Do you know what % of Bitcoin will be mined in seven halvings? Buckminster Fuller did:
"In four halvings, you have eliminated 94 percent of irrelevant Universe. In seven halvings, you have removed 99.2 percent of irrelevant Universe."
—Buckminster Fuller
By the seventh halving (around 2036), approximately 99.22% of Bitcoin will have been mined.
Why was Buckminster Fuller writing about the Bitcoin halving schedule 50 years ago?
I unpack questions like thisat nostr:nprofile1qyv8wumn8ghj7cmgv4n8xarj9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5q36amnwvaz7tm8d3hkyctv94ex2mrp0yhxxetnvvh8gunpv3jsqgy8hhkgj9rl5tf6tajzd28vd0d4kvtua68rmqr5jl5jv4jevuazwgxqxw26 .
Makoto Shibuya
shibuya@primal.net
npub1x36p...dfrv
Architect currently studying synergetics.
Research at @worldgame
Notes (20)
What does the Ford Model T have to do with Bitcoin?
The Model T is the first mass-affordable automobile, making car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was the result of Ford's efficient fabrication rather than focusing on embellishments.
While other manufacturers were focused on creating something "new," not necessarily better, Ford remained focused on continuously improving invisible parts of the vehicle.
Cadilac, for example, was more interested in making "one-off" vehicles for wealthy individuals, and others designed around planned obsolescence so they could sell customers something that looked "new."
Meanwhile, Ford remained focused on perfecting the assembly and performance of the vehicle. He was focused on details like the exact quality of steel and ultimately selected 20 different types of steel that served the exact function it was designed for. Many of these innovations were "invisible" to our eyes.
Sure enough, this focus on continuous improvement consistently led to the cost of the Model T to come down over 19 years. Ultimately, it achieved a price point that was affordable to middle-class Americans.
Ford was not distracted by embellishments to make the Model T look "new." He focused on performance, which eventually beat all the competition.
The form factor had not changed much, so it came as a surprise to many. Here is the Model T in 1910:
And here, 15 years later, in 1925:
The same thing is currently happening to the Bitcoin network. The network is maturing into a public utility with increasing engagement, strength, utility, and resilience.
Many of these changes are "invisible" to the eye.
Others are focused on embellishments that look "new."
Time will tell. Tick, tock, next block.
The Model T is the first mass-affordable automobile, making car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was the result of Ford's efficient fabrication rather than focusing on embellishments.
While other manufacturers were focused on creating something "new," not necessarily better, Ford remained focused on continuously improving invisible parts of the vehicle.
Cadilac, for example, was more interested in making "one-off" vehicles for wealthy individuals, and others designed around planned obsolescence so they could sell customers something that looked "new."
Meanwhile, Ford remained focused on perfecting the assembly and performance of the vehicle. He was focused on details like the exact quality of steel and ultimately selected 20 different types of steel that served the exact function it was designed for. Many of these innovations were "invisible" to our eyes.
Sure enough, this focus on continuous improvement consistently led to the cost of the Model T to come down over 19 years. Ultimately, it achieved a price point that was affordable to middle-class Americans.
Ford was not distracted by embellishments to make the Model T look "new." He focused on performance, which eventually beat all the competition.
The form factor had not changed much, so it came as a surprise to many. Here is the Model T in 1910:
And here, 15 years later, in 1925:
The same thing is currently happening to the Bitcoin network. The network is maturing into a public utility with increasing engagement, strength, utility, and resilience.
Many of these changes are "invisible" to the eye.
Others are focused on embellishments that look "new."
Time will tell. Tick, tock, next block.I can’t unsee it.
Bucky often said our minds can and will discover new universal principles. These principles are universal and scale invariant properties that anyone can use, but in order to do so we MUST apply measurements to them.
Satoshi applied a protocol with measurements:
Supply Cap: 21,000,000
Block Time: ~10 minutes
Block Reward: 50 BTC (Initial)
Difficulty Adjustment: 2016
Etc…
to a universal principle that has always been there.
Without a lever, one cannot experience the universal principle of Leverage.
Without Bitcoin, one cannot experience the universal principle of Ephemeralization.
Ephemeralization, a term coined by Bucky, is the ability to do more and more with less and less. One could say it is the natural state of a free market.
Universal principles are amoral and permissionless; anyone can access them.
Interestingly, if you never use a lever, it is impossible to understand what leverage feels like.
Similarly, if you never use Bitcoin it is impossible to understand what ephemeralization feels like.
