Bitcoin, Technology, and Civilization. Pt 0/17

Becoming the Schelling point of Bitcoin high-tech industrialism

In late October, 2024, I came to certain conclusions about how, in principle, it would be possible to carry out work pertaining to technological advancement at the highest levels prior to hyperbitcoinization. This was a question I had pondered for years, having technologically trounced multiple “billion dollar” companies and beyond (often they would collapse out of having gone for the easy, low time preference technology that could only sustain a market bubble for so long), while facing the fiat bottleneck that constrained those operations to funding to related to the development of the world’s most advanced weapons. I declared my conclusion in the tweet below, and proceeded to write an extensive document on the nature of technological advancement, philosophies of engineering and scientific advancements, and the interplay of those events with finance and human action.

Although much has been written in these areas, mostly by more proficient writers than myself, these have largely been viewed either in isolation, or as simple reflections of the way financial markets today as if they are some natural backdrop akin to the laws of physics, rather than something that has shifted throughout the centuries and is now approaching an event horizon that will make the interaction of finance and technology rather different going forward. It is now only worth considering how things will work once that equilibrium is reached, or with explicit consideration of the peculiarities of late stage fiat where the effects of the singularity may seem to ripple backward in time.

It turns out a portion of my premise may have been incorrect. The part where I surmised there were certain sorts of people who exist in the world, and unfortunately, all 8 billion seem to have failed. Though it may seem I am quick to criticize, it must be recognized that I give high praise over and over again, quite foolishly so one might argue, by entertaining that there may exist a handful of people capable of doing a handful of basic things. In that sense, I am a definite optimist despite the repeated failures I am surrounded with — of course, if one imagines that the wealthiest fiat or bitcoin people feel rather poor and fragile, they could form a collective of mediocrity from which if no one defects, it would be very hard to notice the extent of their mediocrity — this is the belief in relativity. Yet this relativity is no more absurd than the communists who purport to believe in moral relativism. Absolute standards are real, as is one’s standing, and history will not take kindly to those who fall short, likely relegating entire generations to low status after the fact, but I digress.

Anyway, with yet another fiat failure, the bitcoin OGs, mostly still running the fiat firmware on their newly bitcoin brains as an arguable reasonable sustained adaptation to the fiat world that surrounds us, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to publish the long document I wrote. It ended up being a similar set of content to what I had previously envisioned might make for a worthwhile book I would entitle Bitcoin, Technology, and Civilization. Another way to observe what I am saying is correct despite obviously sounding a bit comical is how people and ideas coalesce in the real world that are less deeply tied to the rails of fiat thinking — I recently started working on a new defense company and I have never met my co-founder in person. He and I had connected over a shared and uncommon interest so the search space was actually quite small with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. He presented me with a new idea to which I was rather skeptical, but I took the leap to fund the initial R&D and after a few months, we figured out that he was correct. This is to say, if there were any serious people in the world who were actually interested in technological advancement, the connection between them and myself would have ocurred, so that this is all rather damning for the entire world is not quite so absurd as it may read, and yes, obviously I am well aware of how absurd and borderline theatrical the assertions are, but as we do have a cosmic tragedy on our hands, might as well at least get a chuckle out of it.

I used to think I was just some guy building a couple useful things and that since fiat doesn’t work, I would just have to wait it out until hyperbitcoinization until I could get back to work at full speed. You see, I only was able to make the strongest materials in the world because our CEO, myself, and our other co-founders were all around 20 at the time and we didn’t know just how poor we were (a bit like the meme of physics saying bumblebees cannot fly, but them flying anyway because they were not informed of this). Unfortunately, though there are other people who could be in a similar situation, none of them choose to be and none of them choose to recognize bitcoin is the bottleneck to technological advancement, which reveals a certain deep insincerity within their work. Again, if they existed, either from the aerospace/engineering side or on the bitcoin side, I would have come across them by now and the fact that I haven’t means there probably is no one else. So it is with some fervor, but greater sadness that I find myself with no choice, but to declare that I am the Schelling point of bitcoin high-tech industrialism.

