Psychology

Using Bitcoin After The Apocalypse

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

“What does the future hold,” is a question we ask a lot. Partially because we’re human and partially because right now we’re in the Polycrisis. I think about it due to my humanity, due to the chaos, due to concern for people, and of course a healthy level of paranoia. I’m not living in the future I was promised or anything close, and I’d ask to see the manager but it’s sort of me.

So what do I think the future is? The future is planning to use Bitcoin after the apocalypse.

I’m not a fan of cryptocurrencies – there’s some interesting technology in there, but overall it’s not so much a money as a kind of stock with little foundation. It’s a kind of social engineering with no foundation but belief. However I do follow news and conversations on crypto as it is part of our current world and affects us. One conversation I followed had someone expressing utter frustration with a crypto enthusiast: said enthusiast said Bitcoin would be great after the apocalypse.

Think of that for a moment. An actual human said that. A person who in theory can drive and hold responsibilities figures that you’ll use Bitcoin when society collapses.

The fall of civilization. You probably don’t have a computer, you probably don’t have the internet, and an entirely electronic currency is your hope for the apocalypse. It was watching faith in gold transferred to faith in the blockchain, completely disconnected from the reality of civilizational crises.

Planning using Bitcoin in the Apocalypse is a perfect summary of where we are now – hoping utter faith in nothing saves us.

We’ve got a world in crises – climate change, political meltdowns, diseases, resource issues, microplastics, etc. Even though I have a lot of faith in humanity, it seems pretty clear we’re in for a hard crash. We need real ideas, real leadership, and real solutions involving material subjects like food, location, weather.

But a lot of people are absolutely enchanted with technical and philosophical bullshit. Crypto of course, which I heard best described as “having a computer do sudokus you use can use to buy heroin.” AI is supposedly going to save us, say the people whose job is to sell us on AI. Meanwhile both technologies suck up technology, resources, and mindshare when we might want to use all that to deal with climate change.

We’re following “leaders” who sound like image board teenagers and 80’s sci-fi novels on repeat, lost in their own worlds. Or maybe we have leaders who are recycling bigotries and biases of the past, while promising we’ll get back to that past even though it existed largely in our imaginations. We’re trying to go back to the 1950’s or the 1850’s or hell, the 1050’s for some people, and few if any of the advocates seem to know anything about real history.

We end up with people who are happy to bring polio back and think advanced technology just happens.

So much of our world is bullshit ideas and bullshit people who aren’t anything, just things we clap our hands for, hoping they’ll be real this time. Believe enough in everything that we know isn’t true and magically we’ll all be saved. The Final Judgment delivered by a god speaking in internet memes and platitudes.

We’re metaphorically hoping crypto will save us in the apocalypse. We’re hoping a teetering pillar of belief and hype will right the wrongs – while it burns real resources and kills real people.

And ultimately, no, it’s not going to work. I watched parts of LA go up in smoke, Arizona has it’s own dangers in 2025, and Florida and its neighbors get rammed with more and more hurricanes annually. We need solutions, we need to prepare, and even the con-men and con-women have conned themselves into acting like it’ll be OK.

Humanity will get through it. But the question is how well, how many, and how long it takes us to establish a functional world. But the answer isn’t hand-wavy, easily exploited memethink.

Steven Savage

Only Dreams Of Wealth Are Permitted

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I saw this reddit post making the round, and I felt it. Kindly allow me less of a rant about leadership and projects and creativity to some feelings. Ok there WILL be some Project Management.

There are many things wrong in the world, and I pretty much rant on a lot of them (then usually mention Project Management). But I FELT this post hard. There’s lots of grifts and scams in America today, but there’s not nearly enough effort into fixing things.

I grew up in a place that still had depression era public works. I currently work in medical technology which is about solving problems as otherwise people die. It’s hard to imagine not solving problems, but then again that’s kind of the problem.

I think a lot of people just can’t imagine a better world and the way to get there.

In Project Management terms, we don’t have a charter to deliver or a plan to get there because we can’t dream it up. We are surrounded by wonders of technology and architecture, of history and providence, but we are impoverished in imagination. We can’t see a way forward and maybe not even a place to go.

Sure our media sells us “good” futures in the form of endless Star Trek series and assorted other stories – but these are also marketed to us, to appeal. The media will also sell us bad futures about dystopias and apocalypses, but those are also marketed. What’s not there is a road to the good future or a road out of or to avoid the bad future. We’re sold images without much solidity because it’s all about selling.

It’s all Product.

Our politics is the same way – and caught in the same loop. I dug up some satire from the early 80s and I’m seeing the same things being mocked four decades ago. We’re still doing the same bigotries and suicidal ideas and still satirizing them. It’s just like media, but let’s be honest, politics became theater decades ago as well, and everyone’s still repeating the bullshit. Real, big dreams seem to not be there, just the same nightmares and empty promises.

