2023-12-22
On the Nature of the Propagandized and Damage to the Mind
- A December 2023 essay prompted by a community tweet warning Charles off politics, arguing that repeated exposure to propaganda physically damages the brain and makes objectivity nearly impossible.
- Says weaponized politics has left people unable to grant even due process to opponents, while phones and TikTok gut attention spans and the ability to learn.
- Explains why he cannot stay silent when Elizabeth Warren and the Treasury weaponize the broker definition, Operation Choke Point 2.0, and bank denials against crypto.
- Frames blockchain as the tools of liberty, the one defense as CBDCs, social credit, and exponential tech like AGI and Tesla Bots concentrate power in the wrong hands.
26 entries
Opens December 22nd 2023 responding to Gary Golden's tweet warning that Charles commenting on politics is Cardano's number-one risk, prompted by his video on the Colorado Supreme Court removing ballot due process.
Argues repeated exposure to propaganda and misinformation designed to make you angry physically changes your neurobiology, making you more prone to a visceral negative reaction.
US politics are so weaponized it is nearly impossible to be objective, and that Trump-haters cannot view anything he does positively even from principled rule-of-law grounds.
Propaganda is used on all sides, with many on the right unable to say anything nice about Hillary Clinton by design, and that it now extends into all public discourse.
Says if you believe the other side is evil and non-human you cannot negotiate or compromise, since a compromise becomes 40 percent of harming your children.
Argues it should not be controversial to want Fifth Amendment due process for every American, since even Ted Kaczynski, the Oklahoma City bomber, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers got it, yet political opponents apparently do not.
Warns that empowering tools which break social norms means they will eventually be used on you, the danger of empowering bureaucracy to destroy liberty.
Taking a side on principle now brands you the enemy, but the angry are not at fault because their brains are physically damaged by propaganda, an actual disability.
Phones re-engineer human brains and hack dopamine, destroying attention spans and learning, so his generation watched 8 to 10 videos an hour while the next consumes 40 to 60 TikTok and Shorts snippets.
This will not change his behavior, since he speaks out not to support an individual but because damaging institutional integrity has consequences, insisting he is not a political person.
Recalls dining with Democrat senators and talking to Governor Polis's office, framing it as not left versus right but that the Democrat leadership under Elizabeth Warren empowered the Treasury to destroy crypto.
It is hard not to be political when a party pushes bills to make Bitcoin and Ethereum illegal via the broker definition, while a regulator calls everything but them a security and then targets exchanges, DeFi, and non-custodial wallets.
Cites Operation Choke Point 2.0 unbanking people, and Caitlin Long's Custodia Bank in Wyoming denied a Federal Reserve master account despite a legal obligation to a lawful state bank.
He stays neutral where he can but must speak when the world crumbles, noting a Home Alone grocery basket that cost about 19 dollars would be over 70 at King Soopers today, a sign of badly damaged money.
Damaged money makes it harder to buy a home, start a business, or live the American dream, a global problem nearing monetary collapse with over 30 trillion dollars of national debt.
Instead of a national conversation the game is personal destruction, and crypto is the only industry solving it, having begged for decades for sound money and self-custody of identity, property, and consent.
As crypto succeeds despite 14 years of media assault and Paul Krugman declaring Bitcoin dead over a hundred times, Warren attacks it with the false claim it funds Hamas, a straw man for government overreach.
Warns the assault will come from this or a future administration, so the industry must keep writing code and growing or face a monetary collapse and totalitarianism everywhere.
Trump and Biden are old men who will soon die of age like Reagan and Ford, and if people reduce politics to good versus evil and neglect their duty to defend liberties, they deserve what comes.
The number-one thing anyone can do is build the tools of liberty, blockchain, the foundation of voting, identity, data, assets, and objective truth as an immutable trusted bulletin board.
Calls it a pivotal moment, Max Tegmark's Life 3.0, citing a company he works with resurrecting the woolly mammoth, life extension, superhuman AGI, and Tesla Bots poised to replace human labor within a decade.
Technologies like superhuman AGI and Tesla Bots are neutral, but if the few who lack society's interest control them they will divide people, so the only defense is being your own bank with self-sovereign identity in decentralized systems.
Warns of CBDCs paired with social credit deciding what you buy and learn, citing how fast COVID restricted freedoms with vaccine papers, lost jobs, and travel bans.
To imagine that overreach amid a monetary collapse, a US-China conflict this decade, or a rogue AGI, and that society must step away from the propaganda that damages every mind through mass media and phones.
Crypto is awakening millions to this, which is why he has not retired to his bison ranch, because it is the only time in history to liberate everybody.
Praises the goodwill at the Intersect Civics committee and the good people across Ethereum, Polkadot, Algorand, and Bitcoin, urging focus on common humanity and never being afraid to speak out.