This Is The Bitcoin Empire. This Is The New Yasa

In the early 13th century, the great Genghis Khan,i Emperor of the Mongol Empire,ii was the greatest and most powerful man on the planet. It could even be argued that his combination of wisdom, intelligence, and cunning has never been surpassed. From his military conquests to his innovative use of technologyiii to his social reforms, everything he touched was deliberate and enlightened.

In particular, the legal framework he instituted throughout his Empire, known as the Yasa, was a revolution in political and social organization. Prior to the Yasa, land on the steppes was dominated by tribal aristocracy, who kept it forever out of the reach of the lower-ranked peoples. Genghis tore up the rulebook, creating a meritocratic society that transcended the bloodlines previously prohibiting social movement.iv While similar frameworks have existed throughout history,v the scale at which The Great Khan imposed these new ordinance was entirely unparalleled and possible only through a sophisticated bureaucracy.vi

Genghis Khan’s philosophy was a direct result of his tumultuous upbringing, where he overcame the loss of his father,vii enslavement at the hands of a rival tribe, and endless other battles for survival.viii His was the road less traveled. And as it always and everywhere is, this was formative. With this, Genghis shaped our modern world.

Some of Genghis’ more notable laws included:ix

1. It is forbidden under penalty of death that any one, whoever he may be, shall be proclaimed emperor unless he has been elected previously by the princes, khans, officers and other Mongol nobles in a general council.
2. Forbidden to ever make peace with a monarch, a prince or a people who have not submitted.
3. Every man who does not go to war must work for the empire, without reward, for a certain time.
4. Men guilty of the theft of a horse or steer or a thing of equal value will be punished by death and their bodies cut into two parts. For lesser thefts the punishment shall be, according to the value of the thing stolen, a number of blows of a staff – seven, seventeen, twenty-seven, up to seven hundred. But this bodily punishment may be avoided by paying nine times the worth if the thing stolen.x
5. To prevent the flight of alien slaves, it is forbidden to give them asylum, food or clothing, under pain of death. Any man who meets an escaped slave and does not bring him back to his master will be punished in the same manner.
6. Officers and chieftains who fail in their duty, or do not come at the summons of the Khan are to be slain, especially in remote districts. If their offense be less grave, they must come in person before the Khan.

Compare the preceding six with the following five laws, written by none other than Mircea Popescu:xi

La Serenissima,xii the only sovereign over all things that are and all things that could ever be ; and all men that are and all men that will ever be ; and women too, orders and commands :

1. That no man or woman may hold any office of any kind in any place that is not a member in good standing of Bitcoin’s Web of Trust.
2. That no man or woman may purport to hold any office of any kind in any place other than as he may have received from the sovereign lord of that place.
3. That any man or any woman who at any point during the previous five years uttered in public, or allowed to be publicly uttered in their presence without protest, or otherwise overtly or covertly intimated any claim to any sort of authority other than the lawful authority flowing from the sovereign lord of the place are guilty of enmity to all mankind in degree of outrageous stupidity, and must report forthwith to any member of the Bitcoin WoT in good standing, nude and barefoot, to begin a sentence of sexual slavery at that member’s pleasure and at that member’s expense to last no less than one month, upon the completion of which they may with permission from their master rejoin the cattle of the land ;
4. That any man or any woman who at any point during the previous five years took any action in furtherance of an act of enmity to mankind in degree of outrageous stupidity, or flowing from such an act, whether their own or another’s, are further guilty of enmity to all mankind in degree of willful evil, and must report forthwith to any member of the Bitcoin WoT in good standing, nude and barefoot, to begin a sentence of sexual slavery at that member’s pleasure and at that member’s expense to last no less than one year, upon the completion of which they may with permission from their master rejoin the cattle of the land ;
5. That any man or any woman who being guilty of offences punished herein does not proceed as directed, or who conceal or attempt to conceal their guilt are by this fact no longer in any respect human beings, but merely animals, and hereby sentenced to be butchered as animals and their remains repackaged anonymously and made available as pet food.

