RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Without a Stable Moral Currency, There Is Terror Without Trust.

Traditionally the solution to the problem of immorality has been the diffusion of power. Thus the current crisis of morality signifies a crisis in the containment of power. Many of the old checks and balances that once curbed power have been weakened by “changing cultural mores” which expanded the role of Big Government into areas once proscribed by religious taboo. The compartmentalization of formal structures was compromised by international travel, financial mobility, and ubiquitous telecommunications.

Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book is a map of a social network whose power can outflank most walls.  It had a list of Hollywood, royalty, political consultants, billionaires, publishers, financiers, entertainers, foreign world leaders, American presidents, state governors, politicians, corporate executives, influential scientists, rock stars, lawyers, Nobel Prize winners, comic book moguls,  socialites by the dozen,  comedians and of course fixers and assorted low characters.  There are dozens of similar social networks in the world.  Some are even more powerful.

Bringing power under control again will require expanding the scope of trustless systems and reestablishing a stable moral currency. Readers will recall that such systems don’t actually do away with trust. They simply move it away from one actor to a system where provenance, transaction, and state can be verified independently by anyone through the mathematical security of cryptography.  The idea is that you don’t have to trust if you can verify.

But while systems can capture what is through the blockchain and other devices, no amount of technology can say how things ought to be without postulating a set of values.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Small Dead Animals, which also has a related video rant on Epstein and conspiracy theories by PJTV alum Steven Crowder.)