Lunarpunk, Black Markets, and Agorism in the 21st Century
For this interview I spoke to Dr. Paul Dylan-Ennis (@polarpunklabs), professor at University College Dublin, and Rose O'Leary (@lunarmining), previous writer at CoinDesk and now a programmer for DarkFi. They are both also the editors for a new philosophy journal called Agorism in the 21st Century which recently published its first issue. Agorism is a heterodox libertarian political tendency that prioritizes taking part in "counter-economic" activity like grey and black markets for polit...
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Transcript
Hey, everyone. I just wanted to quickly warn you about the audio quality of the episode on my side because for some reason my microphone wasn't working on the day of the interview with Rose and Paul. Luckily, I fixed the issue, but the audio on my side is not as high quality as it usually is. So sorry about that. But I think the conversation that I had with Rose and Paul is still really interesting, so I hope that doesn't detract from the overall quality of the conversation. And so if you end up enjoying the interview or find the content that I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theboxjingsocialists to help me out and join the newest patrons like Richard, Nils, John, Adam, Danielle, and Dan. Any amount really helps since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. And as a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access to bonus content like the most recent episode where I spoke to a couple of members of the crypto leftist community to hear more about what their experience was like being at ETHDenver. Of course, I'll still make free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain does not need to be used to further entrench capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. And so if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. So thanks for giving this listen and let's get to the interview with Rose and Paul who have recently started the first dedicated journal to algorithm in the twenty first century.
Agora. Agorism. Ageric, I've also heard. All these terms, you may have seen while perusing the, Wild West of the Internet, especially among groups that are related to cryptocurrency. But when this term is sort of used, it can sometimes be a bit confusing on what it actually is and, like, what it actually means, what type of politics does it actually come from. And so what's really interesting is that in the past month or so, there has been a new journal, published called Agorism in the twenty first Century. And so I've brought here today, both Paul and Rose, who are who have been working on the Agorist journal as a way to bring politics back into cryptocurrency and to think about the political roots of where cryptocurrency possibly comes from or could maybe be, possibly take from. To start off, maybe if you guys just each of you want to give a quick introduction to yourselves and talk about a bit where the idea of the journal, came about.
I'll go first. So I'm doctor Paul Dillon Ennis. I'm a lecturer in College of Business, University College Dublin, Right? Which, cryptocurrencies and have been doing so since around 2015, 2016. I'm a board member of the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists Researchers. Although I'd like to say at the same time, I am, more importantly, I'm just an active member of the cryptocurrency and Webtree community, and I'm one of the editors of the the journal.
So I'm Rose. My full name is Rachel Rose O'Leary. And I'm one of the, kind of core developers of an amenity project called Darkfy, which is trying to create, like, a a permissionless network for, anonymous smart contracts and programmable applications. And, yeah, as a background, I've been in crypto for, a good few years. I I used to work at CoinDesk, and then I stopped writing in, like, 2018, 2019 when I went to Rojava, Syria. And then I came back and, oh, yeah, became a programmer. And I've been working on Darkfy since then. And I'm also co editor of the journal, with Paul and another friend who, unfortunately couldn't join today. And, the journal came into being, through discussions between myself and Paul, a couple of years ago now. I think it would have been maybe early twenty twenty when we first discussed the idea of a journal. And my recollection is that it it came into being because myself and Amir were just we did a phone call with Paul where we said to him, you know, Amir has these ideas he wants to put together into, like, a manifesto or, like, a book. At the time, he was talking about writing a book. And Amir Amir is, Amir Takhi, who I had on,
a while back while we were in Lisbon, to talk about, Darkfy.
Yes. Exactly. So we worked together on Darkfy. And, so he he had wanted to write a book. When we presented this to Paul, Paul said, why not make it into a journal? And he made a very good argument for for why it will be better presented in a kind of journal format. And and Paul, you know, he could talk about this himself, but he has a lot of experiences, in working and kind of building, philosophy subcultures. So he drew on those experiences and proposed that we do a journal format. And, sometime not long after that, the idea was proposed to have the kind of, you know, ideological, bedrock of the journal be algorithm. And I believe this was also a suggestion made by Paul, responding to some, maybe some writing or some texts that we'd made, myself and Amir, where he saw the links between the AgroS philosophy, and he said this is a strategic, kind of alliance of ideas. So algorithm, I think, is a incredibly important, kind of choice to have as a direction of the journal because it's a way for us to speak to, the the philosophical origin story of crypto, and in that way, kinda galvanize its, its its more radical elements. So I'll pass back to Paul and get you something to add there.
Yeah. I think one of the things that really interest me, in, let's say, early cryptocurrency culture, especially you'll notice this if you're you're teaching or you need to introduce people. You can start off with Bitcoin with a very clear conceptual historical narrative. You can say Bitcoin originates in a combination of cypherpunk culture, which is all this infrastructural mutualism. That's the fancy academic way that it's called. Also crypto anarchists, which in the literature is called digital nettleism. So there is a, yeah, clear story where this combination of political positions comes together out of a sequence of events where everything just clicks, and it just seems to happen to work. Open source culture meets, you know, full blown deregulationist, market oriented people, and they they make this money happen. But then, over the years, it it sort of drifts, and it becomes much harder, especially if you're trying to introduce what Ethereum is. So this is something I'm particularly interested in, the fact that Ethereum doesn't have an obvious and clear political philosophy. It it it has elements. It has, like, sort of emerging bubbling elements like Solarpunk and so on, But I'm never 100% clear, let's say, what the endgame of Ethereum is from a a political sense. So I've always been fascinated by that, the drift and the the sort of softening of the radical origination of Bitcoin and then how it just gets lost in in a sort of haze. And even the Bitcoiners today, they seem to be drifting more into something like an outright populism. You know, they're they're interested in, increasingly, I would say, generic populist stuff. Like, Jordan Peterson is the headline speaker at Bitcoin twenty twenty two. Sound crazy. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is just a little bit, I'd say cringe, to be honest. And so I think, yeah, so I think, in our heads then, you know, at least opening a space where we could begin thinking, okay. Is this what we want, you know, crypto to be? Is this the the end of the ideas, and we're just gonna be pushing forward with no no guidance? And then, I guess, opening the space then for, at least people to try out new political philosophies that might be applicable to crypto.
Yeah. Maybe then, Paul, since in the journal, I think the the first entry maybe or the second entry is, you give a little bit of an overview of what, of where algorithm came from and and what it is. Could you explain a bit that story for people who maybe just, like, know, yeah, just no idea where it is or it comes because it's a little bit obscure as far as, like, political ideologies go.
