Oddbean

Rune, looking up for your thoughts. One thing; I have seen this argument (" First, history demonstrates that you don't need many people to change society for the better.") often and in fact I like it on first glance. But. It's mostly about violent change, one or the other way. What one could ask is: if our stateship / political system was mostly given birth via a Constituent Assembly, it needed more than a few people. So, if it's done peacefully and in due process you will need more than a few. And, yes, it's naive to expect anything from the masses. And, yes the freerider 40% are a real problem for any progress. They will "defect" when they have nothing left to lose. Again, what's needed on the societal layer is a "sly, roundabout way".

Thx, that's insightful. Yes, it has to be sly and roundabout. And in the beginning, there are always just a few people, over time they gradually need more support. Therefore, time and smart use of time is what's most important. There have been many revolutions, some peaceful, some violent. They say the success rate of peaceful revolutions is highest. The narrative builders exaggerate the violence involved in some of the revolutions. Why? Because the winners of the revolutions themselves become rulers and begin to form a new narrative that aims at scaring others from attempting to overthrow them. I often ask, how many people think were killed in battles in the American revolution. People have no idea. The answer is an average of 3-4 men per day over six years. In the 80 years war which gave the Dutch freedom from the Habsburg empire, it was on average about one per day. Compare that with for instance The Battle of Stamford Bridge, which was a result of one man's insanity - Harald Hardråde, who ventured on the quest of putting England under his thumb in 1066. He took power in Norway in 1047, but in reality was powerless until 1050. He became the inflation king of the North, and invested his inflation profits in conquest. In just one single day, about 5000 men died at Stamford Bridge, including himself. Looking into the American and Dutcj revolutions again, you realize that the major component of these upheavals must have been a peaceful one.

In this context, it occurs to me that I find the French word avant-garde very well fitting. The goal must be a political system that is flat and decentralized in its structures, but at the same time defensible, based on a new money. The big question is how the transition should be structured. If it is not planned, there is the old danger: old wine in new bottles, or the (old) wolf in sheep's clothing. no gain very curious how and when all this will play out

I don't see it as creating a new system. That's a typical engineer way of thinking. I just want more positive behavior and less centralization/more decentralization. What this means in terms of structures and institutions, I'm in noe place to plan or foresee. And someone who say they are, IMO cannot be taken seriously. I also look differently at Bitcoin than most people. To me, Bitcoin is a bridge to something new and better. We don't know what this "better" thing is going to be, apart from that to me it seems to give us more positive behavior and less centralization/more decentralization. What Bitcoin rapidly is growing into at the monetary layer, we also need at the base layer - which are the ideas people subscribe to, and which makes up the people's belief system, broadly speaking. We need ideas that can bridge the gap from where we are to something better, with more positive behavior and less centralization/more decentralization. In the age of the enlightenment, some 2-300 years ago positive ideas spread across the world like wildfire. We had seen something akin to a religiois world war prior to this. But what the philosophers from France and Scotland did was to light the spark of the first world war of ideas. Unfortunately those ideas were soon drowned in the destructive thing we know as monetary monopoly. Armed with central banks that could corrupt the peoeple at a faster rate that anyone has ever seen, printing presses running hot made it possible for "the elite" to fight back and win the war. Bitcoin evens things out, making it much more difficult for the political class to exploit their money-weapon. And that's partly what makes me optimistic. I welcome the start of the second world war of ideas.