So Ultimately, What Does it Mean for NVIDIA to Buy ARM??? Controversy.
In the last week, Nvidia saw its stock price finally pop over $600 a share for the first time. And then tumble again on bad news. It did so after hovering in the $500s in earnest since September 2020 when Nvidia announced a proposed deal to acquire chipmaker ARM. Coinciding with the much-anticipated breakout was breaking news and resultant controversy attacking Nvidia’s acquisition of ARM.
Ok, so what was the primary driver of this bad news you ask?
Do as I say, not as I do kinda thing. Go figure! You’d think they’d welcome another big player among their ranks to take the heat off of them. After all, more big players in broader tech space the more competition right? Therefore, less monopolistic action is possible right? If there are a bunch of big players and they are all maneuvering to control the technosphere where is the monopoly?
Jensen’s Rebuttal
Ok, before we get too far ahead of ourselves. We need to ask, what does Nvidia has to say about this? Did they see this coming. Oh, yeah, they did…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t ever recall any of their C-Suite level execs promising to keep things independent for their proposal/acquisition. Yup, that’s right Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did just that…
As a demonstration of this, if you believe the Telegraph or even us, then Jensen is already making promises to keep jobs/offices in UK up and running to keep the independent lifeblood part of the Matrix…
And to say that the deal would be too big also misses the point because for another Tech behemoth like IBM (ok, so not a $200 Billion Market Cap – $106 Billion-ish on 2.17.21- but still pretty darn big), it didn’t stop them from making the largest add in their company’s history.
As For an Arm Acquisition Generally Speaking, Others Wanted it Too, Even Those Making Accusations Now!
The former CEO of Qualcomm Paul Jacobs said that his former company had thought of acquiring ARM, even Nvidia at one point, and didn’t proceed simply because the finances didn’t make sense at the time but not that they didn’t want to! And also presented evidence to say that if the deal goes through that there are still alternatives.
BCB Cyber is neither sponsored nor supported by any of the above. However, full disclosure we are long NVDA, as our love affair continues too. As for Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm, we love you too, just compete harder and don’t worry about the competition. Just fight to be the best and the biggest for in the end we all win if we can all learn to truly profit from innovation!
And, we hope the deal goes through. We think this love story is one for the ages. After all, it is a controversial, if not forbidden – oh wait maybe – love.
NVIDIA to ACQUIRE ARM, Part 3 Will Arrive Next Week, Just Not Today
Good news, a lot of new information started coming out this week about Nvidia’s positioning and the potential investigations into the acquisition of ARM from Softbank. Bad news, a lot of NEW info started coming out in the last week.
Ok, not really bad, but good with a mini-delay. Good because we will have a much more informed position, always our goal. Bad because we gotta wait. What can we say, life sucks sometimes. Hey, we get cool stuff like this though…
We felt like to do our conclusion, part 3, the justice our people – aka the masses – deserve, we should delay just a bit and dig some more to add to our analysis. Unfortunately, this just means a little more time.
However, we are never just resting on our laurels… Ha, that was funny. What the Fuck? You may ask…
That’s right we are turning to the accomplishments of the ancient world… get it laurels!?!? Yeah, they suck, but these are the jokes people.
Anywho, Ancient Tech baby! That’s right we are digging into the dirt to find out the juicy, techy-goodness from the ancient world. Human accomplishments developed from somewhere and dammit (no not the song by Blink-182) we are gonna get to the bottom of it.
Join us tomorrow for more Cyber-Fuel on Gear, and don’t forget next week we get that exciting conclusion to our analysis on the acquisition of ARM. Ooh, ooh, ooh, see you next… Wednesday.
In a world that keeps us running crazy, where tech can offer a little bit of peace, we should take advantage! For those suffering from anxiety, and concern for their heart health, AliveCor’s Kardia Mobile offers an effective aide.
With all the running from task to task, not to mention all the worrying we do in our daily existence about family, jobs, and all the extras we get ourselves involved in we have a lot of stress. For many of us, that means anxiety too.
