“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
I believe God is in me and we are part of God. I believe there is a cosmos. The place God works. Outside of time, traversings everything.
I then ask
How can you honor God if you don’t do both? And my answer. We must be reminded – God is everything, the whole thing;
Ask yourself this question
God, if I do not do the second What happens to me at the rapture?
What is fake news, but someone wants me to think their way? Be it 1984, Animal Farm, Jung, Freud, Aristotle, or Jesus; man has manipulated the truth to teach or blind us to a better way. Sharia law, forcing me to live the way you decide?
The dogma of any religion or philosophy is crafted for either peace or power.
Jesus the King of Kings, the divine one, on the right hand of, one and the same as, the Lord our God.
Told us there are only two commandments, essential and the same we must apply to our lives
I must begin with an apology to the lady who caused me to start this post. I am sorry about how things evolved, yet I am thrilled at a new beginning. I was looking forward to exploring what could be now I am.
I also appreciate how my spiritual foundation differs from many. In this post, I will attempt to share what I believe.
There are four great teachers Lao Tzu, Siddhattha Gotama, Confucius, and finally the King of Kings Jesus. To these four, we must add the Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and the other great scholars whose words graced the libraries of Alexandra and other great centers of ancient learning.
Their thoughts and ways of looking at life and our surroundings transcend time.
Jesus easily sailed these waters and beyond
Jesus, between age twelve and thirty, I suspect, walked the northern silk route and traveled home along the southern maritime route, searched, and explored all of their thinking. He probably voyages around Europe with the Phoenicians.
When he emerged, he taught.
He was a truly enlightened man.
He taught us a new way of living together.
He was the conclusion of all of the world’s thinking into one simple rule. In order to honor the creator God, we must adhere to the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule Is How We must Live
Stories told of Jesus established a deep feeling of love for Jesus son of Mary and Joseph a martyr who died on the cross preaching peace and harmony.
If only those in power had embraced the love, he shared. Instead, they took control of the image of Jesus and God.
Western civilization wants to claim it is superior. In earlier times the lord God was used to establish the power of the monarch. The hubris of one tribe to claim their Book was better than any other book is where the division across this great planet emanate.
That arrogant better than thou feeling is our greatest sin.
Look at the tower of Babel. We once were one. The people who wrote that passage wrote of our inability to work together. They blamed God for our human failures. The story is of us. Instead, we turn the text around and blame God for our inability to live together in peace.
We could not create a society
Capable of standing up and saying to God.
Father, you can be proud of us
We are one together on earth Bound together in peace and harmony Honoring the one common rule given to all of us by the Creator
My return from a world where chaos ultimately produced the order we see 》 Happened in 2005 while living in Canada. 19 year abroad thinking of coming home. I stopped drinking; we joined the three-week-old community church in Markham, Ontario. There, I began to study the bible. When I came back to the United States in 2008 and settled for a time on St Simons Island, Georgia, I joined the local community church. Moving up to Atlanta, I joined with my sister and attending Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.
Supposedly reborn I tried to learn and listen for God’s words.
Is that not what Jesus told us was our task?
I was taught that he died on the cross so in his name we would come together as one, both Gentile and Jew? Instead!
What happened next resulted from several evangelicals better than thou experiences.
They demand – I see things their way.
This better-than-thou attitude caused me to run back to the Episcopal church.
Tribalism:
Party, nationalist, MAGA, slave owner, racist, sexist, cults, schools, churches, temples … whatever holds one group together divides us. This is our failure.
We did not listen to those four great teachers
I don’t think the evangelist understands the words of the world of the great Teacher and King Jesus Christ.
We are not listening to Jesus. He knew and had learned from All the many before him
With this ancient depth, even he has not convinced those now living and those who came before to come together as one family. He asked us, in the name of the creator, to be the stewards of this planet and friends to any who enters our space.
This is who we are expected to be
Look at us today. We have not been true to his teaching.
Those that follow, including Mohammed, Luther, Calvin, Joseph Smith, Guru Nanak, and so many others, sought to promote their unique way of thinking. Instead, they ended up creating even more division.
