Bitcoin isn’t Netscape Navigator.
Bitcoin isn’t MySpace.
Bitcoin isn’t iPhone.
Bitcoin isn’t Mt Gox.
Bitcoin isn’t another incremental improvement.i
Bitcoin is iron.
Bitcoin is gunpowder.
Bitcoin is the steam engine.
Bitcoin is the personal computer.
Bitcoin is the once-in-a-generation revolution.ii
Looking at the world through Bitcoin physically hurts. Bitcoin is high art.iii
Unless it’s teleportation, whatever you’re calling “Bitcoin 2.0”iv is not the next revolution, it’s just the buzzing of another wallet inspector.
Bitcoin is Bitcoin, and it’s version 0.x. Welcome to Stage n.v
- “Improvements” tend to make things busier, noisier, and worse. Almost without exception. Bitcoin is none of that.↩
- 16:31:52 <mircea_popescu> : aristotle’s politics just became second rate in the field of revolutionary. nakamoto’s paper easily takes the top spot.↩
- “A true work of art, like a true work of nature, never ceases to open boundlessly before the mind. We examine, -we are impressed with it,- it produces its effect; but it can never be all comprehended, still less can its essence, its value, be expressed in words. In the present remarks concerning the Laocoon, our object is by no means to say all that can be said on the subject; we shall make this admirable work rather the occasion that the subject of what we have to say. May it soon be placed once more in a a situation where all lovers of art may be able to enjoy and speak of it, each in his own way.
We can hardly speak adequately of a high work of art without ask speaking of art in general; since all art is comprehended in it, and each one is able according to his power to develop the universal out of such a special case. We shall therefore begin with some remarks of a general nature.
All high works of art are expressions of humanity. Plastic art relates particularly to the human form; it is of this we are now speaking. Art has many steps, in all of which there have been admirable artists; but a perfect work of art embraces all the qualities that are elsewhere encountered only separately. The highest works of art that we know exhibit to us-
Living, highly organized natures. We look, in the first place, for a knowledge of the human body, in its parts and proportions, inward and outward adaptation, its forms and motions generally.
Character. Knowledge of the varieties in form and action of their parts; peculiarities are discriminated, and separately set forth. Out of this results character, through which an important relation, may be established among separate works; and in like manner, when a work is put together, its parts may hold an analogous relation to each other. The subject may be –
At rest, or in motion. A work, or its parts, may be either self-centred, simply showing its character in a state of rest, or it may be exhibited in the movement, activity, or fullness of passionate expression.
Ideal. To this attainment of this, the artist needs a deep, well-grounded, steadfast mind, which must be accompanied by a higher sense, in order to comprehend the subject in all its bearings, to find the moment of expression, to withdraw this from the narrowness of fact, and give to it, in an ideal work, proportion, limit, reality and dignity.
Agreeableness. The subject and its mode of exhibition are moreover connected with the sensible laws of art; viz.; harmony, comprehensibility, symmetry, contrast, etc.: whereby it becomes visibly beautiful, or agreeable, as it is called.
Beauty. Farther, we find that it obeys the laws of spiritual beauty, which arises from just proportion, and to which he who is complete in the creation or production of the beautiful knows how to subject even the extremes.”
from Upon the Laocoön, Goethe, 1798.↩
- Recommended reading: benkay’s excellent piece on this topic.↩
- Stage n: Bitcoin exists, by Mircea Popescu.↩