The Honesty of Violence

This is an uncomfortable observation, not a moral endorsement.

In a fiat system, the jobs that feel most internally coherent are the ones closest to enforcement. Police. Military. Courts. Borders. Prisons.

Not because violence is good — but because fiat itself is ultimately backed by coercion. Those roles don’t pretend otherwise. They’re aligned with the system’s real source of authority.

Most other jobs exist several layers removed. They rely on narratives, KPIs, contracts, compliance frameworks, and “trust in the system.” But peel it back far enough and enforcement is always underneath. Someone, somewhere, has the power to make non-compliance hurt.

That distance creates dissonance.
You’re paid as if you create value, but the system runs on something else.

Enforcement roles don’t suffer that mismatch. They are honest about the trade.

This isn’t an argument for violence.
It’s an argument about honesty.

And it explains why verification-based systems — cryptography, deterministic tests, provable behavior, Bitcoin-style settlement — feel so disruptive. They don’t need threats. They converge on truth.

The future isn’t more enforcement.
It’s systems that need less of it.

But until then, it’s worth being clear-eyed about what actually holds things together.


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