Yes. I would say this is true of everybody. Nobody knows what a gore is in this, so it's perfectly, common. We're we're probably like, up until this journal, I was probably one of the the four of the people interested in it. So it emerges with a guy called, Samuel Edward Conklin the turn. So he died in 2004 just to give a sense of when he was, active. And there isn't a lot of information about Conklin on the Internet or anywhere in general. So he's a real fringe figure In Brian O'Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, which is basically the historical bible of libertarianism in The United States, he appears around three times and only really in very, brief moments and very insignificant moments. What we do know of him comes from his friend, Victor Komen. So Victor Komen lived with him in what was known as the Anarcho Village, which is essentially this, apartment block in California where him and other libertarians and science fiction writers hung out. So it was basically a a countercultural libertarian space. He did influence some science fiction writers. So if you're interested in obscure nineteen eighties American science literature, you will see his influence on people like Shulman, the book called alongside Knight, for example, which is an agorism novel. But other than that, it's a very patchy online rec record. He does have a LinkedIn profile, funnily enough. And then in terms of his output, there's a book, New Libertarian Manifesto from 1980, which is the only book published in his lifetime. There's the Agorist Primer, which is written in 1986, but he couldn't find the publisher, and then, published by his friend, Victor Komen, in 2008. And then there's another, thing I just would call it, counter economics from the back alley to the stars, which is just a a collection of different bits and pieces from his work. So it's not very systematic, and it's not very well documented, and he's not very well known. The person, whoever that I would compare him to in terms of his output is someone like Hakim Bey, where it's, it's almost appealing more to a a certain feeling or a certain a specific thing that he's always encouraging is the idea of, you know, practice and activism and the distance between your theory and your kind of activity. So he's always, hammering home on a single point, but he doesn't do it in a way where you like, it feels like he spent a lot of time constructing some elaborate, system. So you're often left more with the with the feeling and the his, guilt tripping you a little bit in the distance between your practice and your and your theory. So in terms of, how would I define it? I would say, agorism is the, promotion of black market activity. So the the core thing you're gonna find in his books is always this emphasis on, black market activity. And I would even say it's a valorization of black market activity, which he also calls countereconomics. He sees this countereconomics and black market activity as an expression of our truer, non statist self. So there's a connection in his work between engaging in black market activity, engaging in activity outside the state, and some way connecting you back to, how you might have been if you hadn't grown up into the configuration of living, in the state. So that's sort of the the thing that he's promoting. So if it takes place beyond the the state and it's nonviolent, then Konkin is for it. So he supported people like the, WTO protest in 1999. He he liked the kind of anti state, activity that he saw there. The other part, I would say, is it's about raising the consciousness of those engaged in countereconomic activity. And by raising consciousness, again, I would say it's this idea of recognizing the legitimacy of some kind of authentic some kind of authentic, countereconomic sense the way the Indignados would call it, like, live as if you're already free. So living without constraining yourself based on what the the state says is, like, acceptable or unacceptable. And then the other element that you find in this work is this commitment to the expanding of spaces, so the expanding of autonomous zones, so temporary autonomous zones or autonomous zones, you could call them. So, if you're able to, begin living in this countereconomic sense and you become conscious of it, your next, job is to open up those spaces so other people can join in. And that's where I say a lot of the the kind of crypto, connection seems to be, at least for me, that that crypto can be seen as a kind of countereconomic, autonomous zone. Yeah. And then, I mean, the the formal definition, this is from, just a quote that I wrote down. It's the consistent integration of libertarian theory with countereconomic practice. And the Gores is one who acts consistently in freedom so for freedom and in freedom. So, he basically is saying that he's a libertarian if libertarians, actually were consistent. So if they they were genuine about living after the state, then, like, that that's all he's adding to it. He's just saying, well, libertarianism is perfect. It's fine. I have no problem with it. He's interested in volunteerism, nonviolence, pro market, socially permissive, anti state, anti war, but he just sees that there's a gap between that and how people actually act. So for me, like, someone like me, Konkin, I imagine, would look at and say would be a classic, person who doesn't live by a Gore's principles. So I get paid by the government, all that kind of thing. I'm still too kind of, like, unable to break free of it. But then the ideals would be people like Rachel and Amir who essentially say, well, like, oh, they're living as if they were already free. So that's, I think, what, Conklin would have in mind as an agorist.
Something I really like in, in Conklin's thoughts, and it's also the the kind of point at which I I stop agreeing with Konkin. But I I think it's really important to understand. So there's something that he calls the the means ends equivalence of algorithm, which is like the means, which is black market activity, country economics, is also the ends, you know, which is, a a free society of of consensual economic relations, you know, existing outside coercion. So basically, by by, create by engaging in black markets, we're, already creating these zones that are, by definition, free because they've disintermediated themselves from the state. So the the the end, of black markets is also the means. Basically, if you if you engage in black market activity, you've already achieved the conditions of freedom in the way that he defines freedom. That's central to algorithm, but in terms of how, like, I guess, where I would, disagree with Konkin or where I actually want to algorithm to go further is, is in articulating a a kind of agorist economy which is, you know, goes has more scope, goes further in scope than simply, that which exists outside the outside the state so that it it that algorithm begins to articulate what does a non state economy actually look like and entail, you know, what what kind of economic relations should the the non state economy promote and and that's a little bit also one of the intentions with the journal because as well as kind of reviving Conkken we're also bringing new voices and new practice practitioners of country economics to start defining, you know, you know, what is algorithm today? What does algorithm mean for people? And why are they practicing it? And what do they hope to achieve?
Yeah. Indeed. I think with just that, explanation of algorithm, I think, one, you can definitely tell the connection with cryptocurrencies even if, even if you don't even if you're unaware of, like, the cypherpunk roots of cryptocurrency, still, I think a lot of people probably know how, like, incredibly difficult, for example, it is to, like, report your taxes on cryptocurrency or something like that. Like, there is it there's a huge amount of, like, manual work or, like, a lot more, labor you have to do just to, like yeah. To be, quote, unquote, legal under under probably, like, your national jurisdiction if you want to do taxes on your cryptocurrency, for example. I think that's sort of the reason that is it shows is because, I've heard my friend, Warship Manon, sort of describe blockchains or cryptocurrencies as illegal, not necessarily illegal or legal, and they don't really fit neatly within the legal system, but also have properties in which it is able to easily, or, like, fairly easily reside outside of the legal system, which, of course, has its own implications. And therefore, like, you know, technically, that potentially means that it's, like, black market activity as well. Of course, when people say black market activity, though, I think maybe in what what Konkin would think would be, like, our, I don't know, states' brainwashed minds of, like, having lived under the states, we would think of it as necessarily being bad. But, of course, maybe there is an argument to say that's that isn't necessarily always the case, especially if you're someone, I don't know, who, like, fought for legalization of marijuana or something like that or, like, you know, someone buying weed, on the corner is not, like, a bad thing necessarily.
So I think, you know, Konkin, in in his in his in his writings, he definitely emphasizes this aspect of the with the of the black market, which is, you know, the the illegal the illegality, the non state sanctioned activity. So so so activities that the state condemns such as, drugs, prostitution, these kind of activities. However, there is another sense of the black market which, you know, Konkin, hints at when he talks about, you know, counter economic activity and, non coercive markets which is basically huge parts of the globe have this agoric type, economic activity, which is just like normal, like working people, engaging in markets without banks and without states extracting fees or taxes from those economic relations. So these are the kind of informal markets that comprise much of The Middle East and Africa and other parts of the globe, huge huge portions of the globe, exist in these kind of informal markets, but these are also black markets and they define a kind of limit, to the the the economic monopoly, of like the the neoliberal, economic world order, so they're also the the kind of frontier for for Western capitalism to expand into, you know, they wanna claim those markets. So the the black market has a has a has a dual sense. It's like both the the the zones of illegality, which are operate operating all over the world, like highly efficient, illegal markets, and, this other these kind of informal markets, which exist outside of state oversight and and and tax collection.
That's interesting. Because, yeah, I guess the the next frontiers are, of course, going to be these develop I mean, it is currently the least developing countries that are trying to be, like, subsumed into, further financialization. But I guess here the argument is that just to say, like, some people who would say that would also probably advocate for, like, it's the introduction of of markets. And in the way, it kind of is introduction of markets, but it's also, like, the integration into, like, the international market. And so the black market of these places are also a type of bulwark against dependence on the international markets that are I mean, that we could maybe call neoliberalism or something like that. But what I found really interesting about the journal is that you guys laid out a few principles about how you want to go about, publishing stuff for the journal. Because just to know, the thing was what I find interesting is that a lot of this explanation for a lot of people may just sound like anarcho capitalism, that algorithm is just one form of anarcho capitalism, that it's, like, a a right wing ideology. But I also find interesting that still Konkin was very critical of, like, for example, the Libertarian Party. And he, like, from what I read, he said he tried to basically, destroy the Liber Libertarian Party from the inside because he disliked it so much. And he talks about, the contradictions of a lot of libertarians and what they do and what they say. So I find those interesting. And then as well, at the same time, Konkan himself places algorithm as a left wing ideology. It was a far left ideology. I'm not really exactly sure what the reasons are for that. But anyways, just to say that one of the principles that you guys laid out was the that you want to include a diverse set of of voices from across the political spectrum. So in the journal, you guys have people like, Harry Halpin, who who was on the podcast and said he was an anarchist. We had, Jaya Clarabeca, who I will hopefully have in the future, who's socialist. And you also have Nick Land, who a lot of people will say is, like, very right wing. And, yeah, perhaps maybe even, like, close to fascism. But, I was wondering if you could talk about some of these, like, principles of your journal and, like, why you feel it important to follow those principles.
