Edited some bits to maintain essay consistency.

_posts/2019-05-26-revolution-and-systems.md

@@ -4,24 +4,24 @@ title: "Silk Road, Revolutions and Systems"
 categories: blog
 ---
 
-Today, I read the [story of Silk Road][silkroad] - How an idealist, Ross
-Ulbricht, tired of chasing success the old school way, found his way around
-creating an online {% sidenote 'sn-id-darknet' "As a part of the
-[darkweb][darknet], it was operated as a Tor hidden service which protects
-personal privacy of users by concealing their details from anyone conducting
-network surveillance, from Government to their ISP. Additionally, all payments
+Today, I read the [story of Silk Road][silkroad]: how the young idealist Ross
+Ulbricht, tired of chasing success the old school way, found his way around the **darkweb** to 
+create an online {% sidenote 'sn-id-darknet' "As a part of the
+[darkweb][darknet], it was operated as a *Tor* hidden service which protected the
+personal privacy of users by concealing their details from anyone - from the Government to their ISP - conducting
+network surveillance. Additionally, all payments
 were made using [ Bitcoin ][bitcoin], a cryptocurrency which provides a certain
-degree of anonymity." %} bazaar for trading of illicit materials, mainly drugs,
+degree of anonymity." %} bazaar for the trading of illicit materials, mainly drugs,
 which he named Silk Road.
 
-The aim behind writing this blog post was to think out loud and trying to build
-an insight into the oversight of some of the most prominent revolutionaries of
-the past.
+The aim behind writing this blog post is to think out loud and try to gain 
+insight into the oversights made by some of the most prominent revolutionaries in
+history.
 
 <!--more-->
 
 When operating his online empire, Ross would take on the identity of Dread
-Pirate Roberts (~DPR) (borrowing the name from The Princess Bride, in which the
+Pirate Roberts (~DPR) (borrowing the name from *The Princess Bride*, in which the
 pirate was a mythical character, inhabited by the wearer of the mask).
 
 Ross (aka DPR) was having trouble switching back-and-forth between these
@@ -41,44 +41,45 @@ beautifully [in the original article ][silkroad]:
 > the feverish visionary creating a virtual empire at any cost. Neither truth
 > invalidated the other. Ross and DPR can (and did) coexist.
 
-Even until now, if you haven't read the [story][silkroad], please do! - It is
-one of the most interesting and riveting cyber-criminology reports I've ever read.
 
-Coming back, well, Ross didn't exactly dream of building this huge empire of
+Ross didn't exactly dream of building this huge empire of
 illicit business, but it was essentially all baby steps,
 {% sidenote 'sn-id-baby' 'As B.J. Neblett said "We are the sum total of our experiences. Those
 experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any
 given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and
 those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the
 person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be
 tomorrow."' %}
-rooting back to the influence Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist who was
-described by the story as "a totem of the modern American libertarian
-orthodoxy", had on Ross. According to von Mises, a citizen must have economic
-freedom to be politically or morally free.
-
-Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Ludwig von Mises - They all had an ideology - a
-vision of the ideal world, a way of bringing peace to world - an expression
-which society must adhere to lead them towards the state of utter completeness
+stemming from the influence Ludwig von Mises - an Austrian economist 
+described in the [story][silkroad] as "a totem of the modern American libertarian
+orthodoxy" - had on Ross. According to von Mises, a citizen must have economic
+freedom to be politically and morally free.
+
+If you haven't read the [story][silkroad] yet, please do and then come back! It might easily
+be one of the most riveting cyber-criminology reports you ever read.
+
+Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Ludwig von Mises, they all had an ideology - a
+vision of the ideal world, and a way of bringing peace to world. For them, it embodied an
+expression which society must adhere to lead them towards utter completeness
 and happiness.
 
-The ideology of Hitler was of an ideology of conquest: the "manifest destiny" of
-a superior race to conquer, occupy, and control lands of the "lesser" people,
-the _Untermenschen_, for the sole benefit of the superior race.
+The ideology of Hitler was an ideology of conquest: the "manifest destiny" of
+a superior race to conquer, occupy, and control lands of the "lesser" people -
+the _Untermenschen_ - for the sole benefit of the superior race.
 
