Originally published at: https://integrallife.com/the-gamestop-revolution-has-started-it-wont-be-televised/
he revolution won’t be televised, it will be Reddited. And it has started. In a four year run of incredible, historic events, it’s hard to objectively recognize which and when the most significant of them occurs. But I think it possible that one of the most important events of the past several years is playing out as we speak: the deep structure of society has just phase-shifted into a state of conditions necessary for Teal to emerge and without which it cannot: the GameStop Revolution is putting in place a demand by the crowd that will force Green-platform power holders to either evolve to Teal or become increasingly irrelevant.
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The GameStop revolution was brought to my attention by my son, who got to it before me. He is a computer science undergraduate who is doing a module on computer ethics. One of the topics was on how he and his fellow students are going to change the Internet and what rules are they going to live by. He is building his own computer - and limiting the software. Saying no to everything Microsoft want to mine from him, not using a separate virus guard as they gather data too (not to mention slowing everything down). He supports the platforms that shake the foundations of irresponsible capitalism. He knows we need still capitalism.
So why do I post? I’ve just watched Robb Smith’s call to Teal and Turquoise to join the battle to include “the deplorables” into the fullness of our reality and to love their fear away. Looking at my son and his friends, their inclusivity, I wonder if the work of my elder generation is to support these Young people as they go about transforming our reality.
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That’s incredible Andrew, and it really doesn’t surprise me as it is of the same pattern I’m pointing to, the idea that the technology allows for, and now consciousness and values are demanding, that individual sovereignty reassert against capital and poltical-monopoly. You should be very proud to have a child who is so on top of the zeitgeist.
And yes, that’s exactly what I think our role is: to help the coming generation transcend the limits of the moment in their total selves and give them the tools, support, and protection to do so.
I really wish I could understand this excitement about Bitcoin.
To me it seems that in spite of all the theoretical benefits of the blockchain, which have been advertised now for about a decade (and have yet to manifest), Bitcoin does not seem to provide anything inspiring and worthwhile (again, unless I simply don’t understand something here). On the contrary it seems to emphasize the most extreme downside of out-of-control Orange (admittedly in the garb of Green): It is used almost exclusively for pure speculation, adding nothing whatsoever to the good of humanity, not supporting any creation or effort for the betterment of humanity but simply offering unbelievable speculative potential for gains without work–redirecting the brain power of intelligent people, that otherwise could be used for good, to get rich from betting.
In addition it displays the same kind of waste of resources in the way it is “mined”, employing unbelievable amounts of processing power (that again, could be otherwise used for so many more useful things) as well as electricity, and ultimately our environment, simply to provide riches for people who are adding nothing to the betterment of our world.
I have real trouble seeing the good in Bitcoin, especially in how it is being used at this time.
I would love to be educated and see how it benefits humanity–in a real and tangible way–and how the entire speculative craziness can be taken out of it…but as for now I am more than skeptical.
To be clear what I mean: There is a lot of interesting stuff that one COULD achieve with blockchain technologies. However, up to this point, I know not a single person who buys Bitcoins in order to do ANYTHING but hope that it goes up by a few thousand percentage points and that they become a millionaire or billionaire through it without providing a whit of value to the rest of humanity. While I am just as susceptible to these kinds of temptations as the next guy, I simply do not see how this is good for us in any way. At least “traditional” money/credit/currency is still to SOME extent exchanged for actual services and valuable products–in addition to the crazy “financial market”. Bitcoin, instead of focusing more on the valuable part of the economy, completely eliminates this and is purely used for financial speculation.
Even the entire “Game Stop” saga only seems to be a good thing because it counteracts (and reveals) the crazy institutional speculation by allowing “regular” people a similar power (although most analysts now point out that the major winners in this game were, of course again, the big players)–but by itself it was nothing but pure speculation as well, and not creating any real value outside of the “financial markets”. So it’s an evil used to fight another evil. Necessary, maybe–but not in and of itself valuable.
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IMHO Bitcoin is simply a tool like any other. It can be used for good or ill. It is in its infancy. To use an old trope, do we scold a child when it falls over and breaks a vase when we are teaching them to walk? As a heads up to the opportunity for an economy that is rooted in convened people rather than national states, maybe we should be paying some interest?