Okay. I will start. So one of them is just the the context that we're creating this journal in. You know? So so we're writing this or compiling this journal at a time where, censoring political views in academia is the standard. It's like the default of all academic institutions and publications. So that's also why the strategy that we're taking is kind of rare and unusual because, it's it's not often seen that you will have, like, these these contradictory forces together in the one place. But it's also why I think I think that's also why we're doing it. The, the censorship of ideas, based off of political views is very dangerous for, like, free and open inquiry, and many of the ideas that we take for granted today are like the philosophies that we live in the wake of, only developed because there was a certain level of freedom, of intellectual inquiry and, like, a a diversity of political opinion. I'm thinking right now specifically of the CCRU where Nick Land originates from in WARC where, you know, we had thinkers like Nick Land working alongside thinkers like Mark Fisher, you know, different sides of the political spectrum today but at the time, you know, it was all part of this, open inquiry and I think having that so that that kind of ambivalence towards the political spectrum was, very generative, very important thing that the CCRU maintained. At the same time though, you know, we're not and and and yeah. So there's two things. The the principle itself derives itself from Konkin who himself was a kind of a journalist, you know, he a big part of his life was spent compiling these publications much like what we've done, where he would invite various libertarian thinkers of all different descriptions to voice their opinions, oftentimes in like open conflict and contradiction, but this creates I think the perfect atmosphere for something like a journal, you know, where you have voices, that are not presenting some kind of, single harmonious vision but instead are, like, are trying to outline what are the different angles and approaches we can take to this, to this idea. So Conklin achieved that and we wanted to give like the important weight to to Conklin's own values by continuing that legacy and that's important because algorithm has become most closely identified with the right wing and you know it's such a niche ideology but when you do find agarists they tend to be just a subset of anarcho capitalism and so we wanted to draw out these other aspects to the agarism that exist you know like the ones that Konkin himself identified where he would speak about black bloc as a potential Agarist ally, and you know also situated Agarism as far left. So we wanted to drive these tendencies that exist already inside of Agarism. And finally, you know, when it comes to the editorial strategy, we've been discussing a little bit recently where where does the line exist. So where do we draw the line? Because we're not saying, like, we're gonna make a journal and and everyone can come. You know. We we we still do draw the line, somewhere, and it's not everyone that can that can that will be welcomed. So what is that line? And and I think in terms of Konkin, you know, where where that line should be is is whether or not that person is the degree to which they are complicit or or supportive of the state. So, for example, Konken himself, he drew the line at the Libertarian party because he said it's it doesn't make any sense. How can you be a libertarian and engage in party politics? It's contradiction. So that's why he hated the Libertarian Party because he's he believed that as soon as you start engaging in party politics, you're already compromised. You've already been integrated into the system that you're trying to Legitimating the states in that way. Yeah. Exactly. So it's yeah. It's, like, absurd. So, so we would have a similar at least, you know, I will let Paul give his own take on this, but but but at least I would have a a similar approach where if they're like, we would we would try to avoid having contributors who are somehow supportive of, you know, a centralized state power.
Yeah. I guess I think that would be a good way to, frame it. So the the line is almost people who are, statist in some kind of way. So if their message originates in some kind of, advocacy for for statism, I think that would be at least one of the lines or centralization and I think with Nick and so it's very interesting for me personally to have watched this because I can remember the old Nick and you know Nick before he became. Uh-uh this sort of scary Nick so he he he used to be a very different character and there's a line from Hannah Arendt, who says when so my my PHD was on Heidegger. So this is something that's always been in my head about Nick Land that their philosophy it's not uncommon in philosophy for the most influential and important person to be, like, in some way politically ambiguous, and in some cases, probably even fascist. Right? That's not something uncommon. Heidegger is that figure up until Nick Land. So Heidegger is the main influence on Derrida, Levinas, etcetera, etcetera. So he's the most influential person. So Hannah Arendt said, Heidegger was a, philosophical genius, but a political idiot. And I quite like this one. I think this is probably the same thing I'd say about Nick. Is that there's something almost like the finish in the the tweets like let's say the more like kind of outright white nationalist tweets they they seem almost like your uncle going a bit crazy at Christmas kind of thing. It doesn't it almost doesn't seem like it could be him because it's like you know and then there's also this ambiguity around like his performance and and things like this. So yeah, I'm a little bit on the the fence over all that kind of thing but there is something yeah, so I would say in Nick's work one thing you can definitely say is there's an interest in this idea of you know accelerating. The breakup as much as possible of like states centralization that that's sort of the the core philosophical idea that's in his work, which has then influenced a lot of philosophers down the line. So it's been influential on spec liberalism on left acceleration is even things like luxury communism pretty much every contemporary philosophical movement that's at least interesting or on the edge or has pushed the narrative forward originates in Nick's work so he is our. He is our perfect sort of complicated, kind of character. So that's why I think he's always worth publishing. You can even see on, like, his Twitter account, the young people who are, sort of, encountering Nick Land for the first time. They they're both commenting on his timeline and critiquing him and obviously fascinated as well. And I think there there's there's something about his work that that draws the attention, and I think it always goes back to this prescience that existed that he seemed to know very early in the nineteen nineties the trajectory of where things are going. And so he's also somebody who could potentially be pointing, to philosophical changes in the future. So I think that's worth, someone always worth paying attention to. If he was so good at kinda getting it back then, then there's the possibility that he's on the right track, in terms of his predictions, not in terms of his, politics. I I I just wanna add a a a mentor,
add to that, which just to say that I I completely agree with what what Paul's saying. And, you know, in a way, Nick Land is like he's a man of many masks. You know? And he's got different masks that appear at different times at different contexts. And one of the masks is actually, like, the mask of Nick Szabo in a way. And in this way in this way, Big Land has also been very influential on Bitcoin itself and and the kind of metaphysics of Bitcoin in a weird way. So, like, you know, he has this text, cryptocurrency, where he articulates this. Although he he alluded to these ideas in various places previously, but it's a very kind of Zaboist notion of, immutable, kind of glacial inhuman, march of code, which which Nikkaland supports, which is the kind of it's a absolutist vision of a perfect, and permanent, blockchain that's, like, kind of terrifying but also, you know, has a strange kind of appeal to it. And it's this it's this vision of blockchain which is often behind behind the the the the metaphysics behind things like Bitcoin maximalism, where, you know, when you when you when you talk to Bitcoin Maxis, they start talking about the, like, natural, like, natural law and, like, the Bitcoin as a natural law and the unstoppable rules of Bitcoin's
natural law. Like like, 20 Well, like, the river march on, like,
Exactly. It's yeah. So, so that that's that's that's one kinda interesting mask of his. But then, you know, he also has other masks, and and I think, like Paul said, like, the the the mask that he has, which is the kind of decentralization, how does he call it? Atomization, you know, is, I think, in term in relation to the journal, probably the most relevant thing, and and we're very thankful that he gave us a text where, you know, called called anarchy where he he applies that notion of atomization which he had previously just spoken about in a quite an abstract philosophical way, but here he speaks very, clearly, about politics, which is really nice and and also brought out some other tendencies in the in the other essays that we compiled. So Amy Ireland, who is also a Landian scholar, had this amazing text, which we included where which resonates a lot with the with the land work on the same notion of kind of atomization of politics, you know, the idea of patchwork in in in in the I think as well just on this,
one of the, like, more startling things about, Nick's work. So I wrote this thing called the vitalist disjuncture between process organization studies and acceleration as in for some business journal.
