Make yourself censorship resistant

We live in the age of cancel culture. Mobs of Woke foot soldiers trawl the internet searching for the apostates to attack who dare to diverge from the narrative ordained by The Cathedral. Not satisfied by simply refuting their arguments, they resort to cancelling and destroying their ideological enemies. They have them removed off social media, so that they cannot distribute their ideas. They pressure their employers to fire them, so that they can no longer put food on the table for their families. They smear them with labels so as to destroy their reputations in polite society. They seek to utterly destroy those who disagree with the ever-changing dogma of The Cathedral. This behaviour is on the increase and sooner or later, once it has had its way with those on the fringes, it will come for you.

Bitcoin fixes this.

Weekly News

Some of the other news items this week are: 

1. Bitcoin turns 13

On the 31st of October 2008, the Bitcoin white paper was first published by Satoshi Nakamoto to a group of cypherpunks. The release of the paper came during the 2008 financial crisis, when governments the world over embarked on a course of action which can no longer be reversed. The widespread printing of money (quantitative easing) has been the playbook utilized by almost all central banks to deal with the crisis which reared its head in 2008. Since then, things have only accelerated and global debt has ballooned to over 350% of GDP, while interest rates have dropped to below zero in many countries, something that was previously thought impossible. Bitcoin is more important today than ever before, as it is the only alternative to central banking that exists as a working alternative. Here is to Bitcoin becoming a teenager!

2. Australia approves Bitcoin ETF

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has given early approval for a  Bitcoin ETF. Currently the regulator has provided approval for both Bitcoin and Ethereum, but it is expected that more crypto assets are to follow.  The regulator requires that a minimum of $10 million of Bitcoin is held in the fund in order for it to receive approval as well as several other strict requirements such as secure custody of the digital asset. 

Bitcoin is fast gaining institutional acceptance and an ETF allows pension funds and many other regulated funds to gain exposure to Bitcoin.

3. El Salvador buys even more Bitcoin and builds Bitcoin funded schools

President Nayib Bukele has recently announced that El Salvador purchased their fourth tranche of Bitcoin, with an additional 420 coins being purchased. This brings the total stack of the nation state to 1120 BTC. Currently El Salvador is the only nation state that has publicly announced that it is accumulating and holding Bitcoin. Furthermore, El Presidente has also announced that some of the profits from the nation’s Bitcoin position are being used to fund the building of 20 new schools. 

Make yourself censorship resistant 

First they came for the Communists,

and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak up,

because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time there was no one

left to speak up for me.

-Martin Niemoller

According to Curtis Yarvin, “The Cathedral, simply put, is the media plus academia”. 

Have you noticed, over the past decade or so, that both the corporate press and mainstream academics all seem to hold the same opinions, regardless of where they are in the world? On climate change, covid policy, social justice, immigration and property rights just to name a few. While many rational thinking individuals can take a step back and look at the state of the modern academia/media complex and realise that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, the bad ideas generated by these institutions keep permeating through our society. But just how are so many bad ideas being perpetuated globally across so many institutions at the same time?

The western system of democratic government is such that it outsources its intellectual development to institutional academia while the corporate press holds the government to account (allegedly). Thus one could say that the western system of government leaks power to these institutions. This would be opposed to an absolute monarchy which leaks no power, such as that of King Louis XIV. Within the paradigm of western constitutional democracy these institutions face selective pressures on their ideas, influencing which ideas make it into the marketplace of ideas, based on something else other than merit.

The selective pressures that operate on these institutions are such that they favour dominant ideas. A dominant idea is that which favours the use of power. Conversely, a recessive idea is one which invalidates power or its use. Thus any idea which is dominant will enjoy a selective tailwind in an environment where the use of power is favoured. 

Now ask yourself the question: In the world we live in today, do the majority of ideas put forward by both academia and the media  favour or invalidate the use of power? Lockdowns, mandates, global taxation, climate change action. You get the picture. The ideas which make it through their internal selection process almost always favour the use of power. These ideas are spun into narratives which are packaged and distributed in lockstep, despite the decentralized and unlinked nature of the institutions (eg. CNN, News24, UCT, CNBC, Trevor Noah, Harvard, Oxford, etc). Why? Because their ideas favour the use of power and those in power reward them for this. 

Take the example put forward by Yarvin:

 “Consider the problem of climate change. There are two responses to this problem: action or inaction. Action requires power—and a lot of it, because it has to redirect about, like, 10¹⁴ dollars worth of economic activity. Ain’t no thing! The idea of climate alarmism corresponds to action. The idea of climate denialism corresponds to inaction. Without knowing which side is right, we can observe that alarmism is a dominant idea, whereas denialism is a recessive idea.

It is not hard to see why, in the lecture halls and newsrooms, dominant ideas tend to outcompete recessive ideas. A dominant idea is an idea that tends to benefit you and your friends. A dominant idea will be especially popular with your friends and former students in the civil service, because it gives them more work and more power.

And a recessive idea, of course, is the opposite of all these things. A climate scientist who holds the recessive idea of climate denialism is saying to his colleagues and the whole world: climate science is not important. Is it surprising—in the Bayesian sense— that a consensus of climate scientists would conclude that climate science matters?”

Now you might be asking yourself, what the hell does The Cathedral have to do with Bitcoin?