-The ideal society for Stalin was the one in which people contribute to it
+The ideal society for Stalin was one in which people contribute to it
 because they feel it is their pleasure and responsibility to do so, and in which
-people only consume what they need, while mindful of the needs of others.
+people only consume what they need while being mindful of the needs of others.
 
 And they executed their ideas, bringing about their 'revolution'!
 
-Both the regimes - The Third Reich and Stalinism were responsible for millions
-of deaths and for untold amounts of suffering.
+Both regimes - the Third Reich and Stalinism - were responsible for millions
+of deaths and untold amounts of suffering.
 
-Although one can argue that the 'revolution' of Ross was nowhere even near their
-scale, but that is immaterial to this discussion. It followed the same
-pattern which was summed up by Bearman, the author of the original story, rather
-well:
+Although one can argue that Ross Ulbricht's 'revolution' was nowhere near that
+scale, but that is immaterial to our discussion. It followed the same
+pattern which was summed up by Bearman rather
+well in the original story:
 
 [silkroad]: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/
 [darknet]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet
@@ -99,82 +100,82 @@ _Isn't it strange - How we become the very thing we fight against!_
 >
 >  ― Friedrich W. Nietzsche 
 
-For people who prefer fiction over history, what happened with the [finale of
-Game of Thrones][gotfinale] was a prime example of this notion. [Spoilers Ahead]
+For people who prefer examples in fiction over history, what happened with the [finale of
+Game of Thrones][gotfinale] is a prime example of this pattern. [Spoilers Ahead]
 In light of everything Daenerys [one of show's main protagonists] accomplished —
 birthing dragons out of stone, freeing thousands of slaves, helping the Starks
 defeat an army of ice-zombies — the viewers first handedly experienced the
-mindset of a revolutionary who decided that they need to liberate the entire
-world. Yet, it was when she failed to draw a line between herself and her vision
+mindset of a revolutionary who believed that it was incumbent upon her to liberate the entire
+world. Yet it was when she failed to draw a line between herself and her vision
 {% sidenote 'sn-id-dany' "The time when she succumbed to her temptations,
-killing thousands of people in King's Landing" %}, that she failed as a ruler, becoming exactly
-what she came to abolish - tyranny. It is worth noting here that all the while
-she burned innocent people, she was fueled by the exact same idea - to liberate
-the world from tyranny.
+burning alive and hence killing thousands of people in King's Landing" %}that she failed as a ruler, becoming exactly
+what she had hoped to abolish: tyranny. It is worth noting here that all the while
+she unapologetically burnt the innocent, she was fueled by the exact same idea - to liberate
+the innocents of the world from tyranny.
 
 [gotfinale]: https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Season_8
 
-In Ross's case, the fact that he was feeling unease even as DPR (who was a
-rather confident and eloquent character) was the first clue that the shadows of
-the doom had already fallen across him - that he had already begun failing
-what he had intended to do, but he deceived himself in the name of his idea - in
+In Ross's case, the fact that he was feeling uneasy even as DPR (who was a
+rather confident and eloquent character); that he had already begun failing
+at what he had intended to do was the first clue that the shadows of
+doom had already fallen upon him. But he deceived himself in the name of his idea - in
 the belief that he was doing the _right thing_.
 
-Is it really this belief and total devotion to your idea that blinds us, or is
-it the power and the riches which corrupts us or maybe it is a fundamental
-misunderstanding of our very own conceived idea? It might as well be some skewed
-combination of all of the above, maybe?
+Is it really this belief and total devotion to our idea that blinds us, or is
+it the power and the riches which corrupts us? Or maybe it is a fundamental
+misunderstanding of our very own conceived idea? Perhaps it might be a skewed
+combination of all of the above.
 
-I do not claim that I know the answers to all, or any, of the questions above.
+I do not claim to know the answers to any of the above questions.
 
-But let's look through another revolutionary, Mahatma Gandhi and the revolution
+But let's look at another revolutionary: Mahatma Gandhi and the revolution
 he brought about in India.
 
