligenz](https://www.freischwebende-intelligenz.org/publish/posts/detail/155152536?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts)*
***
Last night, while you were fast asleep, someone turned 883 dollars into 310,000 dollars in just a few hours. Not me, unfortunately. [Trump launched his own memecoin with the abbreviation $TRUMP](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/official-trump/), which has since skyrocketed to a double-digit billion dollar valuation. 
Trump (and his pre-investors) are now billions richer on paper. It takes just a few minutes and no (more) development work to create such a coin [within minutes](https://pump.fun/board). All it takes is a believing community to make it explode. If you were looking for proof of my thesis that the world is [being memefied](https://www.freischwebende-intelligenz.org/p/die-memefizierung-der-welt), here it is.
### Us and them
We are currently experiencing a phase of power shifts: in money, in politics, in the media. Many people like what Trump and Musk are doing. They are creating more freedom of expression and removing Wokistan's basis for business. Amazon is scrapping diversity rules, Facebook is scrapping censorship (officially admitted). Tiktok land is burned down, the Chinese social media app disappears from the US. Isn't that censorship? Google and Facebook are now openly rebelling against EU opinion dictates, fact checkers etc. In addition to the Hindu Kush, our freedom of opinion is now also being defended (again, for how long?) from Silicon Valley. Brave new world.
You can think strategically: wonderful, that's what I wanted too; “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. But for how long? This is a change of power at the political top, nothing more.
Trump has promoted vaccination just like Biden; also with the lie that it prevents infection. Vote for your favorite PR artist! 
Is that supposed to be our choice?
Elon Musk built mRNA vaccination lines for Curevac, is the Young Global Leader of the WEF 2008, has major holdings in Tesla from Blackrock-Vanguard & Co. and contracts with the Pentagon. 
“One of us”, yes for sure....
I find that hard to believe and I wonder about those who find it easy to believe. Speaking of faith: a reader I hold in high esteem said she believes Musk and Trump are on a divine mission. Trump partying with Epstein? Musk in a Baphomet costume? The ways of the Lord are truly mysterious then...
The common enemy of the enemy can be useful, up to a point, but nothing more. Just because you fight the same thing, i.e. are against something, doesn't mean you are for the same thing. In my opinion, assuming that the interests of Trump, Musk & Co. are congruent with the interests of citizens would be a fatal misconception. There is nothing to suggest this. Trump has been totally for and then against many issues. Personnel decisions: often a casting round for a limited time, with hire & fire like “The Apprentice”. But he is so peaceable, wants to end wars like the one between Russia and Ukraine, or de facto the USA. At the same time, he is now reaching for Greenland and the Panama Canal. His words ooze the exceptionalism of the USA, the doctrine that as a US empire you can basically do anything you want. For strategic interests. For national security. A formula can always be found.
***
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***
### How are wo going to score on the liberty scale?
“Believe little, question everything, think for yourself” is the beautiful title of a very readable book by Albrecht Müller, editor of Nachdenkseiten, and best summarizes my thoughts. As a journalist, I replace “little” with “nothing”. The journalist is not in the banking business. There you are allowed to believe (credit = he believes, latin). I don't think the issue of draining a swamp should be left to the frogs. Is Trump not a frog? “Anti-establishment", come on. Now the establishment is coming from the other side, the other side of the dialectic. The battle of good versus evil is entering a supposedly new round, releasing pressure from the cauldron of democracy, which is too important a façade to be allowed to fall.
The only pragmatic question that citizens should ask themselves is this: Will I have more net freedoms at the end of this political reorganization process than before? What will be given to me in reel but perhaps also taken away elsewhere? Anyone who draws hope from changes in the left-right scheme has always been disappointed by the steady reduction of freedoms in recent years and should rather look at the vertical axis of top vs. bottom. Hope is nice, but you should only ever rely on yourself.
It's nice if some people now get to know something different as a result of the change in the political weather and wake up. A book will soon be published about manipulation in the Tagesschau. The PEI has known about the side effects for years, but withheld the information and the republic was allowed to rail against footballer Joshua Kimmich in the meantime. One life lie after another will now fall, an exciting process. [But it will mainly be cardboard comrades and useful idiots who will have to fall by the wayside](https://coronacircus.com/2022/02/11/season-of-sacrifice/), and there was hardly any shortage of them.
Waking up must not lead to the next dream world. Otherwise the critical movement was just a stirrup for the next seizure of power. But we need a movement of self-empowerment of the citizen, beyond politics, the media or Big Tech. Invest in everything, be it seminars, books, knowledge, Bitcoin or whatever increases your net freedom balance. Decentralized civil society only has a chance if free citizens form their own free block in cooperation with others, based on principles and not on the bunting of a party-political camp.
Everyone can decide for themselves and have a say in what form this can take. Where cooperation arises naturally, the idea was a good one. Ultimately, an idea is just a meme.
That was my meme five years ago. It's still true, but with Bitcoin a zero has been added.
***
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