Anxiety can be rough, leaving us feeling worn out and on edge. But more seriously it can become a positive feedback loop that further frays our nerves. More pressure, more stress, more anxiety, feel rotten, repeat… then you think you’re dying: our heart starts beating erratically (or at least we think so, our pulse races, we sweat, and oh yeah, get more nervous. Well, it certainly feels like you are having a heart attack or stroke anyway. In many instances, I myself have experienced exactly this.
With all the things we get ourselves wrapped up into in life and stress out about, I many times have been over-stressed to the point where I found myself sitting in front of a doctor in an emergency or urgent care unit only to find out that my anxiety/stress was causing my symptoms and inflaming my acid reflux disease (mostly brought on by stress and diet – also affected by stress and anxiety). No fun, do we see the terrible loops being created here???
I’ve been a worrier since I was a kid, but really this started in young adulthood. It never fails, from when this started in my twenties throughout my thirties and now into my early forties, I’ve experienced this. It all starts with chest pains and being terrified that I was having a heart attack or a stroke only to be told that it is my acid reflux or stress/nerve issues.
Despite being told over and over I continually find myself in that situation. Something had to change. With all the talk I do of technology, I’m taking things into my own hands for my health for my life, and for my family. Basically, because I want to be here for them in 30+ years.
I’m just an average guy, not a doctor, so please take this with a grain of salt and make sure to work it over for yourselves. And that means seeking professional help if you feel it necessary. But for me, I’m tired of just listening to doctors tell me that it is all those elements, and yet it always comes back to the point where I feel so much pain that I think I’m dying and then I stress more and more and end up in front of another doctor.
A Technological Change
I’m changing things. This begins with tech, big surprise for me, I know. I decided I was tired of being in the dark and needed the information I can use to start changing things about my health.
Doing some research, I dug around for a good starting point. It wasn’t easy though as the anxiety mounted. One of my biggest issues, telling myself I’m not dying of a heart attack.
That begins with knowing more about my heart. Why, because that’s what my worries kept bringing me back to.
In order to do that, yes, I can go to the doctor twenty more times over the next 10-20 years only to keep being told the same thing, going home and starting to change things only to see myself go back to the same stress patterns that feed on themselves and end up right back with the doctor. Not to mention stressing myself and my acid reflux further and continuing to destroy my inner workings! The tougher part still, continuing to shell out several hundred bucks every time just to be told the same thing from a basic EKG at some doctors office. Then having more financial stress!
Yup, that’s what it comes down to though, the EKG and my heart. I go in, they pop on the electrodes, and bam I’m told my heart looks great. I’m either warned then of stress/anxiety or acid reflux and sent on my way. It relieves the stress temporarily, but it always comes back.
For those who don’t know, this scary looking chart is just a simple way to examine how the heart is working. Its the core tech of the human body and exhibits electrical evidence of its operation. Thanks to MINT Nursing.
Only now with the painful damage of acid reflux and the ever-present stress that getting older brings with it and all the talk of the world about heart disease. Again, the loop. Even talking about the loop, we end up in a loop. Aaaah! There is no escape… or is there?
Fixing all this means taking my health in my own hands, because let’s face it no one will care about my health more than me and putting tech to work in my life gives me the opportunity to do something about it. That’s cyber-fuel let me tell you.
The Oracle of Our Times: Amazon
So, like everyone else, I ended up on Amazon and now we are here. I was tired of paying several hundred bucks over and over for a couple of minutes on a machine, and a few seconds with a doctor to be told the same thing and end up in the same situations.
The only things that seem to give me relief are occasional massage therapy treatments and finally seeing the doctor so they can tell me that I’m not dying of a heart attack. So, while the massage therapy treatments will remain costly and infrequent, I figured there is something I can do about the peace of mind that comes with an EKG with all the tech advancements towards low cost, personally accessible devices and monitors that have flooded the market over the last several years.
