Cancel Yourself

At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything? If the United States of America is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban-industrial world as it will be a few years from now — recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censor­ship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that govern­ment of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising. “Free as a bird,” we say, and envy the winged creatures for their power of unrestricted movement in all the three dimensions. But, alas, we forget the dodo. Any bird that has learned how to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. Something analogous is true of human beings. If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone — or at least by bread and circuses alone.

Take the right to vote. In principle it is a great privilege. In practice as recent history has repeatedly shown the right to vote by itself is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum break up modern society’s merely func­tional collectives into self-governing voluntarily cooperating groups capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Govern­ment.

– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958

This isn’t how I intended to return to writing. There was supposed to be a new website and a new focus, but circumstances emerged and laid waste to my plans. So here I am, back again. I’m a bit rusty so bear with me.

There’s no reason to rehash what happened over the last several days, but the gist of it is that significant components of internet infrastructure were weaponized for ideological and political purposes. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we all knew this day was coming. We just didn’t want to admit it or confront it, because it’s not a comforting or easy thing to admit or confront. But the day has arrived and we’re no longer in a position to ignore it. The most concerning aspect isn’t that it happened, but that it could happen at all. The internet is clearly broken, possibly dying, and if we want to digitally associate freely again at some point in the future, we have no choice but to fix it.

Although I have no team in the parochial political fight, I’ve chosen one in the broader ideological battle. The wielding of such concentrated and unaccountable power over human communication has crossed a very serious line and sets us up for a future world I’m uninterested in participating in. As such, we have no choice but to confront the issue head on.

People who think this is about Trump for me are the most ridiculous people. I never voted for him, supported him or took him seriously. While I recognize the role he played in the greater scheme of this massive historical cycle, the best thing that can happen is for him to disappear as a political force and be understood as the spectacle and distraction he was. I’m not here to lecture anyone about who they voted for, but I’m here to connect with people of all political persuasions ready to become serious and admit that a real strategy is needed to address the unaccountable power of the national security state oligarchy. Conventional political avenues are a dead end at this point.

I recognize that tens of millions of frustrated, angry and concerned minds are trying to make sense of it all and reorient themselves. This presents a giant opportunity, but also very real danger. All the emotion being felt currently can be channeled into negative avenues such as violence, aimless spectacles, Trump martyrdom or a futile search for the next political savior guaranteed to disappoint, or it can be channeled in productive ways. That’s why I’m here writing this post at this moment. Enough people are finally motivated to respond, but what really matters is the nature of this response. The dominant aggregate reaction is what will determine the future.

Most of us eagerly, or more likely lazily, embraced the current insipid and dull paradigm in the name of convenience, low prices, and free shipping, but we never stopped to consider the sacrifices made along the way. We swallowed it whole, became comfortable fat and happy, and now the facade’s about to be slowly stripped away unless we bend the knee to an ever narrowing Overton Window of speech and behavior parameters. It begins with social media purges, but it won’t end there. All the special things we sacrificed from the prior era are gone, yet the consequences are here to stay. We can’t run and hide hoping to be the last one hauled off to the abattoir. It’s time to step up.

In this regard, I have a simple suggestion. Cancel Yourself. Unshackle yourself mentally from our suffocating and bland corporate culture while you still have a chance to do it voluntarily. Cancel yourself before they have a chance to cancel you. In this there is power. You’re taking charge and acting proactively as opposed to reacting. We need to play the game on our own terms, because the game’s coming for us either way. If you were a Trump supporter, forget about him. If you held your nose and voted for Biden, don’t expect anything good. If you’re a Sanders supporter, forget it, he’s done. Most importantly, don’t waste time and energy thinking about 2024 and who might run. A lot of really bad stuff can happen between now and then and there may not be much of a country left at that point. Focus on today and focus on what you’re willing to do personally in the near-term.

