Division of Labor Introductions
The S-D723 comment has gotten me thinking greatly about specialization recently. It's also culminated in my efforts to upgrade to Ubuntu based on the strong community of free open-source development there. And yet even that is a link centered around one single person's actions.
Namely, I've been extensively contemplating how to remove myself from the narrative and give power, voice, and influence back to the community itself. I shouldn't have some privileged role because indeed nobody has a special privilege to think, to work, or to grow. It is precisely this individual sovereignty and freedom that I see so paramount to our long-term success.
Along those lines, I've been deeply reflecting on the requisite advocacy towards our cause throughout the Stellar ecosystem lately. Be it community discussions, effortful posts, or direct developments—all of which are themselves fulfilling and further our just common goals. Notwithstanding, it's certainly begun to feel like some serious work, which I'm just fine with and welcome.
Transparent, Direct Policy Development
That said, it's been so refreshing going through the SEC's EDGAR Next response in the final rule. I have so much faith and trust in the good people hiding away in the Agency and ready to invoke great change in these power-centric markets. It is only a burden of time on us to share with them how investors believe the future of markets ought to look like.
Then, just as they conformed to Wall St's operations in the very early days, we can see policy developed around the needs, practices, and aspirations of Main St—as in the people markets were actually supposed to serve in the first place. Indeed, I've been feeling much too similar to an Adam Smith or such lately. I still miss trading, but it's with a hint of bittersweetness rather than longing now. 🫂
That said, I sincerely appreciate the number of community members that have shared how I can present very contiguous arguments with tact in the face of hostile opposition, interests, and worldviews. It is along these lines that I was extensively contemplating future interactions in front of Congress again, planning for sharp rebuttals to their central-planning arguments. That's when I stumbled over the 9/11 argument again in my mind.
American Freedoms, Outdated Technology
When this travesty hit, clearing and settlement was still in the early stages of digitization, dematerialization, and modernization. I've seen their corporate propaganda tout this event as a moment of "patriotism" and "courage" for the organization as they "rushed back to support our great markets." Along these lines, I considered just now recording a video voicing my opinions on the subject.
Namely, I wanted to emphasize greatly the magnitude of this event and acknowledge wholeheartedly any and all victims in any way related thereto. Next, I simply have to start my rebuttal. It is only due to the centrality of DTC's computer systems, the geography of their physical paperwork, and the locality of the rich and powerful that emergency operations had to get established in the heart of the damage.
Indeed, but for the vast monopolization of clearance and settlement systems into one all-powerful entity, this tragedy would have had no or minimal effects on the underlying market infrastructure, as it quite clearly should in a digital era today. Redundant operations and such are trivial, and yet they still patrol and harass those walking the sidewalks around their data centers. And indeed, it is only because of their tight control over the market's standards, their blanket secrecy as to internal operations, and their questionable manipulation and ultimate bastardization of regulated policies that these items are even of damaging risk.
A Call for Decentralization
Indeed, if we might agree that markets ought to operate fairly for all in the modern context, then the blockchain solution seems inevitable. I understand and appreciate that Wall St used to be a specialized club available only to a select few, and thus the vast inefficiencies were admissible because it was only the wealthy paying willingly in a free market for their operations. But it has warped into something much more central to the savings and retirements of masses of people.
In this context, it doesn't seem right for a select few middlemen to selectively control such work. And indeed it is unjust to grant them the censorship, extraction, and access powers so dearly evident in their trusted central role. Clearly, this is something I care very deeply about.
But when I thought about making this into a video, it became abundantly obvious in my mind that a proper delivery would require sincere tact and carefulness, so as to separate the Wall St operational argument with the American democracy patriotism aspects inherent in discussing the event. And indeed, I found it not ideal to highlight such a tragedy in the first place. While I thought about doing these myself or even through Wooten Wealth, I realized that the end product would take a material amount of ongoing collaboration and sincere editing work outside the scope of a simple webcam capture.