Reflections on 2017 – A Personal Journey

2017 was a tumultuous and extremely binary year for a considerable number of Americans. For those who thought everything was going swimmingly during the Obama years, Trump’s election wasn’t simply a shock to the system, but an extinction level event for civilization that handed the U.S. government to bunch of Putin-controlled fascists. In stark contrast, Trump’s election was seen as divine deliverance by his devoted cheerleaders and red hat wearing obsessives. Finally, someone from outside the swamp had successfully trash-talked their way into the Presidency. As such, an imminent restoration of American greatness is all but assured.

Naturally, neither one of these perspectives is remotely accurate. They’re just distinct fairytales that quarreling groups of Americans have enthusiastically embraced within an increasingly insane and divided political environment. The societal pressure to self-segregate into either passionate support for “The Resistance” or “Trumpism” was overwhelming all year and has continued to this day. I recognized this early on, and wrote about it back in February.

Here’s an excerpt from that piece, Lost in the Political Wilderness:

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

Little did I know it at the time, but the sentiments expressed in that piece, coupled with the four-part series on Spiral Dynamics that followed, would result in profound changes to my overall outlook on life and the evolution of this website.

Prior to 2017, I focused an extraordinary amount of my attention and energy on the destructive actions of others, and had become obsessed with highlighting how much everything had degenerated in society. As such, I would frequently publish multiple posts per day in an attempt to get as much information as possible into the hands of readers. My own thoughts were published less often than many of you would’ve liked, as I spent a disproportionate amount of time reading news compared to personal reflection. As 2017 unfolded, I began to ask myself many questions about how I was spending my time. This culminated in the August post, Why Am I Doing This?

I wrote:

While understanding how the system works and identifying some particularly bad actors is very important, it’s not nearly enough. By spending so much thought and energy on the transgressions of others, I realized that I had done my part to contribute to the “outrage culture” which currently infects our political dialogue. Pointing fingers at others incessantly is what unconscious people do, while more conscious people inspire others to live up to their best nature. For years, I had been doing too much of the former, and not enough of the latter. That’s not to say there’s no value in calling out bad actors, I think there is. The point is that my content had become defined by a dangerous imbalance, and it was bad for me and bad for you.

To see what I mean, let’s take a step back in time. Upon seeing the government response to the financial crisis nearly a decade ago, I immediately knew that the country was headed for a very dangerous and tumultuous time. This realization left me with a sense of a mission to get out there and warn people about what was happening and the destructive implications that would inevitably follow. You simply cannot have elitist theft and corruption at the scale we witnessed in the post financial crisis era without major blowback. I figured that the most important thing I could do was explain how the entire economy and political paradigm had become a parasitic, criminal, systemic cancer. I figured if people “woke up” to reality and got upset about it, we could unify the public against oligarchy and implement true governance by the people, for the people. I was completely wrong.

People certainly got angry, but much of this anger was channeled toward the election of a narcissistic con man, who immediately handed his administration over to Wall Street, just as all his predecessors had before him. Even worse, the election of Trump has made it even easier to divide the public against one another, rather than against true power. The road we’re headed on right now doesn’t end well, and I’ve recognized the error of my ways.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, operating from a state of anger (or fear) will only result in very bad responses to our real problems. Calling reality as I see it is as important as ever, but merely trying to get people outraged will never get us to where we need to — as individuals or a nation.

In other words, while I recognize that outrage is often a necessary catalyst to significant social change, outrage alone is insufficient if you wish to tilt the odds toward a positive outcome. Change is a constant in this universe, but change can manifest in many different ways. I realized that if I wanted to see a better world, I needed to work on myself too.

It’s easy to focus on the flaws of others and obsessively call out the corrupt and unethical paradigm we live under. It’s much harder to focus on yourself and your own personal shortcomings. I realized that I, and many others, were too busy being outraged to see how our own individual actions were contributing to the increasing madness around us. Looking for an outside political or corporate savior to our problems is an insane approach and will lead to nothing good. We need to take personal responsibility for our actions and consciousness if we want to take the next step forward in our evolution as a species. Each and every one of us has a greater impact than we recognize on the world around us every single day with each and every interaction we have with one another.

This understanding was extremely freeing to me professionally and personally. I no longer felt intense pressure to constantly publish and get people outraged. When you accept that the greatest impact the vast majority of us can have on society at large is via our everyday actions, you become extremely empowered. The system is designed to make us feel powerless, to divide us against one another, and to convince us of the fantasy that a political party or cult of personality leader will solve all of our problems. As long as we continue to believe this myth, we’ll remain stuck in the same old pattern of manipulation, domination and destruction.

