This all-time classic Onion satire video sums up our institutions today.
The fictional City of Folsom recognizes that the dam overlooking their city is on the verge of collapse.
Do they fix it? Nope.
Instead, they erect a memorial to honor the soon-to-be dead, which is much cheaper than funding dam repairs. They're thinking ahead by etching Dennis Muñoz's name in the memorial, since he is a dam engineer who will definitely be swept away by the break.
Our institutions' dams are about to break. Are you going to stay in Folsom?
Our 'City of Ember' moment
Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember captivated me as a child. In the book, thousands of residents live in an underground city powered entirely by a hydroelectric dam. Previous generations built this city to save human civilization from an apocalyptic disaster and provided instructions on how to re-enter once the threat had subsided. Residents had to endure worsening food shortages and blackouts in the final years, cementing the idea that they had to get out.
In the buildup, the corrupt and selfish Mayor Cole addresses the residents of Ember with performative gestures:
Mayor Cole : These are trying and troubled times. Our problems are grave. We need answers, but beyond answers, more important than answers, we need solutions. And in order to find those solutions, I propose we launch a thorough investigation.
[Many members of the small crowd nod and say "Yes."]
Mayor Cole : I hereby declare the creation of a Task Force to Investigate the Blackouts.
Does that not sound exactly like the US today? In our national reckoning around racial injustice in 2020, cities painted 'Black Lives Matter' in the streets, but not one major government entity moved the racial justice needle anywhere forward. Atlanta's police chief walked hand in hand with protesters, then got fired a few days later when one of her cops shot an unarmed Black man in the back.
On the global scale, the climate keeps warming up and destabilizing, and the entire Western world praises Greta Thunberg's bravery while doing nothing to reduce emissions.
The lights are flickering in Ember, and we're putting wordsmiths instead of electricians in power.
The US dollar has been the bedrock of the global financial system for pretty much every living person's memory. We make fun of boomers for being out of touch with crypto's ascent, but remember they're called boomers because they were born in the postwar baby boom of the 1940s and 50s. They spent their formative years watching the US dominate on the world stage, and never seeing anything come close to the US dollar's supremacy. The dollar is still strong enough that if you travel anywhere abroad these days, you know you can get yourself out of a bind with a few greenbacks.
What was I watching during my formative years? Watching us invade Iraq under false pretenses. Watching a puzzling web of bureaucracy fail to get hurricane-stricken New Orleanians water and food. Watching big banks plunge us into a deep recession with dumb hubris and never be held accountable. Children coming of age today are watching the frenzied Afghanistan retreat, COVID failures, and January 6th. When my parents were 40, they bought the house I spent my childhood in. By the time I'm 40, I'm not sure if the US dollar will be the right currency to buy a house with.
The US dollar will likely be dethroned as the global reserve currency in our lifetimes. This will hurt our purchasing power and quality of life overnight when it happens. Most people have a general sense of dread about America's global standing in the next few decades. Few are doing anything about it. In other words: they're memorializing Dennis Muñoz, not saving him.
Blockchains are computers that can make commitments
Chris Dixon's article offers my favorite definition of blockchain: computers that can make commitments.
To this point, commitments involving lots of people have required people in charge that can carry out the commitments. Usually, this works well. Most people are good. Smart people have devised systems that can keep commitments fairly well. Zoom out, and the US Government system has held up remarkably well considering how much has changed since it began. Federalism, inalienable rights, bicameral legislatures, they all have kept things running smoothly. But if people are charged with the task of running these systems, they will inevitably find a way to mess it up - either nefariously (see Trump) or innocently (see the guy at Citibank that fat-fingered $500 million and can't get it back)
Blockchains use code and cryptography to guarantee those types of interventions can't happen. For the first time, actions that once required a bureaucratic institution to perform are now less risky if you just do it on the blockchain. I've watched my purchasing power decrease as the Fed triggered inflation with their rampant money printing, but I own Bitcoin, which I know has a limited supply.
Okay, let's blockchain. With fury, right?
No. We Blockchain Calmly.
I’m joining forces with Alex on because I feel the crypto space lacks patience and vision. My first impression of Crypto Twitter was a lack of substance. You either get Pepe the Frog profiles showing technical analysis charts of shitcoins, or you get uber-technical people talking about concepts way over the layman's head. There has to be a better way. There has to be an opportunity for value-added content that looks further out than the next bull cycle.
Don't forget about the other side of the 'calmly' coin too: what do you do when you face adversity? Crypto is leaving people like me, who don't know code or finance, behind. Every time I have real-life conversations about crypto, I feel overwhelmed. Sometimes, I've asked Alex to explain and re-explain embarrassingly basic concepts to me. I've noticed that my brain gets weary if I spend a lot of concentrated time on the topic. Crypto is hard for me; I don't have a background in programming or finance. Yet I know I need to press on because I can sense its importance and urgency. It will be hard at first. There will be pain. But if I embrace it, put my head down, and humbly learn and produce, I will emerge as a better writer and better expert on blockchain.
Something special happens when you take initiative: the world produces abundance for you. I love referencing Stone Soup, a child's tale where a weary traveler carrying nothing but a cauldron begs the villagers for food. Every villager rejects his pleas for food until he starts boiling water in the cauldron, says he is making 'stone soup' for the village, and asks for just one more ingredient to complete the soup. One by one, the villagers each share one ingredient until the cauldron is filled with a hearty, filling soup that is enjoyed by all.
Stone Soup perfectly frames my journey in crypto. I know I can't DM successful traders and ask for the top 100x altcoins. Nor can I just have some programmer work for free for me if I come up with a good idea for technology in the space. But I can start somewhere, build my knowledge bit by bit, build an audience, build momentum. And trust that the abundance will follow.
With that, I humbly present to you my online persona, Dennis Muñoz. Here are my ideas. I'd love for you to share them, critique them, add to them, engage with them, anything that grows our collective wisdom and abundance.