Opinion: Bitcoin is more than an idea, but a new critical consciousness

Original title: "The Conquest of Bitcoin's Essential Power and Knowledge"

Written by: Erik

A personal conquest of the power and knowledge that is the essence of Bitcoin

"Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gifts. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal that lies outside of man; nor is it an idea that becomes a myth. Rather, it is is an indispensable condition for the quest for human fulfillment.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

"There are no power relations without the relevant formations of the field of knowledge, and there is no knowledge that does not presuppose power relations and at the same time constitute them." - Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison

Pedagogy is a way in which someone begins to understand a subject. It is the way someone learns a subject, the way they are taught and all the wider social context in which someone learns. It's not just about learning, teaching, or understanding; pedagogy touches on society, history, politics, economics, technology, and all the other contexts in which people try to learn a particular subject. In short, we can call it philosophy of learning. This is important for our context because the pedagogy of Bitcoin is also the pedagogy of liberation, both giving us a new understanding of the world that makes our oppression no longer feasible. It is through this key to deciphering the meaning of codes that we can reshape the world.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the title of Paulo Freire's masterpiece on radical collaborative learning as a theme of personal empowerment. In this book, Freire explains how the oppressed and oppressors find themselves enslaved by a system of power that operates through pedagogical means. The oppressed are taught that they are too stupid, lazy or weak to help themselves, and that they must "learn" from their oppressors in order to alleviate their suffering. Likewise, the oppressors are also trapped in these power systems because they are taught that they have "right" ideas and only through the hierarchy of education, law, economics, etc. can they entrust these right ideas to the oppressed. The oppressed will be able to change their situation by emulating the oppressors. The key to both roles and perspectives is that they both rely on seeing self and others as objects first, and people second. Because only once do you realize that all humans are first and foremost conscious and critical beings; and you can also understand that these power systems may be critical because of the potential awareness and personal agency of all humans.

This power is the critical awareness of the individual's personal agency and power through the acquisition of knowledge, which is the greatest secret. It's the singular power that we have as human beings that this is the only kind of endogenous phenomenon that can be discovered from within. This finding removes all possibility that beings could use to force themselves to have a will to power, and that solidarity is the task of respecting the other as "a being over whom I have no right to control".

Only when we understand that human beings are creatures with critical capacities, each of us as the engine of our being, can we be motivated by this critical capacity; can we also begin to understand the capacity for self-actualization within each of us. It is a personal secret discovery, and once we know it exists, we can cultivate and amplify this power within ourselves and become our world-conquering force. It is through this recognition of our institution and others that we can dignify both of us with the greatest gift that can be given — Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not just an idea, but an institution of power in today's world. The only hope for future freedom beyond the last shred of slavery that we call fiat money.

The Power of Understanding The Truth Machine

Bitcoin is an indestructible energy machine that cannot be tampered with, and the oath cannot be broken. It provides and guarantees protection like nothing else on this planet. It is a commitment to what truth means in our fallen world, and the result of its unabashed rediscovery at this time. Through each of our own personal discoveries of this machine of truth and what it means personally to us as enslaved people, do we also understand its messianic power. We understand that through Bitcoin and cryptography we can restore a Ancient forms of power that will enable us not only to conquer nations; but to organize for the new age to come. It is the truth that pushes us beyond the limits of what we believe because our love for others instills courage in us—the deepest unity.

Once you understand that the power deep within each of us is a profound discovery that is unraveled and activated, the critical awareness, the pursuit of truth; you can also begin to understand how this power is unlimited. It is this secret hidden deep within each of us that has the power to break the hypnosis of state control, its authority over truth. There is something empowering in knowing that you can free yourself from a concentration camp, and that you can kill the cops in your head, in the most horrific way, for the most magnanimous of all reasons: your own freedom.

The current state social paradigm relies on a system of careful discipline enforcement where everyone is suspected and everyone is a potential criminal to create a panoramic system of discipline where everyone and everything is monitored. To be clear, this goes far beyond the powers of the police, but the entire system of regulation that has been fused with the modern economic and financial system to teach us about our own oppression, to be our own policemen.

