~mp_en_viaje: diana_coman, i guess you're stuck with a much larger chunk than originally contemplated, unexpectedly enough.~

The context of this review is the recent closure of TMSR by its founder, Mircea Popescu, after ~9 years of pouring his own time and resources into it. In the immediate aftermath of that closure, I asked those I knew involved and still around if they cared to say their mind on it at all. Some left their own silence on this speak for itself and some talked through it with me in #ossasepia and/or with others in other venues, or wrote about it on blogs and in comments. Others I didn't even know were reading my words in chan followed up with questions in the comments on the Closure article. As for myself, I said in #ossasepia as much:

diana_coman: [...] there's [...] the significant part that the republic failed to exist and so the whole context is changed and so far it hasn't even been reviewed as such; which is pre-requisite for *any* thinking of any related work, whether os or anything else anyways; I'll probably end up doing the review too since apparently nobody even considers it needed or something but that's besides the point.

Where does one even start though to review a project on the scale of TMSR, even considering for starters only all the publicly¹ available information and documents on it? I have of course the significant advantage of having been part of it and well active in it over quite a few years but this is just... not enough in itself for a review, it never is, no.

Looking at it broadly, there are the logs of #trilema and of the related irc chans or "castles", the blogs of all those involved and the websites & various resources of different projects such as they were attempted (Qntra, The Bitcoin Foundation and Pizarro most prominently). Of all of those, the projects' websites hold mainly specific information and while a review of it can certainly turn out instructive for someone setting out on similar projects, I don't see a lot of *new* information for me to be obtained from pouring the time in reviewing them in detail currently.

I have arguably freshest in mind the logs of #trilema and of my own #ossasepia chan, by virtue of reading and re-reading them daily and even summarising them at times. Those same logs are however a mixed bag, not only as topics under discussion (which wouldn't be a problem at all, quite the opposite) but more importantly as amount of noise, especially in the early days. So from my point of view and for my own needs, they don't make the best starting point either since there's less that is likely I overlooked/am not that much aware of in there and it needs to be extracted from a huge amount of text mixed with significant noise.

Having excluded both projects and the logs, I'm left with the blogs of those involved and given my reason for this review, the Trilema blog specifically. To further narrow it down, I chose to focus for now on the Bitcoin category on Trilema - for one thing, it's the most relevant to TMSR anyway and for the other, the way I see it, what came to be known as TMSR grew in fact quite organically and therefore gradually out of MP's public involvement with Bitcoin. While one can point to one moment or another as "the start of TMSR", I'd rather look at it as a process, aiming to clarify for myself first of all what and how was attempted rather than what ended up being (or arguably failing to be) - to the extent that such a thing can even be gleaned at all from the articles on Trilema's Bitcoin category, of course.

The Bitcoin category on trilema.com contains currently 224 articles, written between the 20th of March 2012 (a brief discussion in Romanian of Bitcoin's ability to recover from events that would have sunk fiat currencies such as the Euro or the US Dollar) and the 14th of March 2020 (a detailed explanation of some events after the announced closure of TMSR, raising also quite a few pointy questions on the Republic's actual effects on those involved). I had read all of those before, of course, but for the purpose of this review I read them now again², yet another time and with pen and paper in hand too. And then I re-read my notes a couple of times too, going back at times to the original articles referenced in my notes - for more details when and as needed, for potential links that weren't obvious the first time, for checking whether some inferred link is indeed supported by the article itself and not just an artefact of my notes. This is just part of my reviewing process and it's not even all of it but I'm setting those steps down here explicitly simply so that they *are* set at least here as such - who knows, perhaps they are of *some* use to someone else too at some point, wonder of wonders³.

As to what came out of all the above, there's for starters my classification of what those articles are about - my aim with this was to see how it all started, what was attempted and how it evolved over time. The categories therefore reflect this aim of mine and the classification itself is of course something you may disagree with at any point and on the grounds that it's a poor choice of classes to start with or that any given article is incorrectly classified. In some cases I might not even disagree with your disagreement, if that does anything for you.

Having re-read and thought through all the above articles again and looking once more at an even wider picture, there is a striking similarity that I can see in how both MPEx and essentially Bitcoin itself went from operating in plain view and offering a widely open avenue of access and involvement at first to operating in the end essentially behind closed doors and with very narrow avenues left for involvement - if any at all, indeed ³⁰. On top of this and not unrelated, it seems to me that there has been throughout a continuous decrease in the level at which support and education aimed for facilitating access was provided, not for lack of willingness on part of the provider but for lack or insufficient numbers or capacity of takers. I dare say that's not exactly surprising, after all³¹.

