Ethereum: The Key To Saving Freedom and Democracy | Part One

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been on the Internet for a long time. Basically my entire adult life. I watched the Internet grow from a small network that just connected college campuses, to the massive world wide information apparatus it is today. I cheered and pushed this development on, because I believe information should be free and accessible to everyone in the world.

I believe people should have a platform to speak their ideas openly with the world, anonymously, free of oppression or fear of retribution. A place to share their ideas, and compare them with others in whatever creative form they choose. I also think for the most part, the Internet accomplished that goal, and I believe it’s still true of the Internet underneath it all.

When You Get The Money, You Get The Power, When You Get The Power, You Get The Problems

As resilient as the Internet is, it had a fatal flaw, it was too open. No one considered security. It wasn’t really designed to be a worldwide public communication network. There was a significant amount of trust built in, but virtually no accountability. No one considered what would happen if people began to exploit that trust. If you remember the Internet in the late 90’s / early 00’s, it was a shit show.

If you worked in IT during that era, well god bless you, I hope you’re receiving the psychological rehabilitation care you deserve. If you don’t, it was full of unfiltered SPAM emails for casino’s and viagra pills, every website had 100 pop up ads and there was no way to block them, putting your credit card number in any site for any reason meant you wanted it stolen.

Windows 95/98/XP, which brought people to the Internet in droves, was loaded with a laughable number of exploits. It was so bad you couldn’t even put a Windows computer online and get it updated before it was exploited and pwn3d! It was frustrating to say the least, but most exploits and malware at the time just wanted to inject ads into every website you visited or put extra boner pill popup ads on top of the 1,000 other ones. So basically, it was just more annoying than anything. Since this new technology was a game changer, a time saver, and an efficiency booster, we dealt with it.

However, it was still very annoying and as a result, something had to be done! So the brains at the corporations that introduced us to the drug told us they have the solution to the problems they didn’t consider! That answer was … “Just let me handle it.” And because we were so frustrated, we did. That began the creation of corporate Silo’s. The Yahoo’s, Twitters, Facebook’s, Gmail’s, Discord’s, the Cloud’s.

They’re all Silo’s, all places where they own their users shared knowledge and control the gate to that knowledge. They became dictators for a large majority of the knowledge (content) shared online! To make matters worse they controlled the how people relate, collaborate, and share their ideas online, and what ideas can be shared! A tragedy of epic proportions!

Every service we enjoy online (social networking, instant messaging, public forums, group chat, etc..) existed in a decentralized way prior to these Silo’s creation. They stole all the ideas pioneered by decentralized open source protocols, added a water slide, a pay gate, an elderly security guard and then sold them back to us!

That would be fine if that was it, that’s capitalism after all, but buried in their terms of service it basically says they own you. All your content, photos, everything you contribute or share is their property from now on, without any expectation of privacy. They own YOU on their service. Old timers, do you remember when it you used to say “PM me” instead of “DM me?” Weird that it changed from “Private Message” to “Direct Message” somewhere along the way, huh? Did you notice?

The Weaponization of Social Media

Worse than that though is these Silo’s figured out how to influence your behaviors and actions so they could increase your likelihood of purchasing things. Through that scientific process they have created algorithms that tell them exactly how to exploit people. Technology, created specifically to manipulate and influence peoples decisions, and how to keep them coming back for more like a damn junky! Wooo man! That is a powerful tool! Not just for getting you to buy things, but also getting you to think a certain way, or maybe even could be used to persuade you to vote a certain way?

Once most of us were members of these Silo’s and we’d given up any expectation of privacy or anonymity for perceived security online, these data sets became huge! Thanks to the continually advancing tide of technology, these enormous data sets could be stored, analyzed and compared by algorithms, and that data could be used to influence the decision making process of just about any individual person or group of persons on earth. It didn’t take long for people to start to weaponize it, and soon companies like Cambridge Analytica were born.

Because of these Silo’s and their insatiable greed, even the most underfunded political, religious or terrorist organizations could afford to deploy highly effective Psychological Operations (PsyOps) weapons. All you needed was data purchased from someone like Cambridge Analytica, which as you know, acquired the data from Silo’s we trusted to protect it. After purchasing this data about your target on a two-for-one deal, all you have to do is create, buy, rent or steal a bunch of legit looking social media accounts.

Then, just repeat the same message across all of them. Even if it was an easily provable lie, you could sway specific demographics (swing demographics) to vote a certain way, thus influencing the outcome of elections. Recently however, they also learned it was a very effective way to incite violence and/or create division within a nation, even being powerful enough to divide previously close family members! You know what too … it’s VERY effective.

Let’s look at the United States’ politics for example. There was a time, not that long ago, when Repubs and Dems disagreed, they argued, they debated, but it was always kept professional. Kind. Even the “mudslinging” cut downs were always above the belt. There was a mutual respect, and the ultimate goal was still “What’s best for America and Americans” … but something changed.

At first it was just a bit childish, maybe even funny, but it started to get more hateful, more spiteful, more violent … more divided. It seemed like everyone was just screaming threats and obscenities at each other. It seemed like we were all just toiling away, day and night, to come up with new despicable names for each other like “Boot licker,” “Libtard” or “Fascist.”

Even the politicians themselves began to use names like “Deplorable” and “Nazi” to describe their fellow countryhumans. Personally attacking the very people they’re sworn to serve. Vitriol. Disgusting. Deplorable! And so the rift of division grew wider. The dark side grew stronger as more of us gave in.

What The Frankfurter Happened?

