"Technology will empower individuals to become their own sovereign entities."
When James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg wrote The Sovereign Individual before the new millennium, they painted a picture of a future where individuals could break free from the shackles of state oppression using upcoming technological advances: "As the bandwidth revolution unfolds, it will draw people more and more into the borderless virtual world of online communities and cybercommerce, [...] As ever more economic activity is drawn into cyberspace, the value of the state's monopoly power within borders will shrink, giving states a growing incentive to franchise and fragment their sovereignty." However, as the first century unfolds, this vision has crumbled. Terms like 'mass surveillance' and 'surveillance capitalism' became part of our cultural lexicon, signaling a disturbing shift. As Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney aptly noted, "The computer can be used as a tool to liberate and protect people, rather than to control them." This raises the question: what determines whether technology is liberating or controlling?
Most technological innovation has sprung from non-government entities, so there is no apparent reason why the state should wield such technological control over individuals. Companies have historically exploited disparities in technical prowess to persuade masses of individuals to use their products and bind them into their ecosystem. As the book predicted, most people have the financial means to operate a server capable of handling all their daily computing tasks. Yet, they lack the technical know-how to do so. To their credit, the authors foresaw this, but only in the context of individual interactions. They predicted there would be two classes of individuals, the "know-hows" and the "know-nots," where class conflict would ensue. They failed to anticipate that governments would maintain control through this disparity.
"Big tech" has developed the technology and business models to achieve unfathomable levels of wealth. In his book Zero To One, Peter Thiel wrote about tech monopolies and their defining characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding. The persistence of the technical power differential between individuals and governments is explained by the fact that individuals with technical skills can seek alternatives to "big tech" platforms. Yet, those within their social circles who lack technical skills cannot do the same. As a result, they continue to rely on the products and services offered by big tech because of their network effect, ultimately reinforcing their dominance through monopolistic properties. Consequently, the government, with its monopoly on violence, has effectively co-opted these companies, thereby undermining 'The New Logic of Violence' as outlined by Davidson and Rees-Mogg.
Many Bitcoiners today see Bitcoin as the missing tool to fulfill the promise of The Sovereign Individual. However, Bitcoiners underestimate the technical difficulty of mundane tasks in Bitcoin and overestimate the technical aptitude of the population. Focusing solely on individuals threatens to undermine the entire Bitcoin experiment. Furthermore, the Bitcoin blockchain will not be able to handle a global population of individuals. Suppose every individual is required to open a channel on the Lightning Network to participate in the Bitcoin economy. In that case, it will take decades to onboard the worldwide population by naively optimistic calculations. In reality, it is not possible. Under an individualistic paradigm, "Bitcoin banks" will be widely used because convenience and scale do not allow otherwise, allowing governments to retain technical dominance through these intermediaries.
Fundamentally, the book's thesis is a result of a faulty anthropology. Humans are not individual rational consumers floating through a marketplace. No matter how much our liberal culture asserts this vision, it is contrary to the purpose embedded in our being. We are born into families, grow up to marry, raise children, see them into adulthood, and then share wisdom with posterity in our last years. Securing and providing for our family orients our lives. Any vision for the world's future must respect this innate nature lest a tyrannical regime undermine it.
Back to the question, "What determines whether technology is liberating or controlling?" The answer is simple: the impact on the family. Paradoxically, focusing on individual empowerment will inadvertently lead to a government-controlled technological paradigm. Bitcoin is no different. In contrast, the focus on fortifying the family unit will empower those with technical skills, the “know-hows,” to assist those without, the “know-nots,” by using a trusted familial framework. With its inherent sense of just hierarchy and protective authority, the family can withstand threats to its sovereignty better than an individual.
Bitcoin can be used as a tool to liberate people financially, but we will only accomplish this through empowering the sovereign family.