The above review of all those articles provided me with a much clearer picture regarding first of all the huge amount and diversity of resources, approaches and support that was offered³². And for my own needs, I accept this as indisputable evidence of that old, old lesson that I should have learned already for all its bitterness: offering cannot do anything³³ when lacking the matching request. So if there's anything to be done indeed, it's first the request that needs to be grown, teased out, brought forwards itself - and the same experience reviewed above points to the fact that there's precious little request-capacity to be found as such in the current environment. Nevertheless, there still is, if not in those too old to want to grow, then in those too young to not want to grow³⁴.

The way I see it, the extensive and quite exhaustive attempt to build the Republic, for all its failure in reaching the original goal, left nevertheless a significant inheritance, of which the knowledge and lessons contained in the articles reviewed above are only a part. What is done with this inheritance - if anything - and what comes out of it though depends on what one does and how, as it's always the case. I plan to make use of it though, especially in the form of learning from what has been made available and not attempting to reinvent the wheel at any point.

My work remains fully focused on Eulora. My personal project, the Young Hands Club, remains fully focused on providing -indeed on carving even, if need be- the sort of learning space that I can't see anywhere else around, aimed at figuring things out, not at "being right/comfortable" and focused on changing oneself for the better not on protecting oneself from change. While I can't change a whole environment overall, I can still provide this different space and I intend to do it indeed. As there is no TMSR anymore though, Young Hands changes too in that it can't aim for the nonexistent Republic, nor can it provide anymore direct access to a wealth of knowledge, resources and expertise beyond my own. And it further changes in that it has to stand entirely on my own authority such as it is, without the previous backing of a license from a higher authority and therefore without recourse to the same authority for any of those involved.

As to more minute changes to Young Hands and how it operates, I'll take the time to further mull over the relevant lessons from the TMSR experiment before I fully decide on the exact shape that each part of this project of mine is going to assume moving forwards. So far I'll say only that I see usefulness to it and I still stand by my original statement in #ossasepia:

diana_coman: fwiw and for as long as there is a use to it that I can see, I'll still be here.

1. And if you didn't even consider that the publicly available is not all there is or was to it, then you are indeed either very young and inexperienced or terribly shallow. ↩

2. Yes, this is a basic requirement for a review - to actually re-view stuff, no matter how well you think you know it, no matter how many times you "viewed" it before, no matter *what*. And no, it's still not *enough by itself* either, I'm not giving "recipes" here for you to follow to the letter while missing the substance and then claiming you "did what it said". ↩

3. A side effect of having re-read all those articles is that I got a significant dose of seeing a LOT of effort at stating things clearly getting even more clearly ignored instead of used. Can you tell? ↩

4. asciilifeform on irc. ↩

5. I admit I had a problem as to where does this article belong exactly, among my categories. Upon reflection I decided it counts best as education - the sort with drawing pictures for explaining matters. ↩

6. Seeing how the 3rd proposed resolution goes as far as to mention the end of 2015 and it's 2020 already, what would you say happened in the end? ↩

7. I further find of interest here MP's clear note regarding the lack of a different actual voice in the space and how time is running out for such voice to have any space left to say anything since he will soon have covered the whole thing: "Time is ticking away, in the sense that during the past four years there's not yet been an actual criticism of Bitcoin published by anyone anywhere, in spite of a lot of ridiculously uninformed gargle being regurgitated wherever the brightly stupid meet. If you wait much longer I'll have covered the whole field and there won't really be any room to even try anymore. Hurry up, clocks are ticking away." ↩

8. Re-reading this in 2020, it's really one sentence that pops out for its... understatement perhaps of the trouble it points out: "And so yes, the larger society which has prevented their individuation to date is in fact all encompassing, and all-"powerful", and ready to meddle some more." ↩

9. The point of "multiple options" existing unmolested for as long as they are either only theoretical or otherwise small and inconsequential enough so nobody really cares about them is perhaps true in a wider context than just cryptocurrencies. Just saying here. ↩

10. Go and read the whole thing and then re-read it a couple of times for good measure too. I'll keep here the core statement though because it explains more than I wish it did:
    

    The adult children wish to start a house of their own. The infantile children do not, absolutely, as the chief point in their mind, wish to start a house of their own. This is actually the last thing they could possibly want, because they do in fact depend on the support of their parents (here in the form of welfare redistributionsiv) to survive. They do however still wish for all the things people commonly desire : a greater measure of control of their surroundings of interest coupled with a lesser degree of responsibility for their surroundings of interest, and the estimation of their betters. Not of their peers, infantile offspring is not yet advanced enough to have peers, which is exactly why they're not ready yet to have their own house, either. They wish the estimation of their betters, and their betters are, universally, the food dispenser and the punishment machine.

