Written by Ivan Gabriele
Politics without principles. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice.
It’s Thursday. You had to wait for another week to finally lay your hands on the last issue of Young India. These precious printed sheets of paper that you will obviously have to share with your family and neighbors. Because fifteen cents, that’s one meal you’ll have to skip. But who cares? You would skip all your meals if needed just to devour these wise, yet revolutionary words.It is the end of the year 1925, and your boiling country of India is starting to believe that “self-rule” is possible. For five years now, the Non-Cooperation Movement has spread all over your gigantic country to reach even the most remote villages of Garhwal. You couldn’t really explain why, but somewhere deep inside you, you know that “right will win.”Welcome to my journey.There used to be a time when, for most people in this world, reading was a luxury. And even for well-educated people, reading Gandhi’s words could be challenging. So, imagine how hard it was for the under-educated people of India. Yet, they did it. And if they couldn’t read, or couldn’t comprehend, then more knowledgeable friends or family would help them understand.Twenty-two years later, India became independent. At the price of the Partition of India, this one fight had been won.That inspiring part of history is now long past us. But how many fights are left? The fact that this quote may still resound with your feelings, almost 100 years later, is enough to give you an idea of how much is left to stand up for.
When you think about it, we generally suffer because we feel unjustly treated, whether it’s in our loving relationship, our family, our community, our company or our society.And yet, the truth is that we all feel oppressed while all being oppressors.The best — paradoxical — examples of that are the reactions of the usual designated “oppressors” towards criticisms: they themselves genuinely feel stifled. Many wealthy people feel that their success is undermined by unjustified taxes. Many powerful persons feel a lack of recognition for their involvement. Many majorities think that (some) minorities are mostly profiting from their hard labor. Many citizens think that immigrants are weakening their national heritage. Many men think that women already “have it all.” And the list goes on. But don’t get me wrong, I’m also an oppressor. This is not a judgment: it’s merely an observation.In fact, to go even further: being oppressed doesn’t make somebody better. To give you an example: many poor people would be as selfish as the wealthy ones if they were born in the same position.That is because human beings are not benevolent by nature. Being benevolent is something some of us choose to become. There are no books to teach you that, not even religious ones, and there is no predefined path to help you get there.If we were all constrained to live in the skin of those whose oppression we ignore, we would eventually come to realize how real are their struggles. In fact, even for a short period of time, men should become women, able-bodied persons should become disabled, majorities should become minorities, and the humankind should become our planet. We would finally understand how hurtful we can be towards people we ignore — whether due to our lack of understanding or our lack of empathy.That being said, I have never thought that we can resume us, the humankind, as a helpless mass of selfish creatures. We all know that’s not the case. Some people are more admirable than others. But they weren’t born admirable. At some point, they just decided to change. How so can a blockchain could even think about bringing that change?
Before I started contributing to Electra, I chose this cryptocurrency over so many others because I got this unexplainable intuition that this community had something different. I mean, really different. Yes, I admit that I deliberately chose Electra out of a hunch. Now, since I’m a developer, I obviously checked the technical side of it and the feasibility of their roadmap. But in the end, surely because of my ENFP-ness, I just couldn’t resist following what my subconscious was yelling so loudly.I have always believed in like-minded serendipity. That is, not only we do randomly find answers to questions we didn’t even realize we needed an answer to, but also these answers come from people with whom we find a deeper connection than anything we could have expected. That doesn’t happen often — that’s the beauty of it! — but when it does, it’s mind-blowing. This then becomes an indescribable feeling of overwhelming enthusiasm.And to be sincere, at first, I wasn’t able to put my finger on what I found so different there that didn’t already exist in any other blockchain project. I mean, there are many blockchains with interesting, mature, and thoughtful communities. Nevertheless, I dove in and let the currents carry me.
