Metaversal Barbarians at the Gate

I was, like many of us, reading about NFT's, crypto, tokenisation etc in order to imagine what life-time tickets could be and think about the many loyalty-program opportunities tokens would bring.

Then I read a newsletter issue from Bankless (bankless.com ) by William M. Peaster quoting a greek poet from last century:

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today."

(...) We’re the Web3 barbarians, the metaversal barbarians, or call it whatever you’d like. I’ve admittedly been thinking about it lately after restarting legendary strategy game franchise Sid Meier’s Civilization. (...)"

It was exciting to discover Bankless and its rich content but it was even more interesting to discover Constantinis Cavafy, the greek poet who wrote in 1904:

Waiting for the Barbarians

By C. P. Cavafy - Translated by Edmund Keeley

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today

What’s the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader. He’s even got a scroll to give him, loaded with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual

to make their speeches, say what they have to say? Because the barbarians are coming today and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking. Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion? (How serious people’s faces have become.)

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thought? Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come. And some of our men just in from the border say there are no barbarians any longer. Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?

Those people were a kind of solution."

Source:

https://metaversal.banklesshq.com/p/metaversal-barbarians-at-the-gate

About Cavafy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_P._Cavafy