And For a business journal.
Yeah. Yeah. So they they're they're they're interested in it a little bit as well. So the business journals are behind by about ten years. So, you know, they're always catching up. And so the, yeah, I mean, trying to get across to them about so one of the the hardest thing about Nick Land's work to get across to people is that he has sided not on the human. Like, he has made a decision that he is on the side of some kind of self organizing, self constructing artificial intelligence. It's pure esoteric metaphysics. If you if you can follow that line with him, then it's, like, really cool and really interesting. But it does require you to basically say, like, the humans are not important. I think he's probably the only person who's really followed that logic, you know, as hardcore, as anybody else.
Yeah. Indeed. I mean, I I would say that's, like, a lot of people to me have, well, I get I get, like, two senses of, like, opinions about Nick Land. One is, like, oh, stay the fuck away. It's, like, really weird. And then the other side is sort of, like, well, no. If you, like, read a little bit into it and, like, just, like, give it, have the intellectual inquiry, then, like, there are some things to take away from it, which, of course, like, I I mean, just to be perfectly frank, I like, I did read Nick Land's, essay in, the Agarest journal. It was a bit difficult for me to read, personally. It was, not an easy one. I'm not really sure if I got everything right, but it was, like, I don't know. I'd like I I in general, I do respect at least the principles of, like, bringing these different like, political tendencies together and sort of, like, not thinking about political divisions, like, first and foremost or, like, at, you know, the first thing that you talk about, for example, because of I mean, like, the examples, like the CCRU, like, plenty of amazing things came out of the CCRU. You can't, like, argue against that, and they were not, like, super concerned about politics. Of course, politics became something a bit afterwards, but it was only after this sort of confluence of different ideas and thinkers that that came together. But, yeah, but the just to say, like, the principles that you guys lined out just have the journal here are to reject political divisions, welcome dissonance, and no compromises, which I think, with the selection of people that you have, I think that's definitely the case for this first publication. So if you you talked about this a little bit, this idea of countereconomics from Konkin. Could you explain a little bit more what countereconomics is besides maybe, like, black market stuff because I think or just, like, trade outside of The States? Because I've I've also read, for example, like, if we think about it from a like, if we set aside the anarcho capitalist, like, thinking around this type of thing, one of the things that makes me wonder is whether something like mutual aid, counts as counter economics or, like, you know, to help people, especially, like, my audience to think about, like, a left wing idea of a black market or, like because I think sometimes there is this tendency that, in my opinion, comes from liberals mostly that's, you know, the the the banking system is better than cryptocurrency because it's, like, good regulated under the state, type of ideas and that because there is this, you know, supposedly benign regulation from the states over these, giants financial companies, then it's a good thing and that crypto is bad because it's, like, outside of The States. But I think it's, for me at least, clear that a lot of a lot of activism happens outside of The States, and we also consider it good. We just don't think about it in maybe, like, this countereconomic lens.
Yeah. So one of the, motivations for me with, say, Konkin's work is that in in his, let's say, his patchwork, not very super well developed, like, philosophy in as much as it is a philosophy. And as I was arguing earlier, I'd say it's more of a, like, more like he's promoting, an attitude or a feeling, and then he doesn't really give you a very clear picture of how things are going to develop. Now he does have this, set of phases, which is very science fiction y. Right? So it's very similar to how, a science fiction author might imagine the society development developing. So it goes from phase zero zero density agora society, which is, more or less just like the the situation as he encountered it. So trying to find, those people who are engaged in counter economic activity and then giving them some libertarian theory and then, I guess, radicalizing them. And then phase one, low density agora society. This is where we get the idea of the the new libertarian alliances or sometimes it's new, like, it it gives l that l can be libertarian. Sometimes it can be left as well. And these are organizations with which gather together to complete some kind of task, and then they they disband. But, really, the what they're always trying to do is try to show people, you know, the how a counter economic life is more attractive. So I guess in the case of crypto, something like, a DAO or a DeFi where there's some incentive which attracts you over to, let's say, activity happening outside of the, you know, traditional financial formalized institutions, and you're pulling people over, through that sort of activity. And then he goes from he goes from that very quickly to phase three, high density condensation agora society and the agora society with status impurities where he doesn't explain what's happening in there except to say that the previously contiguous territory of the state has been slowly eaten away by these, emerging minispatial zones, which are have become more attractive and people have become, they they've become sympathetic. And he doesn't explain why they become sympathetic. It's just they have. So, he leaves this ambiguous. And I think what I'd say, one of the goals of the journal is to begin that process of articulating what exactly would these societies look like. Now my my position on this is that cryptocurrency essentially is the the economic financial version of this. Like, it's already happening, so we have that sort of example. But I think, at least, in the case of me and Rachel and different people might have an idea of this, we would like to see more of a a mutualist, direction. So we we are going to have to articulate that idea of what the the mutualist position would be. Think probably for both of us, it's probably something like Rojava. It's probably, democratic confederalism is is the model. So this is the other thing about, this kind of politics where you can, I guess, in a way where we are trying to promote the idea that a Gore's or counter economics already exist? It's just that they're maybe not exactly, known known as that. So I'll hand back to Rachel.
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. And definitely agree. Like, I I think mutual aid is a good example of, of country economics. Like, definitionally, it's very loose. So it's it's any kind of activity that exists outside the state. And all that means is, like, any kind of economic activity where you're not declaring that activity to the state. So you could say that now, you know, with the growth of financial surveillance, the the kind of space of economic country economics is getting smaller or at least that it's migrated away from the fiat system towards the crypto system. So you could say then instead, like, if the state is surveilling all your transactions in fiat, maybe it's impossible to have fiat country economics, but instead, you know, there's like many, many possibilities for for country economics in crypto, including mutual aid, including, you know, all these various airdrops. And I mean, to be honest, most of it, anything as long as it's not people declaring taxes is definitely country economics. But then, you know, we come back to something I touched on and and what, Paul just said, you know, when he mentioned Rojava is like, there's this, this, how to say no. I don't wanna say blind spot or there's just a lack of information from Konkin on, like, what is the kind of post state state society, economy. You know? But he tells us, like, the as soon as you stop paying taxes and stop doing, like, state sanctioned activity, you're already in the post state society. You've, like, made that, transition. However, you know, I had this discussion with a friend yesterday who was saying but even if he he said, you know, I'm I'm a I'm an agorist in a way. Like, I I've never had a bank account. All of my financial all my financial activity is cash based, you know, and I don't have any ID so, like, I'm I'm an agorist according to to the algorithm, but he said I'm I'm still not free, like, I don't feel any more free on account of and we came to the conclusion after discussing it that okay he hasn't achieved like the state of like perfect freedom because he's still within the state based society and he has the same behaviors you know ultimately as as someone who does pay tax or uses a bank account, you know, he has the same set of consumer behaviors, the the but he has achieved some kind of a small freedom, you know. It's like it's like slightly better than having, like, a fully state sanctioned activity. So then you know the the kind of idea of what happens next like to really develop the the the non state economics that's where we have to look to thinkers like for example Ocalan who is in some ways very compatible with Conkine. I wrote an article, it it still hasn't been published, but maybe it will get published at some point where I looked at the, the kind of similarities between Cochrane and Anachalan and and they both have a similar they have similar language when they describe the state, which is a language very common to I mean, they share a lot of roots, you know, like, libertarianism, but but then they're they're you know very different contemporary forms but they they talk about the state as a kind of vampire which is like parasitic, it sits on top of like the people and and free society, you know, and it extracts all of the creative activity and and all of the, you know, bounty produced by free society, in order to sustain itself like a parasite. And also for Ocalan, he he basically says we need to remove this this parasite in order to liberate, like, the free society, which in Ocalan's view is something which, has always existed, since even before the emergence of the state in ancient Sumer. And it and and it's kind of still existing throughout history. There's, like, different ebbs and flows where the free society you know rises up and gains dominance in small kind of patches and then and then it fades away again. So there's this kind of constant war between the state and free society and you know his his job is to like or Ochlan his attention is to do a kind of archaeology of the free society to find out you know where it is and like what what it is and how can we how can we uncover it from the ruins of state based society and and give voice to it again or to give it form. So, you know, that's that's goal, and I see it as highly compatible with Conkin's, because Conkin has almost the same almost exactly the same language when he describes. He also talks about the free society as something that exists inside the state based society, but that the state based society is is, like, extracting, you know, all of this value from us. So so Cadre economics is how do we, essentially liberate free society from state based society. And Conkin's proposal is we do it by not paying taxes. At least that's the first step. For Conkin, that's the the the black market, the countereconomics is a is like a tactic, you know, but because of it means ends equivalence, it's also the kind of final forum of the society he's proposing.