This is how the police get into your mind and are allowed to colonize there; make you hesitate because you don't know if you're being watched; wait to be hit instead of preparing to fight back. This is because we lose our personal agency and no longer see ourselves as sovereign beings of light and love, but civic subjects whose bodies can be brutally destroyed. We are no longer taught to think, but to obey. Not to create, but to work. Not freedom, but fear. We have become a slave to frame, harass and mutilate our existence. We are no longer free people, but the remnants of a horrible scientific experiment gone wrong; the product of a failed democracy that was liquidated long ago.

We are told that if we just follow the advice of experts who know better than we do, we will gain the same power as them. However, once we start to question the legitimacy of these "right" ways, we can start to see and understand a completely different form of power that is not about providing obedience but about questioning. It is this courageous act of questioning, which Kant called "Sapere Aude" (dare to know) that allows a new form of critical consciousness to be cultivated from within. This enables individuals to find their true seat of power that they rediscover within themselves, thereby becoming the secret person they were meant to be. This new critical consciousness awakened within people allowed for the creation of new forms of critical questioning, which Freire calls "conscientização" or awareness raising. (You can search the meaning of words on Baidu)

Conscientização then becomes the tool we need in information technology, monetary history and above all cryptography to sharpen our critical awareness, understanding Bitcoin above all as a liberating tool. Because it is only when we question critically in a way that expands our power that we begin to become autonomous. Only when we gain a critical understanding of what Bitcoin is, how it encrypts to protect us, why decentralization allows Bitcoin to be antifragile, and what consequences for the world today, will we begin to surround ourselves with technology. Relationships build accountability, and how we use Bitcoin to make it free.

It is with this new awareness of how to use this technological knowledge as personal power that we now have a choice:

Use technologies that enslave you, or learn about technologies that free you.

This is your personal choice.

With the virtuosity of discovering personal knowledge in the information age, a person may once again become a master of their field. With specific knowledge of how Bitcoin and cryptography work, and a broader knowledge of how the internet and privacy protect us; we begin to understand the real ramifications of what that knowledge means in today's world. We are beginning to see the promise of cryptography and what its discipline and etiquette offer humanity in a new and unprecedented way. Armed with this knowledge, we can begin to cultivate within ourselves a new form of consciousness that transcends the sanction or power of any state or external force that exists. This is what I mean by the term "crypto-sovereignty". Regarding the content of encrypted sovereignty, you can refer to the description in the article "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace".

Through our holistic understanding of Bitcoin, our consciousness is raised in such a way that through its revolutionary practice, knowledge of Bitcoin, reveals the essence of a completely different understanding of money, finance, wealth, value and power secret. This practice of Bitcoin, when fully understood, allows anyone — regardless of political caste, religion, or place of birth — to regain the most basic commonality, property ownership. It is a right that transcends the power of any modern social or political institution. However, to understand what this means, we must first ask the question "What is wealth?" To give us a critical awareness of what it is and how it works.

knowledge community

Wealth is a concept that goes far beyond simple money, but has to do with the security of the sovereign order itself. Once only sovereigns above the law could provide the promise of safety and security because they made the laws. In exchange for the total obedience of the subjects to the sovereign, they can have confidence and respect for the order of the Commonwealth and its safety and security. It is the sovereign's pledge to all subjects equally to fulfill his promise to the commonality of law and the blood of justice. Without this security, any other security, including money, is hollow and meaningless. This is better speculated by Hobbes as:

"The duty of the subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long as his power to protect them, but no longer. For right men are inherently bound to protect themselves, and cannot relinquish their covenant when no one else can protect them ’ – Hobbes, Leviathan

When we start to think critically about the concept of wealth in a more holistic way, we can see that wealth consists of more than money, or even more than a security postulated by law; it is a form of immediate realization. This is a stake in a pledge or oath that no country, institution or individual can afford. When we consider what Bitcoin has to offer us in this context, beyond states or the order of contemporary banking and finance, it reveals a whole new and different form of wealth. It is here that we see the glimmer of recognition that allows for a whole new form of consciousness that creates this new formula of wealth, Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin of the future city-state

"If every religious, moral, economic, ethical, or other opposition is powerful enough to effectively group humanity according to friends and foes, it transforms into a political opposition. Politics does not exist in the battle itself, which has its own technical, psychological, and military laws, but in a manner of behavior determined by this possibility, by clearly assessing the situation, it is possible to correctly distinguish between real friends and real enemies." - Carl Schmidt, On Political Concepts

Through the commonality of cryptographic knowledge and how it must function with mathematical statements that can be verified as true, a whole new world opens up to man and the possibilities he can create through mutually consensual nonviolent agreements using this technology. It is now possible to assess concretely who are real friends and real enemies. When wealth is no longer tied solely to material objects and legal ownership of nations; but is opened to broader ideas of what wealth can and should be, we begin to understand the true power of Bitcoin. It is this new social commons of the Internet that embraces friendship, this new commons of wealth. This is the commonality of rules, not rulers; agreements, not princes; verification, not trust, creating a new community of Bitcoin.

It is no coincidence that the root word for "commonwealth" includes wealth. It's no coincidence that "Res Publica" is the etymology of the word commonwealth, also known as a republic. Because wealth is something we can only share in our society, because it is only through social agreements with others, and the power of those agreements, that we find true security in wealth. Wealth must be understood and recognized in context by other members of society for it to function of any value. In other words, wealth is a measure of value that we agree upon; or are enforced upon.

This is the latter point where we must use critical thinking. Have any of us ever agreed on how money is created, distributed and controlled? I think not. Do we have any say in inflation rates, issuance, or even the power to reject fiat money when we are asked to transact with it? Again, I don't think so. The assumed commonality that creates our shared wealth suggests that its true nature is not mutual consent but forced obedience. The only thing that fiat money really has in common is its means of general oppression for all. It is a poverty shared only by those with corrupt money; abject poverty and corruption form a common denominator.

Even the wealthiest legal owner probably doesn't spend as much or as much as he wants. For every penny spent, governments gape and wait impatiently for their cut of the deal, which they so cunningly call “taxes.” To buy prohibited items, to make unauthorized transactions, people risk being caged and punished in the most horrific and degrading ways - simply for not complying with government demands Slaves to the state are more obedient than obedient without reason. This simple exercise with fiat currencies shows us that our wealth is not really ours, but merely a permission-based system of rights to the means of life (i.e., property). Any commodity that might need to survive must first be "whitelisted" by the state and approved for our use.

From this perspective of understanding power, we can see that cryptography has opened up a spectacular new form of power that can only be called disempowerment. It is not a legal power, nor even an economic influence or a social principle; but it is a general form of power created through withdrawal and rejection. Despite the "I'd rather not do this" action, follow the path of the Messiah written by Bartleby the Scrivener. It is through this power of refusal to participate, because we understand what Bitcoin has to offer, that we can rebuild the world in a better and more appropriate image for our time.

In short, as Giorgio Agamben pointed out, we can say:

"If revolutions and insurrections correspond to constitutional power, the violence that establishes and constitutes new laws, then in order to contemplate a dispossessed power we must imagine other strategies entirely, whose definition is the task of future politics. A power that has just been violently overthrown Will rise again in another form, in the constant, inescapable dialectics between constitutional and constitutive powers, violence to make laws and violence to uphold laws."—What is the power of destruction?

It is this new de-power formula that we discovered hidden in cryptography that also allows for entirely different strategies of money, power, and law. However, the most critical aspect of making this new form of power work is daring to ask the question "Why?" Because if we don't find the courage to think for ourselves, then all is lost. We must have the courage to question the system of money, wealth, law, and power that has been presented to us, and to question that system on the sincere basis of courageous logic. It is through this radical pedagogical force that we find the critical vehicle to awaken the spark within us, our strength, our critical consciousness. For only once will we see the possibility of freeing ourselves from the chains of fiat currency, the vast system of exploitation that requires us not to think, but only to obey; we will be free. Only when we are free to choose can we start to question this way of life, this system of power, these laws and money. When we see that there is choice, we discover the hidden secrets of a life beyond state power and control—a life that is ours alone.

Through the radical personal discovery of Bitcoin as a critique of our current systems of money, wealth and power; a new critical consciousness is created. Hope is awakened today when any individual on the planet begins to view wealth with the most critical eyes and is open to the fundamental possibilities that Bitcoin promises. It is the truth we find in Bitcoin that makes us brave enough to live in this world again, because we know that truth is a real thing in this world, has value, and can be seen by others.

Source: Lianwen

Disclaimer: Cointelegraph Chinese is a blockchain news information platform, and the information provided only represents the author's personal opinion, which has nothing to do with the position of the Cointelegraph Chinese platform, and does not constitute any investment and financial advice. Readers are requested to establish correct currency concepts and investment concepts, and earnestly raise risk awareness.