Bitcoin is Total Peace

“History” as we understand it begins with human beings trying to keep track of who owned what. Cuneiform Tablets and Hammurabi’s Code in Mesopotamia are the some of the oldest examples of writing and law. And were they trying to do? They were trying to establish ownership of, and mediate disputes about property.

Living things understand property implicitly. Lobsters, finches, wolves, bears - every creature is territorial. They possess the resources they need to possess to thrive and reproduce and then they defend these resources against interlopers and confiscation.

In pre-history, we lived in hunter-gather tribes under 150 people (Dunbar’s number). “Property” was understood in this simple animalistic sense, and the property records, so to speak, were kept in the tribe’s collective consciousness and defended by interpersonal violence.

As the tokenization of time (money) allowed us to cooperate with strangers, we were able to scale up society beyond 150 people we actually know. This was a phase change for humanity, and it required written records and organized government. We could plan into the future, we could store crops for next year, but this increased the temptation for strong people’s to violate property rights. This threat of attack creates the demand for defense, and so government is born.

War is the method by which we determine who gets to write the record of who owns what. Total war happens when the technology of war changes enough to throw off existing conventions of war.

The difference between today and ancient Mesopotamia is really only scale. Our technological advancements have allowed us to do the same thing (government and written records of property) with many more people.

This is why Bitcoin changes everything. It is only the second time we’ve made such a fundamental leap in how property is established and defended.

We have completely replaced violence with energy and cryptography.

We have replaced alterable and forge able records with unalterable, unforgeable records.

At no point in human history has the world order been safe from attack and/or coercion by the biggest bully.

Until now.

Human history is just a long line of violable property rights being violated.

With Bitcoin, we leave the age of Total War, and enter the age of Total Peace.