Yeah. I think they they share, an image which is common to, a a a few people on those lines. Murray, Bookchin would be another person who's quite influential on the Auslan, of course. They all have the same similar language of, internalization, and and trying to, you know, re recognize yourself or uncover yourself, I think, is really like that. I like that idea of the archaeology of, like, pre state societies. But I just wanted to mention on this, mutualism thing, at least one of the, attractions I think is that there is an opportunity in the sort of ambiguity of Ethereum's politics in particular at the moment. So I'm quite interested in this idea that, Ethereum does have some politics or there are people vying for Ethereum's politics. Let's say it's going up, Solarpunk being the, I guess, the one that's popular at the moment. And I think at least, at least personally, I see myself or see the the potential here of introducing more mutualist ideas into Ethereum culture is at least partially a motivation for for the journal because with Bitcoin, the politics are very, solidified. They're they're sort of done. They're cemented. They're evolving they're evolving in a way where, it's a it's like they've evolved, the worst tendencies of, like, the previous stuff. You know? And they have changed but like only by extracting the worst and I think in Ethereum, it's the opposite situation where we can use this to introduce those. Uh-uh mutualist ideas. I also think that a. This is the transition that Konkin talks about where you go up against the state and you have this transition requires a mutualist approach. So this is something you'll hear from, let's say, preppers. So the the prepper who starts out looks after themselves. Right? So they collect guns. They collect hands and stuff, and they're, like, hold up in somewhere, and they're on their own. And then when the disaster happens, they they lose. Right? Because they they're basically, they've got no nobody to rely on. And so I think like a in a more realistic real politic version of Conk's work, it does have an explanation of mutual aid as defense against the state because there's no way you're gonna survive that contact unless you're operating as a group in some kind of way.
Yeah. I I do find it interesting how, the Prepper community definitely does tend to be a little bit more, like, conservative or or right wing thinking that, the state is going to implode at some point for one reason or another, and then it's going to be a free for all. But, yeah, indeed, I think the only way really if that were to happen, your best chance of survival is, like, having just networks of of mutual aid or, like, people you can count on, like, having having this, social safety nets whether I mean, in the case where, you know, theoretically, the the state disappears, then your social safety net is sort of brought to you by your your peers or those around you, in your community and so forth, which seems to be just, like, totally lost in these people. I don't know how. Their their gun's going their shotgun's gonna protect them. So I'm curious now that you guys have just, published the the journal. Is there any, like, learnings since you've published it? I know it's only been, like, a couple of weeks, but, like, what kind of, like, response you've been getting and, like, what do you think yeah. What what kind of learnings have you gotten out of it? I think the response so far has been really great.
I'm really happy with this. So far, everyone has been very receptive. There hasn't been, you know, some kind of major controversy over the idea to, include, you know, diversity of political opinion. It seems like that's been accepted as a strategy. So I think that's really positive for us, but also, like, a a nice reflection on on the on the crypto community as well. And, so far it's been great. I think if I was to change one thing and something that we will change now coming up to the second issue is to make it longer, have more have more submissions. But, no, I think it was a great start and, yeah, I'm excited I'm excited to do more.
Yeah. I think what I what I took from it is that based on those, like, messages people have sent on Twitter or whatever, is there is a a an appetite for something like this, appetite for some kind of political, journal with a it's not, you know, fully focused on cryptocurrency, but it but that's obviously a big a big team of it. And a lot of the the messages I got were were focused on the idea that there hasn't been a real serious attempt to reflect on the trajectory of crypto, for a little bit of a a little while. Probably the, the other thing might be just, maybe more thematic, I think, might be an interesting approach. So I think next time where we might be doing, say, like, a solar pump, lunar pump type type approach or so something to tie it together so that each issue maybe could generate some kind of wider discussion that people could follow.
Nice. Yeah. I'm I'm really looking forward to to the next issues. But I I completely agree with what you're saying, Paul. That's, there seems to be this, which is, like, it's common in, like, a lot of places, but, like, this desire for things to be apolitical or, like, for for crypto especially to be apolitical as if there is we're just, like, collecting tokens and, like, having fun. You know, there's no politics here. Get away from, get away from the government. Like, all of this is just, like, very, very political inherently, especially with this technology that is so innovative, which has, like, so many implications that are so different from as if you were going to, I don't know, use the normal financial rails. You instead decide to use some sort of cryptocurrency to, like, do one thing or another, which is, like, part of the reason why I also recently published my, my article, like, sympathizing DAOs and anarcho syndicalism. And I made the same the same observation that there is a bit of this, like, apolitical do gooderism sort of, like, in Ethereum, especially in, like, this public goods, like, solarpunk space, which I mean, we were talking about this earlier, but, like, yeah, there are some, let's say, naiveties or, like, sort of utopian thinking in the bad sense of utopian. I would say shortsightedness, that I think we can kind of see coming. And, you know, starting to think about the political implications now rather than later will probably, will help in this, you you know, making sense of all the craziness that is, like, hypothetically potentially going to come if, especially if if Konkin is correct and, you know, we have this degradation of of the states and people are going more and more into black markets or something like that.
Just on that, I think that that's sort of, like, the perfect example of the the naivety a little bit. So if so in the the Ethereum political philosophy article that I wrote, you know, I tried to emphasize that you you could read Ethereum as engaged in decentralized analogs to stay functions. So taking, like, previous things that the state used to do and then, like, offering examples. So that could be, like, DeFi, finance, NFT, like replacing kind of, like, staid artistic institutions, and then, DAOs as the organizational form. And public goods, what's interesting about them is there are groups, like, running headlong into providing public goods. Eventually, this will, I imagine, expand out into the real world, in which case we're basically saying to the the state that we can do this better than you and say, once you start doing that, that's when you're really gonna get the state kind of looking at your activities. So I think, yeah, there's a little bit of a naivety about, yeah, let let's just take things that state states have done, and the state is not gonna be interested, in our activities.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good analysis. And connected to what you were saying, you know, this idea of, like, apolitical do gooderism, I find this, like, appalling and, and I think that's probably the line that we that we'd wanna draw, like, when it comes to the journal, you know, it's the kind of statist because that is a statist position, in a way. It's like the especially because this this idea of good often comes from a kind of, status definition of of of ethics. Like, stuff like, oh, if it's black market, it's it's bad. And if it's state sanctioned, it's good. You know? So I definitely agree with you on that and also when it comes to solarpunk there's a lot of naivety. I wrote this article for eGirl Capital called I highly recommend. Thank you. It's called Lunapunk and the Dark Side of the Cycle. And I'm criticizing solarpunk in there, for the exact same reason, like, this this naivety, this lack of realism when it comes to, the interaction of crypto and the state, because I I basically argue that, like, as all of the stuff happening on Ethereum is now happening in in clear net, like transparent plain text. It means that if there is ever some kind of conflict with the state or if there's any kind of, you know, illegality of crypto that happens, the the people who engage in crypto, the users, are gonna be the first ones to go because, you know, they're the ones which are gonna be liable for for for using the networks. So I think there's too much of an emphasis on censorship resistance at the level of the nodes and not enough emphasis on, like, making the users have that same level of sensitive resistance, which only comes through, like, anonymity and, and privacy at, you know, in in terms of their usage of the network. Otherwise they could they could be, like, legally liable and, you know, they're they you can't have a network. That's not a anti fragile network if your users are under threat like that. And I think that the reason why this naivety exists, it it comes from the fact that many people in Ethereum are these kind of statist do gooders, which, see themselves as on the side of the law. And they often come from Western countries where, you know, they've never had to deal with persecution or, you know, having their their transactions censored because they've always been on the right side of the law and they've always been protected by the law. So, so they don't they don't see that, you know, they they it's hard for them to see that there could be a different, that they could be under threat or that their users could be under threat. So, yep, I think that's a massive oversight.
