“The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.”
— Oren Harari
If you only read my stuff sporadically, you might be surprised to hear that I’m actually quite optimistic about the future. The main reason I compose articles highlighting all the frauds, corruption and absence of ethics within our current paradigm isn’t to fill you with fear and dread, but to create awareness. Ignorance is not bliss, and I believe a deep appreciation about how completely broken and opaque the current way of doing things is can provide the spark of inspiration and determination necessary to create a new and much better world
As I’ve stated many times previously, it wasn’t until Bitcoin emerged and I started to understand the implications of it, that I became very encouraged about the future. Prior to that, I saw humanity living under a terminal, predatory system that would eventually consume itself, but I couldn’t see a plausible roadmap toward a better tomorrow. Bitcoin proved to me that not only did such a path exist, but the infrastructure for this better future was being built right in front of our eyes.
I first started writing about the revolutionary implications of Bitcoin in the summer of 2012, and looking back five years later I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of awe and appreciation for all that’s been achieved. While the optimist in me always thought we might get to where we are today, to see it actually happen is nothing short of extraordinary. The incredible energy and global talent that’s entered this space over the past several years brings a gigantic smile to my face. It truly is an idea whose time has come, and the more the concepts of decentralization and trustless systems infect the global consciousness, the more unstoppable they become. I think we’re already there.
Meanwhile, there continues to be tremendous resistance to this innovation from wide swaths of the population, which is to be expected for anything that seemingly came out of nowhere and is so incredibly disruptive. I have various theories for why that’s the case, but today’s post will focus on a specific aspect that I think is relatively unappreciated, particularly by many of us older than 35.
I’m old enough to have lived half of my life during a time when the internet wasn’t totally ubiquitous. As such, being proficient in the use of technology wasn’t something I grew up with. I had to learn what I know on my own later in life, having already become comfortable and reasonably well adjusted to the pre-internet world. Throughout my ten year career on Wall Street, I simply didn’t have the intellectual curiosity to really look behind the curtain, but then the financial crisis came along and shattered my worldview. I haven’t been the same since.
I’m not the only one of course. The financial crisis of 2008/09 similarly shattered the worldview of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people across the globe. I believe that the old manner of doing things as far as organizing an economy and society died for good during that crisis and its aftermath. Sure it’s been shadily and undemocratically propped up ever since, and we haven’t yet transitioned to what’s next, but for all intents and purposes it’s dead. It’s dead because it has no credibility.
Increasing numbers of people accurately see the institutions that currently manage our lives as outdated and corrupt. More importantly, many of us don’t want to simply replace the current crop of unethical people in charge with a new bunch, we want to completely change the way things are done at a systemic level. This is precisely what lies at the heart of Bitcoin, as well as decentralized, trustless systems in general. If there’s any fundamental lesson from history it’s that human beings cannot be trusted to use power and authority altruistically and wisely. As such, it’s imperative that we distribute those things as much as possible.
Sometimes my posts are inspired by the most random of things. In today’s case, it was the following tweet by Reason.
Charles Manson’s death, like the sale of @RollingStone, is one more sign of the end of Baby Boom America (finally!) https://t.co/TfFL4wldNapic.twitter.com/DKlxE0PI3a
— reason (@reason) November 20, 2017
The above caused a flood of thoughts that had been already percolating in my mind to coalesce. It made me realize that if you aren’t observing what’s currently happening with regard to Bitcoin’s ascendance (and crypto assets more broadly) from a generational perspective, you’ll completely miss the big picture. The Baby Boomer generation, which has dominated so many aspects of our country for so many decades — including the overall narrative of everything — is finally heading off into the sunset.
It’s not so much that they’re physically expiring, but their influence is beginning to wane significantly. It’s not completely obvious just yet since our world continues to be defined by the institutions and ideals they championed, but in the hearts and minds of so many, particularly the younger generations, the world they left us is hopelessly corrupt, archaic and can’t be displaced quickly enough.
