🍖THE CANNIBALS ARRIVE So you thought the story ended with the Ark of the Covenant doubling as a public urinal, right? The janitors being called Nazi puritans. You would think, that's rock bottom. That's the bottom of the ocean. Nope. NOPE. There's a trench, people. There's always a trench. 'Cause one morning we're up on deck, scrubbing dicks off the hull like responsible adults, and somebody yells, "RAFT OFF THE STARBOARD BOW!" And here they come. The world computer guys. Paddling toward us on a raft made of dead Layer 2s, lashed together with rug pulls. Now these people—these people spent TEN YEARS wandering the desert. And before you ask—yeah, I know, how is there a desert AND a flood? I don't know! It's crypto! Nothing has to make sense! The whitepaper is a vibe! Shut up! Ten years out there. And they started with EVERYTHING, that's the thing. Decentralized finance. Decentralized social media. Decentralized governance. Decentralized toaster firmware. They were gonna decentralize your MARRIAGE. And one by one, every single thing collapsed. The DAOs got drained. The yields went to zero. The gas fees ate the users... and then the users ate each other. That's not a metaphor! That's what happened! Somewhere around year six they ran outta exit liquidity and they just started EATING EACH OTHER. Financially at first! Then... y'know. Spiritually. Then just... regular. So this raft pulls up. And the first guy climbs the ladder, and he's GNAWING ON A FEMUR. He's wearing a "Code is Law" T-shirt, and I don't wanna tell you what the shirt is made of. And he looks around at our boring, functional, monetary ark—the one thing in this entire industry that just WORKS—and you know what the first thing outta his mouth is? "You know what this place needs?" NO. NO WE DON'T. WE DON'T WANNA KNOW WHAT IT NEEDS. It doesn't NEED anything! It's a LIFEBOAT! It's finished! It floats! That's the whole product! "It needs expressivity." EXPRESSIVITY?! You just spent a decade expressing yourselves into CANNIBALISM! You expressed your way through an entire ecosystem! There's nothing left over there but empty Discords and a guy in a wizard hat trying to sell you his own foot! And here's where I lose my mind. Here's where I need a drink. Because you'd think the captains—the guys running the boat—you'd think THEY'D say something. Right? Somebody in a uniform goes, "Hey, maybe don't let the femur guy near the kitchen." NOTHING. The Core guys are down there holding a WELCOME BRUNCH. "We can't discriminate based on dietary preferences! The ark is NEUTRAL TERRITORY! Who are WE to police what consenting adults eat, as long as they pay the cleanup fee!" It's the fee thing again! Everything's fine if there's a fee! You could be boiling a guy in the cargo hold, and as long as you're outbidding a wire transfer, that's not a crime, that's REVENUE! And it escalates, 'cause it always escalates. Week one, the desert people start a little "cooking club." Week two, there's a whitepaper—"Trust-Minimized Protein Sourcing on the Base Layer." Week three, they're trying to TOKENIZE THE PASSENGERS. "Fractional ownership of Steve! Steve is yield-bearing!" STEVE IS A PERSON! Steve fixes the pumps! And the monks—the same poor bastards with the mops, still scraping dicks off the hull—now they gotta fight cannibalism TOO. Same guys! Double shift! And when they say, hey, maybe, MAYBE, the culture of the last lifeboat on Earth shouldn't drift toward EATING THE CREW— "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Dietary fascist much? Kinda closed-minded, bro. Kinda... maximalist." MAXIMALIST?! Yeah! I'm a food maximalist! I maximally believe the passengers should not be the MENU! That's my radical extremist position! Fifteen years ago that was called "being on a boat." Now it's a HATE CRIME! That's the trick, and it's the same trick every time. The guy defending the thing is the extremist. The guy eating his neighbor is the open-minded one. You object to cannibalism on the ark, and some ghoul licking a kneecap goes, "The original passengers don't get to gatekeep the culture, man." THE CULTURE?! The culture was NOT EATING PEOPLE! That was the whole culture! It fit on a napkin! And somewhere out there, Satoshi's watching this. Ghost of the machine, chillin' in the shadow realm. Built an indestructible ark to save the species from the flood. And fifteen years later he's looking down at a boat covered in monkey porn, holding a welcome brunch for cannibals, going: "...I gave you a lifeboat. And you turned it into a floating Jersey Shore bathroom wall with a fee market." But hey. At least the fees are high. The cannibals are eatin'. ...I mean. Yeah. They are. That's the problem. 🍖 xitter.cf/separ8/status/20011069…