{"id":13471,"date":"2021-10-31T18:45:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T18:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci029119e3700025e7"},"modified":"2021-10-31T18:45:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T18:45:53","slug":"bitcoin-community-projects-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/bitcoin-community-projects-freedom","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Community Projects Communicate The Message Of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Colin Crossman: <\/em><\/p>\n

Aspirational projects like the Declaration of Monetary Independence<\/a> are designed to engender strong feelings \u2014 that\u2019s part of their power. Much contemporary art was made about the American Independence movement, such as William Blake\u2019s \u201cAmerica, A Prophecy,\u201d and Philip Freneau in both \u201cA Political Litany\u201d and \u201cAmerican Liberty.\u201d Such works help communicate the overall message of the movement to a broader audience, and often do a better job conveying the emotionality of the movement than the base layer argument.<\/p>\n

We can see much artistic output coming from the broad Bitcoin community, with a great output of audio and visual works. For me, when I was exposed to early versions of the Declaration of Monetary Independence project, I was moved to write a couple of haiku. Upon hearing that they were looking for more of such work to assist with the project, I decided that this would be my contribution to it.<\/p>\n

A few notes about the below. Each haiku is intended to stand on its own, while also being a part of a larger story. One apparent departure from the norm, haiku generally evokes nature. Here, while I do evoke nature, I also include aspects of Bitcoin\u2019s construction (SHA-256), and memes. To my mind, these are part of Bitcoin\u2019s nature, and so in evoking these, I believe these remain true to the spirit of English language haiku.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
\n

Rick Poach: <\/em><\/p>\n

A little over a month ago, on a whim, I started posting Bitcoin\/Econ themed limericks to a Telegram board of Denver Bitcoiners. The limericks were to form: humorous and unserious snippets of verse. I didn’t think much about them other than the fact that they were coming to mind in the first place.<\/p>\n

For nearly twelve years, I have written what I label as political satire (sarcasm) in verse. However, after what, in my opinion, was a false flag \u201cinsurrection,\u201d whatever inspiration to write that I might have had remaining had dried up. Any attempt that I made at writing felt like, and was, a half-hearted effort: the absurdities were so apparent, what more could my sarcasm do to reveal it?
With the exception of a couple of half-hearted pieces, I had stopped writing for almost a year.<\/p>\n

However, during that year, two interesting things happened to me. The first was that, in April, Colin Crossman introduced me to Bitcoin. I quickly went down the rabbit hole, as I almost immediately intuited that eventually, \u201cBitcoin fixes,\u201d the absurdist forces which have seized power. The second was that, about a month ago, Mark Maraia read those throwaway limericks that I had posted, and asked me to write some verse in support of the Declaration of Monetary Independence.<\/p>\n

The result of those two interesting things is the piece, \u201cHum.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would like to thank both Colin and Mark for their unknowing contribution to \u201cHum\u201d. I would not have had the inspiration to write it without them.<\/p>\n

If needed, here is a key to better understand \u201cHum\u201d:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cHum\u201d is written in dactylic hexameter \u2013 also known as heroic meter. Most verse in English are in rhythms of two (iambic), however \u201cHum\u201d is in rhythms of three (dactylic).\n<\/li>\n
  2. Over the years of writing satire in verse, I have built up a kind of mythos: recurring characters that symbolize important themes. Those thematic characters in \u201cHum\u201d are:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    • The Four Sisters \u2013 Historia, Liberty, Providence, and Columbia.<\/li>\n
    • Historia \u2013 The Goddess of the Pen, forever marking down the deeds of \u201cthose who fight for liberty and those who rule by fear.\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Liberty \u2013 The Goddess of the Song of Freedom which can always be heard, even if in the distance, in the darkest times<\/li>\n
    • Providence \u2013 The Goddess of the Storm, bringing just what is needed right when it is needed.<\/li>\n
    • Columbia \u2013 The Goddess of the Promise of Independence that is supposed to be America.<\/li>\n
    • Leviathan \u2013 The Hobbesian nightmare of an all pervasive state which must be surrendered to and which must be fed.<\/li>\n
    • Polaris \u2013 The single point of reference to navigate by in uncertain times: \u201cthis: each word from our ruling class is guaranteed a lie.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      <\/figure>\n

      This is a guest post by Rick Poach And Colin Crossman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or <\/em>Bitcoin Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Projects like the Declaration of Monetary Independence are examples of how the bitcoin community can bring powerful messages to greater audiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3189,"featured_media":3178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1218,1470,1364],"class_list":{"0":"post-13471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-community","9":"tag-ideas","10":"tag-philosophy"},"author_data":{"id":3189,"name":"Rick Poach And Colin Crossman","nicename":"rick-poach-and-colin-crossman","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4725ec30f02db62bbf5282eec4a96a06cf7f798d8214a387483e5c5ca64df01c?s=96&d=robohash&r=g"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/giving-bitcoin.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}