Bitcoin is as much a generational phenomenon as it is a technological innovation and response to finance industry corruption.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 20, 2017
In the U.S., we are probably hitting right now (or recently passed) peak Baby Boomer influence on society. The implications of this are enormous.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 20, 2017
This is where many older people who understand how fraudulent and terminal the current system is seem to get sidetracked. To them, the next logical step as we enter a new financial system has to be to go through gold. Far more ridiculously, some people even push the spectacularly idiotic idea that an SDR will become the accepted global currency of the future. While I don’t profess to know exactly how things will play out, I try to keep an open mind as others arrogantly dismiss Bitcoin completely.
It’s no coincidence that many of those who are particularly condescending toward Bitcoin are from older generations. They’re doing what humans tend to do, which is take their own understanding of the world and life experiences and extrapolate them into the future. Someone who lived 30 years or more before the internet came to dominate everything will naturally possess a radically different perspective of the world and where it’s headed than someone who never knew life without it. This is precisely why a younger person will inherently understand the value and utility proposition of something like Bitcoin far more easily than someone much older.
If you want to try to figure out where we’re headed, you need to get out of your own head and into the minds of younger generations. While it’s fun to mock millennials and avocado toast, this is one of the most systemically screwed over generations in a long time. Thrown into the job market in the midst of an economic collapse, they watched their parents lose their homes while Wall Street got bailed out. These are lessons and experiences that stick around for life and fundamentally shape how one sees the world. The younger generations aren’t going to be interested in tinkering around the edges of the current paradigm, they’re going to want to replace it entirely. They have no loyalty to a system they’ve witnessed do so much damage.
If you’re a Baby Boomer please don’t take this the wrong way. This piece isn’t meant to disparage older generations while mindlessly elevating the youth. Many of the tools and ideas now being embraced and implemented into our society were developed by brilliant minds many years ago, and we should always pay homage to the gigantic shoulders on which we stand. Pushing 40, it’s not like I’m some spring chicken anyway.
The future isn’t set in stone, it will be what we make of it. As I see things today, we have an old paradigm on life support while novel systems and new perspectives emerge in parallel. Rather than predict the old world will blow up into a cauldron of fire, brimstone and nothingness, I can see a beneficial passing of the torch to better ways of conducting human affairs. I’m not claiming this transition will be easy and painless, but I suspect we’ll find ourselves in a much better position when we emerge on the other side.
So don’t let fear take over, and strive to embrace your higher nature. Understand the reality of the situation as it stands, and then do everything you can to leverage your talents to ensure what comes next is the kind of world you want to live in.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Bitcoin sounds like a great idea.,.,…. but what happens when an EMP
occurs. Read the book. “One Minute After”. No internet, no electricity
no ATM machines. Nothing. Gold in hand is invaluable .
Nice to see gold bug FUD hasn’t evolved in five years.
I hope you wear heavy duty suspenders with all that gold… I doubt if there is no energy, money will not be your most pressing need unless it is food grade.
Look into Siege of Leningrad, bread was worth more than any gold.
Or Polish occupation of Moscow in 17th century? In the end they were paying gold for edible corpses.
So…
In case of Global World War indeed Bitcoin might perish.
Or at least be split into local diverging blockchains, that would never again merge back. Hardest of forks. Well, if bitcoiners would keep their Grandeur vision of one true new global currency.
However in those ultimately dire circumstances you would have MANY problems with any kind of currency, gold included. And having heavy shiny gold would probably be just marking you as a prime victim for any gold hunters gang.
In medieval times gold was good property for landlords, having their own castle and their own private army, to protect that gold. Do you?
Bank notes could be invented by eeevul jews (or maybe by pirates, as others say), but why did they take on? Why merchants started abandoning gold back then? There was and is some merit in them that gold lacks.
Now…
If there would be no Global War but just some small neighborhood-scale mutinity, what then?
