Khan Would Be Jealous
“MUUUSK!”
Bitcoin Tanks, Elon Walks on Sunshine
He did it again.
The man knows how to move the market in the most destructive ways possible. But let me make something clear; if anyone is to blame, it’s us.
Elon Musk, whether he’ll admit it or not, understands that his words and actions have a very visible effect on the market; that’s true. And it is highly unlikely that he didn’t know what was going to happen when he hit ‘Tweet’.
One might question whether his potent, market-rocking tweets were backed by days, or months even, of premeditated calculations; and one might be well justified in doing so.
Me? I’m wondering why others aren’t doing this more. The market is volatile by its very nature — period. It literally moves and sways to the rhythms and beats of the media. Sure, some analysts will report this or that, or some company is having a hard time which may affect their market price; but none of that is going to have any affect on the market if the information doesn’t propagate.
The market is a literal mirror image of information exchange. Where does this information get exchanged? You got it — through various media platforms.
Now, I’ll admit; At first I was fairly pissed off at ol’ Elon; however, as frequently happens, I had a minute or two to think about the situation. Actually, I’ve had over a decade to think about the situation; but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Being who I am, and doing what I am doing; I cannot honestly blame Musk for mesmerizing the market with his Elvis-hip tweet dancing. The truth the matter is that the market was literally designed to do exactly this.
Not only is Musk not apologizing, he continues to amplify the effect by posting crypto-crashing tweets and defending his actions asking us to not panic.
Here’s the paradox: Musk isn’t wrong. The egregious amount of energy used to mine crypto is something we should all be concerned about; but it is also a big part of what gives the coin value. So in causing the energy used to mine the coin to be worth even less, Musk has inadvertently caused even more waste to come from the process. Not only that, but given that millions of individuals across the globe have invested in Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies; he has also inadvertently caused their hard-earned investment dollars to go to waste as well. In one fell swoop, Elon Musk has made an already delicate and problematic situation triple its waste-product over night. Oh, the unintended consequences.
We can point a lot of fingers at Musk, but if we’re going to be honest about this; as a collective, we are much more responsible and carry far more blame than single little Elon.
Shall we explore that? I think yes! On account of my current research project, I just happen to have several past articles that might begin to shed a little light on the larger issue. However, without feeling like I’m being a bit too self-promoting, I’ll link but one:
Money This, Money That: The Idea That Hijacked Humanity
If you don’t feel like reading a second article, I’ll do my best to sum it up here.
As I mentioned before, it seems to be one of the great mysteries of the modern world that our entire economy — our very livelihood — rests atop one of the most volatile and influentially far-reaching man-made systems to have ever been created. Take a moment to really think about that. Does that not come off as unusual at the very least?
Science has proclaimed that humanity is not a superorganism for the simple and singular fact that a human can survive outside of a community for an extended period of time. One of the requirements for a superorganism is that if a member of the community wanders off, it will not survive. Each individual in a true superorganism, such as bees, ants, and other colony organisms, require the presence of their community in order to survive. Yet, for almost every other point, humans fit the bill. To re-ignite this fact, I took it upon myself to coin a new term: Supra Organism Optima. The superorganism and the supra-organism optima differ in one key aspect. Where, as was just explained, a member of a superorganism cannot survive without all of its buddies; a member of a supra-organism optima cannot self-actualize and become their best possible self without the interactions necessary with all of their little buddies.
Oddly, this comes back to division of labor and specialization; two well known economic theories best described in the essay by Leonard Read, ‘I, Pencil’. In order for a human collective to advance, work responsibilities must be divided up between each individual. As a product of division of labor, the individuals specialize in their particular job. It is virtually impossible for any one human to build a single pencil (as is the points of ‘I, Pencil’) from the extraction of natural resources to the production of the pencil. If the pencil is impossible, you can damn well imagine how vastly more impossible something like an IC (integrated circuit) or a smart phone might be.
Sure, a single human can survive alone. But not really. Even the mountain dwelling hermit must come into town for supplies. Whether for a machete or for bullets, the isolationist still depends on the rest of us. In very few instances is somebody capable of surviving completely alone and without any communal interaction. But in those instances, that person doesn’t receive the psychological, medical, emotional, physical, and reproductive support that others give. Such individuals are far from ok. Often they suffer irreversible psychological and physical damage.
In order for us to achieve our very best — we MUST interact with a community.
As a closing point here, with all this in mind, is it not odd and even self-defeating that we have introduced a system of resource allocation and distribution that actually severs us from one another and in doing so distances us from the things we need as individuals and as a whole? Think about it: financial disparity is among the greatest rifts, medical prices sever those who need care from the very care they need, the legal system is setup to allow those with money to live free while they await trial, and the list goes on and on. I could literally fill pages with the divisions that a currency-based economy causes.
So, is it Musk’s fault?
I think not. These problems we face, these issues that continuously spring forth — these are all things that we have agreed upon as possibilities simply by accepting the world we live in.
Like I said, at first I was pissed. But, being who I am and working on the research I am working on; I quickly realized that this is our fault. Elon was just doing what he does. The fact that it has so grievously affected us is on us. Until, of course, a better and more advanced system of allocation and distribution comes along.
Hopefully, that’s not too far off.
And uh, sorry for bustin’ your balls Elon.
