If you look at the Bitcoin Whitepaper, all 9 pages of it, including the abstract and references on US letter with generous margins, and consider Nostr NIP-01, you can see a similarity of simplicity. In both cases the current system was extended and refined, but the base design doesn't cross many domains of perspective. There is a monster narrative carried by both. There is a cultural affinity: "Holy fuck! I understand something!" This is what simplicity offers, something that counts as a singular tool that can be understood in two breaths(NIP-01) or four (Bitcoin Whitepaper). I get the shared cultural cognition part, I really do [1]. This is *why* it holds followers. Now, I'm also looking for simplicity and a modification to behavior that embeds in culture through small programs and rulesets. I genuinely see the power of these two examples in organic culture. I used the Bitcoin Whitepaper as a model for my most recent paper for this very reason [2]. Whether either of them truly solve the problems we have at peak complexity is a different matter; however, I'll grant that it shares a #ParticleLife feature, something that #StephenWolfram might groove on. My *big* issue, is that unless other domains are included in the design considerations, all you have is a technical solution untethered. Just because something is untethered from existing control structures says little about how it will evolve in culture, and how it will motivate a better balance with nature. The same matrix, the same culture, the same ideologies, all of it is still there, even if you wrench control away through tech. As #DonellaMeadows observed, not only are paradigms/ideologies the most effective leverage point, being untethered from them is important. I feel like both Nostr an Bitcoin made progress here, but we stopped halfway. On the Nostr side, the resource consumption to approximate large social media platforms is insane. It veers way off from the Scuttlebutt roots. What would it look like with considerations of bandwidth and tech infrastructure? On the Bitcoin side, I'm skeptical of the sustainability; however, the system it untethers us from is arguably a factor more unsustainable, so I'll grant progress, but it is still highly technical and doesn't address ideology and paradigms. True, the narratives have lots of ideology and paradigms, but I don't see this in the source materials, so it just means there is something common by affinity.
[1] See Michael Tomasello, Duke University
[2]
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Logical Map: Data and Material Flow Visualization
I describe a method that combines the benefits of both mind mapping and knowledge graphs, while addressing their limitations. It provides combined ...