1) global bitcoin infrastructure would survive, as it requires that full history of bitcoin existed in thousands of copies all around the world. This would be little different from gold trade.
2) if your e-wallet burned down with your house – you are screwed. Just like when your paper notes wallet burned to ashes. Except that you can make copies of e-wallet in other residencies. But would having gold solve your problems in such a case? won’t you just get robbed and killed in such a case?
EMP will only effect a portion of the country if it happens. Cryptos decentralized nature will make all your cryptos safe. Have you asked yourself what will happen to your phantom money inside the bank? Hmmmmm
While I think the basic ideas here are solid–it is inevitable that a younger generation with vastly different perspectives regarding society and how it functions will come to very different conclusions than Boomers–I have a feeling that broad Millennial criticism and Millennial hopium are both overblown.
Change from within their ranks will come from a vanguard of thinking, clear-eyed individuals with the intellectual horsepower, and civic commitment, to start dismantling the House of Mirrors we are living in. More power to them. At the same time they are cleaning those Augean Stables they will be fending off the insanity of many of our young when it comes to how work should be rewarded, what does freedom mean and whether their feelings should be prime axis upon which the earth should spin.
When people ask me what I think needs to be done, I can sum it up in one word: decentralize. Our highly organized, interdependent and efficient systems were once the best way to make society-wide progress. Now, we are out on a technological limb with central systems, run by corrupt mega corporations and regulated by a governmental caste that rewards the most psychopathic, criminal minds our species produces.
Decentralization is no longer just a preferred way of doing things. It’s the last lifeboat out for anything that resembles a world-wide social order that has some modicum of benefit for common people. If this doesn’t work, the world is going to look like a prison camp when TPTB are done.
So yes, “Get to work, Mr/Ms Millennial.” You are desperately needed.
Just don’t lose your ideals and compassion along the way as so many of the Peace and Love Generation did. You are NOT exempt from human failings. Guard yourself and walk in wisdom.
Anne, if there is an EMP event that is so prevalent in scope that back-up servers **on the opposite hemisphere** are affected, what makes you think that people will want your gold? You are talking about a civilization-level event, in which food and water – and resources such as guns, solar power/fuel and other means to obtain the above – will be the only things of value.
Boomerangutan, just as the “Greatest Generation” became great in reaction to their environment, I think that the falling interest rates whcih lead to the market and housing booms have had a huge effect on Baby Boomers obsession with material posessions. Luckily (or unluckily) for the Millenials, they will not have this weath boom to affect their idealism the way the “Peace and Love” generation did.
Not a Boomer but a Warbaby, at least in the modern pop psycho chopped up United States you offer us here. About 1995 the first thing that occurred to me, and likely very many others on the newish web was a gold backed digital currency. Innovation, whether in computer code or a hot rodders garage is the key here, not marketing or acceptance. When/if BTC actually begins to do what people hope it can do, marketing it will be the least of the worries. I will be curious to find out, if it is one person, just how old Satoshi really is for instance. Your Millie’s may love the net and credit cards, etc. but they did not invent it. Keep in mind FWIW that the web was built by people who read books. It remains to be seen what people educated on the web and social media will actually achieve. I am not sanguine from what I have observed about modern standards of critical thinking and depth of thought.
I think dividing the population into arbitrary “generations” is counter productive. It is not the idea, the theory or the technology that will drive a new form of money but a realistic understanding of human nature. That takes experience and observation. Gold, BTC, and Bitgold ar all simply ways of neutralizing it’s worst impulses. Greed and the desire to steal from his fellows, whether from corprogov oligarchs or basement hackers and no matter what the age, will always be the enemy of any monetary system. Frankly, a bullet proof monetary system any better than the gold standard of the past is still out there with the fountain of youth as far as I can see. I know crypto will be useful to one degree or another, probably like email has replaced letters as faster and more convenient….but until then, if you are really worried about the economic future, you might be better off with a bag of Mercury dimes…
Loved your opening quote by the way, and I always enjoy your articles.