For those of you who don’t speak Popescuity, this effectively boils down to three:

1. Don’t be a derp.
2. Get in the WoT.
3. Obey the Lord.

And so it is.

This is the Bitcoin Empire.

This is The New Yasa.

___ ___ ___

  1. The first “G” in “Genghis” is tricky. It isn’t pronounced with a hard “g” like “go,” nor, if you’ve seen the alternate spelling of “Chinghis,” with a hard “ch” like “chatter.” That first “G” is more like the “s” in “measure.” English doesn’t have a proper letter for it really, but, to my mind, a soft “j” is probably closest. Oh, and Genghis’ paternally given name was Temüjin, which is harder for English speaker to butcher as badly.
  2. The Mongol Empire, which peaked in the mid-13th century, was the largest contiguous land empire in the history of mankind. The British Commonwealth Empire, which peaked in the early 20th century, was 10% larger in terms of total land mass, 36 mn sq km vs. 33 mn sq km, but it was far from contiguous.
  3. He stole the best military and commercial technologies from across the East. Everything from rockets to paper money to the compass to postal services to trousers!
  4. Genghis’ meritocracy may have had elements of a democracy, what with the lower Khans electing the Emperor after his death, but it was a far cry from what America calls a democracy. Genghis primarily wanted to remove the emphasis on birthright.
  5. Examples are left as an exercise for the attentive reader.
  6. Yes, a sophisticated bureaucracy is possible, at least temporarily, but it’s a bit like an asphalt-paved road in a northern climate. When the road is first laid down, it looks clean and healthy and drives like a million bucks. After a few years, inevitably, the road becomes scarred with potholes from the expansion and contraction of water that seeps into the cracks. Potholes can be fixed but this is ultimately little more than a band-aid solution. When the pothole patches are patching previous pothole patches, the end is near. After a few years, the only solution, even with regular pothole fixing, is to scrape it down to the earth and repave the thing. Y’know?
  7. The father Temüjin knew was not his biological father but his mother’s captor, who stole her away from Temüjin’s father on the road between the settlements of each of his biological parents’ two tribes. Temüjin’s father had just won his mother’s hand in marriage from her family and the two were on their way back to his father’s community when they were attacked. Temujin had already been conceived before his mother’s capture and was born under the banner of his surrogate father’s tribe.
  8. Since many people in history have faced struggles, though they didn’t go on to conquer the world, it’s entirely possible that something or someone tipped Genghis over the edge and off the deep end. This catalyst may or may not have been an insulting alien.
  9. From Genghis Khan – Emperor of All Men, by Harold Lamb (1927)
  10. Why 9x ? Why not ?
  11. He calls them “BitLicenses” only because some American nobody thinks he can regulate Bitcoin and market this retardation by adding “bit” to everything. Hey, I’ve transitioned from such silliness, it’s about time Lawsky does the same. This is The New Yasa.
  12. La Serenissima is effectively #bitcoin-assets

31 thoughts on “This Is The Bitcoin Empire. This Is The New Yasa

  1. Sounds a lot like Victor Turner’s work onsocial drama with #bitcoin-assets as the social group. Perhaps not completely relevant, but relevant enough.

    • Pete D. says:

      It’s kinda hard to read with all those questions mark boxes, which appear to be rejects from Mario Kart, so I’ll have to take your word for it :)

    • Breech of norm-governed social relations that have liminal characteristics, a liminal between more or less stable social processes;

      Crisis, during which there is a tendency for the breach to widen and in public forums, representatives of order are dared to grapple with it;

      Redressive action, ranging from personal advice and informal mediation or arbitration to formal juridical and legal machinery, and to resolve certain kinds of crisis or legitimate other modes of resolution, to the performance of public ritual.

      Reintegration of the disturbed social group, or of the social recognition and legitimation of irreparable schism between the contesting parties.

      The above are the four key-parts involving a social drama. In the reintegration phase, an “outcasted” individual maybe “exhiled” permanently as per the “irreparable schism”. Number 5 on the list of MP’s rules reminded me of “reintegration”.

    • Pete D. says:

      I can see that. The “outcasted” are definitely the Hearns and Maxwells of the Bitcoin world.