The tldr; is: The Silo’s didn’t keep us safe like they promised. They sold us out… No, we sold ourselves out for the promise of security at the expense of freedom, and they took advantage of that to get us to buy products we didn’t really want or need. Because of their insatiable greed and thirst for power, they sold all of our personal information and detailed analysis of our individual behavioral data … the very things that make us tick, who we are as people, our souls, to people who would later use it to exploit all of us to further their own insane goals and ambitions! We got rugged bros!

Worse though, is that this technology is trickling down the chain. I’m now seeing it being used successfully to market and promote scams, identity theft and further organized crime by previously unsophisticated groups. How do you know what is real when half of the people are telling you one thing, and the other half are telling you another? How do you verify that there isn’t a single guy controlling 10,000 accounts with the help of AI? How do you tell who is a real person without sacrificing freedom and liberty?!

The Personhood Dilemma

So really, here’s the crux of it. Personhood. How do we determine who is a real person, sharing a real opinion online, and who is JBM’s 10,000th FB profile with AI generated images for uniqueness and a curated AI bot with a friendly but hateful, violence inciting way with words? Welp, hang on to your ass for this next one friends. The Silo’s decided the best way to accomplish that goal was to double down on their now epically and repeatedly proven failed strategy.

I know … one said from inside their expensive glass walled conference room. Let’s ask our users for even more personal information! Another voice squeaked from under the table, Yes sir! That’s brilliant sir! You’re a genius sir! How about a mobile phone number? Maybe even a photo of a government issued ID? The boss man listened to the voices from under the table, and then he thought for a long and hard 45 seconds before releasing a mighty brainfart that frightened the people under the table!

They squealed with fear and the boss decreed loudly … Let’s make them pay us for a fungible icon next to their username to ensure their voice will be heard above all the JBM’s! Let’s punish one publicly to remind them we can take that voice away at any time and they’ll be swallowed up by the JBM’s forever! Muahahaha!

HAHAHA! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUC… ackem … excuse me, I mean … what a positively preposterous notion chaps! Let me get this straight … they still aren’t able to protect the previous personal information we gave them… in fact, they used that information to exploit us for their personal profit, then SOLD that knowledge to other people that wanted to use it to create this incredible shit show that has been undermining democracy across the world… and they have the goddamn audacity to ask me to give them even MORE personal information and pay them a fee, so they can verify I’m human!?

They want me to pay them for my identity online!? I have to doxx myself to them for a voice!? They want to control my identity and decide who gets a voice and who’s “official!?” … GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE RN! I WANT FREEDOM! I WANT ANONYMITY! I WANT PROOF OF PERSONHOOD! I WANT MY CAKE AND I WANNA EAT IT TOO!

Thank Deity For Hackers!

Long before you came to this realization, the realization that we are being psychologically exploited on a massive international level, hackers already figured it out. Many years ago. Here’s the thing about hackers, we live in this digital world day and night. We watch the bits and the bytes fly by. We notice all the little things you don’t. Things that are out of place, or too similar. Things that are too irregular or too perfect. Patterns, the hidden messages and nuances that pass beneath the surface of this ocean connected by light.

We live, work, fight and play in the meta, right under your noses. We live inside the walls of your Silo’s, without you or the Silo rent-a-cop ever knowing, and we’re always listening. 👀 While most of the world thinks a hacker is a bad thing, it’s not. Hackers are people, and as such they’re all different. Some good, some bad. Hackers are just people that like to know how things work, for the most part. If you ever took the TV remote apart and put it back together as a kid, you’re a hacker.

Haha! Ohhh yeah you are! You little hacker, you can’t deny who you are! So, while the bad hackers were busy figuring out how to swap the channel and volume buttons to make everyone go crazy in order to overthrow democracy, good hackers were busy figuring out how to stop them before the people of the world sold out their freedom for the false promise of security… yet again.

How Do We Get Our Cake And Eat It Too?

So how does one balance the need for freedom, privacy and anonymity with the need for proof of personhood?

• How can we be sure that all those opinions and ideas are coming from people in our community and not another community of people pretending to be us so they can hurt or steal from us?

• How does one determine whether an opinion online comes from a qualified position of experience, or from a mouth of ignorance or malice?

• How does one person prove their opinion is valid without revealing personal details about themselves to the whole world so they can share without fear of reprisal?

• How can we protect a single persons identity against even the most well funded, powerful organizations in the world… even their own government?

Personally, I had no idea. I tried man… believe me I tried… but I got old and tired, then carpal tunnel syndrome set in. I lost my will to keep fighting in the face of the overwhelming majority and debilitating median nerve pain. No one was listening anyway. I felt like Ron Paul screaming about the Fed, inflation and the gold standard. I basically became the crazy person yelling at the clouds about stuff that could never happen, despite the fact that it was actually happening.

Much love and respect to Ron. He was right, we need a monetary standard free from the control of centralized entities like the Fed, but respectfully, that money is not gold Mr. Paul. Another article for another time though…

Hackers Love Cake … And Freedom …

And for some, plutocracy even gives them heartburn. That’s just awful to have to live with. We’ll call these much younger, much more brilliant and tremendously better looking hackers, Hackers v2.0. They saw this problem too, they saw the very systems we love, the societies, cultures and the principles we all built and continually contribute to, being subverted and used against us, right under our very noses!

They noticed democracy itself was being exploited before anyone else did! Because they live in the walls and listen, remember? Unlike me though, Hackers v2.0 were smart, young and born to this digital world. These beautiful people are the first generation, ever, born directly into the meta. They’re the first generation born into a world of instant global connectedness. They’re like Neo at the end of the Matrix, they see the real world behind the simulation, and when you can see that world with their clarity, you quickly begin to realize that the cake is a lie.