Well said. Thank you! 🙂
I share your optimism when it comes to the potential of crypto curremcies to sustain a more fair economy. However, as far as bitcoin goes, I observe that still after eight years of existence it has not gained any significance as means of exchange, i.e. money. Why do so many believe that is going to change?
It’s impossible to know how this will all shake out, but the recent demise of 2x solidified that for now, until scaling solutions get implemented widely, Bitcoin will serve as digital gold. I think that’s ok for the time being, since fiat national currencies are still working fine for everyday transactions.
Also, with the way the IRS treats Bitcoin, it’s virtually impossible to have it serve as an everyday spending currency.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but your comment made me laugh. I look at it completely the opposite way. After *only* 8 years, Bitcoin has gone for being valueless to having a market cap > $100bn as a monetary asset. It is hyper-monetization the likes of which the world has never seen.
This could be one of the most significant events in all of human history, and we are alive to witness/participate in it.
I neglected to answer your question. The reason it hasn’t taken off more as an everyday currency is because there’s not enough demand for that use case. Frankly, most people that buy Bitcoin decide to hold it as a savings vehicle instead of spending it. While it *could* revolutionize daily payments, the market is showing that it’s far more valuable as being the only deflationary, honest savings mechanism available to savers. I started in Bitcoin by using it to save money on Amazon orders (purse.io). I quit spending it when I learned just what an incredible asset it is.
> The reason it hasn’t taken off more as an everyday currency is because there’s not enough demand for that use case
LOL
Bitcoin as everyday currency looks like that
1. You come to the coffee shop to gulp a cup of a hot steamy Americano
2. After you paid, the barista tells you “your transaction was not yet vetted by any miner, but you can come back in three days, and we would check again”
3. Three days later you come to finally get that coffee cup, though you are no more having that impulse to get it. You just come for it because you already paid and do no want that payment wasted.
4. Next morning at the other hemisphere some pranker looks into blockchain and then blogs that “ooo! that Brandon E yet again spent his day in XXXX coffeeshop”
It is how it is now, when transactions number is actually very small because BTC did not become “everyday currency” yet.
Would it become that, it would be many orders of magnitude worse than that.
3 days? Think about 3 years or maybe 30.
While I am intrigued by the concept of Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, I am often in fairly “primitive” areas where its use would be impossible as there is not computer access. Even in areas with access, connectivity is tenuous. Like one reply above, the internet may not always be solvent either.
I would like to see the development of a non national currency, not a goofy SDR, but an international coupon, backed by a Bitcoin exchange, that would be exchangeable for food, clothing and shelter.
As a voice crying in the wilderness, I do not think the wave of the future is to be obsessively connected to tech for all of our needs. Our true “drift” should be a spiritual one, not a materialistic one, which is what tech inherently is.
Chris Edwards
Yawn.
I remember the 1960s. The Greening of America. The Future was The Young. Talking bout my generation and all that.
Yeah. Look how that all turned out.
At least last time around we weren’t playing around with technology that presented the potential for total enslavement, control, and monitoring.
This is simple. The guys with guns always win, until the day that politicians and sociopaths (but I repeat myself) go extinct.
People in the furare going to curse the generation that adopted cryptos and blco that they had never heard of Bitcoin and blockchain technology that permits the government predatory class to control everything.
I think it’s likely I’ll live to see it, unfortunately
Bitcoin wasn’t created by a group of coders just tinkering around. At its very inception, it was designed as a government-resistant, decentralized, immutable asset. The governments will only have one option to fight it – banning it – and that option deteriorates by the day. Every day that some powerful politician, 1%-er, Wall St insider, etc. gets into Bitcoin, that’s one more person who won’t want it banned (looking out for their own self-interest).
It’s ironic that greedy, corrupt, me-first politicians got us into the huge messes we find ourselves in, because once they start accumulating Bitcoin en masse, those same traits will immunize Bitcoin against authoritarianism.
