You don't know it now, but the entire time you've been alive you've been the object of scrutiny. Not by some extraterrestrial intelligence but rather the solution to our species actuarial.

I've used this word (actuarial) before, it's a beautifully morbid term for when we're expected to die. 

I bring it up now because I think that Bitcoin is the great filter.

I don't want to give a big backstory on what the great filter means, but I'll give you enough to (as a good bitcoiner) DYOR. 

The great filter is a question that stems out of Fermi's Paradox. Again, you can google (or DuckDuckGo) these terms to learn more. 

Simple postulate - if the universe is so vast, where the frak is everybody?

The simplest answer to this question is that something must be preventing evolution from producing species that are not confined to their own planet. Said in another way, dodo birds are bound to go extinct.

We all know the Lord Acton saying about POWER and it's corrupting influence.  I'm relatively positive that we are not the first species in the universe that learned how to steal from the future for our own present benefit (fiat inflationary monetary systems). 

The question I'll posit to you is, how hard is it to make it impossible to do exactly that?

It's a question I should have a better answer to.  Maybe I'll actually Run The Numbers.  Once humankind cracked the code of emblamization of value, we could subtract value from the future that had not even been thought of.  This is modern day alchemy. This is almost the philosopher's stone.  Except it is straight up theft.  There are too many unseen casualties when you steal from the future.  The glazier may profit while the butcher forgoes a suit from the tailor (Broken Window Fallacy).  For you modern math folk, multiply that last statement over a century and you begin to see what we're missing out on.

Okay, enough beating around the bush; Bitcoin is the bridge across the great filter.  

The great filter is the indeterminate force in the universe that snuffs out species who (IMHO) unlock the mysteries of the atom.  You don't have to believe in aliens in order to understand that once we understand E=MC2 we can collectively build horrible devices that could snuff out humanity, or contrarily harness star power to spread us across the known universe.

Great Filter Trials:

(as far as I see it)

Step 1:

Unlock the mystery of the atom.

Step 2:

Challenge other portions of the species for supremacy of that power -- this one takes a little explanation. In order to gain true supremacy you must build a civilization upon an ethic that outproduces competitors. Personally I believe capitalism (private property) is that system.

Step 3:

Follow that system to its logical conclusion, thus forbidding any inferior competitors from occupying spectrum.

"Independence Day", the movie starring Will Smith, sent me down my first rabbit hole.  If we unlock certain basic building blocks, might we draw unwanted attention? 

Unwanted attention (as any attractive female knows) is a dangerous thing.  In the 1996 movie (I have not revisited, but will before release of this article) the aliens show up because they detected an atomic event. We don't know what we don't know. Our light bubble (possibly indistinguishable from SOL) is (IMHO) about to breach what I will now call the Fermi Horizon (napkin math leads me to believe that of all the rocks in our galaxy we are no further than 100 light years away from our closest radio capable neighbor).

Maybe they operate in a frequency that we don't understand, or maybe we're the first to get to the civilizationally advanced scarce money. 14 billion years is a long time. 

When you begin to experience scarce numbers that take entropy and turn them into value, you begin to understand minds like Breedlove's. Entropy is the natural progression, when you introduce PoW, you see how unique our species is.

Chaos is the natural progression of the universe. Order is a byproduct of the logos.

I was talking about the great filter, let me retrace to that concept.

"Where is everyone?" is Fermi's paradox. 

Hard to believe we're the first ones to the dance but cosmologically that's exactly what we are (or we're still so early in the fact that we got a ticket to the dance we don't know who else has been invited).  We also don't know how long the dance has been going on because we haven't been able to ask anyone yet, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Without the rare numbers gambit (pub/priv keys), we're monkeys who outsmarted ourselves. The atomic level has been with us since ancient Greece and India, but unlocking atomic energy is something the 20th century wasn't prepared for. (Unlocking atomic energy was a fiat borrowing from the future IMHO but draw your own conclusions.) The 20th century also wasn't prepared for large products of primes but as a part of the seriousness of warfare that's where we kick this arms race off.  Either you figure out how to use cryptography as a defense mechanism or your enemy annihilates you with it because this is the only technology necessary to solve coordination among untrusted transmission channels.

RAW TOXIC MAXI:

“A filter is what the rest of you are caught in while we pass right through because we understand what is necessary to be a part of the galactic federation.”

With the galactic federation on our doorstep, it's hard for me to walk the line of "no one's done this before". But let's assume that there's not a hyper intelligent interstellar race out there, and that we're the sad sacs here on earth who have been listening for a 100 years and not heard a peep out of our galactic neighbors. This is part of the great filter. At some point a civilization becomes wise enough to adopt the prime directive or it ceases to be.

I don't know what the great filter is. I think Bitcoin is the bridge across that filter.

Simply put, once you adopt a Bitcoin standard, your time preference is in line with the preservation of your species, which is the first test when it comes to the great filter.

My original encounter with the great filter led me to believe that the clock started ticking when we detonated the first atomic bomb. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out that we could wipe out our species with a few buttons.  This is the grinding portion of the great filter.  You have to understand the power of the atom before you contemplate space travel. Atomic power is the mysteries of the universe in a nice "kill yourself" package.  You have to be smart enough to read the warning label, foolish enough to touch it once, and then wise enough to figure out how to do something with this knowledge other than kill yourself.

The great filter has nothing to do with humans, but rather the ability of a species to exterminate itself.

At some point a species becomes aware of atomic energy. This awareness can (and mayhaps most often does) culminate in the annihilation of intelligent life.  Sure, the US dropped 2 nukes, but who else has done it since? Mutually assured destruction is the nom de guerre.  I think nuclear detonation is enough to catch any advanced civilizations attention. BUT, do they adhere to the prime directive of not interfering with less advanced species or do they just take our resources.  I think the former is more likely as time goes on, as our light bubble expands. The second less likely as time goes on, because we should not announce ourselves to hostile forces.

We've entered an age of atomic infancy.  We played with it, we've been burned by it, and we don't quite trust it. Atomic infancy is the point where interstellar observers should start paying attention, because when a species discovers the atom, they "understand" (Narrator: "they don't") that the ability to wipe out all life as it is known is within your grasp. (Again, the world doesn't care what we do, humans should give a shit at this point because we're really the species with the most to lose.) To quote Michael Crichton "We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the Earth will not miss us."

I'm trying to talk about the great filter. 

It's a concept, not a set of guidelines.  We don't know if it actually exists. Our only test is Fermi's Paradox, which yields two solutions. 

A.) There is a species test that permits/prevents promulgation in such a fashion as becomes evident. 

B.) No other species has progressed as far as we have along the scientific timeline, which is why we seem so alone.

Here's my Joe Rodgers theory.

We're not the first, nor are we the last, but any observers have to remain observers until we hyperbitcoinize. The 20th century gave us both "duck and cover" and Gene Roddenberry. Generations of fearful humans that do stupid things that could Dr. Strangelove us all into nothingness, and visionaries who see a place for us among the stars. If we're so fucking smart, where is everyone? And if we're so fucking smart, how do we not annihilate our species?

This is a rough draft.

Better men than me will have better thoughts.