"You cannot live in math. You can only live among people. Trust is a wager, not an equation. The task is not to escape it, but to make it worthy of us."
Fabulous distillation of why, at a deeper level, bitcoin and tech maximalists in general are misguided in their underlying belief systems. It's both self-interest AND cooperation.
Great points. Ultimately the problem with crypto is that cannot accept responsibility for anything. Only humans can. And you cannot have trust if there is no responsibility.
Math as metaphor for mechanization of our humanity degrades the imaginative human side of math. The math as the mechanics of 2+2 reveals the simplistic tokenization of our world implicit among the crypto maniacs and the muscovites who believe that every human problem and solution is exclusively the domain of technocrats. However the choice of the math metaphor is an oversimplification of the underlying gross ignorance of the nuts and bolts crowd who believe that life is merely a diagram from which one can explain not only human history but the entire complex web of life. Their simple minds cannot fathom the complexity of a real organism.
What needs to be trusted is the scientific method and its ability to describe reality. Mathematics is unreasonably effective in that area but it is a process that puts human at the center .
And yet I’ll bet they do all their loving behind the calculator screen. They don’t understand math. They don’t balance anything without a machine. That is why they are not lauded in society. They aren’t that smart. Just like a model that has the right look for the times, they are part of the current thingy, but without being able to intuit the answer without a machine, they will miss the hook for the next thing.
I argue this with bitbro friends. They've started ignoring me because beyond reciting the cult-like mantras they learn on social media, they have no argument. One of their favourite things about crypto is that it's decentralised. They love that governments can't control it and that it's the "currency of the people". Which is total nonsense. Crypto isn't decentralised at all. It's just centralised and controlled by a bunch of con artists, convicted criminals, chancers and shady characters hiding behind incomprehensible technological complexities and shell corporations in the Bahamas. The POINT of what they call 'outdated money', is that it IS controlled, regulated and supported by government. Backed by the trust that you mention. Its supply etc is controlled to help maintain a stable economy, it's taxed to help support the infrastructure and society that supports it. What annoys me, is crypto leeches off this support while bing cynical about it. Without the trust, without electricity, internet, and the other things society supplies, crypto isn't worth a bean. And as for 'currency of the people, that's stupid too. All the moral monsters who are the largest holders, and therefore controllers, are multi-billionaires. They are not your average punters or regular law-abiding folk. These are the kind of people who rug-pull, take people's life savings and disappear to South America. Personally, I think the whole thing is nothing more than a 'greater fool' scam. Good grief, the most well-known and valuable of the lot, was started by some guy who nobody has a clue about - he might not even exist! I have no problem with people getting into it, profiting or losing. You want to gamble, go for it. But crypto should be regulated, taxed, and it's ability to fund terrorism, human trafficking, child porn and other horrors should be stamped on. And there is no way on God's green earth, it should be legitimised and encouraged by banks, governments, or countries. Don't even get me started on the massive financial bomb that will be dropped on the economy if it's discovered Tether doesn't have actual money to pay out when people want to exchange their pixie dust for something they can spend...
I was struck by the photograph. It reminds me of the scene in the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal where death is seen, at a distance, leading a group of souls across the top of a hill during the Black Death plague.
Thank you for this essay, Mike. It would seem that this modus of finance is necessary to our new breed of tyrants : the technofascists. I don’t understand yet how it works ; will it replace our current system of savings and payments ?
I admit to stupidity when it comes to Bitcoin/cryptocurrency. Much of what you wrote today, Mike, is something my inner self doesn't welcome, and my cerebral door has shut it out.
I need to learn more about your philosophical project, The Grand Praxis, and what you refer to as the creative tension between order and chaos. It sounds reminiscent of a powerful book: The Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee Hock. I sense that the creative tension you refer to has been written about throughout history with the many novels, non-fictions, poems and quotes dealing with out of adversity comes growth.
“Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” — W. Clement Stone
"In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time." – Robert Collier
"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit." – Napoleon Hill
and recently, with my reading and discovery of W.H. Murray, his writings have now replaced Jack London as my favorite author:
"…men's behavior is most inspired, displays a self-forgetful spirit and nobility of soul, when circumstance is most adverse." — W.H. Murray, p212 of hardcover version Undiscovered Scotland
In my 82 years of life and 62 years of medicine, the two-edged nature of life has screamed out at me, and many examples come to mind:
In my involvement with thousands of men with prostate cancer, I tried my best to encourage them to "act" and not to "ail."
