Global Networks Are Necessary to Overcome Abusive Governments and Oligarchy

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The world around us is changing at an incredible pace, and with such change come many pitfalls as well as immeasurable opportunities. At the same time, the more things change the more some things stay the same. For example, the most important issue humans will have to confront in the years ahead is the age old issue of concentrated power.

One of the most destructive side effects of the financial crisis and the corrupt official response to it, has been an even greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of some of the most unsavory characters planet earth has to offer. If we are to evolve and create a better paradigm, we’ll need to address this forcefully and thoughtfully.

I say thoughtfully, because what history has shown is that the typical response to a small group of crooked elites seizing all money and power is to launch a violent revolt that merely empowers another small group who said all the right things during their crusade, but then act as viciously and unethically as those they replaced once in power. This situation can and should be avoided at all costs. The idea isn’t to swap one group of rulers for another. We need to think about building a world defined by networks governed by rules, but with no rulers.

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I Don’t Want Your Leaders

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In 2017, I wrote a lot about how dangerously centralized our political system in the U.S. has become, and how we need to decentralize governance in order to restore power, liberty and policy experimentation to the local level. This notion that a sprawling and culturally diverse nation of 325 million individuals should constantly battle to the death over the ring of political power in Washington D.C. so as to impose their view on the other half of the country which completely disagrees is patently ludicrous. States, and even metro areas themselves, should be making most of the important decisions that impact their citizens’ lives on a day to day basis.

This isn’t complicated. People who live in Boulder, Colorado such as myself have a very distinct worldview on most things from the average resident of let’s say Houston, Texas. This isn’t to say one is superior to the other, we’re just talking generally different mindsets and cultures. The residents of these distinct places should be able to express themselves via policy in a way that most fits the desires and values reflective of these particular regions. While this does happen to some degree, all U.S. citizens are still beholden to the whims of centralized political power in Washington D.C. to a very unhealthy and dysfunctional degree.

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Bitcoin Isn’t the Bubble — The Global Financial System Is

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Last week, I was offered an opportunity to write an opinion piece for The Hill. I took advantage of the offer and put something together addressing the whole “is Bitcoin a bubble” debate, and I’m pleased to say it was published earlier this morning.

It’s important to me that I don’t just preach to the choir when it comes to my unconventional views, and I hope this will help me reach a wider and more mainstream audience.

Below are a couple brief excerpts from the piece, published in full at The Hill:

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Liberty Links 1/7/18

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If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit the Support Page. *Special Note: I was recently on a great panel chatting about Bitcoin and the crypto asset space in general. Link below. This week in Bitcoin- 1-5-2018- Return of the BTC! Ripple, Giacomo Zucco, Michael Krieger, K. Bosak … Read more

Jeff Sessions Just Demonstrated Why We Need to Decentralize Government

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Late last year, I wrote a series of posts where I highlighted three specific areas I thought the U.S. government might overreach and do something really stupid in 2018. Jeff Sessions didn’t waste any time making my first prediction look prescient.

Here’s an excerpt from that post, Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 1 (Cannabis):

Today’s topic is cannabis. This seems the least likely area for government action, specifically because it would be such a monumentally stupid move. That said, just because something’s idiotic doesn’t mean we should simply discount it, particularly with human fossil Jeff Sessions continuing to chirp on the issue every chance he gets.

If the Trump administration actually moves on this issue, we’ll know for sure how completely inept and desperate it is. Part of me almost wants to see them try, because the resulting monumental fail will demonstrate the power of the people and give a gigantic black eye to authoritarians in government.

Stuff like this is all part of the process we’ll be going through over the next few years, and we need to be mentally prepared for it. We the people will increasingly move to take sovereignty back in a variety of ways, and government will respond with panic. The good news is they’ll be reacting from a position of weakness, not strength.

Fast forward one month, and Jeff Sessions couldn’t help himself from doing something monumentally stupid and evil, both politically and ethically.

Here’s a brief summary of the changes from the AP:

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Welcome to 2018 – We Are All Connected

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To see a world in a grain of sand
And to see heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

– William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Over the course of 2017, I spent a lot of time detailing where we stand as a species and where I think we’re going. To summarize, I think the positive impact of the internet and social media on humanity is still very much in its infancy. The more connected we become to one another across the planet, the more we’ll realize we have far more in common with one another than we do with the sociopathic oligarchs and politicians in charge of our respective nation-states.