     ↩

11. Linking this to the infantile vs adult children kind of spoils most of the surprise of the outcome really. ↩

12. Looking back at this now, it seems to me it rather got almost entirely overlooked, despite being the very clear and plain statement of *how to even work* effectively and fully leverage the forum and the others that were available. ↩

13. On reflection this strikes me to have been the original idea of "open source" itself really - except of course those mythical continuators of work didn't materialise for open source as they didn't materialise for Republican work and possibly don't ever materialise for much at all just for it being made available. ↩

14. It's funny to note though that, at the time, Mircea Popescu still considered that MtGox was not in the same bucket, "on account of its old age and well known brand". Needless to say - from the vantage of now as opposed to then - the old age and well known brand went poof soon enough after that. ↩

15. You'd think this was obvious but then again, what is indeed obvious depends on who is looking really. ↩

16. Looking back at this from 2020 and noticing that it's not even the first time when it's stated plainly, I really wonder just why and how did such a simple thing turn out to be in practice such a nearly impossible thing to do for most. And the plain and clear lack of value attached by so many over all those years to *having this option* even is yet another thing to look long and hard at because it clearly has deep roots and it's not going anywhere any time soon. ↩

17. Ad delivery paid for in Bitcoin. ↩

18. And I'll note here this tiny bit that carries now perhaps way more meaning than it seemed to carry back in 2012:
    

    pigeons you live in a place where fighting back worked. the rest of us live in the rest of the world where we got crushed.

     ↩

19. Does this sound familiar to you in 2020, 7 years later? If not, maybe in another 7 years or 70 years or 700 years, what's time to you after all, right? ↩

20. It was 2013, not 2020. ↩

21. Do compare and contrast this with any of the businesses that have been at any point listed on MPEx. ↩

22. Could go into "education" too I suppose, but as this very short article says "they never listen", so I decided to set it as governance instead, there. ↩

23. Were the giants too tall? Was the climbing too abrupt, were the winds too windy that high up and the air too rarefied and the years too many or too few or just not right, the sun too bright, the stars too cold and so on and so forth? Was it really something missing in the structure, would you say? And then pray tell - what exactly was it missing in *it*, what? But don't hurry to answer, take your time instead and go patiently through it all, take your time to collect bits and pieces like this, set them one next to the other as they gradually build the picture of what was meant to be, of what was built awaiting those able to make it be and then go and look at what and how it all turned out instead, years later. Keep both the start and the end at the same time in mind and see what that does, what it says, what answer it gives really all by itself. Or what answer you prefer to choose perhaps, instead of reading it from such stark record. That choice is an answer too, of course it is. ↩

24. There's only ONE single comment to this and that one doesn't go terribly far either. ↩

25. And I'll note here the fragment that sounds to me in hindsight as the very statement of the vision that was at the root of TMSR itself, the vision that carried within itself the assumption that it was indeed the tools that were missing and not the people: "Man at the center of all things. Man, the willing enforcer of his own promises. Man, the willing contributor to the wealth of an obviously much reduced, but by that fact probably much nicer, lovable and huggable cute little state." ↩

26. No, they weren't used and it's not even that they weren't used efficiently and effectively but simply that the funds were never used. At all. Why exactly? What had those funds missing so that they were ignored essentially, just not used at all? ↩

27. It took ~2 years for this idea to get a practical attempt through BingoBoingo's ISP in Uruguay that failed nevertheless to thrive and closed down in 2019. ↩

28. To me it sounds especially painful on re-read because it reminds me way too much of some conversations I had with 5 year olds. Seriously, they are adamant that "it won't work" - when they either don't want to do it (for whatever reason) or they don't want to admit that they had no idea it could be done. And what they generally want is reassurance that it was/is indeed a terribly difficult task in itself rather than a lack of theirs making it seem difficult to them - once *that* given, *some* will at least move on and do it. But I'm talking of 5 year olds here, ffs. ↩

29. This was implemented in EuCrypt for Eulora. ↩

30. For Bitcoin, TMSR was precisely the wide open avenue of access and its failure and closure means not at all the failure or closure of Bitcoin - what silliness is that - but simply the closure of that previously open access. For MPEx, compare the initial plan with the situation 5 years later, at the time of the closing statement for MPEx and see for yourself if there's any similarity or not. ↩

31. It does perhaps beg the question as to what level is left now or just how low can the level meaningfully go anyway, before there's no point to spending resources on it but this is a question that those spending the resources answer for themselves after all, not some generic question on which everyone and anyone is called to give their "opinion" of words that cost them nothing at all. ↩

32. I shall not attempt to make some itemized list here as I'll end up re-writing that Bitcoin category if I go for completeness and otherwise I think it's best if anyone interested just goes through the entries in the table above and extracts their own list, as they see fit for whatever specific perspective on this they may have in mind, anyway. Or if you really can't see what was offered, just ask a clear question in the comments I suppose - that's how things get clarified anyway, through questions and answers, after all. ↩

33. Other than frustrate I suppose, on both sides really. ↩

34. And note that I'm saying this based on a whole lot more than what is visible online as experience with helping people learn. Sure, it may still be that I'm just an optimist or anything of the sort. There are no guarantees upfront for anything, there never can be. ↩

Category: TMSR

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