Is Crypto Culture the Counterculture of OUR Generation?
Since finding STEEM and Cryptos, do you ever feel like you’re detached from the mainstream? That you can talk to lifelong friends about your new interest in Cryptos and just get blank stares or weird looks like you’ve come from another planet or are speaking a different language? If so, let me tell you that it’s perfectly normal and you are not alone.
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History is full of Counterculture movements and you might hear your parents or grandparents talking fondly of those days gone by where they rebelled against the mainstream and stuck it to “The Man”. However, before I delve too deeply into comparisons you might not know what I mean by Counterculture so let’s have a quick look at dictionary.com and see what the definition is :-
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Ok, so that’s the egghead definition of Counterculture but I think it describes us pretty well. Not convinced? Let’s dig a bit further and work our way backwards to some of the more recent Counterculture movements. We will start with the Punk Counterculture of the 1980s, which I still remember myself and even took part in as a youth.
This time we will take a few excerpts from Wikipedia to see if it is starting to sound familiar :-
Punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature and film. It is largely characterised by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom, and is centred on a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock….Punk politics cover the entire political spectrum. Common punk ethos includes anti-authoritarianism, a do-it-yourself ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not "selling out".
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If you take the loud music and fashion out of the equation you can see there are a lot of similarities, but I sense you’re still not convinced so let’s go back a bit further to the Hippie Counterculture of the 1960s, which is before most of us were born but there are plenty of old Baby Boomers who will remember this era fondly.
Again we will take a few snips from Wikipedia :-
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon….As the 1960s progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream.
Music again played a part, plus there was plenty of drugs and sex but the theme of being anti-establishment, rejecting authority and breaking away from mainstream thinking is common of all of these movements. If we go back and have a look at the definition of Counterculture you can see that I have a case.
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Many people here on STEEM are Crypto newbies, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way in any sense. We all have to start somewhere and this is a great place to start. Many came here to STEEM to rebel against the centralised power that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter wield with their censorship and profiteering from OUR content and data, but STEEM is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire Old World Order is in the crosshairs for disruption at the hands of blockchain technology and it's not just Social Medias.
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Those who have been here for a while and those who have delved deeper into the Crypto space will see, as I do, that there is some serious undertones of anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian culture prevalent. If you go back and look at the Bitcoin Genesis Block and Satoshis original Whitepaper that sparked all this back in 2009, it is there from the start. Bitcoin was intended to be a peer-to-peer payment system that could take on the establishment that brought us the Global Financial Crisis and all the corruption and cronyism that came with it.
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Some of the most passionate Crypto enthusiasts are promoting the fact that we can disrupt the entire financial and political world with this technology. Some openly call it a Revolution that has the potential to deliver power and wealth back to the individual via decentralisation, rather than continue to feed the violence of the corrupt state and the cartel banksters. But unlike the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian Countercultures of the past, we actually now have the tools to deliver. Those old Punks and Hippies might not understand the technology, but they should be able to relate to this new Counterculture of OUR Generation and we’re going to need their support when the time comes.
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GREAT ARTICLE!
Thanks a lot for sharing this information and giving us the opportunity to do the same out your way in our comments. I also strongly believe cryptocurrencies are one of the most revolutionary aspect of our human interactions in our passed two generations. The advent of the fully decentralized concept integrated within the world of cryptocurrencies is the very top of all these technological inventions and Bitshares and its following family, STEEM as well as EOS, for instances, are its greatest representatives of all!
Thanks a lot for this quality posting, you just gained yourself a new member of your fellowship!
Namaste :)
Thanks. Glad you liked the article.
"...Hippies might not understand the technology...we’re going to need their support when the time comes."
That seems impossible. For their pensions to survive they need us to buy into the bottom of their ponzi scheme. Crypto threatens the entire double entry book keeping system, the last thing these boomers are going to do is help take down their security. Muh pension!
If this happens, it will likely be without the support of everyone older than me.
This is a good point. I guess it will come down to whether the older generation are still in touch with their anti-establishment ideals or whether they became mainstream boomers. I don't think it is really the cryptos that are going to take down their pensions, those pension funds could always invest in cryptos and keep pace. It's the social security spending and unsustainable government debt that is the bigger risk to them.
I just cut the volume of a normal blog entry and should prolly post it on my own page instead.
I'll leave the punch line though: It so much safer to vote for no change than real change.
Great post. I think your writing style is super accessible.
Thanks. I really appreciate your support and encouragement :)
Have to admit there have been some changes to my life ever since I got interested in cryptos. A significant part of my time is now spent on doing research of the various projects, and following price movements. But then again, I had previously been spending the free time following the local stock market and also commodities. Which is now diverted to cryptos.
But there is no regrets. Cryptos offer me a chance to improve my life and that of loved ones financially. A bigger and faster chance when compared to the other financial markets I have experience in.
Same here. Cryptos have given me a whole new outlook on life and some real wealth to go with it. More power to us! :)
I can not talk to anyone in my real life about anything: not cryptocurrency, not politics, not gold/silver, not even about being peppered. If the conversation is not about the Kardashians then its not news to the average person. That is why I turned to steemit.
You've come to the right place for sure. I have found nowhere better to share alternative views and connect with like minds.
The is our oeuvre -We are the rebellious technologists, circumventing centrality to proliferate anarchist freedoms....
As a counter culture-ist might say
Right on man! :)
I am one that believes in the blockchain returning wealth and power to the people through decentralization and disrupting governmental control. Great article!
Thank you for the interesting and informative post! Being a counterculture hippie who has run communal theme camps at Burning Man, and an organic farm in Maui for 10 years, I recently found myself moving back to the mainland. Now that I have discovered cryptocurrency, I am making the move to Mexico to start an organic farming community, which is counterculture health-based. We are going to use cryptocurrency and Steemit as our main source of financing.
That's pretty cool man. It's very good to see you making the connection and the leap to begin using Cryptos. I wish you the best of luck with your new community.
A hammer drop from the "authorities" in the US is coming...its still a ways away, but it reminds me of the glory days of Full-Tilt and PokerStars...everything was just cruising along and then the FBI showed up and everyone's money was locked up. The weakness is getting the fiat out of the Crypto system and at some point, if they can't get regulations and taxes done smoothly, the fiat choke points will get shut off.
You might be right, but the US would be stupid to stifle this innovation. It would be like the Ottomans outlawing the printing press. It played a significant part in that empires demise.
Yes! Now this is a great article, nice work! I am slightly new to using cryptocurrency but my boyfriend is a crypto-trader so fortunately, I get to learn a lot with him too :) When I studied my bachelor in International Development I wanted to get out there and change the world! But after 4 years at the university, volunteering with NGO's and having an internship with the government, I learned that the ''real'' international development is done in grassroots organizations. In other words, the real change comes from small local community projects that can scale up, from bottom to top and not the other way around. Cryptocurrency ignites the faith I have that it will really change the world as we have been living for several years. It is already contributing to make great international development projects all over the world. Power to the people!
Thank you. I like your approach and Crypto tech does indeed give us the potential to empower these grassroot organisations so real change is definitely possible.
LOVE IT! Missed out on the hippie days but totally gravitate to the counter-culture, anti-establishment ethos. Great stuff here, mate!
Thanks. Glad you liked it and I appreciate your support! :)