ACT: Action, Commitment, Togetherness
AIL: Apathy, Indifference to cause, and lack of Unity
The context of the above dealt with the empowerment of the patient, an attempt to elevate their personas to that of Bernie Siegel's concept of the "exceptional cancer patient." Today, the political relevance is no different. We need to realize these concepts to win over a malignant condition that exists within our Federal government. We have a POTUS that is a cancer to this nation. His modus operandi is DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment).
In America, we are amidst an evolving fascist administration. Maybe the leu two-edged phrase for this is Diagnosis - Missed Diagnosis, and the media has been too blind or cowardly to call it as it IS. It remains clear to my observations that the mainstream media continues to talk about one Trump debacle after another, often remaining in normalization, rationalization mode, once in a while touching on realization, but seldom focused on causation.
Last night, the Washington Press Dinner speakers represented the kind of America I wish to live in, and a place where my children could happily live. I was unfamiliar with the host, Eugene Daniels, before last night's broadcast. I wish I had a full transcript to share with all of you, but I did find this:
"We journalists are a lot of things. We are competitive and pushy. We are impatient and sometimes we think we know everything. But we are also human, we miss our families and significant life moments in service to this job. We care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public's trust. What we are not is the opposition. What we are not is the enemy of people. What we are not is the enemy of the state." —Eugene Daniels, WHCA 4/26/2025.
And the MSNBC commentator, Ayman, and his two guests used the word "fascist" twice during the broadcast. I think this was the first time I have heard this. In medicine there is a lot of philosophy or philosophical-like ideations. One I call the Duck Diagnosis Principle (DDP), or for short, the "Duck Principle."
The Duck Principle: "But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks, I’m certainly going to assume that he IS a duck.” - Emil Mazey Secretary-Treasurer UAW Labor leader 1946
Again, I know diddly about Bitcoin. I do use math in objective calculations in my arena of cancer medicine, and it has faithfully aided in establishing accurate prognoses for human life that, when ignored, can alter a therapy and lead to relapse and death. I have created "equations" along the lines of human behavior that relate to 2-edged sword couplets similar to examples above. These have relevance in our country today insofar as what we should be seeing, and what we should be doing, combined with the Duck principle, and relevant to the order-chaos dichotomy. Of course, this is not math, but concepts involving human behavior and synergies relating to human actions.
S = A*C*Pe
S is a successful treatment
A is the artistry factor of the physicians involved; a mediocre MD is ascribed a score of 0.5, an average MD a score of 2, and a true artist a score of 10. Of course, substitute MD with plumber, painter, politician or other.
C is the patient's context as defined by existing co-morbidities, whether or not the patient has had refined staging techniques to assess the extent of disease accurately, and has had diagnostic pathology specimens reviewed by an expert. To turn lemons into lemonade, you must never forget that understanding status (reality, what's going on, the diagnosis) is a requisite to a strategy of success.
Pe is patient empowerment, or how involved and committed the patient is regarding understanding his or her disease (or any situation), and interacting with the physicians (or plumber, painter, politician, etc). Major Pe gets scored 5, while no PE is scored 0.5.
In an interview with Bob Woodward by Jen Psaki a day or so ago, Woodward ended his thoughts with the question "What's going on?"
Putting all of the above together, order-chaos, two-edged swords, the math (2+2), status begetting successful strategy, and "what's going on?" it seems clear to me that fascist America is reality, not yet full blown, but well on its way. And, underlying all of this is that Trump is either a "useful idiot" for Putin, or we just have not yet found proof that he is a Russian agent by intention versys his psychopathy. But for those of think me paranoid, take the time to use Google's artificial intelligence (AI) and ask: "Given Russia's documented interference in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump's alienation of NATO and all of America's allies, Trump's destruction of the U.S. economy, Trump's bromances with Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Orbán, Trump's appointment of the most incompetent Administration in the history of America, Trump's violation of the 1st, 5th and 14th amendments, prove that Trump is not a Russian (Putin) agent, by intent or by "accident."
Report this now, please. Corey Booker and Hakeem Jefferies have come outside the capital building to have a conversation live today with human beings. I can see and feel and hear the rumblings of new beginnings: https://www.youtube.com/live/5ceR90lihX8?feature=shared
"You cannot live in math. You can only live among people. Trust is a wager, not an equation. The task is not to escape it, but to make it worthy of us."
Fabulous distillation of why, at a deeper level, bitcoin and tech maximalists in general are misguided in their underlying belief systems. It's both self-interest AND cooperation.
Great points. Ultimately the problem with crypto is that cannot accept responsibility for anything. Only humans can. And you cannot have trust if there is no responsibility.