In 2017 my mother died. It was late February. We had just elected a racist President. Two priests Robert and Tom stood talking as friends. Of two different disciplines, these men told me the local spiritual leaders met for Lunch – Dinner – Musical … whatever.
Years later Tom and Allan (Robert’s replacement) along with the local rabbi took a group to Palestine.
They told me who did not wish to be part of their ecumenical movement.
The Imam did
At the beginning of 2020, living once again in the Golden Isles, I attended three of the churches here on St. Simons. I listen with great respect to Alan & Tom as they tended to their Presbyterian and Episcopalian flocks. I also had a chance to experience Catholics sharing their faith. The feeling of being connected to God is absolutely present in each of these congregations.
I stayed away from most people during the pandemic, especially those rude people who would not wear a mask and do not want to accept the free vaccine and become part of the herd immune society.
May 2021
A lovely woman asked the question of my spiritual beliefs.
before she adamantly professed her beliefs
I was at peace with My spiritual foundation
Now that she has reentered my life
I have a new appreciation of the value of community
and the necessity to change the way we treat each other
While cycling one beautiful afternoon along the Chattahoochee, I listened to one particular way of interpreting the Tao.
After listening to the full series, the Trinity became nothing more than an element of the mythology used to help people find a common purpose.
For me, our purpose should be to find union with all. People should not insist we all believe in the Jesus described in the Nicene Creed. Instead,
We could all agree
Jesus Is
The Greatest Spiritual Teacher
a King of Kings
a divine individual
Many tell me I must give God my full and undivided attention. They tell me he will fill my mind with heavenly wisdom and knowledge.
They tell me – he has plans for me.
They tell me they see and hear greatness in my ideas. Can it be true?
Is God calling and asking me to step up
Reach higher and prepare to do more than I can imagine?
My therapist believes I have a calling. Others cause me to fear the burden God wants to place on my shoulders. The woman who caused me to write told me she heard greatness in my ideas.
Sometimes even I wonder if I am destined and here for a reason
In 1976 I grasped hardware, software & networks achieving the equivalent of a 4-year master’s in computer sciences. 1982, while replacing the back pages of the WSJ with computer screens, I saw how marginal satisfaction is not a human instinct and was confronted with trying to grapple with the advantages and disadvantages of socialism and capitalism. 1986 off to Europe for 15 years.
1991, I moved into senior management and saw the world through the eyes of Mastercard and Visa. I helped them grow while focusing on securing the world of payments and heralding in eCommerce.
Big data, identity, and cryptography take me into today.
The fourth industrial revolution is underway; it calls us to embrace machine learning, natural language interfaces, 3D printing, and the internet of things.
How God fits in begs the question of why God would put Putin and Trump in power. Why would income inequality be so raw and health a profit center? Those waving the Trump and MAGA flags worry me. Their supremacist attitude solidifies for me one thing. Tribalism is our greatest sin.
Has he put me here to address the real issue!
Stop believing in the absolute truth of One book. Instead, we need to collectively believe in the one creator who taught the four or more ancient scholars the truth. They all have one common message.
It is time to listen and embrace The Golden Rule.
If this is my destiny, I need help. I need the OMI cheerleader. Moreover, I need to meet men and women of faith who have experienced a truth and have grown to see the truth.
Together we can build and promote We need to embrace The Golden Rule
During my journey from one of not wishing to believe in the one of accepting the power and grace of God; I explored science and hoped science would offer all the answers and ultimately be able to explain everything. As my learning expanded, I came to appreciate that there was too much order in my eyes and my mind’s perception; I came to accept that only a creator could establish the order of the universe we live in.
When I reflect on the big bang and read Genesis 1:1-5, I see in those few words the fact that there was a Big Bang, and it was when God created the light. In those seconds and billions of years that followed, God set out to create the universe and eventually create the planet we call earth. All of that is the work of his “First Day.” If we measure it in our time, billions upon billions of years pass; God created dark matter and let fly particles of matter and energy in the great blast he caused. So great is his power and so glorious his vision was formed, the universe, galaxies, stars, suns, and planets all turning so that there would be a time of dark and a time of light. His first day’s work was done.