So what escape do you have? Well our media soaked culture will sell you grifts and personalities, so why not try to be like them? Invest in Crypto, become an influencer, whatever some rich figure currently bragging on your monitor is doing. We can’t imagine a better future, but folks can sell you the image of a richer you.

Being richer is the one thing you’re still able to imagine. Which is hilarious considering the small likelihood we will be rich.

I think we get caught in repetitive cultural cycles due to our media-political culture. T Here’s nothing to imagine, it’s all the same, and there’s just the promise of grift. It’s just we’ve gotten to the point where it’s hard to imagine hard-nosed, hands-on work to improve the world because it’s all images. It’s Society of the Spectacle, but the Spectacle includes people online screaming about mood-altering chemicals sprayed during wildfires that occurred due to global warming.

And of course me, the Project Manager, is constantly screaming inside just like all my fellows. What are the goals? The plan? Come on people!

Even though I can imagine a better future and a way to get there, it can be frustrating. So let me close by sharing a few things that helped me.

  • I’ve been just reading more. This leads to thinking. What I do watch more and more of modern nonfiction are specialists, experienced people, and indie creators and news.
  • I’ve been reading older texts on philosophy and history, seeing the world differently. It helps you imagine – and helps you see what’s been the same for centuries or aeons.
  • Getting hands-on locally with disaster prep. Just taking a CERT course was an incredible eye-opener to how the world works. Studying disaster prep made me appreciate work in California that goes back over a century in flood prevention.
  • Actual activism of any kind. Donate. Phone call. Do the disaster prep I mentioned. Get involved in anything that gets results. It’ll help you imagine what you want and how to get there.
  • Read up on other cultures and times. There’s a wealth of knowledge of how people have lived and imagined over the years. Even if some things seem out of date or antiquated, there’s plenty of insight. Seeing how people lived differently helps you imagine living differently.
  • Select your media. I’m not saying avoid trash – just know when you select your junk food. Trust me, I can’t judge, a friend has got me watching TWO Isekai deconstruction comedies.
  • Work with people. Talking to others can get you out of your imagination bubble.
  • WORK to imagine better. Write it down. Do a story. Let yourself practice dreaming.

No one is going to sell us a better future or a way forward. We have to make it together.

Steven Savage

Well Yes, They Lie

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I’m trying to figure out why people are surprised that other people, especially powerful people, lie.

Yes, of course I’m inspired by the whole thing where people are surprised Trump suddenly backs H1B visas, or at least sounds like he does. I mean why are people surprised that politicians are lying and how do they ignore previous disappointments? People are also surprised that businesses lie to them even after buying a bunch of terrible projects. Don’t even start me on movies, where lying about quality has become an art form while the films aren’t art but so much a sad cry from help from marketing.

I’m looking at YOU, Kraven. How do you mess up “sexy chest-revealing badass hunter”?

Anyway, it seems we can complain but we keep believing the lies. I mean look how people are talking Jimmy Carter being decent like we’re surprised someone is. But then we go ahead and believe some salesman or politician who lies to our faces as it’s the right lie.

And look, I get some people lie, even good ones, especially politicians. Some folks have to keep secrets even if they’re usually terrible about. Politicians and marketers have to put some polish on some potential turds. People are gonna get lie-adjacent, and yeah we get that.

But how do we keep being surprised that people lie to us blatantly when they’ve kept doing it? Especially when they’re politicians and big companies who you’d think we wouldn’t trust, considering our constant cultural elements of “don’t trust these things.”

I think it’s because cynicism also begets faith. Which also sounds like a dynamite alt-metal album title

Anyway by aging fantasies of music aside, think about what happens when you get real cynical about people. You don’t trust anyone. You’re not sure who to count on. Mistrust is hard even when it’s warranted. It’s wearing.

So you also want to trust someone. Cynicism can, in some ways, generate trust because you want someone to help you solve the problem. When you’ve got a big enemy, you want a big friend to help you.

Mistrust breeds trust.

Of course people know this. Ever notice how a lot of conspiracy theorists afraid “of the system” also sound pretty authoritarian? They want to fight The Conspiracy by establishing something that sounds just as bad when you think about it – they just promise you’ll be on top. People trust them because so much mistrust gets sown – or they come with it.

If you ever follow any podcast about conspiracy theorists you’ll quickly see how they’re often absolutely, blatantly lying. It honestly gets tiring, and I follow these things since it’s kind of relevant to my job in IT and medicine where lots of conspiracy theories get pointed.

Ultimately we need to know how to form trust appropriately – with communities. Know who you can trust, know what real trust feels like. That lets you also evaluate other relationships, especially more distant ones like with politicians and media figures. In time they might be worth trust, but you need some real trust to avoid the trust/cynicism fluctuation – and to get together to push politicians and leaders who need some pressuring.

You ever hear people rant about how we lack community? Well, I’m leaning to believe the ranters as I get older. If we form real relationships it may help us detect ones people are using to manipulate us. A little more trust might just breed effective mistrust as we have something to believe in and something to protect.

But at least for now maybe we can be a little more suspicions – even of ourselves.

Steven Savage