It’s really sad that there could be so many people open to expanding their consciousness and yet their facts and narrative continually and consistently come from the mainstream news sources that have proven to be unreliable, at the very shortest time span, since “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. The fact that people cannot see past an organized political machine propagandizing it’s people at every turn to give the populace less power and less of a voice, well it’s just disheartening.
For all the intellectual hand jobbing that goes on here, there is very little critical thought and if you don’t toe the political line you are just another -ism to be disregarded.
If you pay attention you will notice the press is claiming this GME thing is “white supremacy” now too. I wonder, how long can our “intellectuals” blame white people for everything before realizing how much violence and atrocities have happened at the hands of other skin colors across the world? Sierra Leone, Pol
Pot’s killing fields, I really don’t need to list them for you.
Its just shocking I can consistently come to a place that’s focused on growth and transformation and yet the majority of the time it’s just a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals repeating mainstream talking points about Trump. He’s one person, let it go. It’s not healthy to be so obsessed with one man and blame the entire world’s problems on him. Oh not to mention the evil white guy was replaced with a slightly more insane white guy, but yet the cognitive dissonance hasn’t kicked in for that because Anderson Vanderbi… Cooper hasn’t said that’s evil mr bad guy yet. Shadow work, yeah… that’s the bad guy right over there the evil white guy.
Hi Rynol, welcome.
This consciousness thing with pseudo intellectuals, yep it’s a biggie and a frustrating one at that. And it is so easy to join in with the hand wringing and sage nodding - I’ve spent a good time doing that.
And again it’s one that those higher up this site’s food chain are totally aware of. If you look at what’s going on overall here, you’ll see a huge move from upper left to upper and lower right. There is a good and welcome emphasis on Showing Up. Have a look at the Practice part of this site.
For me, the expanse of evolution and limitations of free will means that reality isn’t going to change to suit what I want through my efforts. However I can be a part of that part of society that is convening at Teal and Turquoise. With that mindset, I can then choose how to show up in the world.
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You wrote
Even the entire “Game Stop” saga only seems to be a good thing because it counteracts (and reveals) the crazy institutional speculation by allowing “regular” people a similar power (although most analysts now point out that the major winners in this game were, of course again, the big players)–but by itself it was nothing but pure speculation as well, and not creating any real value outside of the “financial markets”. So it’s an evil used to fight another evil. Necessary, maybe–but not in and of itself valuable.
I think the problem that these people on Reddit want to address is not speculation by the hedge funds. The problem is also not short selling stocks, betting that they will go down. The problem is that this is often accompanied by all sorts of tricks to manipulate the stock price, most of which are illegal like creating false rumors, collusion, naked short selling… A company going bankrupt would be one of the most profitable outcomes. This is explained well by hedge fund manager Jim Cramer in this video, at the time he probably was talking for a private audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMuEis3byY4
The guy still has a show on MSNBC.
For those who prefer reading, here is a good explanation http://counterfeitingstock.com/CS2.0/CounterfeitingStock.html
What those traders at Reddit are doing is not “similar” as you seem to be implying: they did everything in the open, they saw a legal opportunity and are simply buying and holding the stock that the hedge funds desperately need.
As for value creation besides the educational value, most of the gains by the small buyers will definitely go into the real economy. One of the most upvoted posts (201k) is about a guy donating game consoles to a children’s hospital. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l8c0u4/used_some_of_my_gme_tendies_to_buy_nintendo/
What I meant by “similar” is not so much about the HOW or the exact mechanics or legality. It is just that these kinds of things are not value producing in and of themselves. For example: if you create a useful product or service, and someone pays you for it, even if eventually you make billions off it, you are in essence producing something valuable (sure, depending on what the product is, it may be MORE or LESS valuable, or people may have different opinions about how valuable it is) but in essence money is exchanged for something real and valuable.
If you are manipulating currencies, stocks, futures or betting on them, you aren’t adding anything useful to the world. Sure, some forms of manipulation are worse than others, and the Reddit users may have been using these methods in order to achieve some worthwhile goals…but they were only necessary because this kind of game exists in the first place.
I think it is a waste of human ingenuity.
From what I have read, by the way, it was again mostly huge institutional investors and hedge funds that profited most from the gain in Game Stop stock. (just different hedge funds than the ones who lost big)
Yes, of course anyone can use their gains in the stock market (or from bank robbery, for that matter–not that I am saying these are equivalent) to do worthwhile things. I am not doubting that.