Once you’ve made the decision to preemptively cancel yourself, start thinking about specific steps you’re willing or able to take from there. Personally, this has been a 10 year+ journey that began when I quit my lucrative Wall Street job and left New York City permanently. It then expanded to public writing, cultivating a social media presence, and developing a passion for gardening. While all these actions brought me to where I am, the biggest realization I had along the way was that I need to focus most of my energy on the things I can control and my own state of consciousness.

The future won’t be determined by whether or not there’s a response, because there’s always some sort of response. What matters most is the specific nature of humanity’s dominant response. Will it be a frothing, violence soaked reptilian reaction, or will it be intelligent, wise, conscious and asymmetric. If we confront the national security state oligarchy by conventional means, we’ll end up with another conventional world, and one that’s potentially worse than this one. If we want something fundamentally distinct and better, we had better respond thoughtfully. Rejecting a tepid paradigm is an important first step, but it does not in itself guarantee a better one. The ends don’t justify the means, the means are everything.

This post has been mostly theoretical and philosophical thus far, so let’s shift gears and get practical. The world we’ve become so dependent on is quickly being turned against anyone who refuses to conform to what amounts to some mangled form of corporate sanctioned, woke imperialism. If you don’t acquiesce fully you’ll be removed eventually. The primary form of leverage being used to bend us into submission are the corporate tools and services we’ve become so dependent on, most explicitly big tech, but increasingly internet infrastructure more broadly. They think they’ve got us trapped via our dependence on these conveniences and addictions, but do they really? What can we do in response?

When thinking about this, it makes sense to look at Bitcoin for some guidance. What first got me involved nearly a decade ago was a keen understanding of how a digital world dominated by centralized digital currencies could be easily weaponized against the entire planet. As such, I and countless others around the world have embraced this revolutionary protocol governed by rules, not rulers. A means of sending value across the planet digitally that’s permissionless, peer-to-peer, decentralized and censorship resistant. There’s no CEO, no one individual human to coerce or pressure in order to change the rules. It’s a politically neutral global money in a world becoming overwhelmed with a willingness to use centralized technological services and hardware for political ends. An oasis in a desert of topdown control. So what can we learn from Bitcoin?

For starters, no one can stop you from sending bitcoin to whoever you want, which is the same sort of principle needed for online communication. Unpopular or even tasteless opinions are not a crime, but we’ve allowed tech oligarchs to act as judge and jury based on their own whims or political calculations. Even worse, they do this after having corralled everyone into their platforms by falsely claiming they served as public squares for free human expression. It’s been a gigantic bait and switch, and the lesson here is to never again rely on individuals to determine something as important as the acceptable parameters of human communication.

Which brings us to the crux of this post. The internet in its current form is dying — it has been for some time, — yet it is far from dead. We all continue to use our Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon products even though we know we shouldn’t. We’ve all become hostages to convenience and now an omnipresent sword of cancel culture hangs over our collective heads. As such, we have some important decisions to make. We can choose to constantly alter our minds and speech to conform to a growing mob of ridiculousness, or we can fix the internet itself.

As someone who’s in the process of preemptively canceling himself, I have little choice in the matter. We’re either going to transition to a decentralized, peer-to-peer internet, aka web 3.0, or the entire thing’s gonna become a sterile Potemkin Village of woke corporate imperialism and national security state talking points. I’m optimistic when it comes to the emergence of web 3.0 for several reasons, but mainly because I don’t think it’s plausible to give humanity freedom of expression via the web for a couple of decades and then just remove it for good and turn it into television. This doesn’t mean the transition will be quick or easy, but I do believe it’s probably inevitable.

If you’re on board with most of what’s been laid out here and are comfortable with canceling yourself, at least symbolically, the next choice you need to make is to determine what you can do to help usher in a different kind of paradigm. Each individual has different skills, temperaments, circumstances and commitments, so what degree of action one takes is a deeply personal decision. All I ask is that you think about how you can contribute to the goal of a more voluntary, decentralized, peaceful, conscious, cooperative, community-centered and networked world and how much time and energy you’re realistically willing to give the effort. Voting isn’t going to do it, we need direct action from millions upon millions of humans around the world.