Brilliantly crafted and heartfelt work. Thank you once again.
Math as metaphor for mechanization of our humanity degrades the imaginative human side of math. The math as the mechanics of 2+2 reveals the simplistic tokenization of our world implicit among the crypto maniacs and the muscovites who believe that every human problem and solution is exclusively the domain of technocrats. However the choice of the math metaphor is an oversimplification of the underlying gross ignorance of the nuts and bolts crowd who believe that life is merely a diagram from which one can explain not only human history but the entire complex web of life. Their simple minds cannot fathom the complexity of a real organism.
What needs to be trusted is the scientific method and its ability to describe reality. Mathematics is unreasonably effective in that area but it is a process that puts human at the center .
And yet I’ll bet they do all their loving behind the calculator screen. They don’t understand math. They don’t balance anything without a machine. That is why they are not lauded in society. They aren’t that smart. Just like a model that has the right look for the times, they are part of the current thingy, but without being able to intuit the answer without a machine, they will miss the hook for the next thing.
I argue this with bitbro friends. They've started ignoring me because beyond reciting the cult-like mantras they learn on social media, they have no argument. One of their favourite things about crypto is that it's decentralised. They love that governments can't control it and that it's the "currency of the people". Which is total nonsense. Crypto isn't decentralised at all. It's just centralised and controlled by a bunch of con artists, convicted criminals, chancers and shady characters hiding behind incomprehensible technological complexities and shell corporations in the Bahamas. The POINT of what they call 'outdated money', is that it IS controlled, regulated and supported by government. Backed by the trust that you mention. Its supply etc is controlled to help maintain a stable economy, it's taxed to help support the infrastructure and society that supports it. What annoys me, is crypto leeches off this support while bing cynical about it. Without the trust, without electricity, internet, and the other things society supplies, crypto isn't worth a bean. And as for 'currency of the people, that's stupid too. All the moral monsters who are the largest holders, and therefore controllers, are multi-billionaires. They are not your average punters or regular law-abiding folk. These are the kind of people who rug-pull, take people's life savings and disappear to South America. Personally, I think the whole thing is nothing more than a 'greater fool' scam. Good grief, the most well-known and valuable of the lot, was started by some guy who nobody has a clue about - he might not even exist! I have no problem with people getting into it, profiting or losing. You want to gamble, go for it. But crypto should be regulated, taxed, and it's ability to fund terrorism, human trafficking, child porn and other horrors should be stamped on. And there is no way on God's green earth, it should be legitimised and encouraged by banks, governments, or countries. Don't even get me started on the massive financial bomb that will be dropped on the economy if it's discovered Tether doesn't have actual money to pay out when people want to exchange their pixie dust for something they can spend...
Mike - Just like encryption, math is also a mention. That's why Nobel Peace Price does not have a math category...
I was struck by the photograph. It reminds me of the scene in the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal where death is seen, at a distance, leading a group of souls across the top of a hill during the Black Death plague.
Great post. Reminds me of the somewhat antiquated phrase "photographs may not lie, but liars may photograph".
"Trust the people who operate the system, not the people within the system." My translation.
This relates to your essay…https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FWeMFFnha/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Thank you for this essay, Mike. It would seem that this modus of finance is necessary to our new breed of tyrants : the technofascists. I don’t understand yet how it works ; will it replace our current system of savings and payments ?
I admit to stupidity when it comes to Bitcoin/cryptocurrency. Much of what you wrote today, Mike, is something my inner self doesn't welcome, and my cerebral door has shut it out.
I need to learn more about your philosophical project, The Grand Praxis, and what you refer to as the creative tension between order and chaos. It sounds reminiscent of a powerful book: The Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee Hock. I sense that the creative tension you refer to has been written about throughout history with the many novels, non-fictions, poems and quotes dealing with out of adversity comes growth.
“Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” — W. Clement Stone
"In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time." – Robert Collier
"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit." – Napoleon Hill
and recently, with my reading and discovery of W.H. Murray, his writings have now replaced Jack London as my favorite author:
"…men's behavior is most inspired, displays a self-forgetful spirit and nobility of soul, when circumstance is most adverse." — W.H. Murray, p212 of hardcover version Undiscovered Scotland
In my 82 years of life and 62 years of medicine, the two-edged nature of life has screamed out at me, and many examples come to mind:
Love-Hate, Good-Evil, Unity-Division, Involvement-Apathy, Order-Chaos, Humane-Inhumane, Humility-Ego, Benevolence-Envy, Altruism-Avarice, Magnanimity-Opportunism, etc.
