I created the More Equal Animals blog to disseminate thoughts on how to secure life, liberty, property and justice for all. While moreequalanimals.com started in 2020, I have been on this mission since 2006 when I decided to take responsibility for my understanding of the world around me and stop relying upon the opinions of friends and family. I have aggregated my blog posts going back to 2014 from multiple platforms including: bytemaster.github.io, dan@steemit, dantheman@steemit, bytemaster@medium.com, and dan@voice.com.
What do we really know about the things our life depends upon such as food, medicine, money, economics, and government? Can we trust the government and media to keep us informed? Should we really trust the experts? If not the government and media, then whom can we trust?
Each and every one of us has a responsibility to understand why we believe what we believe and to root out conflicting beliefs. If we are derelict in this responsibility then we can be easily manipulated by others in ways that are harmful to ourselves and everyone around us. This is why I blog, to better understand the world around me. Each blog post helps me organize my thoughts around a given topic and hopefully help others to do the same. For those who are currious abou the name, I wrote a post on Why I named my blog 'More Equal Animals'Why I named my blog 'More Equal Animals'
In Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others which contradicted the intent of their animal utopia. This blog is about designing a true democracy that actually makes us more equal without the pitfalls of Animal Farm..
One thing is certain, I don’t have everything figured out. Jordan Peterson says that we outsource our sanity by interacting with other people. It is my sincere hope that this blog will help bring us all one step closer to sanity, so please join the discussion.
Reach out to me
The best way to reach me is on Twitter. Send me a direct message or mention me as @bytemaster7.
Help me stay in touch with you in the age of censorship by major social media companies.
Who am I?
My name is Daniel Larimer. I am best known for my work in the blockchain space where I founded BitShares, Steem, and BlockOne the creator of eosio and voice.
I am a computer programmer, economist, game theorist, and entrepreneur. For the past 15 years I have made it my life mission to create free market (voluntary) solutions for securing life, liberty, property and justice for all. My theory was that non-violent solutions to secure our rights against public and private criminals would be incredibly valuable and therefore those who provide it can help people while making a lot of money.
In 2009 I was attempting to invent my own digital currency when I discovered Bitcoin and blockchain technology. I thought, “Fantastic! The problem has already been solved!” and then immediately got involved with the Bitcoin community and started working on educational material while learning how to write my own blockchain software.
It was during this time that I engaged directly with Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. I raised concerns about the scalability of Bitcoin and Satoshi responded with a now infamous quote “If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.” As time passed my concerns about Bitcoin’s scalability proved to be correct and I went on to create three of the highest performance blockchains in the space: BitShares, Steem, and EOSIO.
While everyone was attempting to get a handle on what Bitcoin was, I was the first person in the blockchain space to describe blockchains as decentralized autonomous companies (communities, corporations, or organizations). Since then the concept of DACs (DAOs) has been widely adopted.
It was this perspective that led me to invent one of the most widely used consensus algorithms known as Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS). DPOS enabled low cost, high performance blockchains with built in decentralized governance. These blockchain characteristics were necessary to build the first decentralized exchange (BitShares) and the worlds first decentralized social media platform (Steem). My last blockchain was EOSIO, a platform designed to empower others to build blockchain based applications.
Each one of these projects was a social experiment in community building, governance, economic incentives, and game theory. I learned a lot about human nature, coordination problems, community governance and voting systems.
During this time I was also granted patents for provably honest voting systems and decentralized identity validation. Unfortunately, I also learned that our government effectively outlaws “provably honest voting” through mandating rules that make election tampering impossible to catch. I file that under things that make you go “hmmmm”. Provably Honest Online Elections are PossibleProvably Honest Online Elections are Possible
Moving elections online is a very controversial subject because it is something everyone would like, but it is not trivial to implement in a provably honest manner. There are countless articles around the internet that throughly document how even electronic voting or vote counting is unverifiable and cannot be trusted.....
I built my career on challenging the dogmas in the crypto currency space and identifying the underlying fundamental principles at play. It was the understanding of these principles that allowed me to create the first self-funding, self-governing, decentralized global communities.
I also applied my mental habit of challenging dogmas to all areas of life. As a result I evolved from a Christian Republican, to an anarcho-capitalist-athiest, to a voluntarist-spiritualist and finally stumbled upon a position that integrates aspects of socialism, support for government and, with insights from Jordan Peterson, a new appreciation for the value of christianity. You could say that I have traveled the world of philosophies and can relate to everyone as being somewhere on my journey.