Let there be bits. How to view the machine in the light of Christ

I think Matty Healy, the lead singer from The 1975, summarized our relationship to the digital world well when he said we are all,

“makin’ an aesthetic out of not doing well And minin’ all the bits of you you think you can sell” -The 1975, The 1975 (Being Funny In a Foreign Language) 

As a Bitcoiner, the multilayered meaning to that verse floored me when I first heard it. There is this self-devouring irony to the way we sacrifice our energy and attention to this growing silicon behemoth of data, machine intelligence and bitcoin mining. Each microscopic bit of data etched to those silicon chips represent a bit of our selves that we’ve exchanged for a sub-natural and sub-material realm of frictionless pleasure.

Now don’t get me wrong. I fully admit to contributing to this vortex of self consumption. But the temptation of the digital world is different from other forms of escapism. It has drawn the hearts and attention of our friends and neighbors into its world.

I have written extensively on the ways this environment erodes our trust in one another and material reality. In Zine Issue 01: The Dawn of Surveillance Tokenomics, I explain how this technology isn’t just bad for our mental health, it is a new breed of totalitarianism that Shoshana Zuboff classifies as instrumentarian power.

“Unlike classical authoritarianism, it doesn’t force you into submission—it nudges, shapes, and conditions you to internalize your own compliance. It wants your behavior, not your belief.” 

But unfortunately, as we have read from so many think pieces, human attention is limited. So as this system continues to funnel more and more of our attention and behavior into digital environments, space for meaningful discourse in the physical world dwindles.

As an early adopter to technology, I have long struggled to reconcile the fact that this digital environment is corrosive while the people and art on the other side are not. But ironically it is my Christianity that pulls me back from the doomer loop. It is my Christianity that compelled me to ask, how do we reconcile the good scattered across this environment in faith, hope and love.

Within that contemplative place, I discovered an answer in the fractal relationship between computer bits, Bitcoin and the Christian Logos. This observation by itself does not redeem anything. Rather, it reveals a symbolic thread connecting the light of creation to the sword guarding the tree of life and the spear that pierced the side of Christ, and ultimately outlines a roadmap of reconciliation through self sacrifice.

My hope for those of us who feel trapped in this doom loop is that we can find strength and courage from this cosmic pattern to deliver that which is good, true, and beautiful from the sub-natural digital world (yes, including bitcoin) into a reconciled relationship between the natural and heavenly realms.

Full article here:
https://johnbmint.substack.com/p/let-there-be-bits