Nonetheless, they could never get much moving in the world, while Bitcoiners, to use an old but fitting phrase, are turning the world upside-down.

I think it's important to understand why.

To Say And To Do

Can you name a Libertarian martyr? I'm not sure I can, and I've been involved with libertarian things for a long time. There've been a few anti-tax protesters, but I'm not sure I can call them libertarian martyrs, largely because libertarianism excluded them.

Now, shall we name martyrs for the causes of Bitcoin and cypherpunk ideals? The list, as most of us know, is long. We can begin with Julian Assange and Ross Ulbricht, and from there we can go on to Charlie Shrem and Roger Ver, to near misses like Phil Zimmerman, and to at least a dozen lesser-known names.

Martyrdom doesn't prove too much, of course – entrenched interests will destroy for many reasons – but there is a clue here, and it's this: Libertarians didn't threaten much. The powers that be never loved them, of course, but publishing policy papers didn't overturn any apple carts.

Now, to be very frank about this, and with apologies for doing so, libertarianism is very largely a philosophy of intellectuals who wish to change the world without risk or suffering. That is, they imagined they were smart enough to do it by intellect alone.

Again I apologize, but the truth is what it is, and as a whole, libertarians have never been willing to suffer. In my experience, they see suffering as a failure, and as evidence of inferior intellect. Bitcoiners, on the other hand, see suffering as bad luck, and as clear proof that the status quo is a beast: that it must be overridden for the sake of posterity.

Ultimately this difference comes down the difference between talking and doing. Talking may have its place, but it can never replace doing. Acting changes you in a way that talking simply cannot… and it very clearly changes the world in a way that talking cannot.

Bitcoiners are doers, and they are overturning the world.

It is active will that changes the world. Those who persist in active will drive the future, and no one else does. Consider, please, a passage from historian Francious Guizot, as he was examining the collapse of Rome and the rise of Christian Europe:

The clergy alone were strong and animated; they became everywhere powerful. Such is the law of the universe.

And so it is. That which is persistently strong and animated gets its way. That which is apathetic floats along in currents created by others… or sometimes just sinks.