The Sovereign Man ~ by James Dale Davidson and William Rees Morgue
The Sovereign Person is one of those books that forever changes how you see the world. It was released in 1997 but the extent to which blockchain technology is expected to impact it will give you chills. We are entering the fourth stage of human society, transitioning from the industrial to the information age. You need to read this book to understand the scope and scale of how things are going to change.
As it becomes easier to live comfortably and earn an income anywhere, we already know that those who will truly thrive in the new information age will be workers who are not tied to a single job or career and are location independent. The pull of choosing where to live based on price savings is already more appealing, but it goes beyond digital nomads and freelance gigs; The foundations of democracy, government and finance are moving.
The authors predicted Black Tuesday and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and here they predict that the increasing power of individuals will be matched by decentralized technologies that are chipping away at government power. The death toll for the nation state, they predict with remarkable astuteness, will be personal, digital cash. When that happens, the dynamic of government robbing hard-working citizens like fixed bandits through taxes will change. If you’re someone who can solve people’s problems anywhere in the world, you’re about to enter the new cognitive elite. Don’t miss this one.
Favorite Quote: “When technology goes mobile, and transactions take place in cyberspace, as they increasingly will, governments will no longer be able to charge more for their services than they are worth to the people who pay them.”
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ~ by Yuval Noah Harari
Whenever I want to impress upon someone how good this book is, I ask: “Do you want to know the basic difference between humans and monkeys? A monkey can jump on a rock and wave a stick around and shout to his friends that he is threatening to come their way. Saw. ‘Danger! Danger! Lion!’ A monkey can lie too. It can jump down on a rock and wave a stick and shout about a lion when there really isn’t a lion. It can just fool around. But what a monkey can’t do is jump up. Drop down and wave a stick around shouting, ‘Danger! Danger! Dragon!’
Why? Because dragons aren’t real. As Harari explains, it’s the human imagination, our ability to believe and talk about things we’ve never seen or touched that has evolved the species to co-operate so much with strangers. The universe has no gods, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, no religions, and no justice beyond the common imagination of man. We make them so.
All of which is a rather grand proposition for where we are today. After the Cognitive Revolution and the Agricultural Revolution, Harari guides you to the Scientific Revolution, which started just 500 years ago and which could usher in something completely different for mankind. The money will remain. Read this book to understand that money is the greatest story of all time and that belief is the raw material from which all forms of money are made.
Favorite Quote: “Sapiens, by contrast, live in a three-layered reality. In addition to trees, rivers, fear, and desire, the Sapiens world also contains stories of money, gods, nations, and corporations.”
The Internet of Money ~ Andreas M. By Antonopoulos
If the two books mentioned above help us understand the historical context in which Bitcoin first emerged, this book expands on the ‘why’ with infectious enthusiasm. Andreas Antonopoulos is perhaps the most respected voice in the crypto space. He has been traveling the world as a Bitcoin evangelist since 2010 and this book is a summary of talks he gave on the circuit between 2013 and 2016, which has been hard-pressed for publication.
His first book, Mastering Bitcoin, is a technical deep-dive into the technology, specifically aimed at developers, engineers, and software and systems architects. But this book uses some choice metaphors to explain why you can’t ban or shut down Bitcoin, how the scaling debate doesn’t really matter, and why designers need help to lock Bitcoin into mass adoption.
“When you first drive your brand new automobile in a city,” he writes, “you’re riding on roads used by horses whose infrastructure was designed and used for horses. No traffic lights. No rules of the road. No pavement. Roads. . What else happened? The cars got stuck because their balance was no longer four feet.” But fast forward a hundred years and the cars that were once derided are absolutely the norm. If you want to dive into the philosophical, social and historical implications of Bitcoin, this is your starting point.
Favorite quote: “Bitcoin is not just money for the Internet. Yes, it is the perfect money for the Internet. It is instant, it is safe, it is free. Yes, it is money for the Internet, but it is much more. Bitcoin is Internet money. The currency is only the first application. . If you realize this, you can see beyond value, you can see beyond volatility, you can see beyond fads. At its core, Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology that will change the world forever. Join.”