A tool or protocol will appear useless until it solves a problem for you. So play with the protocol, as you would play with a lever, to understand what nostr:nprofile1qqsg86qcm7lve6jkkr64z4mt8lfe57jsu8vpty6r2qpk37sgtnxevjcqz7p82 is so excited about.
nostr:nevent1qqs9naseuazf4c59vj2v8xnyhpgaqfq6fa9z08e2t4jv87qetne2magpzemhxw309ucnjv3wxymrst338qhrww3hxumnwmmym0n
Bucky understood the problem with inflation:
"The very word 'inflation' is a deliberately deceptive term adopted to exploit the easily misguided human reflex conditioning. It was spontaneously chosen to obscure the fact that all non-holders of corporate shares are being legally robbed."
Bucky understood the problem with the existing monetary system was it's reliance on an increase in good faith, or trust.
"As time is saved by progress, and time is in everything, all material products of industry must necessarily become lighter and lighter. It is worthy of note that this will be definitely reflected in the mirror of economic progress, the stock market, provided the time savings progress is balanced by the increase in good faith, and may be taken advantage of by those who intelligently acquaint themselves of this fact." —RBF
"We are fast approaching a time [Bitcoin] standard instead of a gold standard."
—Buckminster Fuller, 1927
Bucky foresaw the inevitability of nation states selling off their gold reserves for Bitcoin.
What does a "time standard" have to do with a Bitcoin?
Time and Bitcoin are both finite systems. Everyone has the same 24 hours each day, making time a universal standard that transcends socio-economic disparities.
As Andreas so eloquently said, "Dude, I don’t have any f'ing money. All I have is my creative potential, my spirit, my productivity. And I can sell that directly!"
Bucky recognized that a time [Bitcoin] standard was the key to avoiding another, potentially terminal, global conflict.
This led him to write what I consider Version 1 of the Bitcoin whitepaper called 4D Time Lock and sent it to 200 selected individuals (like Satoshi did with the cypherpunk mailing list).
While 4D Time Lock reads like a housing manifesto, it actually has little to do with what we think of as housing. It was Bucky's sly roundabout way of writing about inviolable property.
He saw that people were having their time (unbeknownst to them) stolen through their property and understood that over a long enough time, this had terminal consequences of a global conflict.
4D Time Lock, as the title suggests, was a permissionless way for individuals to protect their time.
"Thank heavens, what might have eventually been another world war ... will be averted by the bloodless deflation of property value by 4D Housing [inviolable property]."
He understood 4D Housing, or inviolable property, was a peaceful, systemic solution to the unseen time theft. By introducing inviolable property [Bitcoin] that eliminates the inflated value tied to private property, society can reduce the grip of "propertyism" and be in control of their time again.
Though we are inherently capable, a low time preference is a requisite for solving the increasingly complex challenges society will face. "Economic education," or Bitcoin literacy, is a key to our success.
Fuller views time as humanity's only truly irreplaceable resource. Every action, creation, or process involves the expenditure of time.
Gold is static, whereas time is dynamic and universally applicable, making it a more appropriate metric for an interconnected world.
A time [Bitcoin] standard would incentivize innovations that save time and optimize processes, aligning economic incentives with societal progress.
By valuing and accounting for time instead of gold, Fuller’s vision emphasizes human potential and productivity over the arbitrary accumulation of wealth. A time-based economy would reward contributions to society and empower individuals to focus on creative, meaningful pursuits rather than solely material gain.
In essence, Fuller’s advocacy for a "time [bitcoin] standard" represents a paradigm shift to a global system grounded in human ingenuity and potential while making theft and violence unprofitable. It aligns economic value with human time and energy, fostering innovation, cooperation, and collective progress.
"The dollar bill in time to come will be recognized as a time-captured and saved unit of energy by man."
Despite what it may appear, 4D Time Lock has less to do with housing as we know it. It was Bucy's first step to building a decentralized clock like the Bitcoin network.
Time and Bitcoin are both finite systems. Everyone has the same 24 hours each day, making time a universal standard that transcends socio-economic disparities.
As Andreas so eloquently said, "Dude, I don’t have any f'ing money. All I have is my creative potential, my spirit, my productivity. And I can sell that directly!"
Bucky recognized that a time [Bitcoin] standard was the key to avoiding another, potentially terminal, global conflict.
This led him to write what I consider Version 1 of the Bitcoin whitepaper called 4D Time Lock and sent it to 200 selected individuals (like Satoshi did with the cypherpunk mailing list).
While 4D Time Lock reads like a housing manifesto, it actually has little to do with what we think of as housing. It was Bucky's sly roundabout way of writing about inviolable property.
He saw that people were having their time (unbeknownst to them) stolen through their property and understood that over a long enough time, this had terminal consequences of a global conflict.
4D Time Lock, as the title suggests, was a permissionless way for individuals to protect their time.
"Thank heavens, what might have eventually been another world war ... will be averted by the bloodless deflation of property value by 4D Housing [inviolable property]."