More specifically, what does it have to do with becoming censorship resistant? Well you see, The Cathedral seems to have locked onto the narrative that Bitcoin is bad for the environment. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, relating to how Bitcoin improves the energy efficiency of our existing energy systems and or how mining integration allows for the large scale deployment of renewable energy sources. The Cathedral doesn’t care. It perpetuates bad ideas which favour the use of power. The Cathedral cannot tolerate dissent and the greatest power in the world resides with those who have the ability to create money – central banks.

Thus it stands to reason that it is just a matter of time until The Cathedral sets its sights on Bitcoiners, in an attempt to promote the dominant idea that fiat currency is superior to Bitcoin in all ways. 

The Cathedral will embark on a widespread campaign to vilify Bitcoiners, as Bitcoin is a recessive idea, since it devolves power away from central banks. It does not require much imagination to see which attacks they will throw our way first. Climate criminal would be the most obvious one. Hoarder or disaster capitalist wouldn’t be a stretch either. The aim of these social attacks is to drum up public opinion against Bitcoiners. Much like they drum up support against those who eat meat or those who drive large engined cars. 

After the social attacks come, censorship will follow. Cutting off Bitcoiners from their fiat bank accounts is not outside the realm of possibility. We have already seen political dissidents in Russia, Nigeria and even the USA (this happened to Donald Trump) cut off from their banks. What makes you think you are any different? 

If you hold your Bitcoin on an exchange, you are toast. Exchanges will buckle under the pressure of Cathedral minions faster than your favourite sports star took a knee.

This is why self-custody is so essential. If you wish to live a life free from the oppression of bad ideas imposed by those who seek to dominate you, you need to make yourself censorship resistant. Bitcoin offers you the ability to earn and save in a money that is designed to fight The Cathedral on multiple fronts. They can’t physically undermine the network, due its robust decentralization, and thus must resort to social attacks. Remember, they are ideologically opposed to Bitcoin, so will be the last to adopt it. You just need to outlast them. 

As their bad ideas are implemented all over the world, fiat currencies will suffer crises of confidence globally. I would surmise that this will happen in a generally coordinated fashion globally since The Cathedral operates under the highest level of groupthink imaginable. Luckily for us Bitcoiners the purchasing power of fiat will drop over time as a result of inflationary monetary policy, reducing over time the power of The Cathedral to actually achieve anything in the real world. Practical people not in the orbit of The Cathedral will adopt Bitcoin as it is the most obvious form of wealth preservation available, this trend will accelerate proportionally to the rate of fiat currency debasement. However, things will get worse before they get better as those suckling on the power teat desperately lash out in a feeble attempt to maintain their control over the masses. They will go for the soft targets first and try to make an example of those who defy them. 

If your income and savings are derived solely in fiat and you are living a lifestyle non-compliant with the demands of The Cathedral, you might be in for a rough time. If you wish to live like a free man, taking some steps towards earning in Bitcoin could be prudent. Utilize the open source tools available to you such as BTCPay server to facilitate receiving payments in Bitcoin in a non-custodial manner, absent any third party involvement. If you don’t know how to do these things, join a Bitcoin community where there are many knowledgeable, like-minded folk who are more than willing to help you. Setup a multisig wallet to reduce the risk of theft/force to take your Bitcoin from you. These are all things you can do today to become increasingly censorship resistant.   

The collapse of The Cathedral, like that of the Catholic Church after the Reformation, is inevitable. Bad ideas can only be sustained for so long until entropy pulls them apart. The money printing will eventually manifest itself in hyperinflation. The net-zero carbon energy agenda (absent nuclear) will eventually manifest itself in widespread energy shortages. The Great Reset will destroy human productivity and trend towards some type of neo-feudalism. Bad ideas cannot last indefinitely. 

Bitcoin gives you the best chance at optionality to deal with the onslaught of bad ideas. Find safety in sats.  

If you want a basic guide to self-custody, check it out here. 

Bitvice Podcasts and Media

In our most recent podcast, we interviewed Kgothatso Ngako about the work he is doing to open source the translation of Bitcoin related content into native african languages. Africa is a continent with a billion people in it, most of whom are not native English speaking. Kgothatso’s project, Exonumia, is a phenomenal project allowing anyone to contribute and translate important Bitcoin books, projects and websites into multiple African languages.  Watch the episode here.

Subscribe to our channel here to be the first to know when a new episode goes live. 

By The Horns is a Bitcoin podcast about South Africa. You can follow our discussions via video on  YouTube or via the audio version on Spotify, Google Podcasts or Apple Podcasts. If you are listening on a different podcast app, here is our RSS feed.

Book a FREE 30 min call and get the answers that you need

If you have been sitting on the fence about when is the right time to buy Bitcoin, or you don’t quite feel like you have all of your questions answered and are still unsure, why not have them answered by myself? I am making a few time slots available over the next few weeks dedicated to answering your questions one on one. 

If you wish to take me up on this, schedule a call with me by clicking the link, and I will make myself available to answer all of your questions in person. 

Bitcoin is a complex subject that took me years to wrap my head around, having somebody point you in the right direction could be helpful. 

Taking control of your Bitcoin in a self-custodial manner requires some responsibility on your side. I feel that the trade off is worth it. Freedom comes at a price.