What is such a Schelling point? It means that when bitcoiners stop feeling poor and ask themselves, “how can I rebuild civilization properly, which requires advancing technologies?” I end up being the answer, and the reason for that is by definition, to truly grasp what is needed to make the greatest advancements, one must understand bitcoin. It is not enough to myopically fixate on the particular engineering problem, even if it is a rather large scale endeavor, for ultimately, technology is only useful insomuch as it interacts with humans, which is modulated through human actions that are shaped by the properties of the monetary substrate. The objective truth of engineering is deeply wrong if it does not include this. So it is not even a question of how good the stuff I built is or how good my thinking was on technical solutions (and it has repeatedly proven superb), it is that it is combined with a deep understanding of bitcoin. I am late from the perspective of the OG, but you will have to excuse me — I was basically a child and distracted making the most advanced materials in the universe so I didn’t notice the money was broken right away. And I do mean universe as it is part of the universal path of certain objective maxima i.e. the class of approaches that sustain every local maxima, regardless of which planetary civilization does it.

Of course, bitcoin is also a Schelling point and here we are, living on the fiat standard of value. In fact, given the nature of adoption, we are 0% on a bitcoin standard of value and bitcoin doesn’t really do its thing until fiat is dead. It does some things independently of price, and it’s great that that has been around for a while now, but the fixing of literally everything for eternity is really the killer feature if you ask me.

Unlike bitcoin, I am mortal, so I could very easily die before anyone realizes I am the Schelling point. You know, I used to think my job was obviously the harder one. I mean, what do you think: is it easier to develop the capability to make the world’s most advanced thermostructural aerospace manufacturing/materials capabilities, which are shifting capabilities in the world’s most advanced weapons systems or the guy that goes "huh, that’s pretty neat, glad someone figured that out” — intuitively, the observer obviously has the much easier job, so the technologist might smile with bemusement when most billionaires fail to grasp it (and btw, this is part of the problem, fiat makes billionaires far to poor — when governments are no longer 40-50% of GDP, the billionaires will be far richer and more capable of intelligently observing things rather than being reactionary and fearful — perhaps I will better understand their fear when I am as old as the youngest 10% are now. Moreover, the fiat money manager phenomenon going away will make billionaires feel 10x richer, which they desperately need, and that’s before considering what bitcoin does). I am only realizing right now as I write this that my job is actually the easier one. I am operating on the level of objective physical reality, and I have read access. It is as if God were speaking to me, and all you are able to hear is my poor translation, and of course, as a mere man, how can you really know? You cannot trust, you must verify — but you are not a technologist, nor did you ever wish to be, so how can you verify? You cannot, and therein lies the problem. For if you were able to think through the things that allow you to confirm that a thing has been done, you would be the sort of person who would have done great technological things to begin with. Everything I ever did felt sort of obvious in a sort of sense, even when I was rather unsure of things, so my task is much easier. This is both good and bad, as one can immediately see how in the equilibrium, after a few centuries of real capitalism, a virtuous cycle ensues of capable people funding capable people, but if you have enough mediocrity from which no one defects, then you have sustained retardation, and everyone can pretend they are saving face and hide from the embarrasment they might otherwise feel if they confronted the truth. This is why many simply are degenerate gambling addicts running large scale fraud operations (e.g. shitcoiner) — these people are simply totally aimless.

The funny thing is I really mean it when I say it was obvious. I am not a great engineer, or even a good engineer by any number of metrics, I just seem to have rather good judgement, which is the domain of OG, or it will be.

So in light of the challenge you face, I sympathize. But again, this shit ain’t free fam, if you aren’t ready to do the work, just consume and hodl, for that is all you will be able do, consume and hodl. For 1000 years, your family will do nothing but consume and hodl. This will be your cultural value, consume and hodl. If you can do nothing today, nothing will change after 100x, consume and hodl. Maybe that is all you actually want and value in life, consume and hodl. Your “investments” when there is no more fiat will be akin to a hobby cupcake business with perpetual losses sustained by a woman’s husband or father (and btw, there is so much retardation in the world, a woman that chooses to not be retarded can vastly outperform men that do not make this choice). Consume and hodl. Do not invest, it is not for you. The real humbling bitcoin will do, for you, it will come later. Consume and hodl. 10,000 years if that’s what it takes, and maybe your stack can support 1 million descendants in great luxury, I wish them all very well, but consume and hodl.