But that does not make the activity of stock/futures/currency betting intrinsically valuable.
I am arguing that spending computer power and environmental resources on running useless calculations in order to “mine” Bitcoin, or spending your brainpower to game the stock market, are essentially a waste of resources. These do not in and of themselves provide value.
I am also not saying that these things need to disappear. It is just that I cannot get very excited about them, as agents of creating a more beautiful, more true or good world. I think they are a distraction.
…but Robb is not the only very intelligent person who seems to think differently–so I would really like to understand what they are seeing in this, that makes them so excited.
I like your analogy between spending computer power and brainpower. The people at Walllstreetbets would probably jokingly answer that they are not using much brainpower for what they are doing, they like to refer to themselves as “retards”.
I understand you, I just want to suggest that maybe our concepts of “intrinsic value” and “evil” are preventing us from seeing what is actually happening in the world. (Does posting on a discussion board has “intrinsic value”?) From the millions of data elements in this story you mention twice that “the major winners in this game were (other) big players”. Since this is happening every day it may be an distraction to focus on that…
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If nothing else, this thread has got me onto Reddit and the Integral group there.
Yes. Like I said, it’s not like I think these things should not exist (or if I did, that I think it makes a whit of a difference what I think should or shouldn’t exist) Just that I don’t understand why this is where some (very intelligent) people are placing their excitement about progress towards a more beautiful world.
I think these things are extremely interesting–they are fascinating (almost addicting) for the intellect–some of them have a “Robin Hood” (pun intended) kind of quality that seems satisfying in a “sticking it to the man” kind of way (that’s why I’m pointing out that mostly that probably isn’t actually what happened: “The man” didn’t get stuck to very much)–but if an evolutionary push is coming from that direction that is going to get us to a place that heals the worst downsides of Orange, I think it would be in a very roundabout way, and may at first actually exacerbate these downsides.
The past few days a lot of these young people are getting a heavy dose of Red and Orange as they learn people in positions of wealth and power do not like losing billions of dollars.
For some SEC investigations.
For most they got in at the top of the “pump” and were told to hold at the “dump”. So with GME they got in at 200-300+ and are now down to 50-ish.
The majority of the Proletariat of the Revolution got Massacred while those leading the charge cashed in.
Yes raybennett I agree that it has probably been a disaster for many of the people who got attracted by the news. I also agree now with Mbohu that it has been a big distraction. This is after I checked out what was happening on the Reddit subforum since Robb posted his article. I also hadn’t seen how this was reported in the mainstream media. Many of the articles in the news feel almost like an advertisement for this kind of behavior and the brand name Robin hood was especially suited. Is it because of green journalists getting excited about taking on orange business? Or are there more sinister motives?
Anyhow, like I said I agree what followed is probably a disaster for many of the people involved. The subforum saw its membership rise from 2 million to 8,5 million in a couple of days. It is an echo chamber with lots of groupthink and confirmation bias going on. Like you said a lot of people were inspired by red, orange and green memes and bought the stock at whatever the cost when it was higher. I have seen many pictures of huge losses. I am not seeing much potential for how this is going to lead to a fairer system.
I shared a more detailed analysis on the Integral subforum at Reddit
I think ultimately the various media write stories that appeal to their audience.
So I’m sure “green” getting excited is part of the story. But only a small part in my opinion.
I’m not an expert at trading by any means - just explored enough to know it wasn’t for me so here are some ideas from that very amateur perspective:
- It’s possible to be a kind of “scavenger” in the market and shave a bit off of big players. But also there are what are called “sharks” who periodically “cull the herd”. So one thing that might have happened is the sharks hyped up the narrative then bailed with profits when volume of trading started to slow.
- It’s also possible that the largest owners of the stock (Tesla, for example) were using front men to hype up their stocks. Then they would sell their stocks at the peak, knowing they could buy again later (they know the real value of their company, lol).
I’m sure there are a half dozen other similar scenarios that most journalists wouldn’t bother to cover because they don’t think their audience would be able to understand the ins and outs (or the journalists don’t understand or are not interested). I don’t just think this is true of the “mainstream media” - but the media across all audiences.
I think the stock market is just pure red most the time. Dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, zero sum game. That could be just me saying that or it could actually be how it is and if that’s the case than any coverage of it other than that is just a story being told for entertainment.