CONET Manifesto

——Defend Personal Sovereignty

"The Greeks did not have a single word to express what we call 'life.' They used two words. Although these two words can be traced back to a common etymological root, they are radically different in semantics and morphology: 'zoē' (ζωή) expresses a simple fact common to all living beings (various animals, humans, or gods)—being 'alive,' while 'bios' (βίος) refers to the proper way or manner of individual or collective existence.

When Plato mentioned three kinds of life in the "Philebus," and Aristotle differentiated contemplative life from a life of pleasure and a political life in the "Nicomachean Ethics," neither philosopher used the term 'zoē.' This stems from a simple fact: the fundamental focus of both philosophers was not on simple natural life but on a life with quality, the existence of individual consciousness.

Ghosts haunt the modern world, haunting us everywhere.

In the "Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844," Karl Marx described a terrifying world for workers who became alienated from the fruits of their labor. For a long time, we have been estranged from the data we generate. It is stored in databases we cannot access, belongs to entities in which we have no stake, and is managed by processes we have not authorized.

Thirty years ago, data modems provided a network connection speed of 0.05 MB/s. Now, civilian 5G networks can easily achieve download speeds of 10 MB/s. In comparison to the past, today's network technology seems like magic. The achievements of the information technology revolution are enhancing our abilities as carbon-based life forms, an extension of humanity, as Marshall McLuhan put it. Today, an ordinary person can travel hundreds of miles per hour, understand news stories worldwide in minutes, send messages at the speed of light, and easily store vast amounts of data. In the eyes of medieval people, we are akin to the Greek gods.

However, while these extension devices make us god-like, they also cause pain and diminish our dignity because these extensions are parts of our bodies that we cannot control. Without proper encryption protection, any smart device with sensors can be used as a surveillance device. We have placed great trust in hardware manufacturers, software engineers, and internet service providers. Time and again, we find that this trust has been betrayed.

Now, most of our interactions with the world happen online, giving a third-party "master switch" the power to censor, manipulate, and delete our feelings, memories, and existence. We are enveloped by ghosts, omnipresent, with no escape.

We are born free.

With technological advancements and the development of human society, more and more people are losing the freedom they should have. Today, we face threats such as government surveillance, corporate espionage, hacker attacks, and various forms of coercion. We need a solution, a way to protect our freedom, a self-governing solution. Fortunately, it has already been found in the field of cryptography, a refuge for freedom. Cryptography truly realizes absolute democracy and individual sovereignty. This democracy comes from fair competition in SHA-256, allowing those with vast resources and ordinary civilians to achieve equality in the face of cryptography. It comes from the spirit of decentralization, from the supreme law of "code is law."

We are born free.

Friedrich Hayek defined freedom as "the absence of coercion." We can judge the social impact of a technology by measuring whether it creates more coercion. In this analysis, most technologies are double-edged swords. For example, firearms can be a carrier of freedom in a revolution but can also be a carrier of mass enslavement in colonization. The general result we obtain from testing is that when a technology empowers individuals, it often creates a more free society. Conversely, when it mainly empowers large institutions, it tends to limit human freedom. Cryptocurrencies created for empowering individuals are undoubtedly a driving force for freedom.

We are born free.

"Chaos, Anarchy, Fraud, Worthless"—these ugly labels stuck on us do not deter us from exploring the truth. Advanced and revolutionary things are often questioned or even condemned; it's a manifestation of the paradoxical law and is normal, especially hostile criticism from opposing forces often proves our correctness. So, to some extent, the criticism from centralized powers against the crypto world doesn't show how bad we are doing but how good we are doing.

We are born free.

The underlying logic of cryptocurrencies is anti-centralization, resistance to centralized systems, and a longing for freedom. This has been written on the Genesis Block of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto. The entry of nodes into the encrypted network is unprecedentedly free, meaning that coercion from authority and inflation of intermediaries find it difficult to find a power space to operate. "The flow of power is greater than the power of flow."

We are born free.

The internet has only achieved the globalization of information, while encryption has achieved the globalization of value. With the support of social media networks and cryptocurrency networks, the values of pacifism and liberalism are transforming into actions of countless individuals.

We are born free.

Encryption is not here to overthrow the internet and governments but to create a better world for humanity. Blockchain takes cooperation among humans to unprecedented heights. This height is built on loyalty to the foundation of mathematics and cryptography, beyond trust in humans themselves. Individuals and organizations are freed from the framework constraints of various centralized institutions, free to migrate, autonomously match, and freely produce. Relationships between people, and between people and things, become closely connected yet independent and free. We can boldly tell the traditional world that encryption has brought about a revolution in human relations of production, opening up the next era after humanity.

We salute Timothy May and Eric Hughes.

We salute Nick Szabo and Hal Finney.

We salute Satoshi Nakamoto.

We salute those great cypherpunk pioneers. You can question them, praise them, or vilify them, but you cannot ignore them because they changed the world. They are warriors who shouted for freedom and justice, who made humanity take a giant step forward, seen as madmen by others but gods in our eyes.

When everything is anchored, freedom becomes the most precious gift. Crypto believers, justice and order will not come on their own. If you want to obtain this precious gift, we must unite and defend it together. Create a new world of freedom and secrecy. For centuries, people have protected their privacy through whispers, the cover of night, sealed envelopes, tightly closed doors, secret hand signals, and postal services. Past technologies could not support reliable privacy, but now, cryptography can.

The era needs us. For a better encrypted world, for a better human world. Let us inherit the free will of crypto pioneers, ride on this ship of encrypted Theseus, even though the journey may encounter technical undercurrents, navigate through algorithmic perils, pass through hacker reefs, witness human good and evil, we will eventually traverse the noisy voices and sail towards the other side of the kingdom of freedom and justice.

If a decentralized social structure is the ultimate form of humanity, let everything change from ourselves. Let our efforts be imprinted on the monument of the era, recorded in the scrolls of history, and let future generations sing our praises! We are gunpowder, igniters; we transcend morality, transcend good and evil, we are the catalysts of change. We must reclaim our rights and defend our freedom.

We aim to create a world like this:

A decentralized world that operates in a fair and orderly manner on its own.

A world that returns to the primal essence of humanity, a world of freedom and conscious living.

A world recognized, respected, and integrated by the traditional world.

When the liberating sunshine bathes the world, we can fully enjoy the freedom and liberation brought by blockchain technology without worrying about fraud or baseless regulatory accusations. The beautiful world envisioned by the pioneers of cryptography can truly be realized.

Bitcoin is beautiful because it is free, pure, and decentralized. Once this monster is unleashed, no one can stop it or prohibit it. It will continue to operate. CONET is no different – once it is unleashed, it cannot be stopped.

The future is unordered. The world of the future is one dominated by non-linearity and asymmetry. If you see what I see, if you feel what I feel, if you are willing to pursue like I do, then I implore you to stand by my side, join us, don't wait, but together let's build a new world of freedom and purity.