Look, I am retarded for so staunchly fixating on absolute truth and nature of reality instead of capitulating to fiat. It is not out of any sort of virtue either, I do not claim to be virtuous, I claim to be retarded. It is very clear that certain things can occur when I a manage to do certain things e.g. “what are America’s strategic re-entry capabilities in light of things I have done?” [and btw, that sort of activity is what you allow to take YOUR place when you choose apathy] but it doesn’t mean I am not retarded. So please do not be offended if I point out that you are retarded. Is your retardation incurable like mine? I don’t think so. I think you can actually choose not to be retarded. You can choose to be among the few non-retarded billionaires and we know most will not. We know because the year is 2025 and most billionaires have most of their wealth outside of bitcoin so they are obviously mostly retarded (sidenote: I just remembered that this is probably gonna make some hard conversations harder as I don’t actually have clearance yet, but anticipate needing it next year or two… but just like I am asking you to not be retarded, I am cautiously optimistic America will be able to do the same when it comes to that particular thing). The thing is, bitcoiners can be retarded too. Shinobi has the best meme on this that I often return too. If you choose to not be retarded, then your defection can help speed up the world by perhaps 100 years, or maybe only 10, no one really knows.

Anyway, I’m gonna keep building crazy, bleeding edge shit regardless. I realized this week it’s sort of my therapy so I can’t stop even if it is deeply retarded in a fiat purchasing power return sense since I know the opportunity cost of having a low time preference now is incalculably high (I thought maybe I could get into alpinism, but I’m not gonna get past casual climbing or mountain biking). But this proof of work is what I will always have on you that you can’t take. Your bitcoin is fungible, but my work is part of the immortal in the chain of human civilization’s progression. If you’re a 1-2 digit billionaire maybe you will think about those things more when you are a 2-3 digit billionaire, and I hope you get there quickly. Also, take care of your health! I don’t want you dying on me suddenly the way Paul Allen did, that was unfortunate.

I'm thinking about going in the direction of a non-profit research institution for all my advanced materials & manufacturing tech in the queue.

Sort of, if I can't own it, fuck you if you think you can own me approach. I was never in it for the money anyway, and optimizing purely for returns destroys agency given the high time preference bias bitcoin imposes.

I will not be enslaved by the golden handcuffs of the business opportunities that will lead to enrichment for ever greater personal consumption -- optimizing for such comforts above all else is for women.

I suspect I will find a handful of other men who have been able to surpass their myopic impulses and recognize the correctness of this approach -- men who actually want to see great technologies materialize while they live -- unlike useless, fake institutions, it will sit on the boundary of the commerciality doctrine for non-profits as it will be an active player, producing and delivering that which others are slow to move on even if we open source various pieces.

The nature of all organizations is shifting, and this will be a novel one, funded mostly or entirely by bitcoiners. The ordinary corporation is legible and legibility is the foundation for governance i.e. control and capture. To avoid these detriments that reduce productive technological output, we will have to take a sly, roundabout approach.

I am putting together a detailed document about this and happy to chat with people who may have some interest in providing advice.
https://x.com/DeltaClimbs/status/1850598220453585289

Anyway, this prelude has dragged on long enough so the actual content of that document will begin in a post tomorrow sharing the executive summary thread, with each essay dropping every 1-3 days thereafter. It is no longer a pitch btw, as I have received the message and moved on to other things. Various words or sections may end up being redacted for the general publication. As usual, I often do not edit stuff I send to the DoD, so why would I bother polishing this stuff? Turning this into a well-written document seems like the sort of thing I might do as a retirement activity. Have you ever noticed that most of the people who write nicely don’t actually build stuff, in fact, most of the people building things don’t bother writing much at all!