So again, yeah, Amazon. I know its trite and overdone, but its popular for a reason. They are great at linking people and product.
In any case, there I was searching the site for things like “personal EKG,” “mobile heart monitor,” etc. Ya’ know, the SEO optimizing keywords!
In the magic that only Amazon provides a world of devices started cropping up before my very eyes. The one that kept catching my eye, in particular, was the AliveCor Kardia Mobile. I don’t know why other than it seemed popular, fairly low cost (under $100), and was a small, straightforward device. You can see it for yourself too (#CommissionsEarned). There is a fancier “6 Lead” variety too (#CommissionsEarned), but we didn’t test that one. A little bit of digging revealed this video.
Ultimately though, what sold me was the edifying statement that said this device was FDA cleared. So, I knew there had to be quality work behind ensuring its effectiveness and that the professional community agreed to that point. So much so, along with some of the reviews, that I said the hell with it and just bought the damn thing. Alongside a wrist-based blood pressure monitor too. Ya’ know, its Amazon and one thing leads to another… damn they’re good!
Ok, so you know the process, two-day shipping right. Yup, as always good to their word… notices, then a picture of the bloody thing at my doorstep.
So now it’s time for the review, nope… Then the stress kicked in, working the site (you are reading on it now), working full time (ok, for me that means basically four jobs in one 40 hour workweek – no not the side gigs I got rid of but my one “day” job that consumes most of your waking thoughts), worrying about trying to be a dad from four states away, worrying about my relationships, etc… things have been a little hectic.
Getting Down to Business
Needless to say, last month whipped by stress, and despite my desire to do the fancy unboxing and a video showing everything, I never had time. Instead, I just started using it, and have used the device a couple of times.
Promotional video does a great job of the actual experience. Very simple, loading the app, selecting to start a recording, and then putting fingers on the pads. It really is that simple. Thanks to AliveCor, Inc.
It keeps telling me things are normal. Yes, I still have the pain of acid reflux (working on that), and the stress that comes with worry, and I know the device tells me it doesn’t detect an heart attack, but the best thing about this little pad known as Kardia Mobile is that it gives me that small dose of peace of mind I would only find previously after a several hundred-dollar doctor visit and for less than a hundred bucks! And if my nerves are taking hold and pushing enhanced states of anxiety, I can take my EKG and send it to a cardiologist for even way less than previous visits $25.00. And, if I’m freaked out beyond that I can get more regular assurance for $10 a month! Even at $120 a year that still better than a single visit to the local doc! Of course, none of this precludes me from going to the ER if I’m maxed out on stress either.
So bottom line, it buys me a little peace of mind! And that is worth its weight in gold.
The only annoying part I’ve found is that you must be in a quiet room. Even in using it just a few times, you quickly notice that the device gets touchy when other noises are present. Since the device works on high-frequency sound waves, it does have an impact. Other than that, it does exactly what it says, it performs, charts, and analyzes an EKG of your current, individual condition.
As for the data privacy side, from what I can tell I tell when data is released. The app has been very clear in asking for my email for continued communications. Since I ordered my product on January 13th, received it on the 15th, and signed up for the emails on the 17th, I’ve received a total of eight emails about the product (one of which was the Amazon receipt, and another Amazon following up to see if I was happy with the product). Six from AliveCor directly though, and each a simple, easy to understand and follow introduction to the device, applications, and links that direct me to their blog that further explains how I can become a better and more conscious actor in my own health.
With each of those communications, one thing that I am very happy with is that yes, they do collect data, but that they are very upfront about it and the privacy policy is always available as a link (as are terms and conditions).
While I’ve yet to use the service, customer support does seem to be at the ready. They have hours that include the weekends, yes both days, so the company seems to understand the nature of their product and the customer relation to it. In other words, it’s not just a Monday to Friday kind of relationship.
As for functionality, it was a quick download from the Google Play store that worked cleanly on my Samsung smartphone with Android. As for the big ol’ list of compatible devices, so you can make sure it will work for you, check it out here.
