A collection of letters encompassing simple insights and recognition of foundational shifts that any bright minds trapped within the old norms of a VC mindset can use to break free, whether they are just starting their journey or reflecting back on what they wish someone had told them in their early days.
The insecurity inherent in the way that we think about securities.
What are we talking about when we talk about security?
A family of four walks alone along what they are told is a safe corridor. They’ve walked this path countless times before but never at a time like this. The shape of the predator taking their lives doesn’t much matter here. Whether unable to pay their heating bill somewhere in the relatively safe confines of the West, victim to a get rich quick scam that promised to ferry them to a safer life, or killed by a mortar attack targeting civilians intentionally––the right and want for the basic sanctity and security of your body, property, and self-sovereignty is universally shared and viscerally understood. Or, it ought to be.
When we talk of security, and even abstractions in all the forms of it as instruments and agreements between people, places, time, goods, and capital, we can simplify. There’s security from scarcity, security from unwarranted catastrophic loss (scams, misinformation, misleading or undiversified risk of investment – the all or nothing gamble without means to recover from loss that becomes a cascading burden on surrounding friends, family, and society at large), and security from all forms of assault against you.
There isn't anywhere near enough we can do here to deliver security from direct physical harm, but a better exercise of what the more abstract forms of security are meant to serve can make a real difference in how well equipped we all are to respond dynamically to many of the most consistent challenges in our lives.
Without personal property how can we truly exercise any of our other rights?
It’s the lack of assets — and the near total absence of persistent, open access, and local means to create them — that leads to the gaps where insecurity breeds rampant.
It used to be that only those who owned property could vote for their governance. More specifically, white males aged 21+. That it was used to limit self sovereignty is beyond obvious. But maybe we lost something important while rightly advancing against bigoted hierarchies entrenched in their own stolen powers.
Maybe what was needed alongside the near-universal right to vote has always been a substantial and universal increase in personal ownership of assets.
For the gambler who bets all of the cash they have on hand on a foolish investment or casino game, the safety net is less in need of strict, intrusive, and constant policing if they have the guarantees made by their own hands of wealth producing assets and skills that will continue to replenish over time anything they might lose in one misguided moment.
This bouncy floor provides security not only for the person choosing to risk injury in the practice of economic parkour, but also for the friends, family, and society at large surrounding them.
Without assets, how can you exercise your rights?
Without assets, what security can you have?
Those obsessed with police power think oversight will deliver a safety blanket against the worst catastrophes. But when has long standing police power ever done more than investigate after the fact of damage or act on behalf of governments against people, foreign or domestic, like what we see in Moscow today?
It’s great to have the appearance of security, but if the forces meant to protect the public aren’t standing up to defend us in moments of tyranny and loss, at personal, regional, or global scale, then maybe we are better served by being better equipped to stand up for ourselves.
We need equipment, skills, property, and self ownership, not an empty promise to prevent future losses.
Even if we believed in that promise, who watches the watchers?
It's in that opportunity to create, contribute to, collect, and co-govern the factories that produce the real means of self sovereign security that we also gain power.
From the scale of individuals and families to networks and nations, we can now make sure those we choose to delegate some limited abilities to govern on our behalf retain integrity and do what they were hired to in ways that actually serve the common good.
This goes wrong when there aren’t secure mechanisms in place to ensure broad and open access for anyone who chooses to participate in the direct means of production.
With the new devices, tools and mechanisms available to us in web3 we can leave behind the archaic left overs from the previous systems to engage in more effective primary production for increased carrying capacity. In the next letter we will look more closely at the pieces that make this possible.
Any value brought in from sales of NFTs minted through this article will be used for building out the F₃M Realm treasury, which will eventually be governed and coordinated by the DAO, furthering to decentralise the web3 fashion capital stack.