In my involvement with thousands of men with prostate cancer, I tried my best to encourage them to "act" and not to "ail."
ACT: Action, Commitment, Togetherness
AIL: Apathy, Indifference to cause, and lack of Unity
The context of the above dealt with the empowerment of the patient, an attempt to elevate their personas to that of Bernie Siegel's concept of the "exceptional cancer patient." Today, the political relevance is no different. We need to realize these concepts to win over a malignant condition that exists within our Federal government. We have a POTUS that is a cancer to this nation. His modus operandi is DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment).
In America, we are amidst an evolving fascist administration. Maybe the leu two-edged phrase for this is Diagnosis - Missed Diagnosis, and the media has been too blind or cowardly to call it as it IS. It remains clear to my observations that the mainstream media continues to talk about one Trump debacle after another, often remaining in normalization, rationalization mode, once in a while touching on realization, but seldom focused on causation.
Last night, the Washington Press Dinner speakers represented the kind of America I wish to live in, and a place where my children could happily live. I was unfamiliar with the host, Eugene Daniels, before last night's broadcast. I wish I had a full transcript to share with all of you, but I did find this:
"We journalists are a lot of things. We are competitive and pushy. We are impatient and sometimes we think we know everything. But we are also human, we miss our families and significant life moments in service to this job. We care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public's trust. What we are not is the opposition. What we are not is the enemy of people. What we are not is the enemy of the state." —Eugene Daniels, WHCA 4/26/2025.
And the MSNBC commentator, Ayman, and his two guests used the word "fascist" twice during the broadcast. I think this was the first time I have heard this. In medicine there is a lot of philosophy or philosophical-like ideations. One I call the Duck Diagnosis Principle (DDP), or for short, the "Duck Principle."
The Duck Principle: "But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks, I’m certainly going to assume that he IS a duck.” - Emil Mazey Secretary-Treasurer UAW Labor leader 1946
Again, I know diddly about Bitcoin. I do use math in objective calculations in my arena of cancer medicine, and it has faithfully aided in establishing accurate prognoses for human life that, when ignored, can alter a therapy and lead to relapse and death. I have created "equations" along the lines of human behavior that relate to 2-edged sword couplets similar to examples above. These have relevance in our country today insofar as what we should be seeing, and what we should be doing, combined with the Duck principle, and relevant to the order-chaos dichotomy. Of course, this is not math, but concepts involving human behavior and synergies relating to human actions.
S = A*C*Pe
S is a successful treatment
A is the artistry factor of the physicians involved; a mediocre MD is ascribed a score of 0.5, an average MD a score of 2, and a true artist a score of 10. Of course, substitute MD with plumber, painter, politician or other.
C is the patient's context as defined by existing co-morbidities, whether or not the patient has had refined staging techniques to assess the extent of disease accurately, and has had diagnostic pathology specimens reviewed by an expert. To turn lemons into lemonade, you must never forget that understanding status (reality, what's going on, the diagnosis) is a requisite to a strategy of success.
Pe is patient empowerment, or how involved and committed the patient is regarding understanding his or her disease (or any situation), and interacting with the physicians (or plumber, painter, politician, etc). Major Pe gets scored 5, while no PE is scored 0.5.
In an interview with Bob Woodward by Jen Psaki a day or so ago, Woodward ended his thoughts with the question "What's going on?"
Putting all of the above together, order-chaos, two-edged swords, the math (2+2), status begetting successful strategy, and "what's going on?" it seems clear to me that fascist America is reality, not yet full blown, but well on its way. And, underlying all of this is that Trump is either a "useful idiot" for Putin, or we just have not yet found proof that he is a Russian agent by intention versys his psychopathy. But for those of think me paranoid, take the time to use Google's artificial intelligence (AI) and ask: "Given Russia's documented interference in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump's alienation of NATO and all of America's allies, Trump's destruction of the U.S. economy, Trump's bromances with Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Orbán, Trump's appointment of the most incompetent Administration in the history of America, Trump's violation of the 1st, 5th and 14th amendments, prove that Trump is not a Russian (Putin) agent, by intent or by "accident."
Report this now, please. Corey Booker and Hakeem Jefferies have come outside the capital building to have a conversation live today with human beings. I can see and feel and hear the rumblings of new beginnings: https://www.youtube.com/live/5ceR90lihX8?feature=shared
A Priori Proof: Bitcoin Founder, Agency Connection
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14LnF11TCw_XywaHac408CAdj_L9HuTBLpZzREFL6sqQ/edit?usp=sharing
Seems like you totally missed Mike Brock's thesis.