And, when it comes to extra information AliveCor has us covered there too with a specialized blog that includes a number of health-related articles that would allow us to better inform ourselves regarding not only the device but heart health in general. You can check that out here. We even found a great page on tweaking our diet for heart health. The best part, they don’t overwhelm you with info and give you a hundred recipes you have to race out and buy a bunch of fancy ingredients for. Instead, they simply offer straightforward nuggets of advice.
Nope, we haven’t signed up for any service or sent in for a review by a cardiologist yet. Yeah, that’s for future blog material, but hey you can’t have everything at once right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t come back. And we love when you come back.
Concluding Thoughts, For Now…
All in all, it does exactly what we hoped it would do. Gives a quick clean reading that I can compare to myself and other charts from my doctors in the past. Yes, it gives too a quick clean understanding of the app’s interpretation of my chart as well. That moment of relief I get from my doctor’s office for a hefty financial sum I now get for that one-time charge. And so far, I can get it on long battery life! No chargers or anything necessary and after several uses seems to be going strong.
This thing is definitely a keeper and just a reminder if you want to get yours you can do so here. Plus, full disclosure, we are not sponsored or promoted by any of the above, but as always, just love great tech. When we find something that worlds to add tech to our lives that makes a definite improvement, we want to share it!
Regarding future plans, we hope to keep on using this to fuel our tech passions in daily life, not to mention giving us a touch of calm in the frantic world we inhabit. In addition, we will look to do a review or two with a specialist and maybe even work toward the monthly plan AliveCor offers. And if we do any of that, we’ll be sure to share it with our community. But, for now, we are just happy with a little extra peace of mind.
So, please check back soon for more Cyber-Fuel to add to your daily tech passions with BCB Cyber. See you next time!
What Does it Mean for NVIDIA to Buy ARM??? A Love Story For the Ages
Industry Acclaimed Chipmaker
You’d be hard-pressed to find a company that gives more maximum effort than ARM. The chipmakin’ mega-house, ARM holds 95% of the Mobile Phone Market and exists within 180 billion devices worldwide.
They are pushing total compute ability in smartphones by maximizing multitask capacity and battery life for the next-gen Samsung Exynos 2100.
Plus, they are pushing the boundaries of the Internet of Things, with a new program focused on AI at the edge; maybe Nvidia helps with this, just guessing.
And finally, if that wasn’t enough, they want to “radically update the security foundations of the digital computing infrastructure that underpins the entire economy.” It’s known as the Morello program and it’s only partnering with the likes of Google, Microsoft, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh to make it super hard for bad actors to take over an entire system even when hacking it. By the way, it’s open-source too, so if you wanna check it out click here as they move forward. Want the specs too, here ya go! They sure are a friendly bunch. Ambitious with all this goodness sure, but with these powers, who is counting them out. Sound like anyone else we know???
Thanks and Shoutout to Photo by Ali Yahya on Unsplash and his Deadpool, Halloween costume impersonation. Lovin’ it!
Ok, so they are doing some stuff, but what does all this have to do with the Nvidia acquisition… EVERYTHING!
How ARM Presents the Acquisition by NVIDIA
For the oh so low prices of a paltry $40Billion in Shares and Cash, Nvidia is set to buy ARM from Softbank (a giant tech investment house out of Japan headed by the incredible Masayoshi Son). And what does Nvidia get in return…
With regard to IoT, Nvidia will pull a global interconnection of established assets at the endpoint ready to be utilized by their AI Stack, an open-source roadmap for ultimate inclusion of creators, developers, etc. the world over, and a previously established investment/commitment to this system.
And together, they will link this prebuilt gameworld with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chomping at the bit to be the compute factor for the Edge, share and embrace the open model, add a quality revenue source for margin and earnings to Nvidia’s bottom line, and gain a bunch of street cred with another leading AI thinktank and supercomputer. Just incredible! Are we listening yet?