Let me just briefly add that the starry-eyed Bitcoin/blockchain dreamers should start looking into the Internet of Things, and start considering how that would mesh with the blockchain.
how’s bitcoin going to stop humans from being greedy? thanks in advance
It won’t. It will, however, bring honesty and transparency to the table.
And that’s wayyy better than trying to stop greed. Greed is fine as long as it doesn’t lead to corruption.
Excellent article. I think being a late gen-X (40ish) gives us a unique perspective–seeing both sides of this enormous transition. I heard about bitcoin in 2010 and while I regret buying some then obviously, I’m still not buying it now. This is in spite of my conceding a) blockchain is the future and b) it (bitcoin) could go much higher. But the issues are many: it doesn’t scale; it’s energy inefficient; dependencies on the grid + internet; and strong case it’s in a speculative bubble. Bitcoin serving as digital gold seems to be a fall back after its fans realized it won’t work as intended (as global currency). Well it won’t work as digital gold for long either. Any large flows of funds will be targeted by governments’ who’ve yet to really catch up with cryptos. When they do all they need is to target the endpoints/exchanges with bitcoin. Only a crypto that can scale and truly be currency for the smallest transaction will win the day (as there is no longer the need to enter/exit). Its scarcity and acceptance are arbitrary and for the reasons above it will be supplanted by something better either in a fork, another existing alt-coin or something future. The smart contracts in Ethereum for example seem to have utility apart from Ether being a currency or speculative vehicle. I know of several startups aiming to revolutionize areas of business with the blockchain and they’re building on Ethereum. Frankly I’d rather invest in them than buy Ether or certainly bitcoin. The decentralization is a huge plus yes but still to me a ledger is a ledger, not itself money–In this sense it’s no better than today’s fiat. There’s also the problem of ‘lost bitcoins’ and the end of mining which I don’t think were adequately factored into the design. Peter Schiff says it well that bitcoin is likely to be to blockchain what myspace was to social media. So my bet is that while blockchain is the future, bitcoin specifically will end in tears and sadly also regulatory crackdown.
Yes, the Boomers are passing. Only one teeny, tiny problem: The following generations are even more corrupt and decadent. And they don’t even know it.
Bitcoin–what is the idea, anyway? It’s a currency that can only be created in very strictly limited amounts. And can be utilized apart from the control of governments across international boundaries. What’s not to like? Only this–they’re not value. As I said, they’re currency, not money. They satisfy all the requirements of money except value. At some point, value is necessary. Right now, Bitcoin is valued by reference to currencies. The currencies themselves have no definition. This is a problem. You might not think it is, but it is.
1st of all, the Boomers aren’t done yet, and they will not go quietly.
2nd, the Generation X’ers are just as bad, if not worse, than the baby boomers.
3rd, the combination of the Boomers and the Gen X’ers has been a pox on all of mankind. Just a horrific combination in every way imaginable.
4th, the Millennial generation will have to fight a major war or wars courtesy of the previous two generations.
I was born at the tail end of the Boomer generation in the deep south. We had long hair and loved to rock. But we called ourselves “Freaks”, not Hippies. The last thing you wanted to do was call one of us a Hippy, unless you just happened to enjoy getting your ass handed to you directly thereafter.
In its heyday in the early to mid 60’s the whole “peace and love” bullshit from the hippies was easy to see through. What it was really about was the Me generation. The “it’s all about me” aspect was easy to see by the way they treated the poor guys who were forced to enter the military and go fight a war (in a place that made Iraq and Afghanistan look like a Club Med resort by comparison) when they returned back to the States. It was despicable.
So as much as I’d love to see the Hippies gone forever, they ain’t done yet. And their greedy little Gen X weasel cohorts aren’t nearly done.
As a result the Millenialls will have to go fight and die. BTW, when you’re dead, you don’t give a shit about currency.
Sounds dark, doesn’t it? Well, wait till you see how it actually looks, instead of sounds.
