HomeCryptoBitcoinWriting and Bitcoin: stories of a new paradigm

Writing and Bitcoin: stories of a new paradigm

Bitcoin, and more specifically the blockchain, could be considered a new paradigm for different sectors and use cases including writing understood as data transmission.

According to an accredited theory, we humans are social animals, with a strong sense of cooperation. About 70,000 years ago, with an increase in intellectual capacity, people developed language to transmit and share information. 

For over 60,000 years, this data transmission system has been more than enough, given the small amount (and poor quality) of information exchanged. 

Between 3500 and 3000 B.C., however, the human intellect had achieved a level superior to any other living form and, more importantly, more sophisticated societies had been formed. It was no longer sufficient for these huge groups to use only oral language to exchange and manage information among such a large number of individuals.

To remedy this, the Sumerians invented writing. 

A new paradigm 

The very first texts that were found were just data, numbers. This new tool, writing, was used only to record, transmit effectively and place the result, immediately, on a tablet, almost as a memo, in order to alleviate this function in the spoken language. 

From 3500 BC onwards, language developed and writing adapted to it. Many different styles of writing were born, and it was no longer used for purely economic purposes. 

Every social group in history has used, and still uses today, their own style of writing that suits their own language. 

Human beings, after this brilliant intuition, have always had the need to manage with their hands, concretely, what was created and exchanged orally. 

For many millennia, therefore, there has been no evolution in the practical use of this instrument, given the short time that has passed since its invention – nothing compared to 60,000 or more years for the transition from oral language to writing. 

As human beings, however, we have never found a system of transmission, recording and sharing of information and data that is equal and comprehensible to all humans, universal, that is capable of reflecting and satisfying our needs as a species. 

Bitcoin as a new paradigm

But then came 2008. 

In that year, a new instrument was born, capable of making us advance intellectually as a species. In 2008 Bitcoin was born. 

The bitcoin protocol is nothing more than the umpteenth, great invention of human creativity, born from an intuition: to evolve our tool for transmitting, recording and sharing information and data, which was too old-fashioned and experiencing difficulties given the growth of increasingly complex social structures and human beings, today more than 7 billion individuals. 

After more than 5000 years, we have now developed a system that is universal and comprehensible to the whole species. 

Currently, 11 years after its birth, it is capable of satisfying only a few needs. 

Just like writing, its ancestor, the first applications of this new instrument are only financial, they are useful to us in transcribing numbers and properties of billions of individuals. 

We will have to work with this new paradigm for who knows how many millennia. Who knows how many applications will be implemented and who knows what other needs will be satisfied, similarly to writing. 

Time after time, the human species continues to be astonishing. 

Nicolò Roso 

 

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