And it's becoming super relevant, I think, because of I I mean, I I you've probably seen recently, I think, like, OpenSea is going to stop catering to, like, Iranians or something. They're they're they're also going to stop catering to, like, Venezuelans. Like, difference maybe it was even MetaMask that said they weren't going to. So, like, all of these things are popping up. Now all of a sudden, I think, probably in relation to the sanctions on Russia, maybe, like, now they're taking it more seriously. That's okay. Maybe we we need to adhere to The US's, economic sanctions because of this and that. We don't want so, like, I think there is this need because they are also legally incorporated companies. Like, they have this pressure, like, pretty immense pressure to, to, yeah, follow the law of of The United States or that they need to so they can continue to exist, so they can continue to make profits. So, like, it's it's, like, really to me, it's, like, a huge example and, like, clear thing that, like, the state is pretty necessary for capitalism to to function in the way that's functioning right now, to sort of like, I guess, this this form of capitalism, whatever you wanna call it. And it's sort of, yeah, it's not like I guess, I'm also, like, skeptical of some people's views of, like, no. We just need to have this sort of, like, just take over the states and then make it good, type of approach, because we're seeing sort of, like, all these things happening.
I just wanna add in a little bit here about, like, Solarpunk and Lunapunk because, like, this is something me and Rachel talked about quite a bit, but I'm a little bit softer on, like, Solarpunk. By Solarpunk, I mean, the the one before this sort of liberal version of it. There used to be a more anarchist,
interesting, I would say, even like Well, I'd say that they're they're probably there still exists this Solarpunk subculture in, like, anarchist circles that I think is sort of ambivalent towards this use of Solarpunk in, like, places like Ethereum is what I can kinda see.
Yeah. Yeah. And I I quite like that. I I was interested in Solarpunk for for a long time before it start, like, sneak. I don't know where it came from or how it evolved into Ethereum, but, like, seeing it sort of morph, was something a little bit disheartening for me. And I I kind of do like the the solar pump vision in the sense of if you presented, like, that vision of society to most people of a highly technologically advanced but also, like, green, you know, society, like, a lot of people would be like, yes. That is the society, that we should strive for. So I do think there's something in that, the the kind of gap between, like, what you see in a solarpunk image versus our current societies. I do like the contrast that it forces between, like, here and now. At the same time, I do think if we if there was to be something like a solarpunk political philosophy that it would require, a defense of sorts, some sort of, like, Lunapunk contingent who are, like, more real politics serious who are defending it. So the way I've thought of this is that, like, Solarpunk without Lunapunk, is maybe weak or not able to defend itself against the state. Like, Lunapunk without Solarpunk would be, like, too hard. It needs, like, some kind of, like, Solarpunk, you know, aspect to it as well. So I do think there's, like, some possibility of, rescuing Solarpunk, but it's gonna it it might be lost, but I I do sort of like the the images. I must admit. Well well, one thing one possible, like, strategy for for the solarpunks is, like, how how do you talk to
how do you bring out those more radical aspects that exist in like the Ethereum, Solarpunk, imaginary, while also kind of like pushing back, the those, like, more sinister forms of solarpunk, like the the, you know, the more liberal variants, which involve, like, total surveillance infrastructures and that kind of thing. So I think that would be a really valuable goal and and something that the journal will be very interested in achieving is, like, speaking to solarpunks and radicalizing them essentially, which you know brings us back to like why did the journal kind of come into being in the first place? And one of the things that you know we discussed in the early days was, that there was this kind of, in Ethereum especially, this kind of, this kind of lack of, you know, political motivation or like motive that, you know, maybe there was a lack of ideological leadership where, you know, there's a lot of people who felt galvanized into crypto, usually because of these exciting, political ideas, like, you know, let's take on the banks and stuff. But then when they got there, they're like, oh, you know, what is this? We're just, you know, like, as you said, collecting tokens. And so there's a kind of this meandering kinda lost sense, like, in some of the the branches of Ethereum. So, you know, that's also what we wanna speak to and, like, you know, there there has been these more since, the last few years, there has been some new ideologies emerging. Solarpunk is one of them. You know, it has these liberal tendencies, it has these anarchist tendencies. So so we wanna, with the journal, bring those those more radical tendencies out and I kind of show the those those followers of Sonapunk why the other ideas are very dangerous. You know? So basically, it's a we intend to to radicalize them if possible.
Yeah. For sure. I and I wish you a lot of luck in in that radicalization attempt. At at the moment, I I I recently also talked to some people in the crypto leftist community that I have. They they went to East Denver, and, yeah, they had they had some interesting thoughts about, like, what they saw. I mean, they what at, like, Schelling Point in, like, East Denver and this stuff, that there wasn't enough self reflection, I guess, on what they were doing or, like, really critical thoughts on, like, whether or not what they were doing was, like, a good idea or whether it, like, actually answered the actual problem in certain ways. It's it was really interesting, when I when I spoke to them. But, one of the things that it seems to be is that there's almost this idea, especially in Ethereum, but also in a lot of other places that, like, we can make a lot of money and do good at the same time, which kind of personally, I'm a little well, I'm very skeptical of. If you're in in that that type of thinking as like a it's it feels more like a a self justification that if, I'm using like, like, it's it's, like, justifying that I'm interested in this technology
and making a lot of money. Therefore, surely, I must be doing good. There should be some kind of fallacy for that. Like, some kind of nice logical fallacy for, you know, where where you you believe there's an association or correlation between how much money you're making and, like, how good, you're contributing.