“the way they treated the poor guys who were forced to enter the military and go fight a war…when they returned back to the States. It was despicable.”
If you’re alluding to returning vets being spat upon and called “baby-killers”, it didn’t happen, unless perhaps it was operatives appearing as hippies doing false-flag spitting to disparage the anti-war movement.
Few weeks ago I also had few observations coalesced in my mind but had no time to systemize them and put down. Perhaps I should just make short notes without systemizing, to keep them floating, dunno.
BitCoin flaw’s – and grave one – it its attempt at being global, one size fits all.
This hypercentralization turns BitCoin into power struggle for influence hell.
The technical problems can not be solved because every approach is backed by one or another political-financial behemoth, and those behemoths can not negotiate who would have what share.
Is it much different from UNIX Wars or Browsers Wars of recent? From Betacam vs VHS war? etc, etc, etc.
The very idea that there should be One True Currency is killing BitCoin. It does not scale up for free. And as demands on infrastructure support grows – heavy players inevitably get more and more power.
At the same time BitCoin underlying tech provided for trivial generations of alt-coins. This was either the very idea behind BitCoin, an insight, or a happy coincidence. But value of Bitcoin is not in being the currency but in being altcoins generator.
———–
Belarus and maybe Russia are striving at making cryptocurrencies to traditional fiat currencies and back.
Eurozone imposed One True currency onto many nations and it turned out to be a financial pump, sucking everything out of weaker ones. Now that Greece could not devalue their drahma to regain competitiveness anymore all Greeks can do no is lie down and die, just like Luddites had to.
In your pocket there is a phone, but where is that huge mega-antenna that covers all the USA and connects all the phones? There is none. Instead there are hundreds and thousands of antennas, and your phone transparently reconnects.
That is what the future should be – every local community of 1-10 millions should establish their own local cryptocoin. Because, frankly, if I went to local grocery for a beer bottle or bread piece – why the heck should the whole world know about it and waste computing resources to save that in the world-global megablockchain for eternity?
And then those coins should be automatically traded on the borderlines to adjacent coins, just like you pocket phone is “roaming” from one antenna to another.
That old medieval strata of street money exchangers, it can reemerge on new, electronic level. Or rather “smart contract” powered robots.
Another new hype is the idea of time limited currency, “free money” or “hertzl money” or something. Idea absolutely impractical on physical media like metal coins or banknotes, so only very desperate communities tried. But it can be implemented on some e-money base.
One least issue of blockchain is the fundamental lack of privacy. Pseudonimity is not anonymity. It would only take your little kid to ONCE pay for some social net premium smiley from your crypto-wallet to make ALL your past transactions flown to your face. Dunno if someone would ever bother to fix it, because special services, official and not, state and private, would see it for manna.
But again, if there would come such a coin, e-cash, then having no-hassle brain-dead-ready infrastructure for your e-wallet automatically roaming from one currency to another just like your phone does would be paramount.
I’ve recently seen what I think is a similar crypto-currency offered through Goldman Sachs, called Blockchain https://futurism.com/blockchain-answer-stopping-climate-change/ . It was being advertised at a climate change summit as a way to ‘encourage’ people to make good choices. I am in the older generation who wouldn’t get this crypto currency but there are so many unknowns and ways this technology can be employed as another control system (like fiat currencies and global banking). This one presents as being controlled through the technocratic roll out by the Millennial generation who are many generations removed from any exposure to true natural systems that operate according to the natural laws of the universe. (Reminds me of the Circle).
Another way this goes wrong… every component needed for this to type of currency to flourish depends on industry; mining the metals, assembling the smart phones, building the infrastructure… all of it artificial and toxic. The actual wireless technology has been proven to be toxic to living cells http://www.bioinitiative.org/table-of-contents/.