And just what does the former owner and continuing interested partner Masayoshi Son think…
“NVIDIA is the perfect partner for Arm … Since acquiring Arm, we (Softbank – SBG) have honored our commitments and invested heavily in people, technology, and R&D, thereby expanding the business into new areas with high growth potential. Joining forces with a world leader in technology innovation creates new and exciting opportunities for Arm. This is a compelling combination that projects Arm, Cambridge, and the U.K. to the forefront of some of the most exciting technological innovations of our time and is why SoftBank is excited to invest in Arm’s long-term success as a major shareholder in NVIDIA. We look forward to supporting the continued success of the combined business.”
So much talent, so much promise, with a bit of maximum effort and the sky is the limit. Unless we are talking X-Force, then we urge a word perhaps of caution.
That’s where we turn to next, lucky for us! Next week, we continue the saga with the opportunity to sample the reactive world of cyberspace and see what all the talking heads are saying about the deal!
Full disclosure while we are not sponsored by any element described here, we are long on Nvidia (means we own and plan to continue to own Nvidia stock for the long term).
Good Morning All… As many of you may have noticed, we did not post yesterday. Every Saturday Morning since November we’d been posting YouTube videos that created a vid-version of our Monday Wealth posts. We’ve come to the realization though that while we did enjoy the process/journey, and learned a lot throughout, it was not only a lot of work to reiterate what we’d already done but moreover, that it didn’t add any real, new value. We admit we’d gone astray.
Our goal is, and always will be, to add a touch of daily inspiration to fuel our tech passions and give the masses the chance to create the high-tech, low-life visions of the individual selves we dream to be! One day of repetition simply didn’t cut it. We aim to be more for you, our reader.
While we can’t guarantee that we won’t occasionally repost older material as it gains new relevance (yeah, fuck off, we do it below again too), we do promise to organize all new efforts to create fresh content throughout the week, Monday to Friday, as always. In doing so we will continue to capture tech and apply it to the Wealth, Health, Wisdom, Gear, and Play aspects of our lives. And on the weekends, share a new, unique experience that provides both insight and inspiration into the tech-fuel that powers humanity and that more importantly can empower our own individual lives.
With sincerest thanks, and appreciation for, the masses…
To break this question down for the masses we really need to dissect the parts of this deal. And to start, its important to ask why its important in the most basic way possible and, to do so in the words of the architect of this deal, NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang…
In an age where many already think of the internet as infinite already, let’s just stop and let that sink in for everyone… “thousands of times bigger than the internet we enjoy today.” Not tens or hundreds, but thousands! For the man who helped create the GPU in the first place to make such a statement, it means something. We should be listening.
More importantly, this gives us a great place to start. We need to know who NVIDIA and ARM are, to better understand what all this is about. And for us at BCB Cyber, its a great introduction to Compute and Data Science because it allows us to start with how Nvidia has already been changing the world and how computer processing has such an impact on our lives.
Again, with that GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) thing. For those that don’t know its actually pretty simple and breaks down to the number of cores inside a computer processor, you know the thing that runs a computer. BasicsExplained, H3Vtux does a great job of setting this scene in the video below and gives us a great intro to the GPU.
So how does NVIDIA fit into that tech picture of the GPU and how has that one device become so dominant a player where “Artificial Intelligence” is the keyword on everyone’s minds. Again, Jensen has clued us in…
For Nvidia, its all about the full gamut of innovation in it’s “stack:” the chips/systems, algorithms (plainly put, specific computer instructions to solve a problem), and applications themselves all taken together. More specifically, its about the next era of computing utilizing this technological amalgamation.
Nvidia hasn’t stopped there though, in 2020 they acquired Mellanox, a data connection company, that expanded their global reach. In doing so, they are creating the platform whereby they can integrate some of the world’s best communications technologies for data centers (digital communications warehouses) with the Nvidia stack. In doing so, they are creating the capacity for a global reach Artificial Intelligence powered by Nvidia.
