Proof-of-Work & Power Projection
Entropy is the physical law of the universe. Life is a force that moves to oppose entropy. The odds of life winning over entropy are slim to none. But the beauty of life is in the struggle. Among the best strategies & tactics in that struggle is the projection of power to organize in new and innovative ways to overcome entropy.
- Entropy is generally considered a fundamental law of physics that measures a system’s disorder or randomness. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases over time.so mountains become hills and eventually plains, and the solar system continues expanding.
- Life exhibits properties that oppose entropy — it creates order, structure, and organization. Life as “a force that moves to oppose entropy” is how living systems counteract entropy.
One of the tools used in life’s struggle over entropy is the projection of power to capture a resource, which will then be incorporated into the struggle. For example, In the early stages of life, single-celled organisms would gather around a thermal vent in the water to capture nutrients. The organisms that captured nutrients would survive, while the ones that did not would die off.
In order to improve their chances of survival, organisms evolved their ability to convert power into a mechanism that would allow them to capture more resources. In a world of entropy, this power conversion is the essence of life over death.
As entropy is the breakdown of organization into randomness, Power Projection is a means of building to improve organization and sustain life. As we move from the world of the ancient oceanic thermal vent and single-cell organisms to a world of mammals, we see a pack of wolves over a freshly killed elk, with the dominant wolf projecting power over others in the pack by snarling and bearing his teeth in a projection of power as if to say: Because I am the fittest and most powerful I get to eat first. This also reinforces the organization of the whole pack because that pecking order has allowed all the wolves to survive and thrive in a world where entropy kills.
Lason Lowery describes Power Projection in relation to modern warfare.
“Proof-of-work technologies like Bitcoin could change the dynamics of 10,000 years’ worth of physical power competitions, consequently disrupting how societies organize themselves and shifting the global balance of power. It’s difficult to understate just how disruptive electro-cyber power projection technologies like Bitcoin can be to our current power dynamics once we open the aperture and stop looking at this technology like it’s strictly “digital currency”. By viewing Bitcoin as a “softwar” system rather than just a peer-to-peer electronic payment system, the strategic implications of this technology becomes clearer.
This technology could dramatically change the way humans compete for control over the things they value and reset the global balance of power in ways that only full-scale kinetic world wars have done in the past.”
Lowery and others have looked at the Bitcoin blockchain’s innovative proof-of-work and extrapolated it beyond the purview of economics and finance. Michael Saylor also speaks about “Digital Power.” citing Bitcoin’s ability to move globally without anyone’s permission, all derived from Bitcoin’s proof-of-work. Let’s take a closer look at Proof-of-work .
Derided as wasteful and the eventual demise of civilization, it may be the exact opposite. Proof-of-work did not begin, nor will it end with Bitcoin. I recall working on email SPAM solutions in the late 90s, hearing about the possibility of a “Digital Stamp” to increase the SPAM cost. Bitcoin combined the basics of Proof-of-work with Game Theory and Cryptography to build a fair and unhackable system to protect the ledger from unauthorized changes.
Don’t take my word for it.
For those of you who have stayed with me this far but still have some reservations due to a lack of understanding about the nitty gritty, here is a resource that helped me get a grip on the foundational aspects of why Bitcoin is revolutionary. https://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/
The book is free, and the lectures have been posted on YouTube for those who learn better by listening.
There is a lot to digest here, but once you do, it becomes apparent that the Bitcoin Blockchain is like nothing that came before it in the history of man. Alexander Graham Bell did not intend the phone to be primarily a means of communication but rather a way to transmit music. Henry Ford said something to the effect if I asked people what they wanted, they would ask for faster horses. Folks don’t fully understand technology and all its possibilities because we are living in a context that has no reference to the undiscovered future. Here is an example also used by Jayson Lowery.
Billy Mitchel
He was ridiculed, lost his promotion, and laughed at until he wasn’t. Perl Harbor demonstrated to the world that air power trumps battleship power every time.
So how is this related to the Bitcoin proof-of-work and the future of mankind? As new technologies enter into the game of life over entropy, they are not recognized for their full potential.
Bitcoin / Bitpower
Bitcoin is really just computer bits, ones, and zeros organized in a computer language and backed by an enormous amount of expended electricity. The enormous amount of electricity is not an accident or waste but a mechanism to ensure security. Just as the steel and locks of a bank vault protect its contents in the world of atoms, electricity protects the contents of the blockchain ledger in virtual space or cyberspace. The ledger cannot be modified except by participating in the Bitcoin Blockchain support network.
This is not a logical programmatic protection that can be “hacked” by a more clever programmer. Instead, this is a real-world expenditure of energy. An attack on the network would require an expenditure of energy greater than that which has already been invested. This is the famous 51% attack. While theoretically possible, it’s as practical as using a bottle rocket to get an object into orbit. So then,
Bitcoin, a globally distributed, permissionless, programmatically scalable, borderless, and transparent network (more on that later), could be called Bitpower, and it would still be the same. The massive decentralized computing power that underpins Bitcoin makes its blockchain virtually impossible to alter for any meaningful period of time by any known single entity. The system is specifically designed to prevent centralized control by distributing computational power.
Is a shield a projection of power? You bet your bumpkis it is. Therefore, if Bitcoin/Bitpower is the ultimate projection of power in the emerging technological landscape, should bankers and regulators have the last say about its adoption, or should those entrusted with the national defense be making those decisions? But it will change the economic landscape of the world. Yes, even more so than World War II, but that is not a decision moneychangers or politicians should be making.
Now, there is a lot to add to this line of reasoning, some of which has not been fully hashed out even by the best minds, but make no mistake, they are thinking and talking and cooperating to ensure that top dog position in the pack. Who will dominate that top slot?