If the grasshopper does not need wings who controls the meta data?
Amidst the chaos of a global pandemic, urban uprisings, looting, and draconian reactionary measures by authoritarian governments we are trying to secure our digital bennie babies forever, permanently in all eternity, beyond blockchain eternity. It does not matter the feasibility, discussion of such of adding more networks that depend on each other to make something more “durable”. Such is akin to securing your place in a dark room and announcing it for sale as the best real estate and all other real estate as slum.
However, from the metadata around the darkroom, you will find the truth. Metadata as the light in the dark, the beep of the radar, the rumble of the sonar, the spider senses of all humans that are tuned in. Let us have a look at a type of metadata that you might have overlooked.
Signals & Patterns
Humans are creatures of habit and mimic. The behavior of a human in a particular situation has most likely happened before performed by another or more humans, in fact very likely by many. They say history repeats itself, well humans repeat themselves over and over. If you were to go buy a car the car looks shiny and new, the leather seats (or pleather for you XxXvegansXxX), the bass is sub woofing and you are ready to roll in your 5.0 and have your hair blow.
You are ready for the test drive and the salesman comes over. As he speaks and lists the details of the engine you are taking in his voice, clothes, the sweat on his head, and the reflection of his sunglasses where you see yourself.
While the car itself looks and feels great when you sit in it, there is still something that is not right. You have detected some metadata, around the car, that you are taking into account. The location of the car, the time of day, the cost of the car, the interest rate on the loan, the smell of the car salesman, and the cheap sunglasses he has on. With all of this metadata combined, you have decided to, bail. Why did you bail though?
Because you have seen this pattern before, this combination of metadata has been detected by your brain and given you the impulse to bail. Does this mean that the car was a clunker? No, you have not done a full inspection, does it mean that the gender-neutral car salesperson was trying to scam you? No, you do not know that — for sure — but after assessing the metadata around the sale, it was a no go.
As you start to leave the car lot, some of his colleges and ex-clients walk up to you. “Where are you going? Did you know Sam is a great person? He has a nice house and is the number one salesperson and the most positive person that I know.” One person goes on to say “he has done a lot for the car dealership space, he bought my car”. As you politely ask why he is wearing sunglasses, and in general looking like a bad used car salesperson, why the terms of the car loan are predatory a person says “why are you being so negative, Sam is just trying to help you and others”. You start walking faster and jet past a cultish following that assures you that Sam is the best person on earth, and his shit doesn’t stink.
As at the car dealership, on the internet there is pattern behavior of people that could be scammers, want to take advantage of you, or are just not telling the whole truth while selling something. As we know the world of bitcoin and crypto blockchain something something is still somewhat in a wild west state. One of the niches that are growing and new to many people is the NFT (Non Fungible Token) world, it is ripe with innovation as well as rube goldberg machines leading many noobs to the church of rekt, while some attempt to line their pockets. The patterned behavior is not different from described above and not different than GAW mining devotes of which many were duped themselves.
Echo chambers can allow some people to attempt to collect power and control a narrative that they are losing. This is a desperate method of trying to remove a topic of discourse, wave hands, and tell everyone to be positive. If this doesn’t work, money will. It can be hard to launch public critic of someone that is buying your goods in a very tiny niche of a niche market. This is the type of danger that the NFT world is at risk of falling into. Where self-proclaimed innovation Gurus think that they are above public discourse, and insult and talk down to anyone that does not agree with them or caress them in that right way, this is some critical metadata.
Let us have a look at that Meta Data
Well damn, this guy is pretty polite huh? To explain that they have enough to buy any art they want is not a waste of their time, but damn messaging him about returning an NFT sent by mistake, a waste of time! Of course, Gisel was blocked for this, because hey, who wants to waste time with people that are going to point out how rude, snobbish and disrespectful you are, BLOCKED!
Thank you Mr. Whale, we have some valuable metadata on you and people can use this to decide for themselves about any and every project that you touch. On a recent podcast Mr. Whale called on people to remain positive in the space, let us all think about that while reading this sample of what he is really about.
This person has zero interest in discussing anything in an environment where he does not have control. A blocked garden on twitter of any and everyone that dares to question anything he says, controlled Discord servers and podcasts with co-founders and friends. You will not find him on a podcast or in a chat with anyone that is critical of what he is doing, if so then it will be short-lived and the person will be blocked or kicked.
Beyond this, he calls on his followers to block the same people he blocks, but that is not all folks. He is also all about “staying positive” while insulting, blocking, and calling other projects illegitimate and basically crap. Let us have a look in the good book, yes the bible. You do not have to be religious to understand some of the truths in the bible.
When you yell at an entire grouping of people, you might be sowing the wind. When you build blocked garden echo chambers, that wind will start to blow around in said chamber. As with all walls that are there to stop nature, they fall, and the wind blows blows blows your wall down. This behavior is very good metadata. He lets everyone know the willingness to slash and burn while riding a high horse. So high is that horse that the wind need not much effort to make it tumble to the ground, but time to dismount there is.
Ccrypto bitcoin blockchain something something has seen this behavior many many times. This is not financial advice, get rekt at your own risk. Zoom out and think if someone is yelling for blocking, “staying positive” or in general totally ok with some shady business tactics as long as it is good for the “community”, what is this person’s real motivation? Use the metadata provided, around, the projects and person, there you will find the light in the dark.
Post Scriptum
I am more than willing to discuss any and everything on a voice or video livestream with neutral third party host, I have taken part in hundreds of youtube panels, countless real-life panels and informal discussion, ask around. If one would like to see the references of said panels I am more than willing to reference them as to provide evidence to be reassuring to anyone potentially involved that I do indeed debate in good faith.
Best,
Theo Goodman