As such, I spent a lot of time this year writing about the empowering forces of decentralization that have begun to sweep across the planet. Although I covered this topic in prior years, it took on an added degree of urgency in 2017, as it became obvious that our current institutions and forms of government had completely and totally failed.

The post WW2 paradigm is clearly coming to an end, therefore my focus started to turn toward what might come next. I’ve become convinced that virtually everything will become increasingly decentralized going forward as we transition away from dominator hierarchies to networks. Information, money and even governance itself is likely to become radically decentralized in the decades ahead. Centralization was increasingly embraced in the West over the past several decades, but I suspect this trend will reverse forcefully going forward. The two most important components to radically decentralize already exist: Technology and will. 

Here’s a little of what I noted in the piece, The Future Will Be Decentralized:

Which brings me to a point about the ability of governments and institutions to do whatever they want. Many people seem to think that because governments have guns and the threat of imprisonment, they can therefore do whatever they want at any given time. I do not accept this premise, and think a lot of the most dreadful things that happen around us are allowed to happen because we collectively put up with it. In other words, our collective consciousness resides in such a low state, we allow ourselves to be bullied and coerced into a state of degraded submissiveness.

If the power structure didn’t actually care about what we thought, why would they put so much effort into propagandizing us; into making us feel so powerless and fearful? The reason is because narrative is everything, and the public must be molded and manipulated in a certain way in order to keep us submissive. Once enough of us say we’ve had enough, then the game is over. That’s how you get progress, and that’s exactly what has happened with drug laws in certain states.

Finally, let’s move on to Bitcoin, and crypto currencies in general, which represent one of the most disruptive decentralizing forces the world has ever seen. Any student of money and history understands that there really is no greater power than the power to create and distribute money at will. Our supposedly sophisticated societies entrust this awesome power to central bankers, which in turn enrich the financial sector at the expense of everyone else. The unethical theft inherent in this system was exposed for everyone to see during the 2008 crisis, as the criminals were bailed out and rewarded while everyone else was kicked to the curb. Bitcoin came about shortly after, and has captured the imagination of tens of millions around the world ever since.

This provides a perfect segue into the final part of this piece; namely, a brief discussion about the explosion of Bitcoin and crypto assets into humanity’s collective consciousness over the past year.

Although Bitcoin had a moment in the mainstream spotlight back in 2013 when it went on its last massive run, what happened in 2017 was orders of magnitude more significant. First, a distinct crypto asset named Ethereum and an associated ICO boom added an entirely new element to the ecosystem, and brought a new wave of bright, motivated young people into the space. As soon as I saw what was happening, I wrote about it in the May piece: A New Financial System is Being Born.

While the spectacular run in the Ethereum price and its concurrent ICO boom consumed much of the spotlight in the first half of the year, Bitcoin stole the show over the past six months. Everybody with a heartbeat is aware of it now, and there seem to be as many opinions (mostly uniformed) on the phenomenon as people. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be alive, and I think the explosion in popularity of crypto assets in 2017 was partly rooted in a deep desire and drive to transition toward something revolutionary and distinct in the realm of finance and money. Increasing numbers of us, especially younger generations, aren’t interested in preserving what exists, but want to create something entirely new. We are in the very early stages of an absolutely monumental transition in how human affairs are conducted on this planet, and Bitcoin is just one manifestation of this.

As we head into 2018, I’ll continue to focus on personal reflection and a dedication to sharing with readers my observations on the historical opportunities presented by such a dynamic and fluid time. This means I’ll publish less often than in years past, as I dedicate myself to quality over quantity. As such, the traditional revenue model of chasing clicks for ad revenue won’t be viable for Liberty Blitzkrieg going forward, and is why I shifted toward a donation/patron model earlier this year.

I suppose it’s normal in this line of work, but every so often I question whether it’s worth my time to continue writing in this manner. Voluntary donations from readers help prove to me that my work is valued enough to keep doing it, so I’d like to offer a special thanks to everyone generous enough to contribute over the course of 2017 and in years past. I see each gesture of support, irrespective of how large or small, as a offering of encouragement and appreciation for my efforts.

The years ahead will be characterized by a historic clash between the old, dying paradigm and what lies ahead. I’m optimistic that we have both the tools and desire to decentralize the planet and evolve as a species. I’m honored and excited to be on this journey with all of you.

Here’s to a joyous, healthy and conscious 2018 and beyond.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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