HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle
Expand

Bitcoin and the End of History

Views:731
@ReasonVids

Watch the whole series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuns9Evn1w-T2RwqMhUnTZbTTe-M-g42

The final installment in a four-part documentary series "Cypherpunks Write Code."
------------------
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?subconfirmation=1
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason

Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
----------------
"The fall of the Berlin Wall was important to me," said Zooko Wilcox, who was 15 in 1989. It seemed like "the end of history"—a reference to the political scientist Francis Fukuyama's influential 1989 essay—and a time when "national borders would cease being the walls of prisons," he recalled. When Wilcox discovered the internet a few years later, he saw it as "part of this pattern where borders and distance stop being barriers to people."

Wilcox, who today is the founder and CEO of a company that oversees the development of the cryptocurrency Zcash, was an early participant in the "cypherpunks email list." The list, which launched in 1992, became a gathering place for a global community interested in using cryptography to allow individuals to communicate and transact on the internet privately and without interference from a central authority. The cypherpunk movement more broadly would go on to influence WikiLeaks (Julian Assange was a participant on the email list), BitTorrent, Tor, and bitcoin, among other freedom-oriented technologies and initiatives.

Wilcox dropped out of college to work at David Chaum's startup DigiCash, an attempt to build a privacy-preserving payment network on the internet based on a series of groundbreaking papers that the legendary cryptography had published in the 1980s.

"Because of the cypherpunks and because of the science papers of David Chaum," Wilcox told Reason, "economic freedom" seemed inevitable. Humans will "no longer be constrained by national borders and distance from cooperating and sharing resources and helping each other."

Go here for full text and links: https://reason.com/video/bitcoin-and-the-end-of-history/

Written, shot, edited, narrated, and graphics by Jim Epstein; opening and closing graphics and peer-to-peer computer graphics by Lex Villena; audio production by Ian Keyser; archival research by Regan Taylor; feature image by Lex Villena

Music: "Daemones" by Kai Engel used under Creative Commons

Photos: playing with Amiga 1000 by Blake Patterson, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic; people climbing the Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate, imageBROKER/Jürgen Schwarz/Newscom; people from East and West Berlin climbing on the wall, imageBROKER/Norbert Michalke/Newscom; demonstrator pounds away at the Berlin Wall, STR/REUTERS/Newscom; Regan and Gorbachev, Steve Gottlieb Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom; people climbing the Berlin Wall, imageBROKER/Jürgen Schwarz/Newscom; Berlin Wall, Getty Archives; David Chaum, Associated Press; East German border guards seen through a gap, AP Images; Francis Fukuyama, John Troha BlackStar Photos/Newscom; Prague 1989, Abaca/Newscom / CreditAbaca/Newscom; Buckminster Fuller and the geodesic dome, C. Y. Yu/SCMP/Newscom; IRS agent, David Royal/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; chiselling pieces off the wall, imageBROKER/Norbert Michalke/Newscom; Mark Zuckerberg, THIEL CHRISTIAN/SIPA/Newscom; Brin, Page, and Schmidt, Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Jeff Bezos, Lisa Qui ones BlackStar Photos/Newscom; Snowden protests, BONESS/IPON/SIPA CreditBONESS/IPON/SIPA/Newscom and David Von Blohn CreditDavid Von Blohn/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Mark Zuckerberg, CHRISTIAN/SIPA CreditTHIEL CHRISTIAN/SIPA/Newscom; George W. Bush, Chuck Kennedy/MCT/Newscom; End the Fed 1, Mehdi Taamallah/Newscom; End the Fed, hardtopeel, Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic; End the Fed!!!, Martha Heinemann Bixby, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic; End the Fed, Mehdi Taamallah/Newscom; Bitcoin conferences, Aleksandr Zykov, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic; Institute of Cryptoanarchy, Michal Dolezal/ZUMA Press/Newscom; John Gilmore at Burning Man 2005, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic.

libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
,
bitcoin
,
berlin wall
,
berlin wall coming down
,
cypherpunks
,
tim may
,
cypherpunks documentary
,
zooko wilcox
,
david friedman
,
machinery of freedom
,
crypto-anarchism
,
cryptocurrency
,
francis fukuyama
,
robert hettinga
,
geodesic dome
,
jim bell
,
e. dean tribble
,
mark s. miller
,
phil salin
,
cypherpunks write code
    Thumbnail for Citizen vs. Government (Vol. 5)1:10
    Citizen vs. Government (Vol. 5)
    ReasonVids
    799 views
    Thumbnail for "It was at this moment that he knew, he fucked up."0:40
    "It was at this moment that he knew, he fucked up."
    AOU
    1504 views
    Thumbnail for Muppets Christmas Carol - It Feels Like Christmas2:39
    Muppets Christmas Carol - It Feels Like Christmas
    Frosty
    2692 views
    Thumbnail for It's time for us, errr I mean, YOU, to donate! The classic grift 1:13
    It's time for us, errr I mean, YOU, to donate! The classic grift
    bestofupgoat
    423 views
    Thumbnail for Class 10th Maths Maha Marathon - Quadratic Eq, Probability & Statistics 🔥 | Shobhit Nirwan5:50:45
    Class 10th Maths Maha Marathon - Quadratic Eq, Probability & Statistics 🔥 | Shobhit Nirwan
    invidious
    107 views
    Thumbnail for What ancient languages sounded like0:32
    What ancient languages sounded like
    AOUisgay
    269 views
    Thumbnail for Mozilla's Denelle Dixon-Thayer: Trading Away Your Privacy7:24
    Mozilla's Denelle Dixon-Thayer: Trading Away Your Privacy
    ReasonVids
    714 views
    Thumbnail for Age of Dungeons: Excavator song0:47
    Age of Dungeons: Excavator song
    Queuenard
    343 views
    Thumbnail for Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 2)2:35
    Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 2)
    ReasonVids
    639 views
    Thumbnail for المقلوبة | نتنياهو يهدد والمقاو**مة ترد | القناة الرسمية للدكتور حمزة زوبع 1:00
    المقلوبة | نتنياهو يهدد والمقاو**مة ترد | القناة الرسمية للدكتور حمزة زوبع
    invidious
    44 views
    Thumbnail for Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful10:06
    Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful
    ReasonVids
    998 views
    Thumbnail for Instead of Self-Deleting, Learn to Laugh! | Grunt Speak22:27
    Instead of Self-Deleting, Learn to Laugh! | Grunt Speak
    Terrence Popp
    553 views
    Thumbnail for Happy Birthday, Nick!0:10
    Happy Birthday, Nick!
    AOU
    1453 views
    Thumbnail for Tortilla Tost                                                           #breakfast #busezeynep | Buse Zeynep0:32
    Tortilla Tost #breakfast #busezeynep | Buse Zeynep
    invidious
    122 views
    Thumbnail for Dr. Kary Mullis, the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the inventor of the PCR test says that our federal medical bureaucracy is off the rails0:57
    Dr. Kary Mullis, the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the inventor of the PCR test says that our federal medical bureaucracy is off the rails
    bestofpoal
    1895 views
    Thumbnail for Remy: Imagine There's No YouTube (John Lennon Parody)2:30
    Remy: Imagine There's No YouTube (John Lennon Parody)
    ReasonVids
    902 views
    Thumbnail for Mom 😳 (Animation Meme) Anim: Don_Wakamole #shorts | Nutshell Animations0:30
    Mom 😳 (Animation Meme) Anim: Don_Wakamole #shorts | Nutshell Animations
    invidious
    60 views
    Thumbnail for False Flags, Gun Grabs | Grunt Speak Shorts11:06
    False Flags, Gun Grabs | Grunt Speak Shorts
    Terrence Popp
    1526 views
    Thumbnail for How To Fight Deplatforming: Decentralize9:58
    How To Fight Deplatforming: Decentralize
    ReasonVids
    1038 views

points

Permalink
Reply
libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
,
bitcoin
,
berlin wall
,
berlin wall coming down
,
cypherpunks
,
tim may
,
cypherpunks documentary
,
zooko wilcox
,
david friedman
,
machinery of freedom
,
crypto-anarchism
,
cryptocurrency
,
francis fukuyama
,
robert hettinga
,
geodesic dome
,
jim bell
,
e. dean tribble
,
mark s. miller
,
phil salin
,
cypherpunks write code
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle