I don't think I ever thought of this so clearly before. My experience on #nostr so far inspires me. I've seen multiple people mention energy backing cryptocurrency [1] in my short time posting over the nostr protocol to various relays, and watching/interacting via apps. I know close to zero about cryptocurrency; it is not my interest or focus; however, I've built naive hash chain mechanisms for logs, read rsyslog's epiphany about Guardtime back in 2018 [2], and am aware of better techniques like #MerkleTrees that make it scale because of binary tree math. We know this makes sense, as energy is the primary bottleneck.
I don't see many cryptocurrency people talking about complicated supply chains and minerals that create compute to mine cryptocurrency, nor water. I assume that is because energy is the largest bottleneck by far. The cryptocurrency folks have an advantage, in that they look out a couple degrees further than most to establish their relationship within systems, because wealth comes directly from that. Of course, this is part of how gold works, but the throttle point is literal mining and distribution on the earth. It is more complicated because geopolitics is involved, which skews the value a bit. There is a relationship, though. 10x or 100x for fiat currency, and we arrive at most of the cryptocurrency philosophy. (I'm legit trying to understand, not strawman here, so please correct.)
Most people I deal with cannot think deeper than two conceptual relations. For instance, CO2 bad, so BEVs good. Crypocurrency folks are better than most, and making money at that. Frankly, I think the wealthiest understand the different domains involved in the #GlobalSupplyChain, as well as #memeplex / shared #CulturalCognition issues quite well. The more domains you integrate in these areas, the more loot you get. This is a wealth building pattern. Sure, there are many other structural ways. Spain got wealth at one point in history by simply seizing it. Other ways worked better than that (England displacing Spain).
I don't think #HumanCognition was always limited in degrees of relations like this. I think we used to be able, as a culture, to think at more than two degrees of relations. Is it a system of control.[3] Is it because we are so coddled by our cultures? Is it because the overall systems are too complicated? Are we, as Postman would say, amusing ourselves to death? [4] Regardless, the cryptocurrency folks have a slight advantage, and it pays. And, oh my, the folks that just buy extremely complicated new cars, coffee makers, subscribe to feeds, subscribe to knowledge, subscribe to one of two political parties, subscribe to food delivery, working harder and faster at nothing, circling symbols and flushing [5], squeezing out the biosphere for those that can't, thinking in narrower and norrower siloes, slinging outrage and virtue online, desperate for something authentic, faced with the trauma of the outcomes as they fade away, not knowing how to build things or think, vilifying those that can, pretending that this shallow, ridiculous shell version of life is worth living, these folks have a disadvantage.
I can see how a focus on #EnergyScarcity makes #cryptocurrency independent of #geopolitics to some extent; however, there are still geopolitical aspects to energy, and there will be more. A bigger problem from my perspective is the fossil fuel feedstock flow scale [6]. But an even bigger problem, the #metacrisis / #polycrisis, is the weave of all above with a focus on the biosphere itself as what is scarce. We need the biosphere to survive. We need to extend that same level of thought that the cryptocurrency folks talk about to what supports vertebrates on this planet, and work from there. We need to use the same thought used to figure out the origin/control issues around currency and the supply chain behind cryptocurrency mining and apply it to the broader systems. Further, we need to concede that evaluating this from an extractive perspective prevalent in culture is a mistake. We need to defeat #moloch in our analysis.
Another thing the cryptocurrency folks, along with #a16z, get, is the general predicament. They get the stress. They get the idea of collapse. I suppose one approach is to hole up in friendly expat communities or build a bunker in New Zealand. But, can we learn something from all of this globally, as a culture? Even if we have some fairly large adjustments to the complex, nested systems, is there a way we can plant seeds or get something started now that can do this better at some point? At what point will we establish what we really need? Unfortunately, I suspect that will be when most of what we have is taken away.
Well... a few things to consider.
GM
[1] As a computer nerd, I can't call it crypto. Crypto is something else.