When I’m working for this community, I have the feeling of being this simple Indian devouring Gandhi’s words, these same words that were about to change his country forever, and many others later on.Nobody among us is Gandhi. But this unlikely gathering of people with so many different experiences, philosophies, and cultures provide the same feeling. Nearly every contributor I have had the pleasure to exchange with has had something to teach me. Almost every debate I have gotten into has made me rethink some part of my inner truths. And I am experienced. I have worked for 15 years and with almost 100 different companies. I have lived in 4 different countries. I have been highly involved in politics for 3 years. The list goes on. Nevertheless, in Electra, I am small, and that feeling is just transcending.I finally understood what was really different: Electra’s community is not building a blockchain or an “ecosystem.” They are building a country. A country in which selfless minds can thrive and free their potential without the fear of being wrong or being rejected. As one of us said:
None of us is fundamentally a good person, as selfless, useful, and involved as a person can be. We will all eventually have our moment of selfishness. And when these moments happen, a simple tap on the shoulder may often be enough to make you remember what you forgot: why are you here?
Our exchanges are not just a mere expression of our different opinions. We have real discussions in which we respect each other enough to be able to change our mind. We all come with an opinion, not a truth.Many blockchains, starting with Bitcoin, are led by what is called crypto-anarchism. And as an improbable consequence, it did, in fact, attract manyanarcho-capitalists because many of them mistook the first conception with the latter when, in reality, these two political philosophies are quite far apart from one another.Crypto-anarchism is mostly based on ensuring — by means of cryptography — our individual political freedom and privacy. Crypto-anarchism doesn’t seek any state reduction or destruction, apart from its entities that would endanger our political freedom or our privacy.Anarcho-Capitalism is based upon individualism against any form of state, implying that the goodwill of people — particularly the wealthy ones since it circles around the principle of ownership — would be more efficient in helping to make the world better than what any state would be able to achieve.And from what I have seen up until now, I can tell you that Electra’s corecommunity is not part of the anarcho-capitalist ones. We do recognize individualism as well as we clearly denounce any threat to political freedom and individual privacy. For the other political matters, that’s out of our scope. Each country is free to self-rule and its citizens to accept it or not. Crypto-currencies won’t solve our lack of schools, universities, and hospitals. They won’t protect our countries or ensure our individual security. Electra, in particular, is just a possible answer to a certain number of global issues.
There are roughly 2.5 billion unbanked people in the world. And this study from the World Bank does not even include all the people who have limited access to banking services, which wealthy people like many of us (in comparison with the rest of the world) are used to.Money independence and work independence are two essential liberties necessary to free billions of people from their subordinated situation.Industrialism transformed many self-owned single, or familial, entrepreneurs into employees. However, we do know now that this system doesn’t work well for everybody, particularly in regions where employees have very limited rights, if any.Not everybody needs to be an independent worker to be happy. It would be absolutely incorrect to think so. But we all need to have the freedom to be an independent worker without any social, structural, or legal barriers, whether we would choose it because our conditions as an employee threaten our well-being, or simply because we feel like it.If you add to that the lack of trust regarding most national currencies and the governments issuing them, work independence can’t be achieved without a currency you can trust, a money that you can use to ensure your vital needs anywhere you go, independently from the world and local crises. It thus has to be thought as a border-less environment to not suffer from the eventual downside of your regional economy. You should never be forced to move from where you live because your region’s economic situation can’t afford to provide you and your family with what you need. This is what Electra is building.
Gandhi proved to us that revolutions don’t have to be bloody to be successful. In fact, life taught me that social behaviors are more impacted by understated influences than by momentous transformations. We don’t have a big plan to resolve world famines, and we don’t plan to call people out into the streets, that would be megalomaniac. But we do plan on bringing the freedom to work and exchange with whoever you want in the world without any form of control or restriction. This is a person after person, stone after stone, quiet and meticulous mission.Is this simply the mere fantasy of a wealthy middle-class city-dweller who wrongly believes in being able to understand anything about what these world struggles are?Sincerely, it may well be.Nonetheless, trying will always have more chances to succeed than doing nothing, even if the mountain to climb is insanely high. The only thing I am sure about is that doing nothing will never change anything.
What about the speculation ?
Electra is no better than any other cryptocurrency. Most people are in for quick and speculative profits. How can you even talk about changing the world? Either you are naive, or you’re hypocritical.”
