Citizen Satoshi

May 1, 2024

The "citizen soldier" in America was the capital-R Revolutionary idea of a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, you know the rest.

The concept of the "citizen developer" carries its own revolutionary logic. Instead of having to rely upon professionals, mercenaries, or the beneficence of the powerful, each one of us has the power to participate in the creation of systems to compel change, not by force of arms, but through the spread of ideas.

What, then, shall we make of the dichotomy between the citizen developer and the professional coder?

Are citizen developers:

• Heroically engaged in a valiant but overmatched battle against chaos, awaiting cavalry that never arrives?

• A disorganized crowd using archaic tools to build unsafe structures that will collapse unless reinforced or rebuilt by licensed professionals?

• A substantive counterweight to the concentration of power by a technological elite?

Consider the case of Linus Torvalds: A professional coder, one of the all-time greats, and yet, in a broader sense, a citizen developer. Instead of taking the prevailing operating systems as an immutable given, he built a new one, and he didn't ask permission first. That was a citizen developer move.

And what about Satoshi Nakamoto? Citizen developer all the way. He imagined what was possible, showed others how to do it, and then disappeared with imagined recompense into blissful anonymity.

Just as in peacetime the citizen soldier goes back to the farm, so must the citizen developer seek homecoming.

What distinguishes the citizen developer is not skill or professionalism, but this uncanny homing instinct: To envision a place, work tirelessly to get there, and then leave.

C-x C-c.