In addition to the steps I’ve already taken in the past decade, there are several additional actions I’m committing myself to. First, given my determination that web 3.0 is critical to the future of human progress, I’ve committed myself in 2021 to getting up to speed on some of the most promising privacy and peer-to-peer technologies currently in existence, software and hardware alike. Although I don’t have the skillset to add to such projects, I do have the capacity to experiment with them and assess how far along we are and what needs to be done.

From what I know so far, there’s a lot of brainpower working on a multitude of different projects, but it’s unclear how far along and how user friendly they are. The reason this particular avenue is interesting to me is not just because it’s become increasingly necessary, but because we now have a critical mass of people ready to leave the centralized big tech products and services, but this won’t happen until web 3.0 is ready to onboard the average human relatively seamlessly. My objective is to determine how far along we are in this regard.

Beyond that, the recent decisions made by Twitter and big tech generally have once again driven the point home that it’s not wise for me to post all of my thoughts via such platforms, which was a motivating factor for spontaneously writing today’s post. I’ll continue to use Twitter because that’s how I’m able to reach the largest audience for now, but I have one foot out the door.

The next thing on my agenda is to step up efforts to launch a new website that more accurately reflects a new focus, which is not to convince, but to offer inspiration and suggestions about how we move forward as individuals and as a human race. That said, I won’t make any promises about how often I’ll be writing, because I have no idea. It’ll depend on a lot of things, including how well this post is received and how inspired I am to publish at any given moment. When I have something I really want to say I’ll write, and when I don’t, I won’t.

The big final request here for readers wanting to stay abreast of my work is to sign up for the email list (signup box found near the top right of the desktop version, and at the bottom of the mobile site). If I get canceled from Twitter, it’ll be much harder to reach out unless I have your email. Email lists have become very important once again.

As always, if you appreciated this and want to donate to my efforts, here’s how you can contribute: Support Page.

Michael Krieger

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62 thoughts on “Cancel Yourself”

  1. Thank youfor that.
    This is exactly how i feel…
    So speeking of getting up to speed on some of the most promising privacy and peer-to-peer technologies currently in existence, and of the Internet 3.0, take a look at the Theta Token… thetalabs.com.

    Reply
  2. So glad with your post. Welcome back.
    World needs to change. You’ve inspired me, now I’m a doctor and a writer. Trying to convince the sheeple ain’t easy.

    There is a beer with your name on it in the Netherlands.

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  3. Ditto… agree with entire post, especially the non-partisan aspect. We have to drop our ‘colors’, give up the pleasures of war/hatred, and gather where the Truth is (usually somewhere in the middle), and work together. (Actually, ‘cooperation’ triggers our pleasure centers 🙂 .. no wonder they want us far apart!)

    The Grange motto: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, freedom; in all things, charity.”

    I’m already on your mail list.. do I have to re-up? So glad your ‘here’, Michael.

    (BTW, re: potential 3rd party. Sanders has shown it wouldn’t need the oligarchs; many folks are no longer led by MSM; Pike & Gilens have shown ‘we’ have no representation, etc, etc – just a thought )

    And, as gardener w/ chickens :), I’ve seen, since last spring, baby chicks sell out fast; many seeds are ‘out of stock’, rural land prices rising, etc, etc. Grab it now … seeds and tools are ‘priceless’ 🙂

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  4. Thank you Mike. This have me a lot to think about and plenty of individual actions to take. I am optimistic we’ll figure our way through this, but the opposition has declared their intentions in the open. Game on.

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  5. This is the only way. Because indulging in anger is just what the petty tyrant wants you to do.

    Calmly maintaining control of what each of us does day to day on our terms cuts off their power source.

