How Cryptocurrency Revolutionized the White Supremacist Movement

Interesting article:

Fortunately, Cardano does not appear in the article except for the disclosure that one of the authors once had some Ada.

But there are some interesting takes concerning the larger crypto community, especially the Bitcoin community:

“There are a lot of Bitcoin whales from pretty early [on in its history],” futurist and computer scientist Jaron Lanier told the Lex Fridman podcast in September. […] “And they’re huge, and if you ask, ‘Who are these people?’ there’s evidence that a lot of them are not the people you would want to support.”

“Bitcoin started in right-wing libertarianism,” Gerard said in an email. “This is not at all the same as being a neo-Nazi subculture. That said, there’s a greater proportion of Nazis there than you’d expect just by chance, and the Bitcoin subculture really doesn’t bother kicking its Nazis out. … Bitcoiners will simultaneously deny they have Nazis (which they observably do), and also claim it’s an anti-bitcoin lie, and also claim it’s good that anyone can use Bitcoin.”

“Bitcoin is not new. It’s been around for a while. I’ve been watching it closely. I’ve not seen one example of it creating economic growth,” the computer scientist and futurist Lanier said on a September episode of the Lex Fridman podcast.

Additionally, there are, of course, lots of examples of right-wingers praising, using, and profiting of Bitcoin, Monero, and other coins, but it’s not easy to single out the best examples. Just read the article.

I think this touches on an issue that is much wider than white supremacy or Bitcoin.
The question of legitimacy and ethics in distributed systems is a very hard one, but I think we all hope that better safeguards could be found that limit illegitimate activity.

The issue of supporting “bad actors” or just people with opposite world views is even a level deeper than the outright scams that we see in the space every day. Scams that the “decentralized community” has no intention of banning, as a central authority would contradict the whole point of the space.

I think in the longer term some in the community would like to imagine “utopic automation” where the rules of distributed systems are structured in a way where only players that are honest and contribute real value become successful.
This means in theory you could collaborate with anyone on a given distributed system as they will be “forced to act like a good player” in the context of that system.

In reality I think the (mostly technical) community is in total denial about the deeper “social mechanics” that will ultimately have to serve as the foundation for the distributed systems they aspire towards, and how these will have to force and subjugate individuals to “play by the (new) rules”.

There is also a strong atmosphere of maximalism in the space right now, and a feeling of a race for market leadership (which is also an idea from the “old world”) - which implies a search for “the best” set of rules.

The only way I can see a beneficial and ethical distributed future is basically where Daos/dapps will actually have very strict rules for participation, and though all will be “opt-in”, in actuality an individual will prefer to (or even only be eligible to) join the Daos that align with their world view, history, and ethics.

For me at least that is the more positive vision for distributivism - We don’t ever get to “ban” anybody ever again.
The systems will belong to everybody. And that includes shitheads, criminals and villains. It will have to be up to the larger groups and to us as individuals to marginalize and reject bad behaviors.

It does seem like a fantasy, but it’s possible that blockchain and crypto will give us this opportunity for collective spiritual/mental/ethical evolution, but even without it, I hope it’ll have an opportunity to marginalize the participation of certain groups - but in a way that can be considered an “opt-in prison/exile system” (alongside more popular systems, that will be less accommodating to “extremist world views”).

Hope my point comes across clearly. Very important discussion - thanks @HeptaSean!

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This is basically a prime example of FUD …

I cannot inform if human beings on this sub have horrific analyzing comprehension skill, or simply do not study the articles.

This isn’t always approximately tying cryptocurrency to white supremacists, it is approximately figuring out unique white supremacists, their wallets, and outlining their adoption of cryptocurrency.

I’ve had an opinion on this and it goes before crypto. I was born in 86 so I feel confident calling it from that vantage point.

The Greater subject would be called Economic Nationalism.

In 1999 “practical” ​U.S Jobs went overseas. *Before then also but in the masses at that time of 1999.

My favorite example is Nike .They want to sell “us” Michael Jordan the image but they don’t want “us” to make the shoe.

Imagine an African American Guy making a Nike Shoe, Getting off, Going to a local bar and watching the game. Watching his favorite player wearing the shoe he just made

National Pride.

The butterfly effect of this is Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the Anthem.

*I’m from North Carolina. There was a senate race between Harvey Gant and Jesse Helms earlier in the 90’s. The race featured an ad from Jesse Helms that goes something like " You needed that job but they had to give it to a minority" to fill a racial quota. Jesse Helms won.

But back to the African American Guy making the Nike shoe. Now 20 something years later I’m reading Spain is looking to be heavily invested in Africa, China is Heavily invested in Africa.

It could of been the African American guy who went with Nike to Africa to open a factory in Africa.

A really Awesome feeling for everyone in the U.S also. No donate to a person in need but Job creation.

I blame it on the subconscious of American Society.

Too many people like Joe Biden held hands with people like Jesse Helms and walked them into the 21st century. And we’re all human, I don’t want to be malicious but just being honest. Obviously Joe Biden has done good stuff. But it’s these kind of compromises that are layered on top of true righteousness that have created our distorted reality.

I don’t want to completely break the space time continuum and say what if Slavery didn’t happen or if Jim crow didn’t happen? I’m going by my life and the events that took place in it since 1986.

If we kept jobs at the 1999 point arguably we would of be on the frontier of what China is doing. Going and building in Africa. we would be experiencing less social inequalities in the U.S. Jeff Bezos would still be successful but not as rich. And that would apply to the whole spectrum. Less Super billionaire, billionaire, multi millionaire but we would have many more millionaire, hundred thousandaire, and thousandaires.