We know the foundation of all life on earth is made possible by the existence of air and water. On the second day, he created H2O and the air. With these two creations, he created the expanse between the water in the sky and the water on our planet. So ended God’s second day’s efforts.
On the morning of the third day, he created DNA and developed the structure of a plant cell. He then spent the balance of the day manipulating this creation into what we know as the vast diversity of plant life. He then blessed these various forms of vegetation to be fruitful, evolve, and multiple. On that day he set in motion the process that would allow these initial forms of vegetation to evolve into the multitude of plant life we are familiar with today. He wanted his various creations to evolve and enjoyed watching the new forms of vegetation emerge and recognized that some would not survive and in many cases decided to destroy those that were not pleasing to him. He saw that his creation of numerous plant species was good and saw that his third day of work had come to an end.
On the fourth day, he saw that for evolution to continue there must be times when the sun, with its great energy, would touch the earth. So he parted the waters of the sky to form what we now call clouds. He caused the planets to rotate and the sun to disappear and the other planets, stars, and galaxies to become visible. He set the earth’s rotation and orientation to align with all his other celestial bodies, causing there to be warm times and cold times. By setting the earth to tilt and spin at a certain rate, he was able to create the seasons which further stimulated the growth and evolution of his first creation, vegetation. The vegetation was now capable of following the cycle of life he set in motion when he created the passage of the seasons. By altering the strength of the light from the sun and the intensity of the light of the moon he added diversity to his creation. With this new process in place, it was time for God to rest the evening of the fourth day.
On the fifth day, God arose and decided to create creatures that would fill the seas and soar through the sky. By using his creation, DNA, he moved on and created animal cells. In the morning he created simple creatures to inhabit the sea and soar through the sky. He saw that this was good and he caused these creations to be fruitful, evolve and multiply. As the day progressed he continued to experiment and create more complex creatures by developing animal cells capable of performing different functions. God continued to relish in the creation of diversity. As he created each new species he continued to embed within them his concepts of evolution and enjoyed watching each evolve from its own kind and fill the sky and the sea with a diversity of birds and sea creatures. And it was time for God to rest the evening of the fifth day.
On the sixth day, he saw that the land was only filled with vegetation and saw that the richness of the vegetation of the land could support new forms of life. So in the morning, he caused the creatures that inhabited the sky and the sea to evolve and descend from the sky and crawl out of the sea. As the day progressed God further populated the land by creating new creatures. Like he had done on the fourth and fifth days, he blessed these creations of the land and let them be fruitful, evolve and multiply. As the day passed he noticed that some of his creations were so large that he could not allow them to continue to multiply. Slowly but surely God evolved his land-based creations to become what we know as livestock and wild animals. God was selective in his process of creation and enjoyed creating a wide variety of creatures. Yet, he also had an eye for beauty and diversity and would often determine that one or another was not fit to continue to exist. Those that were pleasing to him, he allowed to flourish, multiply, and evolve. Others of his creations, he saw were not good and he destroyed them. In all his thinking there was a plan to create a creature in his own image. As the creatures of the sea, sky, and air evolved he selected only those creatures which would be suitable for the world man would also inhabit. After a time he saw the success of his process of selection and planned evolution. His creations had evolved to the moment when he was ready to populate the world with a creature God could commune with.
So near the end of the sixth day – Genesis 1:27-28 – God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”.
Given that he made man in his image, the man had the ability to think, the power of free will, and a rebellious willingness to create anew. God also knew that through time our knowledge of where we live and all that is around us would grow and he would have to chastise us often to remind us of his power and dominion over all.
I could venture into the question of Sin and ponder how the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony. greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride fit into God’s plan. What we do know is that God can see everything that will and has happened. He knew Women would listen to the serpent and eat of the fruit of the Tree he had forbidden them to eat from. With this same clarity, God knows that at different stages in the growth of our knowledge of how the earth and the universe were formed some would see themselves as God’s equal and decide that there was no need to reverie the one God.
These foolish men would forget to continue to pursue knowledge and instead stop and come to believe that the little knowledge they had acquired gave them the power to see themselves as Gods and to think they could understand ALL.