Which is very, very neoliberal,
like, type of thing. There's an issue because I think in a lot of, like, world religions, there's there's, like, an overlap. Like, if you're making money, you're, like, seen as good. Protestantism is has this. It's like Especially. You're like yeah. You're you're showing that you're kinda economically chosen by God. And, Islam also has this, like, you know, the that that wealth is good. It's like it's like God's abundance. You know? You should acquire us. So, like, what you're saying might make sense to to those religious beliefs. I also wanted to mention in crypto, there's, like, the there are these kind of normalizing or, like, normative forces that are very deep in in crypto, and and I think partially why so much of the communities have this kind of, this lack of political motive, you know, where they're a bit like meandering and lost is, it's not by accident. Like I think it's it's it's it's a lot to do with, you know, where where is the money in crypto coming from. And some some amount or like a non insignificant amount of the money is coming from these kind of huge regulated financial entities which are financing a lot of projects and they have this kind of a pressure They apply this kind of pressure to projects when they're funding them, to, like, you know, to to to make their image, their aesthetic be as as kind of safe as possible because they want to appeal to, like, the mainstream audience. So that means, like, you know, don't go don't go too, don't be too scary in your, like, political objectives, you know, like, keep it, keep it light and keep it friendly and open. It's kind of a marketing tactic. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and an appeal to, like, the greatest common denominator, you know, and the idea is as soon as you start expressing, a political, position, or even like, an aesthetics which deviates from, like, the norm, you may be, like, making your audience smaller. So, you know, there's this kind of pressure from from from a lot of the, the kind of VC funds. And, you know, on the one hand, it's like it's the marketing. I think it's it's like a legitimate kind of marketing tactic, not, necessarily a successful one, but, like, a legitimate kind of recognized one. But on the other hand, I also think that a lot of these, high level, you know, hedge funds and stuff, they're they're taking money effectively from the states. Like, when you go back far enough, like, the money that they're allocated is is is money that comes from, like, the the very centralized forces that we're trying to critique, whether it be, like, centralized governments or, like, indirectly through the the the centralized bank, the central bank. So I think they're compromised in that the bottom line depends on the perpetuation of, like, the current system of states and and and and banks and so on. So there's a kind of,
there's that kind of tension exists inside of crypto itself. It's a like, it's I mean, it's it's it's the same problem, I mean, in crypto or not in crypto. Like, when you accept VC money or something like that, there are always strings attached to it, and it's part of the, I guess, part of the difficulty why things if you I mean, just another somewhat related thing or, like, platform cooperatives are, like, difficult to to fund because they don't want to adhere to, like, the the stipulations of venture capital, for example. Yeah. And at the same time, these venture capital firms have a very big interest in looking good in front of the state. Yeah. And I I think it one of one of the the the kind of,
like, sad things about it is you have a situation where a group of people have essentially created the conditions where like more or less they've severed they could sever the dependency relation from venture capitalism because they have enough but the VC money obviously, you know, pushes things to a new level. But let's say they wore, like, yeah, like, a a good old fashioned co op. They would really struggle to have any money at all. It would be a constant struggle to to make things happen. But you have these groups of people who do have money have a respectable amount of money to get by but nonetheless. Kind of compromise themselves by getting mixed up with the venture capital. I've always found that the most disappointing thing I'd say in general for me has been like the whole trajectory of it so far has been very disappointing because there's an almost a self imposed part as well. So let's say the venture capitalism hasn't been what's ruined this project the most likely next candidate is a self imposed nihilism, a sort of you know the hentai like we're just like not living in anything. Own Ponzi nos this term of like well we the old system was a ponzi. We're going to create our own self organized Ponzi, which, of course inevitably crashes so that that's another thing that can happen as well. I think so yeah, I mean the this like something like defy should be the the vanguard it should be. I mean I think that's what is doing but generally speaking defies a political nature is a major disappointment because that should be what's challenging, central banks and the financial system as it stands.
Speaking about crypto and politics, Rose, I know that you are a part of AssangeDAO, which is, like, part of this effort to use cryptocurrency and DAOs and everything around it to sort of help with the yeah. With all the issues around Julian Assange. Could you speak briefly maybe about, what that is and, the current status of that?
Yeah. Sure. So, like, the DAO is called Assange DAO, and the goal of the DAO is, the liberation of Assange. You know, this is a goal that, like, so far, we've we've we've the major kinda thing we did was we raised a lot of money to, bid on the pack, NFT, which is called Clock. So I think it was about a month ago now. We raised over 50,000,000 for this NFT, which we then bid on the NFT. And that's money which has now been sent to the, Val Holland Foundation, which is a nonprofit, which is the kind of, the way that, Julian Assange is, is gonna pay for his legal fees. So we managed to ship 50,000,000 toward Julian's defense, you know, with the goal of yeah. Which is huge amount of money. Yeah. It's amazing. Now though, like, we we're kinda we we have the aftermath of that. There's a lot of, you know, DAOs DAOs are, like, the nature of DAOs is that you have many different participants, and they have different views about how to do things. And, you know, it's it can be, you know, hard enough to operate collectively with people in a physical space where you're talking eye to eye. But, you know, with the DAO, it can be even harder because you got, like, you never met each other before. You know, there's no, like, real trust basis. So things can get, like it's just a different it's just a very different kind of form of, collaboration. So one of the major kind of conflicts we had was, you know, this question of the max bid. That's like, do you give all the money to the NFT or not? And there is some voices, like, in the community which which, which wanted to keep some amount of capital in the DAO in order to, like, use that capital to free Assange in by other means than the than the than the legal system. So, you know, that was kinda interesting. And then and then we see this site. There's a kinda interesting the consequence of that was that the the kind of 50,000,000 that was transferred from the DAO to the to the traditional foundation was kind of like a $50,000,000 bet on the supremacy of traditional, institutions, in, you know, with respect to DAOs. So so that was kind of a shock, I think, and and and the community is still recovering from that decision, you know, which was very contentious. So but there there are still, like, a a lot of community members and a lot of interest in, in in the kind of two goals, which is, like, you know, free Assange, but also, like, now look after this, you know, huge community of token holders who who wanna engage with the with the DAO, and kinda shepherd them. So in terms of my own involvement, like, I I basically retreated since the max bid, and I've been focused primarily on building anonymous DAOs on Darkfy, because our plan is to basically port over the Assange DAO community into Darkfy so it can pursue goals like freeing Assange in in a way that's, like, properly, censorship resistant and, like, safe for users, instead of on ETH where everything is surveilled and, you know, even participating in a DAO like the Assange DAO could be a legal risk for for some people.
Right. I guess this is, like, directly sort of the, criticism that you're making earlier, sort of like the Lunapunk argument that you put forth earlier. Yeah. Basically, playing out in real life. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I say. I I was I just wanna talk about because I think it was interesting because, I think in in my view, the story of WikiLeaks and the story of Bitcoin are sort of, are very, very close. You, like, you can't really separate them very easily. And it is like the it's, like, the story to tell, I think, when you're talking about the politics of of cryptocurrency because you can't really take that apart. And I think it sort of, in my view, it sort of counters this, really common narrative on some people, especially on the left, who say that, like, like, Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is only a libertarian thing, like, specifically a right wing libertarian thing. But at the same time, like, they wouldn't say that WikiLeaks is a right wing libertarian thing either, but it was sort of, like, pretty essential to the development of Bitcoin and the and the growth of Bitcoin. Yeah. So it is interesting that now, you know, some, like, ten plus years later, we're sort of, like, back at the point or, like, the the same issue again, that still hasn't been resolved. And sort of now we're using the new tools at this space that has been created. Thanks to Julian Assange trying to use it to now, yeah, continue his efforts and to fucking let him go finally.
Yeah. Paul, actually, one of the days around the time of the auction evoked, a very beautiful quote when we were, speaking with each other, which was, he referred to the hornet's nest. He I I believe you called the you referred to the DAO as the hornet's nest. And and the significance of this phrase is, you know, one of the, final posts that Satoshi made on the Bitcoin forum was, a comment to in in response to an article where WikiLeaks was using Bitcoin. And, and Satoshi replied, WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the storm is headed towards us. And and that that was either, like, his second last or his final post on the Bitcoin forum. So there's a kind of question as to whether that was the point in which he left the project. You know? Is he like, oh, shit. You know, this has gotten a bit hot and, you know, I'm out kind of thing. Could have been. But, yeah, I I agree. It's kinda come full circle. We have this the the new kind of Hornet Net Hornet's Nest is the Assange now. Go on, bud. I said, we're the Hornet's Nest now. Yeah. You know? So it's it's switched around. And,
the like, that that story, that that kind of, you know, I think even though it's kind of awkward because it is the second last post, it would be cooler if it was the last one. And that sort of basically, you know, makes Satoshi, disappear or is the most likely, cause. When I'm teaching crypto with my students, the another thing that you'll say with this, let's say, the the basic stories that you tell newcomers to crypto will always be the the pizza. Right? So 10,000 Bitcoins by Laszlo. And I often say to the students, it's like, well, actually, the the first real use case for Bitcoin wasn't that. That was just a isolated, like, not all that significant event. It was the WikiLeaks donation. That's what had many, many people using Bitcoin in a very serious, recognizable way. So for me, like, that is the first use case of Bitcoin in any kind of sustained, consistent way. So and it's beautiful that it's gone full circle. So, yeah, so the the way the the hornets nest is switched.