  2. […] all the historical, technological, and Bitcoin-related readings that I do, trying to give context to our endlessly […]

  3. […] the place and magically, he still clings to his “I know better” schtick in the face of The New Yasa. This is the definition of insanity, […]

  4. Pete D. says:

    Update: These are your Lords. (Note: 34524 is yours truly.)

    The Bitcoin Lordship - first revision

  5. […] built in a day, and neither will La Serenissima be. If this is going to be any kind of Empire and if we’re going to recruit any kind of Lords to it, it’s actually […]

  6. […] It’s entirely possible that the pendulum of history will swing back in their favour, where emergent monarchs and their supporting aristocrats will align themselves with religions again. This was and is a far […]

  7. […] of course, in the emerging era of the Bitcoin Empire, it’s a familiar story – we have Bitcoin and we have PGP – two technological […]

  8. […] and not a moment too soon, the dawn of a New Empire is at hand. There, on the horizon, you can start to make out your new leaders. We know […]

  9. […] incidentally, do weak and untrustworthy men last long in #bitcoin-assets. But you already knew that. […]

  10. […] shit like Marcus surely had some value in the past, as recently as the 20th century even, but in computer times – with Bitcoin, WoT, and PGP – Marcus is every bit as fucking useless as a dildo on an […]

  11. […] China just fine. Never having had the expansionist tendencies of the American, European, or even Mongolian powers, China is quite content to authoritatively maintain its own borders. If you want to play in their […]

  12. […] metre wall vs. a 5 metre wall.iii Just think how hard it was to build a wall that could keep the Mongolians out of […]

  13. […] a business” and “build infrastructure” and “add value” outside of La Serenissima. No matter how much bezzleUSDvii they spend, this is patent nonsense. It ain’t gonna […]

  14. […] solution is, of course, aristocracy, which is exactly what La Serenissima is all about. The system we’re building makes it far easier for women to identify strong […]

  15. […] Tzu (544-496 BC) For all the historical, technological, and Bitcoin-related readings that I do, trying to give context to our endlessly […]

  16. […] While businesses in the WoT publish monthly statements, are more transparent in their accounting, and are therefore more readily audited, traders and merchants are trusted to voluntarily report their profits and contribute to La Serenissima in just proportion.iii This is the way tithing in the Latin veiniv has always worked, and so it will continue in the Bitcoin Empire. […]

  17. […] This Is The Bitcoin Empire, This Is The New Yasa. […]

  18. […] no way optional. And those who answer its call to action inevitably find themselves drawn to La Serenissima, that inner sanctum of Bitcoin; high, high above the shepherdless […]

  19. […] a bunch of heel-dragging dragqueens have to submit themselves most abjectly and humbly before The Bitcoin Lordship when they can just continue with their populist charades as if the Internet were some sort of […]

  20. […] its own rent-seeking mandarin class, to quote an alf, look no further than USGavin, Paul Graham, Blablalawsky and their continued ability to buy groceries and pay rent. As to the products of these swine, […]

  21. Pete D. says:

    Time for an updated Bitcoin Lordship list, I say :

    The Bitcoin Lordship list 2015

  22. […] there exist in the cesspools of social media. The “collective we” here is the Bitcoin Lordship. Nothing more. […]

  23. […] Internet’s aristocracy is only at its most embryonic stages of developmentxii and the forms and customs that it will adopt […]

  24. […] bit that gives this up, though I admit that this would only be obvious to a handful of people who actually know what the fuck is going on with regards to Bitcoin, not to the rabble on the […]

  25. […] you not want to piss off the very fertile men (and there’s never been one more fertile than Genghis Khan), but pissing off men in the first place is fairly bad policy unless you’re looking for a […]

  26. […] moles,i law makes no provision ; The wealthy have you in derision: Of stateless affairs you cannot smatter ; […]

  27. […] a new one for me, though apparently he’s up there with Johnny Cochran Hitler, and the great Genghis Khan as “Very Bad People” (TM). Sort of a weird, nonsensical list, but humour’s all […]

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