How to End War
A thoughtpiece on how Bitcoin could change the art of war (inspired by Jason Lowery)
What Is War
Stripped down to its most basic level, war is the projection and transfer of energy
We project energy (strength) to deter attack
We transfer stored energy into kinetic energy when we attack
We don’t attack enemies who project lots of energy
We don’t take unnecessary risks
Scenario: You are starving and both of the men below are in possession of identical meals. If you don’t get one of those meals you will die. If you steal a meal the other guy will die. Who do you attack?
The answer is obvious. You attack the skinny guy as he is projecting a lot less power than The Rock.
How Do Animals Do War
In the animal kingdom animals have adapted war so that it can continue but in a way that doesn’t threaten the whole species (evolution). Think about the step of growing horns or antlers. You grow massive spikes out of your head that everyone can see. Antlers take time to grow and losing a fight can often mean losing an antler. That means the animal with the biggest spikes (projection of power) has won a lot of fights and won’t have to fight that often to assert dominance. The intention is to set a pecking order through the act of energy projection but not at the direct threat to all in the species. Two male Deer’s having a battle for dominance does not lead to the death of half the Deer population if they start to fight.
How Humans Use To Do War
For thousands of years humans had a similar system. Armies would slog it out for control of the resources. Factions would become increasingly powerful and as their power increased the challenges to their dominance became less frequent. As long as they continued to project the most strength of all the human factions they would not have their authority tested directly. If they were tested… well they had a lot of energy to transfer.
Nuclear Weapons Broke The System
The issue in today’s world is we are now locked in a stalemate, we have hit the point where using nuclear projection is a no win game. The cost is too high to use as main competitors have the capacity to totally destroy one another. This is not good for the natural power projection game for the species. We risk total annihilation to set the power protocol but at the same time not setting it is creating distortion and vibrational breakdown in the underlying rules (law, truth, systems, money, control etc) as we vie to work out who is in control!
How Do Humans Do War Now
Today we are stuck in an uncomfortable stalemate. Nuclear power projection prevents the threat of physical conflict between the nuclear states so conflict has taken on a new approach as we try and work out the pecking order. The worlds super powers (mainly the US, Russia & China) have found lots of interesting ways to test one another for weaknesses:
Proxy wars (Syria being one of the most recent examples)
Financial/Trade Wars (Think about the supply issues we have currently)
Culture wars (Capitalism v Communism vs Religion etc)
Cyber Attacks (infrastructure and social media)
All this costs energy.
A Lot of Technology Came From The Military
We wouldn’t have a lot of the cool things we have now if we hadn’t been creating weapons to kill people. These days we use Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) for EVERYTHING. Your Satnav needs it, as does your phone, as do the airplanes in the sky and the boats in the ocean.
GPS was originally created to enable nuclear missiles (launched from submarines) to find their target. GPS turned out to be so useful it was rolled out to multiple military systems (naviation, communications, time keeping) before being released for use to the commercial sector. Funding would not have been provided for GPS if it wasn’t for the military application. GPS as a concept had been around for years with scientists calling for a network of satellites but money wasn’t forthcoming until the military stepped in.
The Internet was designed to improve battlefield communications and has since become moderately successful 😂.
SHA256 is a cryptographic system created by the National Security Agency (NSA) that a lot of important internet security (passwords & encryptions) is based on. This is another weapon system (defence) pivoted to commercial use.
The Romans built excellent roads to move their armies around quickly which they later put to commercial use (it wasn’t done for the merchants). This list is extensive.
Bitcoin Offers Digital Warfare
Bitcoin was created using the technological breakthroughs (some highlighted above) that originally came from weapons systems. It is designed for self defence. It is extremely resistant to attack (perhaps impervious). This even includes a nuclear attack.
To earn Bitcoin, Miners have to compete with one another to validate the network. The miner that has the fastest computer processors will earn more Bitcoin over the long run, while the miners using the cheapest energy supply will spend less competing. Miners are therefore in a race with each other to find the cheapest source of energy and also to have the fastest computer processors. This race pushes energy and computing innovation as the miners are constantly looking for an edge over their competitors. If Bitcoin became the worlds reserve currency then nation states would compete with one another to earn Bitcoin, moving warfare away from the physical world to the digital. Loss would be measured in hashrate instead of blood.
How many bombs would you need to drop to destroy the internet?
Bitcoin as a Nation State?
Jason Lowery (Guardian of the US Space Force…cool 😎) points out you can think of government as a service provider offering trade mediation and rule enforcement:
You need a military to protect trade routes and infrastructure.
You need law to protect contracts and stability.
You need monetary system in order to tie it all together to create value.
Bitcoin is ALL THREE -
Miners are the military
Nodes are law and voting
Satoshis are the money.
It could be argued that since Bitcoin has its own military governance that it is its own nation state. With circa 100+ million users the digital citizenship is larger in population than most European countries in the western world.
In the existing world those who project the most power control the board. History is a ledger written by the winners who are the ones that project the most kinetic power. The competition is won by the power projection game (war or the projection of annihilation to seed control and influence power).
An Alternative Future
In summary it is very much our opinion that we would rather pay a bill for electricity than pay a bill of blood to achieve the same property protection system while at the same time reducing the risk of mutually assured destruction from nuclear war. Stability shouldn’t come from both parties holding a knife to each others throats it should come from a mutual assured security of your opponent (wait what?!)
By all using the bitcoin network and the same currency (satoshi) it creates frenemies of even your worst competitive detractor. By improving the system through growth and network expansion we all gain. It is mutually beneficial for your enemies when you improve the network and vice versa so the incentive model for war is reduced.
Mind Blowing
Here’s the best thing we can ever tell any of our readers if* we see this bitcoin thesis play out then
YOU CAN FRONT RUN IT IF YOU BUY NOW AND CAPTURE LARGER PARTS OF THE CAPITAL BEFORE THE WORLD ADOPTS IT
Till next time
The Wealth Gap Team