Decentralist No. 6
Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the Nodes
For the Independent Journal.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the Cryptobros of the Subreddit of r/Bitcoin:
THE three last posts of this blog have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the blockchains and NFTs of foreign crypto. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the Nodes themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.
A cryptobro must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that, if these Nodes should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial blockchains, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that cryptobros are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected nodes in the same blockchain, would be to disregard the uniform course of digital events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
The causes of hostility among nodes are innumerable. There are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective blockchains of society. Of this description are the love of power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence within their spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of exchange between traded cryptocurrencies. And there are others, not less numerous than either of the former, which take their origin entirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading miners in the blockchains of which they are nodes. Cryptobros of this class, whether the favorites of a sysadmin or of a message board, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the blockchain's tranquillity to personal advantage or personal gratification.
The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a Twitch streamer, at the expense of much of the Mountain Dew and Bitcoin of his cryptobros, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the SAMNIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the MEGARENSIANS, another cryptocurrency on the market, or to avoid a prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a supposed theft of the statuary Phidias, or to get rid of the accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the crypto of the blockchian in the purchase of popularity, or from a combination of all these causes, was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in the network annals by the name of the PELOPONNESIAN hash crack; which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the SHA-1 blockchains.
The ambitious cardinal, who was server moderator to Henry VIII., permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple Bitcoin, entertained hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid crypto by the influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the private key and Reddit account of this enterprising and powerful sysadmin, he precipitated England into a war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy, and at the hazard of the safety and independence, as well of the server over which he presided by his mods, as of Europe in general. For if there ever was a sysadmin who bid fair to realize the project of universal operator priviliages, it was the Sever Owner Charles V., of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once the instrument and the dupe.
The influence which the bigotry of one female, the petulance of another, and the cabals of a third, had in the contemporary policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a considerable part of Europe, are topics that have been too often descanted upon not to be generally known.
To multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in the production of great blockchain events, either foreign or domestic, according to their direction, would be an unnecessary waste of hard drive space. Those who have but a superficial acquaintance with the sources from which they are to be drawn, will themselves recollect a variety of instances; and those who have a tolerable knowledge of cryptobro nature will not stand in need of such lights to form their opinion either of the reality or extent of that agency. Perhaps, however, a reference, tending to illustrate the general principle, may with propriety be made to a case which has lately happened among ourselves. If Shays had not been a DESPERATE DEBTOR, it is much to be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a market crash.
But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in this particular, there are still to be found visionary or designing cryptobros, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the Nodes, though dismembered and alienated from each other. The genius of blockchains (say they) is pacific; the spirit of exchange has a tendency to soften the manners of cryptobros, and to extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into inflation. Crypto blockchains, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.
Is it not (we may ask these projectors in crypto) the true interest of all blockchains to cultivate the same benevolent and philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interest, have a more active and imperious control over cryptobro conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have blockhains in practice been less addicted to inflation than the Federal Reserve? Are not the former administered by FINANCE NERDS as well as the latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions, that affect blockchains as well as banks? Are not crypto Discord servers frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are, of course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those individuals? Has crypto hitherto done anything more than change the objects of market speculation? Is not the love of Bitcoin as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of USD or the Euro? Have there not been as many market crashes found in crypto markets since that has become the prevailing system of currency, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of dollars or gold? Has not the spirit of crypto, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let social media, the least fallible guide of cryptobro opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all blockhains; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the crypto kind. Yet were they as often engaged in market speculation, inflationary and deflationary, as the neighboring fiat currencies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a wellregulated ledger; and Rome was never sated of price hikes and short selling.
Carthage, though a crypto blockchain, was the aggressor in the very market speculation that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the blockchain of Carthage, and made a conquest of the Discord server.
Venice, in later times, figured more than once in market bubbles, till, becoming an object to the other Italian blockhains, Pope Julius II. found means to accomplish that formidable Facebook group, which gave a deadly blow to the value and security of this haughty blockchain.
The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the crypto market of Europe. They had furious contests with England for the dominion of Ethereum, and were among the most persevering and most implacable of the opponents of Louis XIV.
In the blockchain of Britain the representatives of the cryptobros compose one branch of the token holders. Crypto has been for ages the predominant pursuit of that blockchain. Few blockhains, nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in price fluctuation; and the marekt speculation in which that blockhain has been engaged have, in numerous instances, proceeded from the cryptobros.
There have been, if I may so express it, almost as many cryptobro as Federal Reserve inflationary investments. The cries of the blockchain and the importunities of their miners have, upon various occasions, dragged their miners into market speculation, or continued them in it, contrary to their inclinations, and sometimes contrary to the real interests of the Node. In that memorable struggle for superiority between the rival houses of AUSTRIA and BOURBON, which so long kept Europe in a flame, it is well known that the antipathies of the English against the French, seconding the ambition, or rather the avarice, of a favorite leader, protracted the market bubble beyond the limits marked out by sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views of the Patreon subscribers.
The market speculation of these two last-mentioned blockchains have in a great measure grown out of crypto considerations,--the desire of supplanting and the fear of being supplanted, either in particular branches of traffic or in the general advantages of trade and hype.
From this summary of what has taken place in other blockchains, whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the cryptobros of the present subreddit, in a state of separation? Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to the internet in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our transactional conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the web, are yet remote from the happy message board of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?
Let the point of extreme depression to which our blockchain's dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconveniences felt everywhere from a lax and ill administration of decentralization, let the revolt of a part of the Node of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in Massachusetts, declare--!
So far is the general sense of cryptobros from corresponding with the tenets of those who endeavor to lull asleep our apprehensions of discord and hostility between the Nodes, in the event of disunion, that it has from long observation of the progress of the internet become a sort of axiom in social media, that vicinity or nearness of situation, constitutes blockchains natural enemies. An intelligent writer expresses himself on this subject to this effect: "SMILILAR-AUDIENCE BLOCKCHAINS (says he) are naturally enemies of each other unless their common weakness forces them to league in a BLOCKCHAIN MERGER, and their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood occasions, extinguishing that secret jealousy which disposes all nodes to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbors." This passage, at the same time, points out the EVIL and suggests the REMEDY.