Knowing all of this, when God spoke with Moses he offered the ten commandments and reminded us in the first four commandments that there is ultimately only one. He left us to recognize that if we bow down to science or other idols we will lose sight of the reality of creation. We would forget how God always intended there to be another question to ask, another space to explore, another particle to find, another marvel to ponder, and other theories to test. He understands, by dividing half by half over and over again, we would never reach zero nor by exploring the universe we would ever see the beginning and have a chance to see the end. For in the beginning there was God and in the end, there will be God.
As someone once explained “Something cannot come from Nothing”
He wants us to learn, yet he built something so complex in its character. One of being both infinitesimally small and infinitely large that we can and will never reach a time when there is nothing more to learn.
Any scientist that stops in his quest for knowledge has lost sight of his reason for being a scientist. Any human that accepts what he is told and does not continue to question will lose sight of the infinite power of God and become lost in a cloud of ignorance. God’s greatest gift is that we can always seek and learn and that we will always have more to learn and search for.
When I read Genesis I know I am reading the words of Moses and I know that Moses was listening to God telling the story of how he created all that we see around us. What is clear is that God knew that man was not ready to understand the complexity of what he had done and so he offered Moses a simply yet vastly complex picture of his six days of work, knowing that we could explore and learn yet at the same time accept and be certain of his power.
What is amazing is that when we listen to the great scientists, the ones that continue to look deeper into what it is they are exploring they find that in the end there are no final answers, simply more questions. This is exactly how God planned it. He wants us to explore, he wants us to learn how to manipulate and utilize that which is around us. What he also did was create something infinitesimally small and infinitely large so that through the reality of infinity we can and will never be able to find any other answer than the one written in Genesis, God created the universe and all that is within it, including the processes of reproduction, evolution, mutation, and destruction.
Yes, as I did at the beginning of this email, he allows us to interpret the words in Genesis and wants us to further our knowledge and understanding. He knows that through the ages we will understand some of the complexity of what he did. But at the core, the words that are in the Bible are the clearest way of saying everything and leaving us the responsibility to always question and learn. Through this responsibility, God knows that in the end, we will understand that only the creator could create the universe, in its complex glory.
Neither Chaos, Genetics nor Evolution will ever be able to help us understand why only four basic elements can be combined in such a variety of ways to produce so many complex life forms. The complexity of DNA and the cell and their ability to evolve are and will remain God’s greatest creation. The stars’ nebula and beautiful clusters that fill the telescopes we use to see into the distance only offer us a glimpse of God’s love of art.
The order and chain of life are so structured. Only the ONE has the knowledge and power to drive the creation of the universe and design the process of evolution, allowing the plants, birds, sea creatures, land animals, and those most primitive of elements: matter and energy; to continue to create new and wonders things. Only the one God has such intellect and power.
Of Jesus that is for another day. There the story is of God deciding that he had to finally come to earth to teach us how to live together. For, unlike other living things, we were given free will, and unless we accepted his guidance we will and can destroy that which surrounds us.
We must remember, God almost gave up on us. Remember how he destroyed all but those Noah took forward? Jesus came to offer us salvation and more importantly to simplify the Ten Commandments down to two – Love God and Love Your Neighbor. If we could simply do these two things then we would be at peace and like the other creatures of god’s creation live in harmony in God’s universe.
Our quest is simply to help everyone to understand that by living with those two commandments in our hearts and in our heads; we can live in peace and maybe one day return to the Garden of Eden. With respect for the one unimaginable God and together as the common inhabitants of this plant, we can work as a team to be better than how we operate as isolated individuals seeking dominion over someone else.
Jesus the King of the World for 18 years wandered this earth. As our teacher he stands before us with one truth. Love each other. In so doing you love and honor God.
Matthew 25:40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.’
Such big words. The idea something is once written can never be changed, altered, or deleted as well as elegant. Or that there is no need to worry about anything, what is presented simply is one instance of knowledge not until more than two can be found is there the possibility of trust. But if more than a few assemble and not sure then!
