Operation Saylor - Episode 21/120
1303 sats \ 4 comments \ @pillar 23 Mar bitcoin

Operation Saylor - Episode 21/120
Hi again and welcome to another episode of the Operation Saylor. This is update number 21, corresponding to March 2024.
If you are reading this for first time, you might want to check Episode 1, where my plan and details are explained. That will get you in context.

Stats
  • BTC stack: 1.32429598 BTC
  • € stack: 76.00 €
  • Current total value in €: 81,917.49 €
  • € into BTC: 30,000 €
  • Paid back to bank: 7,324.00 €
  • Outstanding debt + interests: 36,620.33 €
  • Installments to go: 100

Charts

Log
Hello again, and welcome to a new episode of the series.
This month I want to deviate a bit from Bitcoin and focus on anarchy. Before I fell into the rabbit hole, I had no clue about anarco-capitalism and thought, just like any normie, that anarchy meant streets on fire and chaos. As years passed and I travelled the rabbit hole, I've slowly grown more and more convinced that anarco-capitalism would be a significantly better system than the one we live in today in most western countries. I don't consider myself an expert at all, and I'm not entirely sure of how could we replace many areas of society, state and government as they are today. But even so, I see a case for trending towards more anarchy in our society.
Having said this, there's something that worries me deeply: we are not ready. At all.
As much as I hate the modern state and its proponents for all the misery they have caused, the current state provides a series of tools for us to relate with each other, which are extremely valuable. Things like legal persons, civil codes, property registries, courts, etc. And to live without this stuff takes us back to stone age tribe grade social structures, which is most definitely not how we are going to progress.
Let me make a simple example: car ownership.
If you would find yourself selling your car in the wild west, selling would strictly mean giving away the keys to the new owner and kind of be ok with him driving it instead of you. In the modern, state-ran west, selling your car nowadays means much more than that: you are giving away the keys, but you are also leaving a lot of contractual traces in different public registries that trigger the state and most of society to recognise the buyer as the new owner and respect that.
In the wild west, you are scared shitless of someone taking your car's keys because, if they drive away with them, you're pretty much done. In our reality, you don't care that much, because no thief is going to go happily driving around your car for long, for he will soon enough interact with some entity that will quickly raise a red flag once it realizes this guy doesn't appear in the proper database as the owner.
In the wild west, you can't provide a loan to someone taking their car as a collateral without also taking physical posession of it. Because you don't even know if the car is actually his. And you are also scared shitless someone might steal the car of this guy, meaning there wouldn't be any asset to take if the loan is not repaid.
In the wild west, you'll probably be very careful when crossing the street. Because if a car runs you over, and this car doesn't have a plate on it from a strictly maintained and enforced ownership registry, you have no fucking clue on where to go to seek compensation. In the modern west, you are way more confident: unless he delivers a perfect hit and run, it's easy to track down who the hell was responsible for that and seek restitution.
Now, this is just about car ownership. Think of real-state ownership, labor contracts, marriage, or the gazillion rulings, registries and systems necessary to sustain and operate large businesses that are beyond the mom and pop corner store scale.
Some wise fellow ancap is probably sitting on the edge of his chair, ready to to type: "well, yeah, but there's no reason the private sector can't provide all of this and, in fact, do it much better than the state". I fully agree with that. Theoretically, it can deliver all of this, and I concur it would probably do it much better than our current structures.
But you know what? I see absolutely nothing around me. Nothing. Zero. Not even a seed of any of this. If the state would stop providing these services, tomorrow, we wouldn't even have a toy version of any of this.
The most advanced thing I've seen is pretty much Bitcoin meetups generating small networks that operate like tribes. You have people knowing each other, a few guys probably playing the wise/reliable/respectable old-man of the tribe role. A lot of trust based petty business. Spit on your palm and shake hands grade of contracting. We look pretty much like chimps with Lightning wallets.
I'm worried because there won't be any orange bright future unless we replace the good stuff the state provides us. Calling for the reduction or the end of the state without strong alternatives to all of its key services is suicidal. Our societies would just fall apart and we would need to start from scratch. And I don't see a lot of thinking done around all of these issues in the bitcoin communities I lurk in.
I would be curious to know your thoughts on this. Do you share my view on the problem? How do you think this should get solved?
As always, thanks for reading and I'll see you next month.

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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 23 Mar
oh man, you are going to win really big eh?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 23 Mar
Seems to be going well for you so far.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @CruncherDefi 23 Mar
About the wild-west analogy.
If someone steal your coins you are done, but what if you'd have indestructible tank to carry your coins around?
Encryption is kinda like that. Your coins aren't just lying and waiting to be taken. They are surrounded by cryptographic vault that's impenetrable. While perhaps still not ideal, it somewhat changes the situation.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 23 Mar
In the wild west, you are scared shitless of someone taking your car's keys because, if they drive away with them, you're pretty much done. In our reality, you don't care that much, because no thief is going to go happily driving around your car for long, for he will soon enough interact with some entity that will quickly raise a red flag once it realizes this guy doesn't appear in the proper database as the owner.
Bitcoin is exactly that wild west of money, and that's its whole point and what makes it great. I'm sure you've heard the word "keys" in a context other than cars.
It looks like fiat possesses the properties you cherish, with the central bank's "proper database".
Some wise fellow ancap is probably sitting on the edge of his chair, ready to to type: "well, yeah, but there's no reason the private sector can't provide all of this and, in fact, do it much better than the state". I fully agree with that. Theoretically, it can deliver all of this, and I concur it would probably do it much better than our current structures. But you know what? I see absolutely nothing around me. Nothing. Zero. Not even a seed of any of this. If the state would stop providing these services, tomorrow, we wouldn't even have a toy version of any of this.
How about: we don't have any of this, because we have a state, with its monopoly, regulations and theft?
We don't have many private roads, because the state is suppressing demand (and consequently, supply) for them by building public ones with extorted money. It's not that people don't want roads, so the state has to build them, or else there wouldn't be any.
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