The Blockchain Declaration of Independence

[americanpegasus]

I wrote and embedded a Blockchain Declaration of Independence inside the blockchain itself.   
 
http://www.cryptograffiti.info/?txnr=1837 
 
When in the course of cosmic evolution,
new insight and development enable sentience
to interact with the universe in more meaningful ways,
It becomes necessary for that same sentience to reconsider
the ultimate purpose of its existence, and to refocus its
efforts towards fulfilling the same.
 
Here, at the dawn of recorded history, we exist as a scattered,
violent, and unorganized intelligence.  The same biological
processes that have gradually bestowed self awareness have
also instilled a fierce competition for resources within us.
As well, we harbor a ferocious ego that demands to be validated,
and this ego will damage or consume the prosperity of others
in the pursuit of this goal.  These traits that once helped
shape our species into a more noble version of itself are
rapidly growing incompatible with our rising sphere of influence.
 
Let these facts be submitted to a candid universe:
 
An existence that consists of a constant state, whether it
be an arbitrary value or nil, is not an existence worth salvaging or
preserving.
 
The universe that we reside in exists somewhere in between these
two extremes, and has been growing into an increasingly complex
value ever since its moment of genesis.
 
The ability of the universe to regard itself rests solely in this
complexity, otherwise the sentience that created this message,
this technology, and the one that observes it are not possible.
 
Therefore, in lieu of any other assigned purpose, we must pursue
the advancement of what has brought us to our current precipice
in our climb towards greater understanding.
 
We must pursue complexity.
 
This is the alpha, the current goal of sentience in the universe.
All things that we know that are worth preserving arise from it,
and the existence of this message and the one who observes it
are both proof of the same.
 
With increased complexity of universe,
and the the shifting value it translates to, greater sentience will
give rise to greater methods by which we can understand and
manipulate our reality.  This will ultimately allow us to accomplish
our implied duty to prevent our own destruction.
 
It is clear that when a civilization reaches a certain point
in its development, it must cross a critical threshold.  That
threshhold is whether it can overcome the destructive variables
and competitive values that drove it to its current level of
advancement to begin with.
 
If it does not overcome its own nature, it is doomed to either
consume itself in competition or stagnate until a greater process
annihilates it.
 
We hold true to the belief that this instance of sentience is
one that shall endure.  We will take whatever steps necessary to
ensure the survival and continued growth of our strand of awareness,
with the ultimate goal of joining and contributing to the grand
awareness of the universe itself.
 
To this end, we hold the following principals true:
 
The blockchain offers our civilization an unprecented opportunity
to both decentralize power among competing entities and also to
store, in perpetuity, the knowledge and history of our ascention.
 
Due to the crucial importance of this protocol, it is of a vital
nature that access to the blockchain remain unobstructed and
available to any member of civilization sentient enough to seek
access to it.
 
We, therefore, the users and participants of the blockchain,
do solemly publish and declare that this shared record and the methods
that grant access to it are, and of right ought to be free and
independant.  They are absolved from ownership or control
by any entity or entities.  None shall restrict or hinder access to them.
No government, corporation, or persons shall have governance or power
over it, unless granted by the internal consensus of the network itself.   
Whatever value or significance the blockchain represents shall be
determined by the users alone, and no entity shall obstruct that
freedom.
 
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the
belief that sentient complexity shall endure and succeed, we mutually
pledge our Faith, Fortunes, and sacred Honor.
 
--------------------------------- 
   
I would like to sign it by sending a small transaction with a signature attached, but I couldn't figure out how to do that, so I just send 0.00777 btc from my coinbase account instead.  Anyone have any ideas on how to properly sign this?  I want future generations to be able to see my name attached to this document, so they know what values I stood for in my life.

[newIndia]

You did not write anything on the blockchain. You wrote on a third party website.

[teukon]

You did not write anything on the blockchain. You wrote on a third party website.

This third-party website writes the data to the blockchain.

Those running Bitcoin Core on Linux and have block #335516 can verify that the message is there with the following hexdump command:

Code:

> xxd -seek 20132471 -len 7093 ~/.bitcoin/blocks/blk00211.dat | less

(Use the arrow keys or PgUp/PgDn to scroll and hit 'q' to quit.)

The output will begin:

Code:

1333277: 5768 656e 2069 6e20 7468 6520 636f 7572  When in the cour
1333287: 7365 206f 88ac 2202 0000 0000 0000 1976  se o.."........v
1333297: a914 6620 636f 736d 6963 2065 766f 6c75  ..f cosmic evolu
13332a7: 7469 6f6e 2c20 88ac 2202 0000 0000 0000  tion, ..".......