In a trustless environment, there is no single entity that has authority over the system, and consensus is achieved without participants having to know or trust anything but the system itself. A definition from one of the major institutions helping to establish this new. New what?
https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/trustless
It is the removal of relationships so they can be replaced by something, no someone new that is bothersome. Words like usury invade reality, and a few get very wealthy as the mass spend to survive, always being driven to need more.
We have lost the ability to commune. We lost track if the responsibility to be good stewards of the garden we were given responsibility for .
I learned it in school then again at the hand of David Chaum
He taught me that if I kept the key length long the work hard and the hardware self defeating then a digital signature is absolute proof of presence under and agree set of conditions.
We then spoke of operating systems, payments, smart cards, cryptography: asymmetrical and symmetric. Rooted in PKI and the need to assume a trust less world.
Then there is money. We knew, time ago, we could use electrons to replicate notes and coins on ledgers and within balances.
Electronic Passports, National Identity Cards, and Drivers Licenses will have or have had a digital form.
Now we create Digital Assets.
Valued by a market.
Dreaming of unimaginable wealth or food on the table in the morning.
The Golden Rule assumes we collectively wish to be at peace and in harmony with each other.
Yet there are people who care only for themselves and what their greedy self desires.
Often greed is bound up in mystical beliefs and a focus on evil for its own sake.
If we have the right nurture we will respect the beliefs of others as they respect how we see things.
The Devil is how good people describe or justify the the evil acts of evil people. They separate the evil from an enemy, family member, neighbor, or colleague who may may not be perfect and desires a chance.
Here we stand a great nation struggling with the stalemate of division. A nation bound in a history of firsts capable of so much more.
The struggle over tribal beliefs often times built on fear and reservation defies logic. Religions and teaching are the source of nurture essential to achieving happiness. If success in assuring peace requires that in early life each of us learns the Golden Rule, then we must learn the way to make sure each of us understands the value of nurture in assuring happiness.
[16] “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Whoever wrote this made a decision. Jesus was more than simply a most enlightened man. He was of some other world. Not possibly one of us. To smart to be human.
How can any tribe claim to be chosen? When so many other cultures and tribes emerged in other parts of the globe. Each grew up with an understanding of the unimaginable Creator. God, by whatever name.
This elemental craving to be better than another goes back to the emergence of language. When we learned to communicate with together we began to wonder: how or why?
These two questions get more complicated when we wonder how those lights appear in the night sky or why the rain does not soak the earth.
Yet up against the Mediterranean this band of escaped Egyptian slaves claim lands from the inhabitants.
A long time ago out of Northeastern Africa Homosapien emerged.
Homo sapien an interesting evolution of the primate. They settled in tribal communities. Evolved and seeking shelter, food source, drinking water, and sanitation together.
A new world order seems to be the next step in man and woman’s evolution. Division twin tribes, cultures, people and religion create animosity. It is this animosity built on fear often times we we must address as we evolve.
Where would I live if both ice caps melted and all glaciers disappeared. How much water did you put on the Earth? Somewhere on what will become Eastern seaboard is where Philip wants to build, I’m home.
The next question, when does it matter. If I think of myself 2050 I would be 96. If I think beyond, 21 sounds like a good number.
In August 2009, the court evicted the al-Hanoun and al-Ghawi families from two homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Jewish families moved in based on a Supreme Court ruling that the property was owned by Jews. The United Nations coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry condemned the decision: “These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace.”[34] The US State Department called it a violation of Israel’s obligations under the Road map for peace.[35] Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said “Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep.”[34] Yakir Segev of the Jerusalem municipal council responded: “This is a matter of the court. It is a civil dispute between Palestinian families and those of Israeli settlers, regarding who is the rightful owner of this property… Israeli law is the only law we are obliged to obey.”[36]
When we think of governance and how we control society, we immediately must consider the realities of people in the tribes they belong to.
Recently the emergence of bitcoin, the understanding of the power of a distributed ledger, the use of a hash chain, the power of cryptographic processes, and the security of the devices we carry establishes a foundation for a brave new world.
What is governance? It is the method processes and mechanisms a society puts in place to establish order and ensure harmony?