    “Anyone who joins the petty tyrant is defeated. To act in anger, without control and discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be defeated.”

    – Don Juan Matus (“The Fire Within”)

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  6. Great article Michael. Welcome back. Even if it’s somewhat reluctantly.
    I agree with your premise that the future will be local, distributed, and lower tech. When the weather gets warmer we should find an outdoor place in Boulder to share a beverage and chat about Web3.0
    Have you started investigating Holochain yet? It’s truly distributed internet with no servers and no miners. I can send you some links thru twitter to get you started. Same user name there.

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    • I second looking into Holochain more. It’s the p2p project that is really thinking about and building a new paradigm for distributed apps.

  7. Thank you for your post Mike. It is a great inspiration and will definitely re-read in the coming days. I hope your next writing will not be in six months.

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  8. Bravo. I’m all ears. Gen-X Mom here. No tech skills, but the desire to be connected with your ideas and inspiration as you help light the way. Hope I’ll find a niche in the better way forward you’ve imagined, to help even if it’s not as a builder, but with a shoulder to the wheel to get us there.

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  9. Sound like a plan. Not sure if it’s a solid plan. I see no mention of God. For your plan to work you still have to believe big tec will allow you to communicate your messages, have access to bitcoin of anything else. As we have recently seen just a flip of a switch or a stroke of a few keys on the keyboard and it is gone.

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    • agreed. the real danger is assuming the internet will be there for
      all to enjoy. one question…. what product are you using to access
      this? apple or microflacid?

  10. Worthwhile considerations. We may have a very bleak and dangerous future based upon our most recent electoral experience. Most people are not aware of the more “occult” aspects of our governance and thus do not recognize the danger that lies in wait. … Should Trump not find a way to retain his office (some “rumors” say that he and key Generals have a plan to be executed shortly) we may experience a most nasty version of Communism/Socialism because TPTsB intend to change drastically the entire world, and it won’t be good for the average citizen, even those that might survive, and the latter I do not intend to be. … but then, who is to say that the now relative “white-hats” (Trump an crew) will not have a plan of their own to effect much the same for us, after all, at the top realm of hidden money power the goals are probably more alike than different, they just take the two approaches in their “divide and conquer” controlling of us all … but as it stands, as far as I know, give me Trump any day. At the moment I think that Capitalism is the better choice of the two. The devil you know may be better than the one you do not yet know. IMnsHO and E of 81 yrs so far.

    Reply
    • Really? Still into the Q talk at this late date? Do yourself a favor and unplug from that insanity. Delusion is not the path forward, nor is Trump (or any US politician) your savior.

    • Reply to the repliers … gee, thanks for the “kind” thoughts … I only offered mine with good intention … I suppose that you two have a “better” possibility?

      Sure, I could come up with better myself, better to “my” way of thinking, but then based upon your response so far, I would be wasting my time here, you cannot tell anything to those that think they already know everything.

      Try this then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M_Ys1rJdzQ
      But I seriously doubt that you are up to speed enough to appreciate …

  11. I cancelled myself long ago. I’m no longer a registered voter. I don’t vote, haven’t voted for more than a decade, and don’t care.
    I’m not on Twitter and have only read posts there over the past few weeks because links lead me to it.
    I’m not on Facebook, haven’t been for 15+ years.
    I truly believe Google is one of the most evil entities on the planet.
    I don’t use a smartphone, and my flip phone is almost always off.
    I use the internet, but do so with hesitation.
    I live by the bartender’s creed: Never discuss sports, religion or politics.
    I spent 25+ years overseas, am now unfortunately back in the states (unfortunate because I don’t have the freedom to leave due to travel restrictions). The things I dislike most about returning is that America has lost its sense of humor, and everyone is trying to tell everyone else how to live (what to do, where to go, what to think, who to vote for, what to eat, what to believe, what to buy & where to buy it, how to dress……ad nauseum).
    What happened to the concepts of freedom (of choice, of thought, of expression)?
    Where is acceptance?
    Where’s tolerance?
    Diversity? ……of WHAT?
    Frank Zappa said, “The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.” I live by that.
    The only conflict in my life is within: a struggle between a desire for activism, and the comfort of apathy.
    Some people open their mouths, others open their minds.

