Bitcoin is Civilization-Building
Think Bitcoin™ Issue #44
Hey friends, welcome back to Think Bitcoin™ for issue #44. Special welcome to the new subscribers. I’m glad you’re here. As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out. You can also find me on Twitter (@TheWhyOfFI) and connect with me on LinkedIn.
ALSO: If any of you are heading to the Pacific Bitcoin Conference this week, feel free to reach out. I’ll be there.
In this issue:
Long Reads: Bitcoin is Civilization-Building
Content Round-Up: 3 articles, 1 podcast
As always, if you find this newsletter interesting or useful, please share it with others who might find it interesting or useful, too!
This issue is sponsored by Orange Pill App. Connecting with other Bitcoiners is a great experience. Many of my own most interesting conversations each day occur with fellow Bitcoiners. Whether in real life or online, you can skip formalities and get right to discussing the transformative, wide-ranging effects of Bitcoin’s growth, knowing you share a hope for a more promising future. Thanks to Orange Pill App you will soon be able to meet Bitcoiners near you without the need to go to a meet-up or a conference. I can't wait to use this app myself!
Long Reads
Bitcoin is Civilization-Building
Last Monday was the 14th anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper.
I want to use this as an opportunity to talk about what we’re really doing with Bitcoin, what we’re really engaged in as Bitcoiners, and how we might conceptualize the emergence and growth of Bitcoin.
Two years ago, on the twelfth anniversary of the whitepaper, Nic Carter wrote a now-canonical (rightfully so) piece called “Bitcoin at 12,” in which he compared Bitcoiners to cathedral-builders. The majority of laborers who worked on the majestic cathedrals we still, to this day, travel long distances to admire, did not live to see the object of their labor come to fruition. These people devoted their energy and their labor to the creation of something greater than themselves; something whose existence would endure long past their own.
“Bitcoiners who earnestly believe in a better monetary world, and aren’t afraid to bring that reality to bear, are the equivalent of masons and laborers, working on a monetary cathedral which they may never see come to fruition.”
-Nic Carter
I think it’s worth reflecting on this analogy in our current moment. I think Nic’s analogy is great, and it’s certainly both useful and insightful. I prefer to think of Bitcoin as a kind of civilization-building, though. And by “civilization” what I really mean is the base layer of civilization, i.e. money. Bitcoin is the ongoing effort to reconstruct this base layer, which coordinates and directs human action, the cumulative results of which become societies and cultures.
As Nic points out, this undertaking is not a brief or easy one. This bears repeating and should be internalized. It’s not something that can or will be accomplished in two, five, or ten years, though we will likely continue to see some progress over that stretch of time. It is perhaps something that won’t be accomplished in our lifetimes. We should also not be so naive as to assume that Bitcoin is inevitable or take as axiomatic the restructuring and reformulation of the world it could catalyze.
What we’re engaged in as Bitcoiners is a long, long process, and one in which success is far from guaranteed.
It’s also worth soberly acknowledging the sheer, overwhelming size and power of the existing monetary system Bitcoin seeks to replace, or at least meaningfully alter/influence. Moreover, it’s worth considering how this existing system actually creates an inhospitable environment for even thinking about fundamentally changing it.
We are conditioned to think with high-time-preference, short-termist perspectives. Our political systems and our personal lives alike respond most readily to the rotating exigencies of the increasingly oppressive present. Policy plans are the length of an election cycle. Our personal plans are subject to the next advertisement, the next setback, the next distraction, or, for many, the next urgent survival necessity.
Which is all to say that the system we find ourselves living in is one that makes it difficult to envision, plan for, and successfully undertake a fundamental change.
The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that it tends to return to us the gift of long-term thinking.
But we should be careful not to allow the ever-present temptation to revert to short-term thinking or short-term expectations to creep into our approach to Bitcoin. Instead, we should keep front-of-mind the historic scope of what we’re engaged in and the time that it takes for it to come to fruition. This is easier to do in bear markets, I think, but another bull market will come. And, with it, the temptation to think we’ve accomplished what we sent out to accomplish (or at least rendered its eventual accomplishment inevitable). Resist this.
If you are a Bitcoiner, you are engaged in a civilizational pursuit, one whose ultimate completion will likely occur after you’re around to see it. And you need to be okay with this. Heed Nic Carter, writing about the cathedral builders of St. Andrews, Scotland:
“Only a tiny fraction of the people who poured the whole energy of their lives into this magnificent building would ever see it completed. For the rest of them, knowing that they were working on a sublime, civilizational project was enough. They were happy to submit to a vision far greater than themselves, rising above their transient concerns. This was the height of culture, beauty, and technology at the time.”
This is what you are doing.
Now, I prefer to refer to this as civilization-building, as opposed to cathedral-building because with the latter the thing that is greater than one’s self that is being pursued and worked on is ultimately the glory of a divinity. And there are too many folks in the Bitcoin space who carry the cathedral metaphor too far and think of Satoshi in divine terms. I plan to write a longer piece on this but, suffice to say, Satoshi is not a deity and Bitcoin is not a religion like, say, Christianity or Judaism. You need not be ritualistically initiated into Bitcoin (because it’s open for everyone’s use), you cannot be excommunicated from Bitcoin, and you can’t be purity-tested out of Bitcoin. In fact, you can believe whatever you want and be a Bitcoiner.
But I digress.
My primary point is that, 14 years into Bitcoin’s existence, we are still extraordinarily early in a project that will be extraordinarily difficult. One does not simply transform an incumbent global monetary system in 14 years.
But, as Nic Carter reminds us, “as long as we believe in a big, audacious vision, believe that there is still beauty in the world, and that there remain great things worth striving for, we will succeed and inspire.”
Content Round-Up
1. “The Philosophy of Money,” an episode of the What Bitcoin Did podcast with Andrew Bailey. There’s really no succinct way to summarize this wide-ranging, intellectual superfood of a conversation between Andrew and Pete. It’s fantastic, and it’s delightful. Give it a listen.
2. “Progressives Misunderstand Bitcoin Because They’ve Lost Their Way,” an article by yours truly in Bitcoin Magazine. My chosen title for this piece was “Progressive ≠ progressive: Wrestling With Bitcoin on the Political Left,” which is a little less triggering than the title that the editors landed upon. But nevertheless, the piece is about why Progressives seem to struggle with Bitcoin, an (imo) inarguably progressive monetary technology.
3. “Bitcoin at 12,” Nic Carter’s beautiful paean to Bitcoin, first published in 2020 on the 12-year anniversary of Satoshi’s whitepaper. He posted it again last week to commemorate the 14-year anniversary. Well worth your time if you have not yet read it. And well worth a re-read if you have.
4. “Bitcoin - Let’s Start From Scratch,” a piece by Daniel Batten. It’s sometimes difficult to find a relatively quick and easy primer on what Bitcoin is and how it can improve the world. This one is quite good. Share it with your pre-coiner friends and family.
As always, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it or found it useful, share this newsletter widely and freely!
“Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.” -H.G. Wells
See you in two weeks,
Logan
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DISCLAIMER: I am not investment advisor and this is not investment advice. This is not, nor is it intended to be, a recommendation to buy or sell any security or digital asset. Nothing in this newsletter should be interpreted as a solicitation, a recommendation, or advice to buy or sell any security or digital asset. Nothing in this newsletter should be considered legal advice of any kind. This newsletter exists for educational and informational purposes only. Do your own research before making any investment decisions.
© Copyright Logan Bolinger, Think Bitcoin LLC