As is mentioned earlier, when Bitcoin is born, mankind entered a brand new civilization, which I named Bit Civilization. In my opinion, it's a higher civilization based on the idea of Bitcoin and will transform all aspects of human society, including but not limited to organization, family concept, tool, language, word, belief, law, system, city-state, country, assets, ethics, culture and art. The booming crypto world is the embryonic form of the future Bit Civilization.
As far as I'm concerned, substantially, human civilization is consensus, so is Bit Civilization, currency and value. Consensus constitutes value and value constitutes civilization.
So what exactly is consensus? Consensus mechanism is one of the core concepts of Bitcoin, only when we fully understand consensus, can we be more clear about the value that Bitcoin brings to us.
As I see it, the simplest explanation of consensus is shared knowledge, view, understanding and goal, which will temporarily eliminate differences and ease contradictions, rendering collaboration possible.
Another meaning of consensus is agreement, or contract. Reaching a consensus is garnering a contract. In constant struggle, compromise appears frequently, and the process of compromising is the course of forming an agreement. Consensus is to fix the agreement in the form of opinions, concepts or laws. Major difference indicates big consensus while minor difference signifies small one. In the history of human civilization, most of the consensus was formed in compromise.
We live in an objective world where the stimulation of education, learning, media and other external factors is ceaselessly affecting our cognition and then forming our subjective mind. Cognition is the fruit of accepting the consensus that exists. Concepts such as organization, family concept, tool, language, word, belief, law, system, city-state, country, assets, ethics, culture, art and so forth are not innate, but shaped owing to numerous collisions and concessions in violence and argument. In many cases, things themselves have no concepts and values at all but endowed by the collective consciousness of mankind.
In the past 5000-year history, human civilization came into being on the basis of consensus reached through repeated violence and compromise. But when Bitcoin was born, everything changed. Before, human nature determines whether a consensus can be achieved, normally by violence, treaties, agreements, laws and other forms. However, Bitcoin gives technology and algorithms the access to forming consensus . The previous consensus can be changed and discarded at will. Yet the consensus of Bitcoin is founded on cryptography and mathematics, and that abides by the laws of mathematics sorely.
That is the consensus of Bit Civilization, whose cornerstone is algorithms and technology, transcending human nature in that it is not governed by people and it manages people with the help of algorithms. That's why I gave it that name, it is an advanced human civilization. Bitcoin is leading us from a low-level civilization to a high-level one. It may take one or five or even ten decades, but I believe it will come and no one can stop it.
This is my understanding of some basic concepts of consensus. What's your point?