It is interesting how ideas and solutions that remove central authority and put power into the hands of individuals start to crop up…
I realized or rather discovered this after becoming thoroughly orange pilled. That is embracing Bitcoin. And well BTC is something that facilitates payments peer to peer without going through banks. It burst on the scene during the crisis of 2008, and “quantitative easing”. It presented a new take on money, money with a limited supply thus inflation prone, requiring proof of work to validate transactions. The beauty of BTC is it has no master, Satoshi Nakamoto is the mysterious founder of BTC and nobody knows who he is. He does not own Bitcoin, nobody does.
Governments and assholes want to control the media. They are deathly afraid of fake news. Disinformation can be dangerous because it can cause chaos but there is a lot of suppressed truth out there. But imagine bypassing the censors much like BTC bypasses the censors. Social media on a blockchain, where there is no management the government can phone and ask for people to be cancelled. I have also actually entertained the idea of blockchain voting.
Another thing that is emerging is the BRICS payment system. Murica has been able to get SWIFT to cancel Russia, thus this payment system was weaponized and ceased to be neutral. One of the criticisms of the BRICS is that it gathers countries which do not often see eye to eye. Russia-China-India seem unlikely allies given the history of clashes between these nations. But here lies the paradoxical strength of a shared payment system. Nobody would be in full control of it (hopefully) and its neutrality will be its strength. The new payment system comes on the backdrop of declining Western hegemony, and the emergence of a multipolar world. Can the World exist without a leading nation?
Also, the richer you are, the more ability you have to transcend the idea of belonging to a nation or state. If you have $100k (or more) to piss away, you can get a passport of some small island or some territory and take advantage of the perks there. These days we see a movement from the nation state towards universalist international blocks but I am interested in how an individual can do away with allegiance to a state. Is this possible? There are anarchist ideas of doing away with structures of hierarchy such as family, property (haves and havenots), and state.
Is doing away with hierarchy a utopian idea? How would you create a world that would satisfy everyone? Do we need to advance in technology to achieve a reality in which everyone would be able to grown into a viable adult without family, would be able to realize himself without money, would be secure and happy without property?
Owning nothing could probably lead to happiness because you would not have to worry about your possessions, more money more problems. But could I pursue my intellectual interests without money in today’s world? I could not! But imagine if the literature is all digitized, you can afford it with UBI, you can pay for your rent with a UBI, you can afford food with UBI, you can afford a computer with UBI, you can afford software with UBI? But the UBI will be distributed by the state and will amount to pittance that would barely pay for meal and lodgings.
So, while we can create a world without banks, without a single hegemonic superpower but it will take a while to do away with hierarchies in human society.