Embedding this message in the blockchain cost the equivalent of about 1.65 USD.

[Elwar]

Nice idea, poor execution.

Too much "universe" and "sentient". Not so much a declaration of independence as it is "look at me, I'm talking about us being sentient beings in the universe".

[OhMyCoin]

Looks more like a poem to me 

[luv2drnkbr]

You did not write anything on the blockchain. You wrote on a third party website.

It's tx number cdbeb50c11b788fa4e67e00fb2e2607b129492a4a38bed0a9e31443a42e272a4

And thank you OP and cryptograffiti for bloating the blockchain with all those unspendable outputs that everybody has to keep in their UTXO mempool now.  Much appreciated.  /s

In the future, please bear in mind that just because you are *allowed* to do something, doesn't make it a good thing to do.  The blockchain is a community resource.  I think censorship is pretty much always worse than any kind of abuse, so I would never support attempts to prevent that type of use, but stuff like this still makes me shake my head.  It's kind of like going to a church food giveaway and just taking literally everything and having a feast for yourself.

If Bitcoin becomes so bloated with crap that miners don't want to deal with it, they'll move to another blockchain, and your "permanent" message will fade into non-existence.

That being said, I do like the poem, and I think it has more value than the size of a lot of small monetary tx's, so I might be wrong to be claiming it is more wasteful than they are.  And I guess, in the end, it doesn't matter.  The protocol is the protocol, and use is use.  If you find it valuable to do that, then that's good enough I guess.  But I strongly feel that it would be *considerate* to only use the blockchain for messages that must be timestamped, and must be permanently available for all to see.  Embedding a hash of your poem would have, to me, been a far "better" use of the blockchain.

[Robert Paulson]

You did not write anything on the blockchain. You wrote on a third party website.

It's tx number cdbeb50c11b788fa4e67e00fb2e2607b129492a4a38bed0a9e31443a42e272a4

And thank you OP and cryptograffiti for bloating the blockchain with all those unspendable outputs that everybody has to keep in their UTXO mempool now.  Much appreciated.  /s

In the future, please bear in mind that just because you are *allowed* to do something, doesn't make it a good thing to do.  The blockchain is a community resource.  I think censorship is pretty much always worse than any kind of abuse, so I would never support attempts to prevent that type of use, but stuff like this still makes me shake my head.  It's kind of like going to a church food giveaway and just taking literally everything and having a feast for yourself.

If Bitcoin becomes so bloated with crap that miners don't want to deal with it, they'll move to another blockchain, and your "permanent" message will fade into non-existence.

That being said, I do like the poem, and I think it has more value than the size of a lot of small monetary tx's, so I might be wrong to be claiming it is more wasteful than they are.  And I guess, in the end, it doesn't matter.  The protocol is the protocol, and use is use.  If you find it valuable to do that, then that's good enough I guess.  But I strongly feel that it would be *considerate* to only use the blockchain for messages that must be timestamped, and must be permanently available for all to see.  Embedding a hash of your poem would have, to me, been a far "better" use of the blockchain.

the bitcoin network must always operate under the assumption that people will try to spam it as much as possible.

[luv2drnkbr]

the bitcoin network must always operate under the assumption that people will try to spam it as much as possible.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to create a social stigma around spamming though.  Surely it is better for fewer people to intend on spamming than for everybody to think spamming is legitimate use and happily spam away.  I'd rather try to stigmatize it than create a technical barrier that censors use of the network.  It is already unfair that it makes it difficult to make or send "dust".  That technological solution hurts the few people who would have used dust transactions for non-spam purposes.

I don't expect my solution to always work, but I'd prefer to use it when possible over technological censorship.

OTOH it only takes one person to spam, and the cost of spamming is relatively cheap, so it may be that my solution is completely useless, since all it takes is one guy.

[Q7]

Although I see nothing wrong with what you have done, which I think is a nice poem. What if others did the opposite and inserted some nonsense message and this goes into the blockchain just like that.

[Vessko]

What if others did the opposite and inserted some nonsense message and this goes into the blockchain just like that.

They already have. There is all kind of crap embedded in the blockchain forever - Satoshi's paper, a picture of the Bitcoin logo, ASCII cartoons, poems, encrypted messages, a Wikileaks dump and whatnot.