All this leads now to ARM, and that is where we will pick up next week.
Full disclosure while we are not sponsored by any element described here, we are long on Nvidia (means we own and plan to continue to own Nvidia stock for the long term).
As the dust settles from the initial announcement, a lot of information has come out about the merger, but the question remains…
What does it truly mean for NVIDIA to buy ARM???
Join BCB Cyber, beginning 01.27.21, as we explore our first true topic in our “Compute and Data Science” category as Nvidia is set to change the field itself. Our aim: explore and share for the masses the game-changing potential in the deal that would join Nvidia’s AI leadership with Arms’ vast computing system.
In the meantime, we leave you with the vision as presented by none other than the man leading Nvidia himself, Jensen Huang…
Many thanks to CNBC Television and Mr. Jim Cramer for all their great work.
Full disclosure while we are not sponsored by any element described here, we are long on Nvidia (means we own and plan to continue to own Nvidia stock for the long term).
For those pondering what the digital age, blockchains, a free flow of information, and the technological magic of innovative disruption will bring to humanity, it is nothing short of a nihilistic smorgasbord. But only in the most positive light =). For those lost in the malaise, please primer up with some ordered anarchy (#Commissions Earned) and think of it like Star Trek with a Hangover.
For those looking to catch a little glimpse into our current future, perhaps the best quick shot analysis for the proto-crypto-phenomenological world we now live in was summarized way back in the digital dark age of 2014. For that is when a man by the name of Michael Goldstein sought to drop a nugget of knowledge on our cyberspaced-out heads. A man who blends the wisdom of the ancients with the digital lexicon of the 21st century like Nostradamus writing quatrains in a smoke-filled haze, we could not agree more with his conclusion:
“There was never such a thing as privacy. The Internet just made the fact clear. Privacy can and should be constructed, but it will never be perfected. Protecting ourselves from the dangers of crypto-anarchy requires embracing it even more fully and internalizing and practicing the virtues that have helped great men weather the storms of life since antiquity.”
-Michael Goldstein December 24, 2014
If you haven’t raced over to Google yet, make sure you check out the entire opus over at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. And while there make sure to pal around with the extended wisdom it offers.
We’ll see you here tomorrow for some more great gear on our Gear Thursday Blog Post.
Re-Published with Edits from October 4, 2020. What follows was an article meant to explore the unique nature and duality of cyberpunks and cypherpunks. With the meteoric rise of bitcoin recently, we wanted to revisit this article for our community and give credit to those who help create the Bitcoin and crypto movements in the first place. We will return to Robotics in Wisdom next week.
Who are cyberpunks and cypherpunks?
What separates them? What unites them? Better yet, what drives them?
In exploring a digitally dystopic world, amalgamating our individualism through personal design requires food for the cyber-soul. Within the tech-noir culture of the late 1980s and early-1990s that would produce Cyberpunks and Cypherpunks, we can find our beating heart. Exploring the elements of what makes these two groups unique and discovering what makes them unique can aid us in our own personal endeavor to technologically self-define.
A Tech-Culture Personified
In our pursuit to define ourselves as individuals in today’s world, we come face to face with the electronic representations of our own identity in cyberspace. This is because the world around us has taken on heavy electronic overtones. The digital explosion of the late 20th century gave rise to the cyber-world of the 21st. A world that that people are now enmeshed in, thrive upon and are forced to confront daily.
Within the beginning of this cyber-world arose two cultural phenomena: CYBERPUNKS and CYPHERPUNKS. Cyberpunks, many of us are now familiar with.
We have grown up with them: Deckard and Neo to Alita and Beyond; we are them: fighting to understand our tech-fueled world and define ourselves within it. For a quick return and/or introduction to what Cyberpunk is, we’ve made the following video:
Please forgive our little inside joke to start the explanation, we couldn’t help ourselves!
For those unfamiliar with the term cypherpunk, the movement is kin and kith with cyberpunk.