Much of the 20th century was defined by unimaginable human conflict and terror, unleashed upon the public by crazed elites and rulers who were able to successfully manipulate large populations. The key to preventing a repeat of this sort of thing in the 21st century is billions of human beings across the planet communicating and sharing friendship with one another to the point we can no longer be tricked in killing each other. We need to learn to see “the other” in ourselves and voluntarily collaborate with our fellow humans on the challenges that face us in order to bring our species to the next level. This isn’t just a pipe-dream or insane utopian ramblings, I think it’s entirely possible.

That said, the road could be long and some real disasters may lie ahead before we finally get our footing as a species. As far as I see it, there are several factors still preventing us from getting from point A to B. For one thing, leaders of nation-states throughout the world are almost always some of the worst individuals society has to offer. The types of people who aspire to, and generally attain political power, tend to be the most unconscious, power hungry, sociopathic characters around. That’s just how this stuff works.

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Liberty Links 12/30/17

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If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit the Support Page. Top Links Political Comedian Lee Camp: How to Create NPR’s Propaganda (Very important read, TruthDig) Russiagate Is Devolving Into an Effort to Stigmatize Dissent (The Nation) What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater (Caitlin … Read more

Reflections on 2017 – A Personal Journey

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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.

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A Dinner Conversation

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Dressed in red velvet, she trampled under her reckless feet the stray flowers fallen from other heads, and held out a salver to the two friends, with careless hands. The white arms stood out in bold relief against the velvet. Proud of her beauty; proud (who knows?) of her corruption, she stood like a queen of pleasure, like an incarnation of enjoyment; the enjoyment that comes of squandering the accumulations of three generations; that scoffs at its progenitors, and makes merry over a corpse; that will dissolve pearls and wreck thrones, turn old men into boys, and make young men prematurely old; enjoyment only possible to giants weary of their power, tormented by reflection, or for whom strife has become a plaything.

– Honore De Balzac, The Magic Skin

I don’t get out all that much these days, but last evening I had a really engaging and illuminating dinner conversation. In attendance was a 47-year old commercial real estate investor and fellow Boulder resident who I’ve become friends with, a 32-year old professional poker player looking to move here, and 28-year old tech startup founder. Although I hadn’t met the younger attendees before, it became immediately apparent that everyone in attendance was highly intelligent and very engaged with the world around them.

We discussed religion, philosophy, crypto assets, the importance of nature to humans, travel and more. That said, the reason I’m writing this post is due to some of the generational observations I came upon. It confirmed the overall thesis I discussed in detail within last month’s post, The Generational Wheels Are Turning.

Here are a couple of passages from that piece to refresh your memory:

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U.S. Border Crossings Have Become Authoritarian Testing Grounds

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Last week, my brother and his longterm girlfriend entered these United States at JFK international airport in New York City. She’s a Chinese citizen with a tourist (B1/B2 visa), which leads to many restrictions on when she’s allowed to enter and for how long. They are always meticulous about playing everything exactly by the book, and this time was no different. The only unusual thing about this latest episode is his girlfriend happened to encounter an authoritarian and power-tripping U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer, who pulled her into a room and immediately began berating her. He accused her of breaking the law (she hadn’t), and forced her to hand over her phone and divulge her password. After initially refusing to provide the password, the officer threatened deportation, at which point she relented. Entering the password for access to the phone wasn’t enough, he forced her to write it down on a piece of paper. The officer then proceeded to scroll through her phone for 15-20 minutes, looking for who knows what. My brother was separated from her during this time.

With his girlfriend still isolated in the room, the officer in question emerged and began barking at my brother to sit down in an extremely aggressive manner. The officer told him she had broken the law, at which point he assured him that she hadn’t. At this point, the officer became extremely agitated that a pleb had the nerve to challenge him, and lectured my brother about how he didn’t know the law, pointing out that he wasn’t an immigration lawyer so he couldn’t possibly know his rights. He then implied that the only reason someone would know their civil rights is if they’re a criminal with an intent to commit a crime. The officer also threatened to deport his girlfriend and deny her reentry for five years if my brother continued to challenge his false assertions. She was ultimately allowed to enter.

Many of you will read this and think her experience was a result of not being a U.S. citizen, but the truth is far more disturbing. The border is seen by the government as a civil rights-free zone where U.S. citizens are being increasingly treated like criminals and subject to the exact same sort of degrading abuse as my brother’s girlfriend. This is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, and this recent experience inspired me to do so today. Many of you have no idea how bad things already are.

One of the most disturbing and important articles I’ve read on the topic was published at Naked Capitalism a few months ago titled, Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU Sue Over Warrantless Phone, Laptop Searches at US Border.

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