Trump’s Persistent Election Result Denials Demonstrate the Need for Bitcoin-Verified Truth

This is an opinion editorial from Dan Weintraub, a writer and high school teacher who first became interested in bitcoin while teaching economics.

I recently looked with astonished indifference CNN’s Donald Trump Town Hall CharioteerAnother one in an endless list of terrifying political and social zombie dances.

The truth is, I can’t help but think about partisan politics, about the upcoming presidential election cycle, about the supposedly heartfelt and honest liberal and conservative political expressions within American politics, about shaking hands about the tenuous future of American politics. Don’t care more. democracy, etc. can I Doing What does matter, however, is how easy it is to manipulate a human being into believing a lie.

we are All Sheep—blind followers with little sense of conscience—we are all completely programmable and completely impressionable. History may not repeat itself, but as an endless record of follower-humans performing leader-humans from cosmic rocks (and for some other reason the leader-humans weren’t really skilled at lying), it Definitely feels like deja vu all over again.

don’t care! This is not an article about Trump or ideological dissent. Tramp is just one man in a human melodrama that spans millennia. The focus of this piece is about the role bitcoin can play in restoring trust and ending human slumber; It’s about how we disempower those who spread misinformation. And it is a warning, because those in power can go to any extent to maintain their coercive hold over humanity.

Why governments are afraid of bitcoin

So, the first question we should examine is this: why do governments seem so fearful of bitcoin? Interestingly, this isn’t just because bitcoin has the potential to end governments’ monopoly on money (which is a pretty big deal in itself). No. The underlying reason actually points to something more fundamental: governments fear bitcoin as a construct because governments can only rule through deceit and dishonesty.

You see, the most powerful and successful governments throughout history have been (and remain) the ones that are the most dexterous and adept at lying. The United States government, a bastion of supposed democratic righteousness, is in fact a striking example of this principle. From Vietnam to Iraq, from Joseph McCarthy to Lyndon Johnson to Jerome Powell and beyond, American history is replete with examples of the power of lies and the softness of the minds of well-intentioned, patriotic, innocent, hopeful, lost citizens .

bitcoin is out of lie

Back to Trump for a moment. from this BBC,

“Mr. Trump has questioned the legitimacy of the election process in a series of tweets, the latest of which on Monday said: ‘Of course there is massive voter fraud occurring on and before Election Day … Republican leaders deny why. What is happening?’ so naive!’ ,

the above quote is No By the fall of 2020. This is from 2016, when then-candidate Trump was facing then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the general election. Let us not forget that Trump has been making claims of rigging the elections for years. A masterful and, indeed, quite sophisticated practitioner in the art of exploiting human neurological vulnerabilities, Trump brilliantly took advantage (and continues To take advantage) of your skills as a purveyor of misinformation. In fact, millions of Americans keep on believing Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020 are true, and that the presidency was stolen from him and his followers.

I find this completely fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

The issue is not whether Trump’s claims are true or not. And, if I’m being honest, I have to admit that there’s no way of knowing whether or not Trump’s claims are true. (The fact is, if I dismiss their claims, I might just be choosing to believe the narrative offered by the other side. Both sides adhere staunchly to their data. Both sides echo.) live in cells that reinforce their narratives. Both sides suffer from the anti-intellectual effects caused by the weaknesses of human neuroplasticity. And both sides are made up of millions of follower-humans, unaware of the power that leader-humans wield. Through your manipulation, through your theatre, through your deceit.)

The point here is that without the ability to verify Trump’s claims, we are all potential victims; Without the ability to know exactly what happened in the last election cycle, there is no way to trust the election results – indeed, there is no way to trust our political process.

bitcoin and neuroplasticity

Neuroscience 101: Hear something enough and you’ll believe it to be true. Get on your knees and pray to God for an hour every day, and within months, maybe weeks, even dyed-in-the-wool atheists will believe in God. Just read articles on Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit, just listen to podcasts by Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck, and you will believe beyond a doubt in your mind that the election was stolen. Just read the articles on Mother Jones and HuffPost and Slate magazine, and you’ll believe without a doubt in your mind that the election was legit. Just listen to the YouTube channels broadcasting the views of Michael Saylor, Balaji Srinivasan, Mark Moss and Jeff Booth and you will believe that bitcoin hitting $1 million is inevitable, that hyperinflation is coming and that all banks are about to collapse. Are. Just listen to the YouTube channels preaching the ideas of Warren Buffet and Peter Schiff and you will believe that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme and a scam.

Humans are sheep because we are wired to be sheep. We believe that we are critical thinkers and great interpreters of truth, but we are all just taking in and absorbing the narratives we hear over and over again.

Without verification, we are all potential victims of the lies told by those in power.

Again, enter bitcoin.

As I said in my previous article, we need to have some imagination. We should aspire to see that, over time, the bitcoin network can act as the foundational layer for all digital interactions. And in time, there is every possibility that such a network may have the ability to verify every transaction, every conversation, every news item, every claim by the government, every tweet, etc., beyond any doubt.

But here’s the thing: we really do No It takes a great deal of imagination to recognize that elections and blockchain technology are present tense, not future tense, ideas.

Imagine a system in which each ballot is keyed with a digital private key/signature. All voting records reside on an immutable ledger. While this will not discourage those who employ lies and disinformation as a way to manipulate neurological hypersensitivity, it will take us in a direction in which claims of voter fraud, such as those made by Trump, have no teeth. Is. And perhaps over time, as bitcoin and the bitcoin network proliferate, more such forms of verification have the potential to reduce the superpower of liars.

i recognize that This For the moment, bitcoin is feared more for its ability to circumvent monetary controls than for its inherently truthful nature. American leaders are fearful of the prospect of the dollar losing its status as the world’s reserve currency, and as such, they go to great lengths to question and undermine the legitimacy and accessibility of anything that promotes such a possibility. do. (For example, right now we hear more about the evils of China and RnB dominance than about bitcoin.)

But Can you see why our leaders might be so scared of bitcoin, in a possible future in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to lie? And can you see why our leaders would do anything to stop the dominance of truth and verification? I have no doubt that, as the bitcoin network becomes increasingly capable of cross-checking any and all types of data, in any and all forms and forms, to verify claims for truth, that leaders around the world will Will do everything Everything! – in their power to destroy this network – because without the ability to lie, all governments, all centralized power brokers, fail by their very nature to manipulate us sheep.

Over time, bitcoin may become much more than a monetary network. It can be much more than a store of monetary value. It can be much more than property. Over time, the bitcoin protocol and bitcoin network could become the very thing those in power fear most: Truth,

Where there is truth, there the sheep wake up.

Trump of the world will have to account

As I said at the beginning of this piece, this is not a political screw-up. Politicians lie regardless of ideology. Leaders on the left are just as adept, at employing misinformation and dishonesty, as are those on the right. The point is that without the ability to objectively verify the truth, humans will continue to fend off their mindless selves, believing the lies fed by those who profit from such duplicity.

I know that many of you reading this will view my views on the evolution of the bitcoin network as the stuff of fantasy. Let me ask you though: throughout human history, hasn’t every progress once in a while been considered brilliant? Bitcoin is just getting started. Once our leaders realize that in the near future, the bitcoin network and protocol could turn into a global and unbreakable lie detector, they will go to any extent to kill it. Because they are only as strong as the credibility of the lies they tell.

This is a guest post by Dan Weintraub. The opinions expressed are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.