At this point, I’m sure regular readers of this blog realize that I’m a pretty unusual fellow, given that I routinely publish industrial quality A.I. software, and have casually rewritten essentially all of known physics, while suggesting the possibility that pop stars are deliberately dropping references to my life in their works. I’m obviously also an extremely cynical person, with years of experience as a Wall Street attorney, which has made me a brutal realist, that is regrettably familiar with the shortcomings of this life, and the pointless inadequacies of our species. So, common sense suggests the truth, which is that I do these things on purpose, to create an even more ridiculous persona, that is layered atop what is already a decidedly ridiculous human being. And this cuts to the utility of mythology, which is that it can be used as a tool to garner attention, and take an already remarkable narrative, and elevate it to symbolic heights. I know this works, because I spend a lot of time thinking about how human beings think.

I have the liberty of living in the United States of America, which I owe to men like Thomas Jefferson, who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their reputations, so that I could conduct this research, that I know will one day completely change the course of human history. And I make a point of being unashamed about my confidence, because to do so is in my opinion to be plainly honest about what I believe, and unapologetic in my honesty. To do so is decidedly American – to dispense with the nonsense and insecurities of others, and to instead have the right say what you think, at all times, and to have that right secured by the power of our Government.

Censorship by the state is rooted in dishonesty, and delusion, by insecure men, for whom the truth brings only pangs of inferiority, and not the joyful echo of what is natural, and plainly the case. For me, the truth is, at a minimum, always useful, since it allows you to identify what is unfortunate, and resolve to change it. Other cultures have decided that it is instead easier to pretend, and to ride a donkey, while pretending you are atop a majestical horse. This way of thinking is not American, and we have to resist the temptation to allow our insecurities to unwind the legal protections against censorship embodied in our Constitution, that have led to a sea change in human knowledge, competence, and happiness. The practical reality, is that the slow push to censorship is the design of lesser cultures attempting to stifle American intellectualism, because they have no hope of competing with us on the merits – it is simply a joke of a contest.

In its brief history, the United States has completely rewritten the human landscape, inventing basically everything that we take for granted today, including recorded audio, electricity, electric light, atomic power, the internet, space travel, and scores of other incremental achievements in understanding that bridged the gaps between these enormous leaps. The United States is also a cultural powerhouse, having invented entirely new genres of art, such as Jazz, that have broken the shackles of the classical tradition, while nonetheless pioneering arguably even greater technical competency, as Jazz pianists routinely play at the same level as a classical concert hall pianist, except they’re improvising the entire time, which is just astonishing.

No other civilization has accomplished this much in such a short amount of time, and you could make the case that this is an absolute – i.e., that no civilization has ever accomplished this much, period.

The reason for this outsized performance gap is obviously due in part to luck, since we started out with some truly extraordinary people, like Jefferson, that were proper geniuses, but also statesmen, and warriors: this is not a typical combination of skill sets, and these men obviously gave the United States a lot of runway to work with. But our success is also rooted in their philosophy, which valued personal liberty, and freedom of speech in particular. They understood how information works, and that censorship could be used as a tool to completely ruin a society, and so they rightly made it quite plain that this is a country that will not tolerate censorship, period.

In a letter to Bishop James Madison, sent two-hundred and twenty years ago, on January 31, 1800, Thomas Jefferson discussed the writings of Johann Adam Weishaupt, who is generally known as the founder of the Illuminati. Ordinarily, if you talk about the Illuminati, people, perhaps fairly, assume that you’re insane, or that at a minimum, you subscribe to unrealistic ideas about how the world works. But the truth is, these organizations were, and still are, very real, because they make sense in an environment where you’re subject to censorship.

This is plainly the conclusion that Jefferson reaches about Weishaupt, saying that had Weishaupt lived in America, rather than Germany, then he would not have resorted to mysticism and the occult, because he would instead have been free to say what he truly believes. The implication is clear, in that Jefferson knows that Weishaupt is not a mystic, but is instead using mysticism as a means of encryption, using a private language that only his followers will understand, because he is operating in an environment where he is not free to say what he truly thinks.

The same is probably true of the alchemical writings of people like Newton, who were obviously not mystics. It is instead far more likely that Newton had ideas that he knew to be of economic and military value, that he did not want to share with the world, and so perhaps instead, he used a language that was known only to people with whom he felt comfortable sharing that knowledge. There are obviously plenty of strange people in the world who believe in ridiculous things, but this does not imply that mysticism is always the product of an occult belief. Rather, in the case of someone like Newton, it’s probably indicative of encryption.

There is nothing you can do about people using secret languages to communicate, if they choose to do so. But, what we can control for is whether or not we respect an individual’s rights under the Constitution to free speech. If we don’t, we will create experts in secret communication, and we will send humanity right back into the dark ages, where our most valuable ideas remain idle in the crypts, rather than being allowed to blossom in an open market place.

Technology has created the opportunity for unprecedented connectivity, allowing ideas to cross enormous distances in a single click. This is, oddly enough, also a subject of Jefferson’s letter to Bishop Madison, in which Jefferson describes some difficulty in sending packages, concluding that the best means is, “some captain of a vessel going round to Richmond”. In contrast, we live in an incredible time, where information can be exchanged, essentially instantaneously, with no cost of transit. This is an astonishing achievement, again, brought to you by the United States.

But, technology also allows foreign governments, and malicious domestic groups, to censor individuals expressing opinions, or sharing information, that might be politically or commercially threatening, which is precisely what I do every day, all day. And I rely upon the protections provided by the Constitution, that entitle me to conduct research within the bounds of the law, to share the fruits of that work, and to claim property in that work through our intellectual property laws. Technology can be used to assist in this process, which it certainly has, in that I can quickly and easily produce professional quality documents, test software, and distribute both. But, the openness and accessibility facilitated by technology also creates a means by which it can be used to harm and suppress people.

We need to come together as a society and address these risks, because they are dangerous to not only the market place of ideas, but also to our financial markets, our personal safety, and the very electoral machinery that allows our democracy to function. We are instead being distracted by people that clearly do not have the United States’ best interests in mind, but would rather pretend, and continue to behave as if these risks don’t exist, so that they can slowly erode the intellectual dialogue that in large part powers this country’s economy, and allows our citizens to vote on an informed, and reasonable basis.