It might seem like i left the topic of cryptocurrencies but to bring it back in we would also have a lot of respect for the National Economic system and the American dollar where the technology of cryptocurrencies would be within a narrative of “the new technology to strengthen our financial system” rather than “Can bitcoin reach 300k?”


Food for thought.

Once upon a time Pepsi dropped Atlanta Rapper Ludacris from an endorsement deal because of his lyrics and persona. I believe there was a polarization of “thug/gangster” that was used. The Boycott was driven by Bill Oreilly and Fox News. Beyonce ran with Her Pepsi Deal (50 million). A Few Years later during the Zimmerman trial Trayvon Martin was also polarized by the same news network as a “gangster, thug,” even something about he listened to rap music.

A few years later after that Beyonce does a Pepsi sponsored Superbowl halftime performance of “Formation”.

This year we have Kendrick Lamar and company doing the Pepsi Superbowl Half time show. Imagine after all the protest and rioting from yester year That Kendrick Lamar got dropped by pepsi because his persona and lyrics.

This thing with Beyoncé. It’s a greater subject. But a very blatant example of what’s happening to people conforming to a system. What would of happened if she didn’t take the deal 20 years ago?

One could argue the movement would have stared then. Instead it took a few high profile cases and videos of black people being killed and recorded for the masses to react.

I read Jack Dorsey was invested in Bitcoin and that he has a relationship with Jay z. Jay Z is a board member of Block (formally known as square").

If I cant call it?

A day or two before Cardi B asked Jack dorsey on twitter " will bitcoin replace the dollar?"

A day or two before I posted here on The Cardano Forum " The N Word as it Pertains to Crypto Currency". I knew this guy wanted to sell bitcoin to Black people.

as other cultures also but I believe commercial Hip Hop centric people love “what it would of been like to invest $10 in bitcoin in 2011 type feeling”

All the while these crazy bitcoin mining machines are up and up in Kazakhstan. In a decentralized concept who is going to stop the bitcoin mining company in Kazakhstan from burning coal?

I can be humbled by technology and its contributions. Bitcoin has not done it.

I don’t feel comfortable buying a Frappuccino from a Starbucks while the equivalent of 6 weeks of an American household’s energy use and the equivalent to 1.5 iphones of ewaste to be discarded for that transaction.

I think without the hardware bitcoin is genius. But everything has a catch and that is a very heavy catch.

The kid in Kazakhstan that is growing up in smog with the internet access he didn’t have yesterday is going to look at us as a whole and hate us more than osama bin laden.

After it’s said and done: How to kill a revolution? How to put out the flame of the torch that black people have been carrying?

Turn them into worse people.

I don’t think it’s a conscious decision. Many of the intellects of today are carrying the emotional baggage of their fathers and grandfathers. We are getting smarter at stupid decisions in the pursuit of becoming rich.

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If I could touch back a bit on the Specific topic “How Cryptocurrency Revolutionized the White Supremacist Movement”.

I had an eerie feeling after reading that up until the last couple of years Private entities in China were really invested in Bitcoin and they would be the most to profit from its success. I was also feeling uncomfortable with the idea of a private currency coming in as strong as it did when we are trying to get through the pandemic.

I posted on here my concern. A guy responded something like no one can take advantage unless a vulnerability already exist, so don’t blame crypto. He enlightened me a bit.

Moving away from my opinions of private entities in China being heavily invested into White Supremacist being heavily invested. Dark Forces are “always” going to try to find a way. What you shared here is taking me to a place of : the next thing to watch out for is White Supremacist Financiers doing what Muslim Extremist Financier’s did or do with their networked terrorist attacks.

I also think that i don’t know how much of cryptocurrency also enables other illicit activities like money laundering for Cartels. This was and is a pretty big concern of mine when El Salvador adopted Bitcoin. But before bitcoin there is the “recreational” idea of cocaine. Some kind of mystique that surrounds it. The U.s is the number one consumer of Cocaine. I live in Ecuador and one of the prisons here a few months ago had like over one hundred people killed in a matter of days or weeks. It started in Colombia, went to Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Now Ecuador. For me our approach to Cocaine is in a white supremacist indoctrination or the fallout of. Like self prescribing for something we don’t know what we have or know what to call it.

Crime is getting more sophisticated but what is a crime? Crypto is a Crime in China. Maybe for all the reasons you shared and I shared. there is something incredibly valuable in the idea of National Unity. I wouldn’t want to live in communism but i have the upmost respect for China at the same time.

Ironically enough. would a stronger central authority alleviate our concerns of empowering the wrong element? Maybe that would kill the cryptocurrency wave, maybe it would end the drug war. When people speak about decentralization I think it’s kind of funny because I think we are already there and been there, we are just coming to that understanding that we already have that freedom and on the outside and it’s manifesting in things like Cryptocurrencies.

The irony of decentralization. Banks are actually at their best right now. I checked The Bank of America Website and they are spot on. Carbon Neutral and they are taking the responsibility of making sure everyone they are invested in are too.

If we were to look at the cryptocurrency community as a whole. The majority have used their vote for bitcoin. The “decentralized” concept is failing us in terms of the environment. All the while making creating a new top percent.

It’s a battle of incredibly intellectual tech gurus and mathematicians vs. The Wisdom and experience of the Banks.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again I really Respect Cardano but if i had a choice There is something about the Pyramid and The All Seeing Eye on the dollar bill that makes me really respect those who created our modern economic system. I think as some are coming to a realization of the decentralized concept as the banks are coming to their realization of their potential.

Something like: For God and Country.