He understood 4D Housing, or inviolable property, was a peaceful, systemic solution to the unseen time theft. By introducing inviolable property [Bitcoin] that eliminates the inflated value tied to private property, society can reduce the grip of "propertyism" and be in control of their time again.
Though we are inherently capable, a low time preference is a requisite for solving the increasingly complex challenges society will face. "Economic education," or Bitcoin literacy, is a key to our success.
Fuller views time as humanity's only truly irreplaceable resource. Every action, creation, or process involves the expenditure of time.
Gold is static, whereas time is dynamic and universally applicable, making it a more appropriate metric for an interconnected world.
A time [Bitcoin] standard would incentivize innovations that save time and optimize processes, aligning economic incentives with societal progress.
By valuing and accounting for time instead of gold, Fuller’s vision emphasizes human potential and productivity over the arbitrary accumulation of wealth. A time-based economy would reward contributions to society and empower individuals to focus on creative, meaningful pursuits rather than solely material gain.
In essence, Fuller’s advocacy for a "time [bitcoin] standard" represents a paradigm shift to a global system grounded in human ingenuity and potential while making theft and violence unprofitable. It aligns economic value with human time and energy, fostering innovation, cooperation, and collective progress.
"The dollar bill in time to come will be recognized as a time-captured and saved unit of energy by man."
Despite what it may appear, 4D Time Lock has less to do with housing as we know it. It was Bucy's first step to building a decentralized clock like the Bitcoin network.
Bucky, perhaps, has the most beautiful description of discovering universal principles like Bitcoin I have ever heard.
"Discoveries are uniquely regenerative to the explorer and are most powerful on those rare occasions when a generalized principle is discovered.
When mind discovers a generalized principle permeating whole fields of special-case experiences, the discovered relationship is awesomely and elatingly beautiful to the discoverer personally, not only because to the best of his knowledge it has been heretofore unknown, but also because of the intuitively sensed potential of its effect upon knowledge and the consequently improved advantages accruing to humanity’s survival and growth struggle in Universe.
The stimulation is not that of the discoverer of a diamond, which is a physical entity that may be monopolized or exploited only to the owner’s advantage. It is the realization that the newly discovered principle will provide spontaneous, common-sense logic engendering universal cooperation where, in many areas, only confusion and controversy had hitherto prevailed."
—R. Buckminster Fuller
Warming up to moving all of my energy over here!
Everything about Bitcoin is counterintuitive and, therefore, requires the patience and humility to sit with an idea before jumping to conclusions.
It is counterintuitive because Bitcoin is synergetic. Synergetic behavior describes system behavior that is utterly unpredictable from studying individual components.
The principle of leverage, for example, is synergetic - it requires a fulcrum, beam, and force. Studying these individually does not tell you anything about the system's behavior.
If you told me that a sailboat can sail into the wind, I would quickly say, “That’s impossible!” But sailboats do behave like this. At first glance, it is entirely counterintuitive.
To understand why sailboats can sail into the wind requires looking at the whole system—boat, sail, ocean, wind, and keel—together, not just the individual parts.
For the same reason, many qualified experts believed "heavier than air" machines could never fly.
Many experts dismiss the Bitcoin network because they do not understand the synergetic behavior of the network outside of their domain of expertise.
A "wind" expert will be utterly convinced that it is impossible to sail into the wind.
Synergetic behavior is, by definition, always a surprise!
Once, we gazed at the sky, dreaming of flight.
Now, as I sit on this plane, few even glance out the window.
One day, too, we’ll overlook the open, permissionless monetary network.
Enjoy the beauty while it lasts.
Perspective
Perspective
Struggling to find words to describe the profundity of Buckminster Fuller’s work. Perhaps that is expected from the work of a man who understood the limits of spoken language.
I can’t think of any other way to navigate the incoming, and necessary, wave of creative destruction except to give everyone permission-less access to equity in the universe.
Johannes Kepler used the constant of 21 days to show the world the natural state of planetary motion is heliocentric rather than geocentric.
Albert Einstein used the constant of 186,000 mps to show the world that the natural state of the universe is in motion rather than at rest.
Satoshi Nakamoto used the constant of 21,000,000 #btc to show the world that the natural state of the universe is deflationary rather than inflationary.
In all three cases their individual integrity was challenged by the existing power structure as their claims threatened the status quo.
Einstein used the constant of 186,000 miles per second to show the world that the universe's natural state is not at rest but in motion.
Satoshi used the constant of 21,000,000 #btc to show the world that the universe's natural state is deflationary rather than inflationary.
Sometimes a scribble is all it takes for an idea to click.
Scarcity in Money #[0]
Sometimes a scribble is all it takes for an idea to click.
Abundance in Money #[0]
Sometimes a scribble is all it takes for an idea to click.
Inertial of Status Quo
