@benjaminbatemanBenjamin Bateman
Over-opinionated hyphen-abuser, lover of words, and magical-internet-money-community-management-busy-body.
If you’ve not had your comfort zone challenged in a while, I have a treat for you today.
My latest interviewee, Mr Freeman, is as infamous as he is controversial. His profound metaphysical rhetoric is ascorbic and cutting with its dry-wit, designed to provoke introspection.
To pigeon-hole his philosophy with some form of brevity (see below quote!), ‘inspirational nihilism’, is the phrase which comes to mind.
“If words lose their weight, then the world becomes nothing more than a brothel and a circus”
And what gives Mr Freeman such freedom to derisively galvanise a movement? Well, he isn’t your average man. In fact, he isn’t a man at all…
In his own words:
“I created myself… I actually exist. In the real world. I think, and I’m totally free of stereotypes… And I’m real. You’re staring at your computer screen right now, but are you there?.. And have you any way to prove that to me? So it appears, that you don’t exist, and I do.“
As you can imagine, this wasn’t my typical interview.
Philosophy aside, Mr Freeman is more than simply a silver tongued Messiah and we have a topic and common interest at hand, which is how this came to be, but we’ll get to that:
“So, hello, Mr Freeman. Let’s start by addressing the obvious, I’m a big fan, but, well, this is the first time I’ve interviewed a fictional character. Is this as weird for you as it is for me?”
“Nope. It so happened that in my life I gave dozens of interviews with ‘real people’ over the past 10 years. This is not unusual, but it should be noted that this is my first interview in English. I had one occasional collaboration with Banksy, but everything was on his side, including all possible interviews.”
“Sure your English is way better than my Russian so don’t worry about it! It was the Dismaland exhibition you worked with Banksy on, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Absolutely right. There were many screens in Dismaland on which my “Walking On By” video was played. Banksy chose it himself and made an announcement. That is, it is difficult to call it a full-fledged collaboration, but still you can call it a kind of creative co-integration. This is what prompted the fact that subsequently almost all the premieres of new video monologues were held in the actionism mode. One premiere was on the screens of mobile cinema buses, another one took place in a Stalin’s bunker at a depth of 60 meters under the land in the centre of Moscow city. Another one took place simultaneously in online mode in more than 200 cities around the world.”
“Stalin’s bunker sounds incredibly cool and creepy at the same time! Would you say the way in which you present your message is almost as important as the message itself?”
“The main message that I want to convey is quite simple:
‘People, learn to think! This is the main thing that you need to be able to!’
After all, it is known that all knowledge can be obtained within oneself, for this it is absolutely not necessary even to read books. Dialogue with oneself is the main tool of cognition. Socrates spoke about this, Lao Tzu used this tool, all the great “Captains Obvious” (as I am often called on the net) found wisdom within themselves.”
“It might sound obvious to an anarchist like yourself perhaps, but common sense isn’t always as common as we think, right?”
“I would not call myself an anarchist, since I am not a supporter or denier of any socio-political model. I am 100% sure that current government models are catastrophically outdated. Most of the modern states are just a complex of services provided to their citizens for their own money and through their (citizens) own labour.
Territories aside, the modern state is no longer different from corporations. The state of the future is a large service corporation, and patriotism is brand loyalty. This position is not anarchism, it is a vision of the world in a new format. Is not it so?”
“I can’t disagree with the vision, but from my corner of the world it is hard to see how we could begin to rebuild society without first tearing down the old one. As an example, for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency to see mass adoption and Satoshi’s vision to flourish, the existing financial institutions have to topple. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, can you?”
“The appearance of the telephone communications gradually supplanted the telegraph.
The appearance of the internal combustion engine gradually supplanted steam engines.
The advent of high-speed communications has gradually supplanted ADSL connections.
The advent of automobiles supplanted the massive usage of horses and donkeys.
These are ordinary evolutionary processes, steps in the development of mankind. Exactly the same will happen in the end with fiat money and crypto, just over time the crypt will replace the money we are used to, which will remain only to identify the exchange rate (cross-rate nominal exchange element). The same will happen with the state of the future, which will gradually replace the models of the past.”
“I like that, evolution over anarchy. So in terms of crypto then, what made you decide to start your own currency with MFcoin, and how did this evolve to include blockchain passports?”
“To integrate into any area, you need to start working closely with it. The format of buying and selling cryptocurrencies is not my profile, because this is the field of the trade.
My idea is creative processes: if you can do something, then do it and learn everything yourself.
It was the need to see the cryptocurrency world from the inside that prompted me to launch my own blockchain. Further, various services, interests, opportunities, projects, concepts, etc. began to be involved in it. The result was a constructor for creating social experiments. Moreover, many active people have decided to take part in this project.
Of course, Freeland’s passport was also tied to the blockchain, but how could it be otherwise?”
“Bitcoin are worth exactly what people are willing to pay for them, just like some antique china or Stalin’s used underwear.”
“Well that bleeds rather smoothly into the Freeland integration with the Free TON community, which has been described as ‘one of the largest social experiments in the world’. Was this motivated more by technological or philosophical reasoning would you say?”
“To bring technology to a high-tech project, you need to be an engineer, programmer, or mathematician. I am an ideologist, futurologist, psychologist and media screamer.
Of course, the main goal was to introduce an ideological and philosophical basis. All the technological changes that I can give to the FreeTON project are mediated mechanics which go through my audience, which is extremely active and has already begun to integrate their developments on the new platform.
Gradually, the Freeman community will join FreeTON, supplement the existing range of ideas and services with its own, and we will get a new and truly valuable crypto project. In fact, the integration of Freeman and Freeland is the capitalization of FreeTON through people, through active participation, through social experiments.”
“Sounds exciting! I know you’ve some incredibly talented folk in the Freeman community, and meritocracy (people as capital as you say) is what happens here, can’t wait to see what’s next.
To round things to a close though, you use the phrase ‘Media Screamer’ to describe yourself above. Anything you want to scream at the media while we’re here? I’m not exactly mainstream, but you never know who reads these things, right?”
“New comes in a moment, you don’t have to wait for it. What was the future a second ago has now become present. The new is not worth resisting. But most people are conservative: let it be bad for everyone, but it will be clear.
Modern society resists cryptographic and decentralized solutions, because the representatives of the old world in panic shout: “This is a pyramid!” Although their fiat pyramid is much scarier and more dangerous!
Since the dollar was no longer backed by gold and began to be backed only by purchasing power, the financial world turned into an exclusive instrument of control. And the world of cryptocurrencies can change that.
The modern banking world has thrown into the trash such a thing as “banking secrecy.” But the cryptocurrency world can change that.
Ever since real estate and movable property began to be registered in digital databases, to which a limited number of people have access, endless fraud has arisen in this area. But decentralization and smart contracts can change that.
The elections became a provocation and a public game, they have long ceased to be real elections in many countries – they are just a farce. But decentralized solutions and blockchain can change that.
My main message is that there is no need to be afraid of the new. Don’t be afraid of knowledge. Don’t be afraid to gain experience. As you know, freedom is a child of enlightenment. The idea of freedom is spread and strengthened through education and perhaps nothing else.
Knowledge and the desire to receive it is the true path to freedom.”
Well, there we have it then.
I’m off to question everything I ever thought I knew about reality, life, and knowledge now…
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