Bitcoin Enables Discovery of Genius Within – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion piece by Nozomi Hayase Ph.D., who has a background in psychology and human development.
Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera hit “Another Brick in the Wall” challenged authoritarianism and the rigidity of modern education.
The dysfunction in the school system captured by the song continues even now. In the United States, public schools are regulated and controlled by various state, local, and federal governments. The education system, funded through taxes and fiat money (declared by decree, with no intrinsic value) is based on the idea of students as blank slates—a view that we are all born without innate skills, strengths, or personality traits.
This philosophy that denies the innate uniqueness of each child has been incorporated into the kindergarten through twelfth grade curriculum through initiatives such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Prescribed academic standards are applied uniformly to each child, with a federal requirement that all schools test all children annually.
Brazilian teacher Paulo Freire criticized the way mainstream schools teach students for the test, calling it “The banking concept of education”, where teachers put information into students’ minds. This approach to education enforces conformity, while suppressing independent thinking and creativity in students.
As the centralized education system turns young people into cogs in the wheels of the state apparatus, an alternative form of learning environment is now emerging around bitcoin, the hardest money ever created.
Creation of money as a process of discovery
Bitcoin enabled the separation of money and the state for the first time in history. With its unique monetary design, bitcoin also enables a departure from the banking model for education.
Bitcoin is a new class of asset-based currency. It has intrinsic value with its fixed supply of 21 million bitcoin.
With Bitcoin, the creation of money involves a process of discovery. While the fiat monetary system creates money out of thin air, satoshis are created through the function called mining. Using game theory that creates fairness and a fixed set of rules, computers around the world participate in a process that uses the SHA-256 hash function to generate new coins.
By igniting the spirit of play, and engaging people in this creation of money, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has opened a new learning space where people can enter voluntarily.
The wealth of 21 million bitcoin is like a treasure that is slowly being released to humanity and waiting to be claimed. A consensus algorithm known as proof-of-work is used to facilitate each person’s participation in the network to discover this hidden wealth. By engaging in sportsmanship in the treasure hunt, people begin to learn new skills, develop the ability to work as a team and solve problems collaboratively.
The new gift economy
Bitcoin fuels innovation and entrepreneurship. New jobs and opportunities that are created allow us to think freely, develop original ideas and experiment with them. Here, each individual can set their own standards for success and strive to live up to them with genuine feedback from the free market, rather than working to meet the criteria imposed by others.
This now creates a new form of gift economy that encourages each of us to find our own unique gifts; talents and abilities that we are all born with. It has revitalized the original vision of education rooted in the Latin word “educare” which means to bring out what is in us; to nurture our innate nature, unleash the genius within us.
Bitcoin is a sensei that does not exercise authority. Instead of instructions from instructors, the protocol maintains the integrity of the learning environment. Bitcoin teaches us that what we love is what we are gifted to do and what we are born to do. The network motivates each of us to find what we love to do.
Bitcoin’s new gift economy began to transform work from pointless work to profession. As if called by the creator of Bitcoin, people began to follow their hearts and take the path that leads to their own personal greatness.
Building blocks for the future
Institutionalized education, by denying the distinctiveness of each individual, has created a widespread poverty of imagination. It has led to the deterioration of our society, to the creation of a debt-based economy that extracts rather than produces, and to a reliance on the use of violence to resolve conflicts rather than diplomacy and dialogue.
The built-in scarcity of bitcoin (a fixed money supply, with issuance decreasing every four years) guarantees an increase in value, thus creating a flow of abundance.
Pierre Rochard, vice president of mining company Research RiotBlockchain talked about how this non-inflatable money can be used to increase purchasing power and engage people in charitable giving:
By taking advantage of the network effect of donated purchasing power, people can begin to invest in themselves, directing their resources, time and energies towards their original vision.
While the fiat economy stagnates, with increasing unemployment and cuts in wages, the Bitcoin space, exploiting our inherent potentials, is always recruiting new talent. With new economic activities being generated, today’s youth are now given a choice to refuse to become another brick in the wall that divides humanity through the hierarchy of class, race and nationality, thus perpetuating war and economic exploitation.
They can now begin to imagine and actively engage in building blocks of their own design for their own future.
The road to prosperity
El Salvador, the country that first declared bitcoin legal tender, is leading the way. A community in El Zonte, a small surfing town with a population of 3,000, began to demand economic sovereignty, bringing to life the dream of the poorest members of Salvadoran society.
Inspired by Bitcoin Beach (El Zonte), Bitcoin Ekasi in South Africa engaged in efforts to use bitcoin as a medium of exchange to empower a poor South African township. By leveraging bitcoin, they generate humanitarian support to build schools, clean water infrastructure and sustainable farming systems.
With the use of the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s Layer 2 scaling solution, Bitcoin’s new gift economy can now become circular. It allows each of us to receive Satoshi Nakamoto’s gift of finding what we as individuals are uniquely gifted with, while returning the gift by sharing our talents and skills with our communities. The more gifted you are, the greater contribution you can make.
Each person holds a key to a puzzle that can unlock the hidden treasure given to humanity. Through our active participation in the collaborative discovery of the 21 million coins, the value of the network increases. Our society – as a whole – is enriched. Through each asserting his own genius, together we inherit the wealth of the world, and deliver prosperity for all people.
This is a guest post by Nozomi Hayase. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