    Reply
    • “What happened to the concepts of freedom (of choice, of thought, of expression)?
      Where is acceptance?
      Where’s tolerance?”

      That’s the double-edged sword of disconnecting from the (online) public square. While we are not engaged there is less to check the advancement of those seeking to destroy those ideals.

  12. Check out the user forum at safenetforum.org. A Scottish company called Maidsafe is building a peer-to-peer decentralized internet. They seem to be closr to something big.

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  13. Great piece, well said, and great way to channel all this energy toward positive change.

    Have you checked out Aragon? https://aragon.org/
    Anyone can build decentralized organizations, and governance structures including blockchain based voting.

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  14. I didn’t realise it at the beginning but the further I read the more I felt in agreement.
    We ‘know’ what one of the gravest problems is, that of the integrity of money being hijacked and distorted.
    We are lucky in a sense to have come across a trustless alternative as you correctly point out which is blockchain.
    Of course it will become predominant the question is how much can we avoid the establishment insiders from taking it over and ruining it for the majority as they have done with government fiat every single time.
    I too have been canceling myself and foresee the end of FB IG etc within a relatively short timeframe due to blockchain technology and the ability of a person to maintain ownership over their own content through a common protocol as opposed to now where FB and IG command complete control.
    Initially I made some probe attempts to test the waters as to the prevailing mindset amongst my peers through social media but found that by and large the media and its content creators have been too powerful and that those I held hope for are not able to think objectively or with adequate reason.
    Like you I am studying all blockchain technology both to be able to remove myself and find alternatives for the propaganda machine and also to help provide part of a better and more hopeful social fabric for the future

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  15. Thanks for this piece, and for the Matt Odell link (great resource). I have thought a lot in the last couple of years about how it ought to be possible to build a decentralized Internet, and now the need has arrived at our very doorsteps. But if it is successful and threatens the power structure, the next thing we’ll see is something like those radio-finder trucks you see in the WWII movies driving around on the street to identify and shutdown all transmitters.

    I’ve been slowly moving to a PAID Protonmail account off Gmail, and pulling down my hundreds of product reviews (mostly book reviews) from Amazon and deleting them. I wrote a lot of good stuff that is helping them sell product, and I don’t want to do that any more. I think much of it is genuinely useful to buyers and I hate to take it away from them, so I’ll have to find other sellers interested in having the content (no charge, of course).

    In retrospect, I think we got hooked on having all these digital services for free (yeah, “free”), and now here we are, hostages to “free.”

    Get used to paying for services again so you can once more become The Customer instead of The Product.

    If you can afford to, be willing to pay a little more for what you buy so the little guys have some oxygen in the marketplace.

    Do what those suffocating you are doing, and patronize ordinary people with smallish businesses who share your values, instead of big corporations who virtue-signal. Each of those big companies made a business decision, which was that pandering to the loud but actually not so big mob wouldn’t cost them anything, because the rest of us would continue to buy their stuff and use their services anyway–because it was cheap and there was enough friction in making a change that most people wouldn’t do it.

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  16. Really enjoyed your post! I’m a flexible conservative-libertarian who voted for Trump in 2016, and threw my ballot in the trash last fall for 2020-emotional protection! I knew the shitshow was incoming! I’ve never joined FB and quit Twatter after the Purge began. I don’t miss it clogging my email actually! I can’t really afford BTC now I’m a precious metals guy, but I’ve learned we’re all on the same anti-fiat team! Looking forward to your suggestions as to how we continue to proceed forward…..cheers mate!