Yeah. It is that, and maybe you could also argue Silk Road as well, which I guess you can also say is, I mean, the guy, I think, was, like, very influenced by, by algorithm you mentioned. Yeah. But by Konkin. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's important we talk about ROS, because the free ROS DAO was also the inspiration for the Assange DAO. You know? Like, we we've been a few of us in conversation with Assange's brother Gabriel for some months. I mean, I think he's been speaking with Amir for for literally years trying to strategize about ways to ship some money to the Assange case. And and it wasn't until the free rosto that we realized that, like, you know, this this kind of thing is possible, and we made the Assangeo. But Ross, you know, Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road, super influential figure within crypto, a kind of saint saintly figure, you know, like one of crypto's martyrs, in the same way as Sanchez. And, in in the early days, like, before the Silk Road was shut down, so I guess, like, 2013, Ross used to publish manifestos on the on the front page of the Silk Road where he would talk about algorithm, agorist ideas. And and he made the Silk Road because, you know, he discovered the philosophy of algorithm, and he felt like, wow. Let's act let's do this. We have the tools now. You know, we can make the, unstoppable black market, that Kong can vote about. So, you know, he that's what he did. And and there's a beautiful I would point everyone to, there's a beautiful article on Forbes, which is the collected quotations of Dread Pirate Roberts, which, is, extracts from a lot of his manifestos published on the Silk Road, under the pseudonym Dread Pirate, Roberts. I'd highly recommend those texts. They're really, beautiful, and they explain a lot about algorithm and practice.
Yeah. And in, in Konkin's work, there is direct descriptions of, dark net like, what looked very close to dark net marketplaces. So he talks about encryption. He talks about what would it be like in the future where we were able to, as he says, lick the information problem. So how could we make it so that, like, you know, people's identities were were hidden and all that kind of thing? So he was very, present, in lots of ways, on this. And that description of darknet markets, I think it's in the Agora's primer, it had to have been, I think, the main thing that, Ulbricht was thinking of because he explicitly says that he was influenced by by Konkin's work. And in that book, you just have this little description of, some kind of anonymous marketplace where the the state aren't able to kinda catch people's, transactions. So, also, the the other weird thing is that they were both, into chemistry. They both studied chemistry to an advanced degree. I haven't made the connection why is it that these two figures, but I always thought that was sort of weird. But, yeah, he was directly influenced by it. So there is a line between Konkin and, Albert.
Interesting. Yeah. Maybe it's, it's, like, the idea of, like, chemical reaction where if, certain conditions come about, then explosion of new things. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think the the story of Ross Ulbricht I don't know. Sometimes I I I I go back and forth on it to be to be perfectly honest. Like, I I don't know. Not to, like, pick one or the other, but I generally like the story of Assange a little bit nice. It's it's easier to justify than I think Ross Elbricht is, yet at the moment. But, also, I think I need to read more about the Ross Elbricht story because I've heard, like, conflicting things a lot of the time.
Yeah. I would I would recommend his tech his texts, the the the manifestos that he published. But I I agree with you. Like, Julian Assange is is much more openly a a political project, whereas, you know, with Ross, it's a bit more, it's a bit more obscure. And and there's also the fact that, like, you know, all of these posts that he made, the the political posts, were done under the pseudonym which, you know, that is what links him to the Silk Road so there's still kind of like legal issues about, like, talking about him in relation to those pseudonyms and stuff. And as well, you know, I actually we wrote to Ross, to invite him to the journal, and, he he replied and he said that he wouldn't advise anyone to speak about algorithm publicly. So so Ross now, yeah, he's he's he's kind of repented and if you listen to his, his his speech that he gave to the Bitcoin, I think it was Bitcoin Miami last year, very beautiful, but very, like, emotional speech. You know, he, again, he he apologizes to the crypto community. He says, you know, maybe it would have been easier for you guys if I didn't do the Silk Road, which, you know, it's not clear if he's saying that because he wants to get out of prison or if he genuinely believes it or if it's kinda both. I'd say I think it's probably a bit of both. You know? They're, like, the same mixed up with each other. But, you know, he's he's he's kind of, he's given up the radical message,
for for now. There's an interesting, image that always stuck in my head about this. It's in one of the Silk Road documentaries. And, someone says, Ross Ulbricht is like, we're all in a film, and we're, like, in a line. And in this film, like, there's, like, guys shooting at us from the door, but someone has to go through the door first to be brave. And he says Ross was first through the door. You know? Like, he was just sort of the person who happened to be in the firing line, and so he took the brunt of, pretty much everything. And his story of you investigate it, I would say it's a good example of somebody being slowly corrupted by the influences around him. So he starts off, with Silk Road with that, you know, Forbes, really kind of interesting clear cut, analysis of what he believes he's doing, trying to create nonviolent methods by which people can, you know, buy and sell drugs because he didn't consider drugs to be, like, violence because he took it yourself, all that kind of thing. But the people around him, especially, Roger Thomas Clark, who's currently, on trial. He's, like, the number two. Like these guys have been active in drug markets since the 1990s and the 2000s and we're pretty famous for basically being like just like kind of psychologically messing with people, you know so they would plant drugs on each other, all kinds of stuff and they they slowly kind of turn Ross toward the all that assassination stuff that doesn't really come from him. It comes from the people who basically took advantage of his idealism. So I would say his story. It's like a perfect story of someone starts out pure and then slowly around and has accumulated the worst kind of people you can imagine.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. Wow. It's interesting. I'll rewind it. Yeah. Maybe just to finish off I mean, first off, thank you guys for for coming on and sharing what what algorithm is in the first place. All these things about, with AssangeDAO. I wish you, like, the best of luck in radicalizing these people. You know, we're we're all trying to do it here, I think. But, yeah, maybe just end it off, could you just share with people where they could find the journal? I'll, of course, put links to it in in the show notes so people can can, click on the link and and read it there. And, yeah, where people can keep up with with you guys. Sure. So,
we have a website which is agorist.xyz. You can also follow us on Twitter. I believe the handle is agorism x x, I as the Roman numerals, twenty first century. And, you know, I I also have a Twitter. My handle is lunar milling. You can also follow our work on darkfy at dark dotfy. And I think that's it.
Yeah. I'm a Polarpunk Labs, formerly Solarpunk Labs, but, have have since had to change.
But, I I have to explain what Polarpunk is now and how it differs from solar and lunar.
Yeah. I I just I just kinda wanted one that was, like, somewhere in in between, like, the sun and the moon. So I was like, alright. I call it Polarpunk Labs. I think, yeah. Yeah. Well, in terms of just, like, the it's yeah. A little bit maybe you could can think of it as, like, a kinda colder solarpunk is maybe what I'm going for. So, yeah, the other thing I want to say if people have like interesting areas that we don't know about and they could like write to us, or people that we should be looking at or you know, that would also be pretty cool because we obviously don't see everything so maybe people think that there should be some positions that aren't represented
to suggest them. Amazing. Yeah. For sure. I can I can give you guys a couple of recommendations of of people that I would love to see, write in this type of journal? Please do. Yeah. Alright. Thank you guys so much. Thank you.