If the Wikipedia report on BitCoin can be believed those who created it have benefited to the tune of billions: “As of 24 May 2017, Nakamoto is believed to own up to roughly one million bitcoins,[4] with a value estimated at approximately $7 billion USD as of November 2017. He also owns an estimated one million Bitcoin Cash coins as of the hard fork on 1 August 2017 and one million Bitcoin Gold coins as of the hard fork activated 24 October 2017.”
The bitcoin thing is a puzzle to my money advisor in Ed Jones, so I am outta that. H
There are many people who use Bitcoin for payments and merchants who accept it. I’ve been accepting Bitcoin for our services for many years now.
The current problems are intermittent high transaction fees and too long transaction times unless you pay a high transaction fee.
This is not going to work long term and needs to change. If not, another crypto currency will come along and replace it for widespread use.
there should be no “widespread use” – there should be local neighborhood-based use, or interests-based locality, communities of 1-10 millions of people
Bitcoin, IMHO, exchanges one set of problems for another. The problems of oversupply (in the case of fiat currency) and difficulty in transport (in the case of precious metal) are exchanged for the problems of tech dependency and nonexistence outside the virtual realm.
Commenters above have rightly noted that when the chips are down, nothing trumps food (and water, I might add). Yes, those COMMODITIES will become the bargaining chips during a total societal breakdown. If/when it gets to that stage, no currency in any amount will substitute. But at a less-extreme stage…which one will be most chosen? Since this is a real, not virtual, world, I’ll go with the real. If that brands me a dinosaur, so be it.
“If you’re alluding to returning vets being spat upon and called “baby-killers”, it didn’t happen, unless perhaps it was operatives appearing as hippies doing false-flag spitting to disparage the anti-war movement.”
I saw it happen and I heard it from their own mouths, Neil. They weren’t “operatives appearing as hippies”, they were just hippies. Many of whom grew up in the same part of town as I did.
So if you’re somehow trying to provide cover for the worthless assholes after all these years in an attempt to rewrite history, bad try.
As soon as we got old enough, and big enough, we hunted them down and beat the piss out of as many of them as we could find. No regrets about that at all to this day.
When you say goodbye to your good friends older brothers (who you looked up to) as they were leaving to go fight a war whether they wanted to or not that either ended their lives or essentially ruined their lives, it has a very deep and profound effect on you. It changes your world view in a big way.
Then seeing the ones who managed to make it back in one piece treated like shit by their own peers? That shit didn’t wash with us then, and it doesn’t wash now.
long time mike. i’ve been reading you’re the man buddy.
I think the last paragraph in your article, Michael, is great advice and encouragement for people of all ages.
As a child in grade school during the height of the 60’s countercultural revolution, I very much appreciated at least a few aspects of the ethos and aesthetic that emerged from that cultural explosion, even though I was a decade or more removed from its center. I particularly valued its drive to expand the awareness and expressive possibilities available within the wider culture, which had theretofore been more than a little conformist and staid.
One thing I couldn’t get myself to relate to, however, was the “don’t trust anyone over 30” mindset that defined at least one aspect of that counterculture. At the time, I couldn’t comprehend it, and in retrospect saw it as being both insular and vain– another example of how a tribalistic need for social belonging can contract people’s minds and emotions.
I also hear a few echoes of that same intergenerational tension today, and can’t help imagining how “Boomers” and “Millennials” might relate to themselves and each other absent the constant noise from the media bullhorn responsible for molding and reinforcing their respective self-images (not to mention creating these categories to begin with).
I’m also wary about the potential cooptation of any new technology (or infrastructure or paradigm in general) for questionable ends, regardless of the original guiding intent, and given the immense historical precedent for such wariness. So consider me a bit skeptical about the long-term potential of blockchain and digital currencies, but also glad to have my skepticism relieved if the evidence warrants.
One of the reasons I so much admire your last paragraph in this article is because it points to the primary, ongoing and final locus of responsibility for fulfilling the promise of human existence– it lies within ourselves. No matter how supportive any set of external arrangements might be, it remains a support, and it’s up to us to enliven it.