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  17. I’ve been using Signal for some years, and since Elon Musks tweet lots of my contacts heve joined. Can I shout out for any ‘buy local’ campaigns too…. Support your own community first.

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  18. This — “a real strategy is needed to address the unaccountable power of the national security state oligarchy” — should absolutely be our top priority moving forward.

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  19. Thank you Mike. I was hoping you would be back and wondered: If not now, when?

    I wanted to raise two things just in case you were not aware of one or both:

    (1) Tulsi Gabbard has launched a community on the Locals app. I raise this for two reasons: (a) because I am intrigued by the possibilities of Locals as a platform for interaction and community building and (b) because even though I agree with you that putting all our hope into the basket of any given politician is a long-shot at best, I do have tremendous respect for Tulsi and it does seem like she has started to lay the groundwork for a political movement grounded in rights like freedom from censorship. Who knows where this will go, but having a focal point for what will hopefully be a groundswell of public discontent as the world goes mad may be extremely helpful.

    It seems to me that she is likely to need more infrastructure than Locals can provide on its own, but we will see how things unfold.

    2) I wanted to flag for you a conversation between Max Keiser and Daniela Cambone (via her Stansberry Research videos) from Dec 23rd.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9L4yLPBqDI&t=2s

    In particular, I was interested in Max’s characterization of the unfolding dynamic between Bitcoin and the world’s central banks, and where this could end up going.

    If Max is even close to right, then the implications for the political landscape around the world are far-reaching, I think. If you’re interested, I’d love to talk more about this off-line.

    It’s good to have you back.

    It’s a distressing time.

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  20. Some people can enter the digital new world more easily than others. I’ve been extricating myself from the old one slowly. The internet as we’ve known it is gone. It used to feel like a friendly place, but now it’s mostly disinformation and hostility. In case anyone’s interested, here’s The Comprehensive Guide to Quitting Google. I’m keeping my Google account for the time being because it’s convenient, but taking the initial steps outlined in this article in preparation for the big day. https://lifehacker.com/the-comprehensive-guide-to-quitting-google-1830001964

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  21. They say bad things happen when good people say nothing. So it is good to see you back. I hope that comes across as a positive!

    You have highlighted that ordinarily it is quite a long process to disengage or change habits of a lifetime, but as Michael Saylor learnt, you can make big changes fast in a “war situation”.

    Here in Spain we were 3 years down the path of regenerative agriculture / disengaging from the mainstream, annoying my family with repeated calls to dump Amazon… and thinking we were moving quite fast and diligently and ahead of the game somewhat. But in 2020 we got a really rude awakening.

    In Jan/Feb time Storm Gloria broke hundreds of olive trees, then just as we started repairing and pruning them we were plunged into a really punishing lockdown, not like the pretend shams of many other countries. 70% of the broken trees remained untouched. Our olive harvest this year was a fraction of what was expected. We have stocks of oil so we are alright but we saw just how a few events could put us in the ditch if we weren’t tuned into the potential for the worst case scenarios to happen right now, unexpectedly. And in the middle of an earnest push to finish a small holding, we get the biggest dump of snow in 50 years, everything on hold for another month and so it goes on.

    During that lockdown I started thinking in terms of Bitcoin and Food. You of all people would get it. Bitcoin protects your wealth but you cannot eat crypto. And you cannot claim to be sovereign unless you grow your own food. And if you lose your income stream, if you have Bitcoin you have collateral to make sure you aren’t crushed immediately by short term financial disaster.

    I am sure that we already have the infrastructure right here to effect change at a national or global scale, the Bitcoin blockchain is the foundation. I am totally convinced by the transformative powers of Bitcoin. It isn’t just money, it doesn’t even stop at the potential for digital gold as a store of wealth. It has the power to turn greed into altruism and bring disparate everyday people together for the common localised good.

