By Bitcoin Magasin - 7 måneder siden - Læsetid: 8 minutter
Bitcoin Som et fundament for samfundsopbygning
Community is crucial and that never has been clearer to me than it was this last month, as wildfires claimed 10,000 hectares of the area around my home, leaving many people with nothing except the clothes they were wearing when they escaped.
På sit højeste blev vores brand bekæmpet af brandmænd fra hele Portugal. Mere end tusind mand, 400 ulige brandbiler og 14 fly sejrede til sidst. Vi iagttog den massive røgfane, og ingen af os sov meget i de fire nætter, den brændte, og så et nærgående orange skær lyse op på himlen. I dens kølvand, nu hvor brandmændene har fuldført den heroiske opgave at dræbe ilddragen, er det fællesskabets kraft, der kommer i forgrunden.
Amongst the local small businesses, there is an almost festive atmosphere. Stories of last minute escapes are shared by those affected, damages are compared. Together, we take reckoning of what has been lost and celebrate the small victories over the fire. A home saved here, a family reunited with their livestock and pets there, a house not touched by the flames even though everything around it has burned.
People have poured in from far and wide to volunteer. Donations of food, clothing and household items are piled high against the back wall of a local restaurant and shared out amongst those who need them. Gender roles seem to be falling naturally into place amongst the volunteers, with the men mostly taking the heavy tasks of clearing scorched earth and charred trees to clear the way for people to start rebuilding and the women cooking for the teams of men and the families who have lost their homes. Now, a month on from the fire, the progress is very visible. Fallen roofs have been shovelled up and cleared, structures checked and cleaned in preparation for placing new beams and rebuilding. The melted pipes of irrigation systems have been pulled out of the ground and taken away. Personal possessions have been sifted through and what can be saved has been secured. We have received excellent information sessions on how to go about managing burned land, what to clear, what to leave, how to prevent land erosion and when and how to start replanting. With the first rain of the autumn coming in strong, the first sign of green is already showing again all over the blackened landscape.
A dear friend of mine, herself a dedicated bitcoiner, put it beautifully in a message to me when I told her how overwhelming it is to see people coming together this way. “This is what people do when they govern themselves,” she wrote, “It’s beautiful.”
Der blev aldrig sagt sandere ord. Jeg tror aldrig, jeg har set et samfund glide så glat i gear før. I lande – som de fleste europæiske lande – hvor regeringer stadig fungerer i det mindste til en vis grad (man kunne argumentere, over at fungere), ser mange mennesker ud til at have mistet kontakten med samfundet. Mens kirker engang ville have givet hjørnestenene til denne forbindelse, er flertallet af mennesker ikke længere tilknyttet nogen religiøs forening, og hvis du spørger dem om deres samfund eller "stamme", famler de fleste efter et svar. De taler om en gruppe løst sammensat af kolleger, sportskammerater, venner, der ikke nødvendigvis er tæt på, og naboer, som de deler et overvejende tilfældigt nærhedsbånd med. Vores samfunds struktur er nu en åben vævning, og mange individer glider simpelthen igennem det i isolation og holder kun fast i nogle få tråde her og der.
Fra et historisk og sociologisk perspektiv er tabet af fællesskab dybt bekymrende. Mennesker dannede ikke fællesskaber for sjov. Vi grupperede os ikke, fordi det var sjovere at jage eller bemande slottets volde med en kammerat (selvom det nok også var det). Gennem menneskets historie, uanset hvilken æra eller geografiske omgivelser, har mennesker grupperet sig, fordi vi sammen er og har altid været sikrere, mere effektive og mere i stand til at påvirke vores kontekst til vores fordel, hvad enten det drejer sig om at bekæmpe en ild, et fjendens angreb eller politisk overgreb. Med fare for at lyde som et politisk slogan er vi sammen virkelig stærkere.
Kvinder spiller traditionelt en afgørende rolle i at skabe og binde fællesskaber, i høj grad fordi de er socialt og biologisk meget incitamentet til at gøre det – en kvindes første beskytter for sig selv og sine børn er selvfølgelig hendes mand – men ud over ham eller i hans fravær er det hende. samfund, som er hendes anden beskyttelseslinje, og som hun er afhængig af for sikkerhed og hjælp i nødstider. Det kan på overbevisende måde argumenteres for, at det er nedbrydningen af fællesskabet, der i det mindste delvist er ansvarlig for de himmelflugtsstatistikker over depression og angst blandt kvinder i alle aldre, men især de yngre generationer i Nordeuropa og USA. Sociale medier ser ud til at replikere et fællesskab i horder af følgere, men som en erstatning skærer det simpelthen ikke, og giver kun dopaminafhængighed i stedet for ægte forbindelse. Fra et mentalt sundhedsperspektiv er tab af fællesskab lige så katastrofalt, som det er set gennem en historisk og sociologisk linse.
