It is a sad series of events that led to the writing of this piece.
We would all be better off in a ideal world where believing in technology and actively pursuing the application of it for the common good was not an act subject to punishment or retaliation, by any entity private or otherwise.
But this has never been the case.
Across history we find that every time a paradigm was collapsing, the heralds of the new one were found guilty, prosecuted to the full extent, burnt in bonfires, crucified, hung, dismembered and many more gruesome methods of torture and murder known to humankind.
And when this was not the case, they were humiliated, banished from their communities. Or worst of all, pressured to capitulate, and repent of their beliefs.
This is the worst kind of retaliation, as it implies the self-degradation of the free individual. The purest of all human constructions are ideas, and these ideas are perfect in design and nature, they are subjective truths the individual abides by. What we cant anticipate is their application is never perfect. Our reality is chaotic; an infinite set of variables alter the outcomes of every action and reaction we make or set off. But an idea to the one who believes in it is the most sacred of all human notions. It is obvious that these voices of the past were never to abandon their ideals in the first place, no matter how humiliating it must have been to deny them to the public to avoid incarceration or torture. But spoken words have power and consequences on the collective subconscious.
Georg Hegel describes this dilemma:
The concept of idea is precisely that which we call truth, a great word, which shall remain great to the common man, and fills his soul with joy. The reality is that in our time it has been determined that we cannot know the real truth.
So this brings us to our current series of events, leading to the prosecution of the U.S government to a member of the Ethereum Foundation and far more importantly a crypto activist and a man that works for the common good.
The imposed narrative
The responses of many in the community, especially surrounding the EF and their development team were bland and originated from the morally biased moderate approach they have had in regards to Virgil's incarceration and prosecution.
Not denouncing these actions by a government as outright false and illegal are the crosses these community members will have to bear in the future.
Vitalik's point of view implies that the U.S government agenda of global policing and slapping sanctions on to any nation that dares defy their interests, is the generally accepted truth and we should all abide by it. Specially him, as Ethereum and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance rely on a crowd of globalists interested in Ethereum's potential and this will help improve its adoption. But at what cost?
Why would you start a thread with the premise that any country, in this case North Korea will do "something bad" learning to use ether or any cryptocurrency for that matter?
Who are you to pass judgement on the basis of morality of using cryptocurrencies for any nation or individual?
Is it bad to bypass the sanctions of a decadent empire, that dictates who the rest of the world can transact with and how?
Is it possible that the mainstream media has brainwashed the world population in such a way that they firmly believe north-koreans want to bypass sanctions to buy missiles to bomb the United States? Are people so out of touch with reality?
Stating the obvious: the arms-trade between nations has been using other currencies than the U.S dollar and even commodities as forms of settling since forever.
Putting ideology aside and whatever circus the mainstream media has organized around this particular Asian theocratic totalitarian madhouse of a nation and whatever conspiracy theory they might have pushed around the utility of blockchain and crypto in general , Isn't this what cryptocurrencies were intended to do?
Can Vitalik be more naive?
Or is he trying to fly under the radar, not to make the governments of the empire target him and his project with their policies of censorship and fascism?
I'm sorry to say that it wont matter.
This is just the first glimpse of what will become the general policy of the western block's governments regarding crypto adoption or implementation in countries that are not part of their circle of influence.
Banks have a monopoly on money, its issuance, its value and its ownership too. Soon this control will have censorship embedded capabilities. Bitcoin was not in their plans, and just recently they have come to the understanding of what this means for their centrally controlled racket.
We are not to expect the ones in power to spare us from their example-making prosecution.
The first(?) casualty
This development will be taken more seriously by the community as a whole since the morals and intentions of Virgil do not come into question. He is a programmer and ethereum developer that only had some ideals of equality and freedom.
He is the good version of Ross Ulbricht.
Ross was in it for the money, but also he was in it for the freedom. Many will argue that he facilitated a lot of wrong doing with his innovation. Many others will say he just gave people a gateway and the rest is every person's choice and free will.
The underlying matter is what connects their paths. The making of an example by the U.S government. Ross was given two consecutive life sentences plus forty years. "El Chapo" Guzman was given one hundred and ten years less than him. And stop kidding yourself; many of you reading this could be next.
You can run around it all you want, think that what you do is not transgressing enough to be taken into consideration by the powers that be, but it will only take time for that to change, if it even is the case. We're spied upon more than we can know or perceive, underestimating this fact is what will lead us blindfolded into the furnace.
It is easy to read about it in the news, set yourself apart from what has taken place, or to justify some of it for taking place in a nation forbidden by the empire or for taking place in the obscure deep web where the beasts run wild. If you are a citizen of this empire you will never understand what it is like for the ordinary people that live in satellite countries that have no economic integration to the rest of the world. You will also ignore what the average citizen of North Korea or Iran go through every day of their lives in a sanctioned economy that only offers a limited amount of opportunities to improve their lives, and much more injustice and hardship in return.
Crypto-implementation and adoption is about them.
Governments will disappear in the long run, but the people remain.
If you have enjoyed reading this far, i must ask that you sign this petition, not that it will change anything if they wish it otherwise, but taking a stance as an individual sometimes makes a difference.
Another Virgil wrote a poem more than two millenia ago, that touches briefly on our predicament:
Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore;
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latin realm and built the destined town,
His banished gods restored to rights divine,
And settled sure succession in his line;
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate,—
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
To persecute so brave, so just a man;
Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!
Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?
Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away,
An ancient town was seated on the sea,—
A Tyrian colony; the people made
Stout for the war, and studious of their trade:
Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more
Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.
Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind,
The seat of awful empire she design'd.
Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly,
(Long cited by the people of the sky,)
That times to come should see the Trojan race
Her Carthage ruin, and her tow'rs deface;
Nor thus confin'd, the yoke of sov'reign sway
Should on the necks of all the nations lay.
She ponder'd this, and fear'd it was in fate;
Nor could forget the war she wag'd of late
For conqu'ring Greece against the Trojan state.
Besides, long causes working in her mind,
And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;
Deep graven in her heart the doom remain'd
Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd;
The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed,
Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed.
Each was a cause alone; and all combin'd
To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.
For this, far distant from the Latian coast
She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;
And sev'n long years th' unhappy wand'ring train
Were toss'd by storms, and scatter'd thro' the main.
Such time, such toil, requir'd the Roman name,
Such length of labor for so vast a frame.
Now scarce the Trojan fleet with sails and oars
Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores,
Entering with cheerful shouts the watery reign,
And plowing frothy furrows in the main,
When, laboring still, with endless discontent
The Queen of Heaven did thus her fury vent:—
"Then am I vanquished? must I yield?" said she,
"And must the Trojans reign in Italy?"
So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force;
Nor can my power divert their happy course.
Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,
The Grecian navy burn and drown the men?
She, for the fault of one offending foe,
The bolts of Jove himself presumed to throw;
With whirlwinds from beneath she tossed the ship
And bare exposed the bosom of the deep:
Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game,
The wretch , yet hissing with her father's flame,
She strongly seized, and with a burning wound,
Transfixed and naked, on a rock she bound.
But I, who walked in awful state above,
The majesty of heaven, the sister-wife of Jove,
For length of years my fruitless force employ
Against the thin remains of ruined Troy.
What nations now to Juno's power will pray,
Or offerings on my slighted altars lay?"
For the sake of all of us, let it be so that Virgil stays out of harm's way.
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