The Elementary Particles of 21st-Century Power
Understanding the threat of decentralization in the political landscape
The Root of the Thing
Reductionism: To reduce a complex thing to its most basic elements. It’s an act of distillation that both purifies and oversimplifies. It was the success of naturalism and is the shortcoming of modern science.
But reductionism is also one of the few tools to strengthen the signal-to-noise ratio in our gluttonous information age. All it requires is a modest understanding of psychology, history, and technology. With this in mind, the global predicament boils down to one elementary question:
Centralization vs. Decentralization
This is the question that turns the gears of modern policymaking; it’s the question that pumps the blood of furious protesters.
Paths of Decentralization
The Internet of Things (IoT) has made freedom from centralization—however unlikely—possible. Three sectors of increasing decentralization come to mind:
Media
Education
Currency
The first two constitute information-acquisition categories. When information from media and educational sources is successfully encoded, it may even amount to knowledge. The third category constitutes action. In a market-driven society, currency is the best behavioral indicator we have. Put simply: Money talks.
The relationship between thought and action is well-established. The Buddha knew it; William James and B.F. Skinner knew it; the Powers that be know it.
In the spirit of reductionism, we can think about the information-action relationship as a feedback loop.
When the feedback loop is positive, habits are established and reinforced. When the feedback loop is negative, associations are weakened and a shift occurs.
Positive feedback loops are predictable. When media, education, and currency are centralized, maintaining control over a nation is child’s play. However, as these three sectors become increasingly decentralized (that is, independent from a single locus of power), a paradigm shift is inevitable.
At a minimum, it renders the Old Guard irrelevant and quaint.
And they can feel it.
The Pressing Need for Centralization
This is a pinnacle moment in history: Governments (most notably those founded on democratic principles) are witnessing their mainstays of centralized power usurped:
Fiat currency is inflating itself into oblivion as stablecoins and cryptocurrencies gain momentum;
High-quality education is now available and accredited online, in place of gated, traditional institutions;
Independent journalism—like podcasts, Substack, and social media—has left mainstream media (MSM) in the ratings dust.
Right now, “democratic” governments have all the technology they need to subjugate us into a centralized dystopia. And yet, these very same technologies are, by default, decentralized.
This means that the elite minority are the ones fighting an uphill battle—not us. Sure, they may have had the first move in this game of chess, but they sure as hell didn’t write the rules.
Mobilizing the Attack
Evidence for this power grab is blatant and omnipresent.
Vaccine passports represent the single most successful attempt to centralize power; a foot in the proverbial door; a technological gateway to a social credit system not unlike China’s.
Does that sound far-fetched? Let’s look at a couple of recent examples.
Centralizing Digital Currency
Rishi Sunak, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, recently proposed the adoption of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) to G7 countries. The goal is to slowly phase out paper money.
While this in itself may not be cause for alarm, consider a recent article published in The Telegraph, titled, “Bank of England tells ministers to intervene on digital currency ‘programming’.” The subheading further states:
Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible.
Notice the keyword here? Programmable. The article then opens with this paragraph:
The Bank of England has called on ministers to decide whether a central bank digital currency should be “programmable”, ultimatley giving the issuer control over how it is spent by the recipient.
The implication is obvious: Centralization is the path to control.
Centralizing Media Censorship
Meanwhile, censorship acts are becoming commonplace in policymaking circles. In Canada, Trudeau’s failed bill C-10 and revamped bill C-11 are shining examples.
The U.S., on the other hand, has taken a more sophisticated approach to censorship: Instead of reinventing the legislative wheel, they asked themselves, why not just change the vocabulary?
On February 7th, the Department of Homeland Security revised their “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland” to include the following bit of Newspeak:
The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.
Head of the DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas, highlights the specific dangers of COVID and election fraud “disinformation”. In other words, free citizens questioning the state narrative are now subject to the same treatment as suspected terrorists. As Philip K. Dick so aptly said:
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
But even as governments build their intricate systems of constraints, how do they intend to impose them? The only way to do it “democratically” is to first stoke the flames of fear and division among the citizenry—then strike.
You really can’t make this stuff up. As one YouTube comment so succinctly put it, “conspiracy theories should be called spoiler alerts now.”
Governments Cry Wolf
As we’ve witnessed time and again, manufacturing an emergency is the tried-and-true path to totalitarian control. Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy is the most flagrant and desperate attempt in recent memory.
The important thing to note here is that in the wake of these “emergencies”, nothing ever returns to normal.
Look at post-Bataclan France, where many temporary emergency policies have been made permanent. Or the U.S. Patriot Act, which was ongoing for nearly two decades until it was finally repealed in 2020 (of course, not without leaving certain permanent provisions behind).
This phenomenon can be neatly surmised in a quasi-religion axiom:
Whatever liberties the Government taketh away, the Government shall not returneth.
What Comes Next?
In reality, the stripping of privacy is not an end in itself, but a lever for centralization.
Spying on you through your cell phone, restricting your financial transactions with a CBDC, and promoting/removing content based on its political messaging—all of it is done in the interest of suppressing your freedom to think, to act, to wake up.
The crucial takeaway is that it isn’t too late to course-correct.
The channels of decentralization are well-entrenched, so it remains unclear whether the Old Guard can really pull the sword from the stone.
One thing is certain, though. If the majority of people continue in the vein of Plato’s slave, that is, to “have true belief without knowing the truth of their beliefs,” then we’re probably fucked.