Det er klart, at det ikke kun er kvinder, der er sårbare over for denne katastrofale nedtur. På tværs af kønnene gør statistikker for dårligt mentalt helbred, herunder isolation, depression, selvmord og afhængighed, deprimerende læsning og deres tiltagende forekomst, på trods af den stigende lethed for de fleste mennesker i den udviklede verden, endnu mere. Det er mangel på fællesskab, der efterlader et sådant tomrum i folks liv, frem for alt en mangel på en følelse af, at de bidrager til en sag, der er større end deres eget personlige velbefindende. Det er måske naivt – men jeg kan ikke lade være med at føle, at aktiv etablering og stimulering af væksten af lokalsamfund kan have et utroligt genoprettende potentiale for vores kollektive velvære.
Which is just one of the reasons that it is so incredibly heartening to see a community here in full strength, drawing together to support and provide for one another, each member contributing what they have to offer. For some it’s money, which is being channelled straight into providing emergency relief or donated to the people whose livelihood was dependent upon their home. For others, it’s muscle and machine power, in chainsawing, clearing and cleaning. A few people have dedicated their time to coordinating the influx of volunteers. For those of us who have no idea how to wield a chainsaw and whose lack of muscle power threatens to make us more of a hindrance than a help on the front line of the clear up, it’s kitchen duty, providing food for those working and those in need. That community is vital on all the levels of Maslow’s pyramid of human needs is clearly exemplified in the wake of our fire.
Men hvordan kan man gå om at genindføre fællesskabets frø og rødder andre steder, hvor det med tabet af en fælles tro og konkurrencedygtige sociale relationer i alle livets aspekter har været så tabt, så længe? Kan vi som individer og familier fremme denne vækst?
As a fellow bitcoiner, I think you know what I would propose. Besides its myriad other aspects, Bitcoin provides a unique foundation for community. We’ve all experienced it if we have attended Bitcoin events; I’d bet my bottom dollar (if either you or I still believed in the value of the dollar) that you had more in common with the person you had a five minute chat with in the queue of the bathroom at the Bitcoin conference than you do with your co-workers, who you have known and worked with for years.
Bitcoin is about shared values and a shared knowledge that the system we are living under just doesn’t work. Its capacity to lay the foundation for community (not to mention the rest of its cornucopia of economic, technical, social and philosophical gifts) is second to none. A community based around Bitcoin is a whole new and unique model which has the potential to fill the void which other failed (fiat) models of community have left.
Those of us who choose to already experience some of this Bitcoin community through Telegram, Twitter and Nostr. Amongst other Bitcoiners, we can, to put it simply, just go ahead and skip the small talk. Mostly, we’re all aware of the role governments, big pharma, mainstream media and the food giants play. Once these issues are no longer a topic of conversation, it’s beautiful to watch what emerges – we’re all pretty much in agreement about what has broadly gone wrong in the past so we tend to focus on the future. These conversations are incredibly valuable. I, for one, love the thought provoking contact and the sense of online community – but there’s the danger that those online communities and the people with whom I socialize and the businesses from whom I buy the goods I need in daily life can feel like two separate worlds. It takes some steps to bring those two worlds together but I do feel that they are very much worth taking. Shared values make for strong bonds and as you build a Bitcoin community around you, you get to experience the luxury of this.
Delivering regular Bitcoin education sessions and watching as businesses around me start to accept Bitcoin is, for me, planting the seeds of a whole extra layer of community. It could be said that we have an obligation – not only to ourselves and our families, but to our communities, to seed and foster the growth of new, Bitcoin based communities. Doing so will bring us huge benefits. Not only will we be able to transact and save in real money amongst ourselves, building parallel economies which are uncensorable and tailor made to fit our own needs (because we are incentivized to orange pill businesses we most want to buy from), we will have access to the social, philosophical and even moral benefits that being part of a true community brings and which most of us have never yet fully experienced.
Kan Bitcoin lead us back to a golden age of community, where all of us can experience these benefits? I think the answer is that it probably can. Some of the green shoots of it can already be seen growing out of the ash left by the collapse of fiat models of community. So if I may be so bold as to offer you some advice – go out there to that shop, restaurant or bar you go to often and say those magic words: “Do you accept Bitcoin endnu?"
Dette er et gæsteindlæg af Holly Young. De udtrykte meninger er helt deres egne og afspejler ikke nødvendigvis dem fra BTC Inc eller Bitcoin Magasin.
Oprindelig kilde: Bitcoin magasin