Search Security’s TechTarget helps to most cleanly develop the central thesis which we BCB Cyberize here: the deep spirit of a cyber-spaced individualism (Cyberpunk) blended with the combo spice of encryption and privacy helps give birth to the Cypherpunk! Kin and Kith indeed, more next-gen phenotypic expression of the same genetic programming if you ask us.
Personal testament to personal testament, the two are forever linked. Where Cyberpunk blends individual exploration and reaction to the outside world, Cypherpunk looks to maintain individual ethosandself-integrity through digital privacy. For the latter, it is, unfortunately, the case that their concerns over a loss of anonymity are now our reality.
Null State Cyberpunk; Activation Cypherpunk
Fed from the Same Seed:
Accepting the Yin and Yang of digital existence, where bad actors balance the good, is the price to be paid for an individual’s right to privacy in a digital world for the Cypherpunk. This is merely an extension of Cyberpunk’s central worldview where knowledge is the main thesis and the vehicle used to communicate that message is tech.
With this degree of openness, however, there will always exist a tension that comes with the potential for non-self-defined exposure in cyberspace. To what extent does the Cyberpunk then yield the autonomy of their own individuality to systems used to spread their message?
A BCB Cyberized summary of the analogy Hughes’s uses in his argument in the link above goes like this: when transmitting or sending information to another person, the transportation system itself needs not to know all the contents of the letter, they only need to know a few basics: who it is from, where it is going, and how much it will cost to perform the service! With digital media not only does the information have value, but so too does the individuality and privacy of an electronic sender/receiver.
Maintaining the integrity of a person’s being in digital space then is the paramount concern and privacy is the core problem to be over come. Privacy then is the ability of the individual to self-reveal themselves to the world upon their own terms and share of themselves as they see fit.
If the individual is to find themselves in a world of forced openness, one where the very means of exchange has the right and whim to take this information and do with it what they please without our consent, privacy does not exist. For Cypherpunks then two things are necessary: an autonomous transaction system, a system for privacy to thrive on, and cryptography, a means of ensuring the non-disclosed nature of the data itself.
An Encrypted Creed
The pith of the solution then is sharing of information in the form of code, code that can be protected, and predicting that the code itself will proliferate and become a central means of exchange in society (i.e. become the system for privacy to thrive on). In short, Cypherpunks long to and do create strong encryption algorithms for private transactions in order to offer the individual a means of protected being in cyberspace. This protection is then what allows the proliferation of knowledge as the Cyberpunk defines itself. They go hand in hand.
Both Cyberpunks and Cypherpunks then are forever linked with digital individuality and more specifically, the elements necessary to be able to self-define in Cyberspace.
If encryption and blockchains are the shields protecting a digital self, the Cyberpunks are the individuals acting on those exchanges. Under this defense, they are enabled to further expand their mission of infusing their lives with tech-culture and prizing exchange of information. They are enabled by the “preaching, practicing, and hacking a program of internet anonymity, privacy, and anti-censorship” provided by the Cypherpunk.
Coming Together
Where Cyberpunk and Cypherpunk walk hand in digital hand, so too does the eventuality of the tools used by both: knowledge, encryption, and blockchains. For there is no doubt that Cyberpunk is the initial actor on the blockchain and the first users of encrypted assets like cryptocurrencies. Both forever fascinated by the coin and the potential it represents.
A Place for All
As we all follow our own paths into an electronic world of dark and sordid electronic alleyways, Cyberpunks and Cypherpunks alike provide the light-emitting diodes we need to brighten our way and ensure our individuality. They are the forebears a thus it is to them that we owe a great debt of thanks. Thanks, in the form of continuing to develop our own identities; learning, growing, and building individuals knowledgeably in cyberspace, adopting blockchains and crypto-assets, acting on the rights and responsibilities inherent in an open and free information society.
Like this article? Check out our BCB Cyber Wisdom page to see what other topics we seek to explore in the future.