 {% marginfigure 'mf-id-gandhi' 'assets/img/gandhi.jpg' 'Mahatma Gandhi was
 called Bapu (Father) by many, including Jawaharlal Nehru' %}
 
-In response to the [Rowlatt Act][rowlatt] brought by the British and the
+In response to the [Rowlatt Act][rowlatt] imposed by the British and the
 [Jallianwala Bagh Massacre][jallianwala], Gandhi lead the non-cooperation
-movement appealing people to to adopt swadeshi goods and local handicrafts and
-to refuse to buy British goods. The movement was based on the principle of
+movement, appealing to the masses to adopt swadeshi goods and local handicrafts to
+boycott British goods. The movement was based on the principle of
 _Ahimsa_ (Non-Violence), and after two years of hard work, it gained full
 momentum in 1922. It seemed that the dream of _Swaraj_ (self-governance) was
-finally near.
+finally turning to reality.
 
-But giving a face to Gandhi's fears, the cases of violence were reported from
+But giving a face to Gandhi's fears, cases of violence were reported from
 all over the nation, and after the [Chauri-Chaura][chaurichaura]
-{% sidenote 'sn-id-chauri' 'A large group of protesters, participating in the
-Non-cooperation movement, clashed with police, who opened fire. In retaliation,
+{% sidenote 'sn-id-chauri' 'A large group of protesters participating in the
+Non-cooperation movement clashed with the police, who opened fire. In retaliation,
 the demonstrators attacked and set fire to a police station, killing all of its
 occupants.' %}
-incident, he decided to call off the protest single-handedly. This was indeed a
-very difficult and brave decision on his part - he could have got what he wanted
-ignoring these 'mild' cases of violence for the nation, but his moral cadre was
-defiant of such a behavior and he chose to voice it. 
+incident, he decided to call off the protest indefinitely. This was indeed a
+very difficult and brave decision on his part - he could have gotten what he wanted and
+ignored the 'milder' cases of violence for the nation, but his moral caliber was
+defiant of such behavior and he chose to voice it. 
 
-It was perhaps because he believed in a perpetual fight, a fight we
-all have to fight against our own moral demons, and that the nation must not
-resort to the demon of violence.
+It was perhaps because he believed in a perpetual fight - a fight we
+all have to fight against our own moral demons - in which the nation must not
+succumb to the demon of violence.
 
-Subsequently, Gandhi launched many such campaigns perfecting the concept of
+Subsequently, Gandhi launched many campaigns perfecting the concept of
 [_Satyagrah_][satyagrah] {% sidenote 'sn-id-satyagrah' "सत्याग्रह (Satyagrah):
 सत्य (Truth) + आग्रह (insistence) - सत्य के लिए आग्रह - _The truth force_, is a
-particular form of non-violent civil resistance" %} finally leading the nation
+particular form of non-violent civil resistance" %}, finally leading the nation
 to independence in 1947.
 
 [rowlatt]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowlatt_Act
 [jallianwala]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
 [chaurichaura]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauri_Chaura_incident
 [satyagrah]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha
 
-I guess we all get to play Ross sometimes, and I believe that creating moral
-barriers, as Gandhi did, to encourage the high moral regard of one's own
-values - be it a ruthless round of questioning one's very own beliefs and
+I guess we all get to play Ross sometimes, and I believe that creating
+barriers, as Gandhi did, to encourage the higher moral stance of one's own
+values - be it by ruthless questioning of one's own beliefs and
 biases, or having an external support mechanism for keeping oneself on track -
 would help us dodge the doom of our system.
 
-But, I do find it very interesting to ponder upon how 'easy' it is to be
-lost, to be engrossed so deeply into your vision to forget what it stood for in
-the first place, to cross the rather fine line drawn between us and the monster.
-And how tools like identities, the different masks we wear, makes it all the
-more easier.
+But I do find it very interesting to ponder upon how 'easy' it is to be
+lost, to be engrossed so deeply into our visions to forget what it stood for in
+the first place; to cross the rather fine line drawn between us and the monster,
+and how tools like identities and the different masks we wear make it all the
+more easier.