    For me this is not academic theory. I am living it with dirt under my nails, while trying to lay the groundwork for a network with locals who see the problems unfolding, but don’t have Bitcoin.

    Anyway, this isn’t about teaching you to suck eggs. Bitcoin can be the driver of a decentralised new order, but that new order may not be as great as we anticipate.

    To find out how far down the track to enlightenment Bitcoiners really are, is there a way I can send you the transcript of an interview I have compiled that could serve as a starting point of a format to confront Bitcoin hodlers, especially the corporate whales? (You talk their language, I don’t!)

    It would be better to know sooner rather than later if maximalists see their stake in Bitcoin as a force for good, the driver of a widespread Renaissance 2.0, or is Bitcoin just the perfect collateral to backstop a neo-elite multi level financial system with no intention of grasping the nettle of real change in politics and the big one for anyone with the wind in their ears every day, climate change.

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  22. You refer to aa broken internet, and long for the opportunity to digitally freely associate, without censorship (regardless of the putative censoring agent) or fear of penalty. Sorry, but we lost that fight long ago, when we lost the right to freely associate in physical life.

    Free to dispose of your property to whom and in what way you choose? Nope. Free to hire associates using any qualifications (or absence thereof) you deem required? Nope. Free to enjoy the company of others of like mind in a private lub without interference or penalty? Nope. Free to publish that which you find worthy, depending on the freely made choice of purchasers to determine how widely the material is read or otherwise used? Nope. Free to celebrate a given heritage in any way you like? Not so much.

    I could go on. The internet is not the problem, and neither are Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. The problem is that we, the people, have failed to protect our rights and now find our wings entirely clipped. Like other non flying fowl, we are headed into the pot. We don’t deserve pity or quarter. We should expect neither.

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  23. Michael, you and I are on the same page. This is what we have to focus on right now, a decentralized bitcoin-like Web 3.0. The only way we can get out of the corporate-high tech vice is by making millions of personal computers around the world the basis for a network of peer to peer. It will be a much bigger challenge than Bitcoin for the simple fact that much higher storage of data will be needed. Photos and text based will be doable fairly quickly but adding a youtube like video of peer to peer will be a tremendous challenge. Just imagine the amount of data storage Google employs to host the humongous amount of videos on youtube. Can this same system be deployed and spread on millions of personal computers. Maybe.

    The point is that any alternatives to twitter, facebook and youtube where a person or committee runs it and is on a very few servers or mirrors is an easy target for the high-tech/government to destroy and to threaten. Like bitcoin a peer to peer new internet where data hosting is spread out to millions of computers would be impossible to destroy and where speech would be free, permissionless and censorship resistant.

    I think your new website can be a lightning rod for attracting all people, regardless of political persuasion. This is where, I believe, your new website should primarily focus on, peer to peer Web 3.0. Michael just imagine attracting a diverse set of personalities such as Max Keiser, Trump MAGA people, Alex Jones, Rudolph Guiliani and people on the true left such as Jimmy Dore, George Galloway, Chris Hedges and thousands more. Believe me the Democrat controlled Congress and their allies in Big Tech are going after the Trump supporters now but they will have their knives ready for the true left fairly soon so a unity and working together on an open peer to peer Web 3.0 can gather very wide and diverse forces. I definitely would like to work with you on this. This has my calling. I’m sure that we will succeed. Our future is not one of slavery I can tell you that.

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  24. Holy moly what a time to be alive! I’m part of a large surfing community in Southern California and I’d say a great percentage of them don’t buy the MSM narrative. It gives me hope.

    So thank you Michael for coming back. You’re much needed.

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  25. Thanks Michael. Well thought out and a good starting point for us all. I have shared this and hope the idea continues to grow. We can’t let voices of different opinions be canceled by those who think they know better. Keep on writing and sharing.