[2] https://rainer.gerhards.net/2018/06/rsyslogs-first-signature-provider-why.html
[3] https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpqlgrr0man8226c0252hdvla8xn62rsas9vngdgqx686ppwvm9jtqqs8z3s29d70zj2p4a3j66qgnapcvsxu4mrkh3zvv6gte3f0xsnr6rqklfy72
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)
[6] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.7b04573
acodrst / Scott H.
npub1x5…r3m3n
2025-05-04 13:00:50
Author Public Key
npub1x5229qz2fpfqnvqtegw895ckpq30dkd5547yk3g4mt79zwy55jqqkr3m3nPublished at
2025-05-04 13:00:50Event JSON
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"pubkey": "3514a2804a485209b00bca1c72d3160822f6d9b4a57c4b4515dafc513894a480",
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"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "I don't think I ever thought of this so clearly before. My experience on #nostr so far inspires me. I've seen multiple people mention energy backing cryptocurrency [1] in my short time posting over the nostr protocol to various relays, and watching/interacting via apps. I know close to zero about cryptocurrency; it is not my interest or focus; however, I've built naive hash chain mechanisms for logs, read rsyslog's epiphany about Guardtime back in 2018 [2], and am aware of better techniques like #MerkleTrees that make it scale because of binary tree math. We know this makes sense, as energy is the primary bottleneck. \n\nI don't see many cryptocurrency people talking about complicated supply chains and minerals that create compute to mine cryptocurrency, nor water. I assume that is because energy is the largest bottleneck by far. The cryptocurrency folks have an advantage, in that they look out a couple degrees further than most to establish their relationship within systems, because wealth comes directly from that. Of course, this is part of how gold works, but the throttle point is literal mining and distribution on the earth. It is more complicated because geopolitics is involved, which skews the value a bit. There is a relationship, though. 10x or 100x for fiat currency, and we arrive at most of the cryptocurrency philosophy. (I'm legit trying to understand, not strawman here, so please correct.)\n\nMost people I deal with cannot think deeper than two conceptual relations. For instance, CO2 bad, so BEVs good. Crypocurrency folks are better than most, and making money at that. Frankly, I think the wealthiest understand the different domains involved in the #GlobalSupplyChain, as well as #memeplex / shared #CulturalCognition issues quite well. The more domains you integrate in these areas, the more loot you get. This is a wealth building pattern. Sure, there are many other structural ways. Spain got wealth at one point in history by simply seizing it. Other ways worked better than that (England displacing Spain).\n\nI don't think #HumanCognition was always limited in degrees of relations like this. I think we used to be able, as a culture, to think at more than two degrees of relations. Is it a system of control.[3] Is it because we are so coddled by our cultures? Is it because the overall systems are too complicated? Are we, as Postman would say, amusing ourselves to death? [4] Regardless, the cryptocurrency folks have a slight advantage, and it pays. And, oh my, the folks that just buy extremely complicated new cars, coffee makers, subscribe to feeds, subscribe to knowledge, subscribe to one of two political parties, subscribe to food delivery, working harder and faster at nothing, circling symbols and flushing [5], squeezing out the biosphere for those that can't, thinking in narrower and norrower siloes, slinging outrage and virtue online, desperate for something authentic, faced with the trauma of the outcomes as they fade away, not knowing how to build things or think, vilifying those that can, pretending that this shallow, ridiculous shell version of life is worth living, these folks have a disadvantage.\n\nI can see how a focus on #EnergyScarcity makes #cryptocurrency independent of #geopolitics to some extent; however, there are still geopolitical aspects to energy, and there will be more. A bigger problem from my perspective is the fossil fuel feedstock flow scale [6]. But an even bigger problem, the #metacrisis / #polycrisis, is the weave of all above with a focus on the biosphere itself as what is scarce. We need the biosphere to survive. We need to extend that same level of thought that the cryptocurrency folks talk about to what supports vertebrates on this planet, and work from there. We need to use the same thought used to figure out the origin/control issues around currency and the supply chain behind cryptocurrency mining and apply it to the broader systems. Further, we need to concede that evaluating this from an extractive perspective prevalent in culture is a mistake. We need to defeat #moloch in our analysis. \n\nAnother thing the cryptocurrency folks, along with #a16z, get, is the general predicament. They get the stress. They get the idea of collapse. I suppose one approach is to hole up in friendly expat communities or build a bunker in New Zealand. But, can we learn something from all of this globally, as a culture? Even if we have some fairly large adjustments to the complex, nested systems, is there a way we can plant seeds or get something started now that can do this better at some point? At what point will we establish what we really need? Unfortunately, I suspect that will be when most of what we have is taken away.\n\nWell... a few things to consider.\nGM \n\n\n[1] As a computer nerd, I can't call it crypto. Crypto is something else.\n[2] https://rainer.gerhards.net/2018/06/rsyslogs-first-signature-provider-why.html\n[3] https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpqlgrr0man8226c0252hdvla8xn62rsas9vngdgqx686ppwvm9jtqqs8z3s29d70zj2p4a3j66qgnapcvsxu4mrkh3zvv6gte3f0xsnr6rqklfy72\n[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death\n[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series) \n[6] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.7b04573",
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