Lingua Contra Imperium
The Language of Bitcoin: 1
TL;DR - We have dug ourselves in trouble by way of varying measures of monetary expression. Bitcoin gives us, at the very least, a standard unit with which to measure the distance to the surface.
The two substances, bitcoin and U.S. dollars, are so unalike in composition that one can scarcely call them by one name. And thus, bitcoiners refer to U.S. dollars for what they are: fiat, meaning by decree, by arbitrary order. Mandated per force.
To me, the word “money” means bitcoin. I use it to solve for the coincidence of wants. I trade for it at every moment willingly. Bitcoin is a choice we make.
By introducing Bitcoin, like numerals, we have introduced a difference in kind to our language.
Namely, we have ushered in the first objective set of facts in the universe.
The difference in kind is much more obvious when we set Bitcoin beside all other moneys, all looking more or less alike when deployed.
Government money printing is in part a language problem. The absurdity of government money printing is that of classifying the word “one” with “two,” “two” with “three,” etc.
Imagine a world where the government incorporated “0” with the other natural numbers, as a sort of universal basic income gift.
Is this so hard to imagine?
Instead, think of a world where negative account balances read as positive integers.
In this obverse, Alice asks Bob, “How many dollars do we have?”
And Bob begins to count other people’s money.
Bob begins to count things that are not dollars, such as their mortgaged home, his leveraged stock portfolio, and his leased car.
Bob calls out to Alice a positive integer that is in fact the inverse of
