Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism, and Decentralism
Anarchy Today - Part 2 - Crypto-Anarchism
"Anarchy is the balance between One and All" - charlie777pt
Introduction
The main purpose of this series is to find the links, common goals and synergies among the various anarchist tendencies, breaking the isolation by fostering mutual support among the various communities or individuals professing Anarchism.
Before talking about anarchism today, I decided to make one article dedicated to Cypherpunks and Crypto-Anarchism, as one of my biggest influences in the various anarchist personas of my "Anarch" (Ernst Jünger) of my political conscience construction.
Hackers and Anonymous are a part of the movement that helped to build the decentralized anonymous cryptomarket, supporting virtual network communities in cyberspace making a return to the principles and roots of the crypto-anarchy.
Anarchism always had a big respect for humanity and clearly has an anti-fascist and anti-collectivist attitude to any attempts against the exercise of individual will and human rights.
"What do we mean by respect for humanity? We mean the recognition of human right and human dignity in every man, of whatever race [or] color" - Michael Bakunin, 1867
1 - Cypherpunks
Whitfield Diffie and Dr Martin Hellman in 1973 published the "New Directions in Cryptography", and in 1992, Eric Hughes, Timothy C May, and John Gilmor create the "Cypherpunk" movement, and the former published later "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto".
Cypherpunks were activists from the end of the 80's, that wanted to use cryptographic technology to encrypt messages to guarantee privacy and security, as the seeds for personal freedom, the fundamental vector for social, political and economical change.
"Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions." - Timothy C. May - The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.
2 - Crypto-Anarchism
Timothy C. May published the The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto(1), in 1988 , that I read in 1991 in S. Carlos (California) provided by a local cypherpunk friend, and my mind was blown away with the possibilities envisaged by the smallest book I have ever read, that was like a big compendium exploding in my mind, about the trends of the future.
At the time I never imagined that the tecnhology could be brought to practice so fast, till I read Nakamoto's Manifesto in 2009, and I went crazy, like in a metanphtemine phrenzy for 5 days without sleeping, till I could start mining bitcoin with the computer I used everyday.
I could only mine 3.2 bitcoins that I sold at 1400 dollars because I thought at the time that it was the maximum value a bitcoin could ever reach. :(
"Crypto anarchy is the cyberspatial realization of anarcho-capitalism, transcending national boundaries and freeing individuals to make the economic arrangements they wish to make consensually". - Timothy C. May in Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities
The fundamental principle of Crypto Anarchism is secrecy and the only accepted Law, is mathematics expressed in secure code.
Cripto-Anarchism to me, is one of the most potent and promising paradigms of Anarchism, with the introduction of a technological change supporting a social mutation by decentralization, and it is one of the living proofs of the creativity of anarchist and activist minds.
Never forget that this the first anarchism calling for freedom and change, that has the support of technology in the anarchic kingdom of web, that is backed with a social and economic system based in decentralization that can replace the existing political and economical paradigms.
Cryptoanarchists do not accept national and international laws anf it´s not imoral to break them, and they proposed the use of cryptographic methods for secrecy, but every one could come up with new laws using smart contracts or the reputation of the anonymous user(pseudonymous).
Cryptoanarchists want to transform society based in decentralized consensus, using strong encryption to create trustless p2p networks, with the goal to support the building of Anarchy.
That looks very much like the Anarch attitude of Ernst Jünger, of acting like moles to create tunnels of anonymous resistance, and undermining the state and governments authority, using the first reign of anarchy in the Web, as an hidden hive that is supporting the evidence of an alternative viable social, political and economical change, based in anarchist principles.
3 - The Bitcoin and Blockchain
Bitcoin was never (and is not) about the money to me, but a question of understanding that human liberating technology in practice, and it was magic to use money to buy things for my kid, coming from nowhere generated in cyberspace (with hardware and electricity costs of course that I didn't count at the time) .
Later I was disappointed that human spirit always find new ways to explore this personal participation in mining, creating groups for concentrated power of mining with companies for profit, using ASIC's and collective pools that altered the Nakamoto's vision of the blockchain, and killed CPU individualist mining that should be oppened to all the users.
Since 2009, I have started to feel a psychological distension in the sense of time, that makes this last 8 years to look like 50 years of lifetime, generated by the speed of intensive evolutive change of a world based in the possibility to mutate the actual system into an anarchic ageographical and aterritorial reign, bellonging to all humanity and not to the coercive states and countries.
Public Blockchains are the practical proof of a platform that is collectivelly owned (collectivism) based on self-administration by the people directly involved in the economic functions, but in this cyberspave environment every person (individualism) can exercise each individual potentiality and creativity, with the right to own private property, like criptocurrencies.
Bitcoin and the blockchain, applied to distributed ledgers and the internet of things, are based in theorectical and practical studies of three decades, that I just mention some of the contributers, like the US Government (hehe), David Chaum writings on anonymous digital cash, and the personal reputation of pseudonymous concealing entity, as the principles highlighted by Cypherpunks and Crypto-Anarchism.
Here is how Timothy C. May predicted the future in 1988, with this prophecy that tottaly sumarizes the history of what he called the "CryptoNet".
"The State will, of course, try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. Many of these concerns will be valid; crypto anarchy will allow national secrets to be trade freely and will allow illicit and stolen materials to be traded. An anonymous computerized market will even make possible abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion. Various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of CryptoNet. But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy." - Timothy C. May - The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.
Videos:
Short video : What is CRYPTO-ANARCHISM?
Long Video: the master Timothy C. May in Thirty Years of Crypto Anarchy
Further Reading:
David Chaum, "Security without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete"
Chohan, Usman W. Cryptoanarchism and Cryptocurrencies (2017)
Timothy C. May . The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1988
Timothy C. May, various writings in Nakamoto Institute
Cypherpunk: Wiki
Whitfield Diffie and Dr Martin Hellman (1973), New Directions in Cryptography
Crypto-Anarchists and Cryptoanarchists
Forget far-right populism – crypto-anarchists are the new masters
The Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism.
Published Posts:
Introduction to the Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism
I - Anarchism
- What is Anarchism?
- The History of Anarchism
- Part 1 - Pre-Anarchy - Social Revolution
- Anarchy: Revolution Against The State
- Anarchy Today
- Part 1 - The Era of Extremisms
- Part 2 - Crypto-Anarchism - This post
Next posts on the Series:
I - Anarchism (cont.)
- Anarchy Today (cont.)
- Part 3 - Anarchist Tools
- Part 4 - Anarchy in the Blockchain
- Part 5 - Today's Anarchism
II - Existentialism
- What is Existentialism ?
- The "Existentialims"
- Humanism and Existentialism
- Existentialism and Anarchism
III - Decentralism
- What is Decentralism?
- The Philosophy of decentralism
- Blockchain and Decentralization
- Anarchism, Existentialism ,and Decentralism
IV - Dialectic for Self-Liberation
- The Dialectics of Liberation Congress
- Psychoanalysis and Existentialism
- The Anti-psychiatry movement