May 15, 2021
Cryptocurrencies are the Pinnacle of Civilisation — A Warning from the Galactic Federation
Guest writer Klaatu from the Galactic Federation explains how pinnacles are very dangerous places
My mission is to travel across the galaxy in search of civilisations on the cusp of achieving a specific level of technological, economic and social development. . It can a highly satisfying job if I arrive at the right time. In those cases I offer membership of the Galactic Federation and mentoring in the ways of advanced civilisation. Far too often it is too late because civilisations have invented the most destructive technology known to all sentient creatures; the cryptocurrency. That is why call this period in a planet’s development the “Cryptocurrency Pinnacle”.
As each civilisation develops it goes through multiple crises of economics. In these crises the value of creating goods and services (of use to the population) is forgotten and planets go mad believing that money can simply be made from money in financial bubbles. What more primitive people’s fail to realise is that most of the damage caused by financial bubbles is when they are being inflated rather than when they burst.
Bubbles cause damage through varying combinations of the following,
- Excess Consumption — People consume rather than invest in a better future because they believe the bubble will make them rich.
- Bubbles can make individuals richer but they usually make societies poorer in the long run because a financial/economic bubble by definition, involves the incorrect pricing of assets and risk. This incorrect pricing leads to the misallocation of resources to either the wrong investments and/or to excess consumption. This comes at the expense of failing to make investments that could drive genuine economic growth or scientific advances or societal progress.
- Breaking the price mechanism - What you call “free markets” work more effectively that other systems because they are better at establishing the value of companies and assets by giving them a price. In a bubble this pricing mechanism becomes broken. Economics stops working.
- Giving wealth and power to crooks — Bubbles transfer great wealth into the hands of crooks, scoundrels and the incompetent. When every asset is shooting up in price, the people who are listened to, are those to tell the most outrageous and seductive lies. Their lies let them spend on things that no sense and gives them the power to take over enterprises that are productive, and to destroy them.
Planets in general go through these cycles until they decide to fix the system, I come along or cryptocurrencies are invented. Cryptocurrencies are the ultimate tool for creating and perpetuating bubbles. Their “de-centralised” nature is designed to stop authorities holding anyone responsible for the damage caused by cryptocurrencies. The idea that they are “innovative” combined with the complexity of the systems built around them, including what you call “stable coins”, confuse law makers long enough to stop anything being done about them until it is too late. They also be nature, if genuinely de-centralised, immensely environmentally destructive.
Eventually the crooks behind cryptocurrencies become so rich that they buy politicians, academics and journalists. The new truth (actually an enormous lie) becomes that we can all become rich and virtuous by doing our part to replace corrupted old system. A lie that even stretches to making the world more artistic and beautiful because art is “on the blockchain”.
Looking at your cryptocurrency bubble, I fear I have arrived too late to save you from your greed and arrogance. You have a choice. If you want my help, I will destroy the Bitcoin farms and deport the dozen criminals running the crypto economy to Pluto. Otherwise you are doomed. You have 30 days to decide. However, whatever you choose you must tell me the location of the inhabitant of Proxima Centauri’s third planet, called the Muskoid. He is wanted for many crimes. Tell me his location or I will destroy the Earth.
