I don't agree with your interpretation of what this passage really means, i.e., what its message implies and what is essential vs. accidental. The Fed is the u

I don't agree with your interpretation of what this passage really means, i.e., what its message implies and what is essential vs. accidental. The Fed is the ultimate "middleman." Anyway, I do not think the philosophical underpinnings of bitcoin are reducible to Satoshi's words. Even if it were, that would not be interesting to talk about. I don't want to have a pedantic conversation like this. There is a higher authority than Satoshi on what bitcoin is about, and that higher authority is the truth about what bitcoin is and is not good for. And that has been the case since day 1. Nobody who got involved in bitcoin early on professed any allegiance to Satoshi or "his" vision (or even worse, certain paragraphs in the whitepaper...). Bitcoiners' allegiance is to the best possible thing that bitcoin can be. Which means thinking primarily about root causes and fundamentals, not primarily about paying for coffee.