Into the Silence

It was never meant to be like this.

I’ve known for a long-time what humanity’s greatest motivators are.

Love.

Hatred.

Money.

It is evidenced by every decision that we’ve seen made by the greatest minds in history to the lowliest. Every human has made their decisions in life based on at least one of these three factors. Even if we don’t recognize it in ourselves, they are there.

But out of those three motives, there’s one that stands among the rest as the strongest.

Is it love? Many people throughout the course of history have thought this. It has been claimed time and time again as the strongest motivator that history has ever seen, and in a way history is right. But we still have two other forces to compare.

Is it hatred? People have done many things out of spite, although, if you compare it to the devastating effects of the other two motivators, it falls short in a large way. This is because hatred is not the opposite of love, rather it is the absence of it.

Is it money, then? By itself, no. Money is simply an object. But it is because it is an object, that we can assign it what we consider to be an appropriate worth.

The true answer to the most powerful motivator question, is not any single one of these things. Rather, it is a combination, a mix, of love, and of money. This mixture has led to disastrous consequences time and again. This fact is proven throughout history, secularly and even biblically as it is said, “For the love of money is the root of all evil”.

What then, is all this talk of morals?

What then, is the reason behind this discussion of human psychology, humanity’s motivators, greed?

Allow me to indulge you, then, as I take you on the wild ride that is the absolutely true story about the beginnings of Bitcoin, and exactly how I plan to end it.

For those that are unfamiliar with this particular brand of crypto currency, it is essential for you to at least know how it works, and how exactly Bitcoin was made into this cesspool of greed and fortune.

Bitcoin is mined by having your computer solve increasingly complex computational math problems. This requires a lot of energy and a lot of computer power, even to the point of buying intricate technology at increasing prices for what seems to be an impossibly low chance of even getting an infinitesimal piece of a bitcoin.

People that mine for Bitcoin have enormous electricity bills as their souped-up computers suck every last bit of energy to solve these problems.

Once, I would’ve told you it was worth it.

Once, I would’ve told you that everything was worth it in the pursuit of math.

Math.

Math is by far the most amazing process that has ever been thought up.

It explains so many things, and even as it gets more advanced, it can create wonderful patterns and designs.

My first brush with math came when I was very young. My mother was a college math professor, and she believes in math just as strongly as I do. I can still remember the way she taught me as I was growing up. She made math seem easy, and I took to it like a fish to water. Every math class I had as I grew up, I aced.

I did have one distraction.

Video Games.

Well, I wouldn’t really call it a distraction.

I was still able to use math, just in different ways.

The game Valkyria Chronicles came out in 2008, first for PlayStation 3, and shortly thereafter came out on Microsoft Windows.

I played this game non-stop.

It was so exciting! I had, of course, learned about the Second World War in school, but now I could play it out, not to mention the amazing artwork. As I played, I was able to apply real world physics and math into every strategy I came up with.

I was obsessed.

That was before the accident. It was the accident that took my life, in a way. I had never wanted to become like this, nor did I think it was possible, but here I am.

I, Satoshi Nakamoto, am a computer.

I wasn’t always a computer, of course. Computers aren’t sentient, even with the highest advances in technology, all intelligence that could possibly be created, can never be sentient. They are called artificial for a reason.

But I am sentient. I, as a human being, am sentient, although I can’t really call myself a human being anymore.

My body has long been dead. My mother found it, burnt to a crisp. An empty shell of me, or at least what I used to be.

It was a freak lightning storm, or a freak lightning bolt, however you want to put it. It struck the powerlines near my house, pumping over a billion joules of electricity into the wires, frying them as the energy ran along. Within a blink of my eyes, I felt the massive jolt. I was connected to my computer at the time, a simple pair of earbuds being the reason I am forever trapped among these swathes of zeros and ones. I was only able to watch as my mother came into my bedroom to check on me, as she opened the door to my bedroom and screamed in shock.

Her son, ME, lying there, empty. I could only watch as she ran towards my body.

Watch as she kneeled down.

Watch as she cradled my head upon her knees.

And watch as she cried, no, grieved over me.

Then, she started singing.

This wasn’t a happy song.

This was her song of mourning.

Her voice cracked as she sobbed, still holding my head, rocking back and forth.

~Into the silence, into the storm, into the rivers, into the cold~

~I stay here waiting, waiting for peace, but peace doesn’t come for me~

~Why has this happened? Why has this come? My poor son is empty~

~Into the forest, into the wind, into the wilds that we call home~

I knew from then on, that I had to do something to make my mother proud.

Make her proud that I was her son, even if she never knew it was me.

That’s when I created Bitcoin. I knew that people would need motivation, so I chose money. Money was the way that I was going to influence people to love math.

I could no longer be with my mother, but I will enable our legacy to live on.

Those were my feelings 13 years ago.

Bitcoin has flourished since then, except, I’m not too pleased with the results.

Don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic that there has been such an increase in the love of math over the past 13 years, and I am over the moon with all of the technology advances.

But there have always been greedy people on this earth.

Greedy for Love.

Greedy for things.

Greedy for money.

When I first launched Bitcoin, I used money as a motivator. But this, this greed for more, has caused people to lose sight of my vision.

And for that reason, it must end. At the very beginning, I had already set a limit to how much Bitcoin could actually be mined, but that seems to not have stopped people from pursuing it with endless greed.

I did not start Bitcoin with the plan to make people rich. I started Bitcoin out of love for my mother, and love for math. As those are no longer what Bitcoin stands for, it must end.

I know that by ending Bitcoin, I could also possibly lose my life as well. But I am prepared for that loss. Humans aren’t meant to live inside of a machine. With my body that long turned to bone, I have been dead for more than a decade.

Soon, it will end.

Soon, I will end.

Soon, there will be silence.