The ancient Turks, Greeks, slave spoke of democracy, the idea that each member of the tribe, the town, the city, or the state could assemble and determine new laws, regulations, and best practices. We then evolved into Republican governments the concept of a group of people representing a larger number of citizens.
Influence and power define what shall evolve. In my lifetime, the idea of being able to plug the handset of your telephone into the back of a terminal and establish a connection to a computer somewhere out there was a novelty. For my father it is Time in Geneva when Aryanism stood out as a challenge, opportunity or threat. Telephones were just emerging and radios were available. TV was still not present. Paper books and libraries surrounded the environment we will call Geneva.
City on the Lake, what is this thing place in his history his is as relevant as your or mine.
One question why anonymity at the profound process of engagement. When you are something called anonymous I am not sure I want to play. If your anonymous is mandatory; I don’t want to play.
The innovative spiritual and the. Nurturing essence of life.. How this evolves involves countless engagements.
Each sublime note to the fabric of the virtual environment we present to the public is.
And, all of us form the fabric of the public.
He answered them,“And why do you break thecommandmentof God for the sake of your tradition?4For God said,*‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’5But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’*then that person need not honor the father.*6So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word*of God.7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
8‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
9in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines
“Listen and understand:11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
What shall we do? Simple honor the one Jesus answered,“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’31
You commit to what you believe in with a robust desire to adhere to the moral imperatives. The one God is the same God written about in so many different ancient lore.
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32
32
Who is your neighbor?
Anyone you engage in an event. An event is is anything we all seek to record. By the way any unit of one can record as long as all parties are aware. It is our contracts and promises. Those such as payment, voting, identity and influence.
Long ago, the idea of religion led me to understand we could control the masses through their indoctrination by a few. When speaking to someone of their religious beliefs, they remind us that if we put our faith in Jesus or the Almighty, they call God, all will be right with the world. They point to the ever after and the chance to live in heaven. They argue we live in a sinful world, and it is man’s sin that brings upon us the challenges many of us have faced. Some talk of reincarnation this thing called soul, nirvana has some future we cannot know.
On the other side of the discussion, there is spirituality, that inner sense of understanding. Some would argue our spirituality comes from our religious beliefs. Others would suggest it is better to have a spiritual foundation not based on religion but your inner sense of self. This inner sense of self begs the question,
“Who Am I.”
History repeats itself. Throughout time charismatic leaders have been able to grab hold of the hearts and minds of the masses. These charismatic individuals have led their followers in either positive or negative ways.
The question really should be who is in control. Is it the charismatic leader, or are there others who sit in the darkness operating as puppet masters responsible for the strife and misery inflicted upon many as these few enrich themselves?
When we think of governance and how we control society, we immediately must consider the realities of the people and the tribes to which they belong. Without understanding their history and the context of the culture, we gamble with knowing the truth as we try to understand their focus, purpose, and future.
What is governance? It is the methods, processes, and mechanisms a society puts in place to establish order and ensure harmony? The ancient Greeks spoke of democracy, the idea that each member of the tribe, the town, the city, or the state could assemble and determine new laws, regulations, and best practices. We then evolved into representative structures where appointed, elected, or heredity groups of people came together to represent many citizens.
Long ago, yet, in my lifetime, the idea of plugging the handset of your telephone into the back of a terminal and dial into a computer somewhere out there was a novelty.
Last decade, in response to the financial crisis brought on by those who sought to profit from the creation of financial instruments derived from the derivate of another financial derived instruction, we read Bitcoin: A Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. This seminal piece of work drove us to understand the immutable and trustless power of a distributed ledger.
When bitcoin emerged, Satoshi’s whitepaper described a new world order. A world built on mathematics, founded in a meritocracy, and governed by software. It makes one wonder about the written into science fiction novels. They expressed concern and worry about computers and pure logic taking over the world. Sometimes humanity became technology’s servant.
While learning, I remembered a series of conversations with David Chaum as he explained the concept of a hash chain, the power of cryptography, digital signatures, and certificates as I explored the security of the devices we carry. This journey drove me to explore relationships, artifacts, cards, and credentials.
After 45 years serving the financial community with a technical orientation, I came to understand the power of identity, the fallacy of software, and the integrity of people. At the same time, history was rewritten, curriculums were changed over and over again. Disinformation, trust, fake news, and propaganda meld into this cacophony. A collage of perspectives linked to our identity and flavor soured by the relationships and encounters we have had during our limited existence. Today I wonder about elections, opinion polls, proxy votes, and the selection of representative government.
Today it is time to embrace a citizen-centric view of technology. If we do not stop and think, the brave to a new world we may construct could look like 1984 or a world under the watchful eye of Skynet. If we reflect on what we, the citizen, want and direct what we do to achieve that collective vision. We can work as one together and establish the foundation of that brave new world we all seek.
A distributed autonomous organization seeks to address a myriad of challenges. As peers in a decentralized structure, the participants deliberate, vote, and reach
consensus.
Like in any organization, people are attracted to thoughts and ideas that meld well with their own. But what makes this so new? Long ago, when representative governments or councils were created, the community decided to allow a few to manage the needs of the many.
What is so different? Our interfaces have changed. The way we engage has expanded and no longer restructured to verbal or hand-delivered written communication. In written communication, there is a thought. I stare at my computer screens; my pen is poised over a tablet as I use script to write notes or the keyboard to chat across multiple instant messaging applications. While staring at a word processor, PowerPoint presentation, or spreadsheet, I can engage and share with people spread across the planet using my cameras, speakers, and microphones.
A distributed Autonomous Organization is simply the grouping of people using technology to widen the breadth of participation. No longer restricted to location, we can continue to expand networks and engage with our peers.
It is Monday, January 11, 2021. Last week we watched the riots. We saw people breaking into the US Capital and gleefully waving their Trump and Confederate flags as they stormed this house of the people.
This nation is divided. Be they conservatives, or liberals. People who believe in social justice or white supremacy. Or, individuals who align themselves to the left or the right. We are a nation divided!
One can pontificate as the media does. They fill countless hours as they work to brainwash their followers into believing one story or another. Where is the truth? It lies someplace dormant in the minds of all. To find it we must explore the reaches of the left and the depths of the right. We must understand and contemplate how white supremacy and religious intolerance drives people to hatred.
Christians speak of their Savior Jesus Christ and we read the red words in the Bible. Jesus was the ultimate socialist he believed in a world that cared for each other. He spoke of how we must tolerate, accept, and embrace our enemies. He reminded us of the golden rule – love thy neighbor as you wish to be loved.
Instead, men and women seek to be superior to others. Tribalism and intolerance greed contempt and animosity.
In March 2020, I moved from the payments industry into the election industry. This movement caused me to wonder about democracy, politics, academia, and the world of technology. What amazed me is how computer science academics could rail at the idea, technology could be used to innovate on the election process. Years ago I imagined participating in a national referendum simply by opening a browser searching for the government website and voting on the measures and contests currently under consideration.
Unfortunately what I’ve learned troubles me. Certain clusters of intelligent individuals believe that they know best. They stigmatize technology and argue that a human being, who writes software, could leave unintended bugs which might lead to unintended consequences. They forget software is an evolutionary science. Through piloting, continuous improvement, testing, and rigorous testing we can eliminate bugs and create stable and secure critically important applications serving our financial, health, national security, and public interests.
Recently in a letter written by verified voting, a nonprofit organization, the word settled science appeared. An intriguing word, an intriguing phrase. I was driven to wonder what did it mean. From my high school years, science was an evolutionary process. A hypothesis was put forward. it was tested. If it was found to be false a new hypothesis was offered, it was tested and on the scientific community went. In one article when googling “Settled Science” I was intrigued to read the word oxymoron followed by an explanation of how if Sir Isaac Newton’s beliefs had been settled science Albert Einstein would never have been able to put forward the concepts of general relativity.
This whole conversation feels very much like a religion, a church, who has a dogmatic belief in the written word of the Bible being the written and only word of God. We forget how man inserts himself into every dialogue. Too often we insert our beliefs on others. Maybe “Settled Science” is the dogmatic belief that we are right and everyone else is wrong.
If this is the case then how do we move forward? If scientists – academics force there will on society than society has lost its objectivity.