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  26. Well articulated. I think for now people in the US would do well to drop the politics and get practical if they have not already. That Catherine Austin Fitts style, and yourself, forming community and covering you basic needs movement as a wall against centralizing power and negative consequences all around. (I live on an ashram in Fiji; remember Naropa?). The WWWeb idea is addictive, but just go local and low tech for now, with others, while exploring and providing for the manifestation of the web 3.0 future Michael you suggest. Certainly in Boulder there will be like minded folks who want to organize and form intimate community (the real basis for government anyway) in a physical architecture (the Front Range of Colorado) that is not designed for community. God Bless http://www.da-peace.org

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  27. Thank you Michael this is exactly what I needed, some inspiration about how to be for something rather than just angry and mad and against so much of what is happening! I am very interested in hearing your continuing thoughts about how we can pursue the decentralized, more humanized world that we need in the midst of this concentrated, corporatized mess.

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  28. It’s great to have you back, Michael. You’ve been missed.
    When friends first encouraged me to sign up for Facebook back in the day, I took one look at the personal data I was expected to provide and said “Sorry, I won’t be doing that.” I’ve also never been on Twitter, and haven’t used Google in a decade or so. Ditto for Youtube and the rest.
    Somehow I survive. I’ve been living overseas for nearly ten years now, and have no plans to return.

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  29. Please allow me to encourage you to start that website. In manufacturing (or entrepreneurship) there is the term ‘Minimum Viable Product’. Please consider that mindset when it comes to your new website and/or writings. Polish and perfection can come later on in the process.
    Btw, I prefer to use the term ‘decouple’, rather than ‘cancel’. And yes, I think decoupling is a very good idea. And maybe a mindset, first and foremost.

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  30. Thanks for your post and will sign up for the posts, but can we PLEASE stop with the seemingly obligatory “I didn’t vote for or support Trump” comments. If you voted for Clinton, GWB, Obama or even Reagan for that matter, then you didn’t know any better than any of the people who voted for Trump. So, just stop, already with bashing him if you aren’t going to do the same with the politicos who willingly sold our collective souls over the last many decades. Ok?

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    • To be clear, I didn’t vote for president at all in 2020. Voting for presidents is pointless theater.

      And I have a long history of writing and bashing all politicians with equal vigor.

  31. I believe there is a technology for crypto chain communication.
    Would possibly prevent communication from being block.
    Alternately there is email communication.

    The punishment will continue until morale improves.
    How many populist movements have been crushed and leaders jailed or threatened?
    They are not playing. People need to be smart – not saying or doing pointless, stupid thinks. The NSA god project is watching and never forgets. This is the real deal – repression.

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  32. Thank you Michael. In the midst of the pace of the move toward more control we witnessing your article has provided hope for a free er future…but is on us

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  33. Sorry, folks. The only way to ‘cancel’ yourself from the internet is to STOP USING THE INTERNET. What good does it do to simply change the app you’re using?

    THEY are still monitoring your actions.

    THEY are still tracking your every move.

    THEY are still recording everything you say, do and write.

    And this will continue – no matter what you do – as long as you do it electronically.

    Bitcoin? Sorry. There is a reason virtually every commercial & central bank in the world has embraced crypto currency lately. Someday we will wake up and Bitcoin (and every other crypto currency out there) will be outlawed. The banks will roll their own version out and we will be well and truly screwed at that point.

    Blockchain? No. People believe it is anonymous. And it is to most people. But if you hold the keys – and the banks will – it is far from anonymous. This why the banks have embraced it.

    Peer to peer? While it may be more difficult to ‘cancel’ someone with this technology, believe me, you can still easily be tracked. And when THE DAY comes it will be a relatively easy excercise to simply turn the internet off for those people using peer to peer.

    You MUST understand that no matter what you do or how you do it, you leave digital tracks on the internet for those who know how to find them and have the tools to do so. So the only real and true way to ‘cancel’ yourself from the internet is to stop using it.

    Sorry, but this is where we are today.

    Reply

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