I really got asked this question.I’m not blind or naïve, and I obviously know that we do have some holders and contributors who are buying Electras to make a lot of money out of pure speculation. They may even dream every night about their next (purple?) Lamborghini. This is just how the world of cryptocurrencies works. Even the most serious newspapers headlines look like a trader mailbox: “prices,” “gains,” “losses,” “bubble,” “crypto-millionaires”… It’s all about the value and nothing about the values.Now, what if I told you that it doesn’t matter. It absolutely doesn’t. And to push even further, I dare to think that we need them as much as we need disinterested contributors. I won’t dive into the economic aspects in this already far-too-long article but let me give you a glimpse.First, we do live in a money-centered society. If we can’t find a way to work with people influenced by what — unfortunately — structures our society to achieve a better one, then we will never be able to change its foundations. Indeed, we only change people by starting to accept who they are. We can’t change the heart of society if we marginalize ourselves from it.Rejecting or blaming people for their behavior would require ourselves to be perfect. Since nobody is perfect, especially myself, who are we to judge anybody’s wish? If some people genuinely thinks that accumulating easywealth will make them reach the zenith of their life happiness, I may think that they are looking in the wrong direction, but they are free to think otherwise. My truth is not better than theirs. The only thing I can do is to help create an alternative, encourage them to try it, and hope that I was right.Secondly, as much as some people may think that this is bad, money can be a tremendous driving force. And as long as it helps our community to progress, we will all profit from it. We all have a reason for doing what we do. We are all looking for something bigger than us. Mine is a certain need for recognition. For others, it’s giving a purpose to their life or feeling part of a community. Each of these forces brings its share of weaknesses. That’s why we need to work with different personalities to balance them.Electra is not a solution. We are not even trying to find the solution. We accept from the start that we will make mistakes, that we will disagree and that any solution we will find can only be temporary. Because one thing is sure: later on, somebody will find a better one. It’s an endless process of creation and destruction. Put differently, this is a permanent revolution.Our real societies are unable to follow the same process because not only does it take time to organize and build them, but it takes even more time to change what has been settled.We don’t have an administration. We don’t have employees. We don’t have infrastructures. We don’t have a Government. At the bottom, it’s only code. And code can always be rewritten. In fact, the code should always be rewritten.
What about the money laundering ?
Let’s not forget here that the biggest money-laundering system in existence is called the banking system. A few examples:
- Illegal Drug Trade: $322 billion (2005)
- Human Trafficking: $150 billion (2014)
- Illegal Weapons Trade: $1,200 billion (2008)
- Tax Havens: $55,100 billion (2012)
The cryptocurrencies market capitalization is about $500 billion, and it’s obvious that a considerable part of this capitalization is the doing of many legal investments. Even if you were to consider the cryptocurrencies market as just being a giant washing machine, it would still represent a mere 0.9% of a total that only included some of the laundered money.Banks are so deeply involved in money laundering that:
A recent investigation by U.S. authorities found that between 2004 and 2007, one large U.S. bank allowed nearly $500 billion of drug money to be wired through its systems, no questions asked. […]
It’s just one U.S. bank, and it’s only related to the illegal drug trade. Yet, this is already equal to one third (on a per year basis) of the added capitalization of more than 1,300 cryptocurrencies.That being said, fighting money laundering is the job of the states. And blaming cryptocurrencies for something they have never been willing to stop is absolute intellectual dishonesty. Money laundering is only made possible because of corruption. If they really want to stop it, they already know how to do it: enforcing absolute and publicly verifiable bookkeeping transparency for companies (especially banks), public administrations, public administrative directors, and politicians.I have started five companies in my life, and I don’t see any issue in making my bookkeeping public. And the defense of competitive advantages is not a valid argument against that as long as everybody complies with the same rules: what would be true for your company would also be true for your competitors.Cryptocurrencies are not, and will never be, the cause of money laundering. They can only be used as another means as there are many other official means to do it.
That was a very detailed explanation of my journey as well as some answers to the questions that I have asked myself. And if you’re reading these last lines, then it is likely because you are like what the Electra community is at its core: always trying to get a deeper understanding before bringing your own insight, even and above all when you do disagree. That’s what is call being constructive.I do believe that some blockchain projects will one day be successful because they have the same ingredients that made Google or Apple: a “killer” product resting upon an unbeatable technological advantage. But Electra is not a company, and we don’t fight the same war. Our roots are the same ones that founded Wikipedia and Linux. While for some projects, their role models are Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Ma, our ideals are inspired by Muhammad Yunus, Dambisa Moyo, and Linus Torvalds.We are not underlied by selflessness because we are absolutely selfless.
We are underlied by selflessness because each of us can only be small.