The Currency of Illusions: How the Deception of Bitcoin Mirrors the Collapse of True Money
To explain the problem with Bitcoin, I must explain the problem with lying.
Logic is the source of all our words, built from our sense perceptions. We formulate words by answering the question “What is it?”. This is why we say “does that make sense?”
This is a very complex process and commands the attention of an entire field of academic study (Philosophy, Linguistics, Epistemology, and Logic).
Words not backed by real objects are void of sense perception. Since these words seem to be made up from nothing, they are illogical and irrational. Any claims made with these words are either irrational (if made unintentionally) or deceptive lies (if made intentionally). Since we store memories or sense perceptions into our words, it is a fair assessment to say that irrational words and illogical arguments severe our connnection to reality, leaving us “senseless.”
Money and trade is the language of economics. Currencies are the words. Currencies which are backed by real assets, whether that be gold or cigarettes, are considered True currencies. Currencies without this backing are considered False and sometimes counterfeit.
The U.S. dollar used to be a True currency. It was backed at a predictable and redeemable ratio. The problem is that its convertibility was governed by politicians and bankers, two groups who aren’t known for being the most honest of people…
Since 1958, when the Bretton Woods system became operational, all non US countries settled their international balances in dollars, and U.S. dollars were convertible to gold at a fixed exchange rate of $35 an ounce. This trust in the convertibility of the dollar is where we get the phrase “The dollar is as good as gold.”
The United States had the responsibility of keeping the dollar price of gold fixed and had to adjust the supply of dollars to maintain confidence in future gold convertibility.
This responsibility (or better phrased “scheme”) lasted in theory for 13 years until on August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon officially severed the convertibility of the dollar into gold.
The reason for this action was that for 13 years the U.S. Treasury issued more dollars (words) than gold (reality) to fund popular domestic programs and fund unpopular international wars, essentially lying at the expense of other nations.
Since August 1971, the U.S. dollar has officially become a “fiat currency”, a currency which is said to have value simply because other people believe it has value. What else is considered true simply because someone believes it is? That’s right… A lie.
People lie because lies have value but only to the extent that someone else believe them. A conman with no one to con is a poor man but a conman with followers is as rich as he is believed. This reason why the US overprinted dollars between 1958 and 1971 was because other countries like France, Germany, Japan, and England were willing to act as if the convertibility was still valid.
There is no limit to the amount of lies someone can tell. (Foreshadow of Bitcoin). In contrast, the truth is limited by sense perception and logic. For instance, copper conducts electricity regardless of belief. Its nature and attributed exists independent of our words. A dollar is either convertable into gold at a specific weight or it is not, regardless of beliefe. That is what it IS. We use our sense perception from experience and words to identify its nature, not dictate it. This truth is where we get the phrase “The proof is in the pudding.”
It is False to say that copper has the exact same properties as wood or that it both can and cannot conduct electricity at the same time and in the same way. It is also false to say a dollar that is convertable into gold is the same as a dollar that is not. These statements are also a field of academic discipline (Logic) with its own laws like the Law of Non-Contradiction.
Hopefully you can see now why the economic system of the last 54+ years is so devastating to our society. It compels everyone at all times to lie to each other, severing our connection from reality. We are constantly being compelled to work for lies and sell for lies hoping there’s another greater fool willing to buy the lies we acquired. This collective delusion not only threatens our economy, but also all things touched by the economy from science to industry to education to politics. If you feel like everything is so confusing right now and you don’t know what is true and what is false, this is the reason.
Bitcoin promises to limit the amount of lies by capping coins at 21 million. If the issue were simply inflation, then this thesis would be sound. The issue however, is one of truth and reality, not inflation. Being backed by nothing, Bitcoin fails the test of being a True currency.
The enthusiasm for Bitcoin is not proof that society wants to be free of monetary slavery and have a more rational economic system as they claim at their conferences. The enthusiasm is rooted in the same greed that launched thousands of years of monetary fraud, reaching back all the way to the Roman Empire and beyond to the origins of banking in the Babylonian empire.
Therefore, I absolutely do not consider any kind of currency, paper or digital, to be money. The dollar was once a true currency but now it is false. Cryptocurrencies are more honest in their deception, by false they still are. Bitcoin and the dollar are both false currencies. The dollar is false because it lied about its backing to gold. Bitcoin is false because it tells the truth that it is backed by nothing. In this way, the dollar is a bit like someone saying “I am telling the truth” when they are lying and Bitcoin is like someone truthfully admitting “I am lying”. Neither person and neither currency is to be trusted.
What we need is not only a renewed commitment to truth in money but a renewed commitment to telling the truth in general where we reaffirm the validity of our senses and the need for our words to correspond to reality. Without this connection, we are the blind leading the blind into darkness where society and all its towers of science, education, and industry falls.
Make sense?
I often wonder, and perhaps many of my readers do to, why lies are so effective and why telling the truth or discerning the truth seems to be so difficult. You would think it would be the other way around, right? My working theory is that truth is hard because it requires effort and an ability to hold both the past and the future in your mind while living in the present. Here’s what I mean.
If I were to offer you a poisonous apple, my goal would be to have you forget about the past which contains your knowledge of poison and to ignore the future which contains your fears of the consequences of eating poison. I will want you to just look at how beautiful and pleasing the apple is to eat, knowing that poison poisons whether you have knowledge of it or not. I also know that it is less effort for you to pass along my words and your shallow reasons for eating than to investigate and expose me as being a liar. Therefore, you might find comfort in other people believing a claim that the apple is pleasing to eat, even though you know you haven’t verified its nutrition or the validity of the person who sold it to you (me). This choice represents sacrificing the future for the sake of the present. It goes by many other words such as discipline, deferred gratification, and savings, and investment.
Ironically, those who would live into the future must be willing to sacrifice the present, forgo their desires for the perceived benefits of the lie, and invest in the knowledge of the good by exposing the evil and the lies which would attempt to sever us from reality.
At this point many readers might see how I have made a veiled analogy of the story of the Bible. Our collective failure as humanity originated in a garden where we had perfect fellowship with God and His creation. Our words matched reality and there we knew of no such thing as a lie. We were naive and innocent, like children who never experienced malevolence. Then one day we heard a lie that offered us a taste of forbidden fruit, telling us that we wouldn’t die, even though our Father explicitly told us that we would. The original sin was the sin of Pride, the ignorance of our own limitation of knowledge and willingness to pretend we could know more than God. This pride is what caused our fall. Our mother Eve was deceived first. She ate. She then deceived our father Adam. They immediately felt shame, witnessing their own bodies for the first time aa inadequate, disagreeing with God that our bodies were good and beautiful. They even hid from God even though they knew He could see all and hear all. From then on Adam, Eve, and all their children were separated not only from the garden but from God Himself. Since then we have been lost, desperately wanting to get back to the garden but tortured by this original sin of pride which has left us vulnerable to the sin of believing and telling lies.
The rest of the story is beautifully and tragically told in the scriptures of the Christian bible and echoed in every other story told. From beginning to end God has revealed Himself to us through what He has made to the delight of those humble enough to trust Him and to the terror of those who proudly pretend they can sit in judgment of God and creation. May those who hear this story not only reject Bitcoin and the dollar but also embrace truth and logic and every expression of truth and logic in their lives. May they embrace Jesus Christ, the perfect expression of God on Earth and become like Him, more and more aligned with the Truth, Logic, Justice, Mercy, Grace, Creativity, and Patience, the manifestation of God Himself.
Amen.
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